"An immediately engaging and well-paced story, well told,"
"...evoking the atmosphere of Greece and the hospitality of its people"
"..... a clever mixture of romance, intrigue, history and 'whodunnit' I was pulled to it to the finish"
"A fascinating exploration of motivation in desperate times, I couldn't put it down"
"....a gripping read with well-drawn and interesting characters"
Wednesday 19 September 2007
Saturday 11 August 2007
Martha's Vineyard Chapter One
i) "You've got to go down there straight away!"
Sally was the first person I told about my letter from Parchett and partners, solicitors and the subsequent phone conversation.
"Get the first train you can tomorrow."
"How can I we've only been back in for two days? I can't ask the boss for time off for this."
"Why the fuck not?" Sally's an English teacher," It's not as if you ever have any time off. Look, I've just had to cover for Wally Scott. Time off doesn't seem to bother him. He's only been back a day and he’s off on the sick again. Mind you, I can see why, it's no wonder he has stress! I've just had to cover his 9Q group. Every single one of those poor little fuckers suffers from a loose light bulb." She flopped her slender frame down into one of the staffroom chairs, picked up the Times Education Supplement and opened it at the jobs page. I often wondered if anyone ever bothered to read the rest of it. Only back at work two days and already looking for a new job, greener pastures, and we, the custodians of the nation's youth.
"Go and see the boss, she'll be alright! It sounds to me that you've just lost your last surviving relative for God's sake."
"Yea but I didn't know her! I didn't even know she existed 'til I made the phone call."
"She doesn't need to know that does she? Here let me see the letter."
She was right. In fact the boss was surprisingly nonchalant about it. Was sure colleagues wouldn't mind covering my absence, given the circumstances. I didn’t share her optimism but I wasn't going to refuse. I'd pitched it well enough. I was very upset, needed to go to London to sort out the affairs of my last surviving relative, very tedious but I was the only one left to do it, should only take a day or two. It worked a treat.
"I'm on Sal." She was still leafing through the jobs pages, there's never much in at the start of term, but you have to look, haven’t you?
"I'll just have to sort out some work to leave for the kids,"
"I'll do that you get on the phone."
I rang Parchetts's office back and made an appointment for 3:30 the following afternoon.
Sally handed me the letter back. "It looks kosher enough. So who's this mysterious Aunt Martha then?"
"I've absolutely no idea."
I sat down next to Sal and stared at the letter for a long time. It was dated the 13th December but hadn't arrived until this morning, over three weeks later, Christmas post I supposed. Parchett wanted to "discuss various matters in your interest," it was almost like something out of a Dickens story. I'd managed to glean from him on the phone that, if I he was satisfied that I was the correct Robert Hazzard; I stood to benefit from him discharging the will of my Aunt Martha. He wouldn't say too much more than that on the phone but assured me that I would be reimbursed in the unlikely event that I was found to be the wrong Robert Hazzard.
I had to own up to being totally baffled, I'd never heard of an Aunt Martha.
"What time you going home?"
"Any minute," I said, "I've got my writers' group tonight."
"Oh, your bunch of misfits" that's how Sally affectionately referred to my group,
"I'll walk home with you." This was no surprise, I suppose Sally's my best friend, we walked most of the way home together every night. Have done since I started there about two years before. Sally's a couple of years older than I am. She's thirty two. She's was a real brick to me when I moved back to live with Gran in Fletcherford after my granddad died. She lived with her mother not far from my grandparent’s house, 42 Blenheim Gardens. I met her the day I started doing supply teaching at Fletcherford Community College. It's a wonder I hadn't known her when I was a kid but I suppose those couple of years when you're at that age it makes such a big difference. Two years, it seems laughable now.
It was already dark as we left the school gates. The wind nipped our faces and our breath made little clouds in the air as we chattered through the January streets of the council estate that surrounded the college. A forest of Christmas trees glimmered through the net curtains of the houses we passed, Sally speculating all the way about the meeting in London. As we turned the corner into Anchor Road the darkness was suddenly overpowered by the lights of the two houses on the corner whose owners had conspired to create a Las Vegas Christmas in a northern English town. Two, former, council houses, now in private ownership, (you can always tell by the front doors, it's the first thing people change) so laden down with neon that the national grid must be aware when they switch on. Flashing Santas, elves, gnomes, sleighs and Merry Xmases bit into the darkness. Sally always giggled as we passed but I knew I'd secretly miss them when they came down at the weekend until they reappeared sometime early October.
"You'll ring me as soon as you know anything won't you?" she said as we parted.
"Sally, you'll be the second to know.
ii) I joined the writers' group partly to try and give myself some discipline and to replace my other hobby, rugby. I'd given up playing at the end of last season. It was getting to be a hassle getting to training on school nights and giving up every weekend. Besides I felt that as I was becoming a mature member of my community it was time to devote myself to more sedate pleasures. I'd started a youth team as an after hours school team anyway and that meant I could keep up with some fitness regime but leaving Fletcherford Rugby Club had left a gap in my social calendar.
That's where the writers' group came in. I thought something formal might give me the push to actually complete a project. But the elusive first novel remained as elusive as ever, "My unfinished symphonies" Sally calls them. From being very small I've tried to write but nothing ever seemed to get beyond the first few pages. At least I had progressed to chapters. I've tried the lot, horror, fantasy, science fiction, epic but I never seem to sustain the energy to finish anything. That's why I joined the group. I saw an advert in the local library. "Do you have an urge to write? Join published author, Andy Dougrie, Every Wednesday 7:30 from September 19th." Initially there were ten of us, it soon dwindled down to seven including Andy but I really enjoyed it. We met in a side room of the public library on the High Street and usually went to the pub afterwards. Andy writes novels about Highland clans, all cutlass and claymore and is really quite an inspirational guy. Very over the top Glaswegian but devoted to his writing and the encouragement of aspiring writers.
"You'll no become a writer unless ye can keep yer airse touching cloth. If ye cannie sit down to it it'll no happen. You'll find any excuse you can to stop. It's like revising for exams. You'll be cleaning the oven, dusting, tidying your shed; you name it, any excuse. We call it "displacement activity" in the business" He's right of course. It's about discipline which I suppose is why I was trying to stick with it. If you were going to the group you had to be producing. The first session Andy had given us ice-breakers and introduction exercises that went really well. We had to pair off in the group and write a scenario for our partner. Who they were, their personality, their likes and dislikes etc complete fiction and then see if we had anything right. We were all well off the mark and that got us off to a good start. After a few weeks it progressed to presenting our own writing and soon it got to the stage that we were genuinely interested in each other's stories. Andy would usually start us off with the latest stage in the process of his latest novel. The beauty of having a published writer being that he could conceivably advise us all through the whole rigmarole from idea to publication. I looked forward to it eagerly every week and would have a few pages ready for comment. That's how it worked. We would read our stuff in turn. After a reading Andy and then the rest of the group would offer suggestions or general encouragement. The usual order:
Jonathan, tall, stick-insect thin, fair, pink, exceptionally clean and smart. Civil servant I think. Black leather jacket, rimless glasses, very intense, licks his lips all the time. He was working on an angst filled saga of a gay, Northern steel worker coming out in the 60's. I made the assumption that he must be gay.
Ben, stocky, ruddy face, red hair, red beard, dirty fingernails. Works in the countryside, tree surgeon, something like that. Checked shirts and jeans, smells of brown sauce and creosote. A classic horny handed son of toil. He's married and has a couple of small kids. He mumbles almost incoherently when he speaks but he reads out loud with such passion and clarity that it’s impossible not to be rapt. Writes poems and short stories with a countryside flavour. They're excellent! He brought in a poem he'd written after finding a frozen field mouse that was so good I asked if I could use it in school. I did and the kids loved it.
Jean, slightly plump, cuddly, bubbly, middle-aged, 60ish? Housewife/ full-time grandmother. Sparkly cardigans, specs on a chain, slacks and trainers. A story of expat wives in the Middle East oilfields. Very light but entertaining.
Susan is a social worker. She's really confident but shakes all the time she's speaking. She's a queer one alright, she is an amazing mimic and can do all our voices when she reads from her work but it freaks me out a bit because she reckons she has some sort of second sight, she's had all these out of body experiences and often talks about ghosts and messages from beyond. She's maybe twenty five with already quite pronounced lines around her full mouth, probably from constantly smoking rollies. All the time anyone else is reading she's rolling a ciggie and as soon as they finish she excuses herself and nips out for a smoke. She's what my year eleven boys would call "fit, in a hippy way." Long skirts and Doc Martins, denim jackets T shirts, no bra. Her story is about a teenage girl in care, coming to terms with her experience of sexual abuse. We were in tears more than once. It's a very harrowing piece of work, she claims it's is the true story of a girl who committed suicide as a result of her experiences and who is sending her the story from "the other side," I have a bit of trouble with that but it's a great piece of writing. If Irving Welch had written it the critics would be over it like flies around shit.
Me, I was working on a fictitious memoir of a young orphan smothered by the religious intensity of his maternal grandparents raising him in a town not unlike Fletcherford. It seemed to be quite well received and I worked hard to convince everyone that it was in no way autobiographical and they, being the good souls they are, pretended to believe me. For my part I always try to get along with people but I had been a little off with Susan once or twice. People who have close encounters with the spirit world tend to get on my tits. I guess it's because I've got so many more people on the "other side" than most. I mean it's bound to be irritating isn't it? I've got all thos people on the other side, you'd think at least one of the bastards would have been in touch over the years if contact was as easy as Susan seems to make out.
Alice, flouncy, divorced mid 30's, singing teacher, lots of jewellery and floral print. Her face, very thin and pretty, in an Edwardian, vicar's wife kind of way, half spectacles that perch halfway down her nose. A wicked sense of humour and possibly the only member of the group who intimidated Andy. Although I'm sure that is never her intention. Her story mainly concerns the sexual athletics of a 17 year old convent girl. Very explicit and drawn against a backdrop of fire, brimstone and savage, brutal, vicious nuns. Hers is autobiographical. I gathered some evidence of this on the residential weekend we all spent together in the Lake District last October and several times since. I did feel a bit guilty that I hadn't told Sally about my quite regular visits to Alice but Sally didn't approve of casual sex. She's not had a lot of luck with men and holds a pretty dim view of them all in all.
So there they all were, most of the friends I had in the world. Actually that sounds a bit pathetic doesn’t it? I had loads of mates from the rugby club who I could go for a pint with. Who knew how much beer I could consume, knew how to anticipate a side-step here or a change of direction there. Who knew how I would react in various situations in the complex ballet that takes place on the rugby pitch and in the post-match bout of boozing but I wouldn’t have been able to share my writing with them or in fact with any of my mates from school who I occasionally went out with. That is apart from Sally, of course.
After the session, when we were all in the pub I told Andy and Alice about my impending trip to London.
“Very intriguing wee man!" was Andy's response, "There'll be a book in it I've no doubt." There again, everything had a book in it as far as Andy was concerned. Alice's response was quite different, "You will keep in touch won't you?" she said prophetically.
"I'll be back on Friday night for God's sake!" was my response but later, in the darkness of her bedroom she turned and cuddled into me and said,
"You know before, when you said about your trip tomorrow?"
"Yea!"
"I got this feeling that you would be going away somewhere, and I know neither of us wants anything serious but I've got to quite like you being around."
"It'll be ok!"
I held her for little while longer.
"I'd better go. Early start tomorrow."
When I got back to the house there was an answer phone message. It was Sally,
"Don't ring me if it's after midnight, but I'll be thinking about you tomorrow. Take care!" I knew that she'd been thinking about my feelings at finding and losing an aunt in the same day. That's the sort of person Sally is. She speaks very plainly and may come across to some as being insensitive but she always puts everyone else's feelings above her own. It was five to twelve. I didn't ring.
iii) Fletcherford railway station has the usual faded and grubby charm of any Victorian station. It was built at a time when buildings were built to look proud of themselves and deserved to be pampered. Not so now. I'm sure some of the grime embedded in the timbered roof dates back to the age of steam. Compared to Kings Cross though, Fletcherford station is like the palace of Versailles. The journey down was relatively without incident. There was the usual embarrassed passenger getting on to find someone occupying their reserved seat and needing to ask them to move but other than that it was uncharacteristically on time and problem free. I didn't get much in the Guardian crossword, nothing unusual there and I spent the rest of the time leafing through the cumbersome pages, trying not to nudge or disturb my fellow travellers. The main story of the day was about traces of explosive being found in the wreckage of a passenger plane that had crashed. Terrorism was obviously suspected. I don't think I'll ever understand how people can do that. I mean I understand how people feel justified in taking arms against countries or governments that have wronged them in some way but what God or cause can justify blowing up a load of innocent people just like the ones who were with me on that train? People thrown together, just because they happen to be going to the same place, on the same day, at the same time. To visit their Granny, or go shopping, or go on a stag or hen night, or go to a meeting or have an interview for a new job or go to see a solicitor to talk about the content of a dead aunt's will.
I hadn't had a particularly restful night. Fitful and dream fuelled sweats all through the night and I felt a bit guilty about not ringing Sally back. I tried to doze but I've never been able to sleep properly on the train, or on a journey come to that. Instead I looked out of the window at the flat landscape of most of middle England and speculated about my meeting with Parchett. There is something deliciously enjoyable about being off work when everyone else is there. I thought about my classes at Fletcherford Community College and imagined the groans of colleagues who would be covering my absence for the next two days, as they checked the cover board. The kids would probably act up, they don't like it when you let them down and any change in the routine provides opportunities for them to play the cover teacher off against the absentee. "But sir always lets us talk while we are working," " Sir doesn't do it like that," " Mr. Hazzard lets us listen to the radio in class," you know the sort of thing. I could almost hear them trying it on. I suppose we've all done it to varying degrees. I thought about Alice, about the next chapter of my story, but mainly about Sally, I should have rung her back. As the train pulled in to Kings' Cross I was shocked at the state of the place. It had been a while since I'd been there. The grimy, dog-eared former opulence is depressing and infuriating as is the rest of the city. It rests on dusty laurels. The station, like the city, has juxtaposed brash modern with squalid antiquity. The whole place reminds me of Gran's expression "it's like putting a wedding cake on top of a dustbin." It's our capital city for God's sake; surely we could do a little better. As I made my way out of the station I was approached three times by sad individuals, avoiding the station guards, not wanting to ask but down on their luck who just wanted to know if I could spare a little change. Outside the station two more in as many minutes. You couldn't possibly carry enough spare change to satisfy these people. It wears me down, honest it does. Don't get me wrong, I've always felt that if someone is so low that they have to ask a complete stranger for spare change, if you've got any you should give it up. You can't do it any more in London, there's not enough change in the world. People litter the streets wrapped in sleeping bags or sitting on bin bags full of their stuff. Really it's not good enough is it? There must be more we can do to help them. I decided to walk a little way before I took the tube to Parchett's office. I had a couple of hours to spare. It was warm for a January morning but the city always seems warmer to me than anywhere else. People bustled and hustled about their daily grind. I walked up Euston Road turning into Hunter Street intending to get the tube from Russell Square to Knightsbridge. I glimpsed into one of the phone boxes on the route. The wall above the phone was festooned with cards advertising all sorts of carnal pleasures. Some of which I felt might even be new to Alice. All provided by the most gorgeous creatures. I wondered if the women who answered the phone would look anything like the ones in the photos. I'd be surprised if they were.
I stopped and had a coffee in a small cafe, calling itself a bistro, clean but not really up to much. It's got very seedy around King's Cross. I had a window seat and watched the commerce and congress for a little while. London had been such a big deal when I was a kid. People saw "the smoke" as where you went if you were going toget away from your roots, make a new road for yourself, be part of the action. Oh what a shame!
I finished my coffee went round the corner and got the Piccadilly line to Knightsbridge. I arrived at Parchett's office with twenty minutes to spare.
iv) "Ah Mr. Hazzard, so good to meet you at last, please take a seat," He gestured to a seat at the other side of his enormous desk having shaken my hand warmly as I entered. I'd spent the last fifteen minutes in opulent reception area of the practice and had made about as much small talk with his secretary as I could think of. I was tired and keen to get to the business of the day as soon as possible. Parchett's office was as grand as the reception area. It was clear even to me that all the furniture in the room was antique and had probably been there for as long as the Georgian building had stood. Heavy velvet curtains draped the two large windows that overlooked the very desirable street into which they looked. It was also clear that Parchett wasn't short of a few bob. He was a small portly man, I'd guess fifties. His three piece suit was immaculate and probably cost what I was making in a month. His hair was graying at the temples but he was wearing what was the most obvious wig I've ever seen outside of a comedy film. It perched on the top of his head like a badly fitting, black fur hat. It was difficult not to stare at it. In a way it added a slightly ridiculous edge that the whole bizarre turn of events had needed. It was one of those wigs that always looked like it was going to fall off. Parchett's quite animated body language and the very presence of the hairpiece itself infected my side of the room with an anxiety that kept me sharp.
“There are a couple of little formalities that need to be attended to and then we can proceed," he said but I was having difficulty concentrating. The wig was putting me off. I wondered if that was why he wore it. Some kind of psyching device. Maybe for keeping clients and witnesses on edge. It shouldn't come as a surprise; I suppose that someone in the legal profession would have a liking for ill-fitting wigs.
I showed him the birth certificate, Gran and Granddad’s death certificates all the time thinking to my self:" The bloody things going to fall off."
What if it had? What would he have said?
“It’s a wig you know."
“Of course it's a wig. A blind man on a galloping horse could see it's a fucking wig!"
He was obviously wealthy enough to afford the best of wigs or even expensive transplant surgery. Once I'd had that idea it was a little easier to concentrate on what he had to say.
"It appears Mr. Hazzard, that our search has been fruitful and that you are in fact the last remaining relative of my deceased client and as such are the sole beneficiary of the estate of Mrs. Martha Odecas."
“Look Mr. Parchett, I was not aware until yesterday that I had an Aunt Martha, if in fact I had, and this has all come as a bit of a shock."
“I understand that my dear boy but please hear me out. We are acting on your Aunt's instructions and there are a number of issues that will require deep consideration on your part." He sat down at his desk and opened a plain, brown, card folder. On the front the words Mrs. Martha Odecas. “She was married then," I thought to myself.
Parchett took a glasses case from his inside jacket pocket, put his heavy, horn rimmed spectacles half way down his nose, a bit like Alice, so that he could glance up from the page to me from time to time. I was worried that the process of doing this might dislodge his wig but it held up to the task in fine form.
“Your aunt has left quite specific instructions and these are contained here, there are also some things which I am to pass on to you today, these are a letter and a number of photographs."
"Look, before you start I have a few questions."
"I'm sure you do my dear boy! I also fully expect suspect you will have several more when I've read you the following information. In that light I think it may be worth waiting if you don't mind."
“Ok then!" It felt like he wouldn't be diverted and so I thought it best to agree.
"Your Aunt Martha," he went on," lived on mainland Greece and was a dear friend of mine. Her wishes were that you should inherit her entire estate. She was not a massively wealthy women but she leaves you in excess of £750,000 in an account at the Hellenic Bank and also her house, Villa Sofia, and surrounding land in the coastal resort of Xenothenia. There are no conditions as such and she has left a personal letter for you that I suspect will offer more detail of her wishes. "
It was a lot to take in. He read out the detailed will. Some small tokens to unpronounceable names. Some jewellery to her housekeeper and friend Maria, some small amounts of money to a couple of children from the village and a boat, “Martha Mia”, to someone called Vangelis. All the time he read, my mind was wandering. How could this have happened? How could I have an Aunt I'd never heard of living on the other side of the continent? The fact that I appeared to have inherited a significant amount of money and a house in Greece hadn't really registered. The wig was still giving me a bit of bother as well. When Parchett stopped reading he took off his specs, another tantalising assault on his hairpiece, and looked at me.
I think I was shaking and he must have sensed the emotional impact what he had revealed had had on me.
“Mr. Hazzard or may I call you Robert?"
"Bob,"
"Bob, I appreciate that you have had a lot of information to take in. I suggest that you take a moment. Please excuse me."
He handed me a large envelope and left the room through a door next to the one I’d entered from. He was, quite sensitively giving me a breather to take it all in. The large envelope was addressed to Roger Parchett at what I presumed was his home address in the commuter belt.
I emptied the contents onto the desk in front of me. My hands were shaking so much I was afraid to pick anything up at first. The envelope contained a small photo wallet and a letter in a creamy envelope tied around with a red ribbon. When I could bring myself to pick it up the paper felt as creamy as it looked almost parchment -like. On it was written, “To be opened by my nephew in the event of my death." It was signed underneath Martha Odecas and on the back was a red wax seal. I put it back down. I picked up the photo wallet and opened it at the first photograph. I gasped and let out an involuntary sob. From the photograph stared a grinning female version of me. Older, of course, but with the same black, curly hair, same thin mouth, same slightly crooked but noble nose (as my Gran had always called it). Her eyes were slightly darker and more piercing than mine but the resemblance was incredible. Had we ever had the opportunity to be seen together people would have known that we were related, my mother or older sister perhaps. I felt elated and cheated all at once. For someone without any family to gain and lose a potentially significant other within a day felt almost too much to bear. I flicked through the other photographs. Her wedding, I presumed. She was standing next to a dark, Latin-looking mustachioed man, much taller than her. He carried a walking stick with a distinctive, elephant-head handle and they were both laughing at someone or thing or comment behind the camera. They had flowers, orchids pinned to her dress and his lapel. A photograph of the same man on a sunny balcony with the sea behind him. He was older the hair at his temples showing a hint of grey but a pride showing through his warm smile. One of Martha, the moustache man and a younger Parchett, before the wig, sitting smiling together at the table of what was obviously a Greek taverna, a photograph of a younger Martha, smiling while picking a bunch of grapes from a vine laden with them and an old black and white photograph of a jolly, dark-haired infant sitting up in a pram next to a girl of about five or six and holding the handle of the pram was a clearly doting mother, a young version of my grandmother. The six year old was clearly my mother. By this time I was sobbing heavily, uncontrollably, large hot tears bouncing down my cheeks. I was handed a handkerchief by Parchett. I hadn't heard him come back into the room. He took the photo wallet from me and placed it on the desk. He had a tear in the corner of his eyes. He took a bottle of malt from a cupboard and put a healthy measure in each of two chunky crystal beakers. He handed one to me and held his aloft.
"Martha Odecas!" he took a swig. I stood and managed to blub out the words:
"Aunt Martha!" before I took a drink. I've never known whisky to taste so good or warm so quickly. Life had taught me not to be sentimental or to get too attached to anyone but at that moment I felt a bond with this stranger in a bad hairpiece that was unlike anything I'd felt for a long time. I sat back down a little more composed.
"I shall miss your Aunt Martha," he said after a while," when you came in for a split second it was like looking at her again." He paused. "I have taken the liberty of booking a hotel room for you, at my expense. Please take the letter with you and come back to see me, tomorrow at about the same time. I'll instruct Polly to put you in my diary. Your hotel is not far from here, you may walk or I can ask Polly to call you a taxi"
“It’s ok I think I'd like to walk."
"Of course."
All of my questions had evaporated and we sat in silence and finished our whisky.
"Thank you Mr. Parchett," I said as I left.
"Roger." He said.
v) It was dark by the time I got out onto the street. My mind was spinning from the information overload and the whisky. I needed food and some time to take in all I'd just heard. Seven hundred and fifty grand and a house in Greece from someone I'd never met and hadn't known had even been in the world until yesterday. Not bad for a day's work eh! I've thought about it a lot since; I've tried to recollect my feelings and what was precisely going through my mind as I wandered around the streets filling time before going to the hotel. I know to some extent, I was avoiding the letter because I was worried about what it might contain. Obviously I also had an overwhelming curiosity to examine its contents but overall I think I was so numbed by the experience that all rational thought was temporarily suspended. I passed a pub that had a board outside boasting "home-cooked hot meals served all day," I wandered in ordered a pint and a vegetable hotpot. It was one of those mock-Victorian pubs a little bit plastic but nice enough. There were a few noisy locals having a post-work pint but few others in there, it was early yet. The pretty Australian barmaid had given me a huge smile and said "Penny for your thoughts," as she'd handed over my beer. I was still red-eyed and must have looked shell-shocked. I took a seat at an unoccupied table in a quiet corner by the window. I sat down and had a sip of the beer. I was conscious that I needed to get some food down me on top of the whisky or I'd be too pissed to be any use to anyone. While I waited for the food to arrive I took out the photograph wallet from the large envelope that Roger had given me and flicked through it again. People who have families tend to either complain about them or take them for granted whatever kind of family it may be. I didn't have any family. I'd had family but none of them were left, unusual but true I didn't even have distant cousins that I was aware of and here I'd found that my mother had had a sister and that I'd never known about it. It might have been nice to have known her when she was alive. I flicked between the picture of her as an infant and the one in the sun holding the grapes. That infectious smile and twinkle in the eyes had not diminished with the passage of time. The waitress approached with my hotpot so I carefully placed the wallet back in the envelope and put it in my backpack. As the waitress put the plate on the table in front of me I took out my "Writer's" notebook, one of Andy's many useful suggestions and wrote “Martha’s Vineyard," at the top of a blank page before placing it back in the bag and getting stuck into the food.
The hotpot was warming and filling and as I drained the contents of my pint glass I was tempted to try another but thought better of it and took myself back out into the cold evening and towards the hotel. I had been going to find a hotel myself. I wasn't even sure when I'd left Fletcherford that morning if I'd be staying overnight. I certainly wouldn't have chosen somewhere as splendid as the “Tap House," Roger's choice. It was quirky, half-pub half-hotel, and far more opulent than I would have selected. It was a huge Edwardian town house that had obviously once been the home of some rather posh family. The sort of house Mary Poppins might have worked in. Its many upstairs rooms had been converted to spacious hotel bedrooms. “You come!" the porter said, I suspect a little disgruntled as I didn't have a case for him to carry. I suppose I could have given him my backpack but I thought that would be a bit of a cheek. There was no lift and he led me up a large winding staircase that rose from the centre of the huge oak panelled lobby up three floors. He was a short, squat, dark and rather stern-looking eastern European chap. He wore the same white shirt, black trousers and green barman's apron that all the staff wore and had a heavy five o clock shadow. My room was on the first floor. He opened the door for me and followed me in.
"Room," he said then he proceeded to point at things and name them proudly in his broad accent, "telaveesion, Meenibar, fon," he pointed to a door beside the bed," for de bath."
I put my backpack on the bed and thanked him. As he turned to leave I put my hand in my pocket and took out a two pound coin and gave it to him.
"You sleep good!" he smiled as he left. I closed the curtains on the darkness outside and proceeded to empty the contents of my backpack onto the bed.
The envelope, my "Writer's" notebook, clean socks, pants, and shirt for tomorrow, wash bag (containing corkscrew) and a bottle of Chilean red wine. I went into the bathroom, “for de bath" was a shower, and took one of the tumblers from the side of the hand-basin and returned to the room. On the dressing table was a large china bowl filled with pot pourri that made the room smell really summery in strange contrast to wintry night outside. I uncorked the bottle and filled the tumbler. I'd fallen foul of "Meenibars" in the past, this was a travelling precaution. I took a small sip and turned my attention to the "fon", rang reception and gave them Sal's number. I was holding the letter in my shaking hand when the phone rang,
"Putting you through,"
"Bob I thought you were never going to ring! Come on then what happened?"
I proceeded to tell Sal the whole story. Parchett, the wig, the money, Villa Sofia, the photos, the tears the whisky, the letter. I put the letter down and picked up the photo wallet.
Sal was quiet for a long time and broke the silence with,
"Fucking hell Bob! What does the letter say?"
“I haven't read it yet."
"What do you mean you haven't read it yet?" she was almost exasperated.
"I don't know Sal, but I'm a bit scared, a bit sad, a bit excited a bit overwhelmed. I've just found and lost my mother's sister all in the same day and I feel a bit shredded. “I was looking at the old black and white photo of Gran with pram and kids and started to snuffle again.
"It's a full life connected to mine that's been lived out and I've known nothing about it."
"I know I'm sorry Bob. I was insensitive,"
"No you weren't Sal I know you just want to know, I do as well but I feel so weird. I know she's dead but if I don't read the letter she's still there somehow. I wouldn't feel so bad if you were here but I feel really alone Sal. Really alone."
Sal was about as close to me as I would let anyone get. She'd listened to me and comforted me a lot in those difficult months after Gran died. She hadn't lasted long after Granddad really. Sally understood that I felt I'd been left totally alone in the world. Except I hadn't been alone, I'd had an Aunt Martha I knew nothing about.
“You know I'd be there if I could Bob, don't you?"
"Of course I do Sal. I'll be ok," I was starting to feel another sob coming on;" look I'll try to read the letter and ring you back."
"You could always wait until you get back and I'll sit with you while you read it."
"Thanks Sal but I've got to go back to see Roger tomorrow. I'll just have to pull myself together a bit."
"Ring me back later, it doesn't matter how late. You know I'm there in spirit don't you?"
"Yea, of course, thanks Sal." I hung up. "Poor Sal," I thought “it’s not as if her life's that fucking easy either." I took a long pull on the wine tumbler, took a deep breath, picked up the letter in my trembling hand and carefully opened it.
Sally was the first person I told about my letter from Parchett and partners, solicitors and the subsequent phone conversation.
"Get the first train you can tomorrow."
"How can I we've only been back in for two days? I can't ask the boss for time off for this."
"Why the fuck not?" Sally's an English teacher," It's not as if you ever have any time off. Look, I've just had to cover for Wally Scott. Time off doesn't seem to bother him. He's only been back a day and he’s off on the sick again. Mind you, I can see why, it's no wonder he has stress! I've just had to cover his 9Q group. Every single one of those poor little fuckers suffers from a loose light bulb." She flopped her slender frame down into one of the staffroom chairs, picked up the Times Education Supplement and opened it at the jobs page. I often wondered if anyone ever bothered to read the rest of it. Only back at work two days and already looking for a new job, greener pastures, and we, the custodians of the nation's youth.
"Go and see the boss, she'll be alright! It sounds to me that you've just lost your last surviving relative for God's sake."
"Yea but I didn't know her! I didn't even know she existed 'til I made the phone call."
"She doesn't need to know that does she? Here let me see the letter."
She was right. In fact the boss was surprisingly nonchalant about it. Was sure colleagues wouldn't mind covering my absence, given the circumstances. I didn’t share her optimism but I wasn't going to refuse. I'd pitched it well enough. I was very upset, needed to go to London to sort out the affairs of my last surviving relative, very tedious but I was the only one left to do it, should only take a day or two. It worked a treat.
"I'm on Sal." She was still leafing through the jobs pages, there's never much in at the start of term, but you have to look, haven’t you?
"I'll just have to sort out some work to leave for the kids,"
"I'll do that you get on the phone."
I rang Parchetts's office back and made an appointment for 3:30 the following afternoon.
Sally handed me the letter back. "It looks kosher enough. So who's this mysterious Aunt Martha then?"
"I've absolutely no idea."
I sat down next to Sal and stared at the letter for a long time. It was dated the 13th December but hadn't arrived until this morning, over three weeks later, Christmas post I supposed. Parchett wanted to "discuss various matters in your interest," it was almost like something out of a Dickens story. I'd managed to glean from him on the phone that, if I he was satisfied that I was the correct Robert Hazzard; I stood to benefit from him discharging the will of my Aunt Martha. He wouldn't say too much more than that on the phone but assured me that I would be reimbursed in the unlikely event that I was found to be the wrong Robert Hazzard.
I had to own up to being totally baffled, I'd never heard of an Aunt Martha.
"What time you going home?"
"Any minute," I said, "I've got my writers' group tonight."
"Oh, your bunch of misfits" that's how Sally affectionately referred to my group,
"I'll walk home with you." This was no surprise, I suppose Sally's my best friend, we walked most of the way home together every night. Have done since I started there about two years before. Sally's a couple of years older than I am. She's thirty two. She's was a real brick to me when I moved back to live with Gran in Fletcherford after my granddad died. She lived with her mother not far from my grandparent’s house, 42 Blenheim Gardens. I met her the day I started doing supply teaching at Fletcherford Community College. It's a wonder I hadn't known her when I was a kid but I suppose those couple of years when you're at that age it makes such a big difference. Two years, it seems laughable now.
It was already dark as we left the school gates. The wind nipped our faces and our breath made little clouds in the air as we chattered through the January streets of the council estate that surrounded the college. A forest of Christmas trees glimmered through the net curtains of the houses we passed, Sally speculating all the way about the meeting in London. As we turned the corner into Anchor Road the darkness was suddenly overpowered by the lights of the two houses on the corner whose owners had conspired to create a Las Vegas Christmas in a northern English town. Two, former, council houses, now in private ownership, (you can always tell by the front doors, it's the first thing people change) so laden down with neon that the national grid must be aware when they switch on. Flashing Santas, elves, gnomes, sleighs and Merry Xmases bit into the darkness. Sally always giggled as we passed but I knew I'd secretly miss them when they came down at the weekend until they reappeared sometime early October.
"You'll ring me as soon as you know anything won't you?" she said as we parted.
"Sally, you'll be the second to know.
ii) I joined the writers' group partly to try and give myself some discipline and to replace my other hobby, rugby. I'd given up playing at the end of last season. It was getting to be a hassle getting to training on school nights and giving up every weekend. Besides I felt that as I was becoming a mature member of my community it was time to devote myself to more sedate pleasures. I'd started a youth team as an after hours school team anyway and that meant I could keep up with some fitness regime but leaving Fletcherford Rugby Club had left a gap in my social calendar.
That's where the writers' group came in. I thought something formal might give me the push to actually complete a project. But the elusive first novel remained as elusive as ever, "My unfinished symphonies" Sally calls them. From being very small I've tried to write but nothing ever seemed to get beyond the first few pages. At least I had progressed to chapters. I've tried the lot, horror, fantasy, science fiction, epic but I never seem to sustain the energy to finish anything. That's why I joined the group. I saw an advert in the local library. "Do you have an urge to write? Join published author, Andy Dougrie, Every Wednesday 7:30 from September 19th." Initially there were ten of us, it soon dwindled down to seven including Andy but I really enjoyed it. We met in a side room of the public library on the High Street and usually went to the pub afterwards. Andy writes novels about Highland clans, all cutlass and claymore and is really quite an inspirational guy. Very over the top Glaswegian but devoted to his writing and the encouragement of aspiring writers.
"You'll no become a writer unless ye can keep yer airse touching cloth. If ye cannie sit down to it it'll no happen. You'll find any excuse you can to stop. It's like revising for exams. You'll be cleaning the oven, dusting, tidying your shed; you name it, any excuse. We call it "displacement activity" in the business" He's right of course. It's about discipline which I suppose is why I was trying to stick with it. If you were going to the group you had to be producing. The first session Andy had given us ice-breakers and introduction exercises that went really well. We had to pair off in the group and write a scenario for our partner. Who they were, their personality, their likes and dislikes etc complete fiction and then see if we had anything right. We were all well off the mark and that got us off to a good start. After a few weeks it progressed to presenting our own writing and soon it got to the stage that we were genuinely interested in each other's stories. Andy would usually start us off with the latest stage in the process of his latest novel. The beauty of having a published writer being that he could conceivably advise us all through the whole rigmarole from idea to publication. I looked forward to it eagerly every week and would have a few pages ready for comment. That's how it worked. We would read our stuff in turn. After a reading Andy and then the rest of the group would offer suggestions or general encouragement. The usual order:
Jonathan, tall, stick-insect thin, fair, pink, exceptionally clean and smart. Civil servant I think. Black leather jacket, rimless glasses, very intense, licks his lips all the time. He was working on an angst filled saga of a gay, Northern steel worker coming out in the 60's. I made the assumption that he must be gay.
Ben, stocky, ruddy face, red hair, red beard, dirty fingernails. Works in the countryside, tree surgeon, something like that. Checked shirts and jeans, smells of brown sauce and creosote. A classic horny handed son of toil. He's married and has a couple of small kids. He mumbles almost incoherently when he speaks but he reads out loud with such passion and clarity that it’s impossible not to be rapt. Writes poems and short stories with a countryside flavour. They're excellent! He brought in a poem he'd written after finding a frozen field mouse that was so good I asked if I could use it in school. I did and the kids loved it.
Jean, slightly plump, cuddly, bubbly, middle-aged, 60ish? Housewife/ full-time grandmother. Sparkly cardigans, specs on a chain, slacks and trainers. A story of expat wives in the Middle East oilfields. Very light but entertaining.
Susan is a social worker. She's really confident but shakes all the time she's speaking. She's a queer one alright, she is an amazing mimic and can do all our voices when she reads from her work but it freaks me out a bit because she reckons she has some sort of second sight, she's had all these out of body experiences and often talks about ghosts and messages from beyond. She's maybe twenty five with already quite pronounced lines around her full mouth, probably from constantly smoking rollies. All the time anyone else is reading she's rolling a ciggie and as soon as they finish she excuses herself and nips out for a smoke. She's what my year eleven boys would call "fit, in a hippy way." Long skirts and Doc Martins, denim jackets T shirts, no bra. Her story is about a teenage girl in care, coming to terms with her experience of sexual abuse. We were in tears more than once. It's a very harrowing piece of work, she claims it's is the true story of a girl who committed suicide as a result of her experiences and who is sending her the story from "the other side," I have a bit of trouble with that but it's a great piece of writing. If Irving Welch had written it the critics would be over it like flies around shit.
Me, I was working on a fictitious memoir of a young orphan smothered by the religious intensity of his maternal grandparents raising him in a town not unlike Fletcherford. It seemed to be quite well received and I worked hard to convince everyone that it was in no way autobiographical and they, being the good souls they are, pretended to believe me. For my part I always try to get along with people but I had been a little off with Susan once or twice. People who have close encounters with the spirit world tend to get on my tits. I guess it's because I've got so many more people on the "other side" than most. I mean it's bound to be irritating isn't it? I've got all thos people on the other side, you'd think at least one of the bastards would have been in touch over the years if contact was as easy as Susan seems to make out.
Alice, flouncy, divorced mid 30's, singing teacher, lots of jewellery and floral print. Her face, very thin and pretty, in an Edwardian, vicar's wife kind of way, half spectacles that perch halfway down her nose. A wicked sense of humour and possibly the only member of the group who intimidated Andy. Although I'm sure that is never her intention. Her story mainly concerns the sexual athletics of a 17 year old convent girl. Very explicit and drawn against a backdrop of fire, brimstone and savage, brutal, vicious nuns. Hers is autobiographical. I gathered some evidence of this on the residential weekend we all spent together in the Lake District last October and several times since. I did feel a bit guilty that I hadn't told Sally about my quite regular visits to Alice but Sally didn't approve of casual sex. She's not had a lot of luck with men and holds a pretty dim view of them all in all.
So there they all were, most of the friends I had in the world. Actually that sounds a bit pathetic doesn’t it? I had loads of mates from the rugby club who I could go for a pint with. Who knew how much beer I could consume, knew how to anticipate a side-step here or a change of direction there. Who knew how I would react in various situations in the complex ballet that takes place on the rugby pitch and in the post-match bout of boozing but I wouldn’t have been able to share my writing with them or in fact with any of my mates from school who I occasionally went out with. That is apart from Sally, of course.
After the session, when we were all in the pub I told Andy and Alice about my impending trip to London.
“Very intriguing wee man!" was Andy's response, "There'll be a book in it I've no doubt." There again, everything had a book in it as far as Andy was concerned. Alice's response was quite different, "You will keep in touch won't you?" she said prophetically.
"I'll be back on Friday night for God's sake!" was my response but later, in the darkness of her bedroom she turned and cuddled into me and said,
"You know before, when you said about your trip tomorrow?"
"Yea!"
"I got this feeling that you would be going away somewhere, and I know neither of us wants anything serious but I've got to quite like you being around."
"It'll be ok!"
I held her for little while longer.
"I'd better go. Early start tomorrow."
When I got back to the house there was an answer phone message. It was Sally,
"Don't ring me if it's after midnight, but I'll be thinking about you tomorrow. Take care!" I knew that she'd been thinking about my feelings at finding and losing an aunt in the same day. That's the sort of person Sally is. She speaks very plainly and may come across to some as being insensitive but she always puts everyone else's feelings above her own. It was five to twelve. I didn't ring.
iii) Fletcherford railway station has the usual faded and grubby charm of any Victorian station. It was built at a time when buildings were built to look proud of themselves and deserved to be pampered. Not so now. I'm sure some of the grime embedded in the timbered roof dates back to the age of steam. Compared to Kings Cross though, Fletcherford station is like the palace of Versailles. The journey down was relatively without incident. There was the usual embarrassed passenger getting on to find someone occupying their reserved seat and needing to ask them to move but other than that it was uncharacteristically on time and problem free. I didn't get much in the Guardian crossword, nothing unusual there and I spent the rest of the time leafing through the cumbersome pages, trying not to nudge or disturb my fellow travellers. The main story of the day was about traces of explosive being found in the wreckage of a passenger plane that had crashed. Terrorism was obviously suspected. I don't think I'll ever understand how people can do that. I mean I understand how people feel justified in taking arms against countries or governments that have wronged them in some way but what God or cause can justify blowing up a load of innocent people just like the ones who were with me on that train? People thrown together, just because they happen to be going to the same place, on the same day, at the same time. To visit their Granny, or go shopping, or go on a stag or hen night, or go to a meeting or have an interview for a new job or go to see a solicitor to talk about the content of a dead aunt's will.
I hadn't had a particularly restful night. Fitful and dream fuelled sweats all through the night and I felt a bit guilty about not ringing Sally back. I tried to doze but I've never been able to sleep properly on the train, or on a journey come to that. Instead I looked out of the window at the flat landscape of most of middle England and speculated about my meeting with Parchett. There is something deliciously enjoyable about being off work when everyone else is there. I thought about my classes at Fletcherford Community College and imagined the groans of colleagues who would be covering my absence for the next two days, as they checked the cover board. The kids would probably act up, they don't like it when you let them down and any change in the routine provides opportunities for them to play the cover teacher off against the absentee. "But sir always lets us talk while we are working," " Sir doesn't do it like that," " Mr. Hazzard lets us listen to the radio in class," you know the sort of thing. I could almost hear them trying it on. I suppose we've all done it to varying degrees. I thought about Alice, about the next chapter of my story, but mainly about Sally, I should have rung her back. As the train pulled in to Kings' Cross I was shocked at the state of the place. It had been a while since I'd been there. The grimy, dog-eared former opulence is depressing and infuriating as is the rest of the city. It rests on dusty laurels. The station, like the city, has juxtaposed brash modern with squalid antiquity. The whole place reminds me of Gran's expression "it's like putting a wedding cake on top of a dustbin." It's our capital city for God's sake; surely we could do a little better. As I made my way out of the station I was approached three times by sad individuals, avoiding the station guards, not wanting to ask but down on their luck who just wanted to know if I could spare a little change. Outside the station two more in as many minutes. You couldn't possibly carry enough spare change to satisfy these people. It wears me down, honest it does. Don't get me wrong, I've always felt that if someone is so low that they have to ask a complete stranger for spare change, if you've got any you should give it up. You can't do it any more in London, there's not enough change in the world. People litter the streets wrapped in sleeping bags or sitting on bin bags full of their stuff. Really it's not good enough is it? There must be more we can do to help them. I decided to walk a little way before I took the tube to Parchett's office. I had a couple of hours to spare. It was warm for a January morning but the city always seems warmer to me than anywhere else. People bustled and hustled about their daily grind. I walked up Euston Road turning into Hunter Street intending to get the tube from Russell Square to Knightsbridge. I glimpsed into one of the phone boxes on the route. The wall above the phone was festooned with cards advertising all sorts of carnal pleasures. Some of which I felt might even be new to Alice. All provided by the most gorgeous creatures. I wondered if the women who answered the phone would look anything like the ones in the photos. I'd be surprised if they were.
I stopped and had a coffee in a small cafe, calling itself a bistro, clean but not really up to much. It's got very seedy around King's Cross. I had a window seat and watched the commerce and congress for a little while. London had been such a big deal when I was a kid. People saw "the smoke" as where you went if you were going toget away from your roots, make a new road for yourself, be part of the action. Oh what a shame!
I finished my coffee went round the corner and got the Piccadilly line to Knightsbridge. I arrived at Parchett's office with twenty minutes to spare.
iv) "Ah Mr. Hazzard, so good to meet you at last, please take a seat," He gestured to a seat at the other side of his enormous desk having shaken my hand warmly as I entered. I'd spent the last fifteen minutes in opulent reception area of the practice and had made about as much small talk with his secretary as I could think of. I was tired and keen to get to the business of the day as soon as possible. Parchett's office was as grand as the reception area. It was clear even to me that all the furniture in the room was antique and had probably been there for as long as the Georgian building had stood. Heavy velvet curtains draped the two large windows that overlooked the very desirable street into which they looked. It was also clear that Parchett wasn't short of a few bob. He was a small portly man, I'd guess fifties. His three piece suit was immaculate and probably cost what I was making in a month. His hair was graying at the temples but he was wearing what was the most obvious wig I've ever seen outside of a comedy film. It perched on the top of his head like a badly fitting, black fur hat. It was difficult not to stare at it. In a way it added a slightly ridiculous edge that the whole bizarre turn of events had needed. It was one of those wigs that always looked like it was going to fall off. Parchett's quite animated body language and the very presence of the hairpiece itself infected my side of the room with an anxiety that kept me sharp.
“There are a couple of little formalities that need to be attended to and then we can proceed," he said but I was having difficulty concentrating. The wig was putting me off. I wondered if that was why he wore it. Some kind of psyching device. Maybe for keeping clients and witnesses on edge. It shouldn't come as a surprise; I suppose that someone in the legal profession would have a liking for ill-fitting wigs.
I showed him the birth certificate, Gran and Granddad’s death certificates all the time thinking to my self:" The bloody things going to fall off."
What if it had? What would he have said?
“It’s a wig you know."
“Of course it's a wig. A blind man on a galloping horse could see it's a fucking wig!"
He was obviously wealthy enough to afford the best of wigs or even expensive transplant surgery. Once I'd had that idea it was a little easier to concentrate on what he had to say.
"It appears Mr. Hazzard, that our search has been fruitful and that you are in fact the last remaining relative of my deceased client and as such are the sole beneficiary of the estate of Mrs. Martha Odecas."
“Look Mr. Parchett, I was not aware until yesterday that I had an Aunt Martha, if in fact I had, and this has all come as a bit of a shock."
“I understand that my dear boy but please hear me out. We are acting on your Aunt's instructions and there are a number of issues that will require deep consideration on your part." He sat down at his desk and opened a plain, brown, card folder. On the front the words Mrs. Martha Odecas. “She was married then," I thought to myself.
Parchett took a glasses case from his inside jacket pocket, put his heavy, horn rimmed spectacles half way down his nose, a bit like Alice, so that he could glance up from the page to me from time to time. I was worried that the process of doing this might dislodge his wig but it held up to the task in fine form.
“Your aunt has left quite specific instructions and these are contained here, there are also some things which I am to pass on to you today, these are a letter and a number of photographs."
"Look, before you start I have a few questions."
"I'm sure you do my dear boy! I also fully expect suspect you will have several more when I've read you the following information. In that light I think it may be worth waiting if you don't mind."
“Ok then!" It felt like he wouldn't be diverted and so I thought it best to agree.
"Your Aunt Martha," he went on," lived on mainland Greece and was a dear friend of mine. Her wishes were that you should inherit her entire estate. She was not a massively wealthy women but she leaves you in excess of £750,000 in an account at the Hellenic Bank and also her house, Villa Sofia, and surrounding land in the coastal resort of Xenothenia. There are no conditions as such and she has left a personal letter for you that I suspect will offer more detail of her wishes. "
It was a lot to take in. He read out the detailed will. Some small tokens to unpronounceable names. Some jewellery to her housekeeper and friend Maria, some small amounts of money to a couple of children from the village and a boat, “Martha Mia”, to someone called Vangelis. All the time he read, my mind was wandering. How could this have happened? How could I have an Aunt I'd never heard of living on the other side of the continent? The fact that I appeared to have inherited a significant amount of money and a house in Greece hadn't really registered. The wig was still giving me a bit of bother as well. When Parchett stopped reading he took off his specs, another tantalising assault on his hairpiece, and looked at me.
I think I was shaking and he must have sensed the emotional impact what he had revealed had had on me.
“Mr. Hazzard or may I call you Robert?"
"Bob,"
"Bob, I appreciate that you have had a lot of information to take in. I suggest that you take a moment. Please excuse me."
He handed me a large envelope and left the room through a door next to the one I’d entered from. He was, quite sensitively giving me a breather to take it all in. The large envelope was addressed to Roger Parchett at what I presumed was his home address in the commuter belt.
I emptied the contents onto the desk in front of me. My hands were shaking so much I was afraid to pick anything up at first. The envelope contained a small photo wallet and a letter in a creamy envelope tied around with a red ribbon. When I could bring myself to pick it up the paper felt as creamy as it looked almost parchment -like. On it was written, “To be opened by my nephew in the event of my death." It was signed underneath Martha Odecas and on the back was a red wax seal. I put it back down. I picked up the photo wallet and opened it at the first photograph. I gasped and let out an involuntary sob. From the photograph stared a grinning female version of me. Older, of course, but with the same black, curly hair, same thin mouth, same slightly crooked but noble nose (as my Gran had always called it). Her eyes were slightly darker and more piercing than mine but the resemblance was incredible. Had we ever had the opportunity to be seen together people would have known that we were related, my mother or older sister perhaps. I felt elated and cheated all at once. For someone without any family to gain and lose a potentially significant other within a day felt almost too much to bear. I flicked through the other photographs. Her wedding, I presumed. She was standing next to a dark, Latin-looking mustachioed man, much taller than her. He carried a walking stick with a distinctive, elephant-head handle and they were both laughing at someone or thing or comment behind the camera. They had flowers, orchids pinned to her dress and his lapel. A photograph of the same man on a sunny balcony with the sea behind him. He was older the hair at his temples showing a hint of grey but a pride showing through his warm smile. One of Martha, the moustache man and a younger Parchett, before the wig, sitting smiling together at the table of what was obviously a Greek taverna, a photograph of a younger Martha, smiling while picking a bunch of grapes from a vine laden with them and an old black and white photograph of a jolly, dark-haired infant sitting up in a pram next to a girl of about five or six and holding the handle of the pram was a clearly doting mother, a young version of my grandmother. The six year old was clearly my mother. By this time I was sobbing heavily, uncontrollably, large hot tears bouncing down my cheeks. I was handed a handkerchief by Parchett. I hadn't heard him come back into the room. He took the photo wallet from me and placed it on the desk. He had a tear in the corner of his eyes. He took a bottle of malt from a cupboard and put a healthy measure in each of two chunky crystal beakers. He handed one to me and held his aloft.
"Martha Odecas!" he took a swig. I stood and managed to blub out the words:
"Aunt Martha!" before I took a drink. I've never known whisky to taste so good or warm so quickly. Life had taught me not to be sentimental or to get too attached to anyone but at that moment I felt a bond with this stranger in a bad hairpiece that was unlike anything I'd felt for a long time. I sat back down a little more composed.
"I shall miss your Aunt Martha," he said after a while," when you came in for a split second it was like looking at her again." He paused. "I have taken the liberty of booking a hotel room for you, at my expense. Please take the letter with you and come back to see me, tomorrow at about the same time. I'll instruct Polly to put you in my diary. Your hotel is not far from here, you may walk or I can ask Polly to call you a taxi"
“It’s ok I think I'd like to walk."
"Of course."
All of my questions had evaporated and we sat in silence and finished our whisky.
"Thank you Mr. Parchett," I said as I left.
"Roger." He said.
v) It was dark by the time I got out onto the street. My mind was spinning from the information overload and the whisky. I needed food and some time to take in all I'd just heard. Seven hundred and fifty grand and a house in Greece from someone I'd never met and hadn't known had even been in the world until yesterday. Not bad for a day's work eh! I've thought about it a lot since; I've tried to recollect my feelings and what was precisely going through my mind as I wandered around the streets filling time before going to the hotel. I know to some extent, I was avoiding the letter because I was worried about what it might contain. Obviously I also had an overwhelming curiosity to examine its contents but overall I think I was so numbed by the experience that all rational thought was temporarily suspended. I passed a pub that had a board outside boasting "home-cooked hot meals served all day," I wandered in ordered a pint and a vegetable hotpot. It was one of those mock-Victorian pubs a little bit plastic but nice enough. There were a few noisy locals having a post-work pint but few others in there, it was early yet. The pretty Australian barmaid had given me a huge smile and said "Penny for your thoughts," as she'd handed over my beer. I was still red-eyed and must have looked shell-shocked. I took a seat at an unoccupied table in a quiet corner by the window. I sat down and had a sip of the beer. I was conscious that I needed to get some food down me on top of the whisky or I'd be too pissed to be any use to anyone. While I waited for the food to arrive I took out the photograph wallet from the large envelope that Roger had given me and flicked through it again. People who have families tend to either complain about them or take them for granted whatever kind of family it may be. I didn't have any family. I'd had family but none of them were left, unusual but true I didn't even have distant cousins that I was aware of and here I'd found that my mother had had a sister and that I'd never known about it. It might have been nice to have known her when she was alive. I flicked between the picture of her as an infant and the one in the sun holding the grapes. That infectious smile and twinkle in the eyes had not diminished with the passage of time. The waitress approached with my hotpot so I carefully placed the wallet back in the envelope and put it in my backpack. As the waitress put the plate on the table in front of me I took out my "Writer's" notebook, one of Andy's many useful suggestions and wrote “Martha’s Vineyard," at the top of a blank page before placing it back in the bag and getting stuck into the food.
The hotpot was warming and filling and as I drained the contents of my pint glass I was tempted to try another but thought better of it and took myself back out into the cold evening and towards the hotel. I had been going to find a hotel myself. I wasn't even sure when I'd left Fletcherford that morning if I'd be staying overnight. I certainly wouldn't have chosen somewhere as splendid as the “Tap House," Roger's choice. It was quirky, half-pub half-hotel, and far more opulent than I would have selected. It was a huge Edwardian town house that had obviously once been the home of some rather posh family. The sort of house Mary Poppins might have worked in. Its many upstairs rooms had been converted to spacious hotel bedrooms. “You come!" the porter said, I suspect a little disgruntled as I didn't have a case for him to carry. I suppose I could have given him my backpack but I thought that would be a bit of a cheek. There was no lift and he led me up a large winding staircase that rose from the centre of the huge oak panelled lobby up three floors. He was a short, squat, dark and rather stern-looking eastern European chap. He wore the same white shirt, black trousers and green barman's apron that all the staff wore and had a heavy five o clock shadow. My room was on the first floor. He opened the door for me and followed me in.
"Room," he said then he proceeded to point at things and name them proudly in his broad accent, "telaveesion, Meenibar, fon," he pointed to a door beside the bed," for de bath."
I put my backpack on the bed and thanked him. As he turned to leave I put my hand in my pocket and took out a two pound coin and gave it to him.
"You sleep good!" he smiled as he left. I closed the curtains on the darkness outside and proceeded to empty the contents of my backpack onto the bed.
The envelope, my "Writer's" notebook, clean socks, pants, and shirt for tomorrow, wash bag (containing corkscrew) and a bottle of Chilean red wine. I went into the bathroom, “for de bath" was a shower, and took one of the tumblers from the side of the hand-basin and returned to the room. On the dressing table was a large china bowl filled with pot pourri that made the room smell really summery in strange contrast to wintry night outside. I uncorked the bottle and filled the tumbler. I'd fallen foul of "Meenibars" in the past, this was a travelling precaution. I took a small sip and turned my attention to the "fon", rang reception and gave them Sal's number. I was holding the letter in my shaking hand when the phone rang,
"Putting you through,"
"Bob I thought you were never going to ring! Come on then what happened?"
I proceeded to tell Sal the whole story. Parchett, the wig, the money, Villa Sofia, the photos, the tears the whisky, the letter. I put the letter down and picked up the photo wallet.
Sal was quiet for a long time and broke the silence with,
"Fucking hell Bob! What does the letter say?"
“I haven't read it yet."
"What do you mean you haven't read it yet?" she was almost exasperated.
"I don't know Sal, but I'm a bit scared, a bit sad, a bit excited a bit overwhelmed. I've just found and lost my mother's sister all in the same day and I feel a bit shredded. “I was looking at the old black and white photo of Gran with pram and kids and started to snuffle again.
"It's a full life connected to mine that's been lived out and I've known nothing about it."
"I know I'm sorry Bob. I was insensitive,"
"No you weren't Sal I know you just want to know, I do as well but I feel so weird. I know she's dead but if I don't read the letter she's still there somehow. I wouldn't feel so bad if you were here but I feel really alone Sal. Really alone."
Sal was about as close to me as I would let anyone get. She'd listened to me and comforted me a lot in those difficult months after Gran died. She hadn't lasted long after Granddad really. Sally understood that I felt I'd been left totally alone in the world. Except I hadn't been alone, I'd had an Aunt Martha I knew nothing about.
“You know I'd be there if I could Bob, don't you?"
"Of course I do Sal. I'll be ok," I was starting to feel another sob coming on;" look I'll try to read the letter and ring you back."
"You could always wait until you get back and I'll sit with you while you read it."
"Thanks Sal but I've got to go back to see Roger tomorrow. I'll just have to pull myself together a bit."
"Ring me back later, it doesn't matter how late. You know I'm there in spirit don't you?"
"Yea, of course, thanks Sal." I hung up. "Poor Sal," I thought “it’s not as if her life's that fucking easy either." I took a long pull on the wine tumbler, took a deep breath, picked up the letter in my trembling hand and carefully opened it.
Thursday 19 July 2007
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