The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  ‘May I have a word with you some time, Mrs Heatherington?’ The landlady did not wait for an answer but swept out once again.

  Mrs Membury said with satisfaction, ‘Someone else is in trouble now, you see, Harry.’

  Mrs Heatherington looked from Connie to William. ‘What have I done?’ she asked. She looked back to Connie. ‘It was you who used too much cheese and then gave away your trifle.’

  It was still a bit of a silly joke and Connie waited for William to defend her. Nothing happened and Mrs Heatherington began to look properly aggrieved. Connie lifted the serving spoon, still smiling. ‘There’s heaps of trifle.’ But Mrs Heatherington put out a restraining hand.

  ‘My dear, I really shouldn’t. Mrs Pentwyn always makes a pudding do for two days. She’ll put that in the fridge for tomorrow, I am certain of it.’

  Suddenly it was awkward. Mr Membury said, ‘Look, have my cheese. Honestly. You hardly ate any of your steak and you’ve had no afters at all.’

  Mrs Membury was belatedly contrite. ‘Was it me? Harry is always telling me to keep my ideas to myself. I put you off the steak, didn’t I?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Connie fibbed. ‘I’ve been a cannibal all my life. My mother tells a ghastly story about me eating ants—’ Mrs Membury screamed and the girls squealed delightedly, not understanding what it was all about. William sat there looking . . . proud. She suddenly realized what he had meant when he asked her to be his personal secretary. She had said, ‘But sir, Mr Mather . . . my shorthand isn’t always readable and my filing is—’

  ‘Imaginative,’ he had supplied. ‘But I hate bad feeling within the office. We have to deal with it in the course of our work anyway. You are so good at diluting potentially awkward situations. Anyone can write shorthand and file papers but very few can make irritable people smile.’

  She had not known what he meant but she liked him very much and it would be so wonderful to go home and tell Mother that she had had a promotion. She had felt her smile stretch from ear to ear. And he had nodded and looked rather like he was looking now.

  Mrs Heatherington replaced her empty coffee cup on its saucer and began to lever herself out of her chair. William rushed out of his and helped her.

  ‘I think I had better not keep our hostess waiting.’ Mrs Heatherington smiled at Connie to show that she was teasing, and added, ‘You do realize it’s all your fault, don’t you?’

  Connie was all at sea and wanted to ask what was her fault, but then nodded and said, ‘Of course.’ Mrs Heatherington made her usual theatrical exit, the little girls, happily full of pudding, settled down to dipping the cheese crackers into coffee and William said quietly, ‘I love you, Connie Vickers.’

  For two pins Connie could have cried. She surely loved this good, kind man, especially as she had slept with him last night. Had she ever told him so? Perhaps not; and perhaps she should now say, ‘I love you too, William Mather,’ but what she wanted to say was ‘I do wish you did not feel you had to kowtow to Mrs Heatherington.’ But that was so completely petty that she did not say it. Instead, she smiled, closed her eyes for a moment and quoted the title of a song her mother was forever singing in the bathroom.

  ‘Love Is The Sweetest Thing.’

  Two

  THE NEXT MORNING Lucy Pardoe woke at six o’clock as usual and lay quietly for a while, registering the quality of the light coming through the washed-out curtains. She had always lived each day in tune with weather and tides, and still as the years went on she spent those few early-morning minutes thinking simply of the immediate tasks to be done once she swung her legs out of bed. The rhythm of them, the very feeling of them, was linked inexorably with the scents and sounds of the land and the sea. Wind, rain and sun were nearly always friendly and could become part of her; but if they brought a roaring tide along the sandy shoreline of the towans, claiming the land instead of caressing it, hurling waves higher than the lighthouse itself, she did her outside work with head down and hands across her jacket, holding herself against it.

  This morning the weather was on the change. For a few weeks now the bleached-out curtains had been no match for the early sun and her bedroom had been drenched in a golden light. Today the gold was less precious and more metallic. But there was still no wind. The tide would be edging quietly into the sand of the beaches all down the north coast. But the holidaymakers would be less energetic and the gulls’ voices would become peevish and demanding. And her three beautiful daughters would need telling. They would need telling to get themselves dressed, to clear the breakfast things, to feed the hens in the orchard and be nice to each other. Lucy smiled into the hard-edged sunlight, remembering how Daniel might have sighed with mock weariness which hid enormous love and pride, and said humorously, ‘It’s just one of they days, my maid. We’ll all need telling. ’Cept our Egg. ’E’ll just get on with what he’s got to do.’

  Lucy nodded in agreement as she always did when she recalled the commonsensical words her husband had so often uttered. In response to them she began to sum up in her head her immediate itinerary. Bathroom, dress, cats, breakfast, Egg. Behind each staccato word were so many other words. The bathroom was the old byre converted by Daniel with help from his son, Egg. Dress did not matter today because she had no visitors. The cats were a whole world in themselves and linked her even more firmly to the sandy soil, the granite rocks, the stunted trees. Breakfast was her first offering of the day, tailored to each individual member of the family . . . and Egg was both his fathers with perhaps a dash of herself and the girls, and something else that was simply him. Perhaps it was because of his disability – and his disability was so much part of him it hardly showed any more.

  She smiled, put all that aside and listened to the birds. There was a cuckoo somewhere in the copse and he should not still be there. It was August and he should be well on the way to Spain. August was her birthday month and her mother used to remind her that she would not be hearing any cuckoos by then – ‘’Tis bad luck if you do!’ she would warn. And there was the little tinker again, hoarsely coughing out his signature tune. No shame. No caution. No sense prob’ly.

  She reached across the bed to where Daniel’s place was still kept. His slippers were exactly where his feet emerged from the sheets each morning, his pillows arranged in an inverted V just as he liked them. ‘Shoulders do get cold else,’ he explained to her when he first brought her to the cottage. She had laughed and shaken her head. Egg had not laughed or shaken his head. He had asked for another pillow and angled the two of them that first winter. He still did. Lucy smiled and ran her palm up and down the flat sheet as if it were Daniel’s back. If he had lived he might well have had a bad back; she had always been telling him to walk straight.

  She cut off. It was something she could do when she saw danger ahead. It stopped the heartache before it could start. Without conscious effort she stilled her hand – though she left it where it was – and wondered what Ellie, Barbara and Denny would like on their breakfast toast. And then she tossed back the top sheet and thin blanket and rolled up and out of bed in one movement. The day had started; the cuckoo had been silenced by the screaming gulls, the tide would be high in the next hour and she wanted to be out picking beans before it ebbed.

  There was an ebb in her own rhythm while Egg ate his breakfast. She knew she should leave him to it and start on the beans. If they were picked early enough she could sit in the sun and string them while she watched the girls feeding the hens. Ellie would pack the cut beans in the clear plastic bags the freezer man supplied, weigh them, seal them and stack them in the crate for when the big refrigerated van pulled up in front of the cottage.

  But Egg started to talk. He wasn’t one for talking. He’d grin and nod and a lot of folk thought he had a screw slightly loose but Lucy knew better. And when he started to talk, however odd it might sound, it meant something. You had to listen. You might find out what it was all about, you might not. But you had to listen all the same.

  Fi
rst off, he checked with her about the apprenticeship with Chippy Penberthy.

  ‘You’re not enjoying doling out ice creams and deckchairs then, my boy?’ she asked, pouring him more tea, grinning mischievously.

  He grinned too. ‘I like it. I like it too much, Mum. Most days I got time to read.’

  ‘Still on they American books, are you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She said nothing. Her father had accused her of being lazy when she read books. She had started to do the same to Egg when he finally learned to read. She had called his choice rubbish. Cowboy rubbish, detective rubbish. Daniel had stopped her mighty quick.

  ‘Don’t take away his excitement, my maid. ’E’s just got the ’ang of it and we mustn’t put ’im off. Dun’t matter what ’e do read s’long as ’e do read.’

  So she waited and after he had finished his bacon-bread and picked up his tea he said slowly, ‘Mum, I’m not certain about Chippy Penberthy.’

  She was surprised. ‘I thought you liked woodwork, son. You bin doing it for the past two year at school.’

  ‘’Cos I cain’t do anything else!’ He laughed. ‘I like wood. But I don’t want to be fighting it all the time. I want to go with it. An’ I cain’t see old Chippy letting me do that, can you?’ He laughed and so did she. Chippy fought with everything in his life; his wife, his wayward daughter, his tools and his trade.

  ‘So what you got in mind, Egg? This job you got now won’t last more ’n about another two–three weeks.’

  ‘Thought I might be a deckhand.’

  She forced herself not to look aghast. The respect she had for the sea was always close to fear. She looked at him and said nothing. And he nodded.

  ‘I know. Both my dads. But I want . . . I need . . . to get across it. Over it. Somehow.’

  ‘You want to leave Cornwall? Leave England?’

  ‘Not for ever. Course not.’ He cradled his mug, took a sip. ‘Mum . . . I only thought of this yesterday . . . I’d like to see my first dad’s family.’

  She was quite still, staring at him. Then she said, ‘The American books.’

  He thought about it. ‘P’raps that’s it. P’raps I like them books because they’re about America.’ He opened his eyes wider. ‘P’raps I wouldna thought about going there if she hadn’t said something.’

  Lucy was on to it like a terrier on to a rat. ‘She? Who’s she, then?’

  ‘One of they lot on holiday. Her name is Connie Vickers and she comes from Birmingham. She calls me Philip ’cos that’s the name of the detective in the book I’m reading.’

  Lucy wanted to wrap her arms around her son and hold him tight against Connie Vickers and everyone else from Birmingham.

  She said quickly, ‘Well, I bin thinking too. I know what you mean about Chippy. An’ there’s living enough for all of us right ’ere. Your dad seen to that when he started the bean field.’

  Egg nodded, smiling. ‘’E wanted to go in for strawberries too.’

  ‘Pigs and strawberries – they always go together. We got the orchard for a pig and there’s always room for strawberries.’

  He heard the desperation in her voice and was silent, looking at her. Then nodding agreement. ‘It’s what Dad ’ad in mind, I know that. Plenty of time for America.’ He finished the tea. Then looked again at his mother and said, almost shyly, ‘I’m real ’appy, Mum.’

  She responded instantly, gratefully. ‘You always ’ave been, son. It’s in your nature. And like you say – plenty of time for America.’ She got up; she could start on the beans now before the girls woke. This metallic sun would become stifling soon; she needed to make a start.

  ‘It was just something she said. She do remind me of you, Mum. She says things that make sense. This friend of ’ers – elderly lady – something to do with the theatre – she said I should be an actor on the stage. That din’t make no sense at all. But when Connie said I should go to America ’cos my dad was from there, that made sense.’

  Lucy collapsed back into her chair, astonished that Egg had spoken so many words all at once, horrified that he had obviously disclosed everything about himself.

  ‘You told these – these – elderly ladies – about Bert McKinley – about your father?’

  He grinned. ‘Naw . . . course not. There were only one elderly lady. Mrs . . . Mrs . . . I do forget ’er name. I told Connie about my father and about Dad. She listened. And her father did die in the war too.’

  ‘The woman from Birmingham?’

  ‘Ah. She’s not zackly a woman. Bit like Ellie.’

  ‘A little girl.’

  He laughed. ‘She got a fiancé. Older than her. Tries to look after her but en’t making much of a job of it!’ He shook his head, still smiling.

  ‘So she’s engaged to be married.’

  ‘Not for long, I don’t reckon.’

  Lucy felt her heart thumping. She said, ‘Be careful, son. Never come between man and woman.’

  Egg looked surprised. ‘I en’t nowhere between Connie and ’er chap, Mum. I just make them coffee and tea.’

  ‘And talk to them by the sound of things.’

  He laughed again. ‘Naw. They done the talking. But yesty morning . . . they’d ’ad a row, see. She came down in a huff. I calmed ’er down. We talked then.’

  Lucy’s heart knocked against her ribs. ‘Men and women . . . they have rows.’

  ‘I told ’er that. About when Dad went to his shed—’

  ‘You told some slip of a girl about Dad and me?’

  ‘To show ’er it din’t mean nothing, Mum – I din’t speak out of turn – honest!’

  She forced herself to breathe properly. She picked up his mug and took a long draught of tepid tea. She said, ‘I know that, my son. I know you wouldn’t talk out of turn. It’s just that . . . you dun’t go in for much talking. And ’ere you are talking to someone old enough to be your mother—’

  ‘She’s only a coupla years older than me!’

  ‘Well, your auntie then.’

  ‘Just tried to cheer ’er up, Mum. Like Ellie needs cheering up sometimes.’

  ‘Ellie’s too clever for her own good.’

  ‘There you are then. Connie is clever, you can tell. An’ I can cheer ’er up ’cos I en’t clever.’

  Lucy said fiercely, ‘What do clever mean? What do clever matter in the long run? It’s what you know about living proper. Ellie comes to you like she went to her dad. To remind ’er ’ow to live proper.’

  ‘I dun’t know. It’s like Ellie can’t see straight now and then. Connie was like that too. Not sure whether she do want to be engaged but not liking it when she thought ’er bloke was looking at someone else bit too often!’ He laughed. ‘This woman Mrs whatever-’er-name-is – she’s mutton dressed up as lamb – said I was like a mattny idle. Just ’cos I reads dun’t make me idle. I nearly told ’er that. But it weren’t important. The man was nice enough. But it was Connie what mattered. Connie is kind. She do shine with kindness.’

  Lucy was suddenly terrified. She could picture it, an older couple flirting in front of a young girl and a younger boy. And the boy saw the girl as some kind of victim. Did he think he had to rescue her?

  She said carefully, ‘Perhaps Connie wants to go to America too?’

  ‘No. She wants to get married. She knows he’s the right bloke even if she doesn’t quite know whether she loves him. Perhaps she expects too much.’

  ‘Perhaps she does.’ Lucy swallowed and watched him stand up and go into the wash house for his bicycle. She no longer made him sandwiches and filled his thermos as she had done all the years he was at school; he was allowed to choose what he fancied from the beach shop. It was part of the process of untying the apron strings. She had been prepared for it. But she had not been prepared for him to – to – become attached to someone else. Someone from another place. Someone with that peculiar nasal accent. Someone who could well be a little lost and need his simple, straightforward views on life. Someone complicated; like Ellie
. Who needed . . . him. And might hurt him.

  She went slowly down the garden to the bean field. The orchard sheltered the thick vines from the prevailing south-westerlies and the cottage itself took the brunt of the colder winds from Ireland and the north. Not that there was a breath moving today; the air was heavy with heat. She stopped worrying about Egg and took the top trug from the pile and filled it in the first five minutes. If there was some real weather on the way it could finish the bean patch in spite of all its protection. Today’s pick could bring the last of the ‘bean cheques’ this year. It must be a good one.

  An hour later Ellie brought Barbara through the orchard. Both girls were dressed in pretty sundresses made by the curate’s wife. When Daniel had died, the crew of the PZ 51 had made sure that the Pardoes still had their portion of the catch before it went to Newlyn. Before the village shop shut down they had shared leftovers with the owners: bread and biscuits, dried-up cheese, slightly shrivelled oranges. The curate helped Ellie with her studying when she put in for a scholarship; his wife was a dab hand with a sewing machine. It had always been the way; in the past Daniel and Lucy had helped the people who were now helping them. Lucy would do so again in the future. What went around came around, everyone knew that.

  ‘Mum, I fed the cats an’ we’ve et our breakfast and got ready. Denny won’t let me do her plaits.’

  ‘Got ready?’ Lucy did not stop picking.

  ‘It’s libr’y morning down in the village. I got ten littl’uns in my group and Denny won’t let me do ’er plaits!’ Ellie’s voice rose a notch.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ Lucy put down her trug and half her pick fell on the ground. ‘I plumb forgot about library morning!’ For a moment she was completely at sea. Her staccato reminders of early morning had missed out this new venture of Ellie’s. She had proposed to the librarian that during the long summer holidays she would spend an hour every Tuesday morning in the library reading to children aged five and up. It was her special thing, she had thought of it, fixed it up with the librarian, who had advertised it, and had gradually increased the ‘membership’ until – today – she was expecting ten ‘littl’uns’. It was the big event in Ellie’s week and her mother had forgotten it.