Marcia Talley: All Things Undying

The ninth book in the Hannah Ives series, 2010

Thanks to:

Charles and Marilyn Mylander, who shared tales of Charles’s time as a faculty exchange professor at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth (as well as a huge box of memorabilia!), and especially for introducing me to:

Jill and Ian Rowe, David and Maralyn Norman and Richard and Anna Alexander, who adopted me when I came to Dartmouth and made sure I lacked for nothing. Chauffeurs, tour guides, lunch, tea and dinnertime companions extraordinaire. Come to Annapolis! Mi casa es su casa .

MaryLou Symonds, who graciously loaned me a copy of her unpublished journal, Brilliant! Adventures of an Academic Wife Abroad , which is… well, brilliant!

Dr Richard Porter, Curator of Britannia Royal Naval College, who took me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the college and supplied me with guidebooks, photographs and a pair of cufflinks, too.

Robbie Robinson, Curator at the Brixham Battery Heritage Centre, Devon, who told me the ‘real’ story of Slapton Sands.

Jean Parnell of Strete whose girlhood memories of the Evacuation of South Hams in November and December of 1943 remain vivid, and whose book, The Land We Left Behind , published in association with The Blackawton and Strete History Group (BASH) was an invaluable resource.

Sarah Glass, who was there from the beginning, when Susan Parker was born.

Brent Morris for Paul’s book; Eileen Roberts for Samantha and Victoria’s story; and Dot Lumley, for a blustery but delightful afternoon at Greenway House.

Kate Charles, the best of friends, who held my hand throughout, and helped keep my Brits from sounding too much like Americans.

The Annapolis Writers Group – Ray Flynt, Lynda Hill, Mary Ellen Hughes, Debbi Mack, Sherriel Mattingly and Bonnie Settle – for tough love.

That said, all mistakes are mine alone.

‘One of the longest standing and best known galleries in Dartmouth is the Simon Drew gallery in Foss Street. Famous for his fantastic combination of humour and design it is almost impossible to visit the gallery without being tempted into buying a gift for someone (or maybe even yourself!)’ Nigel Evans, Reflections of Dartmouth , Richard Webb, 2008, p.29

When it’s late July and so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, I find it hard to look seriously at fall fashions in shop windows.

Except I was in Dartmouth, Devon, UK, and the only fried egg I was likely to see that day had been at breakfast at our B &B at the top of Horn Hill.

‘You’d look good in that, Hannah,’ Alison said, nudging me with her elbow.

‘That’ was a knee-length, nubby-knit sweater coat in tweedy, earth-tone, crock pot colors that had been all the rage back in the 1960s. We were vacationing in Devon, and I’d forgotten to pack the brown leather belt that I liked to wear with my favorite pair of jeans, so Alison and I had poked our noses into every boutique and charity shop along Duke Street looking for a replacement.

‘ You can wear orange,’ I said, considering my friend’s neatly bobbed, fashionably fringed, coppery-blond hair and green eyes. ‘Me, I look like the Great Pumpkin in orange.’

Alison seized my upper arms with both hands and spun me around gently until I was standing with my back to the window. She squinted at me in the mid-afternoon sunlight, then stared into the window, sizing me up against the coat. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed, dropping her hands to her sides. ‘I’m remembering you from before, back when you had dark hair and pale English skin.’

I turned to study my reflection in the glass. ‘This tan will fade soon enough,’ I said. ‘I slathered myself with SPF thirty-five in the islands, wore hats, but…’ I shrugged. ‘The price one pays for six months in the Bahamas.’

Alison grinned. ‘Poor you.’

‘Tragic,’ I agreed.

‘As for the hair,’ I continued, combing through the curls with my fingers, fluffing them out, ‘I was getting panicky about the gray. Before we left Annapolis, I let my hairdresser talk me into highlights.’

‘Goes with the tan,’ Alison said. ‘I like it.’

‘Me, too,’ I confessed. ‘Until my pale English skin returns and I get roots.’

‘We do have hairdressers in England, you know. Remember Beautopia?’ she said, naming a hole-in-the-wall salon where we once had our faces done on a particularly fine Girls’ Day Out.

‘Eeek! How you talked me into that eye shadow, I’ll never know. Acid Rain?’ I said, remembering a particularly vile shade of yellow sold by an upstart cosmetic company called Urban Decay.

‘You made me buy the roach-colored lip gloss, as I recall, so nobody’s vying for sainthood here.’ Alison punched me lightly on the arm. ‘We had fun, didn’t we, Hannah? I’m already missing you, and you’ve only just arrived. Three weeks isn’t much of a holiday, if you ask me.’ She looped an arm through mine. ‘Jon and I haven’t seen you in ten years. I wish you could stay longer.’

We turned right and strolled down the center of Foss Street, an ancient thoroughfare that had been neatly cobblestoned and pedestrianized. Upscale galleries, shops and restaurants stood cheek by jowl on both sides of the narrow lane. ‘Alas, Paul has to teach,’ I said, stopping for a moment at the corner of Flavel to admire a watercolor in the window of Baxter’s Gallery. ‘Classes begin again on August twenty-fourth.’

‘Rotten luck. You’re going to miss Regatta, and the fireworks, and the Red Arrows!’

‘And the beer barrel roll, and the trolley race. I know.’

The Royal Regatta, an extravagant three-day city fair, featured sailboat and rowing races, too. Regatta had been a highlight of the year we spent in Dartmouth over a decade ago, when Paul had participated in the faculty exchange program between the United States Naval Academy and Britannia Royal Naval College. Sadly, the program had been discontinued in recent years, so Paul’s newer colleagues wouldn’t benefit from the same broadening opportunity.

‘I’ll have to make do with the Blue Angels, I suppose,’ I said, referring to the US Navy’s own precision flying team.

‘Ah, yes,’ Alison said with pardonable pride, inclining her head close to mine. ‘But there are only six Blue Angels. We have nine!’

As far as places to live go, Annapolis is about perfect – historic colonial seaport, vibrant cultural life, temperate winters. Yet all those years ago, when the taxi carrying me, Paul and a mountain of luggage from the train station in Totnes had popped out of the hedgerows over Jawbones Hill, and I first laid eyes on the ancient town of Dartmouth sprawled along the Dart River valley below me, it had been love at first sight. A steam locomotive slowly chug-chug-chugging its storybook way up the opposite bank from Kingswear to Paignton had been the proverbial icing on the cake.