Marie’s Flower Power Predicament
It was the early autumn of 1964, and
Carrington was basking in the glow of a glorious Indian summer. The days were
warm and the skies devoid of cloud. It made the inevitable return to school for
us young people all the more dreadful. It also made my current plight all the
more uncomfortable.
"Cccccnnnn
yyyynnn ggggttt llssss sssrrrrlllyyy?"
I asked through the cloth stuffed in my mouth, held in place by the brown
parcel tape covering my lips and indeed most of my lower face. I rocked the
heavy oak chair, straining against the ropes tying me against it.
Behind me my best friend Shirley mumbled through her
identical gag, "Nnnnmmm, tthhhrrr
ttttnnn tttthhhttt!" I
felt her bound wrists brush my own, as she jiggled against the ropes binding
her to a similar chair, lengths of cord fixing us in back to back chairties.
We were stashed in the storeroom of the
Carrington Post Office, the evening sun filtering through a glazed window
through which no-one would witness our plight. The temperature was roasting,
and beads of sweat trickled down my brow. Surrounding us were shelves and sacks
filled with letters and parcels. An unsavoury worker called Bernie Cracknell had been hording bank giros, cheques and pension
provisions for himself. Shirley and I had decided after school to investigate
his suspicious behaviour. We hadn't been there long when he got the jump on us
armed with a knife, and proceeded to bind us as criminals are want to bind
snooping girl detectives.
I glanced at the ropes crisscrossing my school uniform.
I'd turned eighteen only two weeks ago, and Shirley a week before that. Yet in
those days it was uniforms to the end of Sixth Form, unlike those colleges
where kids can wear whatever they want these days. At least the school had allowed
us to wear our summer uniform for warm weather's duration, a blue and white
chequered dress with short sleeves and the hem over our knees, with white ankle
socks and black flat maryjanes on our feet. Our
blazers lay discarded on the floor, resting against our book filled satchels.
The ropes proved uncomfortable accessories, our ankles
bound just above our socks and our legs below our knees similarly tied. Extra
rope was wrapped over our laps and back under the seat, pinning our dresses
into our legs, and long lengths encircled both our waists and chests keeping us
back to back. Our hands were bound over the chair, and we'd spent the passing
minutes trying to grip each other's wrists and pick at the corresponding knots.
I shook my head as my hair clip fell away, my shoulder
length brown hair tumbling onto my shoulders. It intermingled with the bright
red locks of Shirley as she rested her head against mine. She wasn't struggling
as vehemently as I, only flexing lightly and moaning gently. Sometimes I
wondered if she actually enjoyed it when we landed in these situations. I gave
an angry stamp of my feet, and twisting about in my seat I looked over my
shoulder and mumbled, "Ccccmmmm mmmm, wwwww hhhhvvvv
tttttt ssscccpppp!"
"Hhhhhh mmmm tttrrrrnnngggg, kkkkk," Shirley protested with a defiant bounce.
Then we heard footsteps jogging through the Post
Office. Shirley and I froze, certain that there was only one person it could
be. We whimpered through our sealed mouths as the door was thrown open,
expecting to see the face of Bernie Cracknell as he
returned to ensure our silence.
But instead we saw a man just shy of fifty dressed in a
constables uniform. He had thick dark hair with traces of grey above the
sideburns, and a strong, closely shaved face and brown eyes. His resemblance to
my classmate/friend/crush Philip Merton was uncanny, because he happened to be
his father. PC Clive Merton was a respected local constable and he was often
the one who found me when I got myself into these sorts of scrapes.
Shirley and I relaxed as he stepped towards us,
though we blushed a little in embarrassment at once
again having to be rescued by the long suffering bobby. Yet PC Merton smiled
kindly at me as he knelt to remove my tapegag.
"Marie Emily Parkinson, one of these days I'm going to lock a bell around
your ankle so I always know where you are," he told me.
"I'm not sure my dad was joking," Philip
Merton told me as we walked arm in arm down the high street a couple of days
later. "I mean the amount of trouble you stir up for a small town is
mad."
"Aww you worried
about me Phil?" I replied. I giggled when I saw him visibly bristle. I
knew he hated being called Phil, and I loved to tease him about it.
"As long as you keep giving me reason to worry
about you," Philip said to me, providing a quick squeeze through our
conjoined arms.
Since the night Philip had freed Shirley and I from a
tight predicament in the school medical room the constable's son and I had
spent a lot of time together. We'd gone to the cinema, on bike rides and for
dances in the youth club. Not quite the texting and facebooking
and clubbing that you seem to enjoy; the world was a much simpler place back
then for young love. But our relationship really began to blossom on a glorious
June day when we went for a walk by the river, where we finally plucked up
enough courage to share our first kiss.
So far Shirley was the only one who knew. But I
was surprised my best friend had kept our secret for so long; I could sense she
was bursting to tell the world. As she swung from a lamppost dressed in brown
Capri pants, white pumps with kitten heels and a white sleevless
turtleneck with a green band in her red hair, she moaned, "I don't see why
you don't just admit it to everyone. It'll be so much easier for
everyone."
"Easier for you, you mean?"
I laughed with a shake of my brown hair as it spilt onto the shoulders of my
purple summer dress with green suede loafers.
Philip, a tall boy with a dark Paul McCartney haircut,
smirked at Shirley as he replied, "We're thinking of ways to break it to
our parents. Particularly my dad."
Shirley gave an indignant exhalation of breath flicking
up a loose strand of hair. "If you two lovebirds don't get a move on we'll
never get to the Youth Club. Come on!"
And so we walked along Carrington High Street as it was
bathed in the yellow glow of the setting autumnal sun. The weekend beckoned,
and tomorrow would be the night of another school disco. I'd already chosen my
outfit to wow Philip with as we danced to Hard Day's Night till darkness fell.
Little did I know that plan was over from the moment we
saw the protestors outside the council offices.
There were a decent number, about twenty five in total,
all of them chanting loudly and holding placards. Some of these signs showed
the peace symbol, others anti-war slogans, others the words CND in black ink. A
green Volkswagen van was parked on the road beside them. They were members of
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a political movement that had gained a
lot of momentum in recent months. In 1962 I was gripped to the television news
as the Soviet Union and the USA came close to nuclear war during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, and anti-nuclear sentiment as a result was high.
But one of the protestors caught my eye. She was
dressed in a grey poncho with brown trousers tucked into flat leather boots.
Her long blonde hair seemed to shake and twist about her as she bounced on the
spot banging a tambourine, the peace sign painted on both cheeks with purple
face paint. She was Hermione Starling, a local girl in her mid-twenties. I knew
her very well, she used to babysit me when I was
younger. She was also a trailblazer in that she was one of the first women from
Carrington to go to university. But her time there had radicalized her, if you
want to call it that, and she became an ardent pacifist and feminist. Cllr
Maddox called her a troublemaking hippie.
And she was certainly causing trouble, harassing
members of the Carrington town council as they entered the building for their
monthly meeting. Shirley, Philip and I watched as a reporter from the local
paper, Taj Chandarak,
eagerly scribbled events in his notebook as Hermione and her friends started
chanting, "Make love, not war!" We lingered
too long, so Hermione saw us watching and swiftly broke ranks to speak with us.
"Hey Marie, great to see you!" she said
brightly. "Will you sign our petition to stop our town from being overrun
by the agents of the Cold War?"
"Come again?" Shirley blinked.
"The Americans are landing spy planes on the Herringford air strip, using it for a refuelling point to
send covert missions into Soviet airspace. We're pressurising the council and
local MP to intervene," she told us.
Shirley, Philip and I looked at each other doubtfully.
The Herringford air strip was a tiny field in the
middle of nowhere. Hardly the place you'd ever expect top secret military
missions to be taking place. I voice my concerns saying, "You sure about
that?"
"Yeah, Jessica got some good information on what
was happening from Terrence and Lloyd. Hey guys over here!"
Three more broke ranks and crossed the road to us. One
was Jessica, Hermione's university friend from London, who's
dark hair was even longer than Hermione's, dressed in flowing floral print blue
dress which reached the sandals on her feet, a grey cardigan around her
shoulders, a multi-coloured band wrapped all the way around her head and hair.
She was joined by two young men, both thin with short brown hair, one a good
deal taller than the other. I was introduced to tall Terrence on the left, and short Lloyd on the right. I didn't like the look
of them, there was something overtly smug about their
expressions
"You getting us some new recruits?"
Jessica asked in her spritely Londoner accent. "We could do with some for
the protest at the airfield tomorrow."
"What do you hope to achieve going up
there?" Shirley pondered.
"Just to get our point across, though
Marie here will be busy chasing up some would be criminals I expect,"
Hermione replied in an affectionate manner, not a mocking one.
Then Terrence confirmed my suspicions of him
being a moron when he said in a guttural voice, "Oh you aren't part of the
pigs are you?"
"Oink oink oink," Lloyd added with
an annoying grunt.
I felt Philip bristling again beside me, though this
time it was more out of anger than out of annoyance. But Hermione knew his dad,
and didn't share her fellow protestor's disdain for the authorities. She waved
her hands back towards the council building and said, "Hey we'd best get
back, Mayor Burton will be here soon. Great to see you Marie!" And with that she, Jessica,
Terrence and Lloyd walked back to resume their pacifist chants. We lingered for
only a moment, then moved off in the direction of the
Youth Club.
Shirley gave a sniff and remarked, "I can't
believe someone as nice as Hermione is hanging about with such a weird
bunch." Philip said nothing, and had a frown on his face as Lloyd and
Terrence's comments put him out.
I was a bit more sympathetic to Hermione. I knew that
she was only doing it because she honestly felt she could make a difference to
the world, which was admirable. But thinking of Lloyd and Terrence, I found
myself worrying. I could only hope her trust in those men wasn't misplaced.
I didn't think that much about Hermione for the rest of
the evening or throughout Saturday. I spent much of the day reading my latest
mystery novel, before it was time to get ready for the disco. I'd arranged to
meet Philip just outside his house, and I was going to rock his socks off.
I changed into my outfit, a peach roll neck jumper with
long sleeves, underneath a brown dress with dungaree straps with the hem above
my knees. I then put on the expensive brown tights that I'd saved up for, and
then buckled my brown ankle strap pumps with a two inch block heel. I decided
not to go for the beehive this evening. Instead I put a black headband to keep
my fringe off my face, while the rest of my hair fell loosely behind my ears,
where I brushed it vigorously until it was straight and smooth.
Philip's house was a ten minute ride away, so
after promising my parents I would be back by eleven I unchained my bike from
my front garden and set off. Glamorous as my attire was it wasn't well suited
for biking, my progress hampered as my peddling legs hiked up my dress. But
soon I was on Philip's road, and I dismounted my bike and waited a safe
distance from his house, knowing he would be out soon.
But I'd picked a poor spot to wait, as I was on
PC Merton's route home from his shift, and he introduced himself with a loud
cough as he walked up the road, pushing his own bike with him. "I can
assure you I'm not up to anything mysterious Marie," he told me.
Panicking, I blurted, "Oh er
I'm not here to spy on you…I mean…I'm waiting for someone."
PC Merton nodded at me. "You
going to the disco then? Philip's going as well…you're waiting for him
aren't you?"
"Yeah. I mean, I was cycling past anyway, so I
thought why not give him some company?"
PC Merton raised his eyebrow at me,
analysing my attire and my location. "You've really gone out of your way
to just be cycling past my house."
"Well it's such a beautiful evening!" I
laughed nervously. Strange, how I could lie pretty convincingly when confronted
with dangerous criminals, but not when confronted by my boyfriend's father.
PC Merton gave another nod, before saying,
"Well he'll probably just be finishing his homework. You can come in and
wait for him if you like."
"Sounds great," I replied without thinking. I
trundled my bike behind PC Merton as we approached his terraced house with a
tiny front garden. He unlocked his front door and I stepped into a white
wallpapered hallway with patterned carpets on the floor and staircase. I was
invited into the living room where their black and white television set was
proudly standing in the corner. On it William Hartnell
was busy dealing with a bunch of pesky Daleks, their
cries of, "Exterminate," filling the air.
"I'll let Philip know you're here. Can
I get you a cup of tea?" PC Merton asked me politely as I sank into the
sofa.
"That would be great thanks," I
replied, as much to get him out the room more than anything. As he retreated to
the kitchen I groaned at myself. He had to be putting the pieces together now.
I was terrified he would disapprove of me going out with his son, given all the
trouble I'd caused him.
I looked around the room to take my mind off my
anxiety. It wasn't the most lavish of living rooms, but it was the best PC
Merton could afford on a policeman's salary. I watched a sequence of Daleks seeming to glide down the corridors, and shuddered
at how alien they looked. Then I cast my eyes to a coffee table, on which were
a number of papers showing pictures of known criminals, obviously PC Merton
intended to spend the evening doing work at home.
But as I gazed at the faces on the paper I gave a
double take, and I grabbed the top piece and held it up to my face. It was a
list of known criminals suspected to be in the Carrington area. I recognised
the faces of Terrence and Lloyd instantly. The breath in my body freezing I read
the charges underneath their mugshots. Armed robbery, burglary and jewellery theft, among others.
I realised with a rising sense of dread that they
weren't flower children at all. They were in fact a pair of calculating crooks.
And it meant Hermione was in real danger.
Minutes later PC Merton returned with a steaming mug of
tea. "Listen Marie, I hope you don't mind me asking…" he began.
But I'd already gone, leaving the wanted poster lying
in the spot where I'd been sitting.
I pedalled as hard as I could, flying down the country
lanes flanked by tall hedgerows. Mercifully the temperature was cooling as the
sun dipped towards the horizon, and the trees offering some shade. It gave me
the extra energy I needed to cycle as fast as possible in the direction of the Herringford airfield. It no longer exists, disused as it
was a good few years ago, but back then it was a fifteen minute cycle away from
Carrington.
I'd already cycled to the town centre, hoping to
find Hermione still protesting outside the council offices. Only a placard
lying in the gutter gave any indication as to their earlier protest. But then
I'd remembered about their planned protest at the airfield. I also remembered
the supposed intelligence about the American spy planes had come from two
convicted criminals. Whatever their motives were for infiltrating that
airfield, it wasn't peace on Earth.
I said several undignified words as my dress continued
to hinder my cycling abilities. I'd have looked a sight to any passing motorist
had there been any, dressed to nines in the middle of nowhere. But I had to
help Hermione.
The hedgerows parted and I came across the wire fencing
that flanked the air strip. I could see a couple of tiny concrete buildings
next to a decent sized hanger, positioned beside a small tarmac runway. But on
it was the largest plane I'd ever known to land here, enough to carry about
twenty passengers. Its propellers were still rotating at a fast speed,
indicating it had only just landed.
I looked down the road and gave a double take when I saw the
green Volkswagen van parked on the grassy verge.
I leant my bike against the hedgerow and
concealed it as best I could, before I began jogging towards the van, my heels
clopping against the tarmac. I moved as fast as I could without drawing
attention to myself. The first thing I saw was the fence at this point had been
cut open, enough for a pair of men to easily duck
underneath. I stared at the van, making a note of the licence plate so I could
relay it to PC Merton later.
As I looked I heard a thump from inside, at which the
vehicle rocked on the spot. My heart leapt into my mouth as I realised there
was someone inside.
I hesitated, unsure what to do. Surely whoever was
inside would have seen me, so why hadn't they come out? Perhaps they couldn't?
These thoughts swirling through my head like a vortex I approached the back
door, hesitated to catch my breath, then turned the handle and flung it up. I
couldn't stifle my gasp at what I saw inside.
"MMMMRRRRRR. HHHHLLLPPP SSSS!" Hermione pleaded through the white
rag pulled over her lips and tied behind her head over her long blonde hair.
She was dressed in the same clothes as last night, though her poncho lay
scrunched up behind her, revealing the green jumper she'd worn underneath. But
now she was bound hand and foot, rope around her ankles, above her knees, about
her waist and chest and securing her wrists behind her back. She was sitting
against the wall of the van, and sat beside her was Jessica, again dressed like
last night and again bound just like Hermione. The two young women jiggled
where they sat, mewling at me through their gags. It was obvious the two men
had used them to get close to the airfield, and had now stashed them out the
way while they enacted their devious plot.
But before I could leap into the van and to their
rescue, I was grabbed from behind. A strong arm pulled itself around my arms
and waist while another clamped over my mouth. Even as I began crying out from
behind the rough hand fixing my lips together I heard a voice yell, "Get
the van started!"
I kicked and wriggled and thrashed, but the man was far
too strong, and I was thrown in with Hermione and Jessica. The back door was
lowered behind me, at which the ignition was turned. Seconds later the vehicle
pulled away from the airfield, so that the only indication of our presence was
the smell of petrol in the air, and my bike resting in a nearby hedgerow.
Fifteen minutes later the van trundled down a dirt
track leading to a grey stone cottage, residing at the bottom of a valley
between two hills covered in oak trees. It was a holiday cottage usually
reserved for vacationers, but Lloyd and Terrence knew it was currently
unoccupied. They parked up the van right by the front door, got out without
saying a word and moved around to the back door.
They hauled Jessica out first. They'd untied her feet, but
only to be frogmarched over to the cottage. She couldn't see where she was
being taken due to the white rag pulled over her eyes, blindfolding her. She
barely wriggled her bound arms as both men escorted her into the cottage. It
took them about ten minutes to return, at which point they grabbed Hermione and
pulled her into the open. Her arms bound, mouth gagged and blindfold applied
she screamed furiously against the men to have tricked her, twisting her
shoulder against their grip. But even she couldn't stop them from bundling her
into the holiday home.
Then they returned a third time, and it was my turn. I
grunted indignantly though the white over the mouth gag keeping my mouth
thoroughly stuffed with wadding. I couldn't see a thing through the cloth
they'd blindfolded me with. I could only hear the sound of birdsong, the smell
of fresh grass, and the feel of a stone pathway as I scrabbled my feet trying
to resist their pull. I twisted my shoulders against the ropes wound about
them, flexing my wrists trying to free them from the ropes binding them palm to
palm behind my back. But despite my efforts soon the outside air changed to
that of a stale interior, as the amount of light filtering in the blindfold
lessened. I knew I'd been taken inside.
I heard muffled moans as I was bundled from room to
room. Then I was spun on the spot and made to sit down in a wooden chair, my
hands positioned over the back. Before I could rise to my feet more rope being
pulled about my waist and then over the tops of my legs, pinning me further
into the chair. Once these knots were tied I felt my feet be pinned together,
rope coiled about them fixing them together tightly. I remember inanely hoping
my expensive nylons would not be ruined as the ends of these cords were tied
around the crosspiece, which would prevent me from kicking out.
Chairtied twice in under a week. Even by my standards this was a new
record.
My blindfold was lifted away, and I took in the sight of the
white cottage walls with old books and maps filling bookcases. A dark wooden
dining table was ahead of me, with three of its four chairs absent. I correctly
surmised I was bound to one of them, and a glance to my right confirmed where
the other two were. Being used to keep Hermione and Jessica tied in position,
bound in their seats like me and blindfolds removed. Lengths of stringently
cinched cord linked our chairs together at the back and legs, preventing us
from scraping our chairs around to look for escape or help each other wriggle
loose.
We hostages created a cacophony of angry moans and
snarls as Terrence and Lloyd stood triumphantly over us. They didn't look to
upset at having to adapt their plans to include three kidnapped women.
"Guess we'd better let these girlies know what this is all about,"
Lloyd said in triumph.
Terrence then disappeared for a few moments, and
when he came back he was holding three sacks slung over his shoulder. He
eagerly dumped them on the floor at my feet, and peering at its contents I felt
my insides jolt at the sight of more pound notes then I'd ever seen in my life.
"Ronnie Biggs might have become known through the
Great Train Robbery, but we'll go down in history as the Great Plane
Robbers!" Terrence announced to us.
"Yyyyynnnn
wwwwnnntttt sssccccppp!"
Hermione snarled, her bright blonde hair flicking all about her body as she
tugged and pulled with everything she had.
Lloyd laughed at her defiant display. "What
you gonna do, threaten me with flower power? God your
stupid hippie talk nearly drove me round then bend.
Knowing you would lead us to that plane transporting bank notes from Edinburgh
to London is what kept me sane."
Terrence struck a match. At first I thought he
was going to light a cigarette, but instead he lit a lone candle on the dining
room table. It wasn't to improve the lighting; he had a much more sinister
motive in mind. "But we can't let a pair of flower girls and a meddling snoop spoil our work, so 'fraid
you'll have to be dealt with. You notice that nice big gas tank beside the
cottage Lloyd?"
"Sure did mate," Lloyd confirmed. "I
wonder what damage a gas explosion would do to this house?"
The room was filled with a moment of dreadful
realisation on the part of me, Jessica and Hermione. Then we began screaming
through our gags, bouncing in our chairs as we understood what these devious
youths were going to do. Lloyd walked into the kitchen, where he turned on all
the gas hobs. I stared at the candle on the table with wide eyes. I knew from
chemistry what happened when gas came into contact with a naked flame.
"Pppplllsss dddnnnnttt dddd tthhhssss," Jessica cried, tears trickling down her
pale cheeks, while beside her Hermione thrashed about in her chair with
desperate vigour. I was struggling too, yet I couldn't take my eyes off the
robbers as they collected their stash.
But they couldn't resist leaving us with one final
taunt. "Bet this isn't the sort of explosion you
were hoping to prevent, eh girls?" Terrence guffawed. And then with a
casual wave, they abandoned us to our fate.
It was a pretty desperate situation for us
alright. Tied up and abandoned in the middle of nowhere, facing two possible
perils. We could hear the ominous hiss of the gas escaping from the kitchen,
the candle flickering brightly. Even if the gas didn't ignite, we'd still
suffocate in the tiny, sealed cottage. I realised the former option was the
most likely; if only the candle flame was snuffed out then we might be able to
wriggle loose before the gas overwhelmed us. But bound as I was to the other
chairs and with my feet fixed to the crosspiece, I realised this wasn't going
to be a realistic option.
Instead I wriggled and I wriggled hard. My numbing fingers
picked at any knot they could find. They were tied tight but I felt like with a
lot of effort I could slip my hands free eventually. The question was whether I
would have enough time. All the while I gazed at the candle only feet away,
frustrated at how I could do nothing to put it out. I jiggled my legs and
bucked against the ropes tying me to the chair, but could do nothing to pull
myself away.
I glanced at the side at Hermione and Jessica. The
London girl looked terrified, whimpering as she desperately fought for freedom.
Hermione meanwhile was struggling with everything she had, rocking her chair
from side to side and thus tugging on my own seat. But she made little
progress. Nothing we could do could break us free from this conjoined line of
distress.
Then I smelt the unmistakable pungent tang of gas as it
flew up my nostrils. It grew stronger and stronger, and seemed to steal the
breath from my body. Every flicker of the flame had my stomach doing
cartwheels, wondering if this was the moment it would ignite. I closed my eyes,
still twisting my hands, hoping I would have time to wriggle free. It seemed
our only hope; surely no-one would come to our rescue in the middle of nowhere.
And yet, as we heard the front door being flung open, that's
exactly what happened.
"Marie, Marie!" I heard a wonderfully familiar
voice cry.
"PPHHLLLLPPP. MMMMM HHHRRRR!" I cried as much as I could through the
rag and gas.
They heard me, and in stormed Philip with the lapels of
his jacket over his nose to shield him from the gas. Behind him PC Merton
appeared, father and son teaming up to come to our rescue. PC Merton dashed
into the kitchen to turn off the gas, while Philip ran to the dining table and
blew out the candle.
I didn't even have time to sigh in relief, because
suddenly Philip's arms were around my neck. "Ok Marie, you had me worried
that time," he whispered into my ear. He then pulled away, grinning from
ear to ear at me in a way which filled my stomach with butterflies. "Come
on, let's get you out of here," he announced.
"You'll be pleased to hear we caught Lloyd and
Terrence," PC Merton announced as the ambulance staff checked me over.
"Good job remembering that licence plate."
"Thank you for rescuing me…again," I
told him gratefully.
PC Merton merely nodded in the direction of Philip, who
was at my side with his arm around my shoulder. "Thank him. He was the one
who recognised the photos of Lloyd and Terrence, who remembered they were
travelling to airfield, the one who found your bike and the one who saw the
green Volkswagen van parked here from the top of Bluebell Hill. And I must say
he was very anxious to find you. Now why on Earth would that be the case?"
Philip and I glanced at each other anxiously, before he
looked at his dad and began by saying, "Listen, we've got something…"
But he was interrupted by PC Merton as he burst
into fits of reassuring laughter. "For goodness
sake you two I'm not an idiot. You don't have to hide anything from me.
Besides, it'll be easier to keep an eye on Marie if she's spending more time
with my son."
I was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief,
happy that now mine and Philips relationship had his blessing. "Least you
won't have to put a bell on me that way," I joked.
PC Merton gave another laugh, before saying, "I've
got to go. Get home safely you two." And with that he returned to his police
car.
But we weren't left alone for long. Suddenly
Hermione appeared at my side, huddled under a towel given to her by the medics.
"I owe you an apology Marie," she said suddenly.
I blinked at her in surprise. "What
for?"
"For putting you in danger thanks to my own blind
ignorance," she replied. "I was so caught up in this CND hysteria
that I was blind to who Lloyd and Terrence really were. I should have been more
cautious. I feel like a fool."
"You shouldn't feel that way," I told her
earnestly. "I admire your beliefs and convictions, and you should never
apologise for that."
Hermione smiled gratefully at me, "You are a sweet
girl Marie, but I'm a bit jaded on the whole counter culture thing. Maybe I'll
get into local politics, try and make a difference there!"
"And fifteen years later she was elected as
chairwoman of Carrington Town Council, and oversaw one of the largest periods
of development in this town's history."
Abigail's mouth was wide open as Marie finished
her story. "As if my gran was such a
hippie!" she gaped from the shock.
I too found it hard to believe that the strong,
independent woman I'd always known as Abigail's grandmother had such a wild streak
when younger. "She seemed like the last person to ever get involved that
sort of thing," I mused.
My own grandma smiled at us, running a hand through her
grey hair about the same length as my own, the
wrinkles in her face kind due to how she always smiled. "Oh people get up
to all sorts of surprising things when they're young, when they have the energy
and fervour for such pursuits," she replied.
Abigail's amazement was tinged with sadness,
and looking at the tabletop she sighed, "I really miss her you know."
"As do I," my grandma replied.
"She was quite the remarkable woman who did a lot for Carrington. But it's
good to see her spirit lives in you and your big sister."
Abigail gave a shake of bright blonde hair, the same
shade as Hermione Starlings had been almost fifty years ago. "I'm nowhere
near as brave as gran," she sighed.
"Nonsense!" my grandma told her kindly.
"Sara told me all about your daring escape from Leavington
Manor. That was quite remarkable. Not to mention everything else you have
achieved. She would have been proud of you Abigail."
The tender moment was interrupted by Rachel
slamming her laptop shut. "Another amazing story Marie," she
exclaimed. "I can't wait to type it up for our blog. Your last story got
an amazing reception."
"I'm amazed people on the internet would ever be
interested in my stories," my grandma chortled. "Now any of you young
ladies want another cup of coffee?"
I shook my head as I got to my feet. "We've got to
go. Harriet's football team are playing and we promised to watch. If they win
this they go into the quarter finals of the local championship!"
"Well don't let me keep you tiger," my
grandma announced as she walked round the table to hug me. We all said our
goodbyes and made for the front door. As I pulled my red hoodie
off the coat hanger and pulled it on my grandma suddenly said, "I should
get one of those myself, looks very comfy."
I gave a laugh. "I wouldn't recommend it. This hoodie hasn't brought me much luck."
"Oh by the way, your friend Harriet, she wouldn't
happen to be Kenneth Palmer's granddaughter would she?"
I raised my eyebrow at her. "Why do you
ask?"
"Oh Sara, that's a story for another
day," Grandma Marie told me with a cheeky wink.
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