Chapter 6

Still Clara;

Jessica is lovely. She wouldn’t say much about Jenni except that it was through her that she met her husband, Dave. Despite her age, she still worked part-time – she’s a solicitor – even though she didn’t need to, financially.

“It’s a distraction,” she said, “and fills some of the hours I would otherwise spend missing Dave.” She was, apparently, fairly wealthy in her own right, daughter of a barrister who was also minor nobility.

During the day, when Jessica wasn’t working, we sometimes went for a walk by the river while she reminisced. Or we’d work together in the kitchen. I’m quite a competent cook, but I learned a lot from her. We talked a lot, played chess – we were well matched – or read in companionable silence. That was during the day.

Nights ... let’s say the first couple of nights, I didn’t sleep at all well. After the second morning that she found me in the kitchen in the morning, looking ‘like death warmed up’ and sipping black coffee, she didn’t have to work hard to convince me to talk.

“I just can’t seem to sleep through. I wake up and lay there, missing Mum and Dad.” I didn’t add, ‘And now, Rob’.

I think Jessica heard what I didn’t say, though. “You were sleeping with Rob...”

“I was. Completely platonic. No bare skin – thermals on both of us. Having him there, though, I felt safe.”

She raised an eyebrow. “From anyone else, that’d be hard to believe.” She sighed. “But I know someone else who slept with a young woman and didn’t touch her sexually, just gave her the security of being held and loved.” She poured a mug of lukewarm coffee, sipped, and made a face. “I’ll make some fresh. This is almost cold. Would it help if you slept with me?”

“Wouldn’t you mind?”

“I sort of miss having company in bed, myself.”

“What was he like, your husband?”

She half smiled. “Oh, Dave...” she paused. “He was... honest. Straight as a die. But never judgemental. Loving. I used to joke he was like a humbug – hard on the outside, but soft in the middle. You need to ask Jenni about their relationship. He was older than me; he’d retired early from mental nursing and when we met he was what he called ‘odd-jobbing’. He’d bought that yacht, Eirene, and was living in her while he went around ‘mending stuff’. Actually, he was a lot like your Rob. Had a motorbike.”

“My Rob?”

“Tell me you aren’t fond of him? More than fond?”

I didn’t answer that, not right away. But it set me thinking. I mean, I lived with the guy in a forty-foot yacht. Slept in the same bunk. Didn’t have a moment’s concern he’d do something I didn’t want. I’d talked and he’d listened, a bit like Jessica, in a way. Fond? More than fond? I’d known him, what? Eight weeks? How long do you need to know someone before you know you want them in your life?

“I knew Dave was special the first time I met him,” Jessica told me. Was she reading my mind?

Anyway, snuggled up to Jessica, I slept much better. The days passed, and Christmas was upon us. Alison was home from college, and we dressed a tree and put up decorations. In the morning, we all helped prepare lunch, and then took an hour out of the morning to sing carols in the little ‘tin hut’ chapel, Saint Nicholas at the Ferry. Jenni came with her husband Marty and little Davey, who attached himself to me again. I’d seen him often, as Jenni often left him with Jessica when she needed to attend to something, but he hadn’t lost interest in me. Alison fetched out a guitar and played it; more carols, but also folk-songs and sea songs.

Boxing Day brought a houseful. Amy and John Shepherd, with Lucy, Andrew and Samantha; Chrissie and Tom Carmichael, with their family, Amy, DeeJay and Jennifer, and of course Jenni, Marty and Davey. With so many, it was easier to have a buffet with mostly ‘finger food’. The ebb and flow was ... interesting. Although there were names mentioned, and phone calls made, to people I didn’t know, I certainly didn’t feel out of place. That may have been because Davey attached himself to me as usual.

After lunch another family joined us; Beth and James Robinson, with their daughter Callista.

More music; Chrissie Carmichael is a gifted musician. I actually realised after a while that I knew of her, had heard her play at a concert I attended with my parents, though I hadn’t immediately made the connection. She’s versatile; a virtuosa on guitar and piano both. Alison is good too, and Jenni has a lovely voice. Carol sheets were produced and we all sang, until Jessica requested Spiegel im Spiegel, such a beautiful, reflective piece. Memories flooded in, and I wept. Suddenly, I was being held, with Jessica on one side and Alison on the other.

“I’m sorry,” I got out, after a while.

“Don’t be,” Jessica told me. “Tears are nothing to be ashamed of.” She turned to Chrissie, but she’d already segued into the Calypso Carol, which is, apparently, a favourite of her husband’s. Davey came – he’d brought toys for me to admire at intervals – holding a soft toy of indeterminate shape, and climbed into my lap.

“C’ara sad?”

“Not now you’re here,” I reassured him, and he snuggled into my arms, and fell asleep. Jenni asked if I wanted to put him down – she’d take him to one of Jessica’s bedrooms to have a nap – but she didn’t object when I said I was happy to hold him.

She smiled. “Enjoy it. But I don’t want him to think he can have the same every time he needs a nap in the afternoon.” She hesitated, but went on, “what is it with you and Rob?”

I opened my mouth to answer with something non-committal, but shut it again, thinking. “I don’t know, really,” I said, honestly. “When I’m with him, I feel ... safe, I suppose. Almost like with Mum or Dad. Not quite the same, of course. Actually, definitely not the same.”

“When I met Dave Yeomans,” Jenni said, “I started off thinking how I could use him for a time. I didn’t think about how he’d saved my life, exactly. But I was thinking, habitually, you know, how I could take advantage of his good nature. But I soon realised that he wasn’t like other men I’d encountered. He really cared about me. At the beginning, I would have had sex with him to ... maintain our relationship. But quickly I started wanting to have sex with him, ‘just because’, as they say. I fell in love with him. I would have married him, happily. But he took me to see Jessica who was going to sort out my legal situation, and I could tell right away that they belonged together. As a result I got a substitute father and mother, Dave got a wife, then a daughter, and I met Marty. I think Marty is like Dave was at the same age.”

“What about...” I started to ask, but broke off.

Jenni frowned. “My father died when I was tiny. I never really knew him. Mother married a supposedly respectable man who turned out to be an abusive pervert. Mother didn’t protest his attentions to herself, then when he turned his attentions to me, she did nothing about it. He’s in a secure mental hospital, probably for life. I don’t see her.”

“I’m sorry...” I said.

“Don’t be. I am what I am now because of my past, and I’m happy. I’d like to see if you can be happy too.” Jenni cocked her head, looking at me. “I think you really like your Rob,” she said, with a smile. “Like I said, I would have married Dave, or even just lived with him, even though he was forty years older than me. Your Rob is thirty-ish, I think. It’s not as though there’s an enormous gap.”

“I don’t know...” I took a deep breath. “Besides, I’m not likely to see him again, am I?”

“Never say never,” Jenni declared brightly, getting up. “Sure you’re okay with Davey there? We can put him down for a nap...”

“I don’t mind, but he is quite heavy and I could do with the toilet.”

“Come on, then.”

Rob again;

Christmas, eating my mother’s cooking in Calver, Derbyshire. Fending off her enquiries about girlfriends and defending my choice of personal transport. My father is taciturn, and when Mum is ‘going on’ as he puts it, just looks at me and lifts an eyebrow. Sometimes, he’ll interrupt. “Let the boy alone, Pet. He’s looking for a woman as good as I got, and they’re rare.” That makes her blush and leave me alone for a while. But ‘the boy’? I’m thirty-two next.

He’s right, though. I can’t imagine marrying a woman I can’t be quiet with, you know? I mean, I don’t want to marry my mother. I’m not even looking for someone like her. But thinking about it...

Clara.

Can’t get the girl out of my mind. Silly, really. She’ll go back to College, probably. I’ll lose touch completely, unless I pursue her, and I can’t see myself doing that.