Without A Song

Chapter Eleven: The Dawlishes

Barely had I locked the car and started walking towards the porch when Leanne's warm homely voice reached me.

"Stephen, so good to see you."

Leanne didn't run to see me, nor would I have expected her to. She was a lady of influence, her body flowed elegantly as she walked, a gentle sashay of her hips not unlike the way a reed moves in a light wind. Gentle and lithesome I suppose some would call it. One hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall she reached up, hugged me and kissed me on one cheek.

"Come on in, would you like a drink? A sherry perhaps?"

It was the afternoon side of midday but only just. Despite the long journey and the lack of sleep I was confused at Leanne's welcome. Just how do you greet someone who knows all about you, cares a great deal about you but about whom you know very little? We were close friends through Saint Bartholomew's but not as close as Maddy or Terri, or so I thought. She'd never greeted me in this manner before. I returned gentle kisses on both cheeks.

"I'm well thank you Leanne, and thank you for letting me stay."

Leanne was a pocket dynamo and her dress sense showed. Various shades of shiny deep black material covered seventy-five percent of her body, her black blouse of sheer net fabric and cotton panels disguised her figure whilst still inviting looks. It hugged her trim torso, accentuating her curves and disguising any blemishes. Her chest was bare from the neckline to just below the beginnings of her cleavage, where revealing flesh was disguised with black ribbon-laced edging. From the waist down, black leather trousers narrowed to just above her shapely ankles. On her feet the black sheen of her soft leather shoes was interrupted with gold T-bar strapping. Where

Rupert was a red-headed ginger-mop, Leanne's hair was pure gold, artificially straightened and fashionably short, curved tight against her head. Jewellery adorned most fingers with the knuckleduster in pride of place on the third finger of her left hand. Around her neck a delicate gold necklace laid against her freckled skin, from which a dropstone of blazing jet lay deep into the deep groove between her breasts. A very nice package indeed, I was stunned to have this view placed before me.

The Gothic porch at the front of the house protected a sturdy oak-panelled door through which I entered into a small foyer. I stomped my shoes to clean them of the invisible mud and followed Leanne to the family room. I'd been here several times yet I still was in awe of it. Dominated by a large inglenook fireplace, the room must have been sixty feet long by at least forty-five feet wide, with a ceiling sixteen feet above me. Strong oak beams held the red bricked walls in place and black iron chandeliers dropped from higher beams on chains. Forged from the wheels of wooden hay carts from a bygone age, modern electric candles now gave off more light than the wax and wick ever did in times before, their black cables interwoven within the black chain links. Furniture, screens and shelving could all be moved on discrete wheels to create your own personal space or separate the family from others. This room this was as much a welcome space for visitors as it was for intimate family time. Two large cream sofas and three sturdy milk chocolate armchairs, all in leather, were scattered near the fireplace, itself big enough to stand upright in. A large circular wooden table that I knew to be fashioned from local wood was set for six places with upholstered chairs in the centre of the enormous room. A fifty-inch television and surround sound system stood close to the armchairs while a small library of music and books stood in one corner near to the door that led to the kitchen. Another door was set into the left side of the room as I viewed it, one that I knew from previous visits allowed the family to enter from either the North Wing or from private rooms above.

At several places around the walls, just above head height, were prints of older oil paintings and others by local artists, their canvases set into frames of various different sizes, their golden gilt set on wood. I did art as a chosen subject at school before I went to Australia and whenever Suffolk was mentioned scenes of Constable's The Haywain, The Cornfield and Flatford Mill always came to mind. I'd thought little of art when I left Corio High but now, with the wisdom of later years, I'd started to appreciate what my teachers once tried to instil in me. Inside the room, on the walls closest to the porch hung a set of four modernist paintings, their amazing vivid imagery catching my eye. They were of the Martello Towers at the end of East Road and more of the local area. I hadn't seen them on previous visits but I'd seen this particular artist's work elsewhere. I knew I was looking at the heavy clouds over the old maritime defences at Bawdsey.