Life Less Lived Ch. 08

Saturday, last shopping day before Christmas

Sophie was up early, rousing Marina out of bed while it was still dark outside. Thick clouds had built up during the evening, keeping the frost at bay and with a relatively warm, wet, wind it had rained heavily during the night and virtually all the snow, so dominant of the landscape for the past two days, had gone. There were just those compacted piles left where people had cleared their drives or front paths as evidence of the unseasonal early winter blizzard.

"Oh! It looks like we're not going to get our White Christmas after all," she complained to Marina after looking out the window at the scene before her. All the snow in the middle of the front yard had completely disappeared, washed away into the pea gravel. Only traces of rather sorry looking and dirty ice clung tenaciously to the sheltered edges under the hedgerows.

Marina roused herself from her warm and inviting bed to peer out the window, as Sophie tucked her arm into the older woman's arm. It still looked cold out, despite the thaw, with what appeared to be a biting wind ruffling the crinkly leaves still clinging to the beech hedge, marking the boundary of the garden from the narrow lane at the front. Overhead the sky was steel grey and overcast all the way to the horizon. It was dull, dripping drabness compared to the brilliantly lit crystal clear white of the previous day.

Daniel had the coffee brewing and a saucepan of porridge bubbling on the hob by the time they reached the cosy kitchen. He greeted his youngest daughter with a hug and a kiss on the lips plus a hug and delivered a brush of his lips on both cheeks for his blushing house guest. They had all agreed the previous evening that they would make a start for London straight after finishing their breakfast, allowing for the early morning rush hour to die down at least a little. Daniel had smiled at the time, saying that the village hardly had much of a traffic problem except during harvest time. But he readily agreed that once they hit the London road it would be choked with London-bound traffic.

When they had loaded up all the brightly packaged presents, and with the main constituents of the Christmas Day dinner neatly packed away in a cool box in the boot, Sophie insisted that Marina sit up front with her father, while Sophie spread herself luxuriantly along the back seat.

"I am so tired that I feel I could do with spreading myself at full stretch out here in the back. It's almost certain that I will snooze most of the way up to Ginny's."

"You can lie down and snooze if you like, young lady," Daniel told her sternly, "but you'll buckle up safely somehow before you do."

Sophie poked her tongue out, but giggled too.

The car was soon warm inside and Sophie did manage to stretch out on the back seat, wrapped in one of the three thick blankets left there, rolling the other two up as pillows. Marina thought it was warm enough in the car, with the climate control turned up to a comfortable level, but then she was perhaps more used to the cold. Daniel smiled at Marina and rolled his eyes to Sophie's parting "Goodnight, Daddy, goodnight Aunt Marina."

"She has always slept in the car, wherever we went on long car journeys." Daniel whispered to Marina with a smile. "When she was a baby and teething, we often used to bundle up both Ginny and Sophie and drive around and around the lanes until she eventually settled. Then we'd carry her in without disturbing her and she would sleep through the rest of the night."

"It sounds like you enjoyed those early days, better than more recent ones I expect."

"Yes, it has been difficult," he admitted, "But then you lost your mother when you were a child and you had to cope with bringing up your brothers and sisters. The youngest ones were only babies, weren't they?" He saw Marina nod, he continued, "That was a lot more than anything I had to endure."

"Oh, I don't know that was any more difficult than any other family, to be honest. Pretty soon you get into a routine and simple routine makes everything easy because you know exactly what to do and what is expected. First thing in the morning I would get the house straight after Dad came in late from the pub. Sometimes he was sick, sometimes not, sometimes he was in bed."

"That must've been tough."

"I even found him unconscious on the floor a few times. I'd have to try and move him on my own, otherwise the kids would be upset seeing him like that. Sometimes I had to get Sand- er, Alex up to help me. She was the next oldest, two years younger than me. Then I made the breakfasts and sandwich box lunches, got the kids up, then got them dressed and off to school. I would change the babies, feed them, then do the washing up and get the washing machine going, make all the beds, do the hoovering, hang out the washing to dry, cleaning, ironing, change and feed the babies before making the dinner for the evening."

"It still sounds a hell of a lot of work."

"You don't mind when it's family. It was the non-routine things that would always throw me, though, like not being able to pay the electric bill because there was not enough money in the bank, Dad having already spent it on booze. In a very short time I had to become a diplomat and negotiator, a regular down the Citizens Advice for help fending off debt collectors, but I also had to remain under the radar because I was only 12, a truant from school and didn't want the Social Services to break my family up. I simply had to cope."

"I think you were brilliant. I remember being so impressed by you at the time we got to know each other. You know, I really looked forward to our chats about your family life at the hotel. You made everything seem so real."

"A little too real, sometimes. I suppose, in between you serving drinks and me dishing out snacks and clearing tables, we managed to chat quite a bit. I, I must admit looked forward to those lunch times, too. Nobody else spoke to me as you did, like I was an adult."

"You're a bright woman, Marina, you always have been. I believe that you've always been an interesting person to speak to because you're always passionate talking about the events going on in your life."

They were quiet for a time, comfortably occupied by their own thoughts, as they rolled out of the country lanes onto the main road and the traffic around them built up, slowing down their hitherto steady progress. At times, Marina thought she could hear Sophie softly snoring on the back seat.

"Marina." Daniel eventually spoke again, "While you've stayed with us you have made such a positive impact on Sophie, that she seems like she's a different girl, more like she used to be. Losing her mother at the age of seventeen completely floored her. When you came, just a couple of days ago now, and you took her under your wing, she has responded so positively to you. And you were so modest about the impact you've made, you seemed only concerned that by staying with us you were imposing on Sophie and I."

"Yes, I did. I didn't want to over -"

"You weren't imposing on us, Marina, not one little bit. In actual fact it has been an absolute delight for me, having you with us. It has allowed me the chance of getting to know you all over again, reaffirming that you are just as you always were."

"Yes," she chuckled, "it has been fun, I've enjoyed my stay. It's been a pleasure for me, too, to meet you again after all these years. I never forgot you, but I never thought I would ever see you again, to be able to find out how you were doing. Before we part, Daniel -"

"I hope you are not too anxious to get away from us?"

"No, of course not, I have felt very comfortable with both of you at your lovely house."

"Hopefully, we will keep in contact, I don't want you completely disappearing without trace again."

"No, of course not. I ... I didn't have any choice last time."

"We both had commitments that couldn't be compromised back then. You with your young family and damaged father, and I had college I had to return to."

"Yes, it was ... circumstances, I suppose, beyond our control, back then."

"But now, what commitments do either of us have now, Marina?"

"I suppose we are a great deal freer, to a degree."

"Exactly."

Sophie stirred in the back, saying sleepily, "Are we there yet, Daddy?"

"Not quite, sweetie, go back to sleep."

"'Kay."

Daniel drove along quietly, while Marina looked out of the left window. The green of the countryside had given way to to the dirty reds and browns of brick and rust-streaked grey concrete as they drove through urban streets. Behind them, Sophie resumed her gentle snuffles as she drifted off again.

"Daniel, I must thank you and Sophie most sincerely for making me feel so welcome in your lovely home, such a wonderful quiet place with the woods and the hills. I cannot believe I was such a fool, venturing out into the unknown countryside, without a single thought of what I was going to do about getting home again. However the circumstances in which I arrived, I have loved every moment of meeting you all, talking to both your wonderful daughters, as well as seeing you again after all these years."

"Yes, it has been a pleasure getting to know you again. You really haven't changed at all, you know and you've brought back so many happy memories."

'Memories, certainly,' thought Marina to herself.

He reached out with his right hand and patted the back of her hand resting in her lap. She hadn't expected the gesture and almost jumped at the first touch, but quickly settled back down.

"But all good things must come to an end," she said, not flinching at all at his continued touch, which surprised her.

She had such a mixture of conflicting feelings about Daniel. She wanted to be touched by him but all the time, at the back of her head, there was that feeling of not knowing what exactly had been going through his mind back then when they were first acquainted. Back all those years ago, she thought, to a time where surely he must have memories of what happened to her that last night in the hotel, while she had absolutely no recall of what happened at all.

"Would you like to tell me about Penny?" she asked, putting the conversation on safer ground as far as she was concerned.

"Yes, of course, what do you want to know?" he smiled.

"Well, when did you first meet her?"

"It must've been just over a year after you and I said goodbye at the end of that summer, I think. But first, going back to when you and I knew each other. You know, I was looking forward to coming back and working with you again. I had a firm offer to come back from the bar manager, and returned to the hotel at Christmas, to work for a couple of weeks, again in the bar next to your snack bar. I was hoping to renew our acquaintance, but there was no sign of you. I spoke to, er, Deirdre was it?"

"Yes, Deirdre, the manageress of the hotel snack bar?"

"Yes, that's her. She told me that you had just resigned, a week or so earlier. All in a bit of a hurry, apparently, as your father had got a new job which meant that you had to make an immediate move. Deirdre didn't know where you had gone to. All she knew was that you'd come in one day, handed in a fortnight's notice, a week of which was owed to you as holiday. Then, once you had served your notice, you said goodbye to her and you disappeared."

"Yes, I did, didn't I?" Now was not the time to tell the truth, Marina thought, with Sophie in the back of the car. All I have to do is get through this and hope that enough of Daniel's attention was on the the road to deflect him from detecting the lies. "Part of it was that Dad got a job back in Portsmouth, where we originally came from, and we had to move. It was a quite an upheaval for us, I suppose, the kids starting new schools, new uniforms, etc."

Marina perked up for a moment. "So, you came looking ... for me, then?"

"Yes, well, I thought we had had some fun together in the summer and thought it would be nice to take up where we had left off."

Marina was quiet with her thoughts. 'Oh, gosh! He thought that we had had some fun? He wanted to carry on where we had left off? I suppose he thought now that he had "broken me in", did he feel he could have sex with me whenever he wanted? Why, oh why, am I still attracted to this man? Every time that I feel that there is something positive here, feeling that he is the perfect gentleman, I just want to cringe and get away from him? Maybe I should change the subject again?'

Daniel too, was quiet, occupied with his own set of thoughts that Marina could neither read nor fathom, although she thought it was possible that maybe his silence was down to the increased demands of the traffic flow. Marina had never learned to drive, although she scrimped and saved enough to ensure the children in her charge all learned to drive as soon as possible after they reached the age of seventeen. Thus she never really appreciated the complexities of the skill, and often felt bewildered by the cars and trucks around them continuously and unpredictably switching lanes. It was even worse now that they were going through heavily congested roads with buildings dwarfing them on either side.

She felt from time to time that Daniel was looking at her, when traffic allowed, trying to see if he had upset her by certain elements of his conversation. She tried to keep her face impassive, thinking about Sophie in the back, who was possibly awake and listening in to their conversation.

Daniel spoke next after this long pause.

"You were asking about Penny?"

"Yes, sorry, Daniel, I was lost in my thoughts, thinking about the time back then. It is a long time since I had cast my mind back so far ... and for so long. Yes. I really would like to know how you met Penny."

"Well, I was a very serious student, as you may remember, and I was generally keeping myself to myself, trying to get my Masters degrees in both politics and economics, both subjects being quite close to my heart. I simply didn't date much then, I never made time available to. Penny's best friend at Uni happened to be the girlfriend of one of my three flat mates, and we first met when we went out on a double date."

He paused for a few moments while he switched lanes to get past a couple of slow moving heavy trucks struggling up an incline.

"Was it love at first sight then, on this date between you and Penny?"

"No, hardly that at all. The night turned out to be a complete disaster. This date had been arranged a couple of weeks earlier but the night before we went out, my friend and her friend had just had a full-blown flaming row." Daniel laughed, "Funny really, I cannot remember anything of what it was all about, just some lovers' tiff, but all Penny and I did that evening was play referee between them. We were both turned away from each other while we concentrated on our friends, to stop them bitching or worse at each other."

"Oh, no, that must have been embarrassing, sitting in the middle of the row. What did you do on the date?"

"The plan was a meal, Italian I think it was, followed by the cinema, then a few drinks in the pub for a nice cheap booze buzz before moving onto a night club. We couldn't afford to have more than one drink in the night club, it was too expensive; we four of us were students. Anyway, the meal was a roller coaster ride opener to the date, with them alternately not talking or bitching loudly to each other. So Penny and I agreed that the cinema was still a good idea as they wouldn't be able to talk and argue in there anyway. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

"Sounds very reasonable."

"Well, that's what Penny and I thought, and it would have been if they could decide on what film to watch."

"Ha! Ha! No agreement?"

"None. We wasted some time in the cinema complex foyer, discussing what films they had, until we decided that plan was simply a non-starter. So we went to the pub early instead. We had just the one drink there but almost immediately I brought the round back on a tray to the table, she threw her drink in his face, spraying me in the process. So Tim, that was my friend, responded by grabbing both our pints of beer and soaking her, with Penny also getting sprayed!"

"Oh no!" Marina laughed, "sorry, Daniel, I can't help but laugh,"

"I can see the funny side now, but not then. So we all went home our separate ways. Tim and I were back at our flat by about 8.30, with no girls, and no fun night out, and smelling of Campari and soda."

"Poor you. But they would have been smelling of beer."

"Yeah, quite a lot of it, too. Penny was only splashed I think, but Tim's girlfriend was soaked to the skin."

"Did they ever get back together again, your friends?"

"No, that was the final straw in their relationship. I can't even remember her name and don't think Penny kept in touch with her for very long either. Certainly I never saw her again. Oh boy, that girl was a bitch that night! Sailors would have been red-faced at some of her language. I still see Tim, of course, now and then. Well, you probably do too, he was the defence secretary in the last government, and before that one of the shadow cabinet's longest serving members I think."

"I do know him, from the telly anyway, I think, is he quite fat, jolly and completely bald?"

"Yes, although I think he shaves his head, has done for years, wanted to make himself look hard. He's got a tough constituency, and he wins it mainly through his personal vote. Still likes his beer and retained his interest in feisty women, apparently."

"But not wearing Campari?"

"Definitely not wearing Campari!"

"So, the first time you met, Penny was in and then out of your life for a while, just like that?"

"You would have thought so, after such an inauspicious start, but no, we kept on bumping into each other all the time after that night. From never having seen her on campus before, suddenly I started to notice her all the time. I guess she had always been around but I never really saw her until we became acquainted during that date. Of course the medical and political students had few if any shared lectures, so our paths never should have crossed."

Marina smiled, without saying anything, thinking that he must have made an impression on Penny on that first date and that she had gone out of her way to be seen by him.

"Anyway, a few weeks later Penny was standing in the bar next to one of the political rallies I was attending. She was waiting to be served, and I reintroduced myself to her. She had to think who I was, until I mentioned the argument our friends had and then, of course, she remembered me."

"Well, who could forget that date night?"

"Exactly, but I'm not sure she noticed me, as it was a blind date and we were just an audience to our friends' disastrous break up. Anyway, Penny apologised for not recognising me straight away and reminded me that our attention had been concentrated on our friends all that evening. She was on her own that night in the bar, and I was alone, so we shared this one drink together and chatted. I asked why she was at this particular political rally, knowing that she was a medical student. Penny argued that the NHS was clearly a continual political issue, and she was attending a few political discussions in order to make herself feel comfortable about them. She could foresee that by the time she was able to attend one specifically for public health issues she would be more relaxed if she had experienced the political environment at least a few times beforehand."

"Sounds as though it was lucky that you two met up again."

"I suppose so. Anyway, I knew that there was another meeting coming up in a few days, which involved the shadow health minister as the guest speaker. It was about 20 miles away from our college, but as soon as I mentioned it she was really keen to go. I was a little ashamed of my beat up old car, but I drove us there and back without breaking down and it turned out to be a really good meeting. We were hungry when we got there, having allowed ourself plenty of time to spare, so we had a burger beforehand and a drink after the meeting. We even managed to table a question posed by Penny, directed at the shadow health minister. Can't remember what it was now, but Penny was sticking up for the NHS point of view and really knew her subject. It was being televised later that night, so we were able to watch it on the TV in my flat when we got back."