They say every journey starts with a single step. In my case, the journey to enlightenment began with a spilt cup of tea.
I should begin by explaining how I got to the starting point of my journey.
My name is Eve Laidler. I was born and raised in England: my father was the owner of a small independent garage and repair workshop in East Anglia, a quiet, gentle man but with a twinkle in his eye and an unassuming sense of fun, which I'd like to think I've inherited. My mother on the other hand was a more severe woman who tolerated, but never really joined in, my father's humour. Then when I was eleven years old, my father died quite suddenly of a heart attack.
My mother tried to take on the running of the garage, although it was already clear that the big car dealerships were squeezing the likes of us out of business. But our little operation was near an American air base, and some of the staff stationed there would use us to service their American cars which they had brought over, since the big boys had no advantage over us when it came to models they had no experience of. One day about two years later, my mother announced that she was going to marry one such serviceman, Joseph Waller. This was out of the blue, as far as I was concerned; she had never brought him to the house, and although I knew she had evenings out, I never realised she was dating. Within 6 months, she was married, Joseph was sent back to the USA, and we went with him. Shortly after, he left the Air Force, became the manager of a hardware store and we settled in a modest wooden house in a small town in middle America, in what some comedian called "one of the square states", and I found myself having a completely different life.
Joseph was a humourless and solemn man, who was stern and domineering. To give him his due, he tried hard to be a father figure to me, and was kind in his way, but the austere outlook soon had me suppressing my fun side, and I became more introspective, careful about what I said, and keeping my emotions hidden. My mother and I became Americans. We became closely involved with the local church, the Church of the Redeemer, and Pastor Josiah Brown became a regular visitor to our home. I was persuaded -- actually, more like commanded -- to join the choir, and what with school and church affairs, I had a steady and secure, if not exactly stimulating, existence.
At school, I was a bit of an oddity, with my English accent and upbringing, and a lack of understanding of many of the ways of life that my fellow students took for granted. Even the teachers found me hard to integrate, since the syllabus was different and I was missing some of the early years' grounding in some subjects. Also I found it hard to get used to American spellings, and constantly got ribbed for using the wrong words -- after I asked a class mate to borrow a rubber, instead of an eraser, I got called Rubber all the time. I didn't know at the time it meant a condom, at school in England we called them Johnnies. So I found myself a bit socially excluded, and became a bit of a loner.
Then when I was sixteen, my stepfather died. He'd been fit and healthy, but ran out of the store after a customer who'd left his wallet on the counter, and was hit by a car coming past the front of the store. This was in the parking lot, and the car was only doing ten or fifteen miles an hour, but he fell awkwardly and hit his head hard on the road -- a freak accident.
My mother was devastated. She cried a lot, and when she wasn't crying, she was angry -- at Joseph for leaving her, at herself for not coping with it, and often at me, for reasons I couldn't always determine: I couldn't seem to do anything to please her. She seemed to lack the drive of old, and I think she probably had a minor breakdown. More and more of domestic life I found myself taking over -- cleaning, shopping, cooking. My mother had had a part time job as a receptionist for a local doctor, but took so much time off for 'compassionate leave' that eventually the doctor was forced to replace her. I began to wonder how we were fixed financially. Pastor Brown stopped by often to lend his support, and slowly my mother began to rally. Eventually one of the church members found her another job helping out in a store -- not well paid but at least it helped her back into normal life and interaction with the outside world.
It was easier in the choir at first, as we had little time for socialising, and choir practice was more about singing than chatting. There was one boy there though, Pastor Brown's son Abe, who began to take an interest in me when I was seventeen. I had become a reasonably attractive teenager, with a decent and trim figure and a pleasant if not exactly pretty face. Although I did nothing to show off my looks, Abe began to seek me out. Now Pastor Brown was an ebullient man with a booming voice who always seemed to fill any room he was in. He seemed to consider his role in life as uplifting people by force of personality, and of course keeping them in God's way in the process. Abe, on the other hand, was a sly, unctuous kid with a wheedling voice, who acted in public just like the very correct Pastor's son, but who in private started to come on to me. At first, it was sexual innuendo. For example, one evening I was collecting up all the various hymn books and music sheets after choir practice, and Abe stood watching whilst everybody else was packing up and leaving. When they had all left, and I had nearly finished, he came over with his usual oily smile and said, "I'll help you if you like, if you do something for me in return." "That's big of you," I replied sarcastically. "It's what you can do in return that will make me big!" he responded with a leering grin.
This kind of exchange became more frequent when he had the opportunity, and I could see him start to engineer such opportunities. If I borrowed a book from the church library, he would somehow be there when I took it back. Once a month in summer, the church had a stall in the car park selling donated goods to fund missionary work, and if I volunteered to man the stall, so would Abe, forever trying to peer down my cleavage if I leaned to reach an item from under the table.
The Pastor seemed to think I was sweet on Abe, and kept pairing us up for church tasks. He asked me to distribute the monthly parish publication to congregation members, and arranged for Abe to drive me round one evening. After we finished, I went into the church to put the unused copies in the office, and Abe followed me in.
"You owe me a reward for helping you!" he said.
"Oh yes, and what do you suppose that is?"
My reply was incautious. He grabbed me and spun me round with my back to the cupboard, and kissed me hard. It wasn't a very romantic or arousing moment. Before I could gather my wits, his hands were on my breasts, kneading and mashing them. It didn't feel good. I pushed him away and ran out, laughter in my ears.
He kept telling me I should lose my cherry before I went to college, so I would be ready for the boys there, and he was the man to take it for me. My response was to tell him to get lost, but it seemed to have little effect.
Not surprisingly, what with my mother's state of mind and my involvement in the church, my schoolwork suffered, and it began to look as though it would be harder for me to graduate from high school. So it wasn't a question of losing my virginity before going to college -- I wasn't likely to get there. Even if we had the money, or I could get a job and work myself through college, my mother would not let me go and it did not seem as if she could cope without me.
So I got a vacation job at Jackson's Mow & Grow -- a large garden centre on the outskirts of town. It was thanks to old Mr. John Jackson, whom I knew as a leading member of the church, although he was now pretty much retired and most of the day to day running was done by his grandson Luke. I really enjoyed it, from manning the shop tills to watering the stock to plant culture in the greenhouses.
Then just before I graduated from high school, my mother got sick. She developed severe abdominal pains and fever, and the doctors diagnosed peritonitis from a bowel rupture. She failed to respond to treatment and within a week she had died.
So there I was, just turned eighteen, now completely dependent on myself, with no near relatives to help, no close friends thanks to my restrictive home life, and no money. I somehow got through the immediate issues of bereavement and funeral, found that she had actually been organised enough to make a will in which she left me the house, and it turned out there was a savings account which I hadn't known about -- close to ten thousand dollars -- but she had stated it should be used to cover all the funeral expenses, and the balance went to the church. I was left with the current account with just a couple of hundred dollars, but at least no debts.
So now I had no worries about where to live, but no money and serious worries about pretty much everything else. By the time all this was done, school had finished, so I never went back. I went instead to see Luke, and he offered me a full time job at Mow & Grow, which I eagerly accepted -- not much money, but enough to enable me to keep the house and still eat.
Fast forward four years to the spilt cup of tea. I mentioned it to Marijka the following day whilst we were at the potting bench potting up begonias for the forthcoming Spring rush.
