Head Over Heels

by Sara Downing

  People throw the word ‘tragedy’ around so much these days that it has become devalued, but Peter dying really was a tragedy. It makes me sad that I never got to know him that well; my friendship obviously is with Alex, and in the year or so that I knew her before he fell ill, he had been away a lot, doing research for his latest book. Another tragedy; if he'd known he had such a short time left to spend with his family, would he have spent it away from them, working on something he would never actually get to finish?

  They had been the perfect couple, with the idyllic life, beautiful children, the works. Theirs was a ‘together forever’ sort of marriage; childhood sweethearts, married young but then travelling for a few years, doing the chalet season in the winter, he the host, she the chef, earning enough to fund their skiing, spending the summer months somewhere hot and exotic, teaching scuba diving or hiring out surfboards, whatever it took to pay the rent and fund the lifestyle.

  Once the travel bug’s grip had lessened, they returned home, their lives enriched by the wealth of people and experiences they had encountered. It seemed a bit tame for them just to settle for the rural lifestyle as both sets of parents had done before them, and they considered moving away permanently to London. But then Alex's grandmother died, leaving her a slightly crumbling but nonetheless beautiful manor house nestled in the Worcestershire countryside. Suddenly the two of them were transformed from shorts- and walking boot-clad backpackers into, if not pillars of the local community, then at least into the local folk's expectation that that was what they would become, with a bit of coaching. They were fairly unconventional village ‘gentry’; they had no money for one thing, and they were young, beautiful and trendy.

  Alex's grandmother had lived in the house, barely touching it for the past forty years, but Alex had not been left the funds to bring the house back to the standard it merited, let alone maintain it going forward. So the roof leaked and the walls crumbled, but still they thought the house was a fabulous place to live, and eventually to raise children, which was what they both wanted.

  Then Peter had a surprise visit from an old school friend who changed their lives in two ways. Hugo, who had managed to track Peter down after years of trying, was a wine broker in London. Given he knew more about wine than anyone Alex and Peter knew, they had asked him chose a bottle from Grandma's cellar for their meal, but instead of returning with a slightly dusty bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape, he had returned empty handed but open-mouthed and stunned. Apparently Grandma's collection contained several unopened cases of 1961 Chateau Latour, worth best part of two grand per bottle. Once the shock had worn off, and on Hugo's advice, Alex had had the wine validated and then auctioned and it fetched enough not only to re-roof the manor, but to get a builder in to fix the damp problem, re-plaster and even fit a new kitchen and two out of the three bathrooms. Suddenly the house was looking less like a cross to bear and more like the gorgeous family home they had envisaged.

  Hugo's second revelation was to do with Peter's career. Not that he really had one at this stage; newly returned from travelling, he had dabbled unsuccessfully and unhappily with one or two office jobs, none of which really appealed or at which he seemed to be any good. It seemed that the wanderlust had not made him an attractive prospect for many employers – too much independence, they said. So much for travel broadening the mind.

  So Hugo suggested that Peter turn his hand to becoming a travel writer. After all, between himself and Alex they had seen enough of the world and experienced the true character of so many countries to give him a good starting point. Provided he could get it down on paper in an engaging enough way, and captivate his target market. There were tons of travel writers out there, not all of them good. And Peter had never had anything published. He had read English at university, but studying the language does not by default make a good writer. However given the other options open to him, more office jobs or something more manual – he was by employers' standards unskilled – he decided to give it a go. Within a year he had turned out ‘Work to Ski, Ski to Work’, aimed at a young market looking to do exactly what he and Alex had done. Writing was something that he seemed to have a natural aptitude for, and the manor house provided him with the inspiring location, and the space, to get on with it and put pen to paper. He had no trouble finding a publisher, and after a few months of his first book selling like hot cakes to the gap year contingent, he was tipped as the next Bill Bryson, his publishers crying out for more of the same. His career went from strength to strength, as book after book filled the shelves.

  When Peter returned from Mauritius complaining of headaches, he and Alex thought it was just the pressure of work; he had been packing it in to try and meet his publisher's tight demands. It took a while for them to realise that something was seriously wrong; forgetting things, people's names, dates, not remembering to collect the children, all those kind of things that are usually the domain of the old and absent-minded. When the tumour was diagnosed, it rocked their world. It wasn't the sort of thing that happened to people like them. They were young, only in their thirties, with two healthy, happy kids, and another, a second little girl, on the way. His condition deteriorated so fast, no one really had time to make any plans. The tumour was inoperable, so it was just a case of making him comfortable, the doctors said. It was all so wrong, Alex thought. Those were the sort of comments you expected to hear about your parents – sad enough, but at least the right order of events in the circle of life. Not about your fit, healthy, gorgeous and energetic husband of thirty-eight, a young father.

  Of course we were all there for her. It was awful enough for us to see her and Peter preparing to separate, till death do us part proving it was not just something people said blithely at weddings for tradition's sake. But the really heartbreaking part was seeing Alex having to prepare the children for what was to come; they were only tots, but old enough to understand that Daddy would be going away, for ever. We did what we could, although we felt so helpless. Just physically being there for her was all we could do, plus take care of the more practical things whenever possible. Her eldest, Archie, had not long started at my school, so I was able to keep a close eye on him, plus ferry him to and from school whenever I could.

  And then the inevitable happened. It seemed that Alex had mourned Peter even before his death, that much did he change over the last few weeks, and once he died, she dealt with it stoically and almost without emotion. But the grief and desolation was all on the inside. She needed to keep going for the sake of the children, and her unborn baby. I cannot begin to imagine what must have been going through her head as she pushed that baby out, a mere three months later. A child that would never meet, let alone know, its father. Tragic, I can't say it enough.

  Peter's death catapulted his books to the top of the non-fiction charts and made him a worldwide sensation overnight. He had done very well financially from them during his lifetime, but posthumous sales and continued royalties meant that Alex would never struggle for money. Which was one less thing for her to worry about; she had enough on her plate, what with raising the children single-handedly, and trying to fulfil a father's role as well as a mother's. And she did a brilliant job too – her kids were well-balanced and happy, and she herself was not one to mope and think about what might have been, instead she channelled all her energies into enjoying life and her children as best she could.

  I am always full of admiration for how she copes. Since Peter's death she has been a tower of strength for the kids; she has to be, really. They are still so young, and the eldest two obviously still miss their Dad so much, but she manages to provide for them a happy, loving and stable home. She does enlist paid help – I don't know how she would manage otherwise – and Peter's royalties give her the freedom to do that. She devotes her life to those children and is a brilliant mother to them.

  Can I see myself doing that? Being so selfless as to be able to put someone else's needs before my own? I’m still not sure. Having someone else in your li
fe who depends totally and utterly on you, can’t do one single thing for themselves, and whose continued health and existence depends on you remembering fairly basic things like feeding them, changing them, and strapping their car seat into the car and not driving off with it still sitting outside the house. Ohmygod. I love what I have with the children at the school – during the day they are mine, I pump them with knowledge and experiences, then send them outside to their parents who remember to turn up and collect them and do all the responsible bits. Plus the fact they are all of an age where nappies and poo no longer feature (with one or two minor exceptions over the years which I won't go into – they nearly made me change professions).

  Alex dashes off, surrounded by her gorgeous brood; blond, spiral-haired little Rosie clinging to her leg and begging to go back to the bicycle racks for some more adventures, tall, dark, Archie, the living embodiment of his father, swinging his violin case around like a whirling dervish, in a complete world of his own, and Millie, with her long, straight blond hair in two plaits which had presumably started the day looking a little tidier than they do now, trotting along contentedly beside her Mother, chatting away, no doubt filling her in on the finer points of the day. I smile at the picture they make as they wander out of the school gates; a real unit, a family, despite the lack of a father figure. But his presence is still so tangible around them all, like he is walking alongside them, unseen.

  I retreat back to the now empty school building. Much as I love the children being around, there is a strange kind of serene, surreal feel to an empty, out-of-hours school. The children's presence is always there, in the artwork and photos which adorn the walls, the abandoned PE kits hanging limply on their pegs. If you stand quietly you can almost hear a ghostly rush of children whizzing from classroom to playground and back again, an imagined sense of another presence in the building. In the holidays it’s the weirdest, when the walls are bare of work and the building is merely a shell, waiting for its occupants to come home. Tonight, though, it is homely and familiar, and I take my place at my desk to wrap up the day's marking and prepare for tomorrow.

  Six

  I wave to Frannie as I turn my car into our drive. The old lady is in her front garden, pretending to weed the flower bed, although I know her gardener will have been in today and there won’t be a weed in sight in her immaculate little patch. She uses it as a pretext for nabbing passing villagers for a chat, bless her, and for keeping tabs on the comings and goings in our road, which on some days, in this quiet little corner of England, are rather few and far between. But who’s going to blame her for seeking out a bit of company in the best way she can. Life round here must seem awfully tame for her, after the heady days of her youth.

  Francesca Blakely-Smith has been our neighbour since we moved here, four years ago. She’s not the sort of dear old lady who has lived in the village all her life, with children and grandchildren settled nearby. Oh no, Frannie’s life had been far from that sort of ordinary. She’d lived the high life in London at the heart of the rocking fifties, swinging sixties and beyond, done all the flower power stuff and been engaged to, and scandalously lived with, all sorts of gentrified and wealthy young men. She'd had her picture in Country Life, on the arm of some eligible bachelor or other, more times that I'd had hot dinners.

  She’d never managed to permanently secure any one of these men, and swap the engagement ring for a wedding ring – and boy didn’t I know how that felt – but that suited her. And as she put it, she'd had a ‘bloody good time’ with each and every one of her past conquests, no strings attached, and now was living out her dotage in a more sedate manner. She couldn't be doing with being shackled to some old codger now, she says, someone who had been so handsome and charming in his youth, but whose wealth is dwindling along with his marbles, needs help getting to the loo, and is all her responsibility. No, she says, much better to be on her own and mistress of her own destiny. I admire her, she’s a grand old bird and has some fabulous stories to tell, which she does in her own richly colourful way. For one so frightfully posh – she is by far the poshest person I have ever met – her use of expletives is unexpected but hilarious, provided there is no one under the age of eighteen within earshot. She swears so much that Mark calls her ‘Frannie the F word’.

  ‘Good afternoon, Grace, how was school today?’ She calls up to me, clean, shiny, unused trowel in her hand.

  ‘Hello, Frannie. It was good thank you. How are your lupins? Your garden is looking beautiful, I must say.’ I always find myself picking up my own diction and use of the English language when speaking to Frannie – I feel so badly spoken in comparison, with my odd mix of mild Estuary vowels and slight Worcestershire twang.

  ‘Have I asked you yet if you would like a ticket for the school play?’

  She pulls herself up off her kneeler with a click and groan of tired old bones.

  ‘Now, my dear, I'm glad you mentioned it. I saw the poster and thought I might ask that delightful Mr Pearson if he'd like to come along with me. Bloody gorgeous he is, for a man of his age. He still has all his own teeth, too, so he says. If we were both fifty years younger I'd give him a run for his money, I can tell you. Fucking old age, Grace. My mind still wants to do all those things I used to do years ago, just this old carcass of a body that won't cooperate.’

  It always amuses me to hear Frannie speak. Her crystal clear, silver-spoon-in-the-mouth accent is so pure, unlike much of the vocabulary she uses. She had been educated at Roedean and had all the breeding and class of a minor member of the royal family, and when dressed up in her finery, looks a bit like one of them too, with her back-combed hair, high forehead and strings of pearls. God knows where, or whom, she had picked up her colourful language from, but it makes her a bit of a character and she is popular with all ages in the village; they treat her as a something of a local dignitary.

  ‘Shall I put you down for a couple of tickets then Frannie? Good luck with asking Mr Pearson, I'm sure he'll be bowled over.’ I make a move towards my front door, but Frannie starts to follow.

  ‘He reminds me of Edward de Wintour, you know. He was my second fiancé.’ As she comes over all dreamy-eyed I can see she is settling into one of her stories, and I don’t have the heart to brush her off and make a quick escape. I could well be the only person she has seen all day.

  ‘He was quite exquisitely beautiful, looked a bit like your Mark, actually, tall and dark with real come-to-bed eyes. A shame, though, those eyes were full of such promise, but when we actually got down to it, he was absolutely fucking useless in bed, didn't know what to do with the damn thing, my dear. There's a limit, you know. It's all very well being able to get a girl excited, but you have to be able to complete the deal.’ Typical Frannie. I couldn't imagine standing there and discussing the dreadful price of cod these days, or what the local Flower Arranging Society's annual fund-raiser was going to be.

  ‘So I had to let the chap go,’ she goes on. ‘Release him from his obligations to me. Our parents were disappointed, of course. It would have been a fortuitous match from both sides, but a girl needs a chap who can satisfy her, I'm sure you understand, dear Grace.’

  I’m not sure I want to reply to that and feel myself blushing. It’s one thing for Frannie to regale me with stories of her days as a bright young thing, but I don't really go in for reciprocal stories of sexual encounters. Not with someone who is as old as my own Grandmother, anyway. It’s just not right.

  I manage to extricate myself from Frannie's clutches after a few more stories of the escapades that she and this Edward fellow had got up to. Good on her. How fabulous to get into your late seventies and have so many stories tell. You only get one shot at life and she has certainly lived hers to the full, even if in her latter years things have become a little more sheltered.

  Supper at Alex's house tonight – should be fun. A gorgeously relaxed evening, lots of champagne, great conversation, light flirtation with other male members of the party, all totally innocent
and harmless of course, and lots and lots of laughs. You really can't beat it for a way to spend an evening. Especially when the whole group are people you know well; no introductions needed, no worrying about being seated next to someone you have never met before and the small talk drying up. Actually, I’m not entirely sure who is going tonight, other than ourselves and Evie and James. Presumably Alex has invited a few others – she can seat ten quite comfortably around the beautiful Queen Anne table in her dining room.

  Mark has nipped in the shower whilst I’m rifling through my wardrobe, deciding what to wear. It’s that funny time of the year when you feel like you should be casting aside the winter weeds, but the weather hasn't really caught up with that idea yet. Early spring, no longer winter, the sun keeps trying hard to break through, Mother Nature is bursting into life everywhere, and here we are still walking around in drab and dreary browns, blacks and greys.

  Tonight I am determined to add a bit of colour to the evening and so plump for a pair of pale linen trousers and pretty pale pink and cream wrap-around top I bought last week. I think I need a little strappy vest underneath to avoid one of those embarrassing un-wrap-around moments that can happen with these sorts of garments. Wrap-around dresses are the worst in my experience; they have that nasty habit of coming untied at inopportune moments, so that as you sit down, everything just falls apart, and your modesty with it. Handy in a romantic clinch, I suppose, if you need to get naked quickly, but not so great for looking professional at a staff meeting. Oh yes, it happened to me at my very first meeting at Cropley School, and extremely embarrassing it was too. Tom hadn’t seemed to mind the expansive flash of thigh that came his way, but I’d blushed scarlet to my roots, and vowed never to wear that dress to school again.