The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  She sat them around her oval gate-leg table. Arnold almost closed it with his right knee. He held the leaf up while Rosemary pulled out the leg again. There was laughter and references to ‘hanky-panky’. They ate sausages and mash and then cabinet pudding. Greta told them that she and Connie had first met over cabinet pudding. ‘Only three years ago,’ she sighed. ‘What a lot has happened since then. Two babies and three weddings . . . well, two really because we were already married.’ She told Moll about it and how Connie had looked at the crumpled wedding snap and never forgotten it. ‘She dreamed about you, you know. That’s how we tracked you down.’

  He could have told her that he had heard about Connie’s dream several times before, but he did not.

  Greta cleared the table, folded it down and drew the armchairs around the fire. Rosemary was surprised by this new aspect of someone she had tried hard to dismiss at first and then cautiously to appreciate as a ‘good friend to Connie’. Now suddenly she had become as good a home-maker as Rosemary herself. They all watched the news on a tiny television and talked about President Kennedy and what he might have done had he lived and how his wife and children would now manage. Greta brought out an album of pictures from Sink and Swim. In spite of her proxy labour pains that first night, she had managed to snap a page labelled ‘Frank Fotos’. There was Arnold, glass held high, gloriously drunk. Rosemary holding his other arm in case he fell off his chair. There was Maria, her eyes wide as she announced that Marcus’s car was being towed away. The stage manager and her partner looking into each other’s eyes with total love. Connie and William laughing and leaning in towards each other so that their heads touched . . . Other pages showed swatches of materials, the cast modelling dressing gowns, Greta herself at a sewing machine, glasses on the end of her nose . . . ‘Don’t bother with that, Rosie. I look about a hundred!’ But Rosemary had discovered yet another Greta and said, ‘You look like an artist – nineteen twenties. You look beautiful.’ And Maurice – Moll, as Arnold was already calling him – crowed, ‘What did I tell you?’

  At last they got down to the business of selling Maurice’s newsagent’s. It was straightforward enough. His father had let him take it on when Maurice married Jessie back in 1920 but there had been no legal contract, and when his father died twenty years later the Battle of Britain was at its height and paperwork had not been a priority. ‘Don’t even know where Dad kept the deeds of the property,’ Maurice admitted ruefully. ‘And I’m pretty sure he never left a will. But I am the only child.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Arnold said. ‘New deeds can be drawn up if necessary. After the war a lot of vital paperwork had to be reinvented. I’ve got your bank details and I’ll see if they know anything. Let me have your father’s death certificate and your birth certificate and we’ll go ahead.’

  Maurice grinned, relieved. ‘I haven’t got a head for all this stuff. Jessie did the accounts and dealt with the suppliers when she was able. Don’t suppose anything is up to date. She was pretty bad towards the end.’

  Greta reached for his hand.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Arnold became 100 per cent reassuring and Rosemary felt beneath the table and put her hand on his knee.

  Later, as they were leaving, Greta said, ‘I should take you and Moll to Cornwall some time. It’s a beautiful place and where we stayed had something special about it in spite of what happened to Connie and Philip.’ She smiled at her husband’s expression. ‘It’s what she called the boy who drowned. He was fixated on the American detective yarns he was reading. And she called him Philip. After Philip Marlowe, the private eye.’ She tucked Arnold’s scarf into his coat and Rosemary felt her usual twinge of annoyance.

  Greta went on sentimentally, ‘Actually I think that dreadful drowning brought Connie and William closer than ever. They should go back too. See the good things that happened.’

  ‘I don’t think Connie could bear that,’ Rosemary said. ‘Not with May yelling the place down every night and this latest disaster.’

  Arnold said, ‘Darling, May is fine now. And perhaps the miscarriage is not a disaster. Mother nature and all that.’ He looked at her. ‘We could go with them. Next summer perhaps.’

  Greta said eagerly, ‘We could all go! Wouldn’t it be fun? All of us on holiday together!’

  Arnold hurried Rosemary down the steps and into the car. He waved at the two Heatheringtons standing under their porch light, arms around each other. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that Greta was happy. Properly happy. He turned a beaming face to Rosemary and said, ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

  She hugged her coat around her and said, ‘What? Exactly what is wonderful?’

  ‘Love,’ he said simply. ‘Love is wonderful.’

  And quite suddenly she surrendered her small moment of irritability to the foggy November night and transferred her hug to his upper arm.

  ‘Oh darling Arnie. It is indeed. Perhaps it really does conquer all.’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Even for poor Jackie Kennedy?’

  ‘Yes. Even for her.’

  And they drove into the night.

  All through that summer Lucy Pardoe visited Harry Membury occasionally at her old home on the dunes. After the snow and ice it was wonderful for her to get into her green Hillman Minx and feel again that heady freedom of the road. And she missed Harry. He still irritated her at times but after reading his notebook she had begun to see him differently. His bid for a new life had seemed foolish and irresponsible to her at first. Gradually it attained something like an aura of heroism. He too was testing out a sense of freedom. And that first visit had been almost involuntary; as if they were joined by a long length of elastic.

  He never knew when she was coming; she did not know herself. He had no phone so there was no way of inviting herself to the farm. Now and then she had an irresistible urge to see him and if he was planting or digging or just weeding she would join him immediately and work as hard as he did.

  He said, ‘You know this soil, don’t you? How can you bear to do this work of your own free will?’

  She smiled at him. ‘That’s why. Because I choose to do it.’ She turned the hoe and lifted a dandelion, root and all. ‘Anyway, this was my escape in a strange sort of way. My father hounded me out of the house to work the land but once I started he never touched me. I was too useful.’

  As the summer ‘took hold’, as he put it, the Flower People began to come back. They used his kitchen and bathroom and on rainy days they would gather in the living room and strum their guitars. Some of them helped Harry with his project to make the barn habitable. The girls fed the hens, which seemed to be everywhere. It became apparent that they were not all penniless beggars and they paid Harry for board and lodging. Some of them found work in the fields. And Lucy grew used to them. She taught two of the girls to bake and when the autumn gales began and they drifted away, she and Harry went on beachcombing, delighted when they found an umbrella or a battered nylon tent.

  Once she said, ‘Do you mind me coming here, Harry? It is your place now, legally yours. You don’t have to put up with me if it’s difficult in any way.’

  He answered her question with another. ‘Why do you come, Lucy?’

  She hesitated, then said uncertainly, ‘I think I’m trying to get rid of nightmares.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘That sounds the sort of thing Margaret would say. I’m getting used to the place again – that’s what it boils down to.’

  He went to fetch another bucket for the weeds. ‘That’s why I like to see you. You help me to get used to this place. I still see it as yours. When we’re sharing it . . . well, it helps.’ He laughed, embarrassed, then changed the subject. ‘You must miss Margaret.’

  ‘I do, of course. But there was no choice for her. Not really.’

  When she came oftener than once a week he knew that her underlying loneliness was overwhelming. She had three daughters and a large house to look after; through schools, through Margaret, she had acquainta
nces who were almost friends. But on one level she was still terribly lonely. He had seen that loneliness the day that her son had drowned and he had recognized it because it was his; he had thought nobody else could feel it.

  In early October there was an outbreak of chicken pox in Truro and all three Pardoe girls caught it within a week of each other. Three weeks later, Lucy got it and because she was nearly forty it was much worse than theirs and she was laid low until Christmas.

  Matthew drove in to see them and was shocked to find Ellie coping with all three invalids, opening tins of soup and boiling kettles for hot-water bottles and lugging coal buckets in from the outside coal house. He drove home via the farm to unload his worries on to Harry.

  ‘She’s not fifteen yet and she’s being used as a drudge! I’m surprised at Lucy letting things get to this pass. She can afford to pay for someone to come in and clean the house and do some cooking, surely to goodness?’

  ‘Did you sort them out?’ Harry looked satisfyingly worried. ‘I mean – the coal, for instance. You could stack buckets along the hall to last for a few days. And do some shopping perhaps? What about the cats?’

  Matthew exploded. ‘Bugger the cats – three of them, for goodness’ sake! They don’t need looking after anyway – put them out and let them catch the mice. I’m certain they’ve got mice in the downstairs cloakroom.’

  ‘I doubt it. Listen, can I borrow the car tomorrow? I’ll go over and help out for a bit.’

  Matthew nodded thankfully. ‘You should get a car. And have a telephone installed. Stuck out here by yourself. Not safe.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Really. And meanwhile I’ll be over when it’s light tomorrow morning.’

  Harry drove with exaggerated care along the A30 and turned off for Truro at nine o’clock. He went straight into the shopping area and loaded up with groceries, arriving outside Steep Street just before ten. Even the outside of the house looked drab and when Ellie opened the front door, the inside did as well. He should have guessed it was bad because Matthew had actually noticed it. All the Pardoes had loved and cared for this tall narrow house and now they were too poorly to care about anything.

  Harry held Ellie to him and she wept thankfully and let him lead her into the kitchen and sit her down in front of the gas cooker. He lit the gas and opened the oven door and she crouched towards the heat while he fetched her coat and wrapped it around her.

  He made tea and gave her a mugful, very hot and sweet, and she inhaled the steam and held the mug gratefully. Her rash was fading fast; she would be all right. He went into the living room and lit the fire with some difficulty. The kindling was not dry and even the newspapers were damp. Eventually, after smouldering its way through to the coal, it burst into life and he heard the radiators cracking as they heated through. He piled cushions and some rugs from the chairs and made a bed for Ellie on the sofa. She sank into it gratefully.

  ‘Ma’s really ill,’ she said. ‘I came downstairs for some more aspirin. The girls are still asleep. Anyway, they’re not too bad, just grizzly.’

  He went upstairs with tea and aspirin. Lucy’s room overlooked the street and was full of the quiet November morning light. He had never been in there before and peered tentatively around the door for permission to enter. She seemed to be asleep and had slipped down in her bed so that only the top of her head was visible. He hurried over, put down the tea and moved the sheet to uncover her face. It was scarred with the distinctive rash, her eyes sunk deeply into the larger pustules and her lips, slightly parted, were dry and cracked. She gave a small moan as the light hit her. Then she saw him and tried to say his name. Then she tried to ask him what he was doing there. And then she hung on to him while he hoisted her on to her crumpled pillows.

  He made her as comfortable as he could and held the tea for her to sip and answered her questions.

  ‘Yes, it is Harry. And I am doing here what you did at the rectory for me last year. I have lit the fire and settled Ellie on the sofa. I haven’t seen the girls yet because Ellie said they were still asleep. And I haven’t seen the cats, so probably Ellie let them out. Yes, here are the aspirin. Two every four hours . . . well done.’ He replaced the bottle top. ‘What has the doctor left for you, Lucy?’

  She tried to tell him that she still had not registered with a new doctor. He seemed to understand but said he would telephone for a prescription. She shook her head and gave up, pulling the sheet over her face again.

  ‘Listen, Lucy. Finish this tea. Then I’ll look in on the girls. Then I’m going to get you and Ellie some food. Is that all right, my dear?’

  She nodded and tried to smile. ‘Glad,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘To see you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ He grinned at her and then as a tear gathered in a corner of one eye, he smoothed her hair and kissed it gently. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, my darling. Don’t think. Try to relax.’

  He went across the landing to the back bedroom. Barbara and Denny were both awake, staring at the big square sash window framing a view of grey sky. Denny was whimpering with each breath, Barbara scratching her arm. They turned, saw Harry and started to cry in unison. He gathered Denny into one arm and Barbara scrambled into the other.

  ‘We told Matthew to tell you we were ill,’ Barbara hiccoughed. ‘We knew you would come.’

  Denny wailed loudly, ‘Don’t leave us, Harry – please don’t leave us!’

  He calmed them down. ‘Listen. These are the plans. I’ve got more aspirins and more tissues and more fruity drinks in the car. So . . . what would you like to eat? Sausages? Eggs? Soup?’

  ‘Not soup,’ Barbara said, suddenly interested. ‘We had soup yesterday and the day before. Ice cream. And celery. Sausages would be nice. And bread and butter and banana and sugar sandwiches.’

  Denny managed a smile. ‘And some jelly babies too.’

  He persuaded them to stay in their beds until the fire in the living room had warmed everything up. Then they could come down for a feast.

  He ran down, reassured Ellie, fetched the shopping from the car and set to. Lunch was fruit juice and banana sandwiches and aspirin for the girls. He spooned scrambled egg into Lucy’s dry mouth and held the glass while she sipped her fruit juice. ‘The fire is red hot. Perhaps later you could come downstairs but I need to ask Doc Carthew about that. I’m going to phone him now while you have a sleep.’

  Mrs Kervis answered the phone. ‘It’s his day off, Mr Membury. You know that.’

  ‘I’d forgotten. Mrs Pardoe and her three girls have this chicken pox and I want some advice. Could he come to the phone?’

  She said grudgingly, ‘I’ll ask him.’

  He came to the phone but sounded immediately annoyed. ‘Honestly, Harry. You know I can’t poach another preserve. You must ring her doctor in Truro.’

  ‘She hasn’t registered with anyone yet.’ Harry hardened his tone. ‘She is still your patient. I need to know whether she can be moved. I am with them at the moment – I have Matthew’s car, which, as you know, is a decent size. I want to take them back with me. To the farm. I’ve got chickens to feed tonight.’

  ‘Dammit, man, you can ask the Godolphins to do that for you. They’ve been helpful enough since you moved in – and before that.’

  ‘I can do. I will probably do that for tonight. But then I would prefer to look after them down on the dunes. It’s what they’re used to, John. The air, the sea . . .’

  Dr Carthew said thoughtfully, ‘They were never ill when they lived there, I have to admit. And if Lucy hasn’t bothered to find herself another doctor it would be easier all round if she was a bit nearer. What’s the matter with the woman, is she trying to keep a foot in both camps?’

  Harry was about to reply angrily and then paused. ‘Perhaps that is exactly what she is doing,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Well, in that case, let’s see what we can do.’ There were sounds of rustling. ‘I’ll have to examine them all, make sure they’re fit to be driven to your place. If s
o, I can take Lucy. You can take the girls and the bloody cats. You’ll have to take blankets and clothes and food . . . This is ridiculous, Harry.’

  ‘No. It’s not. I collect milk from Home Farm each day. They will supply other provisions.’ He paused, then rushed on, ‘Matthew will be our link. He wants to help – he looked after me.’

  ‘Lucy looked after you,’ Carthew said heavily. ‘But yes, he will see this as an opportunity to serve. I’ve got no calls tomorrow afternoon. I will be with you at two. If I don’t think Lucy should be moved then I will see to re-registering the whole family. They will be entitled to a home help and will be far more comfortable in their own home. We’ll discuss it when I arrive.’

  He replaced his receiver with a definite click and left Harry holding his, full of doubts. He had been so certain that the Pardoe women would be better back on the dunes . . . but Carthew was right. They had everything they needed right here and if a home help could be provided just like that . . . He looked into the living room; the three girls were cocooned in blankets, the fire was settling comfortably into a hot glow and the television was on. He bit his lip. He had no television.

  He cleared up in the kitchen, made tea and took it upstairs to Lucy. She was in the bathroom but came out immediately and managed a smile. She looked very pink. Her hair was combed flatly to her head.

  ‘Calamine.’ She pointed to her face and arms. ‘Takes away the itch.’ She moved haltingly back to bed. ‘Feel much better, Harry. Thank you. How are the girls?’

  He described the scene in the living room and she forced another smile. ‘I really don’t know how we would manage without the dratted television now,’ she said. ‘Marvin brought us into the modern world well and truly!’ She stopped smiling as she pulled the bedclothes around her. Harry plumped the pillows and tucked her in, then sat down and told her of his conversation with Dr Carthew.

  ‘I thought it would be so good for you all out on the dunes again. But you’ve got everything here. I’m pretty certain that the doctor is even now on the phone arranging for a home help . . . I’m so sorry, Lucy. I feel I am failing you badly. You looked after me and . . .’