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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Jessie is the only daughter of the vicar of Abbot's Cove, an idyllic, sleepy village on the Cornish coast. At seventeen, she struggles to be recognised as an adult by her parents, who have wrapped her in cotton wool since her brother's death during the Second World War. In the three years since the war ended, Thomas and Ellen Penwarden have tried to shield Jessie from all of life's dangers, including heartbreak. But a teenage girl is bound to fall in love and needs to find her own way through the pitfalls of a new relationship. Luckily for Jessie, her best friend Rita Levant is more than happy to guide her along the way, and when the girls meet some boys from Penzance at a summer dance, Jessie falls in love for the first time . . . Dating Will Tremayne, and riding on the back of his motorbike as he roars into the quiet village, seems incredibly glamorous and exciting to Jessie, although she daren't tell her strict father that she is falling in love with a biker boy - she knows only too well what he would say. Meanwhile, Rita's reckless nature leads her into trouble, and the Penwarden family soon has greater things to worry about than Jessie's blossoming romance.
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Seitenzahl: 509
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Summer of Love
RACHEL MOORE
Contents
Summer of Love
CHAPTER ONE
There wasn’t a breath of wind on the moors on that August Saturday afternoon. The air was heavy and still, fragrant with the scents of clover and heather and wild thyme, and the silence was only broken by the stultifying drone of bees. The two girls lay on their backs, eyes closed, as if seeing which one could merge in with nature for the longest time. It was only when the drone of bees gradually became something louder and slightly more intrusive that Jessie Penwarden drew in her breath and sat up so fast that it made her head swim.
‘For goodness’ sake, Jessie, don’t get your knickers in a twist, it’s only one of the planes from over Penzance way, not one of those Luftwaffes or whatever they call them,’ her friend Rita said lazily. ‘The war’s been over for three years, and the Jerries are our friends now, remember?’
‘Tell that to my dad,’ Jessie muttered, feeling her heartbeat begin to relax. ‘He’s never forgiven them for shooting down Adam, and he never will.’
Rita sat up as well now, looking at her friend a bit uneasily. ‘I thought your dad was in the business of forgiveness, being a vicar. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to preach every Sunday?’
‘Of course, but it’s pretty hard to do so when your only son’s plane was been shot out of the sky in the last few weeks of the war when everybody expected him to be coming home to a hero’s welcome,’ Jessie retorted, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
She knew she shouldn’t take on so. It was a long time ago now, and the small community of Abbot’s Cove in the far south-west of Cornwall had finally recovered from the effects of the Second World War, like the rest of the country. Even though food was still rationed and women still carried on making do and mending as the government had instructed them to do during six long years of war, of course her dad preached forgiveness in public.
It was only at home, within the privacy of their own four walls, that he sometimes ranted over the unfairness and futility of it all, and it was times like those that Jessie and her mother knew it was best to leave him alone until he had got over it. Especially now, when it was coming up to what would have been Adam’s birthday, and that was always the worst of times.
Jessie shook the bracken out of her long brown hair now, knowing that she had been up on the moors for long enough, and that the hot sun was starting to make her fair skin prickle. She just wished the unexpected sound of that plane hadn’t revived so many memories in an instant.
She had still been a gawky kid when they got the news of Adam, still growing into her adolescence and all that it entailed, including viewing everything so melodramatically.
At seventeen, she should be able to accept that bad things happened in wartime. They weren’t the only family, even in a small place like Abbot’s Cove, to have lost someone. But that didn’t make their own loss any easier to bear, and her brother Adam had always been a hero to her. Being four years her senior, she had looked up to him, and he had treated her as indulgently as he would an adoring pet. He had loved flying, and it was a cruel fate that had made him lose his life at eighteen, doing what he loved best.
And she still missed him, she thought, with a tiny sob that she tried to hide from her more practical friend.
‘Come on,’ Rita Levant said now. ‘I promised Mum I’d fetch her a new library book this afternoon and she’ll be wondering where I’ve got to all this time.’
‘How do you know what she wants?’ Jessie said, trying to show interest, while her imagination was still taking her to places she didn’t really want to go.
Rita shrugged. ‘Well, she can’t get out of the house in her wheelchair to fetch them for herself, and as long as it’s a love story she doesn’t mind.’
Guiltily, Jessie brought her thoughts round to what her friend was saying.
‘It must be hard for you, Rita, having to look after her so much.’
‘Not really,’ Rita said cheerfully. ‘I’ve always had to do it, so I just get on with it. You’d do the same if it was your mum.’
They had reached the edge of the moors now, and below them lay the small, sprawling community of Abbot’s Cove, surrounded and protected by the high cliffs of the rugged south-west coast of Cornwall. Even though she had lived here all her life, the sight of it never failed to stir Jessie’s romantic heart. From here, high up on the moors, the small straggle of cottages always made her think of a Hollywood version of toytown, the church where her father preached every Sunday standing out like a beacon from the rest of the buildings. Curving away from the village was the cove of golden sand, and farther along the coast the crumbling, almost vanished remains of what had reputedly been a monastery centuries ago, from where their village had got its name.
The ghosts of the monastery had virtually passed into legend now, but they always provided good tales to tell in local pubs in return for a glass of beer from unwitting visitors who found their way to the quaint rural community of Abbot’s Cove. Beyond the beach on that lovely summer afternoon the blue sea sparkled and glittered in the sunshine, so calm and beautiful it was almost impossible to imagine that so short a time ago people lived in fear of what the next day’s news would bring, or which family would be receiving the telegram they all dreaded.
Once they reached the outskirts of the village Jessie spoke quickly to Rita before she really descended into misery. ‘See you at the dance tonight?’
‘Hope so, providing Mum’s OK, fingers crossed. Those boys from Penzance we met last time said they might come again, and I’m not missing the chance of seeing them, so TTFN.’
She waltzed away, her fair hair, as long as Jessie’s, bouncing on her shoulders. Jessie felt a twist of envy for her cheerfulness, and admired her for it too. With all her troubles, her disabled mother, and her drunk of a father, Rita always looked on the bright side, while years ago their old English teacher had told Jessie she was far too sensitive, and she should stop taking on the worries of the world, fretting over other people’s problems that she couldn’t solve.
Growing up, she thought she had done that, until Adam had been killed. It had knocked all the stuffing out of her, even though she had probably been a fool to think her handsome brother had been invincible. Older and wiser now, and far more cynical, she admitted, she made a concentrated effort not to worry about anything so much. It was just that sometimes, like hearing the unexpected sound of that plane today, she was jolted into knowing she was still the same sensitive girl she had always been, and that was something that would never change.
By the time she reached the old vicarage, after passing the time of day with acquaintances she had known all her life, she had recovered from her brief melancholy, and was wondering how anyone could ever want to leave Abbot’s Cove. On days like these, when the fruits and blossoms of summer were still in full bloom in country gardens, Cornwall could be a blissful place to live, and days when the winter storms and raging seas could change the whole area into a dangerous, alien place, were farthest from anyone’s thoughts.
‘I’m home,’ she called out as soon as she entered the large kitchen where her mother was inevitably preparing food. The smell of baking could usually lead Jessie to her mother’s whereabouts, she thought with a smile.
Ellen Penwarden looked up with a smile, wiping her forehead with a floury hand. Still youthful at forty-three years old and often having to deal with a frequently irascible husband, she rarely lost the look of serenity on her face. Even after the shock of Adam’s death, Ellen had been the steadying influence that had held the family together.
‘How’s Rita today?’ Ellen said, as she always did.
‘Same as ever,’ her daughter replied automatically. ‘I don’t know how she copes sometimes, and her dad’s not much use, is he?’
Ellen continued rolling out pastry. ‘That’s not a very charitable thing to say, my love. I’m not sure your father would like to hear it.’
Jessie felt her eyebrows rise. That was a laugh. Considering he was a vicar, her father was hardly the most charitable of men. His views were rigid and unrelenting, and he had the kind of voice that dared anyone to contradict what he was saying, whether in or out of the pulpit. The only time Jessie had ever seen him nearly fall apart was when Adam died, and even then, he had seemed unable to share his grief with his womenfolk. It had been a terrible time for all of them, she conceded, but it was her mother who had kept the family’s faith alive, not her dad, and she was sure he would never like to be reminded of that, or even to admit how much his own faith had faltered then. As a fourteen-year-old girl at the time, it was more sharply etched in her memory than she wished it to be.
‘Well, everybody knows Mr Levant spends most of his evenings at the pub, instead of giving Rita a hand,’ she went on, more defensive of all that her friend had to do than condemning the man out of hand.
‘I daresay they’re comfortable with their lives, Jessie, and everyone deals with problems in their own way. None of us knows what goes on behind closed doors in other people’s lives, and if Mr Levant has to drown his sorrows in a glass of beer now and then, it’s his business. Besides, I’ve never heard Rita complain. She’s always bright and cheerful.’
‘She wouldn’t complain, would she? Sometimes, I swear that girl’s turning into a saint,’ Jessie said, not so much censuring her friend as suddenly angry with the thought that she could never live up to such expectations herself. And it was hardly now and then that Zach Levant drowned his sorrows in his beer. The whole village was aware of him rolling home singing bawdy songs every night. No wonder her own father disapproved of him so much, Jessie thought, with a momentary sympathy for his efforts to convert the village. If Thomas Penwarden had his way, the whole blessed lot of them would turn into a community of saints!
‘And this is your best friend you’re talking about?’ Ellen said mildly, in reply to her daughter’s comment.
Jessie started to laugh. ‘Oh well, perhaps it takes an ordinary sinner to appreciate a saint,’ she said lightly, knowing she would never dare to say such a thing in her father’s hearing. ‘Anyway, Mum, we’re going to the dance tonight. Dad won’t object, will he?’
‘I’d say it’s a bit late to be asking for his approval, since you seem to have already made up your mind. Just be careful, and remember who you are.’
Halfway up the stairs to her bedroom, Jessie thought it was an odd thing for her mother to say. How could she ever forget who she was! The entire village knew who Jessie Penwarden was. She was the daughter of the vicar, whose son had been killed during the war, and who had protected his only daughter like some precious object ever since.
She was alternately comforted and madly irritated at the thought. She was a young woman now, and she didn’t need to be cosseted like a child, although she often thought her father was never going to see her as anything less.
Sometimes there was a kind of recklessness inside her that wanted to break out from the safe and comfortable life she undoubtedly had. They weren’t rich, of course. God knew vicars didn’t earn great salaries, but they were settled, with a decent roof over their heads, and her father’s job was a job for life. She should be happy, and, mostly, she was. She had friends she had known all her life, friends she had grown up with in this small community, especially Rita, her best friend, with whom she shared all her secrets, and who probably knew her as well as she knew herself.
Except for the one little devil Jessie kept inside – that just sometimes she wished she was anything but a vicar’s daughter in a tiny Cornish community, and could be something else – anything else.
But as soon as such a thought crept into her mind it was followed immediately by a sense of guilt, and she always squashed it at once. The only time it was revived so much that it wouldn’t go away was when she was in her bed at night, and let herself dream of what might have been, and what could still be, with a bit of courage. Maybe she could have been a singer. She sang in the choir at church and sometimes took the solo parts. She knew she didn’t have a strong voice but people called it a sweet voice, and maybe she could have been on the stage, or in films or musicals. How fantastic would that have been!
As Jessie heard a door bang downstairs she heard the gruff tones of her father’s voice as he greeted her mother, and she gave a soft sigh and put the daydreams aside. Instead, she sat in front of her dressing table mirror, brushing out the tangles and the bits of bracken from her long hair, and wondered if those boys from Penzance really would turn up at the village dance tonight. She wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. They had only arrived last time because it was probably a novelty to come roaring down here on their motorbikes to see what the hayseeds living out in the sticks were doing.
She felt her heart begin to beat a little faster all the same. There were three of them: a blacksmith with grimy fingernails; an apprentice stonemason; and the third one worked for a small delivery firm. Rita had fancied the blacksmith, despite his unkempt appearance, but Jessie had been more attracted to the third young man. His name was Will Tremayne. He was tall and muscular, with dark brown hair and blue eyes that almost matched the colour of her own.
Oh yes, she remembered the boys from Penzance, she thought dreamily.
But there was no time to be letting her thoughts roam in that direction, as she heard her father’s voice rise even more. It was always the same on Saturday evenings. Even without the memory of Adam’s birthday in September, Thomas Penwarden had his Sunday sermon to prepare, which he always chose to leave until the last minute, so he could bring in any topical allusions to what he called ‘goings-on’ in the village. Heaven help the young person who had got into any scrapes that reached his ears, Jessie thought sympathetically, and thanked God it had never been her!
At the same moment she was annoyed with the thought that she might become far too timid because of her father’s influence. If he knew she was dreaming about seeing Will Tremayne again, for instance, he’d probably stop her going to the dance at all, even though it was run and overseen by the Ladies’ Committee, and was therefore deemed to be respectable. Good Lord, during the war, they had even had the occasional influx of GIs turning up, and that would have given her dad something to get het up about if he’d known how many village girls had sneaked a quick kiss outside on moonlit evenings. Jessie hadn’t been allowed to go to the dances then, so she’d never had the chance to know any of the glamorous GIs. But she’d heard about the things that went on, however exaggerated they might have been. And she was red-blooded enough to envy them too!
‘If only we’d been born a few years earlier, we might have become GI brides ourselves,’ the schoolgirl Jessie had said to Rita at the time, complaining at the injustice of it all.
‘No, we wouldn’t. You’d have had your dad down on you like a ton of bricks at the very thought, and he’d never have let you go off to the other side of the world with a Yank. And I’d still be here, looking after my mum.’
‘Haven’t you ever been curious to see America?’ Jessie had asked.
Rita had sniffed. ‘No, thanks very much. Anyway, you know what they say about Yanks. They’re only after one thing.’
Jessie had shivered at the thought. They had still been naive enough to be unsure exactly what the one thing was that the Yanks wanted, but it was more than a hazy idea that it must be something slightly wicked. They hadn’t yet left the restraints of school behind, and they were as innocent of anything to do with sex as when they were infants. It was the older girls at the school who had finally enlightened them.
‘Well, I’m not doing anything like that with a boy,’ Jessie had said, shocked at one of the older girl’s graphic descriptions.
Her name was Dorothy Glyn. She was in the class above Jessie and Rita, and therefore far more knowledgeable about such matters. Besides which, she lived in Penzance, and the town girls felt themselves far superior to the Abbot’s Cove girls …
Dorothy had scoffed at her innocence. ‘You’ll have to if you get married and have babies. Where do you think they come from, ninny, and how do you think they get there?’
‘I’m not doing it either,’ Rita had declared. ‘I’m probably going to be a nun, and then I won’t have to, and Jessie can have her thing sewn up if she wants to.’
Which started them both giggling helplessly, imagining Rita as an unlikely nun, and some strange hospital doctor attempting to sew up Jessie’s thing while she stubbornly refused to unlock her tightly crossed legs.
For some reason that long-ago conversation came into Jessie’s head as she thought about going to the dance that evening. Not that either of them ever had any intention of letting a boy go all the way – or even part of the way, since even now they weren’t too sure just how far that was. They were still both as dumb as each other in that respect, she thought resentfully. If only she had had an older sister instead of a brother, she might have been able to ask her about it. And then she was reminded of Adam again, and she squashed such shameful thoughts immediately.
In any case there was the family supper to get through before she could think of getting ready for the dance, and she quickly realised her father was in one of his bad moods. She practically had to assure him that going to a dance was not tantamount to the forbidden passions of Sodom and Gomorrah – without mentioning such explosive words, of course – and that if the Ladies’ Committee didn’t approve of it and kept their beady eyes on everyone, they would have stopped it long ago.
Sometimes, Jessie felt as though she had to tiptoe around her father to go anywhere. It was a wonder he’d ever agreed to her working in the local chemist’s shop, with the various potions and medicines that the chemist-cum-dispenser made up especially for village folk along with the regular medicines for dyspepsia and headaches. Thomas didn’t agree with doctoring, and he was suspicious of any medicines that weren’t natural remedies. Anything else was akin to witches’ brews, according to him. He believed in time and prayer to heal ailments, and God would do the rest. If you weren’t meant to recover from whatever ailed you, then it was God’s will and you had to abide by it. As for these newfangled antibiotics, he simply didn’t understand them and refused to discuss them.
But tonight it was the monthly dance and the implications of young men and women being in close contact with one another, despite the chaperones of the Ladies’ Committee, that was getting his dander up. Jessie often wondered if it was like this in the towns, or if such narrow-mindedness was confined to insular communities like Abbot’s Cove.
‘You know I’m going with Rita, Dad, and we’ll be perfectly all right together,’ she told him as patiently as she could, considering she was seething inside at still being treated as a child. For heaven’s sake, girls as young as herself had been leaving home and becoming independent and doing all kinds of men’s jobs during the war.
He gave a derisive snort, looking more like a Victorian father now than a man living near the middle of the twentieth century. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a recommendation, knowing what a disgrace to the community the father is.’
‘That’s not fair, Dad! You can’t condemn Rita because of her father, and she’s always been a good daughter, looking after her mother the way she does. You can’t deny the truth of that, can you?’
‘Don’t talk to me about truth, miss, and I’ll thank you not to speak to me in that manner. You’re still a minor in this house, and don’t you forget it.’
As his voice rose, she could see his face getting darker, but she had had to defend her friend, and it wasn’t fair to condemn Rita because of her father’s weakness. Apparently tomorrow’s sermon wasn’t going too well, she thought cynically. It was always the same on Saturday nights. But as usual her mother’s calm voice intervened and managed to soothe ruffled tempers.
‘Thomas, we both know that Jessie will be going to the dance and will come to no harm, so if you two have quite finished this pointless argument I hope you’re both going to sample the apple and blackberry pie I made this afternoon. If it’s not too much trouble, my dears, or have I been wasting my time?’
One sure thing about the vicar was that he could always be relied upon to give in to the needs of his well-rounded stomach, and nor was he slow in complimenting his wife for another fine pie and the topping that went with it.
‘I can’t take the credit for a tin of evaporated milk,’ Ellen replied crisply.
‘But if you’ve finished, Jessie and I will take the dishes to the kitchen and you can go back to working on your sermon, which I suspect isn’t finished yet.’
He gave her a grudging smile. ‘How well you know me, my dear. Very well, I’ll leave you womenfolk to your duties, and, Jessica, be sure to be home by ten-thirty and not a minute later,’ he added as a passing shot.
She fumed again. He knew how she hated being called Jessica, and she always saw it as a barb when he did so, just to annoy her. If she hadn’t been brought up to respect her elders and to honour her mother and father as the commandments decreed, she’d have said he was a bully.
‘He doesn’t mean to upset you, love,’ her mother said as they started on the washing-up. ‘He can’t help being concerned for you, and he’s always extra tetchy at this time of year. It’s just his way.’
‘I know, but it’s not my fault that Adam was killed, and I don’t have to be wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of my life because of it, do I?’ she burst out.
Ellen’s hands were stilled in the sudsy water for a moment, before she spoke evenly again. ‘I’ll forget you said that, Jessie. I don’t want to fall out with you, so if you’re planning on going to the dance this evening, you had better leave the rest of this to me, and go and get yourself ready.’
As Jessie mumbled an apology and got out of the kitchen as quickly as she could, she knew, of course, that it hadn’t been the right thing to do to mention Adam like that. They had all been devastated when they learnt that her brother’s plane had been blown out of the sky with no chance of any survivors. Jessie the schoolgirl had fully expected her brother to come home from the war as the family hero, and she and her mother had wept uncontrollably for days when the news came, while Thomas had retreated into himself, shutting himself away in his study or in the church, and hardly saying a word to anyone. It had been a horrible time, and there were still days when the memories came back to haunt all of them, but, young as she was, she knew she was right in thinking that you couldn’t let it rule your life.
She held her head up high as she went up the stairs to her bedroom to get ready for the evening. Adam was gone, and she was a young woman of seventeen now. She was no longer a child, and she had the right to blossom as any normal young woman should, and not be held back by a dogmatic parent with his head and his ideas still in the past. With that thought brimming in her mind, she got down to the more important business of washing herself all over, dabbing talcum powder in her armpits, and changing into a soft blue flowered frock, a precious pair of nylon stockings, and white shoes.
Finally, she applied a touch of pink lipstick to her mouth and stood back to judge the effect, not quite willing to admit that the tingling sensation running through her now was due to wondering what effect her appearance might have on a certain Will Tremayne.
CHAPTER TWO
Jessie Penwarden wasn’t the only person with her heart set on going out that evening. Away on the outskirts of Penzance in the cottage he shared with his mother, Will Tremayne was another, but the fact that there was a dance at Abbot’s Cove was only one of the reasons he was keen to go. Penzance might seem like the bright lights to people living down in the sticks, but truth to tell, if you didn’t go into the town itself, there wasn’t much to do.
It had been different while there was a war on, he thought, a little guiltily. The Yanks had been here, billeted with various people in the town and cheering everybody up with their sweets and chocolate and gum for the kids, and God knew what else for the local girls, and there was plenty of activity in preparing for an invasion that never came. Despite all the rationing and the propaganda about being careful who you spoke to in case they were German spies, which caused more excitement among the local lads than fear, there was always plenty of community spirit then too, with everybody doing their bit, as Mr Churchill kept telling them.
When they first came, some of the Yanks had called Cornwall the back of beyond, and they had certainly livened the place up. Three years on, now that the town had returned to normal, it all seemed a bit dead. Will’s dad had gone off years ago, allegedly with some French tart, or so the rumours went, leaving him and his mother, Doris, to fend for themselves. Getting his first job as a motorcycle courier with a local delivery firm had made him feel a hell of a fellow, even though Doris hated what she called the death machines.
But it had brought in a weekly wage when they most needed it, and coupled with his mother’s laundry work for some of the nobs in the area, it allowed them to keep the cottage and to live a respectable life. Besides, as he’d told her, he was now part of the Motorcycle Despatch Group, a self-styled title he and his pals had given themselves. It also gave them a bit of status to offset the fact that what they enjoyed most was racing around the countryside at speed and seeing which one of them could outdo the other. In his mind, Will fancied himself as one of the elite motorcycle despatch riders who had done dangerous work behind enemy lines during the war.
‘You be careful now, Will, and mind how you go on that death machine,’ his mother told him, as she always did, when he was finally ready to leave home that evening – just as if he was still a kid instead of nearing his twentieth birthday, he thought with an impatient sigh.
‘Don’t worry about me, Mum. I know what I’m doing, otherwise Mr Spencer wouldn’t have employed me, would he?’
It was always the best argument, especially knowing that old Spencer was rather sweet on his mum, and she was flattered by it as well – two facts that seemed slightly laughable to Will. Besides, it was obviously going nowhere, considering that his dad was still alive – at least, as far as they knew.
‘Well, Jim Spencer was always a good judge of character, I’ll say that,’ Doris agreed, with no idea that her son silently chuckled at the way her cheeks went somewhat pinker as she said it. But he gave her shoulders a quick squeeze all the same, knowing that she only wanted the best for him.
But he had no more time to spare on what his mum and old Spencer might think about each other. Tonight he was going to have some fun, and into his mind then came the image of a girl with long, dark brown hair and startling blue eyes that he’d met at the last Abbot’s Cove dance, a month ago. He tried to remember her name – Jessie something, that was it. He wondered vaguely if she’d be there that night – and then turned his thoughts more importantly to the sound of his pals’ motorbikes as they stopped outside his cottage, revving up their engines as aggressively as some latter-day dinosaurs out for the kill. Local folk might tut-tut at what they considered sheer thoughtlessness at disrupting the peace of the countryside, but it was still music to Will’s ears.
‘Come on, Will, we haven’t got all night,’ he heard Des Greenaway bellow above the sound of the engines. He blew his mum a kiss before she had the chance to complain, and went out of the cottage to join the others.
He felt puffed up immediately. A fine bunch of fellows they looked, sitting astride their bikes like avenging angels – or something. More like devils, as far as Des and Ronnie Hill were concerned, he thought, hiding a grin. Neither of them had a great reputation when it came to girls, and they weren’t above a bit of pilfering when it suited them, either, but they’d always played fair with Will, and that was what mattered.
He remembered something he’d heard his dad once say to his mum, in the dim and distant past when his dad had bothered to come home at all. It was about some lad who’d got a girl into trouble, before Will had really been old enough to know what kind of trouble that meant. He knew it now, of course. You couldn’t go through the war years without seeing the way some of the local girls flirted with the Yanks, and how one or two of them had mysteriously disappeared from the town, supposedly to stay with a relative or to get a job in another part of the county. By now, Will and everyone else knew what that meant. He’d never wanted to think of his dad as a rogue, but it had slowly dawned on him that that was exactly what he was.
‘Boys will be boys, Doris, and girls should be grateful,’ his dad had said, with the kind of laugh that implied he thought himself a hell of a bloke who could charm any female he wanted. It was a pity Will hadn’t been mature enough to know that being a hell of a bloke also meant he didn’t think twice about leaving his family for his French tart. If he’d been old enough he’d have punched his dad’s lights out. But that chance had gone, and Will was older and wiser now – and harder too – since his dad had left him and his mum to fend for themselves.
He knew damn well that Des Greenaway and Ronnie Hill were certainly followers of his dad’s kind of thinking, and if they sometimes thought Will was just trailing along in their wake, it suited him to let them think that way for now. Fact was, there were no other bikers around the area and it was good to feel part of a group. If he also felt superior to the other two, that was something he wasn’t letting on, either.
As for the girls the trio were hoping to meet that night at the dance, he had no doubt which one of them he fancied. The brown-haired girl who had caught his eyes last time was still uppermost in his thoughts as the bikers careered their way over the top of the moors and down the country lanes towards Abbot’s Cove. There had been a sprinkling of rain earlier, and their outer clothes were well splattered by the time they neared the village hall.
‘This is the life, eh, boys?’ Ronnie Hill yelled back to the others. ‘Nobody to answer to but ourselves.’
‘Amen to that,’ Will shouted back, as the wind tore at his face, stung his eyes and carried the words away. ‘For now, anyway.’
Maybe someday in the future he’d find himself a wife and settle down, and be the kind of man his father never was. But not yet. The war years were behind them, and now was for having fun, and there was still a kind of recklessness in having come through it all unscathed, even for those who’d been too young to really get caught up in it at all.
Jessie Penwarden and her friend Rita Levant linked arms and strolled towards the village hall that evening, anticipating what the dance might bring. The small shower of rain earlier had scented the spring flowers in cottage gardens, and an earthy smell emanated all around them that was refreshing after the heat of the day. Then the two girls gave a scream as three motorbikes suddenly slewed to a halt alongside them, scattering dirt and leaves, and making them rub away the muddy mess on their summer dresses in a fury.
‘What do you think you’re doing, you idiots?’ Rita yelled out.
‘Same as you, girls, going to the dance,’ Des said with a leering smile. ‘Who fancies the first one with me?’
‘Get lost, you twerps,’ Jessie retorted. ‘Come on, Rita, let’s go inside.’
She had already begun rubbing at the soft fabric of her dress too hard, and instead of brushing away the mud she had managed to smear it into the material, leaving a few ugly streaks.
‘Look at my dress! My mother spent hours making it for me, and she’ll kill me when she sees it in this state.’
Upset and furious, she felt close to tears. She hadn’t even confided in Rita how much she had been looking forward to this evening, letting her imagination run away with her. In her dreams she had been floating around the dance floor in the arms of a certain Will Tremayne, and she had seen the dawn of love in his eyes. Instead of which … instead of which, the two bikers with him were sitting back on their machines and sniggering at the plight of the two girls, and Will was doing nothing about it all. No apology, no sign of regret, nothing. Well, if that was the kind of bloke he was, she was glad she’d found it out quickly, before she really fell for him. Then he got off his bike and fumbled for something in his pocket. Seconds later he handed her a folded hanky.
‘Here, take this to clean off the worst of it. I’m sure there’s somebody in the cloakroom to help you, and I don’t need it back.’
He was so embarrassed she didn’t have the heart to refuse his offer. She took the handkerchief silently, and Rita marched her inside the hall, while they heard Will’s mates laughing at him and calling him a right little knight in shining armour. Jessie didn’t care. It had been a sweet gesture, and she clutched the hanky tightly as they made their way inside and straight to the cloakroom.
‘Good heavens, Jessie, what’s happened to you?’ One of the overseeing Ladies’ Committee said at once as the girls went inside.
‘I got splashed, Mrs Price,’ Jessie muttered. ‘Can you help me get the marks off my dress before Mum sees it?’
The woman’s eyes softened from their usual sternness. As the wife of the chemist who Jessie worked for, she seemed to think she had to keep an eye on the girl, despite the company she kept. She and Chem, as she always called him, had no children, but if they did, she would have liked a daughter to turn out like Jessie Penwarden.
‘Come along then, my dear. You’re a good girl, Jessie. There should be more like you, always concerned about your parents’ opinion.’
‘That’s probably aimed at me,’ Rita whispered, giving a dig in the ribs. ‘Like father, like daughter.’
‘Don’t be daft. You’re nothing like him. You don’t drink, for one thing.’
Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned Zach Levant’s drinking, but everybody knew about it anyway. Before she could apologise to Rita, Mrs Price led them both to the washbasin and dampened Will Tremayne’s clean hanky with a bit of soap and water. Jessie watched her dab at the marks on her dress, feeling suddenly weird, as if she was in a kind of trance. This was Will’s hanky, part of his life, and he was sharing it with her. What a daft thing to think. She swallowed, wondering if she should have eaten more supper, because she was feeling decidedly light-headed, and the dance hadn’t even begun yet. It must be excitement, that was all.
‘Are you all right?’ she heard Rita say urgently.
‘Of course I am. It’s just very hot in here, that’s all.’
‘It’ll be even hotter in the hall,’ Mrs Price observed. ‘There’s plenty of Miss Hope’s lemonade for sale, proceeds to the church funds, of course, so if you girls feel in the slightest bit unwell, you be sure to drink a glass or two.’
‘Old trout does a fine job in touting for church funds,’ Rita whispered when Mrs Price had finished doing what she could with Jessie’s dress, and left her to dry out. ‘I reckon she fancies your dad.’
Jessie burst out laughing, and her world turned the right way up again. The thought of the prim and proper Mrs Price, with her regimented grey marcel-waved hair and parchment skin, fancying Jessie’s roly-poly of a father, was enough to make anybody laugh! Even more so was the thought of her dad’s eyes ever straying from her mum and the pulpit he held so dear.
‘Never in a million years, but thanks for that, Rita. It’s the best thing I’ve heard tonight,’ she said, still chuckling at such an unlikely pairing.
‘Well, thank goodness something’s cheered you up. I thought that little episode outside was going to finish the evening good and proper. At least she did a good job with your dress, Jess. Your mum will never know.’
She would know, though. She’d know that Will Tremayne was capable of doing a chivalrous act, and that he was nothing like the two farm yokels he rode around with. He was special.
By the time the dress was dry enough for them to make their appearance in the hall, it was to find it crowded, and the music was blaring out from the gramophone player. Predictably, there was going to be a selection of old-time dances, a few waltzes and quicksteps, and some so-called party dances, including some excuse-mes. As far as any of the dances the Yanks had brought over to towns and cities that were more progressive than here, Abbot’s Cove had stood firmly still and didn’t hold with any of them – at least, not as far as the Ladies’ Committee was concerned.
But she wasn’t going to think of any of them now. Some people were already dancing to a military two-step, but on either side of the hall there was the usual row of boys on one side and girls on the other. Jessie could see Will and his mates, huddled together on the far side of the hall and giggling over something.
Rita nudged her friend. ‘That Des is a bit of a rough diamond, but he’s a smasher too, isn’t he?’ she whispered.
‘I suppose he’s good-looking in an Errol Flynn kind of way, but I don’t like him,’ Jessie replied.
‘Well, that’s because you’ve only got eyes for that other one. Anyway, that suits me. We don’t both want to fancy the same boy.’
Jessie was about to say she didn’t really fancy anyone, even though it wasn’t strictly true, when the music stopped, and it was announced that the next dance was going to be a ladies’ excuse-me waltz.
‘Choose your partners, girls, and see how long you can hold on to him before someone else claims him,’ the arch voice of Miss Hope rang out.
‘Come on,’ Rita said. ‘This is our chance. Those three will sit there all night unless we jerk them into action. Let’s see what they’re made of.’
Before Jessie could argue, Rita had grabbed her arm and was steering her across the hall to confront the three bikers.
‘You can’t refuse to have this dance with us, so on your feet, boys,’ she said breezily, holding her hand out to a grinning Des, while his mate Ronnie egged him on.
‘May I have the pleasure?’ Jessie mumbled to Will, her face a fiery red, but determined to do it right if she was going to do it at all.
‘I’m not much good, but if you’re willing to risk it, so am I,’ he said, standing up at once.
She hadn’t realised quite how tall he was. He was right, too. He wasn’t much good at the waltz, but neither was she, and somehow they stumbled their way around the hall. She felt shivery inside, just knowing that his arm was around her waist and she was literally in his arms. When he trod on her toe she leant against him to keep her balance for a moment, and it was the sweetest feeling to be aware of the thud of his heartbeats against her own. Was this how it felt to fall in love, she wondered? And did he feel it too?
She realised they hadn’t spoken since they began dancing, except for the occasional apology from one or other of them. It was absurd, and yet somehow it was also just right, because despite the clumpiness of their movements she still felt as though she was floating on air, knowing she had dreamt of this all this week. She was seventeen years old, and at this moment she felt as young and naive as a newly hatched chick. She was sensing life for the very first time … The idyll was suddenly broken as she heard a female voice right in her ear.
‘Excuse me.’
She was pushed out of the way by the other dancers as a girl in a bright yellow dress elbowed her way into Will’s arms for the remainder of the dance. Jessie stood there undecided for a moment, feeling ridiculously bereft. Rita and Des were hovering near, and Rita hissed in her ear.
‘Excuse her back, you idiot. Don’t let her get him.’
It seemed a pretty daft thing to do so quickly, but as if propelled by a force she didn’t know she possessed, Jessie fought her way back to where Will and the girl were making an ungainly show of themselves, and she tapped the girl firmly on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me. My partner, I think.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Will said in some relief. ‘That one had two left feet. You’re a guardian angel.’
Jessie laughed in embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t say that. I just thought we made quite a good dance partnership, that’s all.’
‘So will you dance a few more with me? I need somebody to teach me the steps. After this one, I’ll buy you some lemonade if you agree.’
She looked up into his face, knowing her own must be flushed, and wondered if he had any idea just how much she was attracted to him.
‘Well, I don’t need a bribe to teach you a few dance steps, but a glass of lemonade would be nice,’ she said demurely.
They walked to the refreshment table together, and there was no sign of Rita anywhere. Not that it mattered. Rita was perfectly capable of looking after herself. They found some chairs, and now that she had Will all to herself, she wanted to learn more about him, and it seemed he wanted the same of her.
‘Phew!’ he said, whistling softly. ‘I’ve never been out with a vicar’s daughter before.’
‘You’re not going out with one now,’ Jessie said. ‘It’s only a village dance.’
‘We could put that right. How about if I come down next Saturday and take you for a spin on the bike? You could show me these old abbey ruins I’ve heard about.’
‘Maybe. I’d probably have to meet you at Rita’s place near the end of the village, since it wouldn’t go down too well with my dad if you turned up on a motorbike.’
As if by magic, Rita appeared at her side right then, accompanied by the other two boys. Her cheeks were flushed, her lipstick smudged, and it didn’t take two guesses to know what had been going on. For a moment Jessie was almost envious, wishing she was as easy-going as her friend, but with a background like hers, she knew she was always going to be taking the cautious approach to life. But Rita wasn’t going to have it all her own way. While the other boys went to fetch some lemonade, she spoke quickly.
‘Will’s taking me out on the bike next Saturday, and I said I’d meet him at your place, all right?’
‘Couldn’t be better, since the boys are coming down next Saturday as well. We can all start out together, even if we don’t stay together, if you see what I mean,’ she added with a wink.
‘You just be careful,’ Jessie felt obliged to say, and hating herself the minute she’d said it for sounding like one of her dad’s committee ladies.
Rita flung an arm affectionately around her shoulders. ‘And you just be reckless for once!’ she whispered in her ear.
By the end of the evening, Jessie was feeling on top of the world. She had a boy of her own, and she had a date for next Saturday. In bed that night, she wrote the words in her diary, together with Will’s name, and she stared at them for long moments afterwards, her mind milling around.
A few years ago other girls her age had been to war, or done dangerous war work, had met GIs and got married and been whisked away to America to live a life of luxury with none of the deprivations the war had imposed here. Girls her age had really lived a full and sometimes dangerous life … while a girl like her, living in a backwater with a father who was almost Victorian in his attitudes, was getting excited over her very first date with a boy.
She wondered what her brother would have thought of Will Tremayne. Adam’s image came into her mind, as it still did so easily, her young, handsome, daredevil brother, who had somehow managed to defy what their father might have wanted for him, because he was a hero, and had died because of it. She knew instantly that Adam would have approved. He would have liked Will, who lived with his mother but had the kind of civvy job that meant he wasn’t tied to a desk or something mundane.
Yes, Adam would have approved, and with a small sigh Jessie closed the diary and put it in her bedside drawer beneath her underwear.
At church next day she knew Rita would be sitting in a pew near the back, accompanying her mother in her wheelchair. Whether or not Zach Levant would put in an appearance always depended on how much he’d had to drink at the local pub the night before, and whether or not his head and his legs could stand it. Jessie and her mother always attended, no matter what the weather, and only illness could keep either one of them away. Jessie glanced around as she heard the squeak of the wheelchair, and smiled at her best friend, the special smile that spoke of shared secrets.
The little church at Abbot’s Cove wasn’t big enough or grand enough to boast an organ, but as always Miss Hope played valiantly on the upright piano, and the congregation sang the hymns lustily and loudly, and then settled down to listen to, or sleep through, Vicar Penwarden’s sermon. It was always something of a relief when it was over, the last hymn had been sung, and they could all spill out into the sunlit August morning.
‘I want a word with Rita, Mum,’ Jessie said. ‘So I’ll see you at home.’
‘Don’t be too long, then,’ Ellen replied. ‘You know your father doesn’t like to be kept waiting for his Sunday dinner.’
Mrs Levant was already talking to some friends when Jessie caught up with her and Rita, and she drew her friend aside.
‘Are we going for a walk on the moors this afternoon, or do you want to go for a bike ride?’
They always spent their weekends together, but it dawned on her that her friend wasn’t looking as eager as usual. Rita usually looked forward to getting out of the house on Sunday afternoons, since it was the one time her dad was always there, usually sprawled out in an armchair and snoring like the clappers, but at least his presence was there to keep her mum company.
‘I’m already going out, Jess, but not with you,’ she said uneasily. ‘Look, I’m sorry, kid, but after we parted company last night Des said he’d be coming down on his motorbike again, without that boring mate Ronnie of his always hanging around. We’re going for a ride somewhere.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘You don’t mind, do you? It’s not as if we’re joined at the hip like Siamese twins, is it?’ Rita said, trying to make a joke of it.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Jessie said, knowing damn well that she did. She minded very much, especially at the thought of Rita going off with that oaf Des. It would be different next week when they were all together. There was safety in numbers and all that. Without knowing why, she knew she wouldn’t trust Des Greenaway farther than she could throw him.
‘Good,’ Rita said with relief. ‘I might still say I’ve been out with you, though, Jess, in case anybody asks.’
Her mother called out to her then and the time for chatting was over. But if those last words told Jessie that even Rita thought it wasn’t the best idea to be seen out on her own with the likes of Des Greenaway, it just underlined her own unease about the whole thing. Then she shrugged. She wasn’t Rita’s keeper, and Rita was savvy enough to take care of herself, for goodness’ sake.
‘Are you and Rita going out this afternoon?’ Ellen Penwarden asked when they returned to the house, where the smell of the slow-roasting Sunday dinner was filling the vicarage with a succulent aroma.
‘We’re probably going up to the moors, or maybe take a walk along the cliffs for a change,’ Jessie said, hoping with a weird stab of foreboding that this was the only little white lie she was going to tell on her friend’s behalf.
‘That’s nice,’ Ellen said absently. ‘Don’t go too near the edge, that’s all,’ she added as she always did.
‘Oh Mum, we know those cliffs like the back of our hands,’ Jessie said. ‘Maybe I’ll bring you back some sea pinks – but if we change our minds and go down to the cove I’ll look for some fossils to add to your collection.’
Listening to herself, she felt a momentary panic. One little white lie always seemed to attach itself to another, elaborating and embellishing the first one. Rita was so much better at this than she was. It wasn’t in her nature to lie, but here she was, making all sorts of plans that weren’t going to come true … except that, come hell or high water, she knew she was going to bring back something for her mother that afternoon, if only to alleviate her conscience.
That was one of the penalties – or maybe the penance – for being a vicar’s daughter, she thought ruefully.
CHAPTER THREE
Mondays were always the busiest days at the chemist’s shop in the village. From the number of folk who appeared with their prescriptions for their cough medicines or stomach settlers, Jessie guessed that the doctor’s surgery was probably just as busy after the weekend.
Then there were those who didn’t want to bother the doctor at all, and the shop was always crowded with folk who just came in for a gossip and something that the chemist could prescribe for them, as though this was the natural place for such a gathering.
Harold Price was a jovial chemist, far more so than his eagle-eyed wife Vera, who could always guess when a body came into the shop requesting something she shouldn’t, or the things that she needed, and putting two and two together. Many a young married woman’s family had been the last to know when there was a baby expected, and many an older woman’s family the last to know that she was on the change, but Vera Price was inevitably the first. Harold attended to the needs of his customers diligently, while his wife fancied herself as keeper of the village morals.
Jessie enjoyed working there. It was as though the whole spectrum of human life came through the chemist’s doors, she once told Harold.
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ he’d said, beaming at having such an intelligent and imaginative girl working for him. She was a sight more so than her friend, Rita. But Harold was a generous enough soul to think that just because the other girl had a drunkard and a loudmouth of a father, it didn’t have to rub off on his daughter. Besides, the mother was a gentle soul, and it was sad enough for her to be afflicted with such a boor of a husband without censuring the daughter for being a bit flighty. At least she was always cheerful.
‘You’re in a pensive mood today, Mr Price,’ Jessie said, in a rare quiet spell on that Monday morning, when he’d failed to answer one of her questions. ‘You’ll be mixing up the pill bottles in the dispensary if you’re not careful.’
The man laughed at her teasing. ‘That’s one thing I’ll never do, my dear. Imagine handing out a bottle of laxative pills instead of dyspepsia ones! I dread to think of the outcome.’
Jessie giggled at his unconscious pun, while his wife, coming in from the back of the shop in time to hear the last remarks, frowned at such frivolity.
‘To listen to the two of you, anyone would think this was a music hall instead of a respectable establishment.’
Behind his wife’s back, Harold rolled his eyes at Jessie. Heaven help anyone who got on the wrong side of Vera Price, she couldn’t help thinking, and then turned her thoughts to other things as the shop door tinkled and several customers came in to keep her busy. She smiled and chatted as she dealt with those wanting sticking plasters or cotton wool or calling for their prescriptions to be made up while they passed the time of day with their neighbours.
Every now and then, though, her thoughts strayed to the coming weekend. There was no dance this week but she’d be seeing Will on Saturday afternoon. It was enough to make her nerves quiver with something she couldn’t altogether understand, a kind of lovely and shivery feeling at the same time.
She wondered vaguely how Rita had got on going out with Des the previous afternoon. Jessie had done exactly what she said she was going to do, taken a walk up on the moors and found some sea pinks near the cliff edge, and then walked down to the cove and searched for some fossils for her mother. At least that much had gone according to plan, and no lies had been told.
Rita Levant worked in a little haberdashery and gift shop bordering the sandy curve of the cove. They sold all kinds of Cornish bric-a-brac that attracted the visitors who came down here from upcountry to discover and explore the quaint little Cornish hideaways, now that travel was becoming popular again, three years after the war ended.
The trains took them to Penzance, and little branch lines and buses took them even further west. With petrol more available now, motorcars and even the occasional charabanc found their way as far as Abbot’s Cove and even down to Land’s End, that great outcrop of rock from where there was nothing but the Atlantic Ocean all the way to America.
The winter of 1947 had been a terrible one for the whole country, and even Cornwall had been frozen solid for several months, but now the country was looking as verdant and beautiful as ever, and visitors were flocking to see these folk who lived at the far end of the country and were as much of a mystery to city folk as alien beings.
‘I don’t know why anybody would pay good money for something like this when you can pick them up on any beach for yourself,’ Rita commented, as she dusted a box of shells on that Monday morning.
