‘Why don’t you go bet it yourself, take all the winnings?’
Tom shrugged. ‘I don’t know how. I don’t think I want to learn, either. I can’t risk being seen in a betting shop by certain folk.’ He thought about Abe as he made the remark.
Alf thought about this. ‘All right, son. Let’s do this. I’m giving you thirteen to one. Unlucky for some.’ He held out his hand again.
‘I’ve been lucky so far,’ Tom quipped as he dragged the coin from his inside pocket. ‘Numbers don’t frighten me.’ He dropped the half sovereign into Alf’s palm where it shone dully, depicting a man on a horse, a dragon cringing beneath his triumph. It felt prophetic. Tom knew every bump and dent in that coin. On the reverse face was the head of George V. ‘Don’t ask me again if I’m sure,’ he said, pre-empting whatever Alf was opening his mouth to say. ‘Win me a small fortune, Alf.’
Alf whistled, spat playfully on his palm and shook Tom’s hand. ‘Deal, my boy. Back here Friday afternoon.’
Tom nodded. ‘If you’re not here, I’ll know we lost.’
‘No hard feelings?’
‘None.’
‘You’re very trusting. What if I go and spend your money on beer?’
‘You won’t. I think I’m an excellent judge of character.’
‘Well . . . let’s see what Pretty Penny can do for your heartsickness, lad.’ Alf lifted a hand in farewell and left the pub.
Tom waited another five minutes to be sure he was steady on his feet and then opened the swinging pub door into the frosty air. It made him cough it was so fresh and cold as it hit his lungs. The whisky was keeping him warm inside and he tried to ignore the tug of another memory connected to the liquor. He found himself reaching down by his side as though looking for something – a flask, maybe – because he could hear the call of hounds and the trumpeting of a hunting horn, and then the thought instantly dissipated in his mind like the smoke dispersing from Alf’s cigarette.
_______________
When Edie got home, it wasn’t much past nine-thirty and Abe was sipping a brandy near the fire.
‘Ooh, you’ve brought in Jack Frost with you, my girl. Get that overcoat off and come and sit by the fire with your old man,’ he grumbled.
She arrived to kiss him and he winced theatrically at her cold cheek.
‘Don’t go on,’ she admonished. ‘It’s actually a beautiful, moonlit night.’
‘Did Ben walk you home?’
‘Of course.’
‘Didn’t come in?’
Her gaze narrowed. ‘As you can see, he didn’t,’ she replied, holding her palms out to the flames.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I didn’t ask him in, Abba! He has a busy day tomorrow, and so do I,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light. ‘Can I get you anything?’
He shook his head.
As she walked away, she worked hard to keep her enquiry as casual as possible. ‘Where’s Tom?’ She disappeared into the kitchen and then held her breath, waiting.
‘He went to bed early. A headache or something.’
She didn’t reply and kept the disappointment contained in the kitchen. Once she felt ready, she reappeared in the sitting room. ‘The Levis send their love, as always. We had a lovely evening.’ She sat down. ‘Gefilte fish.’
‘Good . . . good.’
‘So, Tom’s headache . . . Did you offer any of those aspirin you swear by?’
Her father glanced up from his book over the rim of his glasses and fixed Edie with a stare. It was the look she feared, the one that seemed to be able to see behind the words to what she wasn’t saying. It took a measure of her actions before she even knew she would take them. ‘I did,’ he said.
She waited.
‘We both agreed it was probably the whisky and sleeping it off was the best course of action.’
‘Tom was drunk?’ she asked, startled.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Abe continued in the same, quiet manner.
‘But why would you give him Scotch when you know he’s recovering from —’
‘Firstly, Edie, I’m sure you of all people have realised that Tom is his own man. He may appeal to you in your young, generous mind as a boyish soul who is lost, injured. But Tom is undeniably strong and someone used to having his way. Trust me, child, when I say there is nothing inherently helpless about our guest.’
Edie didn’t want to listen but she dared not roll her eyes or even look away when her father impaled her with his ‘look of truth’.
‘I am not Tom’s keeper. If Tom chooses to drink Scotch and pay the price for it, that’s his decision. What’s more, I did not ply Tom with any liquor. He told me he’d wandered into a pub and got chatting with some folk.’ Her father glanced down and Edie knew it was all he planned to say. Within his words was the reprimand and the caution he knew she would hear.
And, as if he knew about the kiss, he added, without looking up this time, ‘What details on the wedding?’
She knew before she said it that she shouldn’t, but the kiss had made her brave. ‘I didn’t really want to discuss it tonight with them.’
Abe Valentine deliberately placed his book on the small table next to where he sat. In a practised action he removed his glasses, folded them slowly and rubbed his eyes. ‘Sit down, child,’ he said.
Edie took a deep breath and did as asked. Here it will come: her father’s fury. And Edie knew it would be delivered in the identical calm, sane manner in which he might advise her about cutting a pattern or chalking up on fabric. Abba knew all about self-control. But then so did she.
‘Is there something you wish to tell me, Edie?’
That shocked her. She thought she had been settling down for a lecture. She had not come to grips with her feelings, let alone formulated the right words to explain them.
Her silence was no doubt telling. Abe leaned forward, giving a small shake of his head. ‘Well?’
The words spilled without warning. ‘It’s moving so fast, Abba. I’m not yet sure I wish to marry Benjamin Levi.’ Edie’s surprise in her unplanned words stared back at her in her father’s expression, but his hurt forced him to look down and then away towards the safety of the fire, whose warmth suddenly couldn’t touch the falling temperature between him and his daughter.
‘Why?’ he demanded in monotone.
Yes. Why? Edie thought. Tell the truth. ‘Because I don’t know whether I love him.’
Her father nodded ponderously.
She pressed on, suddenly in a hurry. ‘Actually, that’s not true – I do love Benjamin very much. It’s just that I love him like a brother and that will always be a problem for us.’
Her father finally regarded her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re friends. I worry that I would struggle to take it beyond that. And I think it would make us both unhappy.’
‘Benjamin Levi worships you!’
‘I know,’ Edie replied sadly, leaping up to cross the heartbeat of distance between them. She crouched by her father’s knees and took his hand. ‘I know it. But that only makes it worse. I feel . . . smothered by how he regards me. I think Ben believes his love should be more than enough to satisfy me in my life.’
‘Well,’ her father said, shaking his head. ‘I have never heard a girl complain about being loved too much.’
‘Abba, hear what I’m saying,’ she pleaded. ‘Ben and I have been the closest of friends since childhood – you know that. He has never been with another to know any different.’
‘Surely neither have you.’
She felt the blood flush upwards and despite her resolve she looked away.
‘Edie?’
She shook her head, feeling the sting of tears. She couldn’t lie but she dare not tell her father the truth. Torn between duty and desire, she remained silent.
‘It is acceptable . . . perfectly normal to have doubts at this stage. I think your mother wept herself to sleep in the week before our wedding. She was so fearful of leav
ing her family . . . starting a new life. This is all to be expected.’
‘I just don’t love him. Not the way you loved my mother . . . and still do.’ Her father lifted her chin to look into her moist eyes as she spoke. ‘I want to be in love like that.’
She could see that she’d sounded a chord in him and that he felt sad for her. ‘I think Tom has much to answer for,’ Abe said softly. ‘He has distracted you from Benjamin; made you question your commitment.’
Edie felt as though she’d been punched. She faltered, as the tears came. ‘No, Abba . . .’
‘The man has entered your life like a meteorite, caught you in his blaze.’
She shook her head but felt the hopelessness of her denial; she hated hurting him like this.
‘He’s putting ideas into your head.’
‘No. The ideas were always there, Abba.’
He nodded sadly, watching her intently. ‘How can I help you, Edie? You know all that I want is your happiness.’
It was her chance. She would never have such an opening again, she was sure. ‘Daniel always urged me to follow my dreams, Abba.’
He said nothing to this, as though refusing Daniel’s name to be mentioned in connection with this conversation about not loving Ben. ‘And Tom?’
‘I want you – no, need you – to give him a chance.’
‘To steal my daughter? Absolutely not.’ Abe Valentine stood, wincing, and she knew it was the stab of arthritis from bending over a cutting and pattern bench for most of his life. She stood too and allowed him to tenderly gather her hands in his own and lean forward to kiss them. ‘I love you, child, but you are naive – and I say that with utmost respect. That’s part of what makes you irresistible and beautiful. You see the best in everyone. You are generous and affectionate.’ He sighed. ‘I imagine sooner or later Tom will discover the truth about himself.’
‘So?’
He shrugged. ‘Only pain waits for you then.’ As she opened her mouth to speak, he raised a finger. She knew not to defy it. ‘Go to bed, Edie. Think carefully on what I say. Your mother wanted this. I want this for you too. Benjamin is a fine young man from a good Jewish family.’
‘I’m tougher than you give me credit for, Abba. Remember, while you lost your wife and son, I lost my mother and brother too. We both have our grief and we have both survived. Now I have my dreams. Let me try.’
‘Are you sure Tom feels the same way about you?’
Edie was quietly stunned that her father had sliced deep to the crux of where this conversation truly lay.
‘I . . . I haven’t asked him,’ she said, convincing herself she spoke the legal truth, ignoring the fact he’d declared himself to her only hours earlier. She had to protect her father’s feelings.
‘Benjamin offers robust health, stability, good family, income and a reliable future. I can honestly say to you that Tom offers none of this —’
‘At this stage, Abba,’ she interjected and he nodded.
‘Well, tell me how Tom with nothing but a borrowed suit and no memory is going to give you a house, support a family, provide you with that dream of the shop you want, Edie?’
‘I can’t tell you how. All I can say is that Ben would never give me the shop, even if we did have the money. Ben wants me pregnant, rocking babies to sleep and cooking his meals.’
‘Is that so unreasonable?’
‘Abba, I want to be the designer of beautiful women’s clothes and bridal wear. I want to be the owner, the founder. I want the atelier,’ she said, shrugging as though in apology for having such aspirations.
He gave a slow sigh. ‘And you think Tom can give you this?’
She bristled. ‘I don’t need Tom to give it to me. But I don’t want to marry for convenience or a safe future. I don’t want to be pushed together with someone for the rest of my life who I don’t love as I should. I want to choose for myself . . . in everything, from the career I have to the man I love and ultimately choose to marry.’
Abe tutted quietly. ‘I would be lying if I didn’t say you are wounding me with this conversation. I too must think on it and reach a decision. I am your father and will not be denied my responsibilities to you.’ He nodded with another soft sigh. ‘Off to bed with you, Edie. Busy day ahead.’
She rose and gave her father a lingering kiss on his cheek. ‘Consider how much you adore my mother to this day and ask yourself whether you want anything less for me in my marriage than that sort of love. Please.’
7
The following morning, setting aside any awkward feelings about the conversation of the previous evening, Edie presented her father with a bowl of porridge, ladled with most of the cream from the top of the milk bottle and a generous dollop of honey. She had made a large pot of oats and hurried back to the kitchen to stir the slowly bubbling, gloopy mass that would keep Abe’s and Tom’s bellies full and warm for hours.
‘Tom!’ she called down the hall. ‘Breakfast!’ She came back into the dining room. ‘Where’s Tom?’
‘Do you know, child, you ask that question a lot,’ Abe observed. ‘He’s left to do the Goldberg delivery and to run some errands.’
‘Goldberg?’ she said, looking astonished. ‘But I haven’t given him directions.’
‘He’ll be fine. I wrote them out for him in the end.’
‘Abba, you haven’t delivered to that customer in years. He always collects.’
‘Tom is a grown man, Edie. Let him be. He’s trying to find his own way.’
‘What if he gets lost? What if he has one of those attacks?’ She felt suddenly distraught. ‘What if he doesn’t come home?’
‘So this is home, now?’
‘Abba, don’t.’
‘Stay calm, child. Let’s see how resourceful he is. I want a demonstration of his spine.’
‘His spine? He’s returned from the front! I don’t think any of our soldiers need to demonstrate their courage. We can’t begin to imagine what he’s seen or experienced!’
‘You miss my point, Edie. If your Tom ends up cowering in a bus stop again, I feel my concern that this man is no good for you is well founded and that he should be in a hospital where he belongs, letting the authorities find his real home, his real family.’
‘Why are you being so heartless?’
‘I don’t believe I am being heartless.’ She watched her father ponder this and then shake his head. ‘No, I don’t believe I could ever be accused of that, whereas your behaviour towards Benjamin might be construed that way.’
Edie stared at her father as though he’d slapped her. ‘The problem with this conversation will always be the same, Abba,’ she finally said, surprised at how calm she sounded. ‘Benjamin is who you want for a son-in-law. But this is my heart we’re talking about, so I can be as heartless as I choose about who it beats for. You love Benjamin more and more, I’m sure, because he behaves like Daniel,’ she said, only fully grasping the truth of this as she spoke. It felt like a revelation and she blinked with the shock of it. ‘He is a good Jewish son from good stock. He even looks a bit like Daniel – so lean and with that slightly curly hair. And Daniel was as serious as Ben has become.’ She saw her father wrestle to keep his emotion in check and she loathed herself. ‘But no matter how hard you wish it, Abba, you cannot replace your son. He is gone. He died, bravely, pointlessly, stupidly, even – because I never agreed with him volunteering – but he found the courage to give his life for his country, to make the world safer for those of us left behind. How ridiculous then that I would squander the chance he’s given me by spending it with someone I can’t love the way you want me to. I want to marry who I choose and because I love him with all of my heart, not because of a promise made between two old friends who loved each other and believed they could force their children to do the same!’
She watched her father’s mouth purse at the reference to her mother.
‘You would marry out of our faith, child?’ His voice had a low ring of shock to it.
‘
I didn’t say I was marrying anyone out of our faith, Abba,’ she replied, her expression exasperated but it couldn’t hide the flare of hope that glittered in her eyes. Edie heard the lack of sincerity in her words and suspected her father knew she was lying even to herself, so she spoke the truth, harsh though it would be for him to hear. ‘But I wouldn’t hesitate to if I loved him. This is 1919, not the Middle Ages!’
Abe began to shake his head, his face grave. Had they both heard the name ‘Tom’ in the word ‘him’? ‘I could be glad your mother isn’t alive to hear this, my daughter. She would turn in her grave.’
Edie was beyond sparing her father’s feelings, and although this was the first genuine disagreement they’d had since Daniel’s departure, she refused to back down. ‘My mother loved her husband. Why would you want anything but that for me? I don’t love Ben and never will.’ She needed to get off the subject of marriage because Edie knew it was a nest of vipers that would need untangling with an unlikely happy outcome. ‘And how could you send Tom out without breakfast?’ she added, deliberately knowing it would draw his ire, but at least it would distract her father from this marriage question.
He snorted, looking genuinely irritated with her. ‘The man survived the trenches. I’m sure he can survive a morning without porridge.’
‘But I notice you can’t, Abba,’ she replied, turning on her heel, feeling her cheeks burn with angry disappointment but coupled with guilt for snapping at her father and for revealing all that she had.
He suddenly appeared behind her with his empty dish. ‘Daughter, the man wants to prove he is capable. Let him prove he is independent.’ He shrugged. ‘Stop fussing. He is not a child.’
There was a ring on the bell. She frowned in confusion but couldn’t yet lose the anger and hurt that Tom had been clearly coerced into leaving this morning without seeing her. She had so much to say to him and her sixth sense was screaming at her that something was desperately wrong.
‘Now, who can that be at this early hour!’ she said.
‘I know who it is,’ her father muttered and disappeared before she could object.
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