For the Love of Freya

Paul Kelly

Description

Amy & Steven were married and had moved into their new home, 'Cairnra' a bungalow on the outskirts of Inverness. ANNA STEIGER had settled in at her smaller residence, 'Cara' when she left the ruined 'Glencara' which had been razed to the ground by the recent fire and the boys,ANTON & GIDEON had gone off to University. The memory of the dreaded child, FREYA, presumed dead, seemed to have faded in everyone's mind. (Only Amy's nephew ROBBIE, a slow learning child, remembered Freya with affection) But at Christmas in the year 1951 when the Christmas cards were being received at 'Cairnra', Amy received a memorial card. It was a long, white envelope, bordered in black and inside, she found a simple oblong card with nothing written on it and with no verse ...It bore only the initial 'F'

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849899086
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page

FOR THE LOVE OF FREYA




By
Paul Kelly.




Publisher Information

For The Love of Freya
Published in 2011 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Paul Kelly

The right of Paul Kelly to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



Chapter One

It Was Early In The Summer Of Fifty-Eight and we were sitting together in the thick, green, daisy-spattered meadow, making chains from the pink edged little white flowers as we had done when we were children. Well, I know I did and so did Anna, but I wasn’t sure about Steven. His upbringing was so entirely different to mine.
It was a lazy sunny afternoon and the earth was at peace with itself and everyone else around, it seemed. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be if life could always be like this and trying to equate the blood red poppy, the emblem of bloody Flanders in the First World War, with the peace and quiet that surrounded us now. The poppy was the only colour for miles around and she danced merrily, in her playful blush in the gentle breeze, contradicting the violence and the savagery that my father had told me about on those Flanders fields when so many young men gave their lives for their country.
Huckleberry licked my hand and brought me out of my euphoria as he ran off and stretched himself out at our feet occasionally moving, only to lick the hard soles of his large paws.
Steven lay back, playing listlessly with a strand of grass between his teeth; his enthusiasm spent after a wild chase with Huckleberry and I reflected lazily over the past years of our marriage. It had been a happy time, but there were times when everything seemed so trying and so wrong. I had indeed fallen in love with Steven ... not once, but many times and the only fly in the ointment was the fact that I was unable to have children, however I had got used to the idea that I would never be able to give birth after my fourth miscarriage. I knew that Steven would have wanted children and this thought gave me a tinge of sadness, even if somewhat selfishly, for I had never ever thought that I would have been the perfect mother, but despite that, there was always the thrill of expectancy ... not knowing what the little one that was growing slowly within you, would be a boy or a girl. ... If I really wanted a child, it would have been for Steven’s sake, but I never ever wanted that it should interfere in the life we shared together as man and wife, because after ten years of married life and when I was in my fifty-first year, I had, at long last, literally fallen head over heels in love with Steven and my concern was only that I should become too possessive. I wanted to be with him at every moment, day and night and I was never happier than when we were together. I am not saying that we didn’t have our arguments, or the occasional row ... we did!, but I always felt it was my fault ...well most of the time and anyway, regardless of who was at fault, I never allowed the argument to last for long. I would very soon reassure him that I loved him and would kiss him to ensure that he knew that I meant what I said and I know this pleased him. We would make love as we first did when we were newly married and I learned how to please him in every possible way. I looked upon this as my vocation; my way of life ... to give Steven my all, in every way and to make him happy. I know a child would have crowned this joy for him, but it was not to be. We had tried unsuccessfully and each time I became pregnant, I lost the baby.

***

Gideon telephoned to say he was waiting to go into Marylands sometime in August, where he would be joining Anton who had already been there for the past two years. They were both young men now ... well, heading that way and their voices had broken. It seemed strange talking to the little boys I had grown to know so well, when they sounded like men on the other end of the line.
They hoped to come and visit us in the summer break and we were looking forward to seeing them again. Anna hadn’t been too well in the last few months and had given up her partnership in the medical practice, which meant that Steven was on his own for the time being and looking for a new partner to start with him as soon as possible. It was too busy for him to handle alone.

“I’m rather worried about Anna, darling,” he said to me one morning, “I think she has been doing too much of late, working into the small hours and burning the candle at both ends. She leaves home at 6.30 each morning, you know ...to avoid the traffic, she says ...but I know she’s been awake for hours before that. She told me once how she dusted the house from top to bottom, for something to do ... she said ... Can you believe it?”
I sympathized, knowing Anna. She had gone steadily downhill since Gerry’s death, regardless of all the work she took on at the practice ... which was meant to help her forget. She never took a proper holiday ... only days here and there ... and when we insisted that she come to us for a summer break, she spent most of her time doing OUR housework ... and I would find her dusting and polishing before I got up in the morning. She also plodded around the garden and took Huckleberry for walks, several times a day. Needless to say, he loved it and made a fine friend of Anna when she was with us, missing her terribly when she went back to Cara again.
Her life had changed so dramatically and we took care not to mention Gerry’s name, knowing how painful it was for her to be reminded of his terrible death and she would end up in a flood of tears. Considering she was a psychiatrist ... she needed a psychiatrist ... but Steven was too close a friend to be of any help and besides, he too was still mourning the death of his friend.

***

We had planned a couple of weeks in London around mid-September when Steven had some conferences to attend and some lectures in which he was expected ... ‘to prattle on a bit ...’ to use his own expression and I wanted to take the opportunity to pay a visit to Stella and her family at Little Netherington. We had been hoping that Anna might come with us as I knew that Stella would love to see her again as they hadn’t met since my wedding. Stella had a way of welcoming her guests that made them feel as though they were the most important persons alive and that nobody else mattered ... and I knew that was just the type of thing that Anna needed.
Frances, Stella’s eldest daughter had married her Zubin and despite Stella’s misgivings they were very happy with two beautiful children ... a boy and a girl and contrary to Stella’s fears, they were both BLONDES. Alastair was still in the process of courting, for the umpteenth time, I am led to understand and with a different young lady on each occasion, but without success of finding Miss Right, and Big Eddy ...I say that because that was the only way to describe him. Eddy was HUGE and had gone off to the Isle of Man to realize his ambition and fulfil his dreams as a racing driver. No women ever matched up to Eddy’s cars and we guessed none ever would, but my darling Robbie had surprised us all by becoming a famous concert pianist, travelling the world extensively, having now mastered the arts of reading and writing with an efficiency beyond our wildest dreams. He was transformed from the glib little skinny, slow learning boy, too short for his years, to a tall, slender, broad-shouldered blonde young man, handsome beyond description and a heart-breaker to every young girl who went to listen to his playing. He packed the concert halls at his every performance and sent us records of all his works. Robbie never ever disappointed me in my expectations which worried Stella and George. He was ever humble; always smiling and never pompous, despite the apparent grandeur of his affluent lifestyle and he wrote to me often, always with love and affection; always in the same simple style of writing, but between the lines, I could see a giant of a character who lived so happily for the happiness of others and he still mentioned Freya from time to time in his letters. Wouldn’t she have been delighted with that ... I thought ... but apart from my dreams and nightmares, I never thought about her as I purposely dismissed her from my mind, if I ever did think about her during the day and I shuddered when I thought of the memory of her. Steven was always confused about her parentage, even with the knowledge he had received from the Treblinka files, but he too, never spoke about her in the house. It was as though she had never existed ... until one day, just after the Christmas of 1956. I remember it well and among the belated Christmas cards was one that looked like a Memorial Card of some kind. It was in a long, white envelope, bordered in black and addressed to me only as Mrs. Capriano, but not to Steven. Inside was a simple white oblong card with nothing on it but the letter ‘F’. I thought it strange, but dismissed it from my mind until I saw a tragedy on the television news a few nights later. A child had been burned to death in a most horrific fire. I took particular notice because this child was the daughter of a