Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,145

you’re enjoying the sunshine, isn’t it lovely? Well, some of us are missing the classes and we’re getting a group together to go to the tea dance next Sunday in the Grantham hotel. We’d love you to come.” She reeled off the list of participants and David could see why he was needed. There was only one other man.

“I’d be delighted, Carmel. So long as it isn’t another gorgeous day, I wouldn’t like to be indoors on an afternoon like this.”

“It won’t be. When do we ever get two good weekends in a row? So will we see you there? It’s at four o’clock.”

David enjoyed the tea dance, it was good to move with the music again after a couple of months of holidays and even his samba wasn’t too bad, just a little rusty. Over the tea, Carmel started to quiz him. How such a nice young man was out without a wife. David explained, leaving out anything that made him sound too sour, just the bare facts.

“She just up and left? The hussy!” Carmel’s views on the world were straightforward. “Did she have another man?”

“No, just realised that her wanderlust was too strong.”

“She’ll come back, so, when she gets it out of her system. Can she dance?”

David explained that Kathleen would not come back and that if she did, he would not want her to live with him. He told her about the divorce papers from America.

“Don’t worry, David, she can’t get rid of you like that. There’s no divorce here and that’s how it should stay,” Carmel patted his hand.

“I’d like to be divorced properly,” said David, “I have a legal separation, but it doesn’t feel finished. The American divorce is no use here. If I wanted to remarry, it wouldn’t count.”

“Would you want to remarry?” Carmel’s voice rose to an indignant squeak.

“Yes, if I met the right woman,” David looked at Carmel, who was staring at him, astonished, “I don’t think I know what it feels like to be married, not really. I’d like a chance to.”

“Are you proposing?” Carmel was trying to cover her confusion. “I think I’m too young for you, you know.”

“I’ll wait for you,” David said gallantly, “in the meanwhile, I’m going to vote for divorce in the referendum and pray that enough other people see the light.”

“Have you any children? What about them, how do they feel?”

“Twin girls, they’re twenty-two. They know why their mother left. They remember being dragged on all those holidays, trip after trip. They’re a bit like me now, happy to stay here. It was Clare who made me take up the dancing, she wants me to meet someone new.”

“Did she? Goodness. Is she not worried that someone new would displace her mother?”

“From what? She has heard twice from her mother in five years. Her mother isn’t a big issue in her life at the moment. She’s looking for a man for herself, but she worries that I’ll be all on my own, if she settles down, like her sister’s going to.”

“I never met anyone with a story like this before,” Carmel was quiet, “I can see how you would vote ‘yes’,” she patted his hand again, “do you know, I think I might vote yes myself, to give you a chance. You deserve it. I had mine, my Con was the best man you could meet, kind and gentle and funny. I never thought I was lucky, just reckoned I got what I deserved. But now I see, I was very lucky, even though he died on me three years ago, the wretch. We had six beautiful children, they look out for me and we have good memories of the old days.”

“The children could vote yes too.”

“And maybe I’ll tell my children about you and we can swing the vote!”

“You’re very kind, Carmel,” David was moved. He guessed what kind of background Carmel had come from and knew what a big gesture she was making on his behalf. If she made it when she got into the booth.

“She’ll stick to her word. We’ll remind her.”

David stood up. He could hear music again from the ballroom. “May I have the honour of this dance, Madame?” Carmel took his arm and smiled up at him. “Delighted, Monsieur! Until I can find you a young one to take my place!”

Chapter 51

Autumn 1995

Lucy swung into the driveway in an elderly baby Fiat, looking forward to showing off to the children and to Martin, that she had managed at last to