The Full Legacy

  The Full Legacy

  by

  Jane Retzig

  The Full Legacy

  First Published on Amazon Kindle 2014

  Copyright Jane Retzig 2014

  The Full Legacy is based on Jane Retzig’s short novel ‘The Legacy’ (ISBN 0-9523625-1-1)

  The Legacy was originally published by The Dimsdale Press in 1995

  All rights currently owned by the author

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any other resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except for review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author.

  janeretzig@gmail.com

  Edgar Cayce Reading 2419-1 quoted by kind permission

  Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993 – 2007. The Edgar Cayce Foundation.

  All Rights Reserved.

  For MDMK & TBD

  With Love

  My darling, can you feel my love?

  Each day I grow closer to you.

  Each day now is nearer to the day when you will know me.

  Feel me watching over you my sweet one.

  Feel my love as it surrounds you.

  Feel me drawing ever nearer.

  Listen to my heart as it yearns for you.

  Listen to your own heart as it yearns for me.

  The Party

  She landed on me, quite literally, at a party. It was late June 1993 and it was very hot. Thirty or so women were packed into the front room of a 1930’s terrace in Chingford. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke and a distinctive undertone of dope from the Hackney contingent by the window. The Suede CD was playing on the hi-fi. And I was standing by the kitchen doorway where it was slightly cooler, next to one of the speakers, struggling to make small talk with a woman I knew vaguely and fancied (maybe) in a mild, hardly able to be bothered kind of way. I hated parties generally, but I’d made an effort for this one. I was tired of being alone, I guess. I was wearing a new black silk shirt – a real bargain from the market at twelve quid – thin, black cotton jeans and white Reebok trainers. I had my collar turned up in an effort to look cool. It didn’t work, of course. I’d got a drink in one hand and the other in my pocket. I never knew what to do with my hands at parties. If I didn’t keep them under firm control, they tended to take on a life of their own, waving around while I was talking, knocking people’s drinks down them and all that stuff. Maybe people smoke so they can occupy both hands when they’re drinking, but I’d never succumbed to that particular habit. My mum was always much too eager to share her Kensitas with me for that. A girl has to have something to rebel against, after all.

  The woman I was talking to was a schoolteacher in her forties. She was called Georgie. She’d found out about our group through the Kenric newsletter and she told me she’d been in love with her (straight) best friend for twenty five years. I wasn’t really clear why she’d suddenly decided to look for someone who might actually love her back. I’d just about made out that it was some situation where she’d been dumped in favour of a new boyfriend again, though she had quite a low voice and it wasn’t very easy to hear her with Brett Anderson’s baleful vocals about ‘Animal Nitrate’ pumping at me from the speaker.

  Anyway, Georgie seemed okay. I figured that someone would snap her up in no time. I just wasn’t sure that it was going to be me. She was attractive in a fairly unremarkable sort of way with strong features and short, dark curly hair streaked with grey. There was a slight habitual downturn at the corners of her mouth that had etched deep lines there over the years. I noticed that they never quite disappeared even when she laughed... which she did when I asked her if she’d identified with George, her (almost) namesake in the Famous Five books. I think it was probably an ‘oh no, not that old chestnut again’ kind of a laugh. But she just reminded me really strongly of the drawings in the heavily thumbed library copy of ‘Five Go to Treasure Island’ I’d read when I was seven. Her reply was so well-polished I could tell she had to bring it out and dust it off regularly at parties when faced with social inepts like me. ‘I did when I was a kid. I even had a dog called Timmy,’ she said, patiently.

  ‘Hah – oh, ah hah... yes?... really?!... And lashings of ginger beer eh... hah hah!’

  This close to making a move, I was fairly sure that I didn’t want to be bothered. It wasn’t anything personal, just the wearisome prospect of the dating thing or, even worse, the going to bed ritual – crap coffee, no toothbrush at her place, or wondering when she’d ever leave the next morning at mine. At thirty seven, my libido didn’t feel strong enough anymore to over-ride those kinds of minor discomfort, just in the faint hope of finding love.

  Probably Georgie was feeling the same way. Certainly she was distracted. I turned round to trace her gaze and found myself looking through into the kitchen and up at this gorgeous woman – dark, maybe thirty, very cool – poured, it seemed into a black mini-dress, long legs, high heels – perched perilously close to the top of a stepladder, changing the light bulb of all things. (How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?... In this case, ten... one to change the bulb and nine to share the experience). It was my first glimmer of true lust in years and I was distracting myself instantly – glib jokes, internal banter, hefty put-downs: ‘Way out of your league’... ‘Probably the landlady’... Even, ‘Georgie saw her first.’

  ‘Good party!’

  ‘Uh! Oh... Yes.’ Half in a dream, I moved to let my housemate Kay past me into the kitchen, transfixed still by the woman, who was handing down the old bulb now into a sea of waiting hands.

  ‘I’d kill for a body like that,’ said Georgie wonderingly, showing a racy side I wouldn’t have suspected at all from our earlier conversation.

  ‘Mm.’

  Somebody was handing up a new bulb. The object of our desire wobbled slightly as she reached down for it...

  And then Kay knocked her off.

  I’m only a bronze medallist in clumsiness compared with Kay when she fancies somebody. It isn’t even as if she isn’t capable of being graceful. As an aerobics instructor it comes with the territory. But put her within a hundred yards of an attractive woman in her time off and she goes for gold every time.

  This time she’d managed to trip over the bottom of the ladder, taking all the glasses on the draining board with her as she landed practically in the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, the woman we’d all been admiring came flying through the doorway towards me in a sprawl of flailing arms and legs.

  It’s funny how in times of crisis we fall back on old ways. Georgie dived for cover, but not me. As a kid I’d spent hours hurling balls against the garages at the back of our house and catching them. All speeds, all angles. Come rain, come shine. Back then, I was a girl on a mission. I was desperate to be selected for the school rounders team. Sadly, I hadn’t noticed that you had to be friends with the team captain for that to happen, so my talents went unnoticed and I never did get picked. But I’m still a great fielder and I’m senseless in the face of danger. Whenever I see things hurtling towards me I just hold out my hands and pray. It never fails. The woman knocked every last gasp of air out of me, but I held her, crashing to the floor with her safe and secure in my arms.

  My first thought on landing was that I was going to die. The thought had a strangely comforting feel to it. But then I croaked in about a yard of smoke and heavily recycled air and started to cough myself back into life. I was shocked, for sure. I’d twisted my wrist and I suspected that I might have given myself a minor concussion. But I still had a beautiful woman clutched to my bosom and she seemed in
clined to be friendly.

  ‘My God,’ she said. ‘Have I broken you?’ Her voice was rich as velvet and faintly to the ‘Upstairs’ end of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’. It was also so close I could feel the moisture of her breath on my right earlobe.

  I wiggled my fingers and toes a bit half heartedly. Maybe I was getting my priorities wrong but I wasn’t especially eager to move.

  ‘Everything seems to be working,’ I said contentedly.

  Around us, a sea of faces gazed down. They all looked weirdly out of focus.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever fallen for anyone quite so blatantly before,’ she said. ‘You smell gorgeous by the way, what is it?’

  It was ‘Aphrodisiac’ massage oil actually. Kay had bought it at some New Age stall down Covent Garden. It was heavy on Jasmine and Patchouli and I’d dabbed a hefty dollop behind each ear on my way out of the house.

  How can you admit to something as embarrassing as massage oil behind your ears?

  ‘Just something that was lying around in the bathroom cabinet.’ I said vaguely.

  ‘Well, it’s lovely! I could stay here all night.’

  Eureka! The stuff was magic!

  ‘On the other hand,’ she said. ‘I think I’m showing everything I’ve got. I’d better just stand up and make myself decent.’

  She wriggled out of my arms and stood up gingerly, pulling her dress back down over her knickers. A sea of lesbians pretended they hadn’t been looking.

  She turned and reached out her hand to help me up.

  ‘The light should be working now,’ she called to our hostess, Ros. She didn’t let go of me though. I felt her fingers interlocking with mine, her thumb tracing a faint erotic path over my palm.

  ‘Hey, let there be light!’ said Ros, flicking the switch to great applause. If I’d felt like eating any more mushroom vol-au-vents I could have seen the remains of the cold buffet now, spread out in all its glory.

  ‘Thanks Turner,’ called Ros. ‘I won’t need to move now until the next light bulb blows.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ She really was gorgeous, even close up. She held onto my hand.

  ‘Turner?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes... I’ll get you another drink.’

  Here it was, time for her to make her excuses and move on. Still, it had been nice while it lasted. And she was picking up my glass from the floor where I’d dropped it. I flopped back into the vacant armchair behind me, noticing that Georgie had been whisked away to the other side of the room by the small ginger haired woman in a check shirt who had been sitting there. Slightly relieved, I waved to her and allowed myself to register all the places I was likely to be bruised in the morning. I felt myself beginning to shake.

  When Kay made her appearance, she had the ingratiating look that always comes after one of her accidents. ‘Oops!’ she said, hovering close and trying to look cute. She had a paper napkin wrapped round her hand where she’d cut it trying to pick broken glass out of the sink. A faint red stain was already oozing through the paper. I think I was supposed to feel sorry for her. And I did... slightly. I was also so grateful, I could have kissed her, but I hoped she wasn’t going to hang around.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, flexing my wrists cautiously in case of broken bones. ‘I reckon you just gave me the biggest thrill I’m likely to get all year.’

  ‘Oh... okay! That’s good.’

  ‘Hope you didn’t cut yourself too badly?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah... just a surface cut....’

  ‘Good.’

  I wasn’t really concentrating. I’d discovered that if I peered slightly to the left of Kay, I could just about see Turner in the kitchen. She seemed to be fending off an inordinate number of well-wishers as she tried to get to the drinks table.

  ‘Kay... I’ve found the plasters!’ This was Ros, triumphantly waving a pack of ‘Elastoplast’ from the kitchen doorway. She’d obviously dug them out of a drawer somewhere the minute she got the light back on.

  ‘Cheers!’... Kay glanced doubtfully at me.... ‘Sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  Dragging my eyes away from Turner for a moment, I noticed that Ros was actually putting the plaster on Kay’s hand. She seemed to linger for a while as she smoothed it with her thumb, making sure it was stuck down properly. I wondered for a brief, whimsical moment if she was going to offer to kiss it better too.

  Anyway, if she’d thought of it, she’d obviously changed her mind.

  Because, the next thing I knew, she was heading towards me with a cloth and a bucket of water.

  ‘Don’t want the place smelling like a tap room,’ she grinned.

  Ros was a recent addition to our social circle. Kay had met her at some trendy nightspot in town and she wasn’t the sort of person I’d normally get to mix with. She did something lucrative in the City, had a Rolex that was probably genuine and wore Cartier specs with aplomb. A lot of the time, we might as well have been from different planets for all we had in common, but we’d got round that so far by developing a kind of uncomfortable banter that allowed us to have whole conversations with each other without ever having to say anything very much. Sharing a taste in women helped too, obviously.

  ‘Gorgeous, isn’t she?’ She rubbed vigorously at the spilled lager.

  I could see I’d gone up a rung or too on Ros’s respect ladder.

  In the kitchen, Turner was still being accosted by well wishers.

  ‘She fancies you,’ said Ros. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Nah!’ Even so, my heart gave a little leap at the suggestion.

  She ignored my denial. ‘Strictly for fun though,’ she said.

  My heart sank straight back to its usual depressed position. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, she does her own thing, but she is married... to Adam Shaw, Managing Director of Lightoil Investments. Not a man who likes competition. Hostile takeovers all over the world. Nasty piece of work by all accounts, though I suppose she must see something in him.’

  She slapped her floor cloth into the bucket, then had to take her glasses off to wipe away the spray she’d just splashed all over them. ‘I also have my suspicions about her relationship with Suzanne.’

  ‘Su?’

  ‘Mm – More there than meets the eye if you ask me, which nobody ever does of course... Anyway, here she comes.’

  I engineered a smile for Turner as she headed back to me. Surprisingly, she did choose to sit down beside me, perching on the arm of the chair and looking down at me with interest, even when she’d handed me my drink and could have moved on.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, truly, I’m fine.’ I was too. Now she was back by my side.

  A huge jolt of nerves ran through me as I realised I was going to have to think of something more to say to her.

  ‘Turner’s an unusual name,’ I said, then instantly regretted using the old name line again. I caught my breath, noticing thankfully that she was smiling.

  ‘Yes. My mother’s American...’ I was already nodding, thinking that explained it, when she continued. ‘She came to the UK as an art student back in the fifties. Her greatest love has always been nineteenth century British art.’

  ‘It could have been a whole lot worse then.’ I found myself gathering momentum as I blundered on with a mock cheeriness that I hated myself for. ‘Constable, for instance.’ Good grief... where on earth did that one come from? I was being tactless now. She probably really liked having two surnames.

  To my relief she laughed. ‘Yeah... and you?’

  ‘Me?... I prefer the more modern artists really.’

  ‘No – your name?’

  ‘Oh.’ Of course! ‘Gill – short for Gillian.’

  ‘Well, Gill, it’s good to meet you.’

  She held out her hand to shake. It felt cool and dry, despite the heat. Mine felt sweaty against it. I wished I’d given it a surreptitious rub before offering it to her.

  ‘How do you come to know Ros?’ I a
sked.

  ‘Suzanne introduced us.’

  ‘Oh?’ I was wary after Ros’s warning. My eyes went down to my drink as I played with my glass, taking in this latest piece of information.

  I’d known Suzanne and her partner Mary for years, and I knew that their relationship was sailing pretty close to the rocks. I remembered a comment from Kay only a couple of days earlier, ‘You know, I think Su’s seeing somebody on the side. She’s been working late a hell of a lot recently.’ And Mary herself, a little drunk at Maxine Drinkwell’s party, making barbed jibes at her partner, ‘Suzanne’s not interested in sex anymore, are you darling?... Well, not with me anyway.’

  In many ways, it wasn’t surprising to me that they were having problems. What was surprising was that they’d managed to stay together for so long. I’d never come across a couple who seemed more mismatched, and I never could quite understand what had brought them together in the first place.

  Of the two, I liked Mary best. She was a nursery school assistant with a pretty face and hair that was a mass of unruly curls. Her dress-sense was... well, somewhere on a par with mine probably, but a whole lot fluffier. There was a bit of an age gap between them; Mary being older by about ten years, and for some reason that had started to look bigger recently. Mary had begun to have a sad sort of look about her too, even, I think, before she started having suspicions about Suzanne playing away. She was the kind of woman who seemed born to mother children, but she never had and I wondered if she’d sacrificed that for Suzanne. I couldn’t imagine Su wanting that kind of messiness in her life. She was one of those super-cool City Secretaries who can handle rush hour tube trains, tights and high heels all at once and still arrive at the office in morning-fresh condition. Tall, blonde and reserved, she was eminently fanciable in an icy kind of way but she certainly wasn’t my type. She always made me feel a bit gauche and stupid, like I couldn’t possibly have anything to say that would be of the faintest interest to her. Often, I got the feeling that she was laughing at me behind my back, but that might just have been me being paranoid. I’d never quite known where I stood with her, even though I’d known her for years.