by Leah Fleming
After the labours of the day they usually sat silently in the kitchen over cups of the Russian tea Frankie enjoyed. Iris rolled her neck to loosen its stiffness one day. Frankie stood up and proceeded to massage the strain from the back of her neck and shoulders.
‘You like?’
She had no idea that touch could relax her so quickly, the firm strokes soothing away all her tension. How did he manage to do this? She was most impressed and tried to practise on his neck as they took their drinks to the fireside. She had learned to copy the feather strokes and sweeping circular movements, kneading the tension from his muscles. It was part of the silent rapport between them, the slow rhythm of the weekend. Even after Frankie had found lodgings in the city he would ride out on his bicycle every Sunday.
Tonight he was silent and drawn into himself. There would be no massage or conversation. The spark was gone from his eyes and he scarcely looked at her. Iris was puzzled and tried to probe this change of climate. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes. I go now, please. Thank you, Iris. Good dinner.’
The next week he came and went without her knowing, as if he had done his duty and fled straight away. Iris could not fathom why he would suddenly change overnight. Had he got bored or was it that he now had other fish to fry and preferred to spend his weekends with younger folk? She’d known it would happen one day. He was bound to want to hang around with pretty girls in dance halls. It was no skin off her nose. But as the week wore on and she bit off every kind comment in the staff rooms where she was a temporary supply teacher she realised her feelings were raw and wounded by his silence. It mattered very much when he did not come the next Sunday.
She’d prepared extra for lunch, just in case, watched the clock and fussed around the garden unable to concentrate. Finally she found herself sitting in his hut, sniffing stale Turkish cigarette smoke, wondering what he was doing and who he was with.
Every instinct told her that there was a woman behind this. What was going on? Why did she feel so let down, so bloody angry? She was frittering away a lovely spring afternoon with this futile sulking. Damn the knowing without words, that Bagshott bequest passed down to her; that nose for the truth of a matter. Frankie had a girlfriend and she was jealous. Oh, yes, silly old fool that she was, she had hankered after him and he had found her out. Now he was giving her the polite heave-ho as best as any poor sod could without the language to back him up. All these months he had just been humouring her, paying back some imagined debt in her garden. How stupid she was not to have realised earlier. How could any young man possibly look at her with lust or desire?
She caught sight of herself in the window pane. What a sight! Her eyebrows needed plucking, there was a slackening around her jaw line, crow’s feet too. Standing with sagging breasts and rounded shoulders, Iris found herself, spade in hand, digging, digging into the border, shouting into the hole with tears running down her face: ‘You silly old beggar, grow up!
The Paprika Moon
Ferenc stood on Trent Valley station platform waiting anxiously for the train to arrive. In his pocket was Ilona’s letter, read and reread many times over. He could not believe she was coming to see him at last, that she had been two months in England at a place called Tidworth near London and was now staying in a hostel in Ealing. It had been such a shock to receive news of her arrival from mutual friends who had seen her by chance at a party. He’d wanted to burst with excitement at first but something was holding back his joy. He could not tell Miss Iris. Somehow once he told her that would be the end of the garden Sundays and the peaceful times working there. He would have to visit Ili at the weekends now and perhaps find a job closer to her. She had been brave enough to risk coming over alone and he must support her. She was his long-time sweetheart after all.
What if she didn’t recognise him in his best mac and trilby hat? Was he not like any Englishman now, for he had a job and a place to live of his own. He went to night school to improve his English and one day might become a sports teacher again. The job in the motor works was mundane and sometimes boring but there was plenty of overtime and money to buy himself new shirts and fancy ties and football boots. He was going to join a local team. Ferenc no longer felt like a label with ‘refugee’ written on it in black ink. Now he was Frankie Hordas and soon he would have a wife to complete his dream.
He searched the compartments as the train drew into the platform, peering amongst the smoke and soot for his first sighting of Ili with her fair hair loosely braided, her dirndl skirt and ankle socks.
A woman stood before him smiling, a woman with red lipstick and painted eyes, with a ponytail and fringe like a dancer in the movies, her billowing skirts clinched at the waist with a thick belt, all curves and softness.
‘Feri, how are you?’ They kissed each other on the check and clung to each other.
‘Ili, how you’ve changed…’ He could not take in her new appearance. She whirled round and he could see the petticoats swishing under her skirt.
‘If all these English girls can dress up as film stars so can I. You like it?’ He was not sure. There was a harder, more spiky edge to her now and he felt oddly nervous. There were a hundred questions he needed to ask of her.
‘Where shall we go… to a movie or dancing or both?’ Ili was prancing down the platform, leaving him behind. ‘Isn’t it exciting? So much to do and see and now we can go anywhere we please without a permit. They even give me money to spend. Do you remember when we were students, we hadn’t ten florints between us? It was no life, was it? Now I can go into London every day if I want to and there’s always a party or a concert or friends to visit. I wish I’d come with you months ago but I was afraid.’
‘How did you get out?’ he asked when what he really wanted to know was why she had not been brave enough to come with him.
‘I walked with a group of other students fifty miles to the border and we slipped across one night…’
‘How are my parents? And yours?’
‘They manage and they understand. Don’t look so serious, Feri. Life has to go on and we’ve seized our opportunity. There’s no future for us back home. Come on, let’s not waste the day. I’m starving!’
They ate in a cafe in the market place and wandered around the ancient Cathedral, feeding ducks in the park like any tourists. She was as polite to him as if he was a stranger not her Feri. ‘Ilona, you’ve changed,’ he faltered. ‘I hardly recognise you. Why did you take so long to tell me you were here?’
‘You know how it is when you first arrive. So much to sort out.’ She was not looking him straight in the eye.
‘But you could have come to the camp here. Given my name as next-of-kin? I have written you many letters and you never replied.’
‘Feri, don’t go on! I’m here now, aren’t I?’
‘Will you come and stay up here?’ he asked gently, guessing her reply already.
‘No fear! After London this is a hole. I’m registered at a college now and there’s a group of us sharing digs together.’
‘I see,’ he replied, his heart thudding. ‘Where do I fit into your plans, Ili?’
There was silence for a moment.
‘I was going to write to you, honestly, but with one thing and another… Life is different here and there are so many people.’
‘You’ve met someone else, I take it? Do I know him?’
‘No. It’s just that a group of us started going round together and I met Lazio at a party. He’s a medical student and – well, we sort of hit it off.’
‘I see. So I take it you are not expecting me to come down to London very often?’
‘You’d always be welcome, Feri, but we can’t turn the clock back, any of us. Things happen.’
In the whole of that long day she never once asked about his own journey to freedom, his experiences, his life now and his new friends. He was seeing his sweetheart for the first time as a rather selfish, silly young woman who was in love with her London life, not him. His illusions w
ere shattered. He was talking to a stranger.
The hours dragged slowly by until she boarded the train and he pecked her on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Ili, and let me know how it goes…’ His voice faded as she waved a farewell from the carriage window. He knew this was no au revoir. How could two people have grown so far apart in just six months? As he walked through the quiet suburbs to his lodgings, he felt a deep sadness but a strange sensation of relief as well. He had never wanted to settle near London. Cities did not interest him. He loved open spaces and woods and most of all the quiet peace of Iris Bagshott’s garden and that kind and funny woman who lived there. That was the piece of England he loved most.
He watched the moon rising like a ball of red fire; his paprika moon rising again. A good omen.
*
Iris slaved all spring like a navvy in her garden, planting out, keeping busy every minute of her spare time. A garden takes no sides in any argument, it listens, is a great leveller, she thought. And sometimes it took her by surprise, imbuing her with that strange feeling of joy which transfigured everything she touched and did in it. She could feel the spirit of the place driving her on to create an arch here or make a new patch of planting there; not to be afraid to dig up the turf and create new beds and shapes. Such was the beauty of the soft opalescent light it made her linger outside in the evenings when she was not teaching at night school. Yes, she would settle for a comfortable old age here, sip her cocoa, listen to the wireless, buy a television maybe. Thoughts of Frankie had dulled merely to an ache. She could laugh at her own foolishness. Sometimes you have to accept a loss and let it go, she mused. Then the door bell rang and she strolled along the passage to see who it was.
Frankie was standing on the doorstep with a bunch of flowers, a bottle of red wine and a silly expression on his face.
‘How go the potatoes?’
Iris smiled with genuine pleasure. ‘Long time, no see.’
‘Pardon?’ He whipped off his trilby. ‘I come see you, yes?’
‘Come and see the garden. How nice that you’re here again. Was it something I said?’ Iris smiled, knowing that the poor man would not understand her words. They walked around the paths, nodding and pointing and miming to each other. He raced up to the vegetable patch to examine the potato haulms for blight. There was none. Had they not done it all by the book?
Later they drank his wine in the parlour and she quizzed him. ‘Why have you come? It is many weeks. Did you go away?’
‘I no understand. I see Ili. She in England now. She in London…’
‘So you are going to marry her?’
‘No. Ili have a new friend in London.’
‘You are sad, yes?’ She pointed to her heart. He shook his head. How could he explain his feelings? He had no words.
‘No. I no sad. I am here. I dig garden.’
‘You dig the garden!’ sighed Iris. Here we go again, back to the garden of lovesick fools. It was going to have more shouting holes in it than a sieve but it was lovely to know he would be back once again.
They made so many mistakes that summer – planting too early, too late, in the wrong place or in the wrong soil that she began to wonder if they would be bankrupted by the garden. She was Queen of the flower beds and he was King of the vegetable patch and people in the village got used to seeing them bobbing around the garden together, two friends who enjoyed each other’s company and often entertained a bunch of wild refugees who called at short notice and stayed overnight.
In the autumn they dug up their harvest and burned the haulms on the bonfire, pulled up the poppies and annuals and sorted out the pond again. It was back-breaking work. One afternoon, reeking of smoke, aching in every joint, Iris collapsed by the wellspring to sip some water. Frankie knelt beside her and began to massage her back. She sank down into the rhythm of his strokes, in no mind to resist. His massage was harder, firmer and more deliberate and he kept whispering her name like a chant. A surge of electricity shot through her limbs, unblocking that knowing she had felt for months. I love this man Frankie. He is the heart of my garden, she realised, jerking upright.
‘You no like?’ He looked puzzled.
‘I like, but it’s damp here now and it’s your turn. Let’s light a fire and go inside.’
Iris could not wait to lay her hands on his neck, to feel each curly hair, soothe the tight muscles across his back. She worked her way slowly down to his shoulders.
Frankie grabbed her hand and kissed it, no longer out of gratitude but with desire. Iris paused and wrapped both her hands around him. They needed no language for what would follow next. Each caress was charged with a tension all its own as two nations united: King of the kitchen plot with the Queen of the flower beds, fused together with longing in the firelight. Who needed words when there was so much love?
*
‘Iris Bagshott, I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’ said Flora, folding her arms across her cashmere twinset. ‘Am I right in thinking that Frankie Hordas is living here… over the brush? Sleeping in your bed? Have you gone crazy? What will Fridwell think?’
‘What it’s no doubt been thinking for months before it actually happened. I was waiting for you to say… at your age! I know I’m forty-six and he’s thirty-two, but so bloody what? Flora, how old are you and how old is dear Henry?’ Iris was standing firm.
‘That’s not the same,’ argued her friend.
‘Tosh! As you say. Why is it right for a man and not a woman? We were friends and now we are lovers, the natural order of affairs. What’s so wrong in that? We’re free agents.’
‘I thought he had a girl in Hungary?’
‘Not any more. She lives in London and with someone else.’
‘So he came to you for consolation? Just wait, he’ll be off with some young thing ere long.’ Flora puffed smoke in her face. ‘It’ll all end in tears, Iris. I care about you…’
‘… making a fool of myself? Is that it? Henry can marry you but if I were to marry Frankie it would be obscene?’
‘No, I didn’t say that. It’s just a bit unusual. It’ll take some getting used to.’ Flora was struggling for words.
‘Are we so different from any other couple? For the first time in my life I smile everywhere I go. He gives me so much support and kindness, and he’s taught me how to relax my body and… He’s the sort of man you want to make love to with your eyes open.’
‘Iris, please!’
‘Don’t be so prudish, Flora Salt. You know exactly what I mean.’ Then Iris gasped, knowing full well her words could never apply to Henry and Flora. ‘Frankie knows how muscles work. He can massage away a stiff back, any ache or pain. He has a real gift for it. I’d love to set him loose on poor Henry’s back to see if he could ease away the stiffness. He learnt it from a coach in his football days.’
‘Just you leave Henry’s back where it is! Whatever will the poor chap say when he finds out?’ Flora sat down and swigged back her sherry.
‘He should be pleased that I’ve found someone unmarried, sensitive and kind; someone who has given me back my self-respect. Glad that I’ve discovered love in the heart of my garden. Tell him we’ve both fallen in love with my garden. We can’t wait to get going on all our projects. Our garden doesn’t care if we’re young or old, English or Hungarian, so long as it’s looked after. Because of it we’ve found each other. A little late in life for me, perhaps. It’ll have to be our child, I fear.
‘Be happy for me, Flora. I’ve so much to give to both of them. Now I’m looking on the world with loving eyes. It won’t last, nothing does in this world, but for now… Don’t look so horrified. I’m not going soft in the head. I’m happy. H.A.P.P.Y. Anyone would think you were jealous?’
‘But I am, Iris. That’s what’s bothering me. I’ve never seen you so alive before. It’s as if you’ve found part of yourself long since buried. When you came here last Christmas your eyes were dead. Whatever Frankie’s done to you, he’s taken years off you already, decades
in fact, and I’m green with envy. I see before me a young lass in the first flush of passionate love, defying the world and convention, with all the pain of discovery, betrayal, sorrow before her. I’m sorry to be so cynical. I won’t say another word.’
‘Good, I should hate us to fall out. Just wish me well. I know the odds are stacked against us. I’m living for this moment, not when I’m sixty and he’s… whatever. No one knows what the future holds for us.’
‘So let’s see what you’ve both been up to in this magical garden of yours?’ Flora made for the door, anxious to be away from such a frank conversation. Her breezy change of subject could not hide her confusion and shock.
‘Here up the steps is project one: the new kitchen beds and path. Ahead of you, round the corner, will be Frankie’s rock and alpine garden which is a mud heap now. Project three will be unclogging the boggy pond and the stream in the bottom field, as well as tidying up the shade banks by the well. And then there’s project four, restocking the orchard and rescuing that manky donkey from Longhall Manor School. Oh, and Frankie’s shed’s to be turned into a study. He’s going to go to college when we’ve saved up a bit.’
‘Enough! I’m exhausted already. You two have a lifetime of projects. I hope you’ve time to fit them all in before one of you conks out in the attempt. If you want any more cuttings from The Grange, you only have to ask.’ Flora made for the gate across the fields, a short cut to her house down the stream path.
