A Book In A Month - Chapter 6

By the end of the following week, Clara and Jane had to admit that they were getting no where. There was no Natasha in Claras' family. Not now, nor in the past. It seemed a blow to both of them.

The two needed a night of fun, so they decided to head to a pub and then go on somewhere. It was Friday, which meant that they would not need to get up in the morning. It was time to let their hair down, but not until Clara had visited her father to share their evening meal and mooch through more old photographs. If one good thing had come out of this, it was the dramatic improvement in her relationship with her father. She had lost Natasha, but gained John. Not a bad result, I suppose, she thought to herself as she emeried the hard skin from the well soaked sole of a clients foot.

*

John was at home, as usual. He was thinking about something Clara thought she had found. It was not much, but it was, in her opinion, significant. There had been a number of photographs of Simon's life in the colonies, which he and Clara had enjoyed looking at and imagining the world that they had inhabited in that long lost era. It was clear that Simon had spent time in Africa, north and south and also in what looked like India. Clara had wondered why Violet was not in some of the family shots. Was she with a nanny, or at school? She began to want to know more about Simon's life as a worker for a tobacco company. What did he do to earn his money, where did he live and what kind of life did his family lead? It certainly looked a privileged lifestyle. Better than the life John had lead as an engineer in a heavy plant factory. Even though his job had enabled him to provide everything that was needed by his small family, they had not been poor, but equally, they were never able to afford all the servants that he and Clara had seen lined up behind Simon and his wife and child, in a couple of the images. Clara wondered if the mystery of Natasha might lie in one of the colonies. Despite her growing realisation that Simon was a man who moved around a lot, and that Natasha was probably no more than a silly idea, she was too caught up with these ideas to stop. She wanted to dig deeper, and needed help. She was wondering when Johns new glasses would arrive and whether an old man like him could master a computer.

For Clara, the question was one of where did Violet go? And, not only that, she had noticed that her grand mother was missing from some of the group photographs too. 'Yes,' she had muttered to John. 'You need a computer and the internet to go with it.'

By the time Clara breezed in that evening John said he was full of ideas.

'I'll put the spuds on.' was her somewhat guarded contribution to the conversation. She smiled as she peeled, washed and boiled the potatoes. She had brought over two meat pies which she popped into the microwave, on convection, and was planning peas and tinned tomatoes to go with it. It needed to be a fast meal so that she could get away. The pub and, maybe, a night club was calling her, and she was keen to answer.

She asked her father why he had suddenly decided to go for his new glasses, after years using his old ones? He explained his new found hobby to her that had burgeoned as his curiosity about Simons' family life had grown. It was an area of genealogy that Clara had not yet looked into, as she had concentrated on the bigger picture. She had worked hard to discover her family lines, but had not added any detail to the four or so generations she had uncovered so far. Enlisting the help of Jane and her dad was a great idea. Although, she did wonder if her pleasant little hobby was beginning to run away from her. Now, she thought she would be spending time setting up her dads' flat with broadband and teaching him how to use a computer from scratch. Clara wondered if her father had enough money to pay for a broadband connection. He lives like a pauper most of the time, she thought as she wrote a few words about a sepia print of an ageing couple. I don't know if it's by choice, or not. She decided to test the water, he had managed to find the cash for his glasses, so who knows what he had stashed away .

'I think that looking at Simon's work and family history would be fascinating dad and I've got an old laptop you could use, or better still you could use the ones at the library for free.'

'If I use your laptop, it'll be free any way, wont it; unless you're going to charge me rent on it,' John was looking puzzled. Clara could tell she had a lot of work to do to bring her old dad up to date.

After a quick outline of the things John would need in order to become a 'silver surfer', he was more confused. What I'll do, is get you started here in the flat, and then you'll have the skills you need to go to the library. Or, we could see if the college is running any courses for absolute beginners. That might be the best option.'

Clara served up the meal and she and her father looked at the pictures they had catalogued so far. There was no doubt that Violet, and her mother were missing from the scene for much of Violets school years. They wondered where Violet had attended school. John said he knew she had been to school in three different countries, including the UK. They also wondered if there might have been a bust up between Simon and his wife. Of course there was no way of telling at this stage, but it was tantalising none the less.

*

Clara and Jane met up outside a big town centre pub. They had agreed to arrive on time to prevent either of them having to hang about, all alone, on the street. Once inside, the noise was immense,it was made only by voices, hundreds of them, all talking vigorously. The girls behaviour was no different to all pub users as they pass through the doors, their first objective was to get to the bar and then, get served. On the way, they did the other thing that all pub users instinctively do, they looked around for familiar faces, and failing that, friendly, safe faces. Having finally managed to get the undivided attention of a bar steward, the girls ordered cocktails from the promotional list on the wall and then gravitated towards a group of pleasant looking girls who were standing near the back door of the huge bar area. Clara and Jane sipped their drinks and veered wildly between a casual coolness to a snooty aloofness, as they picked their way through the throng. Jane had always assumed that Clara was gay, and her outfit for this evening was fairly manly, though pretty. Jane was after boys, well, men would be more accurate. Clara had not managed to gauge Janes' sexuality at all, but it made little difference to her; she didn't fancy Jane who was too blonde and far too short for her taste. It had not slipped Clara's attention that Jane did have the kind of unflappable nature that she was always very drawn to. Perhaps that was part of the reason they had become friends. What Clara knew for sure was, that she was going to have a great night out with her new best friend, in fact, her only best friend.

The girls had bought a couple of long drinks each, to save themselves the trauma of having to fight their way back to the bar. Now they stood, looking a little awkward and craning to see over the heads of the crowd to see who else was in the room. This would have been a relatively tricky manoeuvre for tall people, for these two diminutive specimens, it was ridiculous to even try. They could not see a thing apart from the backs of heads and dandruff on shoulders. The press of all the people in the room made the air hot and sticky, even though they were wearing strappy dresses and sling back stilettos they were suffering. Jane shook her head towards the back door and the beer garden. Clara nodded in agreement. There was no point in trying to talk above the hub-bub.

Now outside, they were cooler and could have a chat in comfort. A few empty chairs were scattered around the crowded little paved terrace. Jane and Clara gathered up a chair each and found a suitable spot to set them down near a raised flower bed that had been skilfully planted with mock tropical plants and less skilfully planted with cigarette butts. Their spare drinks were placed on top the brick wall of the raised bed, with the translucent leaves of a tall banana plant casting wavering shadows across them. 'Oh, sitting out here feels like being on a tropical holiday,' Jane sighed as she closed her eyes and let her head drop back. The sun danced between the banana leaves and played about her neck and décolletage. Clara joined in, 'Oh heaven, I could be anywhere in the world right now.' Slowly she opened her eyes and watched the massive leaves of the banana tree criss crossing each other as the breeze lifted and riffled them. The light permeated through them creating cubist shapes in deep and lime greens. Cool and mesmerizing. 'Leave your head where it is Jane,' Clara said dreamily, 'and open your eyes. These big leaves are hypnotic, sooooooo loverleeeeee.' Both girls were now sitting with their heads flopped backwards and their eyes wide open. Their legs were not held in the most lady like of positions and their drinks were being held, resting on their bellies. Quite frankly, they looked very much as if they had been in the pub for most of the day and had worked their way through most of the drinks behind the bar.

'Hello ladies,' Cut in a kindly man's voice, 'Can we join you?'

Both women jerked to attention, suddenly aware of their ridiculous poses. They blinked through the speckles and splodges floating in front of their eyes trying to see who was there. The people standing above them laughed and someone said, 'Man, you girls started early tonight.'

It was Keith, the guru from the clinic, smiling, calm, still. He sat down on the wall, moving a dead drink to one side as he did so and waved his hand at his friends, all of whom were still standing, 'These are my mates.' On queue, the group, as one, raised their glasses and said 'Hi'. 'Dyu wanna make an evening of it with us? You'd be really welcome. We're gonna head for Flash Harrys', if you fancy it? We're gonna dance r legs off' The girls were still trying to get their vision back, and they were sounding as if they had just been woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call. They both said a distant, bleary, 'yes' to the offer. They stood up, smoothed down their dresses and shook hands with the large group. They were feeling jet lagged. It had been a very fast return 'home' and they were groping about for normal behaviour in front of this gang of friendly strangers. Both Jane and Clara gulped their drinks and wondered what these people must think of them. They hoped this moment would not make them look like a couple of old boozers. Secretly, they suspected it would.