Who Was Angela Zendalic

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Who Was Angela Zendalic Page 26

by Mary Cavanagh


  ‘The facts of your infidelity ...’

  Piers, always slow to anger, reared up with disbelief. ‘My what!’

  ‘Don’t deny it,’ Peggy stuttered. ‘Ted saw you in a country pub yesterday, cuddling another woman.’

  ‘Oh, you stupid delusional simpleton,’ he shouted. ‘The whole lot of you are ignorant idiots. Just stay away. Leave us alone.’

  But as he strode out to join the waiting ambulance he collided with Ted and a shocked look was exchanged. Ted, stone-faced, and determined not to speak. Piers, equally stone-faced, but determined to rent his fury on the catalyst of Angela’s tragedy. He held up a hand and pointed a finger. ‘I hold you responsible for all this. You! You interfering, blundering fool.’ He raised his voice even higher and jabbed the air. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near her. And if she ...if she dies I’ll hold you responsible.’ He walked off with long strides.

  Ted found Peggy, weak and deflated, in the reception area. ‘I’ve seen him,’ he said. ‘How did he find out?’

  Peggy shrugged. ‘Got worried when we didn’t turn up and rang round, I suppose.’ She looked up. ‘He’s told us to stay away.’

  ‘Stay away, my foot. We’re going up. Come on.’

  Peggy shook her head. ‘No, Ted. We’re going home. Let the baby be born in peace, with its parents. Let Angela have some dignity. No shouting or accusations today. That can all come later. I’ll walk home on my own if you don’t mind.’

  In miserable surrender, she slowly left; denied her rightful place at her daughter’s side, and excluded from the birth of her grandchild. She walked, exhausted, down to the back entrance of the hospital, and turned left onto Walton Street. Past St. Paul’s where she’d attended the Girl Guides before the war, and Angela had spent so many happy, smiling years as the leading light of the musical youth theatre. Past the University Press, where her father, and grandfather, and Stan, had spent all their working lives. Past Mr Crysecowiz’s delicatessen, (yes darling, of course you can have a piece of apple strudel). Past Summerbee’s, the bespoke tailors, where no-one she knew had ever been rich enough to order a suit. Past Wally’s second hand shop, where she’d searched for ‘treasures’ with a chatty mop-haired little girl (Yes, darling, of course you can have the chipped chalk ornament of a poodle). Now down Walton Crescent, and across to Nelson Street. The key turned in the lock of No.56. Home at last, where sweet ghosts whispered stories of her happy childhood. The bitter disruption of the war. Married and widowed after nine days to a man she couldn’t remember a thing about. Spending years alone, after her mum and dad were both yanked from life before their time. Falling in love with a coal black man, and the deep, shaming pain of her daughter’s birth. Thereafter a dreary life of hidden secrets, with Joseph’s picture on the wall, and a valuable diamond ring in an eggcup. A shiny, vinyl disc of Petite Fleur, and the sound of Angela picking out its melody on the piano, as a five-year-old. With Edie and Stan’s departure a few short weeks of happiness, and today her strength of admittance; I am your mother, and you are my daughter.

  Without taking off her coat she reached in the sideboard for the sherry bottle.

  A tumbler poured half full. A deep swig, and a short wait for oblivion.

  May 2014

  Monks Bottom

  Acheap white envelope with loopy, old-fashioned handwriting, was on the mat. It could be from noone else. My hands shook as I opened it and removed a sheet of flimsy lined paper. The news delivered was short, and not at all sweet. Hard, nasty and dismissive, from a woman whom I instantly hated. A letter I’d opened with breath-stopping anticipation, hoping and praying that I would now, at last, find the elusive Angela.

  Miss Penney

  Yes, your mother, Angela, was adopted by my parents. She was knocked down by a car on the day you were born, and died the day after. Her death was a terrible shock to my parents, but she had put them through so much misery I’m sure they were hurried into early graves. For myself I could not grieve. I could only be relieved that their nightmare was over. After your birth your father swept you off and never told them anything about you – not a single word – not even your name. He didn’t even tell them when Angela’s funeral was either. He just told them (by a solicitor’s letter) to leave you and him alone. So they did, and were glad to do so. It also seems that he excluded YOU from the truth about it all as well.

  My mother died three years later (from a broken heart) and my father two years after her. I was then glad to throw out every single thing of theirs that had anything to do with Angela, so I’ve nothing to pass on.

  Please do not write to me again as I have no wish to stir up bad old memories.

  B. Brown

  I rushed up to the bathroom and was sick down the toilet. I clutched my stomach, and was sick again. I cried a gut-wrenching howl of misery, feeling as if my face had just been smacked against a hard wall. Not only had this woman been spiteful and heartless, she’d delivered the worst news possible; Angela was dead. Her young life cut short in truly shocking circumstances. Darling Pa, left in misery, and little me, warm and oblivious in my incubator.

  I sat down, staring into space, unable to move. Angela was dead, so why hadn’t I discovered this fact from the Ancestry websites? With tears stinging my eyes, I rushed downstairs and booted up, called up the deaths section and looked again. Nothing. Not there. Why not? Her death must have been registered. I tapped in the exact death date (the day after my birthday, of course) her Christian name, and place of death as Oxford. Within a split second there it was, leaping onto the screen! Angela Sendalic. An incorrect spelling. I rushed to my car and threw myself behind the wheel.

  When I got to The Hall there were two strange cars in the drive, doubtless prospective buyers. Howie was nowhere to be seen so I phoned his mobile, hardly able to press out the number with my shaking fingers. ‘Howie, Howie,’ I gulped.

  ‘I’m nailing some loose boards on the bridge,’ he said. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m on my way down.’

  Desolate with grief I threw myself into his arms, but he didn’t ask any questions; just gathered me up, and held me until my tears began to subside. ‘Hey. Wheesht, wheesht,’ he murmured. It was several minutes before I stopped crying, but he still didn’t ask for an explanation. He just guided me up to the little stone chapel, steadied me to sit down on an old wooden bench and waited for me to speak.

  ‘Howie, please forgive me. I’ve been less than honest with you. You’re not the only one with a past.’ With a sore throat, and my head hung down, I explained my convoluted life story, but if he found it as far-fetched as a soap opera, he didn’t show it. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I concluded. ‘I twisted your arm to know your story but I didn’t have the guts to come clean about myself.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘As with every story there’ll be many versions of the truth, and you’ve only heard the view of this one bitter woman.’

  ‘But she’s my one and only lead,’ I said. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go now. Angela’s dead, and the story of her life is as dead as a Dodo as well.’ But maybe, as something of reflex factor, I began to realise that Angela and I were never going to be confronted with any pain or embarrassment. There would be no cautious, stomach churning reunion and no possibility of her rejection either; of her turning her back, and walking indifferently away from the child she had no wish to be reminded of. The child conceived in what was either a genuine love story, or a transient affair with a man fifteen years her senior.

  Howie’s phone then rang; the estate agent to say that they were just leaving and the viewer ‘was very interested’. Was he? Well, I wasn’t. He raised up my chin, and kissed me gently. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Away up to the house. I’ve something to show you.’

  He took me into the music room, and led me over to the naughty nude painting. ‘Sarah. Brace yourself, but I think this lovely girl may have been your mother.’ Could I absorb any more shocks for one day? He lifted the painting from the w
all, took it to Pa’s desk, and held it on its edge so I could read the label on the back. Angela Listening To Stuart Henry - Aston Street, March 1972.

  I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms and I let out a gasp. ‘Angela! It must be her. It must be.’

  ‘It is her,’ Howie said. ‘That body. That beautiful body is yours. Believe me. That’s her.’

  My head felt light and I began to waver on my feet so I clutched Howie’s arm to steady myself. ‘But she’s, she’s ...She’s mixed race.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ he said. ‘Stunning. Just stunning. No wonder your father fell in love with her.’

  ‘But I’m not ...You know ...At all ...’ He hung the picture back on the wall and I scrutinised it, frowning and shaking my head. I then went into the hall to look into a mirror, and he stood behind me while I ran my fingers over my face, staring as if I’d never seen myself before. ‘There’s nothing, is there,’ I said. ‘Not the slightest hint in my features. I’ve got blue eyes, and white skin. Whiter than yours.’

  ‘You look a lot like your father, actually, but in subtle ways you look like her as well. And you’re every bit as beautiful.’ He kissed the back of my neck, and I drew his hand around my waist.

  ‘Oh, Howie,’ I shuddered out. ‘It’s all such a tangled web, but in a weird way it’s all fitting into place. A few days ago I found out that Pa had left the painting to me in his Will. I wondered, “Why me” at the time, but it’s obvious now.’

  ‘Is there any provenance?’

  ‘Supposed to be. With the Solicitors.’

  ‘Where’s their office?’

  ‘Henley.’

  ‘Then ring them and tell them you want to see it. Now.’

  He turned me round, and looked into my eyes. ‘And then if we can trace the artist he can tell us everything he knows.’

  February 1972

  Jericho

  8.00am. Ted leapt to answer the phone on his bedside table. Maybe he’d slept. Maybe he hadn’t. ‘Ted Rawlings.’

  ‘It’s desk sergeant Harris, sir. I’m really sorry to hear about the death of your niece. It looks as if the driver will have to be charged after all ...’

  ‘She hasn’t died. She’s up at the new John Radcliffe. We’re waiting for news.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, bloody hell. I didn’t realise. I had no idea you hadn’t been informed.’

  ‘Informed of what?’

  The sergeant coughed, nervously. ‘Look, I wouldn’t have rung if I didn’t think …’

  ‘For God’s sake come out with it.’

  ‘The baby was born by caesarean section. A fit and healthy little girl. Miss Zendalic was taken straight back to the Radcliffe Infirmary to the intensive care unit, but they had to conclude she had no hope of survival. A huge subdural haemorrhage. Her fiancé gave permission for the heart/lung machine to be disconnected and she ...she was allowed to pass peacefully away. He was with her. There’ll be a PM later today.’

  The baby lay sleeping in a plastic domed incubator; a routine precaution for all premature babies. There was no anxiety, but she just needed routine observation. A perfect little girl. Smooth alabaster skin and silky skeins of dark wavy hair. Her features refined to an Anglo-Saxon template, but with the long arms and legs, and fingers and feet of Africa. What was there of himself, Piers wondered? He asked a nurse. She looked at him intently and then at the baby.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘She’s got your chin and brow. And your ears. Definitely’

  ‘Are her eyes blue?’

  ‘It’s too soon to say.’

  ‘Her mother had blue eyes. So rare for an Anglo-African.’

  ‘Have you named her?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Ceraphina Raven Evangeline Penney. But she’ll be known as Sarah – her mother’s choice.’

  ‘Would you like to hold her?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, please.’

  The nurse carefully wrapped the sleeping child in a shawl and placed her in Piers’ arms. He gathered her to his face, and kissed her. ‘Is she your first?’ she asked.

  ‘Actually she’s my fourth child, but my first with Angela.’

  ‘How will you manage?’

  ‘I’ll manage very well. Very well indeed.’

  Ted, standing alone in his tiny garden was still absorbing the horror. It had been two hours since the news, and there was so much to say. So much to defend himself. So much hatred to heap on Piers.

  He’d been unable to raise Peggy by banging on her door knocker, so he’d entered her house with his spare key for emergencies. ‘Coo-ee, Peg. It’s only Ted.’ She was sitting upright in a chair in the back room, the curtains still closed, and staring into space. He pulled the curtains back, knelt down beside her, and took her hand. She smelt of drink, and seemed only half awake. ‘Peg,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s really bad news, love. She passed peacefully away last night. The baby was born. A little girl, and she’s fine. She’s just fine. You’ve got a granddaughter.’ Peggy continued to stare, her face a blankness of incomprehension. Her eyes unseeing, her mouth slack and gaping, ‘I’m here to look after you,’ he continued, ‘but we’ll have to tell Stan and Edie. It’s our duty, not that I really care after how they’ve behaved. I think it’s time to tell them your story as well. Why don’t you come back home with me? So I can keep an eye on you.’

  ‘No thanks,’ she said, with a faint, gravelly voice. ‘I want to stay here. In my own home.’ She got up and removed her diamond ring from the eggcup. ‘Take this to him. To Piers. Tell him it’s a present for the baby. And don’t you be saying a word about our secret. I don’t want him or anyone else to know. I want to keep all my lovely memories to myself.’ She turned away and looked at the wall. ‘Go away Ted. Leave me alone.’

  Tired and dazed, Piers left the hospital and returned to college. So much to do, and too much strain in his brain to co-ordinate it all. He lifted a pen to make a list; the academic’s life training to ensure a busy life was managed. So much to do, when all he wanted was to go home to their tiny cottage. To hide away, to sit by a warm fire, and be given time to manage his grief. But another part of him boiled with the ludicrous allegations thrown at him, echoed by the cruel denunciation of her brainless, judgemental parents.

  Around mid-day he found he’d been on the phone for most of the morning, and had achieved a lot. A discussion with the senior police officer in charge of the accident, and told that Angela had stepped off the pavement ‘in a dream’. No wonder, when she’d just been told, with authority, that he’d been cheating on her and was on her way to confront him. The paediatrician’s verdict that Sarah would probably be discharged in three days’ time, once a feeding routine had been established, and his assurance that he’d be up to the ward as often as possible to ensure he was part of the regime. The results of the post-mortem had come through, and it was exactly as he’d been told to expect: a fatal intra-axial subdural haematoma, caused by a sharp blow to her skull. Fullylove’s, the funeral directors confirming a date in a week’s time at the crematorium on Three Mile Hill. ‘I insist that I deal personally with any enquiries from other persons, and I wish her ashes to be given to me.’ Then a long talk with Merryn, resulting in a most welcome and generous offer. ‘Let me come up and help you, darling. You can’t manage this alone.’

  ‘Oh, Merryn. I’d be so pleased if you could. I’m just in a state of agony.’

  ‘Ring me later on when you’ve had a rest and we’ll talk some more.’

  He replaced the receiver and contemplated his utter loneliness. There was no-one else who knew, and no-one to tell. Since he’d been warned by the Master to keep his lovely girl ‘out of sight and mind’ he’d been forced to treat her as a hidden object, far away from the critical eyes of petty minded academia. No joy of the coming baby had been shared with a single friend or colleague and thus, he would keep all knowledge to himself. His little daughter would stay as part of his other life, but his other life as ...as what? A single man, floundering in the deep, with no anchor or
life jacket. In his time of grieving and panic, dear Merryn was coming up to help him, but in the long term, how, in the name of God Almighty was he going to manage? His life had been as near to perfect as he could make it. Now wrecked by fools.

  He would now drive up to see his little girl again. No longer ‘the baby’. Already Sarah. His daughter. And like the words of the marriage service he committed himself. ‘Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?’

  ‘I will.’

  The shrill ring of the telephone, and he visibly jumped. ‘Ron Hopper, Prof. There’s a man called to see you. He’s most insistent. A Mr Rawlings.’ Piers sighed. The idiot policeman was the last person he wanted to see, but he would. To say his piece, once and for all. To make sure they all understood he was taking full charge of Sarah, and wanted nothing more to do with her family, ever again.

  ‘Can you bring him up, Ron?’

  Piers remained seated in his old tapestry chair as the figure came in, indicating to him that he sit on the chaise longue. ‘I know she’s passed away,’ Ted said. ‘The station let me know.’

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to hear how sorry you are, Inspector Rawlings. You’ve lost your right to any sort of united grief, but what I do want to know is why I’ve been turned on by a pit full of vipers.’

  ‘I saw you a couple of days ago,’ Ted said, narrowing his eyes. ‘In the Bat and Ball. Canoodling. Another young bit of stuff. Holding hands and laughing. You can’t deny it.’

  Piers nodded. ‘I don’t deny it. It most certainly was me, but you felt it was your public duty to inform Angela of my disgusting behaviour.’ He breathed in deeply, pushed his shoulders back into his chair, and cleared his throat. ‘I’ll tell you a story, shall I? A story I could have told you before, if you’d had the intelligence to come to me first. But you had to have your moment of pompous self-satisfaction, didn’t you, and what a tragedy it caused. Call yourself a detective? Innocent until proven guilty, I think the law of the land says, but you were determined to put the knife in. Prove to yourself that I was a bastard of the first order, and you had to save her from me. So. Here’s the story, and don’t you dare interrupt.’ Ted sat uncomfortably, his elbows on his knees, and his head lowered.

 

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