Daughter of the Winds (4 page)

I had been trying hard to keep my emotions on a short leash. I brought them to heel each time I felt pangs of guilt.
Guilt for leaving Dom. Guilt for going against my mother’s wishes. Guilt for misleading my editor. It wasn’t like me to be so underhand but I was driven to do something proactive about this situation I found myself in. I told myself that, for once, I was going to be the one calling the shots.

I blinked and swallowed and tried to concentrate on the view o
f the sea in front of me but tears surged against the self-built damn and, with constant battering, broke down the edifice that had been protecting me. Tears bloomed at my eyes and flowed down my face.

The sheer beauty of my surroundings had rendered me vulnerable and I struggled to find a place for myself amongst all of this.
I no longer knew where I belonged or exactly what my purpose was in life. The only thing that I was sure of right now was that I couldn’t make any decisions about my future until I understood my past. I only hoped that I would find the answers here on this island. I’m not sure what good they’d do me though, but that was another problem. Answers first, consequences later.

Was Dom relieved to have the house to
himself now, without having to walk on the eggshells that I scattered around myself? Was he pleased not to be my verbal punch bag every day? None of this was his fault and yet I seemed incapable of saying that to him and instead I lashed out at the one person I wanted to hold onto most of all.

I didn
’t know how I was meant to deal with the last few weeks. All I knew was that if I didn’t do something constructive now I would crumble away as surely as my foothold on the life I thought I knew had eroded beneath me. Ricocheting between self-pity and uncontrollable anger, I had been unable to make simple decisions or carry out mundane tasks. On more than one occasion I had walked out of the supermarket empty handed because I found myself overwhelmed by the thought of what to have for dinner.

On some days I would sit down in the
armchair and, when I looked up at the clock, would find that hours had passed without making the slightest impact on my day. I was still breathing, my heart was still beating, but in every other way I had ceased to live. Dom and the doctor colluded to prescribe me anti-depressants “to help me function a bit better”. Naturally I thanked the doctor but really I wanted to scream in her face until my throat grew hoarse, “Of course I’m bloody depressed! Wouldn’t you be if all this had happened to you?”

Of course, it wasn
’t just the bombshell that Mother had dropped on me about her not being my ‘real’ mother, it was the other thing as well. The other thing. The. Other. Thing. The baby.

I tightened my grip around the stem of the wineglass and with the back of my other hand I wiped my nose.
I wanted to laugh out loud. What must they be thinking of me now? Dom, my mother, Dr Davidson.
Shall we increase the dose of anti-depressants Mrs Jeffries? You seem to be showing signs of independent thought and that will just never do…

They would be tut-tutting about how I wasn
’t in my right mind but I’d never been so determined in my life. I would not be swayed or manipulated by any of them anymore. It was time to do what I wanted to do. Everyone else could go to hell.

Chapter four

Cyprus, 1974

“What’s happening? Tell me what’s going on! Do you know we were nearly gunned down as we waited for you? We’re in the middle of a war zone here!” Pru shouted at the scrawny British soldier standing in front of her using his clip-board for protection. The young man looked at her warily but showed no sign of being about to answer the angry young lady in front of him.

“
Tell me where you are taking us right now or I will refuse to take one more step. I demand to know what’s happening!”

The other people who had been standing with her at the side of the road filed quietly onto the waiting bus.

“Sorry to have kept you, Miss. We’re evacuating everybody before the Turkish invade the city.” He motioned to the waiting bus with his clip-board and put his hand on her back to guide her towards the open doors. Pru slapped his hand away.

“
For God’s sake, I know
that
much. I want to know
exactly
where you’re taking me. And how close are the Turkish really? And what makes you think they would want to hurt me anyway?”

“
Ummmm…” began the soldier.

“
Well, come on! I haven’t got all day.”

Under Pru
’s scrutiny, the young soldier began to stutter and sweat. He was immeasurably more comfortable facing an inscrutable enemy than dealing with beautiful, pampered women. At least he knew how an enemy soldier’s mind worked. He hadn’t a clue about women.

“
The er… base, the army base. That’s where you’re going. And er… the Turkish are still north of here but getting closer and um… What was the other question?”

“
Idiots. I’m dealing with idiots,” Pru said, apparently to herself but obviously directed at the man in front of her. “I asked why the Turkish would possibly want to hurt
me
?” She walked past the soldier and onto the bus before the young man could mutter under his breath, “Oh, I dunno, I could think of a couple of reasons.”

The bus
rumbled into life and then jerked onto the main road. Someone behind her was smoking, and she inhaled deeply. She looked around her and recognised some of the people who had already been picked up. She nodded to Marjorie who was sitting with her three children cramped across two seats. Marjorie smiled but looked weary. Pru didn’t have many friends amongst the army wives. She blamed Eddie for that.

Eddie was popular wit
h the lads, particularly Marjorie’s husband, but he hadn’t really fitted in with the officers. Eddie was the type of character who was easy going to the point of infuriation and, while this was great at an army social event, these were not the qualities that an officer wanted to nurture in him and subsequently they tried to suppress that side of him. This all reflected badly on Pru, and she despaired at the thought that people felt she wasn’t doing a good job of controlling her husband.

Because it had been made
clear that Eddie would never make any progress in the army, Pru was never at the top of anybody’s list of party invitees and was rarely entertained by the officers’ wives. Marjorie went to these soirees and told her she wasn’t missing much anyway. But Pru was jealous of the thought of Coronation chicken sandwiches with the crusts cut off and dainty mushroom vol-au-vents, light as a dandelion seed-heads. And oh, how sublime the sound of decadent puddings made with raspberries and cream and surrounded by sponge fingers.

She turned in her seat
to look out of the dirty window and studied the landscape. The shops, the cafés, the houses – it all looked the same. If an invasion was imminent, it appeared no one had told the Greeks. Groups of men still sat under trees playing chess. Women were still sweeping their front door steps. She was sure she would be telling Eddie “I told you so” in a few days’ time when they were back on their balcony, sipping Keo and slapping at mosquitoes on their sun-warmed skin.

It had been good between them at first.
It had never been that kind of earth-shattering love that some people talked of. It would never be the kind of romance that would inspire doe-eyed men to write songs or poems but Pru hardly cared. Marriage was never a fairy-tale dream for Pru. It was a practical and logical step towards self-advancement and independence.

Eddie
was handsome, witty and strong, and Pru was pretty, slender and smart. Visually they were a perfect couple. Pru had fine, delicate features and shimmering golden hair that hung in gleaming sheets to her waist. Eddie had a strong square jaw with a dimple in his chin, looking every inch the film star. Everyone said they were made for each other. No one questioned why they didn’t wait for a summer wedding. The more naïve guests at the wedding assumed it was something to do with Eddie’s deployment to Cyprus. Others, who were more worldly, noticed that Pru’s waist wasn’t as trim as it once was.

Of course the reason for the rushed wedding was also the very reason that Mam and Dad weren
’t there. Mam was disgusted at her only child’s “carrying on” and washed her hands of her. Instinctively Pru rubbed at her left wrist, where her watch would have been if she still wore one, remembering the last time she saw her parents.

O
n her eighteenth birthday, Pru had walked back slowly from the bus stop as usual, thoughts alternating between her English homework and what she could wear to go to see
Cabaret
at the cinema with Eddie on Friday. She’d heard that Liza Minnelli was amazing as Sally Bowles.

As she walked up the path she caught a glimpse of movement behind the drab net curtain
s but thought nothing of it. She made her way round through the clanging metal gate to the back door. As she reached for the door it was wrenched suddenly and sharply open.

“
Don’t you step foot in this house, young lady!” Mam’s eyes were burning with fury.

Pru stepped backwards in shock.
Her eyes widened as her mother, angrier than she had ever seen her before, confronted her. She was wearing a severe bruise-coloured dress. Even though it was a cold day, Mam still wore a sleeveless dress as usual. The yellow skin on her arms sagged like a deflated balloon at her sides. A bulge by her collar-bone alerted Pru to the fact that she’d been crying. She always stuffed her handkerchief under her bra strap when she had a cold or was upset. Pru tried to read her mother’s face to see what had upset her so much. Colour was high in her cheeks and her mouth was clenched to the point where her lips had all but disappeared.

“
You heard me, young lady. I don’t expect a daughter of mine to carry on like THIS.” Mam held a white leather diary in her hand and Pru felt her stomach drop away.

“
Mam... I…”

“
No!” Mam held up her hand. “No more. I told you about that boy. There will be no carrying on in this house!”

“
But Mam, you don’t understand. You’d like Eddie. He loves me, Mam.”

“
You? Hah! Who’d love a selfish little madam like you?”

“
Mam!”

They
had never had a close relationship. Pru was horrified at Mam’s lack of attention to her appearance and wondered what Dad had ever seen in her. Mam never cracked jokes, sang around the house or used makeup. Pru had heard other women say that on a sunny day all you noticed about Alice Merton was her shadow. You could never smell the subtle scent of the rose garden over the aroma of fried fish that hung to her clothes, even when it wasn’t a Friday. Pru used to think that birds didn’t sing when Alice was around. But it was just that she couldn’t hear them over her constant wheezing and the clacking of her false teeth that she’d been treated to as a twenty-first birthday present. Happiness seemed to know that it wasn’t a welcome house guest in Alice’s home.

Pru felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her mother.
She wondered whether Mam was simply a desperately unhappy woman going through the motions in life. She reached out to her.

“
Mam, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m in love and I’m happy. You remember when you first met Dad? How exciting it all was? Well, that’s how it is with Eddie and me. We want to get married.”

For a moment Pru thought that Mam was going to spit on her.
“What has love got to do with marriage?” She shook the diary in Pru’s face. “If you don’t stop seeing that boy you will leave my house today and
never
come back!” Mam shouted.

“
It’s not that easy, Mam. You’d like him if you gave him a chance,” Pru whispered holding back the tears.

They both stood staring at each other in silence.
Mam, standing on the doorstep, looked down on Pru with disgust written all over her face. But there was something else behind those eyes. What was that? Smugness? Satisfaction?

Pru blinked away the tears in her eyes and felt the fear and nausea start to be replaced with something stronger in the fire
-pit of her belly.

“
I will do exactly
what
I want to do
when
I want to do it.”

“
Then you can leave right now!” Mam screamed.

“
Where’s Dad?” Pru asked without any emotion in her voice that might betray her fear.

“
He can’t stand to look at you. You’ve let us down Prudence. I always knew you would, it was just a matter of time. Now get away from me before I do something I regret.”

“
No.”

“
I
be
g
your pardon?” spat the older woman, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“
I said ‘no’. Why don’t you get out of my way before I do somethin
gI
regret.”

Pru pushed past her through the kitchen and went quickly upstairs two at a time
to her room where she pulled open each of the three drawers and emptied their contents onto the bed. She stuffed as much as she could into her travelling bag and stuffed her Post Office account book into the side pocket.

“
Dad? Dad?” she shouted as she emerged from the bedroom. Mam was blocking her path, her arms folded over her narrow rake of a chest, her sallow cheeks starting to flush with rage.

“
Give me your arm.”

“
What?”

“
Give. Me. Your. Arm!”

Tentatively
, into the silence, Pru started to glide her left arm to her mother. With lightening quickness her talons gripped at Pru’s arm and clamped down tightly.

“
Hey!” shrieked Pru, trying to wriggle free from her grasp.

“
And you are NOT leaving this house with that watch!” Her mother’s scrawny fingers with their bulbous knuckles fought with the clasp.

“
No! It’s my birthday present. Dad got it for me. Where is he? Dad? Dad!”

“
I’ve told you, he can’t stand to look at you. He’s gone out.”

“
Of course he’s gone out!” shouted Pru, pushing at her mother who was now holding the delicate watch against her chest. “He can’t stand to be around you any more than I can. You are a poisonous old cow who knows nothing about love. You take no joy from life and can’t stand it if anyone else enjoys it. Well guess what, Mam? I
am
enjoying life and I’ll enjoy it even more when I don’t have to be sharing a roof with you!”

The slap, when it came, hurt more than Pru had expected and took her breath away.
Even as she thought about it now her hand automatically rose to her cheek and she could still feel the ghost of the sting.

Eddie
’s dad, a fair and honest man, had gone round to try to reason with Mam before the wedding and to tell her about the baby, but nothing had changed. She said that they didn’t want to be any part of it. Eddie’s mum wouldn’t go and see them though. “I wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire,” she’d said and that always made Pru laugh.

Pru was brought back to the present as t
he bus shuddered, lurched and slowed down. The driver was looking closely at the houses to the right. Pru looked out of the window herself. She didn’t recognise the area at all but it appeared to be residential. All the houses were built in the same style: square, white and squat with tiny windows and plain doors.

The door
of the bus clattered open noisily and a uniformed man stepped aboard. Without looking up he started reeling off names from a sheet in front of him.

“
Baker, Clements, Clarke…”

Surprised to hear her name, Pru called out
, “But this isn’t the base. Where are we?”

The
smartly dressed soldier in the early years of his forties looked up.

“You’re being placed in a safe house close to the base until we can assess the threat by the Turkish. I’m terribly sorry but there’s not enough room at the married quarters on the base for all of you. Here.” He walked up the bus offering his elbow awkwardly. “Take my arm. This is quite an upheaval for someone in your condition so let’s see if we can get you a little more comfortable. Now if you’d like to come this way, you’ll be staying with…” He checked the sheet of paper again. “Ah, yes, here it is, Mrs Fisher.”