The Paul & Jenny Stories Pt. 15d: Another June Wedding Part 4
A Paul and Jenny story.
(Copyright 2001 by Paul. All rights reserved).
All events and characters are fictitious.
* * * * *
June 1972.
Paul.
I walked down to the village pub with Steve and Len at seven in the evening. Jenny's warning about only to have a couple and not to get into trouble when I'd last seen her the previous afternoon still rang in my ears.
I'd been very good the night before. I'd stayed with my grandfather and drank some very fine Brandy. He'd taken some photographs from a drawer and spread them out on the kitchen table, where we were sitting after eating the fish and chips I'd driven into Taunton to buy for supper while he was taking Millie, my old black Labrador for a walk.
In the afternoon I'd gone with Steve to collect our morning dress and top hats from the outfitters and we had both had haircuts at the barbers.
It certainly made you feel special to wear clothes like that. Long tails to the jacket, a high buttoned waistcoat and a matching grey top hat. We both had a pair of soft white leather gloves to carry. Crisp white shirts hung in my wardrobe above the shiny new patent leather shoes. Two new white ties lay flat in my sock drawer.
Steve had then left to help Len with the transport arrangements. We had given Len that job. I suppose I could have had two best men like Royalty sometimes does. But then Len was the son of a Haulage Company owner. It was the best use of his talents to get him to arrange the transport. He did know all the right people in that area.
Steve was to be best man. I'd asked him how his speech was going hoping to get an idea of what he was going to say but all he replied was that he'd knock something up on the day. I was going to keep mine formal. Just thank everybody and their dog. Steer clear of the jokes and make everyone go 'Ah' by telling Jenny I loved her in front of them. That could be the difficult part. I had trouble saying to her when we were alone. To do it in front of two hundred people. I might leave that bit out after all.
The photographs my grandfather had spread out were mostly discoloured with age. Some of the images were indistinct but he saw them as if they had been taken the day before. I'd carefully picked up one of a young man standing beside a First World War bi-plane. He had still been a teenager when he'd flown and that was after a year in the trenches. My great Uncle Alistair would have come back from the front before this photo had been taken, minus a hand and a career. I'd wish I'd known him. Eight photographs. That was all that remained. One picture showed him holding a young boy of eighteen months of age. Both staring wide eyed into the camera lens. The same family features were strong in both of us. He didn't look well and had died within nine months.
One with Natasha, his wife, in a smart two piece suit. She carried a bouquet and he wore a white flower in his buttonhole. She'd lost her first husband in the First World War and had married Uncle Alistair in 1922. They had married in the Old Catholic chapel that stood at the far end of the village after Alistair had converted to Catholicism. Natasha had always expressed a wish to be buried with the children of her first marriage who had both died in the great flu epidemic of 1919.
The Chapel and graveyard had been closed before the start of the Second World War and it had taken special permissions to have it re-opened to bury first Alistair in 1952 and Natasha when she had died in 1967. I remembered her funeral. They had lain her between Alistair and her children. It was the first time I could remember meeting Great Aunt Matilda and her daughter and granddaughters. My grandfather never mentioned his sister. She certainly never visited. They lived up near Bath, apparently. I got on well with my second cousins. One was my age and one a year younger. Strange how I was never encouraged too keep in contact.
The Wagstaffe's had lived in this area since the 1700's. Some had married into the Catholic faith and some out of it. I was sure I hadn't met all the relatives I had in the area even now. I had a feeling I was going to meet a lot more in the near future if my mother had anything to do with it.
I picked up a photo of Alistair, my Grandfather and my father standing with Roddrego beside an open boat. They all carried rifles and bandoleers of ammunition around their necks except Alistair who had a revolver in the waistband of his trousers.
"That would have been taken in Spain. Wouldn't it?" I'd asked.
"Yes." He'd confirmed. "In 1937. Your grandmother took it."
"Nobody will ever tell me what happened when you went there." I complained.
"Which time?" He'd asked.
"Either."
He'd picked up his of Brandy glass and swilled the contents around, warming it with the heat from his hand to release the spirits bouquet.
"I cannot tell you everything." He said placing the glass on the table and, taking a cigar from the box in front of us, cut the end and struck a match to light it. "It should be your father really."
He drew on his cigar and let a steady stream of smoke slowly escape from between his lips. I found it fascinating to watch. Perhaps it was the Brandy I had drunk. I felt very peaceful.
Suddenly my grandfather was speaking.
"Roddrego was visiting with your grandmother and myself here when he received a letter. It was addressed in Spanish and I could see it had been posted in Gibraltar." He paused, looking out through the open kitchen door at the late afternoon shadows stealing across the terrace patio. "The letter had taken two weeks to reach him. It was from his Mother. She was concerned that the unrest that had started the trouble around Madrid was spreading down to where they were living in Grenada. It was still early in the Civil War. His father was steadfastly refusing to leave saying they had been forced out of one Country, and he had been the President, and he was not being forced out of a second.
"There had been riots in support of the various factions fighting in the north and centre of the country and it would only be a matter of time before it changed to all out fighting. She had heard of some horrible things happening, especially to the young girls in the remoter villages, as they passed from Army to Army in the fighting and she worried for their own staff. Would Roddrego please ask Senor Wagstaffe to write to his father and urge him to leave? He was one of the few people he would listen to."
"Of course I agreed to write. I knew Alistair had contacts in Government circles and I managed to get a phone call through to him and asked if he could have the letter taken at least as far as Gibraltar in a diplomatic bag. I had to wait for twenty-four hour to hear from him that our Ambassador in Madrid had been withdrawn and we now had no official representative within Spain. Alistair thought that the best plan would be to have Roddrego taken to Gibraltar and then see if there was some way he could then be safely taken into Spain and convince his father to leave. In fact, the Government thought it was a good idea that his father should leave Spain. We were to find out two years later why."
I thought of interrupting but now I had him opening up I didn't want to stop him.
"Alistair also said that if Roddrego were to come up to London then there was a plane that could be made available if he could get a pilot. There could be no official Government involvement as we hadn't yet chosen which side to officially support. We seldom did until we knew who was going to win. Anyway, they would have to fly through France and along Spain's Mediterranean coast to land at Gibraltar. It would be best if Roddrego left England un-noticed."
"When I told Roddrego what Alistair had said he had asked me to be his pilot. I had flown his father and himself out of their country during the rebellion in the early 1920's. I'd looked at Margaret. She'd been pregnant with your father when we had all flown out. He had only come back from school for the Easter break three days before."
'Of course we must go.' Margaret had said. 'But what to do about David.'
'What about me?' Your father had said, entering the sitting room at that moment. I think he must have overheard some of what we had been saying. 'Why do you have to do anything with me?'
