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ISABEL STARK
Pier View House (upstairs flat, above the Leap of Faith Art Gallery)
The Esplanade
Ryde
Isle of Wight
Dear Veronica,
I hope this letter doesn’t come as too much of a shock and if it is a shock then I hope it is a good one. My name’s Isabel Stark and I’m your birth daughter. I decided to reach out to you now because recent experiences made me think about things differently. I suppose they made me look at my adoption from your perspective not just my own and I hope that doesn’t make me sound terribly selfish. The saying goes there’s two sides to every story but where adoption’s concerned, there’s three. I want to tell you my story.
I’m an only child but I don’t think I’ve been spoiled as a result. I never went without anything but there wasn’t lots of money to go round in our house either. I’d have liked a sibling but it wasn’t to be and in the end that was okay because it’s what I know. I had a wonderfully, ordinary childhood with my parents, Barbara and Gary who everyone calls Babs and Gaz. They are salt of the earth people.
I grew up in Southampton and there’s not a lot to tell you about that. I did okay at school but was hardly the brain of Britain. I wasn’t sporty. I was too much of a dreamer for that. I think I could have done better at school if I’d known what I wanted to do with myself once I’d left. Actually, I did know what I wanted to do and that was the problem. I wanted to sing. I spent my time in class and on the sports field or in the gym dreaming about that instead of paying attention to what I was supposed to be doing.
I’ve always loved to sing and I have a good voice but to be professional you need more than that and I never had the confidence to perform in front of others. I only ever sang in the shower or bath and the thought of stepping out onto a stage on my own was terrifying so I did nothing about it and just drifted along instead.
I worked a few dead-end jobs in the ensuing years and was in a relationship I thought was going to be long-term until he cheated on me with my friend. It was humiliating to say the least but at least it spurred me into action. I took off travelling to put some distance between myself and what happened and I wound up having the best time. There’s such an amazing sense of freedom when you’re in a new country with no responsibilities to anyone other than yourself and the opportunity is there to be whomever you want to be.
I spent my time abroad working, exploring, and having fun in Australia and didn’t want to go home without jumping the ditch as the Aussies and Kiwis call visiting one another’s country. It was when I was in New Zealand that something happened. It changed the course of, well, everything.
I was road-tripping in a camper van with my friend when we came across an accident in the middle of nowhere. There was only one car involved with a single occupant, the driver who was an elderly woman. She wasn’t in a good way but was still conscious and I held her hand until she passed away. She told me in those last minutes she’d wanted to go back to the Isle of Wight, that she was wrong and she should never have left. Before the light went out of her eyes she made me promise I’d tell Constance she was sorry. Of course, I had no idea who Constance was or why she was sorry but I did know I had to keep the promise I’d made her.
It’s a long story and it began when I went to the woman’s funeral. Her name was Virginia or Ginny as everyone called her. Her son Teddy and his wife and daughter had flown in for the funeral from Hong Kong where they live. I learned Ginny hailed from Southampton originally but had ties to Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Hearing this was a goosebumps moment, it was too coincidental but then my whole journey through to now has been full of coincidences. So much so, I half believe Ginny’s been looking down on me orchestrating everything, trying to put things right. I felt like it was fate that I was the one who held her hand when she died and I couldn’t get her or the promise I’d made out of my head.
I arrived back in Southampton shortly after this and found myself a fish out of water. It’s strange when you’ve been away because you come home expecting things to be the same as they were when you left, only time doesn’t stand still. Oh, Mum, Dad and our corgi, Prince Charles (Mum’s a staunch royalist) were the same, they don’t change thank goodness but my old friends had moved on. I didn’t know where I fit and with nothing keeping me there, I set off on a quest of sorts to the Isle of Wight to find Constance. It sounds completely mad, I know, but it all worked out.
I got a job the day I arrived on the island, behind the bar in a local pub called The Rum Den, here in Ryde where I live. The landlady put me up for the night and then the next day I set off to door knock at various rest homes in the area. I was walking down the Esplanade which if you’ve never been to Ryde, straddles the sea when I spotted a sign advertising a room to let in the window of an art gallery. The gallery was called A Leap of Faith and the owner was a rather good-looking Welshman called Rhodri who lived in the two-bed (the third’s a study) flat above his gallery. He was looking for someone to rent the spare room and split the household bills. I thought the flat with its views out over the water was lovely and moved in straight away, pleased to have found both work and somewhere to live so quickly while I looked for Constance.
I didn’t have to look for long because when I confided in Rhodri what I was up to, he told me he’d bought the building, Pier View House from a woman called Constance Downer. He said she was one of the island’s more colourful characters. A firm believer in the healing powers of herbs, she’d run Constance’s Cure-alls, from what’s now his gallery, selling natural remedies for years. Her shop had been an island institution with some of the locals whispering she was a witch but this only added to her allure and brought the curious customers flocking in.
I went to Sea Vistas the care home she was residing in to find out if she was the woman I was looking for. She was, and by now you’ll understand what I meant about coincidences. Meeting Constance changed my life, and hers too, though neither of us knew it would the first time we met.
Ginny, I found out was Constance’s sister-in-law. Constance lost her brother, Ginny’s husband during the war and poor Ginny suffered a stillbirth not long after. Constance, who was sixteen at the time met and fell in love with a Canadian air force man stationed on the island and he was killed in a bombing in the building where she now lives, Sea Vistas. Back in the war it served as a convalescent home for servicemen. She was devastated and she was also pregnant. It was decided Ginny would adopt Constance’s baby and bring the child up alongside the family in Pier View House. Instead, she disappeared with the baby, a boy, as soon as the papers were signed and the first Constance knew of what had happened to her son was when I came to pass on Ginny’s last words to her.
So many wonderful things have happened since then. Constance’s story was a sad one but it has a happy ending. I helped her reconnect with her son, Teddy. She’s become a big part of my life. It was Constance who opened my eyes to the power of natural healing and it’s down to her encouragement that I’m on my way to qualifying as a Naturopath. She’s also a driving force behind my decision to reach out to you.
I work at The Natural Way and for the first time in my life have a job I love. It’s a herbal health store around the corner from where I live and Delwyn, my friend who owns it, has asked me to go into business with her. I’m pretty excited about that. Delwyn’s partner is a drop-dead gorgeous potter called Nico and when I first met her I thought she had designs on Rhodri. He was taking pottery lessons from Nico at the time and I got it in my head she was offering lessons with benefits. Turned out it wasn’t him she was interested in at all. I hadn’t a clue she was gay! It worked out well for me that she was destined to be with Delwyn because I wound up with my lovely Rhodri and he makes me smile every day.
I’m singing too and not just in the shower. I finally got up on the stage. I joined an acapella group called The Angels of Wight. It’s lots of fun being part of something so much bigger than just myself and it’s given me confidence. Hmm, what else? I can’t cook to save myself but fortunately Rhodri is a whizz in the kitchen. He’s chief cook and I’m the bottle washer. I love classical music too. I always have which is weird given Mum and Dad are rockers of old who love nothing better than cranking up a bit of Springsteen. They fancy themselves Southampton’s answer to Bruce and Patti lip-syncing and playing air guitar along to the Boss’s music. It has to be seen to be believed! Oh, and I have a secret crush. Andréa Bocelli, I adore him and my dream is to one day see him perform at Teatro del Silenzio in Tuscany. I’ll get there one of these days.
So, there you have it, that’s me. I’ve wondered about you a lot over the years, Veronica, and would love to meet you and your sons. I’d like to talk to you about who my father is too. You can write to me at the address on the envelope or if you’d rather ring or email, these are my details:
isabelstark@thenaturalway.co.uk
07716 434391
I hope we can connect and I hope this letter hasn’t brought up unhappy memories.
xxx Isabel
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ISABEL PUT THE PEN down on the table and flexed her fingers. She’d debated with herself over how to sign off for the longest time but yours faithfully or yours sincerely were too formal and to use the word love didn’t seem right. Love was earned. It grew. It wasn’t automatic.
A briny breeze was drifting in through the open window and she could hear the familiar thrum of early afternoon activity on the street below. Saturday’s were always busy on the island as visitors and locals alike ventured out and about. It had been her turn to work the morning shift at The Natural Way with Delwyn relieving her at midday. She’d come straight home to write the letter knowing she’d not be able to settle at anything else until she’d got everything she wanted to say down on paper.
She folded it and placed it in an envelope leaving it unsealed. A plate with the crumbs of the sandwich she’d slapped together for a quick lunch decorating it sat next to her cup of tea. It would have a skin on it by now she thought. She’d been so absorbed in what she was writing she’d forgotten to drink it. Pushing her chair back she got up and stretched before carrying them over to the sink. She tipped the cold tea down the drain and rinsed the cup and plate.
She’d lost count of how many times she’d written versions of this letter only to screw them up and toss them in the bin. There were only two sheaves of paper left in the set Rhodri had bought her. Was she giving too much of herself away? Did she sound like a crackpot? Maybe she’d be better getting straight to the point of why she was writing and leave it there. The questions butted for attention making her feel anxious and she made up her mind she’d go and see Constance next chance she got and ask her opinion on this latest effort.
She left the dishes to drain and rolling her shoulders tried to ease the knots in them. It didn’t help so she decided to try her luck downstairs because if the gallery was quiet, Rhodri might just give her a shoulder rub. He’d be pleased she’d finally gotten the words down and in an envelope.
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SHE FOUND HIM SITTING behind the counter reading a letter of his own. The gallery, she saw with a quick glance around the shop floor, was quiet. There was a pile of half-opened mail scattered next to him. Bills mostly by the look of it. Rhodri’s gaze flicked up at her, his usually toffee coloured skin, a throwback to his Celtic heritage, pale.
‘Are you okay?’ Isabel asked.
He shook the paper he was holding. ‘It’s from Sally.’