The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  ‘Ah. Connie. Dear Connie. So practical.’

  ‘Women often are, darling. Think of the women you know really well. Mummy and Greta and Lucy Pardoe . . . all very practical.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All will be well, my dearest. The forecast is splendid for tomorrow. I thought I might float my tummy in the sea. What do you think?’ He started to voice his doubts and she kissed him, curled into his shoulder and said, ‘We’ll see.’

  He knew that she would consult Greta before she went into the water. How was it that Greta could be practical yet so other-worldly? It all seemed part of the near-chaos that made up the universe. The only comfort was that he was sure Greta would shake her head at the idea of swimming. He held his wife carefully within his arm and closed his eyes. He slept right through the night.

  Greta did not shake her head. The weather was glorious and they spent a short morning setting up a miniature market stall with pieces of driftwood and plenty of sand. The children sold tiny portions of raspberries and cream from eggcups, paid for with shells and unusual pebbles. Then they sold the pebbles for more shells. Connie went with them into the shallows to wash the eggcups and spoons and then the shells.

  In the afternoon William and Maurice drove into Truro to get more provisions and the children rested indoors. Arnie and Rosemary went to sleep in their chairs. It was then that Greta and Connie had their dip. Greta had not swum since before the war; she was nervous about it. But she could not shake her head to Connie and if Connie went in she most certainly was going in with her. They entered cautiously, gasping as the salt water stung their red skin. Then Connie realized that the heavy load she carried these days was being borne by the sea and she turned on to her back and floated luxuriously. ‘Greta – look!’ She pointed to her pregnancy, which emerged from the water like an island. ‘Oh, this is lovely. Oh . . .’ She lifted her head and spoke to the lump. ‘Are you all right down there? Isn’t it great!’

  Greta started to laugh and took on a mouthful of water and choked. Rosemary, slipping and sliding down the dune to join them, stopped and watched them, smiling, wondering why she had ever felt odd about their friendship. Greta was older than Arnie and looked every inch her years in a costume that was wired like a corset. Rosemary was wearing shorts and a vest and without any hesitation she joined the two of them. They floated around, laughing inanely for ten minutes or so, then Greta took one of Connie’s hands and Rosemary took the other and they towed her slowly to the shore, helped her to her feet and hugged her. It was such a natural thing to do, yet they imagined it was the first time it had ever happened. Connie hugged them gratefully. ‘I’m so glad you’re so glad,’ she said.

  Rosemary smiled. She had not been a bit happy about this pregnancy until she had heard about Greta’s strange pronouncement. And then, quite suddenly, it had been all right.

  The holiday moved slowly around Connie. Sometimes Maurice and Greta would take Arnie’s car and explore Penwith, its coves and inlets and standing stones and ancient churches. Sometimes Arnie and Rosemary would go with them, other times they would take the children to Newquay or Falmouth. They drove to Plymouth and went aboard a naval destroyer and the children came back with miniature caps, May with a lanyard and bosun’s whistle. She piped them in and out of the house until they begged for mercy.

  Always Connie was the anchor at the farm. When the weather was grey for a few days, she and Tad the cat might be found in the garden picking beans. There was an orchard further up protected by an ancient Cornish ‘hedge’ of granite slabs overgrown with wild flowers. She picked plums and made jam and pies. Then the sun came back and she relaxed on the beach, hat tilted over her face while the children buried her feet in sand. They went with her into the sea; she taught Frankie to swim. May shouted that she could swim already and she crawled along the seabed flailing her arms energetically and spitting water like a whale. Tad sat well back on shore watching them disapprovingly, following them back to the house with tail erect. Connie felt at home here; something frozen inside her had started to melt some time ago now and living like this down here she found she could monitor it consciously. She loved it when they gathered around the table in the evenings and talked about what they had done and seen during the day. She felt at ease; mistress of herself at last.

  William spent time with Matthew and heard a great deal about Peter Stephenson, renamed Lilac by Ellie Pardoe. He was amused and interested by Matthew’s progress in his rambling parish. His success with Ellie and then, later, with Lilac Stephenson had given him a confidence he had almost lost. The sense of being useless amid all the drama of Harry’s so-called accident, of being practically pushed aside by Lucy every morning, the business of the magic mushrooms, Chippy Penberthy bullying him into confirming his illegitimate grandchildren, his dwindling congregation . . . Discouragement had descended on him like a cloud. And then Lilac came to the towans church especially to hear him preach on that Christmas morning. He had thought all along that Ellie would make a wonderful clerical wife. And it looked as if things were moving that way.

  William did not like that bit of the story. ‘Not yet surely? She’s only eighteen and he’s not ordained.’

  ‘No, not yet. She’s got a place at a teacher training college in Exeter. She’s always wanted to work with children.’ Matthew grinned. ‘Funny how things work out. Lucy met him when she and her friend were working on an allotment in Truro. He gave them armfuls of lilac. He was at the cathedral on Christmas afternoon and she remembered him. I think he reminded her of her son.’

  Matthew fell silent and William said, ‘That was a terrible thing to happen. It affected all of us.’

  ‘She’s getting over it slowly. Harry’s doing, of course.’

  ‘Yes. I think Connie will. Eventually.’ William looked at the younger man. ‘Lucy is so often in my thoughts.’

  ‘Mine too. John Carthew says the same. He has known her since the war years. He delivered Egg Pardoe. Looked after him when he had his seizures.’

  ‘I want to see Carthew before we leave. Does he still take a Monday off?’

  ‘I believe so. You can ask Mrs Kervis. She’s somewhere around.’

  So he dropped in on the good doctor and was surprised that on his departure Carthew said, ‘No help from me either? The vicar telephoned and said you needed reassurance. I take it nothing from him?’

  William was somehow mortified. He said, ‘I hadn’t realized I was so . . . obvious.’

  ‘The only person who can help any of us is Lucy. By continuing to be happy with Harry Membury she will do that. If you want anything quickly you should ask her straight out.’

  ‘How?’

  Dr Carthew cleared his throat and adopted an actorish voice. ‘Lucy, have you come to terms with your son drowning alongside my wife?’

  William was appalled. If the doctor was serious it was awful and if he was joking it was . . . macabre.

  Carthew shook his head. ‘That’s not right, is it? She is good at the direct approach but that might be—’

  ‘Brutal,’ William supplied flatly, wondering what Cornwall did to people who ought to be sensitive to others.

  Carthew put up a hand. ‘Listen. All you can do is to see her and then play it by ear. She often picks up feelings – a lot of Cornish women can do that – and she might bring it up herself. But whatever, go and see her. She speaks of you often, and kindly.’

  William looked at him sharply, wondering how much he really knew and understood about Lucy Pardoe.

  The holiday was drawing to a close when he eventually announced that he was going into Truro to see Lucy. May looked up sharply from her cornflakes.

  ‘Not us, Daddy.’

  ‘Well, she would probably like to see you.’

  May was silent, weighing up the possibilities of seeing Ellie, Barbara and Denny. Frankie said, ‘Please not, Dad. Moll is helping us to make a raft with those tyres what were caught in the rocks.’

  William might have resisted May but not F
rankie. He grinned. ‘Perhaps next year then. We are all coming again next year, aren’t we?’

  There was a spluttering cheer from both children.

  William could not get anyone on the telephone but he decided to go to Truro anyway. Even if they were both out Lucy would come home at four when the girls were home from school.

  He left the car on Steep Street and knocked on the door. Two pint bottles of milk waited on the top step. One of the cats looked out of the living-room window.

  William scribbled a note, pushed it through the letter box and walked down the hill to the allotments. On the way, he bought two hot pasties and a bottle of lemonade.

  Lucy was pleased to see him. He knew that for certain because she immediately told him he shouldn’t have bothered and what on earth was he thinking, bringing food and drink with him when she’d got a thermos of tea and some bread and cheese in the shed. He said nothing, stood there in his shorts and polo shirt, smiling at her, delighted that she was looking tanned and younger than her forty-three years.

  She said uncomfortably, ‘What is it, Mr Mather?’

  ‘William.’

  ‘What is it, William?’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d have you to myself. And for a picnic. And in your allotment. You can show me round.’

  She led him between rows of lettuce and radish – ‘They grow at any time. This will be the third harvest this year.’ Then through the beansticks. She talked about soil and compost and a new cabbage called Little Princess. She realized she was talking too much and brought two folding chairs from the shed. They settled down with the pasties and it was as if they had synchronized that first bite. They both laughed at the same time.

  He swallowed with some difficulty and waited until she had too, then he said, ‘We are so close, Lucy. I can’t imagine why that is.’

  ‘You were there. That day.’

  ‘But I let him – I let Egg go, Lucy. You blamed Connie. Not me.’

  ‘It was not your fault.’

  ‘That day when you showed me the farm . . . why did you kiss me?’

  She gasped and was silent, embarrassed for a moment. Then she looked up and said honestly, ‘I wanted to. If you had asked for more I would have given you what I could. I sensed that something was not fully right. With your life. If I could have comforted you it would have been a small thing to do.’

  He looked at her and nodded slowly, then started again on his pasty. She hesitated. ‘We are bound together somehow, you and me, William. I think we are the same age. We are easy together. It helps us if we know that the other is content.’

  He lifted his brows, finished his pasty and poured some lemonade into her beaker. He drank a long draught from the bottle, choked a little and said, blinking, ‘It would make me very content indeed if you came to see Connie and my children before we go home.’

  She sipped more decorously but shook her head. ‘You know I cannot, William. I am really pleased she is making you happy but if I see her and talk to her, that will go.’ She looked across the patchwork of gardens. ‘When I kissed you I stopped hating her, stopped blaming her. But . . .’ she hesitated then added quietly, ‘bitterness is bad for the soul.’

  He flinched slightly as he put the top on the bottle.

  ‘Please, Lucy. I do not believe you will feel bitter. But . . . please do it.’

  They packed up and she locked the shed; he carried a bag of lettuce and tiny tomatoes and she a trug of Victoria plums as big as apples. Still, like May, he pestered and still she shook her head. When his car was in sight he was within an inch of accepting defeat and she turned on him like Matthew turned on Mark, claws out.

  ‘You have no idea what you are asking of me, William Mather! I did not think you could be so selfish. I have worked hard to forget that day – the girls have been there always and Harry would not go away until there came a time when I did not want him to, when I could not do without him. And somewhere in the awfulness of it all you were there too. You understood completely – you knew I was not strong – I knew you were not either. We suffered together. And no one knew. It was our secret. And now . . . you want to smash all that to pieces for some sentimental claptrap about forgiveness!’ She took a deep breath. ‘If it means that little to you, then so be it. I will bring the girls over tomorrow morning and they can swim with your children. And I will say hello to your wife, who . . . face up to it, William . . . was the cause of my son’s death!’

  She walked on very fast and William stood on the pavement watching her and wondering whether she was right. Then he went on to the car, put the bag of vegetables next to the milk bottles on the step, turned the car and drove away from Lucy Pardoe.

  They were travelling home on the Sunday so the next day was their last and they decided to spend all of it on the beach. William said nothing about Lucy; in truth he did not expect her.

  No one heard the arrival of the Hillman Minx in the yard at the back of the house. Frankie and May were in the sea, carrying buckets of water to their latest pond. William and Rosemary were still digging it out, hoping to reach the water table sooner rather than later. Maurice and Arnie were walking the width of the beach, discussing the small black patches floating on the water which might or might not be from the wrecked Torrey Canyon in Prussia Cove. When they reached the pond-diggers they were immediately roped in. Greta and Connie were lying in deckchairs discussing what to put in the sandwiches for lunch. There came a shout from behind them and they both looked round to see Denny Pardoe hurtling from the side of the house, already in her swimming costume and making a beeline for Frankie and May. She was closely followed by Barbara Pardoe, now in her third year at the Laurels and therefore dressed in a Laura Ashley print frock with a sunhat worthy of Ascot. She stood at the top of the beach looking down on everyone in more ways than one. Her mother joined her, then Harry brought up the rear with his two girls.

  Greta said, ‘Oh my God. They’re little shockers. And of course Ellie’s started at college so we’ll probably have to deal with them.’

  Connie hardly saw the children. Her eyes were fixed on Lucy Pardoe. It was the first time she had seen her since that day in l960 and she had changed. But Connie knew her instantly. Greta glanced at her and said in a low voice, ‘Go and say hello, Connie. Go on. You can then go on into the house and make drinks. I’ll come as soon as I can.’ She scrambled up and made for Harry.

  ‘My goodness,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘You haven’t changed in the slightest, Mr Membury. And these are your two girls – they certainly have changed! Rosalie and Lily, isn’t it? My dears, you were this high when we last met!’ She held a hand about a foot from the ground and the girls laughed. Harry shook her hand. Lucy and Barbara were isolated for a moment. Connie went forward. She felt huge and unwieldy in her smock sundress, her heart beating hard and slow.

  She said, ‘How nice to see you.’ It sounded pathetic. ‘It’s good of you to come.’ She wanted to hurl herself on to Lucy and sob and tell her how sorry she was. She said, ‘I was just going into the house to make some thermoses of coffee.’

  Barbara looked at her curiously and said, ‘Mum, did you bring my costume? Rosalie wants to get in the sea and I really think Denny needs me.’

  Lucy stopped looking at Connie as if she was some kind of freak and said, ‘Yes. Everything is in the car.’

  Greta said gaily, ‘Come on, everyone, let’s go and get your stuff and go down to the sea.’ She struck an attitude. ‘“Let’s go down to the sea again!”’

  The girls looked at each other and followed her unwillingly with Harry urging them on. ‘I’ve brought my shorts too. We’ll all help with . . . whatever’s going on.’ He turned to Greta. ‘Marvellous to see you again, Mrs Heatherington. We heard about your husband being found. So romantic.’

  ‘It really was,’ Greta said enthusiastically as they disappeared into the farmyard.

  Connie made no move to the house. She stood there, quite unable to put one sandy foot in front of the other. Lucy h
ad moved away from her almost involuntarily, as if pulled down the beach towards the sea. She came to the two empty deckchairs and sat in one. Connie managed to turn and watch her. Lucy was looking – concentrating with her whole body – at the children with their buckets. Connie followed her stare. It was a typical family holiday scene: the men regressing to roughly ten years old and ordering the digging in loud voices; the children quietly – not so quietly in May’s case – subverting them and each other, pouring water willy-nilly then running back through the complicated canal system, breaking down the sand walls unconcernedly.

  At first they were simply a group of people playing on the shore. All seemed to be brown-haired and brown-skinned. And then as they grouped and regrouped and ran and poured water and shouted at each other, one stood out from the others. Frankie’s golden hair, below his ears as was the fashion at his school, had not darkened with the water; his skin was not the colour of walnuts, it had tanned to gold, and his movements were not random, he went purposefully from sea to pond, running along the smooth beach rather than the canals that William had planned so carefully.

  Connie closed her eyes for a moment, wishing she could faint, knowing it would not happen. The time had come. She had always known it would but she had pushed the thought away and ‘got on’. William and Frankie were so close that it was easy to believe they were father and son. Looking down on them now it was so obvious they were not.

  She stiffened her spine, forced herself to walk to the two chairs and to sit down. Lucy seemed not to notice her. She continued to stare at that one small figure who was now talking to William, pointing to the sea then the pond.

  Then, quite suddenly, she spoke. ‘He’s telling William that there’s no need to go on filling up the pond and watching the water soak away!’ She chuckled. ‘The tide’s going to do it for them – good and proper – in the next half-hour!’