MORNING SERIAL
OH no, your father didn’t like that one bit. Or that men fell for me (how could I help it? I ask you). There was, for instance, a sporting journalist from America, Fred Katcinski, such a hoot, a diversion from all our seriousness.
Your father got the idea that you were Fred’s bastard, we quarrelled frightfully & made it up (at this time I remember the Quantz man who was thick with my husband, coming in, all very suave, helping to patch things up. I do beg you keep away from these people, they are not our sort. He had a dull little wife, I forget her name, & a child always grizzling. The husband was a terrible womaniser which Paul was not - he worshipped me).
The red sail of the boat glided across Issie’s eye and lost itself in one of the islands, to emerge, only to go into renewed hiding again.
I need hardly say you were not Fred’s. He was a sweetie, & yes, he did once make a pass. He was tall & stooping, with a slouch & a shock of floppy hair. Giggled like a girl.
Took me out on the razzle when Paul was away. What was I supposed to do? Sit indoors changing your nappies & cooking Wurst? We had Maria to do that. There was nothing in it, it was just fun. We were all mad about the American movies Hollywood, Garbo, Chaplin - and the
Amis gave us girls a thrill precisely because we lived such serious, idealistic lives.
Big mistake to tell Paul about the pass Fred made at me, it just slipped out. He went ranting up & down like an opera-star. Said, How shall I ever know Isolde’s mine?
The man’s a Pole or a Rusky. I said, Don’t be ridiculous, he’s American.
That was the level of his thinking. Now I’d got far more cosmopolitan since being in Munich, I could see farther than his nose even if he couldn’t.
The Element of Water by Stevie Davies is published by Parthian in the Library of Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW