Sons and Daughters (15 page)

‘I’ve also been thinking, how would you two like a return trip to America on one of the Queens?’ said Jeremy. ‘To Chicago, to meet some of your American Passmores? You could stay with –’ He paused. No, not with his parents. His father was heavily involved in the booming packaging industry, his mother a bustling figure in charity work. They were a couple committed to life outside their home. ‘Sure, yes, you could stay with my sister and her husband. They’d be delighted to have you, fuss you and take you sightseeing. I’d say that idea is one of my best. I’ll go to the agents in the High Street, and book you both for a sailing at a time that suits you best. It’s all on me, naturally, just a little return for your heart-warming hospitality.’

Aunt Amy was open-mouthed, Uncle Dan searching for words. As a compositor in the printing shop of the local newspaper, he had a few pounds behind him and he owned his house, but the cost of a visit to America was out of his range.

‘I’m not sure I know what to say,’ he said.

‘Oh, we couldn’t let you pay for all that, Jeremy,’ said Aunt Amy.

‘You’ll disappoint me if you turn me down,’ said Jeremy, and began some very persuasive talk. His offer was a heartfelt and genuine attempt to repay these kind and affectionate English relatives for all they had done for him. His persuasiveness won the day, Aunt Amy almost misty-eyed with happy emotions. A trip to America, oh, my goodness, she said, wouldn’t that be the trip of a lifetime?

She and Uncle Dan settled for next spring, if he could persuade the local newspaper owners to let him take a month off, the month including his regular two weeks summer holiday. He’d talk to the owners on Monday, he said.

‘You get that fixed up, Dan,’ said Jeremy, ‘and then I’ll book your passages and write to my sister.’

‘Amy,’ said Uncle Dan, ‘help yourself to a glass of your elderberry wine, while I share a bottle of beer with Jeremy.’

‘That’s the kind of talk I like to hear,’ said Jeremy.

Boots, Polly and their twins, together with Sammy, Susie, Jimmy, Paula and Phoebe, had arrived at their holiday destination, a white-stuccoed cottage roofed with colourful Delabole slates close to Daymer Bay in North Cornwall.

The cottage, large, had five bedrooms, a colourful living room, a spacious kitchen with a dining area, and all the amenities necessary to the holidaymakers who rented it, and were in the main regular visitors with their families. Boots and Polly, and Sammy and Susie, had become regulars.

Tired out, the twins were in bed, and by ten o’clock Paula and Phoebe had also retired. Now Boots and Sammy were relaxing over the bottle of whisky Boots had brought from home. Susie and Polly were each enjoying a gin and tonic.

Jimmy had just gone for a walk to take a look, he said, at the local talent. A Cornish holiday nearly always meant girls were in the mood to let acceptable blokes strike up a lively and entertaining, if brief, friendship with them.

‘Jimmy’s got an itch,’ said Susie with a sweet smile.

‘I note that smile,’ said Sammy, ‘it means you’ll be watching what he finds. I might say that if he didn’t have an itch at his age, I’d worry about him.’

‘Tell about the itches you had, Sammy,’ said Polly.

‘I only had one itch,’ said Sammy. ‘Financial. Well, someone had to think about getting the family out of patched trousers and darned jerseys. Boots, of course, did what suited him best, lording it. So I took it on myself to found the family business. I couldn’t afford an itch for girls.’

‘Not much,’ said Susie. ‘You’ve got a dark past, Sammy Adams.’

‘What was her name?’ asked Polly.

‘Rachel Moses,’ said Susie. ‘Afterwards, Rachel Goodman.’

‘Oh, Rachel,’ said Polly, smiling.

‘A beauty, even at sixteen,’ said Boots.

‘A young man’s fancy?’ said Polly.

‘I’m not listening,’ said Sammy.

‘However, when Susie arrived in his life,’ said Boots, ‘he developed another itch, an incurable one.’

‘Some hopes,’ said Susie, ‘he made me eat pie and mash every day for months, giving me the horrors about getting fat.’

‘And they’re living happily ever after,’ murmured Polly, looking a little dreamy.

‘I don’t know how all this came about,’ said Sammy.

‘From a mention of Jimmy having an itch,’ said Boots, deep in an armchair and long legs stretching.

‘Which he’s just taken for a nice walk,’ said Susie.

Jimmy was standing at the open edge of the grass field that overlooked the beach of Daymer Bay. He was taking in the soft Cornish night air, the indigo sky casting velvet darkness over the sea and sand. Brea Hill was a black bulk rising up from the sand and backing onto an unseen golf course. On the other side of the estuary were the twinkling lights of Padstow.

Jimmy, musing on his holiday prospects, turned and began his walk back to the cottage. Going up Daymer Lane, he heard voices ahead, voices of exuberant young people. He stood aside in the narrow lane to let them pass. They chorused, ‘Happy holidays.’

‘Same to you,’ said Jimmy.

‘We’re going for a night runabout on the beach,’ said a young man.

‘I’d join you,’ said Jimmy, now dog-tired, ‘except I’m going to my bed for a good night’s kip.’

They laughed and went on. Jimmy glimpsed the blur of white shorts and bare legs. One girl was wearing a tail-tied RAF shirt, unnoticed by Jimmy in the dark.

By the time he arrived back at the holiday cottage, Susie, Sammy, Polly and Boots were about
to retire after their long day on the road. Susie, however, did ask Jimmy if he’d had time to sum up the local talent. Jimmy said he thought there was a lot of it about, but it was all covered up by the dark.

‘Oh, well, Jimmy,’ said Polly, ‘who knows what the light of day will uncover tomorrow?’

‘Good question,’ said Jimmy, ‘and if it’s all spoken for, I’ll help the twins build their sandcastles.’

They all said their goodnights then, and a little later the warm velvety night enclosed them and drew them into healthy sleep.

The fine morning was nature’s gift to holidaymakers. The twins, of course, could hardly wait to take their buckets and spades to the beach, and by ten o’clock there they were, making a huge sandcastle, watched over by Boots and Polly, who’d carried deckchairs down with them. Boots was wearing light tropical slacks and an unbuttoned shirt, his sandals off, his bare feet touching sand. Polly’s slim but quite shapely frame was graced by the lightest of cream-coloured blouses with a kneelength pleated camel skirt, her uncovered toenails varnished pink.

Sammy and Susie, both lightly clothed, were at the edge of the lapping sea, watching Paula and Phoebe who, with other people, were swimming. Jimmy, in white shirt, blue shorts and sandals, was considering his annual climb to the top of Brea
Hill, from where the view was always spectacular. In a group of several young people, a girl was berating a feller.

‘You’re a lost cause,’ she said, ‘it’s all I can call somebody who sprains his ankle on only the third day of his holiday.’

‘My hard luck,’ said the lost cause, a large bandage around his ankle.

‘Well, who’s going to take your place?’

‘None of us,’ said three fellers together, ‘Chloe, Fiona and Matilda won’t let us.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Chloe, Fiona and Matilda.

‘Otherwise one of us will be odd,’ said Fiona, ‘unless she takes on Barry and his sprained ankle.’

‘There you are, odds are out,’ said one of the fellers. ‘Look for someone else. Try that lonesome ranger over there.’

The frustrated girl cast a glance. Well, she thought, he looks as if he could play. He’s got the legs and the right kind of physique.

‘Hey!’ she called.

Jimmy turned. The girl walked towards him, lithely brisk. She was wearing brief white shorts that hugged the upper reaches of her firm thighs, and an RAF shirt that was tied by its tails around her lower ribs, its top buttons undone. Cleavage saucily peeped.

‘Hello,’ said Jimmy.

‘Listen,’ said the girl, dark springy hair kissed by the warm sea breezes, ‘d’you play golf?’

‘Cricket,’ said Jimmy, recognizing her.

‘That’s no good. Come and try some golf. My
partner Barry’s a dope, he managed to sprain his ankle last night. I’m mad about golf myself. You’re not doing anything, are you, except standing about?’

‘I do my standing about in my father’s Walworth store if there’s a shortage of customers,’ said Jimmy.

‘What?’ She blinked and stared. ‘Well, I’m blessed, I know you, you’re the bright spark who sold this shirt and another to me, and gave me some unwanted conversation.’

‘Hello, hello,’ said Jimmy, peering, ‘it’s you. I thought that shirt looked familiar. And I remember now, you mentioned Cornwall, but I didn’t—’

‘Never mind all that,’ she said, ‘come and play some golf. Useless Eustace and I went to the clubhouse yesterday and booked a round for this morning, and the green fee’s paid.’

‘I’ve never even held a golf club, let alone used one,’ said Jimmy.

‘But you’ve got arms and legs, haven’t you?’ said the girl. ‘Yes, of course you have, and I’ll give you a few tips. It’s no fun going round on one’s own. Come on, we can get there from the beach, and you’ll like the game.’

‘I’ll chance it,’ said Jimmy, ‘but hold on a tick while I let my family know where I am.’

He did a quick run to the nearest kin, Boots and Polly, and told them he’d be on the golf course until lunchtime, probably. Some girl needed a partner.

Polly smiled. She and Boots hadn’t missed the advent of the girl in question.

‘Off you go, Jimmy old sport,’ she said, and he made quick tracks back to the girl.

‘I don’t think he’s ever played any golf,’ said Boots.

‘That’s hardly important, when the local talent has just shown up,’ said Polly.

‘Are you a matchmaker?’ asked Boots, down on the sand now and helping the twins to make the sandcastle huger.

‘Perish the thought,’ said Polly.

Jimmy set out with the girl to make the slight ascent from the beach to the golf course and the clubhouse. Thirty minutes later they were on the first tee, each with a bag of clubs hired for a fee of seven and six and containing golf balls and tees. The morning round of enthusiasts was well under way by now, and the first fairway was clear.

‘Watch closely,’ said the girl. Having used some sand from a box to make a tee for her ball, she began to execute some practice swings with her driver. ‘By the way, what’s your name?’

‘Jimmy Adams.’

‘I’m Jenny Osborne.’

‘How d’you do?’

‘Don’t talk,’ said Jenny, taking her stance. Jimmy watched her, a lithe and stunning girl with gorgeous legs, her hands gripping the club firmly. Up it went, her arms lifting high, and down it came in a fast graceful swing. She cracked the ball away,
high over the fairway. It descended, bounced and ran on.

‘Good shot, was it?’ said Jimmy.

‘Well, I liked it,’ said Jenny. ‘Come on, try your luck. Don’t use a driver, use an iron. An iron’s easier for a beginner.’

‘What’s a driver and what’s an iron?’ asked Jimmy.

She selected a number 3 iron from his bag, gave it to him and watched as he made a sand tee and placed the ball on it. He then did some practice swings.

‘Keep your legs and hips still,’ said Jenny.

‘Right,’ said Jimmy. He squared up to the ball and delivered a thumping whack with the club. The ball remained on its sand tee.

‘Air shot, you clumsy chump,’ said Jenny. ‘Try again, and keep your head still, eyes on the ball.’

Jimmy had another go. The clubhead just tickled the top of the ball and it fell limply off the little tee of sand.

‘Who’s a duffer?’ he said.

‘You are,’ said Jenny. ‘You lifted your head. Didn’t I tell you to keep it still? Try again.’ Jimmy teed up his ball and took a new stance. Jenny watched him keenly. ‘You ought to be able to hit a ball,’ she said, ‘you’re tall enough and you’re not an old fogey yet.’

‘Right now,’ said Jimmy, ‘I think I’ve got an inferiority complex.’

‘Well, get rid of it and hit that ball,’ said Jenny.

Jimmy concentrated with set teeth. He swung the club and followed through with his hands and arms.

Crack!

In astonishment and experiencing a fair amount of rapture, he saw the ball flying high through the air and bounding along as it hit turf.

‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘did I do that?’

‘Good shot, Jimmy,’ said Jenny, ‘let’s get going.’

They shouldered their bags and set off down the fairway, the links course a vista of green in front of them, the air warm and balmy, the sky an azure blue.

They played golf. Jenny hit crisply sweet shots, Jimmy sometimes hit a cracker and most other times had air shots or shocking shots. And on the greens, his putter behaved like a useless lump of old iron. Jenny kept berating him.

‘Keep your head still, you dope, don’t I keep telling you?’

‘Listen, Jimmy Adams, whoever you are, that’s a golf club you’re using, not a pickaxe.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so hopeless. You don’t look hopeless, but you are.’

Sometimes, however, ‘Oh, good shot, that’s better.’

Jenny enjoyed her golf. She shook her head over his. Jimmy reckoned his round had given him a totally forgettable morning.

‘Thank God,’ he said at the end.

‘What for?’ asked Jenny, as they walked to the professional’s shop.

‘It’s all over,’ said Jimmy.

Jenny laughed.

‘Cheer up,’ she said, ‘it didn’t actually slay you.’

They delivered the clubs back to the professional, who asked if they’d enjoyed their round.

‘Lovely,’ said Jenny.

‘I’m keeping quiet,’ said Jimmy.

Leaving the shop, he looked at his watch. Five minutes past two.

‘Do you have time for a drink?’ he asked Jenny.

‘Thanks, but no,’ she said. ‘I’m getting back to the beach. My friends have a picnic going.’

‘Well, I ought to get back for lunch at our cottage,’ said Jimmy. ‘If there’s any left.’

‘Good luck,’ said Jenny. ‘Thanks for coming round with me. So long.’

They parted. On arriving back at the cottage, Jimmy found some lunch had been saved for him, and so had some questions.