by Nancy Carson
‘You can’t be sure of that, Will. In any case Dorothy also wanted the child, so you can hardly blame yourself.’
Will finished his second cup of tea and put the cup down. ‘Nonetheless, I do.’
‘You’re like my mother,’ she said, sounding benignly exasperated. ‘When I was just a little girl, my father decided that he should do his bit for king and country and went off to fight in the war. Naturally, she didn’t want him to go but she says she didn’t really make enough of a fuss to stop him. For more than three years she didn’t catch sight of him, till an army lorry turned up outside our house and two soldiers brought him back home, wounded. I can see it all now, as clear as if it were yesterday. I watched as they lifted him out of the truck on a stretcher and when they took him him upstairs. I couldn’t remember him. I’d forgotten what he looked like and everything. He’d been fighting in the front line at Arras, in France. For years he suffered, till finally he gave up the will to live and died. Now, my mother, bless her heart, blames herself for it. She always reckons that, if she’d been stronger and stood up to my dad, she could’ve prevented him going to war. Whose fault do you think it was, Will?’
‘It was the fault of neither. Your father’s conscience told him to go and fight. Your mother at that time couldn’t see into the future, could she? She didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, so her resolve to prevent him going wouldn’t have been as strong. And maybe your father wouldn’t have listened anyway.’
‘But it wasn’t my father’s fault either, was it?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘So in the same way, it’s not your fault that you lost your wife and baby in childbirth. Nor is it hers. The same arguments apply. Don’t you see?’
Will laughed. ‘You argue well, Henzey. You should be in politics.’
‘I must get it from my dad. He should have been a politician. I think he would have been, if he’d been well when the war ended.’
He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘D’you have time for more tea, or must you go?’
‘I don’t have to go yet.’ It was certain she had missed the train she’d thought to take, but she was enjoying the company of this man so much that she was quite prepared to take the next. In any case, she did not have to rush back. ‘Actually, I’m getting hungry now so, if you’re not pressed for time either, I’ll stay and eat…If you think I’m not being too cheeky suggesting it.’
‘Not at all.’
He called over the waitress and, while she weaved through the tables and chairs to get to them, Henzey said she would like a ham and tomato sandwich. Will ordered the same for himself, too, an egg custard each and another pot of tea.
Afterwards, Will insisted on walking with Henzey to Hockley station, then waiting with her till her train came.
‘If you were just a child during the war, you can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen now,’ he fished, as they took a seat on the platform.
She smiled. ‘I’m eighteen. Nineteen next March.’
‘And brothers and sisters at home, I imagine?’
‘Yes, and all younger than me.’ She told him about them briefly as the platform filled up with people.
Will said, ‘I expect it’s been difficult for your mother to cope, with four children to look after all these years.’
‘Thankfully she’s not a widow any more. She remarried last May. She has another baby now. A boy. They christened him Richard. Oh, he’s beautiful.’
‘And do you get on with your step-father?’
‘Step-father?’ She let out a little laugh. ‘It’s strange, but I never ever think of him as that. Yes, we all get on with him really well. He’s more like a real father to us and we treat him as if he is. Oh, you should see our house sometimes, it’s Bedlam.’ She gave another little chuckle. ‘There’s Richard squawking, Alice complaining that she can’t get in the bathroom to get ready to go out because Herbert’s there and won’t hurry. Maxi’s usually agonising over her music – she wants to be a professional cellist, by the way – most unladylike. My mom’s usually fretting over something, or threatening Alice to be in at a respectable time and Jesse, if he’s not tending the horses or cleaning churns out, he’s trying to balance his books.’
‘And you? Drawing, perhaps?’
‘Not always. I do whatever takes my fancy. I draw, I read. Sometimes I listen to the wireless, sometimes I go out, roller skating, dancing occasionally.’ The weather was still warm for late September and, as she sat, Henzey unbuttoned her coat. ‘And you, Will? What do you do?’
‘Much the same as you, by the sound of it, except that sometimes I go out at night and play darts. On Saturdays I might go to a football match – to the Hawthorns when West Brom are either at home, or playing at Wolves or Villa – or Brum. There are social functions and club activities at the works. Sometimes I go to them if I feel like company. I enjoy singing in the choir on a Sunday, as well. I take life much as it comes these days.’
She flicked her hair from her face as the wind ruffled it. ‘What about your folks? Do you see them much?’
‘My mother and father live at Great Bridge now.’
They heard the rumblings of a train in the distance. Henzey turned to look, bracing herself for the awful din and clatter that would accompany it into the station.
‘Oh, I have a sister and a brother. Sophie is eight years older than me, and there’s Samuel, about ten years older. We’ve always got on well. I see Sophie quite often. She married well and has two pretty daughters, almost grown-up.’
Their conversation was adjourned. The locomotive whistled, its clanking and squealing increasing in volume till they could no longer talk without having to shout. It hissed and roared like a steel dragon, and Henzey put her hands to her ears.
When she was satisfied she could be heard again she shouted: ‘Thanks Will, for the tea and everything. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you.’
‘You’re welcome, Henzey. I’ve enjoyed it, too.’
‘Perhaps I’ll see you at the works one of the days.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I’ll bring your picture back when the exhibition’s finished.’
The door to the compartment was already open. She stepped up to it, then turned, waved and gave him the most devastating smile.
Chapter 12
Will Parish walked home to his end of terrace house in Daisy Road, Ladywood, with feelings inside him the likes of which he had not experienced for years. Young Henzey Kite had impressed him with her logic, her honesty and her thoughtfulness more than any other woman he had ever met. And that, he admitted, included his late wife Dorothy. Such mature and charming qualities in a girl so young was astonishing. To add to all her virtues, it had been many a long year since he had met a girl so lovely – and she had spent two whole hours with him, willingly, while they drank tea and ate sandwiches and talked. She had turned his head when he thought it was beyond turning. She had succeeded in getting under his skin and he rather liked the feeling.
But what vibrant young girl of eighteen, with the looks of a fairy tale princess, would be interested in him? He was a widower, now into his thirties – old in her eyes. It was ridiculous to even contemplate such a liaison. Besides, he’d confessed that he did not feel the need for a mate. He could kick himself, though, now, for having said it, especially since it was no longer true.
Till today, Will Parish had had little use or belief in the abstractions of storybook romance, especially with a fairy tale princess. He was more pragmatic than that. Till today, it would have taken a gigantic effort to lead him anywhere near the brink of a relationship with a woman, and those women, since Dorothy, who had set their caps at him had suffered only long and fruitless waits. Not that he disliked women. On the contrary, he adored them and, if they were genteel, well turned out, intelligent, beautiful, affable and smelled fresh, he adored them the more. But few women measured up to his standards. At work he was surrounded by girls. All around him were women of all shapes and sizes, of
all ages, of all colourings from the striking to the dowdy, and as many differing personalities. Yet few appealed. Only this Henzey Kite had ever really stirred his interest since Dorothy died.
The very word ‘romance’ had been relegated to the appendix of his vocabulary, and his innate selectivity had ensured celibacy. That is not to say that he was incapable of love or romance. He had loved Dorothy with all his heart and soul and they’d had their romantic moments; moments that now existed only in his memory. The kind of love Dorothy gave was undramatic and unsentimental. She discovered early on in their relationship that tears, highly charged emotions and gushing affection cut no ice with him. Nonetheless, she melted his heart with a love that set its premium on quality and not quantity. That was what he favoured; and that was why he’d had no other real love affairs since she died. Nobody could match her in his eyes – till today.
Will dealt with the heartbreak of his wife’s death by immersing himself in work and staying away from people socially. He had no desire to lose himself in other women; other women’s vices only enhanced Dorothy’s virtues and hence prolonged the grief. For him it was the easiest thing in the world to be chaste and he was aware that it would take an extraordinary woman to turn him from his chastity. He could live with celibacy as easily as he could contend with any other self-imposed discipline. If fate decreed that the rest of his life he remain single, he believed he could accept it with neither regret nor undue emotion – till today.
Now, at last, he felt his slumbering emotions stirring within him, growing as remorselessly as the buds on the trees in springtime. It was sudden and unexpected, but he was quick to recognise it. Perhaps it was time to think in terms of a love affair, but he would only be interested in a love affair with this one particular girl. Nobody else. If only there were a remote chance that she could be the slightest bit interested in him. But what was her response when he asked if she had a young man now? She wanted nobody. Her last love affair had left its scars. She’d said so. Clearly, she meant it.
He was home at last, hardly remembering the walk back. He would have time to get to the Hawthorns before the kick-off if he hurried, but football suddenly had no more appeal that day. It all seemed too trivial. He closed the front door behind him and sat on the settee in front of the empty fireplace, looking at the cast-iron fire basket. There had been no fire in this room since Dorothy died. He recalled how they’d had this new fire grate installed. It was one of the more modern ones with a panel of decorated, ceramic tiles on each side of the low cast iron fire opening.
On the mantelpiece was a clock, which he religiously wound up every day; their wedding photograph was in a frame at one end and a photo of Dorothy posing alone at the other. Between the clock in the middle and the two end pictures, stood two bronze Art Nouveau statuettes of nubile water-nymphs, each on a plinth, each semi-nude, standing seductively in reflective pose – fodder for the gods Zeus or Pan; old-fashioned now, but they were a wedding gift. The whole arrangement was how Dorothy had set it out. Oh, he dusted it all and polished it every week, but never could he, nor would he, alter its arrangement; that would be sacrilege. It was the same throughout the whole house. Although this house was his home, it was still a shrine to her.
Beyond the front room in which he sat, there was a comfortable living room. Beyond that was a scullery with a gas cooker, a gas boiler, a sink with cold running water, a mangle and a galvanised bath hanging from the wall by a nail. Will never used the mangle, however. All his laundry he wrapped in a sheet and handed it to Mrs Fothergill next door, who would in turn, hand it with her own dirty washing to the Co-operative Laundry man on a Monday morning. It would come back on a Wednesday, clean and fresh, with his collars and cuffs beautifully starched. He would use the boiler, of course, whenever he needed to fill the bath.
He sat down and pondered the frailty and tenuousness of human life. It seemed strange that an inanimate object like that clock on the mantelpiece, its face marked out and painted by a craftsman, its case carefully carved, its mechanism cleverly engineered to precise tolerances, could exist in the same state from day to day, from year to year, when the woman he had loved so dearly had expired in her endeavour to fulfil the vows taken at their marriage; marriage that first and foremost was ordained for the procreation of children. Life, love, could be so cruel.
But what to do about this Henzey Kite? Perhaps nothing, yet. She was marked from a past love affair. She wanted nobody. It was inopportune to be thinking about her in such terms. If he began paying attention to her yet he was just as likely to scare her off. Besides, how did you go about asking a girl out these days? Things had changed so much in ten years.
Henzey’s exhibition came and went, and from it she received enquiries for more and more portraits. Florrie Shuker told her she was a fool to do any more without charging for them and Henzey agreed that the extra money would come in handy. So every new enquirer was told that there would be a charge of four shillings and sixpence per portrait. It rather succeeded in sorting the genuine out from those with the something-for-nothing mentality. Those who were prepared to pay had good value, but the others all said they would let her know, and invariably didn’t.
She took Will Parish’s portrait back to him herself during the first dinner break after the exhibition had finished. A creature of habit, he was as usual eating his sandwiches and reading the Daily Mail. When he saw her at his office door, which was always kept open, he smiled with genuine delight, folded his paper up and put his sandwiches in the top drawer of his desk.
‘Henzey, come in and pull up a chair.’
‘I just came to bring your picture back and to thank you for letting me borrow it.’ She sat on the edge of the chair facing his desk, her hands primly in her lap.
‘How did it go?’
‘Oh, fine, thank you…But, look, I won’t stop and interrupt your dinner.’ She made to get up again but he held his hand up emphatically.
‘No, don’t rush off. The sandwiches can wait. I’d much rather talk to you.’ He was tempted to say he’d thought about her a great deal – that she had been on his mind constantly in fact, but he thought better of it.
They chatted for a few minutes longer, about her exhibition and the general reaction to it, until Henzey insisted on going so that Will could finish his dinner. When she had gone he opened up his newspaper again and began reading. He digested not a word. His thoughts were on Henzey Kite. What a poor conversationalist she must think he was, having had nothing interesting to say that might keep her there. She seemed keen to leave him. So keen that any chance he might have had the other Saturday must surely be gone now. Damn! Strange how the accord they’d enjoyed then seemed to exist no longer.
Henzey, though, had not considered Will an admirer; merely a new friend. Even if she sussed his interest, she was not ready for the risks it might incur. Getting involved was one thing, but the prospect of her poor heart breaking and aching again as a result, was another. She had learned her lesson. Yet she liked Will. He was always well turned out; always looked fresh and clean as if he’d just been returned from the laundry. That was how she liked men. She found him easy to talk to; he was agreeable company and she felt she could broach any subject with him, no matter how delicate, or indelicate.
As the weeks and months passed, he became a true friend and, each time they parted, she looked forward to the next time they would meet. But at no time since that Saturday morning had he asked her to accompany him to The Copper Kettle, nor anywhere else for that matter. They frequently ran into each other – always by chance, never contrived – coming in or going out of work and passing in corridors, especially at break times. Always they had a pleasant word to exchange and always made time to talk about themselves, about each other, about their respective families, to confide little secrets or discuss any problems they had. Thus they became close. And there was that certain indefinable something about Will’s smile that was so appealing. At no time did she think of him as being twelve years older
than herself; not that it would have mattered anyway.
Henzey’s nineteenth birthday arrived. It fell on a Saturday, that March in 1931 and, that morning, she received a card in the post from Will Parish. It was the first inkling she’d had of his true feelings towards her. The verse inside it, in his own handwriting, read:
My heart hides timidly behind my dreams,
Eloquence evading,
Like exquisite flowers I stop to pick,
Which at my touch start fading.
Yet flowery words, howe’er refined
Cannot do justice to thee,
Nor yet to what I feel inside,
Persistently, constantly, truly.
It was signed, ‘With all my love, Will’.
The message touched her, triggering off new lines of thought. Could it really be that he was in love with her? And if so, did he really lack the ability or the courage to tell her to her face as his poem suggested? He had never given her any indication of such feelings when they were together. If he had, she was too blind to see. So how should she behave with him now? After all this time of being friends, should she now avoid him or act as if she had never received this card? Neither would be fair. She could not ignore him; she had far too much respect for him. Maybe she should broach the subject and then they could discuss it rationally. After all, she really could discuss anything with him. But, no. That would be too systematic and would inhibit any romance.
Her mind ran on…
If he asked her to go out one evening she certainly would not refuse. On the contrary, she would be glad of the opportunity. Scarcely did she go out at night nowadays, especially in the week. In any case, Will was most presentable. She would be proud to be seen on his arm, a tall, good-looking, well-dressed man of thirty with intriguingly soulful, brown eyes and the sort of lips any girl would relish kissing.
