The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  ‘We cannot sleep down here,’ she said in a shocked voice. ‘It would be almost depraved. We have to go upstairs. Follow me.’ And he had followed her, suddenly very wide awake indeed. And she had thrown back her duvet and they had collapsed together in such a neat way that she knew quite definitely when she woke the next morning that he had had plenty of practice.

  She remembered bleating something about it being twenty years since anything like this had happened to her and he simply kept kissing her and then conscious thought went. She responded. She reciprocated. She inaugurated. She had never felt so alive and then suddenly so luxuriously sinking into sleep. And for twenty years she had never slept a night through. This time was different. She woke to blinding sunshine, turned her head and saw his face and smiled. He did not open his eyes but he seemed to know and he smiled in return. She studied him for some time; almost . . . fondly. He had a craggy, sort of beaky face. Olive skin, very bristly around the jowls. Mediterranean? The lobes of his ears were furry, they shone in the morning sun. She touched one of them with a gentle finger.

  She said, ‘It’s Tuesday. Nine thirty. Have you got a hangover?’

  ‘No. What about you?’

  ‘I feel wonderful.’

  He touched her back, gently. ‘Yes, you do. Will you do something for me?’

  ‘No. Not now. That was last night.’

  ‘Not that, though it would have been nice. But I would like to do what couples do. I would like to go downstairs and bring up a tray of tea.’

  ‘You won’t find anything in my kitchen. And we’re not a couple, Arnie.’

  He sat up and swung his legs down and reached for his pants. ‘Well, I don’t intend for that to be a one-night stand, Rosie. And I shall find my way round your kitchen because we’re so alike that it is probably a replica of mine.’

  He did it while she was in the bathroom. She emerged in linen slacks and a shirt. He had put the tray in the middle of the bed. Teapot and strainer, milk and sugar. He had put on his vest but she could still tell he had a very hairy chest.

  He said, ‘You’re blushing, Rosie!’

  She said, ‘I should think so. That’s what it was, Arnie. A one-night stand. I should think I would blush!’

  He smiled up at her and poured the tea. His hair was grey and his eyebrows dark. Was that possible? His eyes were brown, a very clear brown, like milkless tea. And his mouth was . . . delicious.

  He said, ‘My God. You’re as red as a lobster! What on earth are you thinking?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It was something.’ He passed her a cup. ‘It’s definitely not a one-night stand, Rosie, otherwise you wouldn’t be that colour!’ There was a sound of letters dropping on the hall floor then the bell rang. ‘Something to be signed for. Don’t worry, somebody had left a load of old clothes on the floor. I’ve put them in that linen basket thing next to the washing machine. You can open the door quite freely.’

  ‘What if it’s Maria?’

  ‘I won’t disturb you. I’ll have a bath, if that’s all right. Give you half an hour with her. Then I’d better get to work otherwise Mrs Flowers will take it out on me for the rest of the day.’

  She was at the bedroom door, cup still in hand. ‘I imagine Mrs Flowers has experience in that way.’ She shook her head at him. ‘I can’t, Arnie. I really can’t.’

  He said quietly. ‘Love really is the sweetest thing, Rosie. Don’t throw it away.’

  It was Maria and she wanted to make sure that Rosemary was all right because she had seen her go off in a green car and then come home ‘in a bit of a state’ and thought she must be ill. She turned and stared at Arnie’s Riley almost accusingly.

  Rosemary smiled reassuringly. ‘A really unexpected call,’ she said. ‘William’s boss. Mr Arnold Jessup. It was he who was ill. Not fit to drive. I’ve put him in Connie’s room and haven’t seen hide nor hair of him this morning.’

  Maria was appalled. ‘Drunk?’ she breathed. ‘How dreadful for you, my dear. Do you need any help in . . . getting rid of him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It was a bit of a celebration actually.’ Rosemary leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Unofficial, of course. But he’s retiring shortly and William will take over.’

  Maria looked at once relieved and disappointed. ‘How wonderful. But . . . what if he’s really ill?’

  ‘Then I will ring Dr Thomas. Don’t worry, Maria. He has to go to work soon. I’d better get some breakfast for him. And then, are you free for coffee?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Maria grimaced with disappointment. ‘Mr Gimble has offered to take me into Birmingham to change that dress I got from C & A.’

  Mr Gimble was the only male in the four houses and an offer like this was never refused. Rosemary nodded immediately. ‘Perhaps tomorrow? You’ll be exhausted by the time you get home.’

  Maria nodded to both remarks. ‘Tomorrow would be lovely.’ She turned to go and then half turned back. ‘Be careful, my dear,’ she said.

  Rosemary watched her negotiate the slope to the lower level and wondered what on earth she could mean.

  Eight

  IT WAS A year since Egg Pardoe had gone into the sea; Ellie took Barbara and Denny to the church to ‘sit quiet for a bit’. It had been a difficult year, but maybe it would have been just as difficult if Egg had been here. More difficult in a way because he would not have wanted to move to Truro and they had definitely decided to do that.

  Ellie was deeply thankful that they had chosen a house not very far from her new school. Last autumn right through to March had been a private nightmare. She had gone with the milk lorry to Hayle railway station at six thirty every weekday morning to catch the 7.05 milk train to Truro. It stopped at Camborne and Redruth, unloaded the full churns and took on the empties and got to Truro just before eight. She had to run down the long approach road into the city, skirt the cathedral, over the river and down towards the sea, where the tall Victorian houses gave way suddenly to a hockey pitch and tennis courts and a long rhododendron-edged drive to the school. She was nearly always late and the other scholarship girls had to save her a place as close to the side door as possible so that she could slide in without too much fuss. No one, girls or staff, had ever mentioned her late arrival but she felt terrible about it nevertheless. Sometimes she woke up in the night thinking she could hear milk churns being rolled over flagstones. And then she remembered with a fresh pang that Egg was no longer in this world. He would have taken her into the station on the crossbar of his old bike and been there waiting for her when she came home. And she cried anew. But there had been others who had tried to help; Mr Warne and Mr Membury . . . she remembered taking Mr Membury’s outstretched hand and feeling the grip of it as if he could pull them all out of grief and back into happiness. And Matthew, the rector.

  And, as her mother so often said in that stoical voice so full of knowledge, you can get used to anything so long as you’ve got food in your belly, a roof over your head, clothes on your back and the health and strength to go with it. And the four Pardoe women had all of those things. By mid-March it was light by the time the train got to Camborne and she could see the lambs and calves in the fields and the rows and rows of daffodils. She forced herself to go to swimming lessons in the school’s uniquely circular pool and mastered her fear of the water as soon as she mastered the breaststroke.

  The summer term changed everything. Josh Warne had driven them round Truro several times during the Easter holidays looking at houses for sale and they had returned home, all of them thankful that they lived on the towans and not in a town. Josh was as anxious as they were; Penberthy sometimes dropped into Josh’s regular pub when his wife permitted it, and some of his stories about Lucy Pardoe bordered on the vicious. Josh had taken him aside and advised him that unless he shut up, he would be shut up permanently by someone else. But when Chippy had had a couple he found it physically impossible to shut up. And Josh had only ever hit one person in his life. Farmer Roach. From over the dun
es. No one knew about it and Josh intended to keep it that way. It had taught him that he would never hit anyone else. Ever.

  On Easter Monday they visited a cottage on the gaunt tract of land towards St Austell. It was shipshape, it had an orchard and a neat garden at the back. There was a bus service into Truro every hour.

  Josh drove them back to Hayle and decanted the girls by the phone box so that Lucy could phone her solicitor. They ran down the road hand in hand like a string of paper dolls.

  ‘You got three lovely girls there, Mrs Pardoe,’ Josh said, watching them go.

  Lucy nodded. ‘’Tis for them I’m doin’ this. And that place was the best we seen so far.’

  He pondered silently for a while then he said quietly, ‘Trouble with being right outside in the country like, you en’t going to get to know your neighbours and the girls will ’ave the same trouble gettin’ in to their schools.’

  ‘Girls wouldn’t mind. And what would I do with the kind o’ neighbours I’d ’ave in the city? If it weren’t for the walls I could put out a hand and touch them. An’ all they does is watch the television. And those backyards . . . Where would I grow a few radish and lettuce for the table?’ Lucy shook her head. ‘I’m a countrywoman and that’s that.’

  But she did not get out of the car. She held that chap’s card in her hand like a talisman or something, but she did not get out of the car. He tried again.

  ‘You managed in that hotel place down Devon way.’

  She looked at him, startled. Because no one ever spoke of that time to her she assumed they didn’t know. He mumbled an apology but she shook her head.

  ‘’Tis all right, Mr Warne. I almost forgot that time. And you’re right, I did manage very well there.’ She thought of Bertie with the usual pang. Then told herself to snap out of it: she had been lucky to know that sort of ecstasy and lucky to have had the wonderful contentment of her marriage with Daniel. She said, nodding still, ‘And I can do it again. I cain’t take Pardoe Cottage with me, so I might as well make a complete change. Never mind the telephone. Let’s get back and I’ll make you a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich.’

  He brightened considerably. ‘There were those two for sale in the terrace near Lemon Quay,’ he mentioned as they moved off. ‘They both sold quicker’n a flea hop, so that must mean they’re good solid houses. You could go back there and ask around a bit.’

  ‘I could. Once the girls are back at school, I’ll do that. Thank you, Mr Warne.’

  When she did find the three-storey house with its glimpses of the cathedral towers from the front and the sweep of the river from the back, she had a feeling about it. She told Ellie it was in Steep Street and Ellie clapped her hands.

  ‘Gussie Trip lives there! I went with her to her house so I know where it is! Oh Mummy, it’s about five minutes’ walk from school and perhaps she’d call for me. She’s got plaits. And a cat! Matthew and Mark would have a friend just down the road!’

  Ellie told the Reverend Matthew Hobson all about it and he offered to drive them into Truro that very Saturday. Lucy went to the phone box and rang William Mather on his office phone and she wrote down what she had to do next, which was to give the house agent the name and address of her solicitors and then he would take over.

  By Pentecost their offer had been accepted and just before the August bank holiday William came down for two nights, looked the house over, was enchanted with it and contracts were exchanged.

  He congratulated her on such a swift purchase.

  ‘Swift?’ She was astonished. ‘Just after Easter I saw it and here we are nigh on September – more than four months. I dun’t call that very swift!’

  He smiled, delighted by the whole thing. She looked well but the gossip at the little hotel in Hayle was not reassuring. Some of Penberthy’s slander was beginning to stick. He had caught the words ‘no smoke without fire’ and knew it was time for Lucy to move the rest of her family right away.

  He dined with the family doctor that first evening and as Carthew said over dinner, ‘If it had been anyone else and in any other circumstances, Lucy’s expedience would be seen as sharp practice. She seized her opportunity and it so happened that the opportunity came up on the day after her son’s death. I had told her to buy Pardoe Cottage – didn’t tell her she would make a fortune from the leisure company. She just did what I told her as soon as she could.’ He grinned across the table. ‘Actually, Mather, she did well. Surprisingly well. Bought the cottage with your help, screwed the leisure company for as much as she could get and is moving into a very decent house in Truro all in the space of a year.’

  William raised his brows. ‘You surely don’t think of her as conniving?’

  ‘Of course she’s conniving, man! She has connived all her life – living with her dreadful father – wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t beat her on a regular basis – got away from him because of the war and fell in love with a Yank – he’s drowned, she has his son – I had to use forceps so it’s probably my doing that Egg was like he was – took up with Daniel Pardoe, who had been in love with her since he was nine or younger – had his three girls – lost him – buttered up Chippy Penberthy to let her keep the cottage and take on Egg as apprentice – bloody hell, Mather, she’s had to connive. Most women have to connive. It rhymes with survive. Think about it!’

  William was astonished that his question had provoked such an outburst and said, ‘I was not criticizing in any way. I admire the woman more than I can say.’

  ‘Sorry – sorry, Mather. I see so much . . . Good to have this meeting. I was glad to hear you married last Christmas. It would have been a double tragedy if poor Egg’s death had put the mockers on that. And a baby boy, eh? Christening last weekend? Well done, old man.’ He looked at the man sitting opposite him and was genuinely thankful that the girl hadn’t gone flying off the hook after what had happened. Even more thankful that this chap had helped out Lucy Pardoe so willingly. That dreadful delivery . . . Seventeen years ago . . . he must have been the same age as this solicitor chap then . . . No one could have done better, the bloody war was still on and there were no facilities near enough to organize a Caesarean. He said abruptly, ‘Look, let’s have another whisky and call it a day.’

  William nodded. Carthew was a good chap, unusually interesting too, but it had been a long drive and there was a great deal to do in the next two days.

  They moved on the last day of August and school started again on 3 September. Ellie had a new blazer and Barbara and Denny matching pinafore frocks; Lucy found it wonderful that they could all go to the school outfitters’ and buy them, not even ask the price. And even more wonderful that Ellie could stay in bed until eight o’clock, eat her breakfast, get herself ready and leave at twenty to nine with a tall, thin girl whose plaits hung like rats’ tails over each shoulder and down to what would be her waist if she had one. This was Gussie Trip, who thought Barbara and Denny were ‘cute enough to eat’ and said to them, ‘Say, when you get kinda used to going to school, how about if Ellie and me drop you off on our way?’ The girls turned to one another in a paroxysm of giggles at the nasal accent and Gussie Trip laughed with them and looked up at Lucy. ‘Mrs Pardoe, I reckon these two could be served at teatime with ice cream!’

  Lucy said, ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t get them too excited! Don’t want tears before school, let alone before bedtime!’

  But it was a good start to their new school. And a good start for Lucy too. Ellie had never mentioned that Gussie Trip was American. Lucy remembered that Egg had wanted to go there and find his father’s family. She lingered for some time at the gates of the school just in case one of the girls should come flying out again, and let her thoughts go wild. Daniel had loved what he called the ‘if game’ and often started long discussions with ‘If we could afford a share in the boat, there’d be an income for you if anything happened.’ And she had always put the lid on anything like that. She reminded him that they were not in debt and didn’t intend to be.
And nothing was going to happen. But he had never played the sort of if game she was playing now. ‘If Dr Carthew hadn’t told me to buy the cottage and if I hadn’t known that William Mather was just waiting to help us out in some way and if the Cornish Leisure Company hadn’t wanted my bit of ground so badly . . . we wouldn’t be here.’ And then, ‘If Egg hadn’t gone into that cruel sea . . . we wouldn’t be here.’ And even further back than that, ‘If Daniel hadn’t been and drowned, we wouldn’t be here.’ She shook her head and snapped out of it, something she had learned to do many years ago. If Daniel and Egg had been alive they would not have moved from Pardoe Cottage and that would have been that.

  She went back home and started on the cleaning yet again. The trouble with the city was dust. On the towans it had been sand. Sand was heavy and you swept it out, dust was light and flew everywhere and settled again and again. Lucy set to in the kitchen; if the kitchen was all right the rest would follow. And she was comfortable in the kitchen and could work and play a sort of if game. It wasn’t her way to fly with her imagination; it seemed wrong. You were dealt certain cards and you worked with them as best you could. It was a waste of time to pretend anything else could happen. But the cards now and then seemed to be pushing her in a certain direction and this was no exception. She had been gently pushed into this house in Truro which happened to be near to another house where the family were from America. And if Egg had wanted to go to America, perhaps she was meant to go for him.

  There was a frantic hammering on the door and she opened it hurriedly, knowing already that only family would come to the back door. Truro people used the front door and the big shiny knocker. Sure enough, Barbara was standing there, tears streaming down her face. ‘It’s playtime,’ she wailed, ‘and I can’t find Denny!’ And, as Lucy hugged her middle daughter, she thought grimly that this served her right. If you pushed fate too sharply, this was what happened.