Who Was Angela Zendalic Read online

  WHO

  WAS ANGELA

  ZENDALIC?

  WHO

  WAS ANGELA

  ZENDALIC?

  MARY CAVANAGH

  Who Was Angela Zendalic?

  THAMES RIVER PRESS

  An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company Limited (WPC)

  Another imprint of WPC is Anthem Press (www.anthempress.com)

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by

  THAMES RIVER PRESS

  75–76 Blackfriars Road

  London SE1 8HA

  www.thamesriverpress.com

  © Mary Cavanagh 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary

  and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78308-243-8

  This title is also available as an eBook

  Acknowledgements

  Iwould like to express grateful and sincere thanks to those people who have helped me with the writing and production of Angela.

  The stunning Georgia Gillett, for talking to me about her experiences as a mixed race child in the 1950’s and 60’s.

  Nadine, Wendy and Joan, from The Abingdon Library Readers Group who kindly read an incredibly heavy A4 version of the manuscript. Who then discussed their thoughts with me, and gave me an amazing review.

  The Oxford Writers Group and Abingdon Writers for their expert critiques and suggestions; Irene Pellicciotta, my editor, for her help; Heather Phelan my publicist, for her brilliant ideas and enthusiasm; and Inder Sood for helping to produce the stunning cover.

  In addition, I would like to thank Lesley Olver, the renowned artist, for allowing us to use her lovely watercolour of Oxford’s Bridge of Sighs on the cover. Further details about Lesley, and her work, can be found on www.watercolour-landscapes.co.uk

  And finally to my publisher, Kamaljit Sood, Chairman of Thames River Press, for his faith in me and my novels.

  I dedicate this book to all women who have been forced, by the bigotry of society, to give up their precious babies for adoption

  The past is set in stone and honed with the razor-sharp edges of permanence and truth. But it hides in the deep, mossy crevices of time gone by, and with every passing year retreats further and further away from your seeking fingers.

  PROLOGUE

  Mid-March 2014

  Old Priory Hall, Monks Bottom, Oxfordshire

  Iwas the one who found him on my usual Saturday morning drop-in for lunch, but it was no duty visit. I loved my Pa. The big iron key in the lock, a merry shout of, ‘Hi, it’s only me,’ and dumping down two Waitrose bags on the stone slabs of the hall floor. A crusty baguette, ripe brie, onion marmalade, and the indulgence of a GU Brownie as a pudding. No sign that anything was wrong. The doormat cleared of The Guardian, and the large pile of post he always received. Classic FM playing out from the music room at the back of the house and the overpowering smell of lavender wax polish, as applied by Cora, his devoted cleaning lady.

  He would be installed in his shabby, old tapestry chair looking out onto the long lawn or sitting at the Steinway baby grand, playing chords and annotating. I waited for his strong reply of, ‘Hello, lovely,’ as he nimbly got to his feet, and came out to greet me. A kiss on my cheek, following me to the kitchen, uncorking a worthy red and helping to set the table. But no call came.

  He was slumped in his chair, head flopped to the side, glasses askew, and a shocked look on his face. His hand still holding a score pen, a sheet music pad on his lap, and Dowland, his British Blue, mewing loudly at his feet.

  June 1965

  The Sheldonian Theatre,

  Broad Street, Oxford

  The beautiful child beamed widely as loud applause followed her performance, and a cultured voice from the audience called out, ‘Bravo. Bravo.’ She swung the thick curls of her ponytail, and skipped off the stage with her violin aloft, twirling the full skirt of her summer dress (Butterick Pattern 3476, yellow gingham cotton at 2/11 a yard from Cape’s on Walton Street, and run up on the old treadle in the back room of No.55). An overweight, ageing woman, sitting awkwardly on the ancient tiered seating benches, turned to address those around her. ‘My daughter,’ she bragged. ‘Our Angela. She’s only eleven, and we’ve just heard she’s passed her scholarship to Milham Ford as well’.

  In the privacy of an ante-room, the judges sat in a brow-furrowed huddle. ‘It’s clearly a two-horse race,’ said one. ‘The red-haired boy or the little darkie girl. Both with huge potential. Shall we vote?’ Three hands went up for each.

  Piers Penney sighed loudly. ‘Then the casting vote is up to Yehudi.’ They turned their eyes to the renowned man, who was holding out his hands, as if weighing a large potato in each palm. ‘The boy’s violin definitely pipped the girl’s, but she had the far superior voice.’ He paused at length to procrastinate and then nodded firmly. ‘I’m going with the boy. She to be runner-up, of course.’

  Mid-March 2014

  Old Priory Hall, Monks Bottom

  In a state of panic I ran outside screaming loudly for the new jobbing gardener, a large man I’d not yet spoken to, and had only seen at a distance with branch loppers in hand. Icy rain blew in the wind, the smell of a distant bonfire filled my nose, and magpies croaked, but the real world was a distant place.

  He came running up the lawn within seconds in a blur of army surplus khaki, taking my arm with gentle kindness, guiding me to the kitchen and sitting me on chair. ‘Sit there and breathe slowly. I’ll away and deal with things.’ I heard him talking on the land-line; a benign Scottish bur that was, in some strange way, comforting. He came back into the room, trying (but failing) to take quiet careful steps with his muddy boots. ‘Dr Gibson’s on his way. Just stay where you are the now, while I make you a wee cup of tea.’ Tea. An infusion of dried, bitter leaves in boiling water. Ever the antidote to a crisis, but as the hiss and gurgle of the kettle began to rise I sobbed on my hands.

  Dr Gibson arrived within minutes, the gardener returned to his work, and all that remained of him was a gritty mess of earthy clods on the kitchen floor.

  The doctor confirmed the death, pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Quite, quite unexpected. I saw him last month for an annual check-up and he was in excellent shape for a 75-year-old. Heart rhythms and BP were first rate, no prescribed medications, and I certainly had no concerns.’

  I tried to smile. ‘It was only last week he did a little skip up the hall and said he felt as fit as a circus dog.’

  A nod of professional sympathy. ‘I can only conclude there was a vascular weakness in the brain that suddenly gave out. Oh, I’m so sorry, Sarah. He was a delightful man.’

  A flurry of phone calls then followed, both in and out, on mobiles and land-lines. My sisters suffering their own shock, arranging to drop everything and come straight away. The reluctant contacting of Mark, my ex-partner, currently unemployed (ha!), requesting him to collect the boys from their music lessons in Summertown, and take them back to his flat for the night.

  Then sitting alone in shocked contemplation, my eyes closed, begging that when I opened them I would find it was all a bad dream.

  June 1965

  Broad Street, Oxford

  The child’s family was, as Piers had hoped, gathered on the pavement outside the Sheldonian and he walked forward extending
his hand. ‘Mr and Mrs Zendalic. Piers Penney. Choral Director at Tavistock College. I wondered if I might talk to you about Angela becoming a junior member of my choir.’

  The child’s face lit up. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, looking to her mother for reassurance.

  ‘She’s enchanting,’ Piers said. ‘Such poise, and a rare tone of voice in one so young.’

  With her membership of the choir agreed, he placed a finger under her chin, and looked intently into her face. ‘Goodbye, Angela. I can’t wait to hear you sing for me again.’

  Early April 2014

  Old Priory Hall, Monks Bottom

  With the cause of death confirmed as CVA (cardiovascular accident), the death certificate was issued as per routine. Thereafter the broadsheets dedicated whole-page obituaries to the passing of Sir Piers Penney, the grand old man of Ancient English Music, and all were agreed. ‘He was a brilliant composer and choral arranger, and a great loss to the Arts. An entertaining, popular man, who will be sorely missed. He leaves a wife, Merryn, a Welsh harpist, and four daughters; Carrenza, a cellist, and twins Callista and Cassandra, both violinists, who perform together as the Magdeberg string trio, and Ceraphina, a renowned mezzo soprano.’

  Yes, that was me. Ceraphina. The moniker used only as my stage name, and thankfully known to friends and family as Sarah. My successful career cheerfully abandoned for motherhood, and now a bitter member of the single-parent army. Recently made redundant from an appointment as singing advisor to Oxfordshire secondary schools.

  It was three weeks after Pa’s funeral when my sisters and I gathered at The Hall to go through the simple terms of his will. The house to be sold, £250,000 invested to pay for our mother’s lifetime residential care, and the remainder divided into five equal beneficiaries; us four girls, and Pa’s music scholarship charity, The Penney Foundation. Our agreed duty of the day was to go through the contents, discuss ‘who wanted what’, and mark up the rest to be sent to auction, but our mood would be one of resigned misery that our childhood home, and the paradise garden our mother had created, would soon be to lost to us. However, I had a nail bomb to detonate, and I was certainly going to make them suffer the ferocious fall-out.

  They must have noticed my dropped eyes and tight-lips from the minute they arrived. I opened the front door to each of them in silence, turning my back and by-passing the usual kisses of welcome, but they all clearly decided to make allowances by giving me short smiles of understanding. I was, after all, their baby sister who’d always been treated as such, and was the one who’d found our father in death.

  ‘Are you alright, darling?’ attempted Carrenza, putting an arm of sympathy round my shoulder.

  But I sheered away. ‘Sod off, Carrie!’

  ‘There’s really no need for that,’ snapped a glaring Cassandra.

  ‘Oh, but there is need for that!’ I yelled. ‘You knew, didn’t you? All three of you. You bitches. You crones.’

  I stomped out of the room, and came back with the paper document in my hand, waving it aloft as a politician on the hustings would display evidence to a crowd of hecklers. I started to read it aloud, and even I cringed at the ludicrous sound of my own full name. ‘Ceraphina Raven Evangeline Penney. Date of birth, 15th February, 1973. Born John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Father Piers Penney.’ I slapped it down on the kitchen table with my voice rising to a virtual scream, so loud as to vibrate even my own eardrums. ‘Mother named as Angela Zendalic!’

  I jerked my head forward in angry despair. ‘You all knew didn’t you? Now tell me. Who the hell was Angela Zendalic?’

  PART ONe

  Jericho, Oxford

  The area known as Jericho is a Victorian enclave of tiny terraced houses located within a short walk of Oxford city centre. A tree-less, front-gardenless gridiron of tightly packed dwellings, created in the 1870s to house the labouring classes. Built with roughshod speed, and scant thought to visual charm, it was soon termed a slum, but its basilica-style Anglo-Catholic church, St. Barnabas, stood with powerful sentry to contain and intimidate its lowly residents to the will of God.

  The Jericho of today is a highly sought-after neighbourhood of magazine-lovely conversions, colonized by the arty, the academic, and other worthy broadsheet readers prepared to pay premium prices. But in 1953, when our story begins, it was a deprived working class quarter (when such places were named as such), peopled by proud, honest families, where everyone knew everyone and you belonged to a loyal, tight-knit, salt-ofthe-earth community.

  So, may I now introduce you to Peggy Edwards. A born and bred Jericho girl of twenty-seven-years old, ex-WAAF archivist, war widow and librarian, who has lived alone at 56, Nelson Street since the early deaths of her parents. She’s neither beautiful nor plain. Small and slender, with a heart-shaped face, blue eyes, fair hair, and good skin, but rather averse to what her father used to call, ‘tarting yourself up’. People think her shy, but she’s not. She’s just quiet by nature and thinks carefully before she speaks.

  Tuesday, June 2nd 1953,

  Coronation Day of Queen Elizabeth ll 56, Nelson Street, Jericho, Oxford

  Coronation Day had dawned with black clouds and pouring rain – proof indeed that God (and the Royal family) had no control over the weather. But no matter. The occasion had lifted the whole nation to a fever pitch of festivity and no-one was allowed a dull moment. Each house was garlanded with Union Jacks, gay bunting, and posters of the lovely young Queen, and every word and action was overwhelmed with bubbling excitement. The harsh, drab conditions of post-war Britain were on the up, and with the dawn of a new Elizabethan era it was a time to laugh with strangers, and hop-step into a bright and better world.

  Despite the euphoria, all Peggy had wanted was a quiet morning on her own; to sit in peace, to dream, to smile and anticipate her afternoon event to come, but she’d been forced to ‘listen-in’ to the wireless broadcast with Stan and Edie Zendalic, her next door neighbours at No.55, and their lodger, Ted Rawlings. And so, being browbeaten to attend by the well-meaning and motherly Edie (‘You can’t be on your own! What nonsense. I won’t allow it’), she took her place in their tiny front room, used less than a dozen times since the end of the war.

  Endless smacks of rain hit the windowpanes, and a gloomy light prevailed, but in trying to create a fitting atmosphere to the regal occasion, Edie had squeezed her generous proportions into her ‘party best’ bombazine, lit an unseasonal coal fire, set out the best china, and tuned-in to The Home Service. Thus, with the two men also formally attired in their demob suits, all four sat attentively on the hard sprung Edwardian suite, listening in silence as the honeyed tones of Wynford Vaughan Thomas deferentially described the events unfolding; each of them wishing, like many millions, that they could see the pageant displayed on a television screen.

  They’d discussed going to watch it on the set that had been especially installed in the Clarendon Institute up the road, the social club provided by The Oxford University Press where Stan was a master printer, but with bored unruly children, and too much drink involved in a long day, they decided it would be no pleasure. Neither did Peggy want to suffer the smug, patronising smiles of the local young wives; her childhood friends from St. Barnabas Juniors, with whom she had nothing in common once she’d moved on to the grammar school. She knew what they all thought of her. ‘Poor, boring little Peggy. Only married a week before her bloke got killed bombing Dresden. Wasn’t even worth her taking on his name (and did anyone know his name, anyway?). Not even a shirt button to account for him. Supposed to be a pilot. Bet he wasn’t. Maybe she’d made him up. Why would a posh pilot want to marry her? Eight years on now and far too spinsterly to find someone else. All she owned were two stuffy tweed suits and sensible shoes. Hair scraped up in French pleat, and banged up all day in a dreary library, she might as well be a nun.’

  Ted Rawlings was none too keen on turning up at The Institute either, being well aware that having a copper hanging around would put the kybosh on any fun and games, e
ven though no-one had stolen as much as a wine gum in their lives. Now, having been on night duty and dealing with a crowd of happy drunks on the Cowley Road, he was battling to stay awake, but with the powerful explosion of, ‘Vivat, Vivat Regina,’ he was alerted to full attention.

  Stan, rising to his feet, carefully poured a sweet sherry apiece, and proposed a toast with serious reverence. ‘To the Queen.’

  ‘And, long may she reign,’ joked Ted, pointing to the drenched window panes.

  ‘Oh, very droll, Ted,’ Edie giggled, and they all laughed, raising their glasses in unified friendship.

  ‘And now another toast,’ said Stan. ‘To our Brenda and her Norman who can’t be here to enjoy this wonderful day with us.’

  ‘And let’s include my mum and dad, as well,’ Peggy added. Knowing smiles were exchanged in memory of dear Len and Winnie, and they raised their glasses again. But although Ted nodded and sipped, he lowered his eyes and didn’t add his own dedications.

  Becoming desperate for her own company Peggy prepared to muster her escape, flexing her fingers and glancing theatrically at her watch. ‘I’ll have to go soon.’

  ‘Oh, do you have to, Peg?’ said Ted. ‘Aren’t you coming to the street party?’

  ‘Sorry Ted. I’m helping at the Commonwealth Club. A special reception at Worcester College.’

  ‘What a shame. Oh, well. Don’t forget the do at The Bookbinders tonight.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m busy tonight as well. Commonwealth Club again.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll get back in time to pop in.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Ted’s face, with its large, plain features held a benign sweet smile; the look of a man in love trying to hide his disappointment. Such a nice, honest man who would make a caring, reliable husband for Peggy, or any other woman, but she wasn’t a jot interested. Now she’d discovered the love of her life, she realised she’d never loved her dead husband either.