To Move the World (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Regina Sirois

  “I do love being ‘ome with you, Eve.”

  So there was the declaration every girl waits for. His breath fell on my face, and I inhaled the words. When I was overfilled with them, they ran over my lips in a relieved sigh. How good to know I truly did love him. “I missed you so much. This is the best surprise.”

  “I addled a bit o’ brass just fer splurging. I want t’ take ya t’ dinner. And dancing.” As he spoke one of his hands came up and engulfed mine; both his and mine nested together on his chest. Something about it tapped at my memory, but I hadn’t time to pursue it.

  “But that’s what I meant to tell you,” I said. “We can’t go dancing. We can’t leave the sheep. They’ve gone down, Alan. Things aren’t half well here.” I tried to say it gently because I knew what it meant. All of his plans, all of his dreams for the future dangled on whether Holton could figure out the cause, and more importantly, fix it.

  “Wha’ da ya mean? What’s ailin’ ‘em?” His head whipped back around to the barn. “They looked right enough when I saw ‘em.”

  “Mine are. The lambs. I’ve got them all in there. They are the only ones improving. The ewes are losing ground.” I hadn’t finished before he darted for the main barn where I knew he’d find my father sleeping or sleepwalking through the motions of checking on the sheep. When he reached the glow of the electric yard light I got my first proper glance of him. His hair looked even lighter, though I don’t see how he could have possibly spent more time in the sun with the army than he did at the farm. But then I remembered that spring and the bleaching sunshine had all come since he’d left months ago in the blast of winter. Even in his panic, he kept his face tight and controlled; his grim mouth betrayed nothing. He disappeared through the door and I trembled in the cold air, wondering if I’d ever woken at all or simply dreamed him and the kiss. But my feet were too icy for a dream so I shuffled toward the barn, wondering if I had the strength to watch him take in the truth of it all. After a long hesitation, I told myself we would someday share all things in life, so I best live up to the first Eve and go bear the curses of the world beside him. I learnt to like the Bible early because my namesake plays into it very soon, even if she must be the villain, and because I like that God makes up words like helpmeet. It makes him feel more human somehow.

  I only opened the door a crack, taking in the picture by pieces. My father was asleep in a shapeless heap, his head pillowed on his arm and a sick sheep lying at his knees. Alan moved soundlessly through the throng, shaking his head, running his fingers over their bowed faces. He inspected a few cleats and sidestepped a pool of sick. It was when he made it to the very end of the barn that he lowered himself onto his knees, looking one ewe in the face as she dripped saliva like fountains. I could not hear anything, but I believe he whispered something to her. It was a bit like peeking in on a mother kneeling at her child’s sickbed. It is more terrible for me to see a sorrow through someone else’s eyes than my own, though I don’t know why.

  I waited for him outside for several minutes, shivering in my jumper as the sky began to lighten by degrees. I find sunrise a most depressing time. The light is so weak and cold that no matter how many times the sun has risen over this ancient earth, when I am awake to see it come up I always doubt it will have the strength to pull itself to the apex of the sky for one more day.

  When Alan came back out his face was blank with shock. “What ‘appened? What ‘ave they got?” He asked without speed or urgency, as if he already knew I had no good news.

  “Holton can’t figure it. They were a bit listless for a span, but nothing to worry over. And then they went down quickly. I couldn’t write because it’s only been a week since the worst hit. It wouldn’t have got to you in time.” I told him all the things we knew it wasn’t. “We all hoped you would see something we’ve missed.”

  “Aye,” he said as if he could not hear his own voice. “We’ll figger it.” He sat down hard on the end of the trough, his hands limp in his lap, the light of the lamp above him fighting back the dismal dark. When he looked up at me his eyes seemed the bluest thing in the world, mostly because everything else was the same colourless grey as the sky or the muddy colour of his uniform. I wanted so badly to wipe the pain out of them, so I stepped forward and produced a brave smile. When I bent down and kissed him I wondered if he would be too upset to respond, but he pulled me onto his lap, gentle and hungry all at once. It felt too grown up a kiss for me, and made me feel terribly young. I stumbled off his legs and stood, brushing down my skirt.

  “At least you still love me, with or without the farm,” I said, to cover my embarrassment.

  His eyes contracted, seemed to travel far away and back again like tales of time machines leaping through centuries. “Without the farm?” he whispered. “Is it as bad as that?”

  I thought he would have known after looking at them. “No. Of course not. Dad says it will all come right.”

  “But Eve, I’m only home a week. And William at school…”

  “He’s had to quit. For now.” I hastily added the modifier because Alan looked so wretched at the news.

  He stood and bent over as if to be sick, but instead he gripped his hair much like I’d seen Holton do a hundred times. “No,” he moaned. “If I’d stayed.”

  I put my hand on his arm, pulling him toward the kitchen. “You’ve walked all night and had a shock. Please come sit down. Dad knows what he’s about and it still happened. Only those that has them can—”

  “Don’t. Please don’t. Don’t be cheerful or brave. I’d like to rave like a lunatic,” he said, following me to the kitchen door. He paused on the threshold, looking around him, pulling in a deep breath. “I will save them.”

  “Of course you will,” I agreed, turning toward the frying pan so he wouldn’t see my doubt. “But not before I feed you and send you to bed. You need rest.”

  “Not ‘avin’ it.” He brought his hand down on the table to show how much he meant it. “I mean, I’ll ‘ave the eggs,” he apologised, “but no sleep. I’ve only a week.”

  “Well then,” I said with a nod, cracking the eggs into my bowl. “I’ll settle for breakfast. For now.”

  “You’re wearing a dress,” he said after a quiet minute. “Is it because I was coming today?”

  “I’ve been grabbing anything I can. We’re so desperate that Theo is doing our laundry. I haven’t any slacks at present.”

  Alan started laughing about Theo but then stopped. “I like the dresses much better. When we went to Larkhill I saw all the fine girls dressed up and I wanted so much to buy you one of those dresses. There was a beautiful yellow one.” His eyes were distant again, and I wondered if it was the dress he saw in his mind’s eye or the girl wearing it. I huffed and flipped the egg before it was ready, spilling out the yolk.

  “Crumb,” I spat. “And no mind. I don’t need anything fine. I need the sheep to be safe and you to be safe and William to get back to school. What do I care about dresses?” But all the time I gave that little speech I imagined walking down a city street, glowing in the yellow sunshine in my new dress and having an officer as handsome as Alan look me over. I cared far more about dresses than I had a right.

  “I knew you’d say that. It’s what makes a farm girl the best wife in the world. That and the food.” He winked at me and I returned his smile but my stomach knotted. The kitchen felt so small as I finished his eggs and toast and threw a few bangers in the pan. I asked him cheerfully about the army, but he kept returning all my questions with ones about the sheep. The conversation stalled as he began to eat. I watched him chew, his arms so strong they strained against his shirt. When he finished he briefly touched my cheek. “Thank you. I best get t’ it. We’ll sort it.”

  I repeated that to myself all day: we would sort it all out. Every time I saw him I got a strange feeling and thought, But we’ll sort it all out. While I prepared formula for the lambs I finally realised my strange feeling was a mix of happy and sad. When the thou
ght entered my mind I flattened myself against the wall and put my hand over my mouth because I was alone and could allow myself a few theatrics. It startled me because I thought, Perhaps we will become like each other and now I will mix all of my happy and sad. Only I very much didn’t want to. I wanted to laugh too much and be jolly and save sad only for the most necessary of times.

  I don’t know what Alan’s homecoming with Dad and William was like. I barricaded myself in the kitchen and tried to make a meal worthy of a hero’s welcome on a peasant's purse. As I kneaded some rye dough I looked down at my hands pushing through the coarse ball, pressing my fingertips into its resisting shape. Then I remembered. I remembered Jonathon putting his hand on top of mine on the brown dirt of the pasture. That is what Alan’s hand on mine reminded me of. My stomach filled my entire chest when I thought of Alan’s kiss. Surely no one could react that way to a memory except out of love. The crawling, tickling feeling of love.

  Jonathon was only a psychological block. William used to love to talk to me about my psychological blocks while he perused his textbooks. Apparently, my laughter is a psychological block and my faint memories of mother’s death, as well as my desire to eat cheese and apples in bed, but he never explained why. I think he just wanted me to stop hogging all the apples. But I added Jonathon to the list as an obstacle I created to frighten myself out of happiness. Perhaps I thought I didn’t deserve Alan and so developed a fine case of calf love with an impossible man. I felt so proud of getting to the bottom of it I sighed with satisfaction and left the bread to rise in the window just like the sun.

  Through the panes I watched Alan inspect a lone sheep in the yard. He’d changed out of his army clothes and wore my favourite blue checked shirt. I couldn’t see from where I was but I knew his eyes would be blazing with colour. He bent over the pathetic ewe as it quivered, his gentle fingers exploring her flinching head. When he touched it I imagined his hand on my face and decided I would love him forever and pay no mind to whoever or whatever tried to block us: Germans, moustaches, sheep diseases, and all.

  CHAPTER 6

  11TH MAY 1939

  Try as he might, Alan couldn’t sort out the sheep, either. They stopped eating by his second day home despite offering our best food. Only the bottle-fed lambs remained safe. Holton jumped from contagious disease to ingested poison or fungus. With contagion, we were killing them keeping them all together. With ingestion, we would kill them if we let them outside to graze on bad pasture. We lost four more, one of our new rams and three ewes that withered down to almost nothing. With Alan’s week half up, our funds dwindling next to nothing, and the sheep still losing flesh we started to avoid each other’s eyes. The future became the hollow question in our sleepless faces. And perhaps we could have accepted our unknown fates better if we could have consoled the poor sheep. They were wretched.

  “Iffen we can’t do nowt else, best t’ cull ‘em and put ‘em out o’ sich misery,” my father murmured as he stood between Alan and Holton. They looked like three men trying to swallow gall. Alan screwed up his face and crushed his helpless cap in his fingers.

  Holton pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked forward, his shoulders round and defeated. “There’s more we could try,” he offered, but I heard far more desperation than hope.

  “We can’t jus’ knacker ‘em,” Alan argued. “Some might pull through.”

  “Not eno’, and which ones?” my father asked, his wise eyes probing. “I say let ‘em out. Best they go under the sky.”

  Alan argued like mad, but the truth is it didn’t seem to matter what we did anymore. Holton was convinced some of them were going blind, which meant whatever it was was in their brains now. We learned to look past each other as we walked and had the civility not to see the utter despair in one another’s faces.

  14TH MAY 1939

  For Alan’s last night he took me me out after all. I told him he needn’t with the sheep still dropping. We’d lost eighteen already. There were a few making improvements, with several more unable to walk straight. Most had thin brittle wool worse than I’d ever seen. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer so I convinced him to forgo the dancing part and spend a quiet evening with me in the village. He agreed to that and after fixing the car, he escorted me to the Porter’s Arms because they have a high-back settle away from the pub counter and Mrs. Buckey is always partial to young lovers. I’ve seen her shoo drinking men into her kitchen when they threatened to interrupt a nice date, protests and all. Alan wore his walking out uniform and I wore my blue dress and when we stepped inside she gave us one look, threw her arms up and ushered us to the corner, nearly pushing us into our seats, all atwitter. When she came back with glasses of my favourite cider she set a rather crooked candle on our table next to our wrinkled menus.

  Alan took a sip of his and stared down at his glass. “I’d forgotten ‘bout Mrs. Buckey’s cider.”

  “You mustn’t forget home so easily,” I teased. “We certainly don’t forget you.”

  His blue eyes caught the light of the candle and I saw the reflection of it against his black pupils. It was rather hypnotic when he started to speak. “I may be away for years, Eve. E’ry time I think on it I want t’ slice m’self clear in ‘alf and keep one ‘alf ‘ere.”

  “Well, that would be messy!” I laughed because Mrs. Buckey was walking up behind him and I didn’t want to be caught out in anything too romantic. He flinched when she cleared her throat and asked what we’d have. Alan ordered steak and kidney and I asked for her pork in gravy, mostly because she always takes her time over it and I rather liked the dripping candle and the way it lit up his coat buttons and didn’t want to hurry any of it.

  After she’d gone we seemed to have forgotten where we’d left off because we peered down at the table, that blank expression in our eyes that people only have when they remembered they had said something important but didn’t know what. Alan looked like a man who wanted a drink much stiffer than cider. The pauses stretched wide. But then without any warning, he leaned forward and spoke very quickly. “Do you think it were rash? To talk o’ being married before I left?”

  I inhaled without making a sound. “Do you have cold feet?” I did manage to sound dreadfully accusing for a girl who had kissed another man.

  “Only on your account,” he murmured. He ran his hand over the dented wooden table, folding his fingers around his fork. “If I were a selfish clod, I’d marry you tonight and be done wit it.”

  “You can’t be serious?” I asked him with a smile, refusing to acknowledge the terrible sincerity in his voice. When he looked a bit stricken, I tried again. “I only mean I thought we both needed time to be ready to be married. I still spoil meringue half the time and I don’t see how I could be a full grown woman if I cannot manage a pie.”

  “That’s why I bide,” he answered, setting his fork down and slumping back in his seat.

  I kept my gaze on the knot in his khaki tie. It was in a most provocative place, burrowed into the hollow of his neck that suddenly looked so beckoning. I thought of that little hollow being mine. His blue eyes. The shadowy spot behind his ear that I might be the first person to touch. How British of me to think of conquering and colonising all of him, my own empire of Alan. I can’t remember exactly what we spoke of right after that. The next thing I remember is asking him when he would next be home.

  Alan sighed. “Not for six months at least, and that’s if all’s quiet and I manage to get leave. Like I say, it could be years. And that’s not fair to you nor any girl. Tom Terry, a boy in our bunk’ouse, married a girl the day afore he arrived. What a miserable start for ‘er. I doan know ‘er from a horsefly and I pity her.”

  “Perhaps she loved Tom Terry enough it didn’t matter.” My eyes stopped on the wet tabletop where cold drops fell from the sides of his glass. I didn’t want to see his face just then. Or didn’t want him to see mine. I only know I envied Mrs. Tom Terry.

  “There you are, luvs,” Mrs. Buckey said a
s she set down two plates the size of platters. “A bit o’ wine sauce on yours. That’s new. Just for you. You do look fine together.” Her face crushed into a smile I couldn’t return. I took a breath and she seemed to realise she had found us at a critical moment. With a wave of her arms and a stifled word, she left us alone and staring at each other over the mound of food. How absurd it looked when my stomach was made of lead. I did make a valiant effort, nudging in small bites, trying to enjoy the steaming sauce.

  “We will have walking out passes once I get on at Wiltshire. Bulford Camp lets us out on Saturday afternoons.”

  “Wiltshire! But that’s at the other end of the kingdom! Surely, you don’t have to go all the way…” I set my fork down.

  “I’m being joined to the RHA. There’s no accountin’ for it.” He looked at me long enough to give me a bewildered and apologetic grin. “It’s the Royal Horse Artillery. Only there’s no horses now, of course. I’ve got no practice with guns in all my life, but the bigger they are, the straighter I shoot. I was best mark in t’ camp.” His face flushed with a wash of pride that looked so foreign on him that for a moment I didn’t recognise him and had to imagine a lamb in his lap before I could straighten out my thoughts. He must have seen the bafflement in my eyes because he ducked his head and started to saw through his steak. “It doan matter, only that they’re puttin me on in Wiltshire because they ‘ad a gunner with a bad appendix and they chose me to replace ‘im.” He chewed for much longer than necessary. Or perhaps it was necessary. Mrs. Buckey can overcook her steaks when she’s not careful. “You could come for a weekend, if yer dad could spare you. There are inns and you could see the city.”