She was simply gone, “in the twinkling of an eye,” as they say, and I became a rich woman. I had not always seen eye to eye with Aunt Jolly, who disapproved of my youthful antics. She once invited me to stay and I stood her up for a more tempting offer from a man I could not resist. More fool me. It didn’t last. Aunt Jolly’s attention did. I learned the hard way, but then, don’t we all?
The villa lured me with a magic my family home in Scotland never had. “Home” in my childhood was a Victorian turreted redbrick monstrosity, from which I longed to escape, especially after Mom “went over the wall,” as Dad succinctly put it, with an American tourist, leaving him to cope with an obstreperous and angry ten-year-old.
It was my job to help clean out the stables, morning and evening. The horses knew I was afraid of them and would lean on me, trapping me against the wall, or do a nifty little back-kick that invariably got my shins. I hated it, but I liked the outfit, the tight little cream jodhpurs, the black jacket, and cute velvet helmet.
I guess when Dad had had enough, he sent me off to live for a while with what he termed “foster parents,” though they were no relation and simply made a living from taking in boarders like me. Life there was not much different, except it was in Wyoming. Both were equally cold in winter.
After a couple of years they sent me back, having also had enough, I suppose. Back in Scotland, I wore a pleated tartan kilt fastened with an oversized safety pin to protect my modesty from the everlasting wind that blew it apart, displaying more, I’m sure, than anyone ever wanted to see. I also wore heavy woolen shooting socks, the kind made specially for men and days out in the woods and fields, gun in hand, ready to murder a few innocent pheasant, that I refused to eat when they showed up later on the dinner table. Every Sunday the family attended church where a lady in a feathered hat pounded out “Abide with Me” on an organ with many pipes. I can still sing every verse.
Needless to say it didn’t last long. London called. And boys—well, men really.
In London I went through my gauzy, “hippie” phase, all fluttering skirts and softly draped tops with a large fake jewel or two prominently displayed on my bosom. This was when I met husband number one, about whom the less said the better. His only excuse was that he was as young as I was.
Then it was on to smart little suits and heels, very businesslike. I took a job as a receptionist at an agency for actors where I met some fun people, all of whom were as broke as I was. I also met husband number two. An actor of course.
After him, and I was still only twenty years old, came the “debutante” era: the dirndl skirt, the little white frilly collared shirt, the cashmere cardigan, and the flats, with a bag big enough to pack a weekend’s clothes in, which I often did. Along with that look came husband number three. I never could resist a man with charm and he had it in spades. He also had money but I got none of it when I left, being too goody-goody to take any man’s money. “Fool,” was more like it. Obviously, I was having trouble “finding myself.”
A couple years later I took the train to Paris, and then to Nice and Aunt Jolly. Well, that was then. And now is now.
And now, I guess, I’m just me. Or who I perceive I am currently. Like the characters in the books I write, I can change with the wind.
My Aunt Jolly was in her seventies, or thereabouts. We didn’t actually know for sure because she never let on. Looking at her, she might have been any age between fifty and seventy; she was of medium height but stood tall. Her large, curious brown eyes were always interested in other people and she loved a good gossip, though never of the mean sort. She was a whiz at bridge and an evening tippler—two glasses of champagne—at precisely five each evening. A giver of good parties where the food was important and the wine was local, brought down the hill to the Villa Romantica on a wheelbarrow from the grower. There was always music in the background, along with the sound of the sea and the happy blur of conversation.
Elegant, chatty, pretty, Aunt Jolly was a delight to be with. Not a proper “aunt,” more likely a second cousin of my late mother’s, a couple of times removed, but beloved in the family anyway.
Jolly had never married, though there were “gentlemen” as she demurely called them, and young though I was when I met her, I still remember that when I kissed her she smelled delightfully of some citrusy musky perfume that clung to her clothes and made me want to bury my head in her shoulder, simply to drink it in.
“Quite a girl” was how Aunt Jolly had described me, and I had alway believed that. Oh, and she was rich.
I’m writing a book about Aunt Jolly’s murder, though so far I have no ending since there seems no way to know the truth. Now, though, I am wondering if I might find something: a clue here and there, a word dropped in my ear, a conversation avoided, a meeting canceled. Normal enough day-to-day events, you might think, yet something had gone horribly wrong.