by Giles Milton
In Elizabeth’s case, her adamantine core had without a doubt been inherited from her mother – a curious woman who, though no less quietly spoken than her daughter, was in her own way as formidable as a Victorian great aunt. She had spent her late twenties nursing the war-tortured victims of the battlefront and had often headed to work with a very young Elizabeth in tow. Elizabeth’s formative years had thus been spent in the company of men whose minds had been curdled by the horrors of war.
She remembered it all so well; they would cry aloud, scream, whimper and sink for comfort into her mother’s ample bosom as if they were suckling babes in search of milk. Her mother had once said, ‘When everyone else is losing their head, that’s precisely the moment when you most need to keep yours.’
Elizabeth, aged ten or thereabouts, had asked her mother how one kept one’s head – a particularly apposite question since she’d just been reading a storybook about Marie-Antoinette. ‘Just remember these men,’ her mother had replied. ‘And take them with you wherever you go. It’s no use the blind leading the blind.’
Edward first glimpsed Elizabeth in Throgmorton Street and though he didn’t normally give women a second glance, on this occasion he remembered being struck by her pretty nose and sensitive face. She had the complexion of a ripe bethmale, a cheese of which he was uncommonly fond.
Some days later – quite by coincidence – he found himself face to face with this very same woman. He had left Trencoms at lunchtime and, as was his custom, bought himself two sandwiches at Mrs O’Casey’s. After eating them on a bench in the little garden at the corner of Love Lane, he retraced his steps to Gresham Street and then struck out eastwards until he reached the door of Percy’s, Dealers in Fine and Antiquarian Coins. Such a visit was by no means unusual: as we shall discover, Edward had a fine collection of antiquarian coins.
To the uninitiated, Percy’s was a daunting place to visit. It was never sullied by browsers, for the first floor ‘showroom’ could only be accessed by climbing a formal staircase that was draped in rich crimson. Edward was no stranger here, yet he felt inexplicably nervous as he began to climb the stairs on this particular day.
‘What is wrong with me?’ he wondered.
And then, out of the corner of one eye, he realized exactly what was wrong. It was she. The girl he had seen in the street. There, sitting behind the counter and twisting her hair into a tidy chignon.
At this point, it is worth pausing for a moment to explain that Edward was not overly adept in the art of wooing. He had never ‘known’ a woman (in the biblical sense) and nor had he ever felt particularly attracted to the female of the species.
It was not that he had inclinations towards his own sex – not at all. It was just that, well, given the choice between an uncertain evening in the company of a young lady and a few hours spent with a male friend, he would certainly have plumped for the latter.
So that when it came to pass that on 9 March 1957 he came face to face with Elizabeth – and felt a joyous little hopscotch in his heart – he was not entirely sure how to react.
‘What is she doing here?’ thought Edward. But before he had any time to consider the matter – or, indeed, to regain his composure – he found himself facing quite the most enchanting smile he had ever seen.
‘What are you doing here?’ he blurted, before realizing what he had said. ‘I mean – how did you? Where? How? You see – we’ve met before.’
‘I’m not sure we have met,’ she said sweetly, as she flashed her bluish-grey eyes in a manner that was not entirely innocent. It suggested a hint of coquettishness on her part – a feminine playfulness that would have caused heart spasms and angina in the usual (elderly) male clientele of Percy’s.
‘I’m Elizabeth Merson,’ she added. ‘And you must be Mr Trencom. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘Trenc—Me?’ said Edward with growing astonishment. ‘But how … ?’
‘Oh, come now, you can’t be that surprised’, she said with an enchanting smile. ‘Or are you just being modest? You are, are you not, Edward Trencom? The famous author of All the World’s a Cheese?’
‘Er, yes, yes – but – yes.’ And for the first time in his life, Edward was completely lost for words.
In the time that it took him to pull himself together, he lifted his gaze to the topmost corner of the room. He noticed that high on the ceiling, balanced precariously on the stucco cornice, sat the cherub-like figure of Cupid.
‘Funny,’ thought Edward. ‘I’ve never noticed him before. Not in all the times I’ve come here.’
Edward had been a Percy’s regular ever since his first visit in 1950. Long before Elizabeth had applied for a temporary job, he had returned each week to add to his increasingly splendid collection of Roman coins. He had begun by collecting one coin from the reign of each emperor, from Augustus in 27 BC to Anastasius in the sixth century. The denomination of the coin did not matter and nor did the place in which it was minted. All Edward looked for was the finest imperial portrait he could afford.
Within months, he had built up a sizeable collection. Searching in antique shops, lesser-known auction houses, and the roguish dealers of Villiers Street, he had soon acquired coins depicting Augustus, Tiberius, Nero and Caligula. A week later he added Claudius and Domitian. Next he bought Caracalla and Lucius Verus. And one Saturday, while browsing at an antique fair, he paid £1 2s 4d for a bagful of bronze containing coins of the usurping Emperors Valerian, Gallienus and Saloninus. Less than a week later, he bought more than a dozen Byzantine coins, one of which had a fabulous portrait of the hawkish Michael Palaiologos. Henceforth, Edward expanded his collection to encompass the emperors and despots of Constantinople.
But here we must pause for a moment and return to that spring day in 1957 when Edward and Elizabeth first met.
‘I’m in a state of some confusion,’ he murmured to Elizabeth, when he had at long last composed himself. ‘You see, I’m currently searching for a coin bearing the portrait of the Emperor Diocletian, but I cannot for the life of me remember if it was he or Carasius who first issued the bronze follis.’ And he suddenly realized with a start that he no longer cared two hoots who first issued the bronze follis. It was of absolutely no importance whatsoever.
Elizabeth’s face offered sympathy but there was little she could do to help. She had been working at Percy’s for just three weeks and knew nothing of the currency of the later Roman Empire.
‘I really can’t help, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘But would it be useful to look at some coins? I’ve got Diocle … Diocletian’s trays here by my knees.’
‘Your knees,’ said Edward, his voicing trailing off into a whisper. ‘Yes – I’d love to look at your knees.’
No sooner had he realized what he had said than he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his back. Elizabeth, too, felt a similar pain. As both of them rubbed the affected spot, and she smiled inwardly, Edward’s gaze returned to the stucco cornice, where the cherub-like Cupid was still smiling on the scene below. ‘Strange,’ thought Edward. ‘I could have sworn that he had an arrow in his bow.’
Their courtship was brief but enjoyable, with many an evening spent tasting cheeses in the private vaults of Trencoms. Edward was besotted with Elizabeth – so much so that he even told Mr George of his intention to propose to her. Mr George congratulated him wholeheartedly and said, with a mist in his eye, that when Elizabeth wore her fawn raincoat she reminded him of the young Mrs George.
Elizabeth was no less enamoured of Edward, savouring his eccentricity, his zest for life and his idiosyncrasies. ‘I love his passion,’ she told a friend who couldn’t quite see why anyone would want to marry someone who seemed old beyond their years.
‘You might not have noticed it,’ said Elizabeth defensively, ‘but he’s full of passion. He’s got a passion for cheese, a passion for coins, a passion for history. He speaks of everything with such enjoyment. He might not be fashionable’ – she stressed the word fashionable with more than a passin
g hint of disdain – ‘but at least he’s sincere.’
Two months later, Edward and Elizabeth were married in St Margaret’s Church, Chichester, Elizabeth’s home town. The two of them were now set to embark on a journey that would take them into hitherto undiscovered pastures.
We must probe a little more deeply into the private lives of Mr and Mrs Trencom in order to shed light on a marital relationship that was curious, touching and soon to be stretched to near-breaking point by two strange Greek men whom neither of them had ever met.
Their wedding took place on 22 May 1957 – an afternoon event that was followed by a long and joyful reception. By 10 p.m., the last of the guests had departed and the bridesmaids were safely tucked up in bed. The vicar, who was only now beginning to realize that he had drunk rather more than was his custom, was trying to remember if he had been unduly familiar with Elizabeth Trencom’s mother.
The clock struck the hour with a timorous chime, as if to signal the fact that this was Edward and Elizabeth’s first night together. They were both, if the truth be known, a trifle nervous about what was going to happen next. For each of them knew that today – tonight – within the next half an hour – they must surely perform the act of coitus penetratus.
The venue for this momentous event is of little importance. (It was, for the record, the White Hart Hotel in Chichester.) The exact time when it occurred is of similar inconsequence. But the actual scenario is worthy of further study. In room 14 of the White Hart Hotel, Mrs Trencom could be seen standing in front of a full-length mirror wondering how on earth she would ever manage to unbutton her blasted wedding dress.
‘Edward, my dearest,’ she said in a voice that sounded surprisingly assured, ‘would you – could you – undo my buttons?’
Edward glanced up from the Country Life he had been studying rather too purposefully and strode over to his wife of a few hours. Then, with fumbling fingers, he slowly began to unfasten the buttons that led from Mrs Trencom’s pretty neck all the way down to her curvaceous bottom. And here was the strange thing. As he did this, Edward could feel a peculiar stirring in his loins. There was a tingling sensation. His blood began to race. And he suddenly realized that he was very soon going to find himself in a terribly embarrassing predicament, right here in front of his new wife.
Neither Edward nor Elizabeth had any experience in matters of the flesh. They had cuddled a lot during their courtship and on two or three occasions they had kissed each other in the cellars of Trencoms. During one of these embraces, Edward even put his hand on Elizabeth’s bottom. But it had crossed neither his mind nor hers to discuss what might happen on their wedding night – and they had certainly never seen each other without clothes. In fact, Edward had never seen a naked woman and Elizabeth had never seen a naked man. It was probably the thought of seeing Mrs Trencom naked – coupled with the sight of her shapely back – that was causing parts of Edward to stir from their customary slumber.
It is important to note at this point, lest we paint a too unfavourable portrait of our hero, that this was not Edward’s first erection. He would often awake in the early morning to find his appendage (he was never quite sure what to call it) pointing due north instead of its customary due south. Yet on this particular occasion, both situation and sensation were altogether different. Edward could feel an uncontrollable tingling, an overwhelming urge, in those parts which he normally kept firmly out of his thoughts. To his horror, he realized that unless something dramatic happened – and happened fast – he would no longer be able to hide the rapidly growing bulge.
‘Would you mind, darling, popping to the bathroom for a moment?’ said Elizabeth. ‘While I finish getting undressed.’ It was with considerable relief that Edward went into the adjoining room, shut the door and doused his face and neck with cold water. Then, when everything down below was back to normal (and pointing due south, rather than a cock-eyed north-north-west), he slipped out of his suit, shirt, trousers and pants and clambered into his cotton pyjamas.
‘Ready, Edward,’ called a nervously excited Elizabeth from the bedroom. ‘It’s safe to come out.’ And so Edward, with a sharp intake of breath and an involuntary shake of his head, stepped back into the bedroom and climbed slowly into bed.
It took a great deal of fumbling for Edward to get his thing into hers, but once he had done so he found that the experience was not altogether unpleasant. He kept his eyes firmly closed – he could not bear the thought that Elizabeth might see him in such an embarrassing position – and concentrated on what was going on down below. ‘This,’ he thought to himself after a couple of minutes, ‘is actually rather agreeable.’
And what did Elizabeth Trencom make of it all? An aerial view of the marital bed would reveal her to be lying on her back, still wearing her full-length nightdress. Her legs were open a little and her arms were clutching tightly onto Edward’s shoulders. Her eyes were closed – she could not bear the thought that Edward might see her in such an undignified position – and she was concentrating hard on the act that was being performed.
She was not particularly enjoying it, if she was completely honest. But at the same time she felt that, after all these years, this was the right time and place to be doing ‘it’. And Edward was certainly the right man. She couldn’t have borne the thought of being with someone smoothly confident and self-assured. No, she was happy that her new husband was as inexperienced as and, if anything, more nervous than her.
She also knew that it would all be over very soon. Edward’s pace was quickening and the bed was beginning to squeak with alarming noise and regularity. And at the very moment when she let out an embarrassed ‘Ssshhh’ – and with a final twang of the springs – it was indeed all over. Edward had finished his part of the act and the bed-springs returned to their customary positions. In the room below, the couple winked at each other. The couple next door looked at each other and smiled. And Mr and Mrs Trencom finally opened their eyes, relieved that they had – in their own, idiosyncratic and rather endearing way – lost their virginity to each other.
Henceforth they would make love once a week, on Sunday evenings, after they had eaten their roast dinner. The earth rarely moved for either of them and the act itself remained rather perfunctory. Yet they were a couple who were very much in love with each other and they both looked forward to their shared moments of intimacy. It never occurred to either of them that their regular Sunday night custom might one day be shaken up – indeed, utterly transformed – by the shades of Trencoms past.
23 JANUARY 1969
The labyrinthine cellars of Trencoms had not existed when the store had first opened its doors. Indeed, it was not until the 1750s that a freak accident had led to their discovery. Samuel Trencom, a forefather of Edward, opened the shop one morning and discovered that the floor had collapsed in on itself. ‘Damnation and bother,’ he had said to himself. ‘This will require the services of Mr Joppell the mason.’ But Samuel’s irritation had quickly given way to astonishment when he peered down the hole and saw a large cavity below the shop. He ran to fetch a ladder and descended down through the partially collapsed floor. And, to his immense surprise, he found himself in a series of large medieval chapels, all of them retaining their vaulted stone ceilings. They were partially filled with rubble and a couple of the doorways were almost blocked, yet it was still possible to crawl through all the interconnecting rooms.
Samuel was well known in the neighbourhood for his sangfroid, yet even his pulse had quickened as he descended into the medieval crypt. There, below his very shop, were six large chapels, each of which was accessed through the principal cellar.
‘Heyday!’ he said to himself. ‘This is most fortuitous.’
The storage of cheese had been causing the Georgian Trencoms many sleepless nights and they had already been obliged to take leases on several local warehouses. Now, below their very own shop, they had a series of stone-lined cellars which were blessed with a constant year-round temperature and humidity. Sam
uel was not a devout man – indeed, he was constantly bemoaning the interminably long church services that were so popular in the 1750s – but on that very morning he took himself to the parish of St Lawrence Jewry on Gresham Street and left three silver shillings on the collection plate.
Samuel later discovered that the underground chapels had belonged to St Egbert’s Cistercian abbey, which had once stood between what is now Gutter Lane and King Street. The abbey itself was razed to the ground during the Reformation; the church, refectory and all the outbuildings were demolished by King Henry VIII’s band of vandals, thugs and plunderers. But the vast crypt of the abbey was lost in the rubble. Intact but buried, it was built over in the 1570s, whence it was soon forgotten. The site was destroyed once again during the Great Fire and by the time the area was redeveloped in the 1680s, everyone had quite forgotten that the chapels even existed.
Two centuries after Samuel’s discovery, the crypt had become the organic heart of Trencoms. The staff who worked at the shop, and the tour groups who visited almost every day, entered through a large trapdoor at the rear of the shop. A steep wooden staircase led straight into the principal cellar, which contained more than 3,000 different cheeses.
These six chapels had been divided into geographical regions for longer than anyone cared to remember. When you reached the bottom of the stepladder you found yourself in the fertile pastures of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, where the shelves were stacked with local fermier cheeses, such as the pungent saint-winoc and the brine-washed abbaye du mont des cats. From here, the main passage led through crates and racks towards Picardy and Burgundy and (eventually) the mountainous scrubland of the Haut-Languedoc. Here, the path divided and you had the choice of bearing either left or right. The left path led over the Pyrenees and into the mist-cloaked peaks of Euskadi, where the cheeses were as fresh and resinous as the pine-forested Basque slopes. If you followed this path into one of the larger side chapels, which was piled to the ceiling with crates, you would find yourself wandering southwards through Spain. It led onwards, across the Straits of Gibraltar, over the Atlas Mountains and into the dried goat’s cheeses of the sub-Saharan scrub. Few of the Trencom family willingly chose this route, for they knew that it petered out among the okra-flavoured cheeses of Mauritania.