Page 81 of Summer in Greece

I understood this was the start of my penance. An atonement that I feared would last my whole life long.

CHAPTER 33

SHELLY

Dover, present day.

AFTER SUNDAY BREAKFAST, GORDON LOOKED up from his racing magazine. ‘Are you packing already? I thought you weren’t going for another few weeks?’

‘You’re right, I’m not. I just wanted to get some things in the case, Dad.’

‘Shelly love, do yer really think you’ll need that old blanket in Greece. It is summer, you know?’

Shelly laughed. ‘I hope not, Dad. No, it’s for the museum in Kea. They’re looking for things to do with the Britannic. And this belonged to a soldier who was on the ship. They’ll love it!’

‘In that case, yer should look in me big chair in the loft. Lots of old stuff from Gertie in there. She said it was ’er mother’s sewing room before the war. The pigeon loft was outside in them days.’

‘You are kidding me!’ Shelly rushed upstairs, lighter, quicker, than she ever had before. Only weeks ago she had travelled to Greece, dull, depressed and desperate for a break. This time, she felt herself on the verge of a real adventure.

The loft chair was once an ottoman but, using a couple of pallets, Gordon had fixed armrests and a back to it. She often found him having an afternoon nap there.

Shelly flicked the light on and had to praise her father, the place was spotless as always. The loft ran the length of the cottage and was divided into two by a grille with a mesh door in the centre. This kept the birds contained in one half of the attic, and left the other half to Gordon and his pigeon paraphernalia.

She heard her dad’s footsteps on the stairs.

‘I can’t remember if I screwed the lid down,’ he called. ‘There’s a tool box in the tallboy.’

A few minutes later she was unscrewing the lid of the ottoman and found it had been carefully lined with oilcloth and was crammed to the top with fabric. The top half was curtains, table linen, and bedding, including an enormous candlewick bedspread which she laid out on the floor and organised everything else in neat piles on top of it.

‘’Ere, yer look like you should be on the market, Shelly,’ Gordon said with a chuckle.

‘Buy your bedding here! The best price, best quality!’ Shelly cried, playing up to his humour, sensing a little miracle had taken place with his recently uplifted mood.

‘Aye, wait a minute. I remember that thing,’ her father said, his face softening.

‘What, the candlewick?’

He nodded. ‘In them days – when me and your mum got married – you’d hand out a gift list to the guests a few weeks before the do and folk just got something off it. Yer mum put bedding and kitchen. Seems everyone got the same idea. We got no bedding except for five candlewick bedspreads, so we rolled one up for pillows, then used another one for a sheet, and had three atop of us. In the mornings we had candlewick fluff in our ears, noses, eyes, mouth and everywhere unmentionable. Then, we went downstairs and had breakfast: toast served up in one of our four stainless-steel toast racks.’ He was staring at nothing, face aglow with happiness, eyes sparkling. Shelly nearly wept for him.

‘When you were born, you had this fuzzy hair on yer head and I remember your mum said to the midwife, “It’s probably not hair at all, it is probably candlewick fluff. It gets everywhere!” And we all laughed so much . . . She had a crackin’ sense of humour, you know.’

Shelly struggled. She didn’t want to discourage him from talking about her mother by being emotional. In all these years, she’d never once heard him speak of her, his pain was too great.

‘That’s everything,’ she said, slightly disappointed after a final rummage in the bottom of the trunk. ‘The rest is just three lumpy old pillows. Might as well turf them while we’re here.’ She hauled one out. ‘Hang on a minute, they’re not pillows at all, Dad. There’s a drawstring at one end. I wonder if these are the pillow-bags Gran Gertie talked about on the tape?’ She tugged at the slip-knot that fastened one and gently tipped out the contents.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Shelly muttered, putting down the ottoman lid and taking a seat. Her father sat beside her. They both stared. ‘It’s Gertie’s bag, isn’t it? The one she packed when the . . . the one that made her miss the first lifeboat . . . the one that saved her life. Jees, this makes it all very real, doesn’t it, Dad?’

She picked up her phone and sent Harry a text.

I’ve found Gran Gertie’s bag from when she was on the Britannic. Will bring contents for the museum. XX.

Shelly turned and saw her father slumped forward with his elbows on his knees. He stared at the pile of stuff. ‘You know what, love, I think you should show this lot to . . .’ he gulped, ‘your son, next weekend.’

Shelly slipped her arm around his shoulders. ‘I do appreciate that all this is very hard for you, Dad. I want you to know that I understand. You never meant any harm, did you? I realised a long time ago; you were only thinking of my best interests when you insisted DJ went for adoption. I was too young, and perhaps I shouldn’t have kept my pregnancy a secret for so long. I said things . . . terrible things, well, I’m sorry.’ She could hear herself, crying, screaming.

I wish you were dead! I wish you were dead! I hate you!

His weathered old hands went up to cover his face for a moment. He drew in a long breath and said, ‘I’ve regretted insisting on his adoption every day since, Shelly love. It hurt so much, I couldn’t even speak about it. I tried a few times since, really I did, but it’s embarrassin’ to see a grown man cry. In the end I just gave up and tried to forget about the entire incident.’