Episode 15
In Which Pete Becomes Poetic in Cornwall, Alice Goes Shopping and Finds Happiness, a Small, Nearly Bald Man and a Bouncy Bed!
"……and then, do you know what he said?" She stopped and sighed as she looked at him.
"Pete you’re not listening at all are you? What do you think of all the time, why do you always look so sad. You are a strange one, where did you come from? I don’t understand you, no-one does."
He turned to face her.
"There is someone who understands," he answered quietly. "Someone I’ve tried to forget."
She looked at him sadly.
"A girl?"
"Yes," he replied simply. There was no need for explanations, they both knew that this was the end.
"I’m sorry," he said taking her hands in his. "I know you love me – maybe once upon a time I could have loved you. I have to go back home – to find out, to try to understand. Maybe I’ll come back but you mustn’t wait for me. No-one must for I’ll always belong to her." He cupped her face in his hands. The tears spilled out from under her long, dark lashes.
"I’ll remember you. Go Pete, go and wipe the sadness from your face and the sorrow from your eyes – before I beg you to stay. I knew you would leave."
He kissed her tenderly for the last time and then she pushed him from her, smiling through the tears.
"Be happy, please be happy my darling," she said and then turned and ran from him. He stood watching her go until she was just a dark fleeing spot in the distance and then he, too, turned in the opposite direction and walked away. He was going home.
Pete had changed in the last two months. He was now silent and sad looking. When he did speak his words were quiet and almost poetic. His eyes contained a great, deep sorrow, which always seemed the most noticeable feature about him. He had learned a lot as well. He had walked beneath the stars accompanied by a terrible loneliness that ached across the sky. He had met other wanderers and they had talked about love and religion and a thousand other subjects. Pete had not said much, but he had listened and when he did speak it was usually of some value to the conversation.
Now he walked with a lighter step towards his faithful Vespa and within minutes was homeward bound.
From a high, rocky hill covered with green, springy grass a girl watched him go, her long black hair blowing in the wind, the tears splashing to the ground easing the ache in her empty heart. Slowly she turned and climbed down towards the pink and white houses clustered around the white crested sea.
***
"I want to go and buy some new clothes," Alice told her father, "and Gloucester is the best place for shopping – but she probably won’t let me go in case I see anyone who was anything to do with Pete. He’s – he’s gone now so surely I can go?""I don’t see why not," he answered. "Can’t you forgive your mother?" he added on a sudden impulse. "She only thought she was doing the best for you."
"Best!" Alice gave a laconic snort. "I still love Pete, and she took us apart. Besides, there is something else. I can’t tell you but it was a terrible thing to do. No I can’t forgive her – ever!"
Her father sighed. He could not blame his daughter though, you could not blame anyone for loving someone.
Alice left the house. For the past week she had felt that she must go to Gloucester. Luckily she had some money saved up as an excuse for going to buy clothes. She caught the bus and felt a thrill of unexplained excitement as the big green vehicle drew near to the city. Only she and Jane knew how much she had been missing Pete the nine weeks or so he had been gone. The days were endless, hopelessly running one into the other in a never-ending stream. And the nights passed in an agony of longing and pain, which could not be suppressed or quenched. What was he doing? Who was he with? She had tried so hard to find where he had gone but with no luck. No-body knew, not many were concerned or cared. It was a huge success for her mother. Alice had never told her that she knew about the letter, so she was still ignorant of what it was that Pete had done. She did not care though, all she wanted was Pete back, loving her.
The bus passed his house and she could not hold back a small, low cry that escaped from her lips as she remembered all the good times they had spent there. It was the first time she had been to Gloucester since being brought back from Torquay and when she got off the bus she could not help looking expectantly around her to find him, as they had often met in the bus station before he had the Vespa. But no Pete came rushing to meet her. Women with baskets bustled around her, boys stood in groups, smoking as they always had done, watching the girls in giggling, shrieking groups pass by.
Each step recalled a different memory for the girl. The Bon Marché from where they had often been unceremoniously thrown out; the cinema where they had snogged frantically in the back row; the theatre where they had seen The Spencer Davis Group, The Stones, The Small Faces and many other favourites; the Ace where they often spent their evenings dancing with the other mods to the exciting, atmospheric music. Then, suddenly, she was in the Park. How she got there she could not remember, but she was there, the place she had most wanted to avoid as it contained the sweetest, most heart piercing memories. The tears ran from her eyes as she walked alone through the blossoming trees and sweet scented flowers. The pain was the worst she had known, the utter hopelessness of her position flooded over her. She would never find him, he had gone forever.
"Pete" she called silently from her breaking heart. "How can I bear it?" She closed her eyes to try and shut out the pain and loneliness and was enclosed in a dark whirling pool of stars and heartache. When the worst of the pain passed she opened her eyes again and decided to leave the park. It brought her too much sorrow.
People stared at her curiously, her eyes wet, the sadness in her face. She walked past them all unseeingly; the old age pensioners enjoying the sun, which they might never see again; the proud mothers pushing their babies in the big, black shiny prams; couples hand in hand with love; children playing ball and – oh God! A tall blond boy in mod clothes, walking towards her, head bent, hands in his pockets. Her heart and feet stopped, for a moment she died of pure joy and then she was running, flying towards him, stumbling and calling, reaching him – oh dear blessed God, holding him, kissing him, his hair, his face, his arms holding her so tight.
"Pete, oh my darling Pete." The tears stopped her trembling voice, stopped the questions, the answers – but not stopping her love.
"Alice, I knew it couldn’t be true. I couldn’t believe it. I had to come back to see."
They wandered through the park together explaining, forgiving, loving and finding happiness again. It seemed to Alice that all the long lonely weeks without him were but a dream, now ended and over. He told her what had happened on the fateful night, when he had taken the innocent looking French Blues. She forgave him without even thinking about it. She told him why she had not received his letter and the deceitful, wicked thing her mother had done. He told her of how he had felt, how he had wandered around the seaside towns, that he had met a girl who had loved him. But he knew he could not stay with her and had to go home to find his Alice.
"I can’t go home tonight Pete," she said. "I’ve wanted you for such a long time I’m not just going to turn around and go home now that I have found you. I’ll ring up and tell them that I’ve met Jane and that I’m staying with her. They probably won’t believe me but I just don’t care. I’ve just got to have you again, hold you through the night."
"I’m glad" replied Pete quietly. "It’s been so long. We can go to George’s house because he is alone for a few days. He owes me one anyway, under the circumstances. Is that okay?"
"Anything’s all right as long as you’re there" she said softly. "Oh, how I’ve missed you."
They spent the remainder of the day walking hand in hand through the old friendly city, lost in love and happiness. Alice bought a skirt to keep up the pretence of shopping. They came to a jeweller’s shop and Pete stopped her. Together they looked at the array of shining rings.
"In a month’s time I’ll be able to buy you one," he said happily. "What sort do you want?" She looked with sparkling eyes at the winking rainbows darting from the rings.
"Oh, they are all lovely," she breathed. "I don’t know - diamonds, I love diamonds. Oh look, that one, it’s lovely, beautiful."
The ring, a small band of tiny glittering stones gleamed at them.
"Yes, I agree," said Pete. "That one would look lovely on your long fingers." He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently.
"Oh!" Alice said, "It’s twenty five guineas. That’s an awful lot – I mean…"
Pete laughed.
"Don’t worry about the money. I’ve been doing bits and pieces while I was away. I’ll get the rest somehow. No, I don’t mean it to sound like that! I was going up to thirty quid anyway so we’re well within the limit. Let’s go in and you can try it on."
They entered the shop, which seemed like a pirate’s hoard. Jewels glittered from all directions. A small, nearly bald man came scurrying out to serve them. Alice tried the ring on. It was a perfect fit, she had known it would be. It had been made just for her, fashioned by gnomes in the deepest caverns of the earth. It lay sparkling on her slender finger. She hated having to take it off and watched as the man put it carefully away in a box and marked it ‘Wheeler’.
"Mrs Jennie Wheeler," she whispered secretly to herself. It sounded good, very good.
They wandered slowly down the streets, enclosed in darkness, which was kept at bay by the brightly lit shop windows. Pete bought some chips from a small crowded fish and chip shop, served to him by a fat, jolly woman who laughed and called them both ‘ducks’. The chips, eaten from warm greasy newspapers, tasted as good as chicken as they were both happy, hungry and very much in love which was a very healthy mixture to be.
At about 10.30 they went to George’s house. He was in the lounge desperately trying to persuade a girl to stay the night with him.
"Oh, hi Pete. Alice. Hey haven’t seen you for ages have I?"
"No. It’s good to be back," she said with feeling.
"Can we stay the night here?" Pete asked. "We’ll be good as gold – and I reckon you owe me a favour."
George looked slightly abashed, having heard from Miff the mayhem caused by selling Pete the drugs that night.
"Yeah, that’s okay mate. Just don’t go in my room, I’m hoping to use that later." He gave his girl a meaningful glance.
"Thanks George, goodnight everyone, sweet dreams," called Alice already halfway up the stairs.
"Eager isn’t she?" they heard George remark. "Now why can’t you be more like that?"
Whether she was they never knew!
***
The bedroom was small but cheerfully decorated in red and pale pink flowered wallpaper. Alice jumped on the bed."Lovely and bouncy!" she commented, laughing. Then her laughter died. She got off the bed and went over to Pete.
"You are happy aren’t you Pete?" she asked a little tremulously. "You’ve changed you know, I’m not sure how, but you have. You look sadder I think. Oh, you do still love me don’t you?" Her voice shook a little. He looked at her tenderly.
"Of course I love you idiot!" he answered her. "I look sad because I’ve been sad for a long time without you, but now I feel so happy I just don’t know how to show it. You mustn’t ever doubt that I love you, never. Understand?"
"I’m sorry you were unhappy," said Alice. "I was too, I thought I’d never see you again and I couldn’t understand why. I hate my mother – hate her for what she did. She still doesn’t know that I found out about the letter."
"Forget her for tonight Alice," he said, kissing her. "Forget about everyone. There is just us tonight, just you and me."
She clung to him, her nails biting into his back, her breath coming short and fast.
"If you knew how much – oh Pete, how much I’ve wanted you, so very much."
"I know," he said as they fell onto the bed, "I’ve felt it too."
***
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