The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  ‘Can we go and see him, Mummy? An’ can I have my red hair ribbon this morning? And the grey socks tickle behind my knee so can I have ankle socks?’

  Lucy said yes without thinking and went on downstairs. She had looked at Harry Membury earlier when she let the cats out. As far as she could tell he had not moved a muscle except to breathe. She checked on that again. A virtual stranger in the house, even though he was male and down and out, was one thing. A dead man was quite another. She closed the door gently and went on down the hall to the kitchen. She poured herself a second cup of tea and put dripping in the pan and turned the four thick slices of bread over in the beaten egg and milk. The cats scratched at the back door and she let them in. They took two of the chairs and closed their eyes, smiling ecstatically at the scent of tea and beef dripping. She smoothed Mark’s whiskers and asked the usual question. ‘Any sign of town mice?’ There had always been field mice on the towans and she could bear them because they had as much right to the gleanings from the scrub as any human. But she had a horror of house mice. Town mice who lived in the crowded houses and ate human food. Mark opened his eyes and looked at her and she nodded, well satisfied.

  ‘Now.’ She sat with her tea. ‘What are we to do with our lodger?’ She waited and then said, ‘I’ll talk it over with Margaret. Cain’t turn ’im out, can we, my lovelies. Looks like ’e’s part of it all whether we like it or not. But once ’e’s on ’is feet, ’e cain’t stay with us.’ She slid into what the girls called ‘towans talk’ just as they all did when speaking to each other.

  Denny crept in with exaggerated care. Lucy noted she was wearing long grey socks and a navy blue hair ribbon. Ellie had a way with her.

  The girls stood in a row and surveyed the sleeping man, then they all assembled in the kitchen and Ellie asked tremulously, ‘Is he going to die, Mum?’

  ‘Not just yet.’ Lucy grinned as she put the first slice of bread into the dripping. ‘And when he does I hope it’s not in our house!’

  Ellie smiled back unwillingly. She remembered taking Mr Membury’s hand and her mother snatching her away. Had he been asking for help then? Had he come to find them so that he could ask again? She shivered slightly and her mother told her to button her cardigan.

  When Gussie did her code knock on the back door, three short, three long and three short again – Save Our Souls – she flung it open and almost pulled her friend inside. Everyone talked at once, explaining about Mr Membury. Barbara said he must be all right because the cats liked him. Denny said with relish that he might die. And Ellie said, ‘He’s come for our help, Gus. Looked for us and found us.’ Lucy waited for quiet then said, ‘You’ve got plenty of time – would you like a slice of eggie bread, my flower?’ And Gussie sat down.

  He woke two hours later. The house was quiet at last. When the girls left whisperingly, Lucy cleared up the breakfast things, fed the cats and made the beds. Then she crept in with dustpan and brush and swept out the ashes from the grate and lit the fire. This entailed a great deal of scraping but he did not so much as stir and she began to wonder whether she should send for the doctor. The trouble was she had not registered with anyone in Truro as yet. She knelt on the floor and stared at the flames climbing cautiously among the kindling towards the carefully placed coals and bit her lip. She’d been busy day in and day out but there were enormous gaps still to fill. She had intended to write to Dr Carthew and ask about the doctors in Truro. And the dentists. But the girls were never ill and anyway Dr Carthew used to look them over when he brought the tablets for Egg. She would miss Dr Carthew.

  She pushed her legs round and sat more comfortably, still clutching the dustpan full of cinders. She remembered the first time she had seen him. Getting on for twenty years ago. In her father’s house on Connor Downs. He must have been mid-thirties then; a good-looking man, not unlike William Mather. She had been in labour for nearly three days and her father had stayed in the pub all his waking hours and ignored her when he came home to sleep. But he must have sent for the doctor on the third day because Dr Carthew was suddenly there, holding her hands and telling her to hang on just a while longer while he went for an ambulance. And then he said, ‘All right, my girl. I think we’re there. No need to fret.’ And he had gone to his bag and got the forceps and put them in the saucepan while he washed his hands. And then . . . and then . . .

  She had told no one how terrified she had been when Ellie was on the way. Daniel was so pleased, so happy, and she could not blight such happiness. But Dr Carthew had known. He had said, ‘It’s not going to happen again, you know, Lucy. I’m going to be there when your waters break and if there’s the slightest trouble, you’ll have a Caesarean.’

  There hadn’t been the slightest trouble. Nor with Barbara. Nor with Denny. She and Dr Carthew had exchanged triumphant grins and he had said, ‘Here’s to the next one!’ And she had blushed and Daniel had roared with laughter.

  She needed Dr Carthew now.

  Harry Membury’s voice, still weak but audible, said behind her, ‘I think I might have a penny for your thoughts, Lucy Pardoe.’

  She turned, almost spilling the cinders. He did not move but his eyes were open and he was smiling at her. She scrabbled on to her knees and puffed with exasperation. ‘You’ve ’ad us worried, Mr Membury, and no mistake! And you must be about to burst because there en’t nothing in the bucket and you bin asleep ten hours, I reckon!’ She stood up. ‘D’you want my arm to the back privy?’

  He shook his head and pushed at the blankets. She led the way down the hall and pointed to the ‘downstairs cloakroom’ as the house agent had called it. ‘I keeps the brooms in there so mind they don’t fall on you. There’s a washing sink in there too.’ And she continued into the kitchen and the backyard, where she emptied the dustpan. The cats followed her and sprang on to the wall, then up again on to the washhouse roof, then the bedroom window ledge and finally the roof. They sat on the ridge and looked out to sea. She wondered whether they missed it and then stopped her thoughts sharply. She was doing too much of that since this man arrived. Dr Carthew and all the lot of them. Everything still led directly to Egg. And she refused to let that maverick thought come into her head again. As if Egg could fall in love with a girl from Birmingham . . . a foreigner . . . He was sixteen and she was . . . whatever she was! And he had met her only the day before. It was ridiculous. She banged down the lid of the dustbin with sudden anger. What on earth was she thinking about! She went indoors and found Harry Membury sitting at the kitchen table, looking around him as if he had landed on the moon.

  ‘It’s different. I didn’t expect you to live in a place like this.’ He spoke slowly and wonderingly.

  She said drily, ‘I din’t expect it myself but we are and settling in all right. Girls like their schools. They’re good girls.’

  He nodded. She said, ‘I’m going to make a pot of tea. Will you have a cup? And some food too.’

  ‘There was bread and cheese by the sofa.’ He smiled at her. He had a thin, oversensitive face; grey eyes, very flat ears. He said, ‘I got a lift in a lorry. Avis said if I left I must leave everything. The car, the house, my clothes, everything. So I went to a garage on the A38 and I got a lift in a lorry. I walked from Redruth to the towans. There were diggers in the dunes. Your cottage had gone. No sign of it at all. I thought I would go mad then. I thought you were all dead. I went to the Penbeagle Arms and hung about outside. I had no money. The landlady brought me a sandwich. I told her I was looking for the Pardoe family and she said you lived in Truro now.’ He smiled. ‘That was the happiest moment of my life, Lucy.’

  She put the teapot on the table and sat down with a bump. ‘You must be mad. They’re your family. Those girls, they need you. Don’t try to put the blame for this on my son, Mr Membury. He would never . . .’ Her voice petered out.

  He said quietly, ‘He did leave you. He left you for Connie Vickers. You knew that and still you survived. Still you drew the rest of them around you and tricked the owner
of your cottage into selling it and then you bargained with those developers until you got the price you wanted and you came here to this big place.’

  She recoiled. She had been sorry for him, willing to like him for his gentleness and kindness then angry with him for what she saw as weakness. She was unprepared for such retaliation.

  ‘I’m repeating to you what I heard in that pub.’

  ‘From Chippy Penberthy, I’ll be bound!’ she cried.

  ‘And from Joshua Warne. Different slant but same story.’

  ‘Dr Carthew told me to buy the cottage at any price and he would put up the money. And I didn’t need him to help me because I knew William Mather would do it and act for me as well. So I did it. The chance came and I took it.’

  ‘You did the right thing.’

  ‘I did!’ She stared at him defiantly. ‘I did the right thing!’

  ‘So did I. I couldn’t think of anyone except you and those girls. Standing there, defying everything, even death. I loved you then, Lucy. I love you more now. You are the most wonderful woman I have ever known. I want to be with you for ever. Will you marry me – let me look after you and the girls – help me to get a job in this little city and come home every night and listen to you talking together? Getting on with things, getting on with life, savouring every last little thing together.’ He saw the horror on her face and ploughed on desperately. ‘I know how it looks. But I thought you were still living on the towans, growing your food, living on the land and the sea . . . I thought I could help you, summer work for money and winter work about the house and land.’ He looked around the kitchen again. ‘I did not expect . . . this. And Penberthy says you’ve got money in the bank and need never work again. But I could still get a job, Lucy. I could not live off your money. I could still help out in so many ways. If you would let me.’

  She did not deign to listen properly. She was so angry she almost threw the teapot at him. He thought she was clever, someone who could plot and plan and make things work for them. He had heard the stories and built the female Pardoes into something they were not. She stood up abruptly.

  ‘I thought as ’ow you were ill in the body and you are ill in the head. Please go. Pour yourself a cup of tea – I’ll fetch that bread and cheese and you can eat that. Then go and don’t come back. How dare you talk of family love when you have repudiated yours! Hurry back for the good Lord’s sake before you lose them for ever.’

  She went into the living room. The food had dried and shrivelled by the fire and it was possible the cats might have nibbled a corner from the cheese. She built up the fire and put the guard back and took the plate into the kitchen.

  ‘I am going to see my neighbour now. Probably she will come back with me when I tell her what has happened. I don’t want to see you here.’

  He was looking stricken. He started to plead. He apologized. Had he got the wrong end of the stick? She was such a wonderful woman, did she not understand that she was also very beautiful? She was an earth mother. How could he not love her? And how could he stop loving her? She was condemning him to a life of misery. She shut the door after her with a click. Remembered to pick up her keys. And she walked up the hill to Margaret’s house and arrived in tears.

  Margaret had some difficulty in fitting together the complicated jigsaw of Lucy’s life from her garbled references that morning, the more straightforward outline she had picked up the day before and the even sparser information given to her by Gussie. At the end of it all she was still not sure who Connie Vickers was. ‘So this Membury guy . . . he is married to Connie now, yeah?’

  Lucy said, ‘No, they were staying at the same boarding house. Egg was working nearby at the cove and he met Connie and he sort of fell for her. He was only sixteen, Margaret – he would have got over it. Mr Membury helped to look for Egg and then came to tell us . . . He’s married with two little girls and they came to the library in Hayle when Ellie was reading stories there . . .’ She blew her nose fiercely. ‘Now he’s left his wife and the girls and he’s down in my house wanting to marry me!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Margaret had known that her new friend had been through a terrible time but this was different. This was high drama of a kind that she had thought did not exist in England. She said cautiously, ‘Isn’t that a kind of compliment, honey?’

  ‘He thinks I’ve got money in the bank – well, I have but it belongs to my Daniel because it was his cottage really. And . . . oh Margaret, they are saying things about me back home . . . I didn’t plan any of it, not really. Chippy Penberthy tried to suck up to me lots of times and I might have . . . you know . . . sort of used that to – to lead him on so that he would agree to me buying the cottage . . . Oh Margaret, I think he must be saying I slept with him or something.’

  ‘I don’t think so, honey. Otherwise this Membury guy probably would not bother with getting married.’ She poured more coffee. ‘Listen, Lucy. Sounds to me as if you had a lot of respect from men all your life. This Bertie . . . he was the father of your son, I guess. He loved you a lot, am I right?’ She nodded as Lucy nodded. ‘Then Daniel . . . you can’t deny he loved you too.’ She nodded again in time with Lucy’s sob. ‘And this William Mather you keep mentioning. And your doctor? And Josh Warne, the man who worked with your Daniel? Seems to me you had a lot of respect from a lot of good men. And even this Membury – he came to help you, honey. He didn’t know you had sold your cottage. He thought you were still trying to manage on ten shillings a week widow’s pension and a few lettuce leaves!’ She laughed and, tearfully, Lucy laughed with her.

  ‘But I cain’t have him in the house – not after he asked me to – to marry him! Oh my God, Margaret! As if I could marry someone who looks like an undertaker! He does – truly he does! So thin and humble and his ears look as if they have been squashed into his head with wearing an undertaker’s hat!’

  They both laughed hysterically, clutching their sides. Margaret spluttered, ‘They’re wonderful people, Lucy. Better than doctors sometimes.’

  ‘I know, I know. Mr Strange was really helpful.’

  Margaret doubled over. ‘Strange? What a name! Was he strange?’

  ‘But seriously, Margaret. What can I do? I mean, I cain’t turn him out. He’s not well and he’s miles from home . . . I don’t even know where his home is!’

  Margaret said, ‘I’ll come back with you. We’ll talk to him together. And when the girls come home from school perhaps we could eat together? Then I can ask Gussie’s advice.’

  ‘Gussie?’

  ‘She’s got a thing about people. She sums them up. She’s always right. She’ll know what to do about your Harry Membury.’

  ‘He’s not mine, Margaret! And I don’t want him.’

  ‘OK, OK. Let’s go out.’ She raked her fingers through her hair. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat. Pick up your two from school and go back to your place and see what’s what.’ She slid her arms into a long coat that only just covered her knees and thought of something else. ‘Hey – he won’t hurt your cats, will he? Or smash the place up or something?’

  ‘No – no. Not a bit. He’s gentle and kind. He was the first person to offer support. He held out his hand.’ She looked up at her tall friend, eyes swimming again. ‘I didn’t take it. But Ellie did.’

  ‘Come on. First stop is the Apple Turnover. Why do they call it that, d’you think, Luce? I don’t get it.’

  Lucy tried to explain while Margaret locked up. She had to run to keep up with those long thin legs, but at least it stopped her going over and over this silly but distressing incident. They sat in the little cake shop-cum-patisserie and shared a large pasty and listened to the couple on the next table, who were discussing the merits of the various hairdressers in Truro. ‘That’s something we could do,’ Margaret said in a low voice when the pasty was finished. ‘We could go Mary Quant together.’ Then she had to explain who Mary Quant was and why Lucy just had to get a television. ‘I can’t imagine how you have managed without one. Sure
ly the girls want to know what everyone is talking about in school?’

  ‘They might do now. No one had a television back home. In Hayle I mean.’

  ‘They use television at the Laurels. It’s a kinda teaching aid these days. Listen, I’ll get Marvin to fix you up with one and show you how it works.’

  They went on talking for a while about anything and everything. Lucy thought how good it was to have a friend and knew that Margaret felt the same. When it was almost time to collect the girls, someone came into the shop and greeted Margaret. It was someone from the museum. Margaret introduced her as Jennifer. She shook hands with Lucy and explained that Tuesdays were her days for the cathedral. ‘I need to be useful.’

  Margaret gave Lucy further explanations when they walked back to the school.

  ‘She looks after her pa. He has talked himself into being an invalid. She has to get away from him now and then and she is in love with the choirmaster at the cathedral. So it’s a double blessing. Old Mr Gardner – her pa – was the curator at the museum and got her the job there. And he can’t very well object to her helping out in the cathedral.’ She smiled. ‘Jennifer told me once he said she can’t go wrong with men who wear dresses to work!’

  They came to the school gates and waited until one of the ten-year-old boys came into the playground and rang the bell self-importantly. And as if at a signal, Lucy thought of Matthew Hobson, who had certainly worn a dress at Egg’s funeral but out of church preferred canvas trousers and a fisherman’s smock.

  She received the full brunt of Denny’s small body as it hurtled across the playground and through the gate, and took Barbara’s hand as she skipped more sedately out of the cloakroom. They swung the girls between them up the hill and it wasn’t until they reached the front door that Barbara remembered their visitor.