Camellia rarely bought newspapers or went into coffee bars, but she took a seat by the window of the Wimpy Bar on Earls Court Road and waited to see if Costa turned up.
If Camellia hadn't had time to kill, she might never have discovered about Jake's sentence. The front page of the Daily Express was devoted to a jokey story of decimalisation and the problems people were encountering, the second and third to a follow-up story about some of the victims of the Ibrox Park disaster back in January, which had killed 66 people when the crowd barriers collapsed. Jake's trial took up only one column on the fourth page and if it hadn't been for a small picture of him she might have missed it. His real name was Timothy Reading: it sounded like a middle-class bank clerk, not the perverted animal she knew him to be.
A year ago she might have thought six years' imprisonment a harsh penalty for smuggling cannabis and distributing dirty pictures. Had it been Aiden Murphy or John Everton she might have argued they didn't deserve anything more than a fine. But for Jake she felt six years wasn't nearly long enough. She knew he'd killed Bee.
When Costa didn't turn up to open the restaurant she went for a long walk, but it wasn't until she found herself in Kensington Gardens that she became aware of her surroundings. For months now she'd trudged through the days as if she was blinkered and her ears stuffed with cotton wool. Maybe it was just the beauty of the crisp snow underfoot, heavily laden trees glistening in the weak sunshine, but all at once she had an urge to run and even to smile at the rosy-faced children in their thick coats, bright woolly hats and mittens.
She stopped to watch a man and his children building a snow man, and dug into her pockets for two big black buttons to offer them as eyes. They'd come off weeks ago and she'd managed quite well without them all this time.
There was a holiday atmosphere everywhere in the park. Children were skipping school, businessmen disguised in sheepskin coats and Wellingtons. Dogs gambolling in the heavy drifts, mothers dragging small children on sledges. A group of students pelted one another with snowballs and for once even the usual background roar of traffic had ceased.
The icy lump inside her was thawing. She felt it enough to scoop up a snowball and throw it for a dog. She laughed aloud as he ran to catch it, then turned in bewilderment when he couldn't find it.
Camellia knew then that it was time to move on. London held nothing for her but ugly memories.
She would travel, see the world and try to find something to like about herself. Maybe then she'd be strong enough to approach each of those three men and find out who she really was.
Chapter Twelve
Ibiza, September 1972
Perspiration dripped down Camellia's sides and onto the grass mat. Lying face down her arms outstretched, wearing only the scrappiest of bikini bottoms, she was lost in the bliss of the sun's rays searing into her salt-flecked bronzed body and the sound of sea lapping just beyond her toes. The small beach was almost deserted and she was exquisitely happy.
'Inner peace,' Dozens of hippies arrived in Ibiza daily, chanting that phrase like a mantra. More often than not it eluded them, so they passed onto Morocco or even India. But Camellia had found it, without the aids of gurus or drugs, by looking deep into herself and recognising her failings and her abilities.
London, with all its bad memories seemed light years away. Even the scar on her knee had faded to just a thin pink line. But now she knew she must go back. Soon the bars and shops which relied on tourists would close for the winter. She was tempted to stay on, but she had plans and a career to find.
She sat up as she heard the sound of the ferryman's small motorboat coming in to the small rock-bound cove, slipped her bikini top back on and stood up. It was time to go.
A lump came up in her throat as she took a last look at her beach. The sand was almost white, the sea turquoise, so clear you could see right down to the bottom even in deep water. There were no amenities here, no toilets or even a bar. Just a few scrubby-looking cactus-type plants separating the beach from the olive grove behind it, but it was the closest place she'd found to heaven.
The ferryman rang a bell to warn her and the other few sun-worshippers his was the last boat today. Camellia picked up her loose cheesecloth dress, slipped it over her head, rolled up her mat and stuffed it into a string bag with her towel.
She sat in the bows of the boat on the return trip to Ibiza town. She didn't wish to get into conversation with anyone for fear of missing all the last sights. She wanted to photograph them clearly in her mind, so that if anytime in the future she felt she was losing her grip again, she could instantly recall it and the inner strength she found here.
Camellia had heard about Ibiza from other hitchhikers as she travelled down through France and Spain. They spoke effusively about it being a Mecca for hippies, with the freedom to sleep on beaches without hassle and its low police profile. She had caught a ferry from mainland Spain and, even before the boat docked, she was enchanted. A mediaeval fortress high on a hill dominated her view; clustered precariously round it was the old town. No modern bars or ugly concrete hotels spoiled the sleepy harbour, just small restaurants and bodegas offering a warm welcome.
Everything she saw that day delighted her: the narrow winding streets, the old ladies in long black dresses, the ragged but smiling children who ran after her begging for pesetas. The smell of the fish in the market took her back to when she was four or five, holding her father's hand on the quayside in Rye and watching the fishermen turn out their baskets of gleaming herring. But here there were so many other fish, small pinky red ones, huge fearsome speckled ones, squid, sprats, crab and lobster.
On that first day she had climbed up and up the narrow steep streets, drinking in the colour and beauty: purple bougainvillaea, scarlet hibiscus, brilliant against white painted walls, faded green shutters on ancient houses, terracotta tiles on roofs. She was panting when she finally got to the fortress, but it was worth the climb. Sitting on a low wall, she surveyed the town beneath her, with its backdrop of brilliant blue sea and sky, loving the higgledy-piggledy way the houses were crammed in on different levels, no two identical. It seemed to be telling her that there was room for her here too.
Work was accountable for much of her newfound happiness and pride in herself. All summer she had worked as hard as any of the lean Spanish waiters. She was given a small room in a hotel down by the harbour in return for making the other guests' beds and cleaning their rooms. At lunch-time she waited at tables in a cafe by the market. Then in the evenings she was back by the harbour, serving drinks to the throngs of sun-baked thirsty people who sat at tables outside watching the sun go down over the sea and the world go by. Afternoons were the time she had to herself. Mostly she took this small ferry alone to her beach, and read and dozed in the sun, letting the peace and beauty of the place heal and cleanse her.
As the small boat chugged into the harbour, Camellia leaned on the bow and silently said goodbye to the fortress. Tonight she would climb up there one last time to look down on the town, but it was from this angle coming in from the sea that its true Moorish magnificence should be seen.
The ferryman tied up the boat and held out a hand to help them step onto the quayside. The town was just waking up from its siesta now. Plump olive-skinned Spanish women hung flimsy garments up on hooks, wheeled out the postcard stands and the stacks of embroidered tablecloths.
Camellia could smell sardines cooking, and the acrid, smoky smell made her stomach rumble. She hadn't eaten anything all day except for a rather stale roll left from breakfast. Groups of hippies were gathering together, almost identical in their long hair, cut-off Levis and shapeless faded tee shirts. Some were arranging boards of handmade jewellery to sell, others unpacking tie-dyed tee shirts and sarongs, still more just smoking and chatting. Camellia had admired their fearless adventurous lives when she first arrived, but she'd turned a full circle now and decided they were merely aimless and lazy. She smiled as Pete Holt, a Nordic-looking six-footer from Birmin
gham gave her the peace sign, but although she liked him, she wasn't going to get embroiled with him, his chums or any large joints on her last night.
'Buenas tardes, senorita,' Pedro one of the snake-hipped waiters called out as she passed by Diego's bodega. Camellia smiled and waved. Pedro was sweet on her and very handsome, but tangling with a Spaniard wasn't her scene. In fact tangling with any man wasn't her scene anymore. She'd discovered back in July after a briefly promising affair with Christian from Cornwall, that although sunshine, sea and cheap Spanish wine might make you think a man was a god, there was also a price to pay. In Christian's case pay was the operative word: he had expected her to earn the money for them both, while he spent all day and night getting stoned.
It was nearly one in the morning when Camellia crept into her tiny room on the top floor of El Tora after an evening of eating, drinking and saying goodbye to friends.
Although by day it was unbearably hot up here under the roof, a cool breeze was coming in off the sea now. Camellia had little to pack: she'd learned the wisdom of travelling light as soon as she discovered how heavy a rucksack could become after a couple of hours. She was down to mere essentials now–a pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, underwear and a few tee shirts. She would donate her three cheesecloth sundresses to Michelle, the French girl who she'd worked alongside all summer. They wouldn't be much use back in London, but Michelle was going on to Morocco next week.
Sitting down on her narrow bed, she opened the window wide and lit a cigarette. She wasn't nervous about hitchhiking up through Spain and France alone, there was always someone to pal up with on the way and she'd learned the ropes coming here. Besides she had money from working all summer and living frugally. Once she got her pesetas changed up she reckoned on close to sixty pounds, enough to get a cheap bedsitter when she got back and tide her over till she found a job. All her belonging were at Denise's and she might offer her a bed for a few days anyway.
She turned to the small table by her bed and picked up a photograph of Bee and herself, taken in the Don Juan. Camellia was in white with a feather boa, Bee in black, her hair a golden storm of curls.
At one time she couldn't look at it without crying, but now she knew why she'd always kept it with her despite the pain it brought. Bee's sweet plump face was a reminder of all the dangers out there. It had kept her straight, even in moments of extreme temptation. So often this summer she'd been teased for refusing joints, for not giving friends free drinks in the bar, for not stealing so much as an orange in the little shops. But those people who travelled with their battered copies of Jack Kerouac's On the Road and the Prophet, who scorned materialism and lived on their wits, dope and other people's half chewed over philosophy, had never lost anyone dear to them. They had that to come.
Four days after leaving Ibiza, some hundred kilometres from Calais and the ferry home, Camellia discovered she'd been robbed of her money belt.
A businessman had picked her up early that morning just outside Montpellier in his Citroen and brought her all the way through France, dropping her at a crossroads.
She went through her rucksack three times, taking each item out painstakingly. But it wasn't there. She had worn it constantly back in Ibiza: she'd seen too many other people losing their money through being careless or too trusting. But today she had removed it because it was irritating her skin on the long drive.
Camellia wanted to scream with rage, but there was no one to scream at. It seemed like the middle of nowhere: flat open fields on either side of a road lined with the inevitable avenue of plane trees. From where she stood she couldn't see even one house. But even if anyone appeared, and she managed to explain in French, she didn't think she'd get much sympathy. Hippies were notorious for their hard luck stories.
She sat down on the roadside, thinking. The man in the Citroen had only stopped once, at a large services where they had coffee and croissants. Camellia knew she had it then as she'd offered to pay. The man had refused and she put it back in her rucksack. She had gone to the lavatories before getting back into the car. There were a couple of Dutch girls waiting in a queue and they'd discussed how disgusting the traditional French hole-in-the-ground variety was. It was the friendliness of these girls that had prompted her to leave her rucksack with them while she went in. They weren't hippie hitchhikers, but smartly dressed office girls, touring with their boyfriends.
'You bitches,' she spat out viciously, visualising the two fresh-faced blondes gleefully sharing out all that money she'd worked so hard for. But yet she didn't cry. At the back of her mind a small voice was reminding her of all those people she'd robbed back in Piccadilly. Now she knew how it felt.
It was half an hour before a truck slowed down at her raised thumb. Camellia picked up her rucksack and ran towards it. She wished she'd thought to change out of her brief shorts and replace her tight tee shirt with a baggier one, but it was too late now.
'Parlez-vous anglais?' she said haltingly, looking up at the man in the cab.
'I should think so, darlin',' he grinned broadly and tapped his arm on the outside of the truck door. 'What d'you think that is? Bloody Swahili?'
She was so relieved to hear an English voice, she could've hugged him.
'Are you going to the ferry at Calais?' she asked.
'Sure am, then on to London,' he said cheerfully. 'Hop in if you want a ride.'
He introduced himself as Reg, offered her one of his sandwiches and a can of beer, and listened to her story about the girls stealing her money belt.
'Well, you were a mug and no mistake,' he said. 'Me, I don't trust no one. But you're all right now with yer Uncle Reg. I'll get you home.'
As they drove on towards Calais, Camellia's spirits began to rise again. It was a beautiful afternoon, fields of ripe golden corn, speckled with scarlet poppies stretched for as far as she could see, and Reg, though a bit grubby and uncouth, was kindly. She had to be philosophical about her stolen money: it would've been much worse if it had happened when she was still back in Spain. She had about twenty pounds in the Post Office. As long as she could get to Denise's she'd be fine.
The sun was beginning to set as they drove into Calais docks.
'Give us yer passport,' Reg said gruffly as he gathered together his papers ready to go into the offices. 'I'll pass you off as my girlfriend. There shouldn't be any problem.'
Camellia watched Reg with some amusement as he walked away from her and his truck. He made her think of a male pigeon, chest all puffed out with importance, as if he thought people were admiring him. Perhaps he'd once had a good body: his shoulders were wide and his biceps huge. But at over forty he was sagging. His beer-belly quivered under his tight dirty white tee shirt, and his sandy hair was very thin on top. She hoped he wouldn't get any ideas about her. She wasn't entirely comfortable with him passing her off as his girlfriend.
Reg spat noisily out the window several times as they waited in the truck for their turn to drive onto the ferry. It turned Camellia's stomach and she found herself noticing other unpleasant things about him. He smelled of stale sweat, his neck and hands were ingrained with dirt and he had tufts of hair coming out of his ears.
'Why aren't there any cars?' she asked, looking out the window as a uniformed man indicated the spot he was to drive into.
'Well, it's a freighter, love,' Reg replied. 'It's only lorries come on it. You get good food too–none of the fancy prices they charge on the regular ferry. You look as if you could do with a bit of grub.'
The moment they set foot in the bar upstairs Reg was greeting the other drivers. 'Whatcha think of my new girl?' he bawled out across the bar to one of them, at the same time putting his hand on her bottom and squeezing it.
Camellia blushed scarlet with embarrassment. Her long brown legs in brief shorts hadn't raised an eyebrow all through Spain and France, but now she was painfully aware of every man's eyes on them. Foolishly she'd left her rucksack in the cab, but she wouldn't be allowed back down to the hold to get it
and change. It was almost dusk and growing colder.
Reg insisted on buying her a meal. Camellia was a little dubious about putting herself further in his debt, but she was so hungry she lost her qualms at the sight of steak and kidney pie. Although his coarse banter with the other drivers and the way he sat protectively close to her was a little unnerving, he seemed genuinely concerned about her.
'You'd better get your head down in my bunk when we gets to Dover,' he said. 'I'll drop you off by Waterloo station, you'll be safer to hang around in there till the trains start running. Don't you go roaming around the streets till it gets light.'
It began to rain soon after the ferry left Calais. As the harbour lights of Dover came into view it turned into a full-blown storm. Camellia was freezing.
'You can get changed into something warmer in the bogs in the customs hall,' Reg said solicitously. 'Just hope they don't hold me up tonight. I wanna get home and into bed.'
An hour later Camellia was slipping off to sleep in Reg's bunk. She had changed into jeans and a sweater in the toilets in Dover, and the sound of the radio playing softly, the swish of the windscreen wipers and the warmth of the blankets had lulled her into a sense of security.
She woke with a start as the truck stopped.
'We're here, sweetheart,' Reg said, turning in his seat to look at her.
Camellia sat up. It was still dark, and the road they were in was badly lit. 'Where are we?' she asked fearfully.
'It's okay,' he laughed at her expression. 'Waterloo Bridge is just up ahead. I ain't taken you to Timbuktu while you were sleeping. The station is just around the corner, but mind you stay there until it's light.'
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