To Move the World (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Regina Sirois

  My ribs strained against the cage of the flowered dress. It didn’t leave me enough room for the new, bigger breaths I needed to take. Despite the giddiness in my head a large yawn escaped my mouth. I excused myself when another overtook me. “I’m so sorry. I’m just tired. And my feet hurt.”

  “Take your shoes off,” he suggested.

  “I would look odd,” I scanned the park and realised no one would see me. Far in the distance, Theo and Marion walked on. “Besides, what would you think of a girl who sat around in public in her stockings?”

  “That she looked much more comfortable,” he said, reaching for my foot. He braced one of my ankles and slipped off my battered shoes. It certainly wasn’t a fairytale moment, because he took the shoe off, not put it on, and it was no glass slipper, but just the same my stomach dipped with a wonderful fall. “There,” he pronounced, laying my battered pump beside me. It was a humiliating sight. I don’t know if I blushed visibly, but I certainly burned on the inside. “Now, set your head down ‘til they return.” He patted his shoulder in a very brotherly way.

  “I couldn’t.” He might not think a thing about it or of our fast kiss in the kitchen a month ago—perhaps in the city they kiss acquaintances like that simply for showing up—but I would think of it. If I put my head next to his heart I would never, in all my long life, stop thinking of it.

  “Please. You look worn through. I’ll be still as a statue and let you doze.”

  “And drool all over your fine suit? I think not.” My fingers curled into my hand, fighting the impulse to touch him. I suppose he felt like every other person, but never have I been so tempted to find out.

  “Eve, honestly. I’ll tell you a delicious story of humiliation. perhaps the time I nearly failed a class because I was caught out cheating.”

  “What class?” I asked dubiously.

  “Arithmetic, second year, primary. But it was a terrific scandal amongst the seven-year-olds.”

  I laughed and relented, gingerly setting my head down on his suit jacket. That is what I told myself, that it was his jacket I touched, not him. I couldn’t help but inhale. One must breathe after all. “You like Liquorice Allsorts?”

  He shook his pocket and I could hear a metal box rattling. “I’m rather a slave to them. How did you know?”

  “I can smell them.” I closed my eyes and let the dark fragrance wash all thoughts away. “It’s a much better smell than wool or linseed oil. It seems our house is always one or the other.”

  Jonathon inhaled. “But you smell of neither.”

  Behind my closed eyes I imagined the moment when my fragrance reached up and touched his face, even if I was forbidden to do the same. He told me how he discovered the candies. Apparently his father’s secretary always picked them up for the boys. Only Marion hated black liquorice so Jonathon got double and Marion got huffed.

  I want so much to write the story down just as he told it, but I cannot capture the deep strum of his voice traveling through his chest, into his shoulder, and then my ear. At some point his arm that was stretched over the back of the bench wandered to my shoulder and rested lightly, sometimes moving slightly with his words, as if meaning to gesture along with the story. I held as still as I ever have, hoping he would forget I was there and let me stay by him until morning broke. That is how it felt, like light would crash into the moment and leave it in fragments. I was glad he asked no questions. I wrestled with the most exquisite pain pulsing round my heart, as if it meant to tear free of my chest and walk away without me.

  He lapsed into quiet after a bit, and I noticed a fractional tightening of his fingers on my shoulder, as slow as vines overtaking a hedge. Or was that my head leaning heavier against him? I wanted like life to reach out and take his hand but every limb was frozen in terrible indecision. I screamed to myself I would never be able to deny how I felt for him again; I might as well touch him for the memory, but my courage failed me. Two black specks in the distance slowly grew larger and I knew Marion and Theo were returning to us. “I think we’ve little time left,” I told myself more than him, moving my head from his warm shoulder.

  It was Jonathon who leaned down without warning, his face hovering level with mine. He looked me straight in my eyes and must have found what he was looking for because the distance between our lips narrowed to a breath and then it was gone. We hardly moved. There needn’t be anything brash or urgent. Only warmth existed, and touch as soft as insect wings.

  A cool breeze slipped between us as he lighted away. “You are almost drunk with fatigue,” he whispered. “As am I. Shall we forgive each other that?”

  Only instead of agreeing, I leaned forward and pressed my lips back to his, my eyes closed.

  He granted me another kiss but this time he was absent, only kissing in kindness so as not to embarrass me. I shivered when I realised and scooted away, my stomach quivering. It was time to say something to cover the mistake, but I had no useful words. I reached out to replace my shoes, the stretch pulled my sleeves tight on my arms again. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I accept full responsibility,” he said. “I didn’t plan that at all, either. I seem to behave badly with you. You’ve been kind not to ever mention the first kiss I stole and now...”

  So he did remember the kitchen. All I could think was that he wouldn’t kiss me again and I wasn’t sure I could bear it. I pressed a finger against my lips to see if that would still their complaint. “There was no need. I knew it was nothing.” I looked up at him, remembering Alan’s words of how bad people were. It was a dull, fearful thing to realise I was the only one of us who was bad. Alan loved me free and clear and Jonathon had no attachments (save that dreadful secretary I’d imagined). Only I behaved scandalously.

  “You must be very worried about him,” Jonathon said, as if he could see my thoughts about Alan in my face. “I didn’t mean to take advantage when you are so vulnerable. Do you forgive me?”

  Only he was wrong. I wasn’t vulnerable at all. Just very, very happy about the kiss and very sorry he was apologising. “There’s nothing to forgive.” I nearly told him I rather liked it until I realised how terrible it would make me look with Alan in hospital. And then I knew I was evil because I was annoyed at Alan for being so helpless and wounded. “You were just concerned for me because it’s been such a streak of bad luck.”

  How I hoped he would argue with me and tell me he did it because he was mad with love and couldn’t force himself to be proper. He wrinkled his forehead as if my words troubled him, but he nodded. “It has been, hasn’t it? I think because you are young and out of sorts here I feel protective.”

  My heart withered into a painful, dry husk. I could see Marion and Theo, their bright heads emerging from the darkness like cherubs from the night. Marion appeared to lean more on her arm than she on his. I had moved far away from Jonathon, the emptiness between us a cold wind that wrapped around my bare limbs. I tucked my goosefleshed arms against my ribs.

  He looked at me with worried eyes. “I don’t feel forgiven,” he said.

  I wanted never to speak of it again. “You are. I’m angry because I feel a fool. Don’t judge me too harshly.”

  He took my hand with a firm squeeze. “I couldn’t. You are everything sweet and innocent.” Then he paused. “Will you tell Alan? I’m afraid he will hate me.”

  I pulled my hand back. “Certainly not!”

  Jonathon sighed in relief. “Then it really was nothing. If it meant anything to you, you would be compelled to tell him. Now you can rest with a clear conscience. Mea culpa.”

  I knew that meant my fault. Not because I’d learned any Latin, but because I’d read Peter Pan. I sat in a stupefied silence watching Theo come closer until she was within speaking distance.

  Jonathon was the first to say anything. “I think Eve is sleeping on her feet. We should get her to bed.”

  Marion apologised for being thoughtless and gestured to the gates. Jonathon took my arm and helped me up, guiding me with
a soft touch down the path. How I adored his touch and loathed that it was nothing but sympathy. Once I even touched my lips again, just to prove to myself it had really happened. I think he caught me at it because he looked very concerned until I spared a thin smile and yawned. In the car, Theo sat in the back beside me and I was glad because I couldn’t keep my head up any longer, not from exhaustion, but from despair. I burrowed my cheek against her shoulder and listened to the boys talk of schedules. They let us off at our hotel and I only wiggled my fingers in a tiny wave, searching through the windscreen to catch one more glance of his face.

  It wasn’t until we were safely in our room and I had shed my new dress, that I laid down and let the misery take me. When Theo crawled into bed beside me I wiggled close to her and laid my head against her shoulder. That’s when she realised I was crying.

  “Oh, no, Eve,” she cried in a whisper. “Is it Alan? They swear he’ll be well.” She wrapped her soft arms around me. When the need arises she can be quite motherly.

  Thinking of him only stabbed a fresh pain that nearly sliced me in two. “It isn’t Alan.” I took a breath and felt the world fall out from under me. “It’s Jonathon.” His name was an exorcism, casting out the evil secret from the haunted depths of me, awash in scalding tears.

  Theo froze beside me, processed my words. Her stroking fingers went still on my hair. “Oh, dear.” After a pause she asked, “Are you certain?”

  “Not at all. He thinks I am a nice, engaged child.” I used my hand to wipe the wet from my face, but more kept coming. I remembered the woman at the shop and her tea overflowing the pot. I wanted to tell Theo about the kisses, but they either made Jonathon or me look wrong and I couldn’t bear it. “Please tell me I am imagining it.”

  She sat up and put my head in her lap, even though I hadn’t washed off my face and my cosmetics were bound to soil her silk gown. “I would, only it’s not like you. But you’ve had a shock and Jonathon is a soothing sort of person. Let’s assume that’s all it is.”

  I sniffed and caught my breath. He was a soothing person and I was much in need of soothing. “He does calm one’s nerves.”

  “See? I think you’ve confused gratitude with love. Jonathon has been so generous.” She twirled a strand of my hair around her finger and gave it a swift kiss. “How dangerous to mix love and war,” she said, looking down at me with a wry grin. For several moments we sat alone with ourselves in the darkness and silence. Outside something trundled down the street and I waited until the noise dwindled to nothing.

  “And for you tonight, how was it to be with Marion?” I looked up into her blue eyes glinting in the lights from the buildings outside.

  “Oh, he’s like one of your farm horses. Once he’s thoroughly broken he’ll be a grand beast. In the meantime, he’s not to be trusted.” She smiled as if it didn’t distress her at all, but I wondered.

  “I think you’re right,” I told her, glad she knew for herself and I needn’t spread any rumors. But then, I had great sympathy for Marion at the moment. I wasn’t to be trusted either.

  CHAPTER 10

  When we woke Theo pushed me toward the shower, insisting I burn off any insensible feelings with hot water and soap. “If you’re still conflicted after a good scrubbing with Lux, then we’ll worry,” she told me.

  Sometimes I despise the way she trivialises everything, but that morning I welcomed it. And the fresh bottle of Palmolive shampoo looked so attractive in the marble bathroom I couldn’t help but be cheered a little. I trembled my way through getting dressed and the breakfast Theo called up and the short ride to hospital. Jonathon had left us use of the car and driver again. I made a decision somewhere in the black hours of sleep and I felt rather like a soldier determined to go to battle; you know you are doing right, but you dread it just the same. Theo left me at hospital, telling me only she wanted to leave me alone to get myself straight with Alan. Her parting words before the car pulled away were, “If you love him, forgive yourself and love him. But if you don’t, you mustn’t force it.”

  “I love him,” I told her with a stiff chin. I repeated it to myself down the staircase and to the nurse’s desk. “I love him.”

  The lovely blonde nurse must have been a weekend worker because there was only a dour, middle-aged woman tending things. I told her I was there to visit Alan and she humphed a bit and gave what she must have thought was a smile. “He’s up today. Doctor ordered him to take slow walks down the room. We might take him out in a chair if the weather is not overwarm.”

  I didn’t wait to hear more, just hurried into the ward and saw him standing with a cane at the end of the room. They’d suited him out in pinstriped pajamas with a crisp collar. “Alan.” I needn’t say it loud for it to carry the length of the hard, echoing room.

  He looked up a strained grin. “Not ‘alf bad?” he asked me as my shoes made loud clicks with every step toward him. Stares followed me. There was nowhere to be alone with twenty other men who had nothing to do watch but us.

  “Not half, indeed! You look so much better than yesterday,” I told him. With the shirt covering his bandages he looked much less alarming.

  “The nurse put some salve on my face after you left. She said if the swelling went down it wouldn’t frighten you so much.”

  I studied the bruises spread along his cheek. The startling purple was fading into a swampy green at the edges. “It’s working wonders,” I assured him.

  “I’m supposed to walk this room two more times.” He looked toward the far door, determined and hopeless all at once. “I’d have never imagined the day when a little walking could cow me.”

  “It won’t. I’ll walk it with you. And you’ll be throwing sheep this way and that again soon,” I reassured him.

  “Unfortunately, not sheep. Germans, perhaps.”

  “Please don’t.” It seemed too unjust they would fix him up only to put him in harm’s way.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you paid attention to what they do. We’ve a wireless in here. They tell us of the people in Czechoslovakia every day. If you stop to listen.”

  “I haven’t had time,” I reminded him. “I’m trying to care for Dad and William and the sheep and now you. Czechoslovakia will have to get on without me because I don’t know what I can do about it.” It did sound more harsh than I meant. I was desperately sorry for them, but I could concentrate on only a few disasters at a time.

  I don’t think my answer pleased him at all because he pressed his lips together and with great effort shuffled forward. We took a few more steps before I tried again. “I know the world is falling to pieces, Alan. It’s just that you’re the piece I’m worried about.”

  When he looked at me with happy surprise I felt my stomach curve and dip away from me, just as it had for years whenever he spoke to me. Surely, that proved I did love him still.

  “Now walk on,” I told him in the same command the farmers give their plow horses. “We’ve a row to hoe.”

  He nodded, obviously pleased, and walked until his forehead grew dewy with exertion. Halfway through his second lap the nurse approached him with a wheeled chair. “That’ll do for now. I’m sure you’ve unclotted enough to be getting on with and I’ll not have you collapsing on my watch.”

  Alan eased into the chair and let out his breath in relief. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it anyhow,” he whispered to me, looking at his bed ten metres away.

  “You’ve earned a rest and a bit of air,” the nurse told him, firmly pushing the chair forward. “You too,” she said, signaling briskly to me. “I’ll take him up to the courtyard and you can sit with him for an hour. Then he’ll be wanted for mealtime. Don’t bring him back yourself. Wait for a nurse,” she commanded as she steered us onto the lift. It still had a metal grate, which made me very happy. I do like the sound of them closing because I always feel as if I’ve been jailed, which is strangely delightful when you are only pretending. The courtyard wasn’t particularly lovely, but she did settle his chair next t
o a quiet bench in the shade of a wide, low-branched tree. “Be careful if you get up to do more walking. Use the cane. You don’t need another fall,” she snapped at Alan, but it was a good natured sternness.

  “I didn’t exactly fall the first time.”

  “Oh, don’t I know it, you poor boys,” she mumbled and left us, her feet making pert stomps against the paved path. I liked her better than the young girl.

  Not many patients were out. Very few had the misfortune to get injured before the war began. Alan told me most of the men were getting surgeries unrelated to active service, bad appendixes and wisdom teeth and such.

  “How has your stay been?” Alan asked, not meaning to make me laugh, but he did.

  “Hardly a holiday. But well enough.” I wish I could say I tried like mad not to think of Jonathon, but I sat lingering over the feeling of pressing my cheek against his jacket. I should have driven it away but I loved the way it made me quiver with something like misery. I wondered if it would feel the same if I laid my head against Alan, but I was frightened to put any weight on him. Instead I took his hand and traced his fingers.

  After a dull silence he said he wanted to stand again. I helped him up and he stood in the breeze that smelled of the Thames. His bruises were more ghastly in the daylight. “I just pretend the sheep are following me,” he said as he took a brave step. I took his free arm and felt the muscles tense in effort.

  “I’m so sorry it pains you,” I told him as we made tedious progress forward.

  “Better pained than dead,” he grunted. He pointed to spot next to one of the white buttons of his pajamas. “They say a splinter from the shed went in ‘ere, right through the lung, and out by my shoulder blade. I count myself lucky.”

  We stopped walking and I stared at the spot, a hand’s breadth away from his heart. My blood moved in slow, deliberate beats inside my chest, and for a moment it seemed I felt his heartbeat under my ribs instead of my own. I was going to say something that told him how glad I was for those inches that meant life, but instead I rose up onto my toes and pressed my lips to his. I worried he’d go shy, but after his first surprise wore off, he kissed me back firmly.