The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  It was a storm in a teacup of course. The reception class was late for recess that morning because the children were busy ‘showing’ their drawings. When Denny got outside and could not find Barbara she started her wailing and one of the dinner ladies was dispatched to Steep Street and met Lucy and Barbara on their way back to the school. It gave them instant fame, which both rather enjoyed. Barbara wrote a story called ‘Disappearing Denny’ and Denny drew a picture which appeared to be completely irrelevant but which she also called ‘Disappearing Denny’. That first morning they found their niches. At the end of the week Lucy had to smile at fate, which had been on their side all the time. Nevertheless she took nothing for granted.

  The next day Gussie delivered a message from her mother. Would Mrs Pardoe like to coll for cawfee if she was free?

  ‘Coffee?’ Lucy asked. She had often paused mid-morning to make tea. Coffee was something people drank in boarding houses or hotels.

  ‘Please go, Mrs Pardoe.’ Gussie looked longer and thinner than yesterday. ‘Mom helps out at the museum and she’s got friends there but she does need someone special and when I told her about you and Egg and selling your cottage and everything, she said that you must be some woman. She needs someone like you, Mrs Pardoe. She is so homesick.’

  The last four words did it for Lucy. She knew that just waiting on the other side of her determined optimism was a homesickness that might make her literally retch into the shining lavatory pan in the shining bathroom.

  She smiled suddenly at Gussie, who was looking raw with sincerity. ‘That makes two of us,’ she said with an attempt at an American accent. The two girls smiled back at her and Barbara and Denny screamed with laughter. But when they had all gone, the two little ones overexcited at being taken by two students from the Laurels School for Girls, she let her determination weaken just for a moment and felt the emptiness in the three-storey house and the days stretching ahead when it would at last be clean and curtained and perhaps even carpeted and there would be no garden to tend.

  She went upstairs and made beds and tidied everything away, though there was no need for such excessive neatness with all the extra space. Then, at ten o’clock in the morning, she had a bath. It was the first time she had used the bathroom. The first time too she had given her body much attention. The flannel wash at the end of each day had been enough, there was so much to do to get straight before school started. And now it had.

  She lit the new gas oven in the kitchen and dried her hair in front of it, then pushed the still-damp lengths into exactly the same headband she had always used. She remembered one of the girls giving it to her in the hotel when she went there first. ‘’Tis only an old stocking but do grip the hair a treat.’ Nearly twenty years ago. Stockings then were made to last . . . She managed a grin into the mirror. She picked out the grey skirt and cardigan she had worn to Egg’s funeral. It was September after all and the leaves blowing down Steep Street were very autumnal. She told herself she was not sentimental but as she slid bare feet into the black shoes that had gone with the outfit, she felt something of Egg still with her. It gave her the courage to lock up properly – another thing she had to learn – and step into the street as if she had every right to be there.

  Gussie and her mother – and presumably her father too – lived at the very top of Steep Street and Lucy soon realized that the higher up the steep pavement she climbed, the wider became the views. She had to pause before she got there just to breathe properly and she hung on to a lamp post and stared out over the city. She could see the white hills of china clay and beyond them the blue shadow of Bodmin Moor. She had been over Bodmin on her way to Devon and before that had heard the tales of the wild men who worked in the clay pits and ravaged anything in skirts, and before that the tales of strange creatures who lived on the moor and seemed to come out only at night. She remembered going home after Bertie had died and her father saying sourly, ‘One o’ they men from the clay, was it? Told you, didn’t I?’ She remembered her reply too, with sheer incredulity. ‘It were war work, Dad.’

  That was what had infuriated him so. He had cuffed her across the room so hard she thought he might have upset her baby. Strangely, that too was the moment when she knew she wanted Bertie’s baby more than anything else in the world.

  She held on to the lamp post and lowered her head. And then a voice called, ‘Oh Mrs Pardoe! I sure am glad you’ve come.’ She looked up and saw someone long and thin and knew it was Gussie’s mother coming to meet her.

  In the end they were calling each other Lucy and Margaret and eating bread and cheese in the kitchen, which looked straight down the river towards Falmouth. Margaret made her own bread and it was delicious, the crusts crisp without being tough. Lucy broke off small pieces and topped them with a postage-stamp-sized sliver of cheese.

  ‘This is so . . . nice.’ She could not be quite as forthright as Margaret yet, but could feel herself unfolding inside. She went a step further. ‘I thought when you said lunch ’twould be side plates and soup bowls and a lot of cutlery.’ She grinned. ‘I worked at a hotel in the war. It was taken over by the American soldiers. We had to lay up the tables for breakfast and for dinner. That’s how it was.’

  ‘I told you I was a country girl. Michigan. We lived off the land and the lake.’ She looked through the window. ‘We were so happy – can’t tell you! We lived with the weather . . . sometimes in spite of the weather . . . We married, had kids . . .’ She looked up and grinned. ‘Say, have I told you all this just now?’

  ‘Not the same way. Not as if you was hankering for it. But Gussie said something.’ Lucy too stared through the window. ‘My home en’t so far off as yours, but I’m homesick too.’ She came back to her plate and broke off more bread. ‘I try not to think about it. But with the girls off to school each day, ’t en’t that easy.’ She looked up. ‘What about your ’usband – dun’t he come home each night?’

  ‘Oh yeah, sure. He talks about his work and I pretend I understand, but I didn’t go to college – nothing like that.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Listen to me! I was the one who said let’s go to England, it will be an adventure. He was the one who said I’d miss seeing my parents every weekend – we lived just outside Detroit – and I said if we’ve got each other we’ll always be OK. And of course we are! We really and truly are, Lucy! I’m an ungrateful so-and-so. Marvin is so very special. He’s clever. He’s a designer. He says that’s why he fell for me because my legs are of equal size.’

  Lucy stared, mouth slightly open, as Margaret swivelled on her chair and stuck out her legs, lifting her skirt at the same time.

  She said, ‘He says human legs are slightly longer from knee to ankle than knee to thigh and mine are equal.’

  Lucy looked at the legs. They reminded her of the herons that fished at low tide in Hayle estuary. ‘They are very long,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘They’re great for climbing trees. I can practically hook my right leg over the lowest branch and I’m up in a minute!’

  ‘I’m not too bad on rocks,’ Lucy said. ‘Bertie and me . . . we used to climb over the rocks and up the cliffs.’

  ‘Bertie . . . He was your husband?’

  ‘No.’ Lucy nibbled the inside of her cheek. ‘He was an American soldier. When I was working in Devon . . . we were good friends. And then he drowned.’ She cleared her throat. ‘My husband was called Daniel. He was a fisherman down Hayle way.’

  ‘Gussie said you were a widow.’ The other woman’s eyes were wide with apprehension. Lucy could almost see her working things out.

  ‘Daniel was drowned too.’ She paused, wondering whether to tell this new friend all about Egg, then remembering that Gussie had already told her mother a great deal. Maybe the whole story would be too much even for someone as understanding as Margaret Trip. She thought about the drownings; three of them. She said, ‘It’s strange, I miss the sea. It has been cruel. Yet I miss it.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I feel much safer here, though. And I think it suits
the girls.’

  Margaret said diffidently, ‘I think by the end of this winter you’re going to be settled. Perhaps I will be too. I hope so. We’ve been here almost a year and at first it was awful. I’ve tried to be interested in things – voluntary stuff, you know. But I stand out like a sore thumb. I don’t fit.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘I was dreading this winter, but not any more! Our two girls are friends, Lucy. Shall we try it too?’

  Lucy nodded vigorously and thought that no Cornish woman would ever come straight out with things like this, and certainly the Lucy Pardoe from Hayle towans would have been unable to accept such openness. But Bertie had been American too and Egg had loved all things American. She was suddenly convinced that Egg had arranged this whole thing.

  She was introduced to Gussie’s cat, who was much younger than Matthew and Mark, and left in time to walk down to the little school by Lemon Quay and pick up Barbara and Denny. Denny waved a drawing purporting to represent a vase of flowers, Barbara a bag containing ‘French knitting’.

  ‘It comes out the bottom like a long tail and you stitch it round and round and put a vase on it.’

  Denny clutched her sugar paper. ‘You cain’t ’ave my vase,’ she said.

  ‘Not a drawing, silly! A real vase. It’s like a little mat for a real vase to stand on.’

  Lucy said, ‘You can show your sister how it’s done when we get home. Let me button up your cardigans, this wind is cold. Coming from the north.’

  Her own words and the sight of Matthew and Mark on the old rug from Pardoe Cottage filled her with the nostalgia encouraged by Margaret Trip. She lit the fire and drew the kitchen table close to it, made tea and let Barbara pour it while she took over the French knitting. Ellie came in, Gussie behind her, but after exclaiming over what she called the still life Gussie said she must go.

  ‘Mom worries if I’m late.’ She smiled at Lucy. ‘I’m real glad you went round, Mrs Pardoe. Ellie and me – we just knew you would be good friends.’

  ‘The long and the short of it.’ Ellie looked mischievously at her friend and then her mother. And was relieved when they both laughed.

  They made toast and plastered it with butter and jam. There was heavy cake left in the tin. And more tea. Matthew and Mark were given saucers of milk. Ellie got out her homework and Lucy took the younger girls to the bathroom and then to bed. She felt gratitude flowing through her bloodstream, warming her. Life changed, often tragically, but underneath it all was this domestic routine. Cleaning and cooking were ways of caring and loving. Something she could do with her hands, something she had always done and – please God – would always do. She went down to Ellie and spent an hour threading the wool over the pins of Barbara’s French knitting and listening to Ellie reciting her Shakespeare text. She too knew a bank whereon the wild thyme had grown seventeen years ago. And another on which the thrift had blown on the towans . . . Ellie said, ‘I’ll go up now, Mummy. Will you come and say good night?’

  ‘I will, my flower.’ She lifted her head from the wooden bobbin. ‘We’ve done the right thing, Ellie. Haven’t we?’

  ‘We’ve done as Egg directed.’ Ellie spoke the words gravely. She really did believe that their actions were governed now by her brother. And Lucy nodded.

  She riddled the ash from the fire and was about to fasten the guard when a tap came on the front door. She went to it gladly; it must be Margaret because anyone who did not know there were children in bed would have used the knocker.

  It was not Margaret. In the wavering light from the street lamp, she made out the figure of a man and began immediately to close the door on him. She had not given anyone her exact address in Truro but Chippy Penberthy was crafty enough to have found out from the postmistress at Hayle and she had been almost waiting for this.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Pardoe.’ The man lifted his head. He looked grey and drawn. He was nothing like old Chippy, but he was familiar. ‘You won’t remember me. I was staying at the boarding house – Blue Seas – just for a week in August 1960. My name is Harry Membury.’

  She remembered; a rush of memory that made her gasp. His outstretched hand – she had not taken it but Ellie had.

  She whispered, ‘You came with Josh Warne. To tell me. You helped to carry the coffin. You and Mr Mather . . .’ She cleared her throat and spoke in the harsh voice he probably remembered. ‘What news have you brought me this time?’

  He was silent, staring at her. She had her grey skirt and cardigan beneath a short pinafore. She relaxed her grip on the door. She knew her girls were safe upstairs. Could anything have happened to William Mather? He was a good man; she would grieve for him and for his silly wife and the child too, but her girls were safe.

  Harry Membury said at last, ‘News? I suppose my news is that I have left my wife and children.’

  She was focused now, staring back at him, noticing his thin coat, no hat or scarf. It was cold; the north wind had continued to blow all evening and cut like a knife down the length of Steep Street. He looked ill. Desperately ill.

  She said, ‘Why have you come here?’

  He began to turn away. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’ He stopped, his face now in profile. ‘I have never been able to forget you and the children and your son, Egg. You have come between me and everything else. I just wanted to see you again.’ He turned his back and added, ‘I am sorry, I shouldn’t have turned up like this. I am glad you are well and . . . comfortable.’

  He began to walk down towards the river. He was shambling. She said, ‘Wait!’ but he went on. So she grabbed her coat from the row of hooks behind the door and ran after him.

  She took his arm to stay him.

  ‘Come and sit by the fire and have a cup of tea.’

  He stayed very still, her hand on his coat sleeve. Then he said, ‘I had better not.’

  And she said, ‘For the sake of Egg.’

  After another pause, he turned and began to walk back with her.

  Nine

  THAT NIGHT HE slept downstairs. There was a spare room right at the top of the tall old house but when she got him into the brightness of the living room she saw that he would not be able to climb all the stairs. And she suspected the room and its bed might be damp.

  She sat him in the chair she had just vacated and propped him with cushions while she heated milk. He could hold the beaker but she steadied its shaking from beneath. He had been in the north wind for too long. Where had he come from? Had he left his family today? Or last week? Was he seriously ill?

  He put his chin on his thin coat for a moment, then lifted his head and managed to smile. He thanked her and kept on thanking her as he started to lever himself up. She put out a hand to stop him but already he had collapsed into the cushions again.

  She said, ‘Don’t thank me any more and don’t tell me you are a nuisance – I will decide that.’ She lifted the cats, blanket and all, put them on the floor and pulled and tugged the sofa to a forty-five-degree angle with the fire. She filled the old stone hot-water bottles – used as door stops since they moved – and wrapped them carefully in the pillowcases from the airing rack, crept upstairs and fetched pillows and blankets. He seemed to be asleep already and she hovered, uncertain whether to leave him where he was. Then he groaned and shifted and she took his arm and urged him up. He shuffled where she directed him, turned obediently, sat again. She looked at his feet; he was wearing sandals, no socks. She made clicking noises of exasperation and removed the ridiculous sandals, snatched the cat blanket from beneath Matthew and Mark and towelled the blue, swollen feet vigorously. The cats at last realized something interesting was happening; they began their exploratory sniffing and he breathed a small laugh that was close a sob. ‘Oh Lucy . . . I swam this morning . . .’

  ‘More fool you!’ Matthew started to purr loudly; he was a fastidious animal and would not let Denny touch him when she was grubby. Lucy grinned up into the ravaged face. ‘Anyway you’ve passed the test. You’re clean!’

  She lifte
d his feet on to one of the hot-water bottles and he lay down gratefully. She gave him the other bottle and covered him over. She went back into the kitchen and put bread and cheese on to a plate, poured more milk and took it in. He was already asleep. She put the food on the floor and stood looking at his face. What had he said . . . that Egg had come between him and everything else? Something like that. She had met him once and had not taken his hand . . . yet he had felt as she had felt; that without Egg nothing would ever be the same. Egg’s death – the way of his death – had changed so many lives. Egg, in life and in death, had changed everything.

  She put the guard round the fire and fastened the hooks securely. She resettled the cats in front of it and went back into the kitchen to tidy it for the night. Her last job was to take the enamelled pail from the back closet and put it discreetly within reach of this strange and unhappy man. It was then ten o’clock and she’d had enough.

  She went to bed. And she dreamed that Egg was alive and with them again. Ellie and Barbara and Denny and Egg danced in a ring. And she watched them. And with her were the others . . . Bertie McKinley and Daniel Pardoe. Josh Warne and that young vicar, Matthew Hobson. William Mather and Harry Membury. Even silly Connie Vickers who Egg had loved . . . And when she woke that was what she remembered, that Egg had loved Connie Vickers. And was now dead.

  The girls were agog. They crammed into the bathroom flipping face cloths madly, asking questions, answering each other impatiently, coming at last to the inevitable conclusion.

  ‘He’s run away. Hasn’t he, Mummy? He’s run away from Rosalie and Lily.’ It was Barbara who spoke for all three of them. Ellie glanced at her mother. She knew that sometimes – not often – the thought had crossed both their minds that Egg had gone voluntarily into the sea. Was that the same as running away?

  She said, ‘They were naughty but not that bad.’

  Lucy said, ‘I don’t know what has happened. All I can say is he was cold and tired and he fell asleep on the sofa.’ She dried Denny’s hands and smiled reassuringly. ‘Matthew purred for him, so I knew he was all right.’ She hung towels over the shiny chrome rail. ‘Now jump into your clothes and come on down for breakfast. I’m doing eggie bread and there’s a big pot of tea and your French knitting has grown in the night, Barbara!’