Fragile Blossoms

by Dodie Hamilton

  Smiling, letting it all pass over his head, Luke stood for a while at the bar and then took his drink to a corner table, the clamour a restless sea heaving all about him. Pints were pulled, jokes and ribald remarks were tossed back and forth, and men grinning at Luke as though he were a feeble-headed creature to be mocked. It went on so long he grew weary and wanted to kick the table over and tell them to bugger off and leave him alone. Julianna is to go up the Rise to Greenfields this evening. He is not happy about it. He didn’t say so but she read his face and said it was the old lady’s birthday and she couldn’t refuse. She asked what he would be doing. Luke said he’d be with Albert in the Nelson sharing a drink. Eyes sparkling she teased him. ‘You mean a last drink before you die? The condemned man ate a hearty supper, that sort of thing?’

  Teasing is how she got round him. It’s not her errand of mercy that bothers him, he doesn’t begrudge the old lady her birthday. It’s the séance. The last effort caused so much bother, why would she get involved again?

  After last night’s dream a chat with the dead is the last thing he wants. Italy and vines it was the usual thing except this time there were no vines, there was mud and destruction. It started out alright, he and his Italian father aboard the cart and his lovely Italian wife walking alongside. As always he leaned down to kiss her, that sweet baby-milk taste on her lips, and then boom, without warning the dream became a nightmare.

  It was raining, hard rain that stings and bounces. He and the other men were staring through a curtain of leaden pellets at the land turning itself inside out and a river of mud sweeping down a mountainside to swallow a village whole.

  He saw it happen; they all saw it, his father and the others who left that morning to dig gullies to save the vines. The vines were never in danger, it was those left behind. On his knees, screaming, he saw it from the further side of the mountain. A cliff fell away and as with Pompeii a whole town disappeared, drowned in mud houses and babies and beautiful wives.

  Screaming and sweating is how he woke. Even now he can’t get away from it. It was a dream, he knows that, and dreams as everyone knows are not to be taken seriously. But it felt so real, a real-life event played out before his eyes, a tragedy of huge proportion, or rather the memory of a tragedy and of a life once lived with another Julianna, and how that life, and the people in it, in some sadly beautiful God-given way is offered to him again.

  Now he sits in the Nelson with a pint of beer in his hand and feels the weight of the dream, and the morrow, pressing on his shoulders. All about him men drink and laugh and they’ve a right to. It is a stag do, tradition says the groom must be the butt of stupid jokes and his bride referenced the ball-and-chain.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Nan sat beside him.

  ‘Nothing. I’m alright.’

  ‘You don’t look it. You look a right misery. You’re gettin’ wed tomorrow or that the cause of your long face?’

  ‘I don’t have a long face. This is my usual face.’

  ‘Then God help Anna. Cheer up do! You’re supposed to be havin’ a good time.’

  He swept the bar with his gaze. ‘A good time?’

  Nan took offence. ‘Yes well we all know the Nelson isn’t the Ritz and the lads not the high-class company you’re used to. They’re local lads, men behavin’ like boys, but they mean well.’ She scooped up a tray of beer glasses and swept away. ‘And you’re too high and mighty for your own good!’

  Luke sipped and swallowed. The feeling of dread is to do with Matty. ‘Keep an eye on him!’ That was the thought when he woke this morning. It’s getting him down. What is he supposed to be looking for, a landslide? It feels as though it is yesterday’s father anxious for this life and this child. But to do what? The boy is at home minded by a gaggle of women and his mother but a stone’s throw away. What possible harm can come to him?

  Dorothy had her coat on and was standing at the window.

  Julia looked up. ‘I thought you were staying in?’

  ‘I am, madam. It’s only Reg. He’s coming to drop a parcel off and I thought to be ready so he doesn’t hang about in the cold.’

  ‘I see.’

  Dorothy dimpled. ‘It’s a surprise, madam, from the bakery.’

  Julia pulled the fur cape over head. ‘Then I’d better not enquire.’

  ‘I wondered if I might bring him into the kitchen for a cup of tea. It’s a long ride from Lower Bakers and it’s so perishing cold.’

  ‘You may do that, and if you’ve a mind you may use up the chicken we had for supper. Just don’t let Maggie overdo it.’

  ‘Thank you, madam.’ Dorothy opened the door. ‘Shall I walk with you up the Rise? They have cleared a path right the way up through the snow.’

  ‘No need. As you see Mrs Greville Masson has set fire to the world. All those lamps and candles, I imagine Greenfields is visible from Mars.’ Julia fastened her cape. ‘Matty will sleep soon. If you would pop your head round the door now and then?’

  She set off up the path. It was hard going. In this weather a path cleared or not it’s a good long walk. Daniel did offer to collect her but things awkward between them she’d rather not. In fact she’d rather not be going. Luke didn’t want her there, he didn’t say, didn’t have to, his expression said it all.

  ‘You’re going to a séance?’

  ‘Yes, but I shan’t stay.’

  He’d bent his head loving her with his eyes. ‘Be careful. You know what these things are like.’

  Such eyes! Last night she tried to describe the colour but couldn’t find words. Like Freddie’s painting, the White Lady and the many shades of white, so Luke’s eyes are many shades of blue. When he talks with Matty his eyes are the colour of cornflowers. When he’s concerned or unhappy they lean toward basalt grey. When she is in his arms as the night of Fairy Common and his body thrusting into hers and he’s telling his passion, ‘my dearest dear, my heart’s delight,’ then his eyes are purple in shade.

  Oh and she loves him! She loves his touch, his kisses, and his hunger for her. What woman would not want such a man?

  Nan once said she pitied the lass that would get him, she’d rue the day. Julia will never rue the day. In church last Sunday they knelt side-by-side, their hands clasped together on the rail. It was a moment of reflection and yet she could hear Luke, hear his thoughts, so calm and true, and she thanked God for him as she thanked Him for Owen. That a woman should know the love of a true man is a blessing, that she should be loved again is a miracle. That the new love should love her boy is God’s handiwork

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

  Matty lay in bed counting the ticks of the clock. Kaiser is restless. He jumps up on the bed and down again. Now he’s pacing the room his paws thud-thud. Mumma has gone up the hill to the Big House. He watched her go. She looked beautiful. Mumma is beautiful. She is an angel, Mister Wolf says. Matty likes the Wolf and is glad he is to be his New Papa. He and Mumma are getting married tomorrow. After that Matty will never be able to call him Wolf again so he is making up for it.

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf.’

  It’s likely he should be asleep and then tomorrow, like Christmas, will come that much quicker. Matty’s never seen Father Christmas. Every Christmas Eve he lies awake waiting. Every year he thinks to see him but never does. Just as Father Christmas is landing the sleigh on the roof Matty falls to sleep. When he wakes it’s all over. He creeps down stairs and the presents are in stockings hanging by the fire. Now he lies awake for another visitor, but one not nearly as nice. He waits for the Shadow Man.

  Matty calls him Shadow Man because that’s all he ever really sees. The first time was from the bedroom window, the man smoking a cigarette in the laundry room. It’s possible he saw him again once when staying with Tabby Cat at the Nelson. Matty doesn’t know why he thinks the man in the pub and the one in the laundry room are the same, he just does. There was a fight, you see,
people shouting, and this man was kicked out of the pub, tumbling out of the side door ‘arse over tit’ as Albert says. He was lying in the back alley among beer crates. People were laughing because his nose was red and bloody. He hadn’t a hanky so Matty gave his. ‘Oy Matthew! Get back here!’Albert had shouted. ‘You don’t talk to Nat Sherwood. He’s a thief and a bully-boy!’

  Bad man is what Joe Carmody said when sweeping the laundry floor. ‘Look at these fag ends! What’s he doin’ hidin’ here!’ The Shadow Man wants to hurt Momma, why else, as Joe says, would he hide there. Smoking is a grown-up thing. Matty picked up a cigarette end once and holding it between his fingers la-di-da’d about the garden. It stank so he spat it out. Papa smoked a pipe. Matty saved one from Cambridge and keeps it behind the skirting board

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

  Fag ends are nasty, they smell. They can’t be nice to smoke. Thinking this, and hoping to appease unknown gods, Matty stole a cigar one day from the silver box on the corner table. He took it to the laundry room and laid it on the windowsill. A good job Joe Carmody didn’t see him. He’d have skinned Matty alive. Joe was always skinning people alive. He wanted to skin Callie, the old lady who steals plants from over the wall. She doesn’t steal them anymore and so she still has her skin.

  Joe is dead like Mr and Mrs Bear and Susan and Papa. Matty misses him and goes every day with Kaiser to the green house to water his plants.

  Matty left a cigar the night before last in the laundry room. Late last night Kaiser woke Matty. They stood at the window watching. The shadow slid over the wall. On, off, on, off, a tiny circle of fire blinked in the darkness.

  It was an SOS message!

  Matty knows about Morse code, Mr Doodle is teaching him.

  SOS . . . . - - - . . . . . is a message.

  It means Save Our Souls. You send it when in distress, says Mr Doodle, like sailors when their boat is sinking. Matty doesn’t know what a soul is but thinks the Shadow Man is in distress. Maybe he is not a bully-boy as Albert says. Maybe he’s lonely. Matty knows how it feels to be lonely. When Papa died he wanted to be with him. It’s better now Mister Wolf is here but he wouldn’t want anyone ever to feel lonely.

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

  Papa used to say there are two ways of dealing with a bully, stand up to him or offer a peace pipe. Later tonight Matty will creep downstairs and take another cigar from the box and lay it by the Reckitts Blue Bag ‘that keeps your linen whiter than white!’

  A cigar isn’t a peace pipe but it’s better than nothing.

  Thirty One

  Morse Code

  Julia mistook the invitation thinking the meeting for eight when in fact with more snow forecast and the need to leave early, it had been rescheduled for seven, consequently she arrived late and the séance ongoing.

  ‘Oh you’re finally here!’ Callie swivelled. ‘I thought you were never coming.’

  ‘I’m sorry I misread the...!’

  ‘Never mind!’ Callie swivelled back. ‘Take a glass of wine and save your apologies til later! We’re onto something here, aren’t we, Madame, and mustn’t break concentration.’

  A cup of mulled wine in her hand Julia sat with Daniel on the sidelines.

  ‘Absurd isn’t it?’ muttered Daniel.

  From an onlooker’s point of view a dozen men and women chasing a glass tumbler about a table and asking questions of the air did look rather odd.

  ‘It takes some thought.’

  ‘No, no thought, Julianna,’ said Daniel his lips a thin line. ‘It’s bunkum.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I do. We’re gullible fools taken in by an avaricious quack.’

  ‘Does money change hands then with this?’

  ‘Naturally it does. Madame doesn’t travel down from Highgate for the good of her health. She travels first class and demands a hefty fee. She calls it a donation. I call it fraud. This is no spiritual event. It’s a cheating thing along the lines of human waste bottled as holy water and snake venom labelled The Virgin’s Tears.’

  It certainly was different to the sitting in Long Melford. There was no sense of mystery and hushed expectation. It was more in the nature of a sideshow people sitting about chatting and drinking wine. Madame Leonora walked about the room rather than sat. Heavily rouged and with multiple scarves billowing she seemed overwrought and waved her hands about a great deal. It seemed rather contrived. Julia was reminded of a painting once seen of a group of men playing cards. Evie had pointed it out. ‘Look, Ju-ju, The Card Sharp! See what they’re doing? They’re looking at one another’s cards and passing on information.’

  Here is this brilliantly lit drawing room there is no obvious double-dealing and yet it felt wrong. Those about the table were talking one across the other. The letter E was called out and a man sitting here on the sidelines leapt to his feet. ‘That letter E?’ he called out, his face eager. ‘Is that my wife, Emily? She died last year. I’m her husband, Major Patrick Saunders. I do so miss her.’

  There was much excited conversation and then Patrick Saunders told to sit down again, it wasn’t Emily the spirit was seeking, it was a man called Earnest.

  ‘What a shambles!’ Daniel shuffled his feet. ‘I’ve seen more order in a mutiny! If it goes on much longer like this I’m going to call halt.’

  ‘It doesn’t appear to be working.’

  ‘Depends what you mean by working. I am not a total sceptic. I’m not closed to the occult. I know there’s more in heaven and earth than we understand. I’ve seen some very odd things during my travels. In India I saw a peach stone set into the ground and within the count of ten a peach tree growing. I’ve seen a man walk over live coals his feet unscathed. I’ve seen the same man lie on a bed of knives and not dent his skin. I once saw a chicken die of starvation confined by a circle drawn in dust. Illusion, trick of the eye, hypnotism, I don’t know how it worked but I saw it.’

  ‘And you think this along those lines?’

  ‘Whatever it is I don’t like it. Callie doing this I read up on spiritualism and the like. Most support a theory of the harnessing of kinetic energy. I’ve been watching this last hour and think it’s about supply and demand. Someone asks a question, information is supplied perhaps like that guy, Saunders, a wife’s name and that she died last year. Then the people at the table, the group mind, so to speak, set about finding an answer.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Better to say from what.’

  ‘Then from what?’

  ‘From need. I think such occurrences tap into human emotion, the greater the need the more concentrate the energy. This kind of yearning, the need to speak to the dead, if it were collected and contained could move a mountain never mind a tooth mug.’

  ‘And yet you think it fake.’

  ‘I’m hoping it is. It is odd, I grant you, but I doubt the spirits of the dead push that glass. I would hope no such phenomenon possible. I’ve seen men die and believe death deserves more than to be tattled before strangers.’

  ‘People seek comfort. Surely that is what this is?’

  ‘There have to be better ways.’

  ‘Like what, dreams?’

  ‘Yes dreams and our memories. I tend to think those that have gone before talk to us in example. We just don’t listen. My father is the last person I’d seek to follow and yet not so long ago I walked in his footsteps.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, that’s enough of my opinions. What about you, Julianna, you’ve had prior experience. What do you make of it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Julia closed her eyes and she heard a dog’s tail swishing and a child singing. ‘It is all so very odd.’

  ‘When you sat were you spared a tooth mug being shoved round a table?’

  ‘There was that.’

  ‘I see you are reluctant to tell.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Wa
s it so bad?’

  ‘It wasn’t a happy experience. In fact it was quite shocking. Looking back on it now I realise some of us were given hints of the future.’

  ‘You’ve piqued my interest! Maybe I will sit in on the next round of absurdity. Who knows I might yet be saved from a dull and boring life.’

  Julia touched his hand. ‘I wouldn’t be too casual if I were you, Daniel. I heard things that night I don’t ever want to hear again.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I am sorry I dragged you here.’

  ‘Don’t be. Matty’s angel, the lady he believes watching over him, told him all things continue toward a purpose toward good. Maybe there’s a reason we’re all here and it is good.’

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

  Matty and Kaiser are crouched down on the bed peeping through the window. The Shadow Man is here! He’s inside the greenhouse his shadow through glass long and wet like a worm. Matty was hoping he wouldn’t come. He couldn’t leave a cigar! Dorothy and Maggie and Reg are in the kitchen eating chicken. They left the door open and can see through into the parlour and the silver box and so he can’t get it, now there’s no present, only fag ends.

  Downstairs Maggie is messing about with the piano banging the notes really hard. She shouldn’t do that especially as she’s eating chicken. Mr Doodle says take care of the instrument and the instrument will take care of you. He says Matty has a good ear. Matty looks in the glass but can’t see a difference.

  ‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

  Matty said his prayers earlier with Mumma. They say prayers together. ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child, pity my simplicity, suffer me to come to thee.’ He likes the prayer. He loves Gentle Jesus, has his picture on the wall where He’s wearing a white frock and carrying a Lamb. Matty doesn’t like the suffering bit. When Susan died Callie, the old lady over the Wall, talked of suffering: ‘Oh the suffering of it.’ He told Oldie Hubbard he doesn’t want to suffer. She said it doesn’t mean hurt, it means to allow. Now when he says the prayer Matty says ‘allow me to come to thee.’ It’s much better.