Who Was Angela Zendalic (24 page)

Now, at the end of the day, she was alone in the sixth form locker room, slowly packing away her clean hockey kit. Time was of no consequence. Mum knew she was going to Garvie's, and with it being crab-face Dulcie's afternoon as an Ashmolean ‘friend', she would let herself into St. Veep's, go upstairs, lie on his bed, and listen to her transistor radio until he got back from the art college. A noise suddenly startled her. She turned. The slender frame of Caroline Blair Lewis stood in the doorway, holding a hockey stick; her face an expression of utter hatred, and her eyes narrowed. ‘You cow,' she drawled.

Angela, refusing to be intimidated, stood tall, mustering up her natural grace and dignity. ‘I gather you're referring to the fact that Garvie has dumped you in favour of me,' she said evenly.

‘Oh, don't get all high and mighty. You're a bitch. Throwing yourself at him like the whore you are.'

‘I can assure you it was Garvie who threw himself at me. I don't need to chase after anyone. In fact, it's quite exhausting swatting off the swarm.'

The girl moved forward to within two feet of Angela, glaring at her with a flushed face. ‘Shall I tell you something else? Lady Warlock likes me but she hates
you
. She told my mother. You know why, don't you? You don't fit in. You'll never fit in. You're from shitty Jericho. The red-light district where all the prostitutes live, and you're one as well, aren't you. You're foul. You stink. You're a big lump of dog shit. A big lump of
black
dog shit.' The girl raised the hockey stick, preparing to strike, but Angela, with a sharp reflex, grabbed it, and held it high above her own head.

‘Clear off, you tragic baby,' she shouted, but at exactly that moment Miss Tredgood marched in. Caroline immediately fell to the floor, holding her hands protectively around her head, and crying loudly.

‘She was going to hit me, Miss Tredgood. Oh, I was so frightened.'

Angela lowered the hockey stick. ‘It was the other way round, Miss Tredgood. Honestly. It was her who ...'

‘I'm disgusted,' the headmistress thundered. ‘Disgusted to hear two responsible sixth formers screaming at each other like fishwives. You'll both come straight to my office.'

Angela was first in. She told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, without embellishment or exaggeration, but when Caroline went in loud self-preservation wails came through the door. The headmistress then addressed them together.

‘I've listened to both of your explanations,' she said, ‘and I can now reveal that I actually heard every word that was said from a position in the corridor. You, Angela, gave a thoroughly truthful account of what happened, with no added drama for effect. You, Caroline, acted in the most vicious and disgraceful manner, and most appalling of all was that you were racially abusive, which won't be tolerated. Angela, you may go with your head held high and with no mark on your character.'

‘Thank you, Miss Tredgood.' She left the room, flashing a self-satisfied look at Caroline.

The next day the whole school was buzzing with the news that Caroline had been expelled, and soon afterwards Garvie moved out of St. Veep's to share a student house, in Aston Street off the Iffley Road. Angela knew why. She got the story out of him. Lady Warlock
did
hate her (hardly a surprise) and had told Garvie to ‘get rid of her'. A brown girl, or what she described as a ‘half-caste' from a lowly Jericho family, wasn't welcome at St. Veep's. But if the old witch thought that Garvie would come to heel, she'd had a rude awakening.

The student house was the most fun that Angela could imagine, and her eyes were snapped open to new concepts, discoveries, and values of the art world with Garvie and his fellow students. The troubled mixed-up boy, who struggled to read and write, was now taking her into a new stratosphere of wonder and delight that superseded the schoolroom. Filling her head with poetry, literature, religions, politics, and astrology that formed the foundation of art, both classical and modern. The drinking in rowdy pubs with ‘the crowd', where questions were answered with questions, and she discovered the pavement philosophy of the Socratic world. The exhibitions (or hangings as they were called), the parties, and the smoking of dope were beginning to persuade her that school was now an alien place.

Late January 1972
Jericho

A
ngela
had said it as she, Stan, and Edie sat over their usual Sunday roast. A statement as damaging as a bomb, but issued with the casual impact of a dandelion puff. ‘I've got something to say. I'm leaving school. I've got a part-time job in a café in The Covered Market.'

‘What!' they exclaimed in unison. With an explosion of outrage Stan leapt to his feet, his knife and fork clattering to the floor. ‘Oh, no you won't, madam,' he thundered. ‘You'll do no such thing. It's not up to you to choose. You'll stay at school, and work hard for your ‘A' levels.'

‘You can't make me. I'm nearly eighteen.'

‘Oh, I think we
can
make you. Auntie Peg's put up a fortune to keep you at that school, and you won't be kicking her in the teeth. You might think you're lady muck, but you're not. You've been thoroughly spoiled, and to be honest we're sick of your behaviour, anyway. What time did you get in last night? I'll tell you. Three o'clock. Disgusting. No, Angela. We've had enough. Forget leaving school. It's Garvie what's put you up to this, isn't it?'

‘No!' she shouted. ‘It's nothing to do with Garvie. I've made up my own mind and you can't stop me. Mum, you were married and pregnant with Brenda at my age. I'm not a child. I'll do exactly as I like, and you can both go to hell!' Stan, who'd never, ever raised a hand to her, grabbed her shoulder and delivered a flying slap across the face. She retaliated by kicking him firmly in the shin and running upstairs.

He sank down at the table, white with disbelief. ‘Sorry. Couldn't help it. How
can
she treat us like that?' Edie, mute with shock, failed to answer. ‘What a scene,' he fumed. ‘Oh, Ede. We've lost her haven't we? What did we do wrong?' But they knew, like thousands of other hurt and perplexed parents, that they'd done nothing wrong. It was just the way that ‘young people' were these days. The world really
had
gone mad. Like statues they sat in silence. Powerless. Hurt beyond measure.

An hour later, after more screaming words, a suitcase was packed and their girl was gone. Gone to Garvie's shambles of a bedsitter in Aston Street. Her school uniform and textbooks left behind. Her building society book taken. The coming-ofage party, organised at the St. Margaret's Institute in Polstead Road, cancelled with a large financial loss. Her extravagant, carefully chosen presents still in their wrappers.

Stabbed with the paradox of hurt and boiling anger, the traumatised parents expected her to return very quickly ‘when the novelty wore off ', and had forbidden anyone to ‘go chasing after her', but with the passing of over a month, there'd been no conciliatory visit, no phone call, or even a short note in the post. And then the sad, stilted interview they'd endured last week. The weary, aging couple summoned by Miss Tredgood, when they had to admit they'd lost control of her, and doubted she'd ever return to school. The headmistress, showing genuine remorse that such a talented girl was throwing her life away, assured them that if all could be resolved by the start of the new spring term, Angela still had a place at Bevington House, and could continue with her ‘A' levels.

Thus, Stan, Edie, Ted and Peggy sat stone-faced around the table at No.55. What to do? Unable to articulate their misery, all four sat, red-eyed with insomnia. Peggy, blank-faced, unable to contribute, her pain deeper than any of them, her mind yet again re-playing the moment of her daughter's birth, the beauty she'd become, the happy sharing of her childhood, and the pride of her many talents. Ted, wanting to take Garvie Warlock's limbs apart with his bare hands, and having to witness the sad spectacle of dear Stan and Edie, who'd taken an unknown brown baby into their arms and hearts, had devoted their lives to her, and were now suffering the pain of cruel rejection. The obvious issue of her ‘living in sin' was another unspoken shame, but knowing that brute force and ignorance wouldn't persuade her to come back home.

As ever, it was Ted who became spokesperson. ‘She's legally of-age now so there's not much we can do, apart from trying to patch things up. Her disgraceful behaviour isn't going to be news to her, and any reminders won't bring her to her knees with an apology. I'd like to put my fist in that boy's face, but that's not going to help either. Somehow she's got to be carefully spoken to, without any shouting and bawling.'

‘Oh, Ted,' sniffed Edie. ‘Me and Stan can't go round there begging. We can't cope with no more stress and fighting. I'm nearly on my knees as it is, but something's got to be done. If we don't get her away from that place she'll end up in trouble, and if she does, how's that boy going to look after her? For all his fancy family he's no more than a layabout.'

‘I'll go and see her,' said Ted, rising sharply to his feet. He looked at his watch. ‘Just gone five. Chances are she'll be in, being as it's Sunday.'

‘Can I come,' stammered Peggy.

‘No, Peg. Sorry. You've got to leave this to me.'

1972
Aston Street, Oxford

A
ngela's
burst for freedom had taken her up, up and away from the nauseous, constricting prison of No.55. Her beautiful balloon had soared high over the skyline of the dreaming spires, to the other side of the city; to the place her parents told her was as dangerous as the wild side of New York. What a load of small-minded tripe. The Cowley Road was a busy, fast-moving half mile of many nations, fascinating little shops, bright colours, and loud happy voices, and heaven was the hideaway in Aston Street; a shabby Victorian semi of multiple occupancy where people came and went before you got to know their names. Where there was a party every five minutes, and no cross, frowning faces, no nagging words of censure, and no homework. A scruffy bedsitter that held a double bed and a meter in the corner that gobbled up the new ten pence pieces. A tiny alcove with a gas ring, a dodgy power point, and a cracked hand basin. Clothes, clutter, and Garvie's art work filling every spare corner. A diet of fish and chips, Chinese take-aways, and whatever was left over from the café in the Covered Market at the end of her shift. Lazy hours in the evenings, lain on the bed listening to her transistor radio, while Garvie served behind the bar of The Turf Tavern. Lying back and hearing the seductive voice of the DJ, Stuart Henry, blasting out the top ten hits, and the cool raunch of Benny Green's
Jazz Time
on a Sunday afternoon. The odd joint that took her to even higher plains of sexual paradise, still perpetuating the eyes-closed myth of her adored Piers.

It had been six months now, since that hot drunken evening when her phantom lover had first covered her lips and body, and even now, with every creak and thrust under the blankets, he was still there. Garvie would never know. Poor Garvie. How he loved her.

And Garvie did love her. She was his high plain of perfection, his lovely girl, his moon and stars and shining sun. The dazzling, dusky beauty who smiled only for him, whose lithe long-legged body belonged only to him, whose arms wrapped around him, and clasped him, and moaned and sighed, whose perfect white teeth grazed his face, and who murmured words of love at every peaceful end.

April 2014
Monks Bottom

W
ith
the boys gone I stretched out on the sofa, sipping my wine, grateful for the rare peace but idly wishing I could find an excuse to troll up to The Hall, and seek out Mr Lovely. There I was, the first night on my own for God knows how long, with every opportunity to have a little fun, and I was on my Jack Jones (as ever). I'd probably been sitting for about an hour when I heard a car draw up. Please God, not Father Crowley again, wanting to know ‘how I'd got on' this morning and giving me even more chapter and verse about the effects of the fire. All I wanted was to indulge myself in pipedreaming, as a silly schoolgirl might over her latest teen-age crush, but when I bobbed up to the window I saw a smiling Carrie, running up the path.

‘I just dropped everything and jumped in the car,' she gushed. ‘I've been on-line trying to find a puppy for Gerry's birthday. You won't believe this. You really won't believe it, but I turned up a dog breeder in Cumbria called Zendalic!'

‘What!' I grabbed the laptop and booted up. Yes! There he was. Michael Zendalic. Mercy Farm Kennels, near Grasmere. Breeder of Border Terriers, and Cocker Spaniels. Kennel Club registered. ‘But I looked on every electoral role there was,' I said, ‘and didn't find a single Zendalic. How did I miss him?'

‘Then let's look again.' After carefully searching every list Michael's name didn't come up.

‘Maybe one can opt not to go on a public list,' suggested Carrie – like one can go ex-directory.'

I shrugged. What to do now? Of course I wanted to know if he was connected to Angela, but contacting him terrified me. After silent contemplation I finally came to a decision. ‘I'll write a letter,' I said, ‘though God knows what I'll say.'