The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  Rosemary, who had been instantly hooked, sat up straight. ‘For goodness’ sake, Connie! A street full of boarding houses? It could be anywhere! And if he was wearing clothes like that, it happened in the 1940s so it could have been a sort of transferred memory. Coming from Arnie I wouldn’t be surprised! He probably chased Maurice down and offered him a black eye. Perhaps it was him – Arnie – who forced Maurice to propose to Greta!’

  Connie looked slightly crestfallen. ‘It could have been the forties. But, Mum, I have to try. Simply because the last thing I noticed in the dream was that onion dome thing – d’you remember when we went with Grandma that time? The Pavilion – I’ve never forgotten it because it made England look like the Arabian Nights!’

  ‘That was your fifth birthday treat.’ Rosemary smiled tightly to stop herself from crying again. She did not mention that it was 1943 when they went to Brighton.

  William came in with the tray. Connie got up and took it from him. She said, ‘I’m just going to ring Greta while my drink cools. We all wish her well for tomorrow’s rehearsal, don’t we?’

  The other two nodded. Rosemary noticed she had tucked the single sheet of paper inside the notepad and the phone was in the hall by the kitchen so William would not hear what was said.

  Twelve

  NINETEEN SIXTY-TWO SAW the first of the Flower People arriving in Cornwall.

  At first they were mistaken for the itinerant workers who came soon after every Christmas to pick the early daffodils or pack them for Covent Garden. There were new potatoes and cauliflowers afterwards, spring cabbage, primroses, tiny clusters of violets. Cornish harvests were early, everyone knew that.

  It soon became obvious that these Flower People were nothing to do with work. Their clothing was completely different and entirely unsuitable and when they got into the sea, which was often because they thought of it as a daily baptism, they did not bother with swimsuits. As Josh Warne said to the Reverend Hobson in the Penbeagle Arms, ‘You’re pretty free and easy – for a vicar – and you ain’t ’ad no complaints from anyone down ’ere. But this lot, they ain’t got no shame.’ He was still hot and bothered after an encounter with a group down at the cove, one of whom was very pregnant indeed.

  Josh had never felt the same about the cove since Egg Pardoe had been drowned there almost two years ago and as the four naked girls and half a dozen boys – some of them no older than Egg – had waded into the still water he had tried to tell them about the single surging wave that had happened out of the blue just two years ago. The sun was setting and the water was blood red. The girls had been scattering azalea blossoms around their pregnant companion. They had other flowers wound into their long, salt-stiff hair and they peered through them as they turned to look at Josh capering about on the beach. They did not hear his words; their smiles were beatific. They made a circle around the girl, held hands, floated on their backs, toes towards her. She held as many toes as she could and floated too. They wailed some song or other then they stood again and two girls towed in the pregnant one, righted her and kissed her. Everyone kissed everyone else. Josh almost ran up the steep cliff path, his neck as red as the drowning sun.

  ‘’Twere clear as day they bin picking them mushrooms again up by Zennor ’ead. Never mind flowers, it’s them they’re after.’ He looked over his personal pint mug, which depicted George V and Queen Mary at their coronation. ‘Cain’t you ’ave a word with them, reverend? Them mushrooms can get mixed up with others and kill you in two or three weeks. And the way they’re going on – the water cain’t be doing that mother and baby much good.’

  ‘Strangely enough, Josh, I was reading an article in a medical journal just the other day. Babies are actually being delivered in water. It’s something to do with the buoyancy.’

  ‘Oh ah.’ Everyone knew the reverend was a bit modern but was he making things up now? Josh said pacifically, ‘The cold do get things moving, do it?’

  ‘I have to admit, warm water is recommended.’ Matthew laughed. ‘They’re not going to get that in the Atlantic, are they? But as a ritual it sounds rather significant, Josh. As if they were making a giant lifebelt around the girl, supporting her, holding her up as it were.’

  ‘Never thought of it like that. ’Ere’s the doctor. What’s he got to say about it, I wonder?’

  John Carthew brought his whisky and water over to them and grinned. ‘I know what you’re talking about! Josh, you’re as red as a turkey-cock. Either Chippy’s been trying to drip poison into your ear again or you’ve witnessed our daily dose of nudity.’

  Josh told him what was ‘goin’ on down the cove’ and Matthew added his piece about water-birthing.

  Carthew savoured two drops of whisky on his tongue then said, ‘I’ve got no objection to the girl floating in calm water – the weather is perfect. And the idea of the lifebelt . . . very romantic. Very romantic indeed. I hope they don’t try to deliver that baby down in the cove, however. It could be very dangerous.’

  Matthew turned down his mouth. ‘Hadn’t thought of that. Just a few of them turn up in church now and then. I’d better angle something into my sermons.’

  ‘Try telling them too that their nudity does give offence to some of us down here. They will simply laugh, I know that. But perhaps if they kept their swimming until sunset and in the cove – most of the families have gone in for dinner by then.’

  Matthew shook his head. ‘I can see their point actually. Where’s the shame in the human body and so forth. I’m leaving out that particular issue.’

  ‘All right. But you’re almost a local man now, Matt, and you know they are risking a lot with these damned fungi they’re eating. I’ve treated two of them for jellyfish stings and mosquito bites and I’ve told them in no uncertain terms what I think about experimenting with the human body. We’re vulnerable. We’re bloody vulnerable.’

  Matthew nodded. ‘Yes, I can certainly preach about the sanctity of the body. I think they will be receptive to that.’

  Chippy Penberthy sidled over to them and said conspiratorially, ‘Your mental case is down on the towans, reverend. Not a stitch on ’im. Flowers in his ears and nose. Ready for the asylum, I do reckon.’

  Matthew said, ‘He is not a mental case, Chippy. As you well know. And he is not mine either. He is a lodger in the rectory – he is working on a farm up Gwithian way so I hardly see him. But he walks to and from work along the dunes. I expect your . . . informant . . . has seen him on his way to and from work.’

  ‘Seen ’im meself.’ Chippy was cock-a-hoop with news. ‘Got a contract with the holiday camp to supply winda frames for them shallies they’re putting up. Went to sign up at their site office . . . an’ there ’e were. Dancing about like ’e were in a different world. Naked as the day he were born. And flowers everywhere.’ He smirked and withdrew to tell others that in spite of Lucy Pardoe he was going to be . . . not rich zackly . . . not rich like ’er o’course – but comfortable, very comfortable indeed.

  Matthew said, ‘Oh dear. Poor Harry. One of the more vulnerable among us, I’m afraid.’ He drew down his mouth. ‘He’s been lodging in the rectory since Christmas, behaving like a careful visitor. It was hard work until he got this job at Gwithian.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ The doctor moved his glass along the bar and held up a hand to the landlady, then turned back, frowning. ‘Which farm might that be, Matthew? West of Connor Downs, is it?’

  Matthew nodded. ‘Roach’s. He had the offer of cowman on the Godolphin Estate – better pay and a cottage thrown in. But he was set on Roach’s farm. It’s mixed, sheep and cattle and two fields of potatoes. Terribly run-down. I think old Roach is past it. Harry needs to be needed. Like most of us, I suppose.’

  Carthew looked at Josh Warne, who looked back at him. Josh said slowly, ‘’E must a died long ago. She never mentioned ’im.’

  Carthew said, ‘He’s not dead. I had to get him a bed in Hayle hospital not long ago.’

  Josh turned his attention to the rector.
‘Does she know where he is working?’

  Matthew was bewildered. ‘What are you two talking about? Does who know where Harry is working?’

  ‘Mrs Pardoe,’ Josh said impatiently. ‘Does Mrs Pardoe know where Harry Membury is working?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. She hasn’t been back to the towans since she left last September. And I gathered from that American woman who brought Harry over to me just before Christmas that she did not want to see him again.’ He sighed sharply. ‘I’m not sure whether I should tell you this but Harry is wildly, crazily in love with Lucy Pardoe. Ever since that awful time – the year I arrived here – when Lucy lost her only son. That was when Harry first met her. And he hasn’t been able to function properly since.’

  ‘Is he functioning properly now?’ the doctor asked. ‘Since he got the job at Roach’s farm . . . is he better?’

  Matthew frowned, thinking about it. ‘I suppose . . . he might be. He often brings home vegetables from the garden round the farmhouse. Chops ’em up and fries them. We have them for supper. He’s a vegetarian, you know.’

  Carthew looked again at Josh and said heavily, ‘He must know then.’ And Josh nodded.

  ‘Know what?’

  They both looked at the rector, who was still so young, almost naive.

  ‘Old man Roach—’

  ‘Zeke,’ supplied Josh.

  ‘Short for Ezekiel. Probably shortened his wife’s life by beating her every Saturday night. Wanted to continue the custom with his daughter . . .’ Carthew remembered the bruised body, welts across the swollen abdomen . . . No wonder that girl had had such a dreadful labour.

  Josh said flatly, ‘He’s Lucy Pardoe’s faither.’

  Matthew forgot himself and called on his heavenly father. ‘Oh my God.’

  Carthew nodded and said slowly, ‘If Harry starts confiding in him about his feelings for Lucy, Zeke Roach will kill him.’

  There was a long silence. Carthew reached for his replenished glass and sipped at it. Josh stared into his empty mug. Matthew finished his Guinness and put his glass on the bar.

  ‘I can’t see how to get round this,’ he said at last. ‘There’s no way Harry is going to leave that job. He’s got his own plan – agenda, whatever. I don’t want to upset that.’

  Carthew said, ‘I wonder whether Chippy is exaggerating about the Flower Power thing. It sounds as if Harry might be a convert, doesn’t it? He might throw in his lot with them.’

  Josh shook his head. ‘It do all depend on what he knows about Roach and about Lucy. Or even if he knows anything at all.’ He nodded at the rector. ‘Up to you, reverend. Find out what you can.’

  They talked around it. There was another whisky and another Guinness. Josh watched them making everything more complicated and said his good nights. Then he made for the dunes and once there he lay on his stomach and watched as the dancing died down and someone started playing something on a guitar. Someone else started to sing ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone?’.

  It was Harry Membury.

  Josh began to scramble down the long slide of sand to the beach. He was welcomed by everyone, especially Harry.

  ‘I’ve come to walk you back home, m’boy,’ Josh said, taking Harry’s arm. At least he had his clothes back on.

  ‘Stay here with us, Josh. Sleep under the stars . . .’

  ‘Not tonight, boy. Here, let me button your jacket. ’Tis getting colder as the sun goes into the sea.’

  Harry turned to the others, tears in his eyes. ‘It was almost two years ago,’ he said, ‘and he was drowned. And everything changed. Because he was drowned.’

  They looked up at him. Josh tugged on his arm. They began the climb up the dune and when they reached the top, Harry had stopped crying and looked down on the young people with love and fear. ‘They don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘And neither do you, m’boy. You must not eat those mushrooms any more.’

  Harry looked surprised. ‘Fungi are good. A source of protein for people who don’t eat meat. Matthew and I, we’ve been eating some most evenings.’

  Josh looked at him and started to laugh.

  Christmas 1961, the first Christmas in Truro, was hard for Lucy. The Trips spent two weeks back home, staying for one week with Marvin’s parents in Detroit and the second on the farm. Already Lucy was carried away by Margaret and she missed her dreadfully. The American woman with her gangling limbs and her foreign accent and her complete openness towards other people was exactly what Lucy Pardoe from the towans needed. Margaret used the verb ‘to fix’ quite often and Lucy was reminded of Bertie McKinley. On their first date – which he had fixed when she served him coffee in the old sitting room of the Grange Hotel by saying, ‘Hey, how you doing? You’re off duty in an hour, how about a walk along the beach? Gonna be some sunset!’ – she had said stupidly, ‘I was born by the sea and I’ve only ever got my feet wet in it.’ And he had said, ‘Honey, we’ll fix that here and now.’ And though she had screamed protests she had still let him drag her into the slappy little waves, fully clothed. They had laughed. How they had laughed. War or no war, they had always been able to share laughter.

  Margaret brought the same excitement to life. The new phone, sitting in its cradle in the hall, was in constant use. The television was only switched off each evening after the National Anthem had played sonorously to its end.

  But first had come the swimming. Straight after Margaret had taken Harry Membury to stay with the Reverend Hobson back on the towans, she gave Lucy one of her ‘penny lectures’.

  ‘He’s brought it all back to you, hasn’t he, honey? OK, so we can’t fix the cause. If only we could. But we can fix some things. We’re going to get you to swim, Luce. Don’t look like that. There’s an indoor pool at the club, warm water, changing cubicles, everything just so. Nobody ever uses it in case it musses their make-up or hairdo, so we can have it to ourselves. And I will teach you to swim. And when you can swim, you will stop being frightened of the sea. I’ve gotten you a swimsuit for Christmas, bit previous but who cares. We’ll start today.’ She let Lucy have ten seconds of protest then she said, ‘The car’s parked outside. The club supplies towels. You look more than good enough – you come as my guest anyway.’

  Lucy was so grateful for Margaret’s help with Harry Membury that she surrendered herself to the smell of chlorine, the unnatural blue of the water, the peculiar floats that Margaret rootled out from a nearby cupboard – in fact, everything that Margaret fixed during those first two weeks of December.

  When the schools closed for Christmas there was a family day at the club and Margaret and Gussie took the Pardoes with them and they all played in the pool and then ate an enormous lunch in the restaurant.

  Barbara said dramatically, ‘I will never forget this day.’

  Denny said, ‘I wish we could have brought Mark and Matthew with us.’

  Ellie said, ‘We’ll miss you. But it’s lovely for you to go home for Christmas.’

  Gussie said, ‘When we start school again, Dad and Mom and me will have been in England a whole year. I’ll always remember how you talked to me that first day, Ellie. You told me your brother had been half American . . . d’you remember?’

  Ellie remembered. Christmas 1960 had been terrible; the first without Egg. Meeting Gussie Trip in January 1961 had been the first good thing about Truro, about school, about everything really.

  Lucy said, ‘We’ll all miss you. But we’ll look after Tad and switch the heating on and off and water the plants.’

  ‘And come here every day for a swim. You’re members now. And there’s a bus goes from the quay at nine every morning. I want you to make friends with the water. All of you. We go home at Easter and for a month in the summer, but when we’re here I want you to take Gus and me to your famous towans. I want to swim in the sea. I want all of us to swim in the sea.’

  Denny clapped her hands. Barbara and Ellie glanced doubtfully at their mother. Lucy said nothing. Three of her family had b
een taken by the sea; Margaret had no idea what she was asking.

  But Truro was lonely without the Trips. They made full use of the pool at the club, though it meant two bus rides there and two back. But they all became expert swimmers and Lucy began to think seriously of swimming in the sea and perhaps breaking some kind of bad luck. The other thing she did, almost religiously, was to trudge up the hill in the mornings and evenings to feed Tad the cat and switch the heating on and off. The ‘plants’ consisted of two fancy pots containing berried shrubs. She asked one of the women at the pool about them and was told they were probably some sort of berberis.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, nodding. ‘They do look like the wild stuff back home.’

  ‘You’re interested in flowers?’ The woman was encouraging her two boys to come out of the water.

  ‘Not really. Vegetables now . . . there seems more point to growing vegetables. I had a garden back home.’

  The boys came to the edge and the woman lugged them out. ‘I’ve got an allotment. It’s church property. But the council run quite a few allotment areas. You can put your name down for one.’

  When they got home Lucy told the girls about allotments. ‘When Margaret comes back, I’ll ask her to take me to the council offices. My New Year’s resolution.’ She grinned at them.

  Ellie was thrilled. ‘It would be like back home. Let’s go to the office this afternoon, Ma! Please. I know where it is. It comes under Estates. We went with the school for citizenship. They’re nice.’

  Ellie won the day and by the time the Trips returned they had been allocated a couple of acres of land within walking distance of the house. Margaret seemed strangely unimpressed by it all.

  ‘Are you regressing, Lucy Pardoe?’

  ‘Regress . . . what do you mean?’ Lucy asked. ‘Are you put out about the allotment?’