by Annie Murray
It was a moment before he realized Elizabeth was watching him from the doorway.
‘Found something?’
He straightened up. ‘Nice little piece – look. It’s a torchère – mahogany. Chippendale, I’d say.’
Elizabeth frowned. ‘A what? I remember it – I always thought it was a side table.’
George dusted it with the end of the chenille cloth. The circular top was edged with a brass inlaid gallery, like an ornate little fence around it.
‘A stand for a light – candle usually. Cabriole legs – very elegant. I’d say George the Second. I was just checking it over because there was a fashion in the twenties for putting them together from the foot posts of beds. Usually an eighteenth-century bed – they’d put a top on it and some tripod feet and off you go. But this is a genuine one – only thing is, it would be worth more as a pair.’ For a second, Venus trotted through his mind again.
‘Oh!’ Elizabeth seemed excited. ‘There’s another one upstairs – stuck away somewhere. How exciting!’
They beamed at each other.
‘I’ll show you,’ she said. ‘But what I came to ask was . . .’ She spoke with a slow, mock seriousness. ‘Whether you might feel obliged, by the sheer weight of the job, to stop and have some bread and cheese with me?’
‘I think,’ he replied, also very serious, ‘I might.’
They also felt obliged to finish off the remaining wine from the night before and, because there was so little, to open another bottle because a half a glass each seemed neither here nor there. Lunch went on rather. They were still seated at three o’clock, chattering about her patients, his boat, the army.
‘I really must get going,’ George said, after a comfortable few moments of silence. Less comfortable was the thought of what Vera was going to say when he got back.
‘Before you do, let me show you the rest of the mokes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And you can say hello to Lottie.’
‘Minnie, I thought you said.’ He followed her across the yard.
Elizabeth turned, eyes mischievous. ‘I don’t really think she’ll mind, do you?’
They stood at the gate. Only when he looked across the field did it occur to him that this was the place he had glimpsed the other day, from the road at the far side. Donkeys – he hadn’t been hallucinating, he realized, now he could see it all from this angle. In fact he seemed to be seeing his whole life from a new angle.
Clouds slid across the sun; its brightness came and went. Elizabeth leaned her elbows on the bleached wood, hands pressed to her cheeks. Her gaze took in the field, the long-eared creatures in varying shades of brown, dotted across it.
In two weeks she’ll be gone, he thought. His chest twinged at the thought.
‘There’s a woman nearby,’ she said, ‘less than a mile away, who was a friend of mother’s. She’ll keep an eye on these little chaps. And she’ll have the dogs. For a while. But they’ll have to go in the end.’ She swept a hand in front of her. ‘What do I do with them?’
‘Quite a plateful she’s left you with,’ he remarked. ‘On top of everything else.’
‘Yes,’ she said, still staring ahead.
He was about to apologize, feeling he had been rude about her dead mother, but she turned to him, her expression vulnerable.
‘Thanks. That’s . . . I’ve got no one else to talk to about it all really. Mother never discussed her plans with me. She wasn’t the sort. Couldn’t admit any kind of weakness – such as being mortal like anyone else. We were never close anyway.’ She looked across at the donkeys again, but he caught a second of the hurt girl in her eyes. ‘She got on better with animals.’
6.
When he returned the next morning, the second torchère came to light in the upstairs bathroom, a dank room smelling of mouldy linoleum. This time it was draped in a length of once-white muslin on which sat a dying spider plant. When he pointed it out to Elizabeth, she burst out laughing.
‘I knew I’d seen it somewhere,’ she said. ‘Oh she really was the end – and it’s so damp in here. It can’t have done it any good!’
In her laughter, once again he thought he could hear other emotions, waiting to catch like tinder. He detected the gloss of tears in her eyes and looked away, busied himself with writing a label, so as not to embarrass her. For all her brisk toughness, these days of sorting were taking their toll on her.
He progressed around the house, examining things, jotting notes, tying on a label here and there – making, in fact, a huge meal out of a job that in most places he would have done in a quarter of the time. Elizabeth was mostly elsewhere, getting on with other things.
Now and then he heard her moving about in the house, or calling to the dogs outside. The sound of her voice made him leave the job he was doing and hurry to the window to see her walking across the yard, often heading towards the stables at the end, still in her sandals. Her voice now felt familiar – more than familiar. It was as if he had heard it within him all his life, or been waiting to hear it. It sent a pulse through him, of rightness, of tenderness, of belonging. He hurried back to work in case she turned and saw him watching.
Later he heard her come upstairs as he was toying with buying the toilet mirror in one of the bedrooms. It was not especially old, but the carved wooden frame was complete and attractive: it would sell. He heard her stop at the door and he turned. She leaned against the doorframe. A wavy lock of hair hung over the left side of her forehead.
For a moment they looked at each other in silence. It was a pause that felt, just for a second, laden in some way. Then, from the paddock, they heard the rasping outburst of a donkey. Both of them smiled.
‘Are we winning, d’you think?’
‘Yes – we are,’ he said. ‘I’ve been through most of the house – if that’s all there is?’
‘That’s really all the furniture,’ she said. ‘Although there’s a whole heap of goodness-knows-what in that barn across there – boxes mainly, I think. You can have a look if you like.’
Anything, he thought, to put off having to leave her.
‘Cup of tea?’
‘Lovely!’ he said jovially. ‘I’m afraid I can’t provide a table and chairs today.’
‘Never mind. We can take a couple out. Hardly up to your standards though.’
He followed her downstairs, intensely aware of everything: the movement of her hips beneath the limp cotton of her dress, the curling wisps of hair gathered at each side of the back of her neck, the lightness he felt, as if he was floating, flying.
At the bottom of the stairs she turned and said, ‘Will you stay for supper?’
At once and with a mental apology to Monty, he agreed.
‘I’ll do the spuds,’ he said.
Elizabeth gave him a look. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘I’ve had to learn to fend for myself.’ He ran water into the old square sink and searched for a sharp knife. Opening a drawer, he found a battered collection of implements and chose the least blunt-looking. ‘Well – with Vera’s help.’
‘She sounds rather a character, this Vera. Is she married?’
‘Oh yes – her husband works for me as well.’
‘Quite an outfit you’ve got there.’ She opened the packet of sausages and started snipping the twisted membrane between each.
George explained about Vera and Alan. About the pies.
‘Ah.’ Elizabeth laid the naked sausages on the grill pan. ‘So many women with bags of intelligence and not enough to do. I see it all the time. Makes them ill, some of them.’
‘She’s doing well. The only thing is . . .’ Digging the peel from the potatoes with a hopelessly blunt knife, he related his initially unsuccessful attempts to make Vera his manager, until she lit upon the idea of job titles. Elizabeth yelped with laughter at that.
‘Oh now there’s a woman who’s got her head screwed on all right.’ She shot the sausages under the grill. ‘Sounds wonderful.’
‘Why don’t you come and m
eet her? Come and see my place? You said you wanted to.’
Elizabeth turned to look at him. She was solemn, as if something important had been said.
‘You’re making a proper meal of those potatoes.’
‘Blame the knife,’ he protested, holding it up.
She looked him in the eye then. He put the knife down. Surprising himself as he did it, he walked round the table and stood in front of her.
After a second’s quiet meeting of her gaze, he said, ‘My God, my heart’s going fit to bust.’
She looked shy, blushing, this woman of his. This wonderful, capable woman who stood before him.
‘Mine too,’ she said.
Seeing her permission, he reached out, his hand unsteady and gently stroked her cheek. He felt brim-full of all the words that longed to pour out from him, but for the moment he could not begin.
Sixteen
1.
‘Come out buying with me, will you – next Monday?’ he said as they parted that night.
He did not stay late. That first kiss, standing in her mother’s kitchen in the middle of cooking, had taken him so far that there had to be a pulling-away. He felt washed along by a propulsive force. This time it was by the power of his own feelings, not by the will of someone else. It was a place he had never been to before.
Holding her for the first time, the firm loveliness of her, he wanted all of it, now – to have her, to pour out promises of loving her forever. Unlike with Sylvia, there was something deep down that he knew he could trust, as if even in this new, heady place, the ground under his feet was firm. But even so.
Both of them felt the need to draw back, as if alarmed at the rushing speed that was overtaking them. Elizabeth became brisk, brusque almost, for a few moments. But they cooked, singing Louis Armstrong hits, Elizabeth dancing across the kitchen with a plate of singed bangers, singing ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’. They ate sausage and mash and mustard at the kitchen table, friends at ease, chatting amiably.
Soon afterwards he left, with the invitation for Monday – the sort of measured invitation, he thought afterwards, that you might make to a person who you had not earlier kissed in a way that made your life rock with discovery.
And today was only Tuesday.
He managed to wait until eleven the next morning.
A fine rain was falling and the shop was quiet. All he wanted was Elizabeth. Peering out of the office to check whether Vera was about, he heard no sound and closed the door. Dialling her number like a spy, he glanced round in case anyone was looking. He was surprised at his own force and audacity.
By the third ring his heart was bashing away.
‘Dr Hargreaves.’ Her voice was clipped, professional. This was frightening.
‘Dr Hargreaves?’ he said, with exaggerated formality. ‘It’s Mr Baxter. Chalk Hill Antiques.’
There was a second’s pause before he heard a delicious chuckle.
‘Is it, now?’ Her tone was warm and teasing. He beamed. Had it not been for the curly telephone cord he would have two-stepped round the office. ‘And why would you be calling me, sir?’
‘Because frankly,’ George launched in, nothing ventured, ‘the prospect of going through the rest of today – let alone another day – without seeing you is so dismal, that . . . Look, Elizabeth, come over, will you? D’you have time?’
‘Of course I’ve got time,’ she retorted. ‘Other than the job of clearing up all my mother’s bloody mess and worrying about the future of eleven asses, I’m completely at a loose end.’
George grinned, enjoying her voice so much that he forgot to speak.
‘Hello? Are you there? What time shall I come, then?’
This is love, he thought in a sober, rather worried moment, gazing pointlessly at his print of Canaletto’s Doge’s Palace.
‘Are you with us, Mr Baxter?’
Vera was at the door, frowning. She seemed tetchy this morning, unless he was imagining it.
‘Oh – yes! Yes, yes.’ He turned, trying to give the impression that he had not just spent who knew how long staring at the wall. ‘Why?’
‘That Dr Hargreaves seems to have been leading you a proper dance,’ she said, reaching for the accounts ledgers on the desk. ‘What time did you get in last night?’
‘Oh,’ he remained vague. ‘Not late. Soon after you left.’
‘Well the phone kept ringing all afternoon.’ She picked up some scraps of paper in the desk and read from them. ‘A Mrs Ashbury. I couldn’t make her out. Something about a golden angel but she sounded gaga to me – either that or she was in the middle of a sandwich. Then Mrs Chatwin telephoned – you know, the snuff boxes – and some man from I think he said Upper Basildon, Sir somebody. Very cagey, wouldn’t say why, but he’s going to call back . . . Although come to think of it, he said something about a silver . . . salver? I think it was that. Said it was’ – she peered at the scrap paper – ‘gadrooned?’ Rolling her eyes, she put the notes down with a grumpy shrug. ‘Whatever that means. He sounded half-cut as well.’
‘Hmmm,’ George said. ‘Yes. Right.’
Vera sat down at the desk with the accounts and turned to glance up with a look that seemed to cast doubt on what George was still doing there.
‘Is that all, Vera? I need to have a word with Clarence – he’ll need to transport Dr Hargreaves’ furniture.’
‘Yes, nothing else,’ she said. As he left the room, she added, ‘Your dog might like a walk though – with you, for a change.’
No, he definitely wasn’t imagining it.
All afternoon he kept thinking she’s coming, his whole body beating with excitement. The only distraction was Kevin, insistent that the day was fine enough to bring Mrs Parker’s half-unpacked boxes out from the barn and start rootling around in them. George decided it was safest just to let the boy get on with it if Alan could spare him, and allowed himself to sink into a reverie.
Love, he kept repeating. Love, love. Oh yes indeed.
But other thoughts chilled through him. Two weeks. She was only here for two weeks. I’ve never been the marrying kind. What did this mean? Was she the kind to play with him? See him as a diversion for a week or so? He was not used to women like her. She seemed to like him, but she was so fiercely competent and independent. Did she really see anything in him? Already he could not help himself. All he could do was hope.
The day clouded over gradually but George was too obsessed to notice. When Elizabeth was due, at four o’clock, he hurried upstairs to the bathroom. No good being caught out with a full bladder at the wrong moment. Just as he reached the landing he heard the roar of Elizabeth’s green Beetle and Vera’s voice down in the hall.
‘Typical, isn’t it? Quiet as the grave all afternoon and just as we’re getting to closing time . . .’
George, trapped in indecision about which forces of nature he should allow to take their course, hovered on the landing. There was a tap on the front door, the light sound of rain as it opened and women’s voices. This, he realized, must be what it was like introducing a loved one to your mother. He closed his eyes and waited, as if for an explosion.
‘Yes, do come in,’ Vera said, without a trace of her former grouchiness. ‘Turned wet suddenly, hasn’t it?’ The door closed. There was a second’s pause. ‘Can I help you with anything or were you just hoping for a look round?’
‘I’m Dr Hargreaves,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I think you’ve spoken to one of our secretaries on the telephone.’
There was a pause, which George could only interpret as mystified.
‘You’re Dr Hargreaves?’ Vera said. ‘Oh. I mean – I thought . . .’
‘I was a man?’ Elizabeth finished for her. ‘Yes, I’m sure – not to worry. You’re not the first and I’m sure you won’t be the last.’
There was a burst of female laughter. George breathed. He clasped his hands together. It seemed safe to creep into the bathroom.
When he emerged the two of them were still standing in the same
spot.
‘You must be ever so clever.’ Vera’s tone was solemn. ‘A doctor. I’ve never met a lady doctor before. And to tell you the truth . . .’ She lowered her voice. ‘Our Dr Gregory is a nice man really, but there have been times when I could have done without having to go into certain things with him. Especially when Alan – that’s my husband – was having problems with his . . .’
George decided it might be time to appear.
‘Ah, Dr Hargreaves,’ he said from almost the top of the stairs. He was just about to launch into a business-like speech about the collection of things from the farm, when thunderous knocking began on the door.
‘Mr Baxter!’ They heard Kevin’s muffled voice. Vera hurried to open up.
As George reached the ground floor, the door swung open to reveal his Apprentice Furniture Restorer on the step, his face shiny with rain and radiating explosive urgency.
‘Look, Mr Baxter!’ he cried with no preamble.
He was holding out a small plate which showed unmistakable signs of having been used as a plant holder and was smeared with ashy-looking soil. By the grimy look of Kevin’s shirtsleeve he had attempted to clean it off with his cuff.
‘What is it, Kevin?’ George could feel Elizabeth and Vera watching him.
‘This plate – out of them boxes. This is old, Mr Baxter, I know it is. It’s Chinese. And old.’
George took the plate from him. It was about five inches across with a raised edge divided, flower-petal-like, into curves. Its glaze was heavily crackled and beneath the dirt, the bland, unpromising colour of chicken soup.
‘Well . . .’ George turned the plate over. There was a Chinese character on the underside, inscrutable to him. He considered it in silence and knew he was out of his depth. ‘What makes you think . . . ?’
‘It’s the feel of it – the crackle. I just know,’ Kevin insisted. ‘Look at it – it’s lustrous, that is.’ With desperate passion he added, ‘You’ve got to believe me, Mr Baxter!’
For want of any other solution, George promised he would take the plate to a specialist he knew in Marlow. At last Kevin and Vera retreated and he and Elizabeth were left alone.
