The Jubilee Letter

by Carol MacLean

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Set against the backdrop of 1950s Glasgow and the grand drama of the young Queen's coronation, Avril has two suitors to choose from. However, both have secrets, and only once Avril finds out what they are hiding, will she be able to choose a love to last a lifetime. Will Avril be tempted by the charming Jack or choose the quiet Gordon? Caught between two lovers, a choice once made will affect her entire life.

Release date: July 27, 2015

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 141

Sample

Chapter One

The letter arrived just as Avril was settling down to watch the start of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. John and Lisa had bought a giant flat screen television especially for the occasion, and late the previous evening it had been ceremoniously lifted and attached to the living room wall. Avril had pretended not to hear her eldest son’s muted swearing as he tried to connect a snake of cables to the monster, accompanied by helpful suggestions from her grandson, Alexander. Jennifer, Alex’s wife, bouncing the new baby on her hip, gave Avril a conspiratorial smile.

Looking at the baby gave Avril a strange pang, right there in the centre of her chest, where her heart lay. It was so strong a sensation that it felt like a physical pain, acid and yet sugar-sweet all at the same time. She was a great-grandmother twice over, what with the new baby and her darling Lucy, the baby’s four-year-old sister. When she felt that pang it was as if layers and layers of days rose fluttering towards her like delicate chiffon. They peeled away and she felt anew the shock and surprise of being an old lady of eighty. Which was silly, wasn’t it, for her bones could have told her that. Indeed they sang to her every morning as she creaked out of bed.

‘GiGi! GiGi! Look,’ Lucy shouted, waving her little hands high above her head.

GiGi was Lucy’s special name for Avril. Great-Grandmother and even Great-Gran having proved too much for her to get her tongue around, Lucy had come up with the letter ‘G’ twice, the way she was taught to sound it at pre-school. Guh Guh. Soon it had mutated to GiGi. It was a secret message of love between them and only Lucy was allowed to use the name. It remained to be seen whether baby brother Ross would be granted permission in due course or not.

‘What is it, darling?’ Avril asked. She fumbled for her glasses and balanced them on her nose.

‘I’m on the telly,’ Lucy yelled with glee.

And sure enough she was! Avril blinked in amazement. It wasn’t actually Lucy but a cartoon likeness which bent and waved and jumped just when the real Lucy did.

‘It’s just the Xbox Kinect. Gran,’ Inge, aged twelve, flopped heavily onto the sofa beside her. Her lips were sulky with attitude and she chewed and blew gum bubbles with a series of loud snapping sounds. Avril patted her granddaughter’s hand, noticing how smooth Inge’s skin was compared to the gnarled furrows and ridges of her own flesh.

‘It’s like magic to me, love. When I was your age …’ Avril trailed off. Young people didn’t want to hear about the distant past. It bored them. It was black and white, sepia or technicolour at best. Whereas Inge’s world was bright colours, vibrant with the latest fashions and must-have digital technology.

But Inge’s hand curled gently around hers with affection and love. Even if it wasn’t cool to hang out with your gran.

‘I know, when you were my age you were down a mine or up a chimney.’

‘Not quite,’ Avril protested. ‘Those days were long gone by the time I was born you know.’

But then she saw Inge’s grin.

‘You are naughty,’ she scolded but smiling too.

There was a sudden rattle of German behind them. Petra, Inge’s older sister was leaning over the back of the sofa. It was funny how life turned out, Avril mused. They’d fought the Germans tooth and nail. She’d been a child growing up in the war years and her father had almost lost his life to a German bullet. They had all suffered, all been marked in some way by those terrible years and their aftermath. Then her youngest son, Graham, ended up working and living in Southern Germany and marrying a German girl called Hildegarde. Their daughters, Petra and Inge, were being brought up there and were bilingual. Avril had come to terms with it very quickly, and was extremely fond of Hildegarde and loved her granddaughters. But she wondered what her father would have made of it all. He was probably spinning in his grave right now, hearing Petra speak her mother tongue. As for Avril’s mother, she would likely not have let them in the house.

Avril drifted into the layers of chiffon. She could see her mum very clearly if she focussed. There she was, standing ramrod straight at the front of her boarding house, mop in hand. She was wearing her usual spotless housecoat and her hair was neatly tied and covered by a flowered scarf. She was frowning at Avril, disapproving of the company she was keeping, a deep vertical line carved between her dark brows from habit.

‘Gran,’ Petra was shaking her shoulder. ‘There’s a letter for you.’

‘A letter? But how did it find me here?’ Avril was confused. It happened more and more often these days. Things she should know with the snap of her fingers were unfathomable.

‘It didn’t come in the post here,’ Petra shook her head impatiently. ‘Mum went to your house to water the plants and feed the cats, remember? She picked up your mail for you.’

Ah, yes, she did remember Hildegarde’s kind offer. John and Lisa were hosting the family party over a few days and they were ensconced in their guest bedroom. It meant their own house was empty over this special Diamond Jubilee holiday.

Graham arrived, bringing the warm, early summer air with him. He kissed Avril’s papery cheek. ‘Hello, Mum. Inge looking after you OK?’ He ruffled his daughter’s glossy blonde hair and she snapped her gum at him, annoyed. ‘It’s a full house, isn’t it? I don’t know how Lisa’s managed to fit us all in. Still, the kids will be fine in sleeping bags on the floor. Alex and Jennifer and the wee ones have a bedroom upstairs. What a shame Mark can’t make it.’

Mark was Avril’s middle son. He’d never married and lived a wandering life, following his career path around the globe.

‘Where is he again? Remind me, darling,’ Avril asked.

‘I think it’s Bolivia. No hang on, that contract was up last month, so it’s Russia now.’

‘Georgia,’ John corrected, shouting through from the hall and appearing rather ruddy and flushed from the heat. ‘Honestly, gathering this family for a celebration is like herding cats. Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s having a little nap but he’ll be down in time,’ Avril soothed, a lifetime of experience coming into play seamlessly as she calmed her highly-strung eldest child.

‘We don’t want to miss the processions,’ John said worriedly, ‘or the pageant of boats on the Thames.’

‘And all the parties around the country,’ Lisa added, joining them with a vast tray of snacks and drinks. ‘That’s the best bit for me. I love seeing the ordinary people enjoying themselves and taking part in such a wonderful and important royal occasion. It’s history in the making, isn’t it. We all want to be a part of it and to be there on this special day.’

‘Are we having a party?’ Lucy clapped her hands excitedly.

‘Oh, yes, is there going to be a street party?’ Avril asked. ‘I remember the street party we held for the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. It was wonderful. I can still see the glorious piles of food and the beautiful illuminations. Oh, and the dancing. I did love to dance.’ She felt herself disappearing again into the gauzy past, only to be brought back by John’s embarrassed voice.

‘Sorry, folks, there’ll be no street party. For a start, we don’t know any of our neighbours.’

Not to know their neighbours. How was it possible, Avril thought, to live in a street for twenty years the way John and Lisa had done, and not be familiar with the people who lived nearby? Life had changed drastically since her own youth. She could remember all the families living in Aline Street, in Glasgow, alongside their boarding house. Yet, when she thought of where she lived now, in a small, modern bungalow in a quiet cul-de-sac, she had to agree with John. She knew only a handful of the neighbours. They were all so busy at work or otherwise away. She could tag them mainly by the cars they drove.

‘And it’s not the sort of place for street parties,’ John added apologetically, indicating outside the window. They lived in a well-off suburb of the city, where large stone houses were set discreetly back from the road, sheltering behind thick shrubberies and muted fencing.

‘What a shame. Well, never mind, we’ll have our own party,’ Avril said brightly. ‘Let’s get the telly on, shall we, and see what’s happening.’

There was a minor hubbub as Lucy was pulled from the Xbox Kinect and the television images sought and found. Then there was the question of where everybody would sit. That, at least, was one of the advantages of age, Avril thought. She had a comfortable seat on the sofa and no argument about it. The younger people ran about as if they were playing musical chairs – and then were tipped off by their parents to end up sprawled on beanbags on the carpet anyway. Lisa patiently ferried in pots of tea and a large cafetière of coffee while Hildegarde cut cake and Lucy pretended to share out the crisps while managing to cram as many as possible into her mouth.

The Queen appeared on the screen, looking serene and happy on this momentous occasion. There was a round of shushing in the family as everyone tried to hear the commentary.

‘You forgot about your letter, Gran,’ Petra whispered and tucked it into Avril’s cardigan pocket, thinking perhaps that she would keep it for later, after the ceremonies. Avril watched the figures on the screen. It cut to old black and white footage of the Queen’s Coronation, and the line between past and present blurred and wavered. She remembered watching the Coronation as it happened and the sheer excitement of seeing it on their brand new television that Mum and Dad had bought specially for the event. The neighbours were squeezed in too, watching until there was standing room only.

 ‘Am I late?’ the man said, and Avril, hearing that dear voice, felt her heart pound a little faster in anticipation of his nearness. But she wasn’t sure if she was hearing it in the boarding house front room, squeezed in as she was between Gloria and Shirley, with Mr Manderley the butcher standing in front of them and partially obscuring their view with his round head and sticking-out ears.

In her pocket she felt the sharp edges of the envelope and heard the rustle of its crinkled paper. Puzzled, she slipped her fingers into her pocket and drew it out. The envelope was wrinkled and watermarked as though it had lain somewhere damp for quite a while. The address was written in a neat, inked hand in the old style. It was all loops and curls carefully formed as if with great concentration. The original address thus beautifully wrought, had been scored through twice and two other addresses scribbled hastily on top. The letter had been following her, it seemed, from house to house but at one point it had stopped on its journey and waited. For what? Avril wondered hazily.

‘That’s a funny stamp,’ Jennifer remarked from her seat beside her. ‘Do you mind?’

She let Jennifer take the envelope and watched her stare at it.

‘That’s strange, look at the post mark and the date,’ Jennifer exclaimed, ‘I can’t believe it. Look, Alex, does that date really say 1962? That’s impossible, surely.’

Then they were all crowding round, adding to the clamour from the television music. Avril let them pass it around. She looked for him as she waited. There he was, her darling husband, in the big, old armchair in the corner. He winked at her. Am I late? So she hadn’t heard it at the Coronation party. No, that’s right, they were watching the Diamond Jubilee.

‘It’s not impossible,’ Alex was saying, shaking his head knowledgably. ‘I’ve heard of such things happening before, letters getting lost in the post and arriving years later. Let’s see, this was sent to Granny in 1962, so …’ he screwed up his eyes to mentally calculate, ‘it’s arrived fifty years late. Wow.’

‘The local press would love a story like this,’ Jennifer said, holding the envelope as if it were an ancient and rare artefact. ‘We should contact them.’ She was a journalist by training and knew a good story when she saw one.

‘We should let Mum decide about that,’ John said firmly, taking the envelope from his daughter-in-law’s grasp and returning it to Avril.

At that moment the TV camera zoomed in on the royal princesses’ outfits and the family’s attention fixed again on the bright screen.

But not Avril. Slowly she turned the envelope over and slid a fingernail under the gummed edge. The gum was brittle and gave easily. Inside was a single sheet of paper. Had she somehow evoked this letter, caught as she was between present and past? The chiffon layers wafted towards her, clinging to her hair and wrapping themselves, baby soft, around her face. Avril turned the letter over and began to read. There was a hollow ringing in her ears. And the past, never far away, swept her up and carried her rushing like a river, down the years and the months and the days.

Chapter Two

Luscious. Luscious what? Strawberries, maybe? It was a good word. It rolled around satisfyingly in her mouth, full and fat and interesting. Avril lay on her stomach on her bed, her legs bent up behind her to the air. They kicked rhythmically as she pondered. In front of her lay open a lined notebook and into this she scribbled ideas, nibbling on the end of her pencil in between.

‘Avril? Avril!’ Her mother’s piercing call up the stairs shattered her train of thought. ‘Have you finished cleaning that room? The new lodger will arrive after lunch.’

Avril sighed and shut her notebook. She rolled over onto her back and suppressed the urge to scream.

‘Avril!’ Her mother’s tread could be heard on the staircase and her tone was severe. Avril sat up but it was too late. Linda Garnett stood framed in the doorway, frowning at h. . .