From Strength to Strength Read online

  I finally managed to disentangle myself, took a few deep breaths and tried to look composed. I failed miserably.

  I remember two things very clearly. The song playing softly on the radio, ‘What a Difference a Day Makes’, and this very attractive man standing before me, smiling.

  Just then Neville walked down the wharf and onto the boat. He stood there, waiting. We all stood waiting. Neville finally said, ‘Well?’

  I was completely mystified. Wasn’t this man one of his clients? Customers often came sailing with us on weekends. I had assumed the handsome stranger must be a hopeful buyer of farm machinery.

  The American just stood there smiling. He was obviously enjoying the situation immensely. I put the ball back in Neville’s court.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’ he asked in a very flat tone.

  ‘But . . .’ At this point our Virginian interceded.

  ‘Thank you for letting me look over your boat,’ he said to Neville. His eyes travelled over me again. ‘And your lovely crew.’ This time his eyes never moved from mine. ‘I see my friends have just arrived.’ He indicated down the wharf. Then his eyes came back to mine.

  ‘You, I will see again!’

  He stepped onto the dock, bowed ceremoniously, put on his shoes, tipped his Homburg with the point of his umbrella and disappeared down the wharf.

  ‘Cheeky bugger,’ said Neville. It must have taken him a long time to perfect the ‘Avengers’ homburg and umbrella trick.

  Almost all young girls have a mental picture of their Mr Right. Mine was Latin, with black hair, green eyes and very tall, around six foot three. This man did not fit the image at all. He had vivid blue eyes that were almost piercing, plain brown hair, and was just a shade under six feet. But topped off with that fabulous smile . . . The Latin image faded. What a difference a day makes.

  I saw him again much sooner than expected. During the uproar on the boat he had managed to find out from one of our friends where Neville and I were having dinner.

  He walked straight up to our table, and went through the ‘What a coincidence . . . Come here often? My favourite restaurant actually,’ routine and then, before Neville could open his mouth, whisked me onto the dance floor. He instructed the band to play ‘One Enchanted Evening’. This, he told me, was now our song. He grabbed me in a clutch that would have defied Houdini and launched into a waltz that would raise the roof on any ballroom. On the tiny restaurant floor it had the effect of sending most of the other dancers spinning to the sides. I pleaded with him to slow down and he did, but intensified his grip.

  The music stopped, he released the grip and I started breathing again. He helped me back to the table, bowed a goodnight and disappeared. He had impressed me, just as he had intended.

  That night Neville and I had the first of many heated discussions over this man. I suppose Neville could see the writing on the wall but there was nothing he could do to fight it. He did try, he even enlisted the help of Mum, and considering Mum and Neville did not see eye to eye, that was a big step for Neville.

  However, as the days after that fateful Sunday turned into weeks, the excitement of the stranger entering my life started to fade. Neville asked casually if I had heard from him again. I said no, but I had to work hard at hiding my disappointment.

  It had been a very hectic day in the classroom, new students, machine bars to set for the new work, constant questions, safety lock alarms ringing endlessly, but at five o’clock this ended abruptly when, en masse, the students stampeded for the door.

  I waited while the dust settled and the door slammed for the last time, and then started to catch up on the paperwork that went with the day. I was playing tennis that night so I was hurrying when interrupted on the last entry by one of the typists from the outer office.

  ‘There’s someone out here in the office wanting to enrol in your class, lucky you!’

  The door whooshed open, hitting the wall with such force that the shudder reverberated around the room, and there he stood.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, and immediately cursed myself, since at least ninety per cent of my verbal exchange with this man so far had been this one syllable. He must have thought I was an imbecile.

  ‘Hi!’ was the reply. Then silence as we just stood there.

  I rallied, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Enrolling.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, you can’t.’

  ‘Well, dinner then.’

  I gathered the books on my desk into a neat pile and dashed for the door.

  ‘I’m playing tennis tonight and I am already late!’ Halfway out of the office I realised I was still in office uniform and had left my handbag behind. I swung around abruptly and collided with him. His arms must have been operated by snap locks—I was once again in the Houdini grip.

  The rest of the evening was a delightful nightmare. His name was Charles English Henderson III. When I tried to explain him to my mother, she told me they had spent the afternoon chatting over a cup of tea.

  ‘We had such a lovely chat, all about you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, this is not your concern,’ said Charles.

  I threw my hands in the air and went to dress for tennis.

  The rest of the evening was along the same lines. Everyone at tennis asked, ‘Who is that?’ By this time my exhaustion was total so I just said, ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know? He came with you!’

  ‘Then ask him.’

  Charles chatted amicably with everyone. The evening was spiced with conversations like:

  ‘He says you’re going to marry him!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When what?’

  ‘When are you going to marry him?’

  ‘Ask him.’

  And:

  ‘He says you’re going to live in Hong Kong!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well! When?’

  ‘Ask him.’ Somehow I managed to play tennis and get home. At seven o’clock the next morning he was at the door to take me to breakfast in the Cross. He then deposited me on the office steps in time for work.

  The day passed in pandemonium with phone calls, flowers, telegrams, and, somewhere in there, my work. At the end of the day I walked down the steps and he was waiting.

  ‘You’re not playing tennis, I checked with your mother, and she knows you’re having dinner with me.’

  I protested mildly for appearances’ sake but knew that he knew he had me just where he wanted me, and where I wanted to be.

  Dinner was at the Chelsea in Kings Cross, a wedge of meat big enough to feed ten people washed down by the right champagne.

  The waiter watched horrified as Charles drew a map of Australia in biro on the linen tablecloth. After calming the waiter with instructions to add the cost to his bill, Charles then proceeded to mark in a spot on the top left hand corner of the Northern Territory. With a flourish of the pen he drew a circle and said, ‘This is where we will live one day, when we are married.’ Not a question, just a matter-of-fact statement.

  After completely overwhelming me, he eventually deposited me on the doorstep, crushed me in another one of those hugs and departed. I was left with the very definite impression that he was quite mad and I should never see him again.

  It continued. More breakfasts, flowers and chocolates delivered to the office at all hours, luncheons, dinners. The weeks passed in a beautiful blurred haze.

  ‘Darling, dinner tonight at the Chelsea, okay?’ A split second pause, not for an answer but for my brain to receive. ‘See you tonight.’ The phone went dead.

  I called home and told Mum I would not be home for dinner. She said she was pleased I was with that nice American. I still had to take her to task over their afternoon chat. It seems she told him everything, including the location of birthmarks.

  I arrived on time. Charles had already ordered di
nner earlier by phone. I sat with two cocktails, also ordered by phone, and waited. And waited. I went home two hours later in quite a state. Emotions raced through my brain in chaotic disorder, exploding into each other.

  My temper flared as I decided I had been stood up. The next emotion was terror, he had been hurt in an accident, then horror, he is dying in hospital somewhere, then despair, what will I do?

  I called the police and explained the situation. They checked and I waited in agony while the checking continued.

  ‘No, miss, no accidents in the city area involving Americans.’

  My black temper returned.

  My poor students felt the aftermath of the stormy temper that raged most of the night. I was finishing the day’s paperwork when my boss appeared at the door.

  ‘A few words, Sara.’ It seemed that during my weeks in that blurred haze I had trained a girl from an engineering factory to be a retail operator. I assured him I was back on track, that I had been suffering from a virus and was now over it. I dragged myself back to reality and knuckled down to work. I put on a smiling face although I did not feel like smiling, and I talked to myself a lot.

  I was sure my feelings were reciprocated but his behaviour did not bear this out. To just leave, not a word for weeks. It was all too much to take. I swore off men, Charles in particular, forever.

  The classroom was quiet with all the students engrossed in their work. A hand appeared at the back of the room, so I walked down the aisle of noisy machines, showed the student how to correct her problem, started to walk back to my desk and stopped. He was standing in the doorway beaming that winning smile. Many, many emotions coursed through me in that split second before my temper emerged.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Now, I can explain.’ The students stopped working to watch the soap opera unfolding before them.

  ‘How dare you?’ I blurted out all the pent-up feelings of anger, frustration and unhappiness of the past few weeks. There was complete silence. The students held their breath, waiting for the reply to such an onslaught.

  ‘I’m sorry, I forgot you,’ came the meek reply. Well, the meekest Charles could manage.

  ‘Forgot her?’ chorused the classroom. This brought me back to earth and I asked Charles to ‘step outside’.

  As in all arguments that followed, he won and had me apologising for all the dreadful things I had thought about him.

  He had started a business meeting at eight o’clock and lost track of time. It was ten before he realised and he called the restaurant, but had missed me by only minutes. He then had to leave immediately for Hong Kong and could not reach me by phone before he boarded the plane. He tried to call from Hong Kong for days with no luck, and then he was travelling in areas where phones had not yet been heard of. At least that was his story.

  He flashed that special smile, ‘Forgiven?’ What was there to say?

  More months of breakfasts, flowers, telegrams, lunches, dinners, departures, letters, static phone calls from Hong Kong, arrivals, and the whole marvellous procedure all over again.

  One memorable evening he called me at work to say he was playing a few sets of tennis with a friend. If I met him at the court, we could then go for dinner. I said that sounded fine. I arrived at the court after work and watched the match. Charles excelled himself. He had his friend running all over the court making Charles look terrific. The only problem was that his opponent was Martin Mulligan, my mixed doubles partner from junior days.

  When they had finished they walked over to me. Charles was about to introduce Martin when Martin said, ‘Hello Sara.’ Charles stood there for a moment then went off to change without saying a word.

  Martin and I sat and talked. Apparently Charles had wanted to impress me and Martin had been coaching him, so Charles had asked him to play up to him so he would look good in front of his girlfriend. Of course Martin hadn’t known I was the girl.

  Charles returned, showered and dressed for dinner. I said goodbye to Martin and we departed. Charles was very quiet. He finally said, ‘How do you know Martin?’ I told him we had played in the same district and were junior mixed partners. He told me I was sneaky!

  ‘Sneaky? I’m sneaky?’ He had the grace to look sheepish.

  After that fiasco he moved onto his next. He told me we were having dinner in a nice quiet hotel just down the road from the tennis court. He had planned dinner in a room with violins outside the door. When Charles stopped the car, I thought I would die of laughter. Of all the hotels in Sydney, he had picked the one my father managed. Needless to say, the plot did not collapse, it exploded. Poor Charles, two complete failures in one evening. He left for Hong Kong the next day, ahead of schedule.

  The letters came regularly. One would not call them love letters, I do not think I ever received a love letter from Charles. I say I do not think because most of his letters were impossible to read. I would keep them and ask him to read them to me when he arrived, but most of the time he could not decipher his own writing. They would start with ‘Darling’, but would then go on to list all the things he wanted me to do before his return. One time he even enclosed a draft of a business letter which he wanted me to type and send to a list of addresses.

  He had been gone about a month. I was missing him, and his letters said he was missing me. However he had no return date as yet. One of his letters indicated he had business problems.

  My boss opened the classroom door and said, a little too loudly, ‘Sara, my office immediately!’ What had I done now? Trotting down the hall behind him I ventured, ‘Something wrong?’ We reached his office, and there sat Charles. He had informed my boss I was leaving today and with a classroom of forty students and no replacement for me, one could understand my boss’s reacton.

  ‘How? . . . What? . . . When?’ I wasn’t getting anywhere. He wanted me to have a week off during the time he was in Sydney. It was finally decided that I could take five days after we had called in one of the field operators, which would take two days.

  During those five days we both admitted we were hopelessly in love, but although there was this declaration of love, there was no mention of the future. I found myself once again at the airport. I had the feeling he had a problem but he had never mentioned it, and I had never asked.

  Sitting in the bar at the airport he dropped the bombshell—he was married! It was only a few minutes before his plane left. I just sat there. All I could think of was Mum. He said it was alright. I still just stared. They were separated, and had been for quite a while. In fact, she lived in Sydney! With the children!

  ‘Children?’ I managed feebly. He had spoken to her and they were getting a divorce which should be finalised soon. The last call on his flight was announced. He kissed me passionately and disappeared, leaving me mumbling on the bar stool, our farewell drink untouched on the bar.

  I don’t remember going home, and I’m not really sure of the days that followed. No one knew the agony I was going through, they mistook my dazed condition for love. What on earth was I going to do? What could I say to Mum? I decided not to tell anyone. I had read novels about such situations but never in a million years did I think it would happen to me. I kept coming back to Mum. I knew she would not be able to handle this.

  Two weeks passed. His letters started arriving daily. His last letter said he was arriving next week. I could not write, I was still sorting my feelings out. I had decided that I could never see him again, or at least not until he was divorced.

  A few inquiries told me this could take up to four years. This plunged me deeper into depression. I prepared myself for his arrival. Telling him my decision was going to be difficult. A telegram arrived saying he was delayed. The letters continued and still I did not reply. The strain started to show. I was irritable, my work suffered, my tennis was atrocious, everyone gave me plenty of room. My only thought was the showdown.

  He arrived and I took the day off, wanting to avoid another classroom drama. I met him at the airport, braced myself
for the ordeal ahead and felt wretched. He started the ‘Darling’, crush, kiss, another crush routine. I was close to tears, about to turn and run, when he said, ‘The divorce will be finalised in six weeks.’

  He led me speechless into the bar and ordered a drink. When I recovered, I said solemnly, ‘You can’t get a divorce in six weeks.’ More of his lies, I thought to myself sadly.

  ‘In America you can!’

  We shared another wonderful week. Everyone was pleased I was back to normal, and he departed again. Life settled down.

  The feelings I had for this man I had not experienced before. When he was not with me, nothing would fill the void. I was in trouble; he was too much for me to handle, but my life was in his hands.

  I had not fallen in love with any ordinary man.

  Charles was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and as a young boy and in his teens he had sailed around Gibson Island and the Chesapeake Bay. He left LeHigh University in his second year of engineering to fight for his country in the Second World War, and served mostly in the Pacific.

  He was a war hero, and was on the cover of Time magazine as ‘Yank of the Week’. His war decorations included seven Battle Stars, two Silver Stars, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Air Medals and more. He was Lieutenant Commander of the night-bombing Torpedo 10 Squadron aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise aircraft carrier when peace was declared.

  And now all this energy was directed towards pursuing me!

  CHAPTER 4

  1960

  I was patiently listening to a slightly hysterical mother, waiting for her to calm down. I caught words like police, international investigation, ruined, Interpol. I kept trying to interject ‘Mum’ into the flow, but to no avail.

  My boss appeared at the door with a very sour expression on his face. What a day! ‘Sara, my office now!’ He was gone, without a glance over his shoulder, and Mum was still babbling. I shouted over the continuous stream that I would call her later, and ran down the hall to catch up with my boss. I entered his office and there were two more grim men.