The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  Bobbie stared at the telephone. Somehow it seemed such a big thing to send people out searching for Teddy when, knowing him, he had probably just taken a longer trip, or was anchored somewhere trying to perfect a picture of the sun sinking below the horizon, or the moon climbing up to the stars. Of late he had been almost dreamy for him, not at all the same Teddy. Sometimes she thought he would rather not be with her, that he would rather be outside anywhere rather than inside with her, but the next minute he would start reading to her, or telling her some joke that he had heard in the pub, and she would realize that how she felt was nothing to do with Teddy and everything to do with herself, and they would start talking together, and as always their talk would be non-stop.

  Of a sudden the unimaginable thought came to Bobbie. Supposing, like Julian, Teddy never came back? Supposing he had gone out in his little boat, like Julian, and, like Julian he never returned? She started to pace up and down the room feeling both desperate and stupid because she knew so little of where he had gone, or when.

  ‘Sea’s very rough tonight, miss. Your brother should have been back by now, I should have thought.’ Still, as always, in her navy blue coat, the landlady, small and hatted, stared at Bobbie, a cup of tea in her hand.

  ‘I think I will just go outside and down the beach and see if I can see him coming in.’

  ‘That’s said to bring bad luck that is, round these parts. Bad luck, a woman waiting on the shore. You want to bring him back safe to you, you must do like fishermen’s wives, my dear. They light a candle in the window of their cottage, that soon brings them home. I have some somewhere, and a holder. I’ll light one for your brother, and see if he don’t come in safe and sound as soon as maybe.’

  But Bobbie was not content to be a fisherman’s wife and sit whey-faced in a window with a candle for help, and so she pulled on Teddy’s old duffel coat and a pair of his gloves and, looking and feeling a little like a child wearing its parents’ clothes, she stepped out into the cold weather and the realities that lay outside the window, inwardly cursing Teddy and his lateness.

  Of course once outside she realized at once just why the fishermen’s wives never stood waiting on the shore for them, but lit a candle and placed it in their cottage window instead. It was surely less to do with superstition and more to do with the cold of the wind and the wet of the rain – both of which were now starting to blow towards the rapidly freezing Bobbie.

  ‘Teddy! Teddy!’

  If there was anything more useless than calling out to sea and waving a scarf in a growing gloom Bobbie did not know it. Yet it had to be done, for she could see that there was a small boat in the distance, and even hear its outboard motor, and although she doubted that it could possibly be Teddy’s boat she felt a strange surging sense of release at just being able to call his name.

  ‘Teddy!’

  If only he had a more sensible name, she would probably feel less stupid. Given the shore and the shingle, the sea and the dark sky, calling ‘Teddy’ out to sea sounded somehow ludicrous.

  ‘Ted!’

  The boat that had seemed to be some distance away now grew nearer, and nearer, and nearer until at last, eventually, Bobbie heard the crunch of its bottom on the shingle and saw its single occupant jump out. For a few seconds it seemed to her in the dark of the evening that, despite its quite definitely not being Teddy’s boat, yet the man in the boat might somehow, against all the odds, still be him. Perhaps Teddy might, for some reason that she would soon discover, turn out to have taken someone else’s boat? As she slipped and slid across the shingle towards the figure that she found herself willing to be Teddy’s, despite the fact that she could now see quite clearly that the oilskin was not Teddy’s oilskin, and that the face under the woollen hat was not Teddy’s face, somehow Bobbie was still trying to convince herself that it was going to turn out to be Teddy after all, because she so wanted it to be him.

  It was only when the man who was not Teddy said ‘No’ in answer to her frantic, ‘Ted? Is that you?’ that Bobbie realized just how anxious she sounded. Yet her voice that seemed to her to be so loud must have been barely audible to the stranger above the sound of the wind and the tide that had now turned and was beginning to creep up the shore again.

  ‘Best phone the coastguard if you’re worried about someone, miss.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I just thought you might be … Ted.’

  Bobbie turned round and struggled up the beach once more, and along the path that eventually led back to the little rented house where a candle had already been placed in the window by her superstitious landlady, who would have long ago slipped back to her own house.

  Bobbie was in such a fury of anxiety that she threw herself through the French windows and onto the oak parquet flooring as if she had been suddenly pushed from behind.

  ‘I’ll have to phone the coastguard. They’ll have to send out a boat to look for him. Put up flares. He must have been gone for hours, but how many hours? I don’t know how many hours!’

  As she talked out loud to herself, like a mad person, Bobbie grabbed the first phone book that came to hand and started to flick frantically through it, not really knowing which number to call.

  ‘Do you call nine nine nine for a coast guard? Who do you call? They must send out someone to look for him!’

  She was practically shouting out her questions to herself, so busy searching through the various ageing telephone books that she failed to notice someone coming into the room, or see the man standing at the other end of the long room, stocking-footed, his handsome head of fair hair still wet with the rain.

  ‘I say, Bobbie, you weren’t worried about me, were you?’

  Teddy stood at the door, hoping, so hoping that she had been worried out of her mind about him, for such had been his intention to steal away and see if, at long, long last, she might miss him.

  ‘Teddy!’ Bobbie flung herself against him, furious and yet at the same time faint with relief. ‘Teddy! Where on earth have you been? God, if you knew how worried I was. I was frantic. I’ve been out there running about calling to you, I was calling to you and you wouldn’t come back. You wouldn’t come back!’ She stopped, staring at him, and tears came into her eyes. ‘You just wouldn’t come back, no matter how much I called to you, you wouldn’t come back. Why didn’t you come back?’ she asked him, yet again. ‘I was waiting for you, Teddy.’

  Teddy looked down at her, his handsome face strangely emotionless as he saw the tears in her eyes.

  ‘Yes, you were, weren’t you, Bobbie? You were waiting for me, Teddy, and, look, I did come back, Bobbie, didn’t I? I came back.’

  Bobbie flung her arms round his neck. ‘Oh yes you did, didn’t you, Teddy? You did come back. Thank God! You came back!’

  They hugged and kissed each other, filled with relief, and at the same knowing that it was something they had both wanted to do, no matter what time or when Teddy had finally appeared. After which Bobbie sank back into her old familiar position in front of the window, trembling with the relief and the happiness of the moment, before promptly falling into an exhausted sleep.

  Watching her sleeping Teddy knew that there was still so much they had to say to each other, but he had no intention of saying any of it until he was quite sure that Bobbie was on the mend. Sometimes things were best left, and this was one of those times. He knew now that they had both turned a corner, and were facing a shared future of some kind, although not, he hoped sincerely, just as brother and sister. Exactly how it would be was something that need not be contemplated at that moment. But of one thing he was quite sure, Teddy paused before looking back towards the sleeping girl, Bobbie was going to live. Of that, at least, he was going to make quite sure.

  Of course it was many months before Bobbie did finally throw off her illness and return to London to take up any part of her former life, and once she did it was only to leave it the following summer, again in the company of Teddy, but this time to be married to him from Mellaston.
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  Miranda and Dick followed shortly after, and the four of them set about making the old rectory look as festive as it had ever done, crowded with fresh flowers from the gardens of all their well-wishers, and although the wedding was small, and conducted at a side altar in the cathedral, there were enough guests to make their little party look the happy band that it undoubtedly was. Naturally the Major and Mrs Saxby were among their number, the Major giving away the bride to her groom in the appropriate manner, and Mrs Saxby obliging by crying into a small lace handkerchief.

  Later, at the reception in the old rectory, the best man, before inviting the guests to rise and toast the happy couple, asked them, ‘to always remember what has gone before, all those who gave their lives in the war, not for us to be unhappy, or without hope, but so that we could attempt to live sincerely, with grace and with kindness, or they will have died for nothing’.

  The speech ended, Major Saxby and some of the other guests were heard to make hear hear noises, and other similar sounds, and of course everyone rose to their feet to raise their glasses to Bobbie and Teddy.

  As they did so the bride was making her own silent toast, for she was quite certain that from behind her she could hear the sound of laughter, and she knew at once that it was Julian’s laughter and that he was saying in his mock reproachful voice, But I thought you promised me you would never become a woman, that neither of us would ever grow up? and she could feel his arm through hers as they walked through the underground passageway at Baileys Court, away from the moonlight and the smell of fresh-cut hay and salty breezes, away from everything that was so redolent of a Sussex evening by the seaside in summer.

  Bobbie turned, knowing that he was there, perhaps briefly visiting, seeing all the flowers, the gold threads in her veil, the cream of her dress, the embroidery of the old cloth set about the table, and she smiled back at him, understanding.

  Wretched Boy!

  THE END

  Charlotte Bingham would like to invite you to visit her website at www.charlottebingham.com