The Jane Trilogy

By Nadine Henry

Meet Jane. Not the stereotypical, angelic and gentile vicars daughter you may first picture in your mind, but more like her Reverend father than she ever realised in later years.

Expect the unexpected - three stories about Jane on her journey of discovery about her own sexuality, naivety, loves and losses. Janes innocence and gullible nature open the door to the unbelievable and opens her soul to
the heartache that follows it.

Feel the anticipation of the revelations in her family that shake the security she then seeks to find in her adult life as she falls foul to manipulation in desperation to find happiness and feel the happy ever after she craves.

Jane is the kind of person who learns the hard way and feels the devastation of the blows life throws at her, with still, undoubtedly more to come. She is the unfortunate casualty of her self, as she takes the risks others would never dare to try, only to end up in the turmoil of the situations she presents to herself.

Follow the humorous tales of her journey through life and feel the drama it inevitably deals. Witness the highs and lows of the roller coaster of what could only be another adventure pending, because shes ultimately Jane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467885379

Book preview

Contents

Coming Out

Of

The Cloth

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Hidden Agendas

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Crossroads

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Coming Out

Of

The Cloth

Preface

This is a story of a little girl brought up in the vicarage, her life as a rebellious child and her eventual emergence from the proverbial ‘closet’ (although she was narrowly beaten by her father on that score).

The amusing tale of how this happened and the subsequent events that followed. The highs and lows of ‘coming out’ and the sadness of the tragedies they had to come to terms with.

Chapter 1

The start of it

Picture a rather grand looking house with all the mod cons of a 1970’s middle class Yorkshire suburban lifestyle… . a breakfast room, a dining room, a study and a bedroom for all plus a downstairs loo… not bad for a rent free home courtesy of the Church of England. From the inside can be heard the stern voice of a man speaking in a well presented manner, ‘I will NOT have swearing in this house!’ Shortly after this the singsong voice of a 7-year-old child can be heard in the expanse of what was the vicarage garden fit for the finest scout and guide garden parties you can imagine. Amongst the discarded bits of bunting, no surely not at the vicarage… . ?!

‘Fucking hell, bloody hell, fucking hell, bloody hell’ as this delightful little girl skipped merrily around the old trees littering the meadow of green lawn. Welcome to the vicar’s daughter… from hell!

There were similarities between this grubby little girl and that of a gremlin most of the time with a bedroom like ‘a bomb had hit it’. No matter what the vicar’s wife attempted to sew together dress wise it was guaranteed to be in tatters and covered in grease, muck and god knows what else in no time at all. This child spent most of her early years up a tree, in a field, ditch or bog, or using the vicar’s marital bed as a trampoline which explained her missing front tooth. The front drop ended badly in a collision with the wooden footboard you see. Accidents were a common feature in this little girl’s daily routine. One would have thought she was in early training for the Olympics with make shift equipment in use. For instance, the time she dismounted from the swing in the garden from some height but forgot to move out the way… another tooth gone. The time she was swinging a heavy leather satchel around her head like she was throwing the hammer… one broken collarbone. The time she discovered that glass isn’t really strong enough to climb on and fell through a parishioner’s green house roof… scar on left knee. Not to mention the silly playground games she started which ended in her pulling Donald Cogan’s shorts and underpants down exposing his good self to the entire primary school… . another awkward conversation with the Head teacher and the vicar’s wife. Jane was a candidate for a full time boarder at St. Trinian’s school for girls. Not all bad as Jane did have a love of animals and regularly brought home any wild thing she found in the fields and inevitably asked ‘can we keep it?’ not realising that hedgehogs were jumping with fleas or that the cats or dogs could belong to someone else indicated by the collars they wore.

The vicar’s wife was a woman of etiquette from Wolverhampton that had had elocution lessons along the way somewhere. Every word was pronounced correctly to a tee. And more often than not there were corrections offered to the rather brash northern daughter she despaired of. She was a larger lady who wore an all in one corselet… an interesting invention of torture by the looks of it. Not a pretty sight for a child to see as the gusset was of a press-stud fastening and quite fiddly to do up.

Always well presented and fine, blonde hair, shampooed and set weekly, Margo had a soft face and was a lovely woman living the dream of a middle class vicar’s wife although she struggled with the commitments that entailed at times… mother’s union, young wives, Sunday school and the attendance at church services were a regular feature plus the attempt to keep one of her two children out of mischief, trees and A and E, and the more ‘appropriate’ sister in girlie things for her wardrobe and bedroom. Margo loved to cook and was a woman of culture although slightly disorganised and chaotic at times. She had an uncontrollable obsession to be seen to be buying posh shoes and handbags from the more reputable vendors in the town. There was a bag for every occasion and always an excuse for buying another one. The holiday handbags were the best. They were larger in dimension, pastel in colour for the season and probably in the Guinness book of World Records for the number of pockets and compartments. She was the navigator, the great traveller with all the guide and phrasebooks to hand and the travel documents safely zipped away in her no expense spared new bag. That is, until such documents were required for inspection at ports or checkpoints where it was a common scene to see James walking away from the car looking up and stating something biblical like ‘for God’s sake Margo where the bloody hell are they!’ Map reading was a similar experience on the continent, one memorable phrase comes to mind when James screamed ‘I’m not driving a bloody dodgem car!’ as Margo had realised she had pointed in the wrong direction and needed him to do a u-turn.

Margo was no Magnus Magnusson as most things she started she never finished, down to the ironing, the washing, sewing or knitting and the cleaning. To counteract this James employed a cleaner twice a week. This cleaner, Amy, was amazing in her own incredibly slow moving way. You always knew when she was due to come as Margo would rush round in a panic clearing up any debris lying around and demand that the girls lift everything up off the floor and place it on the bed so Amy could Hoover. This was an operation Jane needed 2 weeks notice in advance in reality. In her defence Jane usually grunted ‘Well what’s the point in having a cleaner if you clean up before she comes?’

Watching Amy clean was like some form of ancient hypnosis or meditation. It was slower than slow and unbearable for James or his mother to watch when she visited.

Margo was happy to be distracted by her love of culture and travel and her intellect absorbed her in study of language, literature and any other cultural pursuits. She was a good mother who was always supportive and encouraged her girls to better their education and interests like the brownies, guides, swimming lessons, local performing group and sports teams. She was the audience for Jane’s impersonations of Frank Spencer and comedy sketches clapping supportively each time.

Sofia, the sister, or was it… ? Never could two girls be so completely different. One was 7, dirty, blonde haired, freckled with big blue eyes, the other 9, dark haired, pale and feminine in every way and loved it. Her bedroom was tidied on a daily hour-by-hour basis with everything in its pretty little place. Her bedding was delicate with small flowers and frills as opposed to cartooned and boldly garish. In contrast, her sister had a tidy up once in a while which can only be described by listeners to an earthquake reaching 6.9 on the Rickta scale as furniture was moved around and dropped in a different place than it started off. Almost like a less gentile version of 60-minute makeover where you wouldn’t dare open any cupboard for fear of a landslide of junk removed from the floor space.

Needless to say they were independent of each other down to differences in interests and personality. If ever there was an occasion where the back seat or a bed had to be shared there was a barricade built between them with pillows or coats and there was no question about the defence of each others side of the territory. The effervescent winging of ‘are we there yet’ followed by ‘you’re on my side get off’.

Having a bag of sweets each was nothing more than a competition to see who could make them last the longest. No real competition seen as every time Jane just scoffed the lot in record time and then felt like strangling Sophia as she sat smugly nibbling away at a corner of the sweet. They were such ultimate opposites, hence the query of paternity. At that age being different just meant that there was something wrong with that person and so living separate lives was the only solution.

Margo’s attempts to tame the northern beast of a daughter took various forms. Ballet classes were a regular Saturday morning occurrence at the Babs Lawson School of Dance. Babs was 50 something with peroxide blonde hair, poised and lacquered inside a hairnet. It’s an example of one of those people who lived ballet, ate ballet and slept ballet. She probably wore the hairnet 24/7 and chassed around her home with the odd twirl into an ornate armchair as if constantly performing to her adoring audience. Needless to say the appreciation of these classes by the vicar’s daughters was yet another example of the difference between them. Sophia was like a young Margo Fontaine, graceful, committed and in full regalia fitting that of a ballerina. Jane hated it. Babs was pushed to the limit with the challenge of Jane but maintained her composure by loud and deep nasal breathes. She was possibly the reason Babs hung up her point shoes and head for retirement in Spain. Jane was more like Arnold Schwarzenegger in ballet shoes with the grace of a carthorse. That’s not to say she didn’t have rhythm but this was not the medium to illustrate that with any success.

Margo’s family were like her military reinforcements. She had 1 sister and 2 brothers. Her mother died when she was a young girl. Her father married again and then he too fell ill and died when she was in her married years. There was never a conversation about how she felt, the sadness and feeling of vulnerability she may have felt. With a large family all married with their own immediate units Margo had a good set around her and was fond of the ‘gatherings’ that they often had. The Longfellow’s were blissfully aware of the prim and proper way one should behave and how things should be done.

Her sister Sandra resembled Margaret Thatcher, in the hair and conservative dress sort of way. Another pink, floral brush and comb set for Christmas or birthday just symbolised that they either didn’t know Jane or they too were in on Margo’s game plan to coax some sort of femininity out of her. There was no shortage of dog grooming tools and Jane thought this was a good use for the unwanted gifts. The ‘school shoe’ shopping trips were another example of the theory ‘survival of the fittest’. Margo would pick up and boldly parade her choice of shoe for Jane, but at the same time Jane would be sitting on the floor of the shop in a pair of boyish lace ups as if she was trying them on against the clock. Margo would grapple on the floor with the black, shiny patent leather sandal desperately trying to at least get Jane’s toe in it. There were tears, tantrums and usually a lot of talking through teeth. The shop assistants just stood back and if there was any movement toward the till they would come hesitantly forward. Jane’s stubbornness was like steel usually winning through and a flat, sensible slip on was purchased. Margo was usually in need of another shampoo and set by the end of it.

There were only two occasions where Margo got her long served wish and managed to get Jane in a dress and out of the wellies or trainers she predominantly wore.

Sophia had been confirmed to take Holy Communion, 2 years in advance of Jane. They attended the classes in the church and fulfilled the expectations of the parishioners that both the vicar’s daughters were following the path of righteousness. Jane went with it, as she was no atheist by any means. She just went through the teen years in typical fashion and to get up on a Sunday morning for the 9.30am service was something that fit into the pattern of grumpy responses to parents from the manual of ‘How to be a perfect teenager’ by T. Wat. Being forced to do things was not ever a goer. Margo and the girls had the front pew reserved each week and often the clatter of Margo’s heels down the grey stone aisles could be heard during the opening hymn as she arrived late dragging her girls behind her like obstinate mules. There was no appreciation from the girls about how this regular occurrence was an embarrassment to James and humiliating for Margo as she appeared to be inadequate as the mother and vicar’s wife to snooty parishioners looking over. However, her proudest moment of triumph was the scene of Jane all in white at her confirmation. White polyester, homemade dress with complimentary frill round the neck, white holy tights and believe it or not white patent sandals come boats as Jane’s feet were a size 6 at an early age. Jane let her mother have this one moment and refrained from spitting out the wafer that stuck to the roof of her mouth when the vicar put it in only to be washed down by something that burned her throat all the way down and reminded her of her grandma, James’s mother Enid. Margo went the whole hog and paid through the nose for a local portrait photographer to take pictures of the girls in the garden, as evidence to prove all was not lost and it did really happen. These elaborately framed pictures still hang proudly in her living room much to the girls’ embarrassment. Pudding bowl hair dos were all the rage then although Jane’s fringe was always slightly wonky from her own attempts to trim it with her cack handedness.

The second ‘dress’ incident was a wedding that we’ll come to later as that in it self was an experience and a half.

James, the vicar, was a lovely man, committed to his parish and the people in it. He loved his vocation and his family. He was one of 2 boys born in wartime Britain.

His brother was a successful grass seed salesman and didn’t you just know it when you went to visit. His lawn was like a top class putting green. You could look but not touch. There was no question of any frolicking about on it for fear a blade would end up out of place. James was different and happy with the simple things in life and never wanted anything nor appeared impressed with the success of his brother’s material achievements. James loved his mother. Enid was a wartime woman who lived in a house complete with air raid shelter still in the garden. She was petite, immaculately attired and wore glasses which ended up like jam jar bottoms in time. She smoked Rothman’s and kept them in her glass display cabinet in her parlour. On