The Lemon Tree

by Helen Forrester

  ‘Mornin’, Miss,’ he said, smiling kindly, his few ugly teeth well displayed. ‘Nice mornin’.’

  ‘It is indeed, Mr Grant,’ she replied, and passed on.

  He watched her as she went up the steps of the Power House, and weighed her up carefully. Then he turned back to the wagon to unhitch the tailgate. He suspected that Lena had been right about there being a bun in the oven. Mr Benji had better get a move on and get the banns called.

  Being received by Mr Ferguson was a bit like being received by a prince in his palace, Wallace Helena thought with amusement. Mr Ferguson belonged to the new wave of skilled mechanics, and he knew it.

  After a few pleasantries, she asked him if there was any spare capacity in his installations – if she wanted to put new machinery into the plant which would need additional power.

  ‘For sure, Miss. Much of what you see is fairly new; the Ould – I mean, Mr James Al-Khoury, had in mind to expand – and when he engaged me and the present power plant was built, we made plenty of provision.’ He hooked his thumbs into the braces that held up the bib of his overalls, and continued, ‘I told ’im to allow for expansion – and he done it.’ While she digested this information, he took off his peaked cap, which he regarded as a badge of status, and scratched his balding head. Then he said, ‘I reckon he were dead set on expansion, Miss. And put a lot of what he made back in the business. And very good he was at driving a bargain.’ He grinned at her, his ruddy face shining in a shaft of sunlight. ‘And so is Mr Benji; he learned ’im!’

  She surprised him by holding her hand out to him when she was leaving. He took it shyly and shook it ‘Thank you, Mr Ferguson, for being so helpful,’ she said, as she withdrew her hand, and he saw that, though she stood as straight as a guardsman and that her lips smiled, the expression of her eyes and the lines of her face were those of someone who had endured considerable grief. He wondered how old she was. Younger than he was, he reckoned. He longed to ask her if she was going to manage the company, but felt he had been forward enough; no doubt Mr Benji would tell him soon.

  Her lips trembling, Wallace Helena made her way back to her office. A few minutes later, Mr Helliwell brought in her mid-morning cup of tea, and found her leaning back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, the lustrous lashes failing to disguise the fact that she had been crying.

  At his entry, she straightened up quickly and he mentally kicked himself for having forgotten to knock at the door before entering.

  She thanked him, and he asked, with some anxiety, if there was anything more he could do.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she replied. ‘Mr Al-Khoury can deal with the letters. You know I have an appointment with Mr Benson for this afternoon. Perhaps you had better order a hackney for me for a quarter to two.’ She made no effort to wipe her face.

  Though he remained as calm as a good butler, Mr Helliwell was shocked. Something was definitely wrong; she had not really been herself for several days, though her cough seemed to have diminished, thank heavens.

  He promised to order the carriage, and withdrew to his own small cubbyhole next door. He prided himself on being aware of everything that went on in the works, but he could not think of anything which would reduce Miss Harding to tears. Rage, yes; but not tears.

  Benji breezed in, with a list of items he wished to discuss with Wallace Helena. ’is she free?’ he inquired, nodding his head towards his cousin’s door.

  Mr Helliwell replied in an uneasy whisper. ‘She is – but she seems very upset about something. Perhaps you should leave her for a few minutes.’

  ‘In a temper?’ Benji had known Mr Helliwell since the man had first started work with them at the age of thirteen, as an office boy; there was real affection between them.

  Mr Helliwell screwed up his lips. ‘Far from it,’ he responded, again in a whisper. ‘She’s upset – like a woman.’

  Benji restrained a grin. Apparently Helliwell did not think that, normally, Wallace Helena belonged to the feminine gender. ‘I’ll chance it,’ he said, and went to knock on her door. An unexpectedly firm voice bade him come in.

  He stood over her, big and clumsy-looking, his list in his hand. He saw immediately that she had been crying; she had the wide-eyed, heavy, exhausted look his mother sometimes had after a spate of tears.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, without preamble. He himself was feeling good. The fact that she was, indeed, leaving the general management of the soap works to him had restored some of his customary optimism. To add to it, his mother had remarked, only a few evenings back, that if she was a Lebanese as good as his father she would never do anything to harm him – he was all the family she had.

  Until now, he thought suddenly, and felt a twinge of jealousy about the coming child.

  In answer to his question, she replied, ‘Have a seat. Nothing’s really happened. I got a letter from Joe in response to one of mine some time back. He wants me home, as I thought he would. I’d hinted that he should consider coming here, but he’s ignored it. I’ve written since, of course, telling him about the baby, but it’ll be weeks before I get a reply – and, frankly, I don’t think it’s worth waiting for one.’

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he comforted. ‘Things’ll work out.’ He wondered if he should again ask her to marry him. Not yet, he told himself. Let Joe Black make a move.

  He went on, ‘You know, you shouldn’t have to bear all this alone; you should tell Mother; she can be as silent as a tomb – but she could be a comfort to you.’

  Wallace Helena nodded. Eleanor was indeed very kind. ‘Will she be home tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, with relief.

  ‘I’ll come about eight, if that’s all right. Now, what’ve you got on that list?’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  When Wallace Helena called on Eleanor Al-Khoury that evening, she found her alone.

  ‘Our Benji hasn’t come home yet. He said he’d be late – he sent me a little note by that coloured lad what works in the Lady Lavvie, so as I’d know you was coming. How are you, love? You’re lookin’ a bit peaky.’ She took Wallace Helena’s hat and shawl from her, and ushered her into the front parlour. ‘All me gents are out tonight, so we can have a nice little get-together in here. Haven’t seen you in ages.’

  Wallace Helena kissed her and asked how she was.

  Eleanor heaved a deep sigh. ‘I’m not so bad, all things considered.’ She moved towards the fireplace in which a small blaze gave cheerfulness to the room. As she bent down to put a black kettle on a hob and turn it over the fire to heat, she said, ‘Sit down by the fire, love. Aren’t the nights drawin’ in? I made a fire ’cos it seems to be a bit chilly.’

  Wallace Helena obeyed, and asked, ‘What’s making Benji late?’

  ‘Well, he said the other day you gave him all the files in his dad’s private drawer to read – so he thought he’d do it when he wouldn’t be interrupted. I’ve saved him a bit of dinner for when he comes.’

  Wallace Helena nodded. She decided Benji was probably making the reading of the files an excuse to give her time alone with his mother. Aloud, she said, ‘I felt that, as Manager, he’d better know everything about the company – his father’s private negotiations with suppliers, anything there was about the staff. I’ve read them, and they do contain good background information.’ She bent towards the fire and rubbed her hands to warm them; she had not bothered to put gloves on.

  They chatted desultorily about the weather, and agreed that they had both enjoyed an organ concert to which Benji had taken them about three weeks earlier. ‘Aye. Mr Best’s a lovely organist – there somethin’ about organ music, int there?’

  Wallace Helena agreed there was, and wondered how to bring up the question of her pregnancy. She helped Eleanor to lift a small tea table closer to the fire and, while Eleanor poured boiling water into the brown teapot, she mentioned that her landlady, Elsie Fitzpatrick, had had a lovely baby boy, and that her mother lived in Dublin and could not come to her.

  �
�I expect the neighbours came in,’ Eleanor responded placidly. ‘Everybody loves a baby.’ She stirred the pot vigorously, and put a teacosy over it while the tea mashed.

  ‘I suppose,’ Wallace Helena replied. She stared into the dancing flames of the fire, and then she said, ‘Eleanor, Benji suggested I should come to see you tonight – because, quite flatly, you’re the only woman who might care about me or mine!’

  Eleanor had just lifted the milk jug in order to pour milk into the teacups – her best ones. Now she put it slowly back on the tray.

  ‘What’s to do, love?’

  ‘I’m in the family way myself, Eleanor.’

  ‘And it’s our Benji’s?’

  Wallace Helena laughed suddenly. ‘No, no. I’m much too old for Benji – though, when I told him about it, he did offer to marry me – to protect me, so to speak. Bless him.’

  ‘You mean you’re not married?’

  ‘Right’

  ‘Well I never.’ She was quiet, while she poured out two cups of tea. Then she said gently, ‘Not to worry, love. If our Benji wants to marry you, and don’t mind being a papa to your baby, you haven’t got nothin’ to worry about. There’s a few people at the Lady Lavvie as would be thankful if you was married to each other.’ She smiled warmly at Wallace Helena, and continued, ‘And I can think of lots worse to have as a daughter-in-law. I know you’re older, but you don’t act like it. Benji’d be fine with you.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Eleanor,’ Wallace Helena replied, with genuine gratitude. She went on to explain that, even if she loved Benji to distraction, she would not dream of marrying him, because the child would not match up. ‘Literally, it won’t,’ she assured a puzzled Eleanor. ‘It’ll be too dark.’

  ‘Too dark? Well, who is its dad? Will he marry you?’

  ‘Its father’s my partner in Canada. He’s half-Cree, half-negro, so his baby’s going to be dark. He’s a fine person, and I’d be happy to marry him. But, Eleanor, I’m in a terrible jam.’ She stopped, and Eleanor waited, wondering what on earth was to come. ‘You see, Eleanor, I must’ve conceived in the last day or two of my time in the Territories. He might not believe it’s his. I’m terribly afraid, Eleanor.’ The last words came out in a rush.

  The other woman took a moment to assess this, then she said, with a laugh, ‘He’ll believe it when he sees it There int many Blackies round these parts – and you’d never meet any, anyways.’ She put some more sugar in her tea and then stirred it She added, with dry humour, ‘Rub the kid over with boot polish, to make sure!’

  Despite the strain she was under, Wallace Helena began to gurgle with laughter. It set Eleanor laughing, and soon they were rolling in their chairs with mirth. It finished when Wallace Helena had a fit of coughing.

  ‘Really, Eleanor! You’re dreadful.’

  When they had sobered a little and had mopped up the tea they had spilled, Eleanor asked, ‘Will you be going home?’

  ‘I’ll have to. For a while, I had a hope that I might persuade Joe to settle here – the last few winters have bothered him; we get such bad ones. But thinking it over, I know he’d never be happy here. So I’ll go home. I want the baby to have a father.’

  ‘Oh, aye. That’s important.’ Eleanor’s face was suddenly very sad, and Wallace Helena ventured to ask, ‘Why didn’t you and Uncle get married?’

  ‘Me hubby’s still alive,’ answered Eleanor, her voice dull and hopeless.

  Wallace Helena’s mouth dropped open in complete surprise. ‘I didn’t dream you’d been married. I don’t think Benji knows, does he?’

  Eleanor looked at her suspiciously, wondering how much Benji had talked about her with his cousin. She sighed, and said, ‘I don’t think nobody knows by now. It were a long time ago.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have divorced him?’

  ‘I couldn’t – being Catholic, like. Anyways, what for? He’s mental, you see.’

  ‘You poor woman!’ Wallace Helena forgot her own problems. ‘How did it happen?’

  Eleanor swallowed, and looked round her rather helplessly. ‘It were really me dad’s fault,’ she said. ‘’Cos I were so young – and proper innocent; with no brothers or sisters so I could see the difference between boys and girls – or guess where they come from. I didn’t know what marrying was all about.’ She twisted her arms into her apron, as if to protect herself from something, and then she went on, ‘You know me dad left me this house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he and me mam run a boot and shoe shop for years. Me dad were much older’n me mam; but she were killed in a fall from the stepladder in the shop, when I were ten. And me dad couldn’t stand the shop after she were gone, so he sold it when his auntie died and left him this house; and we started doing bed and breakfasts. We had some as was waiting for a boat and some as come on holiday to see relatives, or somethin’, and not a few commercial travellin’ gentlemen on their rounds.’ She sighed gustily. ‘I used to make the breakfasts and see to the washin’ and all.’

  That’s a lot for a ten-year-old.’

  ‘Me dad helped with the cleaning and that, and he’d carry some of the trays. And it were better’n working twelve hours a day in a shop or being in service.’

  ‘So, how did you meet your husband?’

  ‘Well, when I were about sixteen, he come here with his mam and dad. He must’ve been about eighteen. They’d come from Cardiff on a visit, they said, and they was ever so friendly. They stayed about ten days, going out and about all over the place. We supposed they was on a holiday, but it come out afterwards they come to show the boy, Hughie, to a specialist.’

  ‘Did he look mad?’

  ‘No. Just a bit stupid, like some youths do. He didn’t talk much, and he did whatever his dad told him – and I realized afterwards that him or his mam told him every step of the way. He weren’t too bad-looking – dark hair and blue eyes, like a smiling china doll. I was never alone with him for a minute – his mam or dad saw to that Dad watched out for me pretty well, too, seeing as men were always coming and going in the house; but mostly much older men – being sales reps, like.’

  She sniffed, as if to dismiss salesmen as not being worthy of much notice. ‘Anyways, his parents made up to me dad like anything, and, two months later, they come back for another stay. They said as Hughie’s uncle had got him a job, here in the docks. He were a big, heavy boy, so it sounded likely. And it seemed no time at all before his pa was saying to Dad what about a match between us.’

  ‘Didn’t your father see that he wasn’t all there?’

  ‘No. If you weren’t expecting it, it weren’t too obvious. When his mam said to kiss me, he wouldn’t, and she said he were a proper shy lad. When he was alone with me, he’d be a lion, she said – and I remember her laughing.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound as if there was much to laugh about,’ Wallace Helena said. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well, me dad hadn’t been well for some time, and I think he were worried about me being left alone; and here were a decent family with a son with a job, a quiet enough boy who didn’t drink – none of the family did. So he said it would be all right. And I were sixteen and thought, like most young girls do, that married life would be less work than being single; and me dad was going to buy me a new dress. I felt that important!

  ‘So Mr Jones goes with Hughie to get a special licence – ’cos they’ve got to get back to their business in Cardiff. No time for calling guests or anything, and the next thing I know I’m in church being married, and Hughie being whispered to by his dad as to what he’s to do and what fun it will be.’ She paused reflectively. ‘And that frightened me. We got back to the house, and I’d baked a cake and decorated it, so we had tea and cake. And Hughie was laughin’ like an ape and eating half the cake. Then Mr Jones brought down their luggage, when a hackney come for’em. He says goodbye, Hughie. They canter down them front steps as if the devil was after them, and away they go, leaving Hughie standing gaping in the hall. Me dad shuts the front
door, and Hughie nearly goes berserk. He smashes the glass in the inner door, and out he goes, with his hand bleeding, screaming, “Mam!” after the carriage.

  ‘Me dad went down the steps after him, wondering what had bitten him. Hughie turns round and hits me dad to the ground and comes back up the steps. I ran upstairs, I was so frightened. And I could hear him smashing the tea things on the table and then a big crash as he threw something through the sitting-room window here. He was a big lad and he made such a noise, a neighbour come out. Dad shouted to him to call the constable. Dad come in and couldn’t see me; only Hughie tearing everything apart in an absolute little-boy paddywack, kicking and screamin’.

  ‘I called Dad from upstairs, and he shouted back to stay where I was. It took the constable and me dad and the neighbour to arrest him.’

  ‘How awful!’

  Eleanor nodded. ‘I were that scared, I thought I’d never come round,’ she admitted.

  ‘Whatever did you do?’ asked Wallace Helena.

  ‘Well, both me dad and me was terribly upset, as you can imagine. When Hughie were brought before the Magistrate, Dad went down to the Court. He told them he thought the man was mad, and told how he come into our house. The Magistrate agreed with him and the poor constable did, too. So they sent him to a hospital to be examined, and then they put him in a loony-bin.’

  ‘And is he still there?’

  ‘Not in that one. They finally traced ’is parents – they’d given us a wrong address, ’cos what they was doing was dumping him on us – getting rid of him, never wanting to see him again, like. He were like a little kid in his mind, and he acted like one when he realized his mam was leaving him with strangers.

  ‘Me dad was heartbroken that he’d been had like that. All he wanted was a respectable fella to live in the house with me and bring a bit in. He died himself not too long after.’

  ‘But it was considered a legal marriage?’