The Chocolate Tin

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Which battle, Dad?’

  ‘The Boer War, darling. It’s being fought in Africa now, where I got this wound,’ he’d said, with a sound of disgust at the leg he dragged around in those early years.

  She’d understood little about war then but as he’d spoken of it a single channel of crimson had shot across the sky amidst the green and looked like an artery suddenly filled with rushing blood. Despite that sinister moment, the Merry Dancers, as they were sometimes referred to in Scotland, remained a visceral, brilliant memory of hers that was full of unforgettable joy. That’s how it felt to be alongside Harry in this moment – she was filled with anticipation and a helpless thrill to be with him. The price for this excitement was shame and while her mind was feeling the burden of it, her heart was feeling weightless in her chest as she gazed at the drifts of old snow gathered beneath the hedgerow.

  ‘Did you enjoy the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Club?’

  ‘I did. Your father is pleasant company.’

  ‘He’s a sweetie. Bullied by Mum but only on stuff he doesn’t invest much importance in.’

  She saw him nod. ‘Yes, I worked that out. He’s a wise fellow. Women should have as much of their way as possible and then you have a happy wife.’

  Alex grinned with an expression that conveyed she was most impressed. ‘This sounds like you speak from experience.’

  ‘Every man is born with the knowledge, I suspect.’

  She laughed. ‘We’re here,’ she said, pulling into a tiny, private lane that sat off from a lonely road.

  __________

  At the bottom of the lane Harry saw a stone dwelling that looked as though it belonged in a children’s picture book. It wore a layer of creeper – ivy, he guessed from this distance – like a green overcoat against the chill. One chimney puffed smoke gently against a sky so pale with flat, featureless cloud it looked the colour of shallow pond water.

  ‘I think it’s going to rain,’ he remarked.

  ‘Let’s run for it,’ Alex urged but they were caught in the drizzle all the same, made damper by her long search for the key that was supposed to be under a terracotta flowerpot.

  In the end, Harry found it under the doormat.

  ‘She’s always like this,’ Alex admitted. ‘But Charlotte’s got worse since the news of Willie.’

  He sympathised, watching her struggle to get the door open, and with each second that ticked by he felt a deepening sense of being a villain. Harry laid a hand on hers.

  ‘Alex?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s always been a sticky one. I’ve watched Charlotte kick it before this.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  She turned towards him, blinking in the heavier rain that was loud enough to hear against the leaves of surrounding trees and the splatter on the pathway.

  ‘We can go for a hot cup of tea instead. We don’t have to . . . I mean, you don’t have to feel . . .’

  ‘What’s wrong, Harry?’

  He blew out his cheeks. ‘You’re married. It’s not fair on you.’

  ‘Bit late for that now. You should never have kissed me.’

  ‘Or did you kiss me?’ he wondered.

  She straightened. ‘I distinctly remember, you made the first move.’ Her tone was wry: not fully playful, but not altogether serious.

  ‘You invited me into your home.’

  ‘Not to make love to me,’ she replied, slightly sharper now.

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘Are you regretting it?’

  ‘Falling for you?’ He could see his reply caught her unawares. She had no quick or smart answer for him. ‘Can you not tell?’

  Alex shook her head.

  ‘I feel as though I’m about to ruin your life.’

  ‘It was already a ruin before you came into it, Harry, and despite what I’ve just said, I welcomed your affections. My granny used to say it takes two hands to clap. You couldn’t kiss me if I didn’t want you to – I can promise you that; believe me, I have a great right hook.’ She balled a fist, then looked to the heavens.

  He gusted a relieved laugh. ‘I respect you too much to be a total cad, though.’

  ‘Because you’re leaving?’ She pushed hard against the door, tutting to herself.

  He shrugged. ‘Because we can’t be together.’

  The door finally gave. ‘Come inside out of the rain and let’s talk properly.’ She stepped inside, beckoning to him.

  The door closed on the damp world outside and cocooned him into a cottage that instantly reminded him of childhood . . . holidays in France, holidays at home with friends in Sussex and Hampshire. The comforting, sombre sound of a clock counted life’s seconds distantly from the mantelpiece, floorboards long used to spreading the strain creaked beneath their shifting weights and the rain drummed gently against uneven windowpanes that distorted the scenes of garden and fields beyond. It felt safe here. In a glance he took in furnishings and decor that were a mix of Victorian lives giving way to the more recent Edwardian style but as though the cottage was in no hurry to relinquish its past. It was surrendering slowly through some of Charlotte’s feminine touches of pastel and florals, but he liked what he presumed were her predecessor’s richly coloured oriental rugs over the dark boards and the forest-green curtains of velvet that framed the brighter greens of outside.

  ‘Let me get that,’ he said as he noted Alex unbuttoning her coat. If nothing else it was an opportunity to be close, touch her without seeking permission, without guilt. He’d smelled her spiced perfume in the car but now he could savour it against her skin as he stood behind her to ease off her dark gaberdine overcoat. He shrugged off his coat as well, laying them both over the back of a sofa rather than hanging them up, a deliberate move to show he was not making presumptions on a long stay.

  He watched with increasing longing as she pulled off her velvet cloche hat. Her hair was pinned up and he imagined in that instant her allowing it to fall loose. She touched it, aware of him staring.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. I’m admiring your hair; like the colour of your eyes, it reminds me of the chocolate you love.’

  ‘I plan to cut it, you know.’

  ‘Don’t . . . please.’

  ‘It’s the fashion, the modern age.’ She mimicked drawing a line against her neck just below her ear.

  ‘You know we men love long hair.’

  ‘Then grow your own,’ she jested and then dissolved into laughter. He felt his spirit revelling in the sound of her amusement.

  ‘I can’t be bothered with pinning this up daily when I’m making my own chocolates. Besides, I think today’s fashionable cuts are marvellous and sexy.’

  ‘Sexy?’

  ‘My new favourite word; I read it somewhere.’

  ‘Sexy,’ he muttered again, sounding bemused.

  ‘Why don’t you stoke the fire and I’ll make us a pot of tea?’ Alex suggested.

  ‘Good plan.’ He nodded. ‘A sexy cup of tea?’

  She laughed. ‘Something like that.’ Alex disappeared into the back rooms; he listened to her boot heels hitting flagstones of the parlour while he busied himself poking at the barely burning wood and stacking fresh logs onto the fire, urging them to catch. He lost several minutes, engaged in watching the blaze licking at the new fuel that was dry and ready to burn. Harry could feel the welcome warmth increase as new flames danced up greedily around the fresh wood.

  ‘Here we are,’ Alex said, arriving with a tray.

  Harry turned, feeling a rush of pleasure. ‘You look happily domesticated here.’

  ‘I am,’ she admitted, setting down the tray on a nearby table. ‘I don’t envy Charlotte her grief but I am often jealous of her independence, living here alone, making her own rules – she even cooks for herself.’

  ‘Imagine that,’ he said, with only a slight hint of sarcasm.

  She gave him a warning look. ‘I’m not given much choice. I dance to the tune of a man, of parents – even N
orma!’

  He cut her a look of soft exasperation. ‘Alex, you surprise me. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be ruled by what people think of your decisions.’

  She grinned. ‘I’m mindful of people I love and how it affects them. That said, I do feel myself caring less and less about appearances, I fear.’

  ‘That sounds dangerous.’

  ‘It’s why I’m here, living dangerously.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

  She smiled. ‘White with one?’

  ‘Just white is fine, thank you. I got used to no sugar while we were . . .’ He lifted a shoulder. ‘No sugar please.’

  She stirred in the milk to both china cups. ‘You don’t like to talk about the war, do you, Harry?’

  ‘I’d be surprised if you find many men who do. Maybe in time but no, not now; I think all of us want to avoid it.’

  ‘Pretend it never occurred?’ She frowned, passing him the teacup and saucer.

  He took them, placing them on the table. ‘That’s impossible and naïve. No, just sideline it so we can recover. Those of us who survived are nevertheless wounded in so many ways; some of us I fear will be damaged in our minds permanently. But we need to move on, not dwell or keep discussing what it was like. We have to build new lives for ourselves and put some distance between us and the trenches where our friends were left.’

  ‘Harry, that makes you sound so forlorn.’

  He gave her a look akin to a shrug. He watched her pause as though she was making an important yet difficult decision.

  ‘Will you do something for me?’

  ‘Anything.’

  The response hung between two ticks of the clock and she seemed to decide to act on her question within that second. ‘Will you take me upstairs and, with my wholehearted permission, share with me what we both want to do, why we both know we’re here today, knowing that I am not going to make anything difficult for you?’

  He didn’t move, torn between permission and instant surging desire but also his soldier’s sense of discipline and what he knew was right. The right thing to do meant walking out of the cottage this moment. She sensed it too and stood, rising higher than the steam from their untouched teacups.

  ‘I’m going upstairs. I hope you’ll join me,’ she said and turned her back on him to climb the fourteen steps; he counted her tread on each, listened to her footfall across the floor above him. A few moments later he heard the soft protest of a bedspring and then silence.

  Harry took a long breath before leaving behind the tea tray, the clock ticking in time to his ascent of the stairs. He had to bend to avoid hitting his forehead as he reached the top of the flight, looking right towards closed doors and left to an open door to a room of colour that contrasted with Alex’s taupe blouse and navy skirt. Her back was to him and Harry noted minutiae in this tense moment . . . the soft sheen of the pearl buttons down the length of her heavy silk blouse that fell in soft, pleated drapes. She was seated on the far side of the canopied bed of rich raspberry-coloured brocade, looking out through small panes of glass dressed with voile and heavier rose-coloured chintz, which was swept aside with thick ropes and tassles. He saw the rainbow glint of Tiffany glass lamps and gilt-framed landscapes of moonlit night scenes hung on the wall facing him.

  Are you sure, Harry? the voice of conscience wondered. There will be a cost.

  After this day, he promised himself, he would always ‘do the right thing’.

  Do you swear it? his conscience demanded.

  I do, he murmured in a low whisper.

  At that breath, Alex turned, her soft smile finding its echo in her eyes. ‘I hoped you’d stay, believed you would.’

  ‘You can read me that well?’

  She stood, faced him properly and shook her head sadly. ‘The truth is, I can’t read you at all. You are so closed. I know only what I can feel, though, Harry. And what I feel for you is like no other sensation in my life and what I sense you feel in return . . .’ She shook her head again. ‘I have to trust my instincts.’

  ‘What about your —’

  ‘Hush,’ she warned. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t speak his name.’

  ‘He’s here with us, though.’

  ‘So are all the dead men in your dreams, all those memories you are trying so hard to banish. Let’s let everyone else go for a few hours. Let this be about two people who should never have met but fate decided to throw together.’ She opened her palms. ‘The universe wanted this to happen.’

  ‘That sounds rather mystical.’

  She nodded, no smile now. ‘I believe it. There is no reason on earth that your path and mine should have crossed. So I’m trusting that, rather than my fears or shame. I know this isn’t right, Harry, but I also know it is not wrong. We were meant to meet, be pushed together by forces beyond our understanding, but here we stand, desperately attracted like two magnets. I’m helpless. I won’t fight it and live to regret that I could have experienced something so rare.’

  ‘Alex, we can hurt people.’

  ‘Did you think about that last night when you crossed that invisible line and kissed me?’

  ‘I’d like to think you kissed me back.’

  ‘Oh, I did, Harry, wholeheartedly and honestly. As you see, I am not running away from my guilt. I admit it. I am shameless. I’m being selfish. I’m behaving abominably. The awful part is I don’t care in this moment about any of that.’

  ‘I’m thinking of your position.’

  ‘It is not yours to consider; it’s mine.’

  Harry pressed, wondering at the back of his mind whether he hoped she would change her will and save him the inevitable guilt. For someone who was decisive on the battlefront, he now admitted he was a slave to her decision alone. ‘I have nothing to lose. You have everything on the line. Do you really want this secret in your heart?’

  She surprised him with a look that said it wasn’t troubling her. ‘The world turns on secrets. You have some, I’m sure. So do I. What’s one more? We can’t hurt anyone but ourselves if we keep our secret between us. And before you warn me, I’m well prepared for heartache, Harry. I already cope with plenty of it. My husband is not a bad man, but in all the ways I desperately need him, he lets me down. I’m not asking you to be mine forever . . . I just want you to be mine right now. I choose this with a full awareness of its potential repercussions.’ Her smile returned.

  He swallowed, in a small way hating her honesty.

  ‘Don’t make me beg,’ Alex added in final warning.

  His conscience accepted now that he was the weak one. He let out a helpless groan as desire became stronger than resolve, and in a couple of strides he had her in his arms. They held each other for a full minute without moving.

  ‘How long has it been for you?’ she whispered near his shoulder. ‘Oh, no, don’t answer that.’

  ‘Are you jealous?’ He pulled back to regard her.

  ‘Suddenly, yes. I hate your French vixen.’

  ‘Her . . . just Antoinette? Or all of them?’

  ‘You wretch,’ she accused, lightly slapping him away as he pulled her back into his arms.

  ‘I want to kiss you. And I mean all of you. Every inch.’

  Her lids half closed as she groaned. ‘I wish you would.’

  Playfulness was chased away by fresh ardour as Harry turned her around and without further permission began to undo the buttons of her blouse. As each pearl disc slipped easily from its home in the satiny soft material, he bent to kiss the newly uncovered flesh, the V-shape widening with each unfastening. And with each gentle touch of his lips to her skin came a sigh of fresh pleasure from Alex. He left the last two buttons fastened, slipping his hands inside the blouse that tumbled off her shoulders as he cupped her breasts and she leaned back against him.

  Alex reached for the clasp that gripped her hair and pulled it to finally release a tumble of chocolatey waves. It was a mix of release and intense pleasure that caused his shoulders to slump, as this simple
gesture made him realise just how much he and soldiers like him had missed the feel of a woman. He murmured again, ‘Don’t cut it.’

  His breathing was becoming shallower after he discovered Alex’s lack of corset and the dozens of hooks, eyes and threads to contend with. He could feel her nipples responding beneath what was a thin width of cotton across her bust, seemingly held on by the narrowest of silken straps. ‘What is this?’ he asked, intrigued, as he turned her around gently to face him. His gaze fell upon the lace and cotton contraption.

  ‘It’s called a brassiere. It’s French; I’m surprised you haven’t already been this close to one,’ she teased, one eyebrow lifting but he was already distracted from the garment by the smooth swell of Alex’s breasts that sat high and proud against the outline of her rib cage. He traced the horizontal sweep of her clavicle, recalling the pain of breaking his early in 1915.

  He shook his head. ‘Clearly designed to make men weak,’ he said. ‘I always wondered how women ever breathed in corsets.’

  ‘We didn’t. My mother used to swoon regularly; still does. She hasn’t abandoned hers. Mine’s gone for good. It’s as if I’ve been released from a prison . . . a man’s prison, for surely a man invented them!’

  He looked down. ‘And so what goes . . .?’ He didn’t dare finish his question but she seemed to enjoy his sudden coyness.

  ‘So, Antoinette and all her friends haven’t taught you everything,’ she said. ‘I wanted to say let’s not hurry this,’ she breathed urgently, ‘but . . .’ She pulled her blouse over her head and undid her skirt with surprising speed to reveal the thinnest of lacy bloomers that she proceeded to push down and neatly but brazenly step out of. His mouth opened in surprise at her lack of modesty as she turned a milk-coloured bottom to him to leap beneath the bedclothes with a girlie shriek at the cold. ‘Hurry up. It’s freezing in here!’

  He picked up the bloomers. ‘Now these are, how you say, sexy?’

  ‘Put them down!’ She laughed, pulling the sheet up over her mouth, finally embarrassed.

  ‘I hope you’ve not shown these to any other man?’ he said, adding a purse-lipped expression.

  ‘Not even my husband . . . not that he’d be interested. These, Captain Blake, are called “French knickers” and they’re divine to wear.’