‘I’m going to bed. You can take the lamp. Be very careful turning it down, or the screw will fall out.’
I woke with my knees under my chin, aware of a strange ticking. I strained my ears, and the ticking became a scraping. I rolled over. The door was ajar, and I saw Edward sitting at the table in shirtsleeves, whittling a peeled stick with a flat blade. His scarred side was towards me and I could see how it vanished under his hairline. His knuckles were huge, gripping the knife handle. He glanced up: my eyes were almost closed but he knew I was awake.
A sudden flurry of scraping. ‘There,’ he said softly. ‘A hawk for you.’
He held it up. A perky upright bird with crest, wings and tail made of peeled papery curls.
‘How beautiful … That must be a sharp knife.’
‘It is. But this is balsawood. I learned it from a Japanese carver I met in Lantao. I didn’t have time to finish this one before I left. I’m going to ink in his eyes, and his body feathers—’
‘Edward, please stay. She won’t last much longer.’
His face crumpled, as I knew it would. He set down the hawk and covered his eyes.
‘What can I do for her now?’ His voice quavered. ‘Having failed her completely!’
The anger shot through me. ‘You can at least wait for the end with me, and go to her funeral! After everything else I’ve done, on my own!’
He hurried to my side and embraced me. A mouse came into the bedroom. It paused to quiz us, its eyes drops of black dew. We began to smile at the mouse, and it darted away.
Outside the air was like milk. We had these fogs from time to time. This morning it lay so low that Edward and I rose head and shoulders above it. As we walked out along the lane we saw some children in the field, bobbing up to see where they should go, like seals, and shrieking in delight.
We went to Beacon Hill, as we’d done that first Christmas Day at the Absaloms. There was clear sunshine at the top and we sat and watched the fog melt away. We came back down through Pipehouse Wood where the beeches were in their full glory. He laughed as we plunged through the shadows. ‘I’ve dreamed of this, Ellen.’
On the way home he said he was planning to set up his own company. ‘My friend Frobisher and I, we’ll be partners. Import–export, out of George Town, Penang.’
‘What will you import and export?’
‘That’s not quite clear yet.’
‘A minor detail. Do you have funds, then?’
‘That’s a bit of a stumbling block too. What about you, Ellen? What will you do now?’
I came to a halt and so did he. He was smiling down at me, this brown boy, his eyes shockingly blue, teeth white. The chestnut hair bleached to a rich gold by a bigger sun than ours. He was just as handsome in spite of the scar, and just as young as he’d been when he clopped away in those wooden clogs. Perhaps the bright sea-light stopped one from growing old, from learning. He’d seen how we lived. Did he imagine we were just camping? That I could now jump up and choose my path in life?
His smile faded.
‘I can typewrite, actually. I expect I’ll find a job typewriting.’
The smile returned. ‘Capital.’
That night we baked two onions and had them with bread, and gravy from the stew.
She died on the fifteenth of May. We were there at the end, her children, but by this time she was nobody’s mother, not even a being. Merely a rickety machine, a pump and a pipe. On and on it rattled, while we took it in turns to hold her hand. Finally, that afternoon, a crack, creak, cough, and then silence.
The coffin had been ready for a long time. Edward carried it, with Daniel Corey and John Blunden. The fourth man was the funeral director’s assistant, a young man by the name of Hedley Hooper who muttered ‘Hup she goes’ as they lifted her onto their shoulders. It began to rain but the vicar continued imperturbable, turning the page of the prayer book with a flourish of his surplice sleeve. The headstone read Susan Calvert, and beneath the dates the words A Loving Mother. These were extra but I had pleaded for them and Mr Dawes had paid for them out of his own pocket. As well as the Hornes, and Daniel’s family, William Kennet came bearing a sheaf of irises. ‘These weren’t her favourite flower,’ he told me. ‘But they’re abundant now, and Lady Brock said I should take all I want.’ I wasn’t sure if I had ever known what her favourite flower was.
In the morning I walked with Edward to the bus stop.
‘I’ve got a twist of demerara sugar in my kitbag.’ He rummaged. ‘I’ve been saving it for you. I nearly forgot.’
I took the sugar and put it in my pocket. I raised my eyes to his but hot tears were flooding out, obliterating him. I shut my eyes and saw a red hull and a bright-blue sea, and smelled salt and rust. ‘Let me come with you.’
I felt his arms tight around me. I was almost rocked off my feet. His rough chin grazed my forehead as it had done before. ‘Ellen, Ellen. I’ll try to help you. I’ll – I’ll come back rich.’
‘Yes, darling Edward. Of course you will.’
12
MISS DAWES WENT before me up a long flight of stairs. She led me into a bathroom and drew a deep steaming tub. I was about to ask why I was having a bath in the middle of the day when she added some drops with a chemical odour to the water. ‘Please make sure to wash your hair, dear, and leave your clothes in that laundry bag.’
It had been so quick. Mother was tucked into her grave, Edward set sail for the East – and the next day Mr Blunden had brought a cart to the Absaloms and taken my furniture away. His son John, my friend, had come too, and chopped up the chairs with a small axe, saying, ‘Sorry, Ellen C.’ Using my school name. ‘They’re only good for firewood.’ And now here I was in a strange scrubbed house, removing my clothes to order, stupefied by the passage of events.
When I was clean and dry I put on the dressing gown Miss Dawes had given me. There was a knock on the door and I admitted a housemaid holding a black bottle. She bade me sit in front of the mirror while she examined my scalp.
‘Yes.’ The maid nodded. ‘I do believe you are lousy. No offence, my dear.’ She dribbled the black mixture along my parting and combed it through. Then she made another parting an inch away and poured the mixture along the furrow. Four, five partings she made, with a hard metal comb, plying it over my scalp, and with each pass of the comb I blushed deeper. She smiled at me in the mirror.
‘Don’t worry, dear. The black bottle will do for them. I’m Elizabeth.’
‘How do you do, Elizabeth.’
She was tall, spare, dark, with down on her upper lip. I’d seen her sometimes in Waltham, pushing a wicker basket on wheels, but never in the village. ‘I didn’t know you worked here.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘Sixteen years. I was sorry about your ma.’
The comb caught on a knot; my eyes filled.
‘Oh, you poor lamb.’
‘It’s just the comb. It tugs rather.’
Elizabeth picked up a pair of scissors. ‘I don’t like to do this, dear, but Miss Dawes says.’ And before I could speak she began to snip until all my tresses fell away, leaving a boy-like creature with thick brows darker than my drenched hair. My face was pasty, spattered with freckles. A few black drops ran down my neck.
‘What time is it, Elizabeth?’
She considered. ‘About eleven o’clock, I’d say.’
I sat on the bed, my head in a towel. My face felt numb, my eyes salty and sleepy. After a moment I lay down sideways and closed my eyes. A knock at the door woke me from a heavy, uneasy doze. Miss Dawes was there holding me in a troubled gaze. ‘Your friends have come to visit you. Young Miss Horne from the kennels, and Harvey Corey’s boy.’
I pushed myself upright and bound the towel around my head. I was convinced that the lotion smelled of tar.