The Heart Beats in Secret

by Katie Munnik

  When I step into the parlour, they are sitting in a circle, which makes it sound communal, so perhaps it is better to say they sit around the room. On chairs, some soft, some not, and on the two chesterfields with their pale scatter cushions, their backs smartly buttoned. Mrs Scott is talking about her sons now, her brave and bonny boys, and she reassures us that Douglas would look after wee Johnnie, that it’s right for them to be together. The grey sock she is knitting hangs stiffly from her needles, with threatening, even stitches. Connie starts me off with a ribbed scarf pattern that I can just about manage. Plain three, purl one, over and over and over again.

  ‘It thickens it a bit to add the purls in. And after a few rows, the pattern will emerge nicely and keep you on track.’ She is working on a child’s vest, and I ask her if she is expecting, but she blushes and explains about the orphan packages the Red Cross requested.

  ‘Did you see the photograph in the paper of Her Majesty knitting?’ Mrs Gilmour asks. ‘Sitting outside, too, in the sunshine with Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, all knitting for the troops. So good to see. It warmed my heart.’

  There is a knock on the door so Connie sets her knitting down and excuses herself. ‘It will be Muriel, I should think,’ she says. ‘She mentioned she might drop in.’

  ‘Aye, Muriel,’ Mrs Scott echoes. Her hands are red and dried like pigeon’s feet, I think, which isn’t kind but true. Would details like that work in letters to Stanley? Or would he wish me to be more graceful, more charming? How did he want to remember me now when he was so far away?

  A girl as tall as me strides into the room, wearing a grey tweed skirt and a white shirt with dusty sleeves, looking too warm for the weather. The ladies smile and nod, mostly. She isn’t a pretty girl, but not quite plain either. Her hair is cropped blunt-straight at her jaw, her oval face long and lean. Her grey eyes sit spaced a little wider than most, which gives her a feline look. Not a house cat, soft and aloof. No, Muriel is alive in the ordered room. She sits down beside me on the chesterfield and I feel too far from Edinburgh, stiffly brushed up and lonely with these village ladies who all know each other. The ladies don’t seem to mind that Muriel looks out of place. Instead, they treat her like a returning hero, or at least a favourite pet.

  ‘Now, Muriel my dear,’ Mrs Scott says, with bright charm. ‘How is your garden faring? You’ve had plenty of sunshine lately.’

  ‘It’s looking grand. Potatoes galore and you can’t go wrong with potatoes.’

  ‘Your mother must be pleased. Have you heard from your father recently?’

  ‘No, Mrs Scott. I believe he is busy with the work.’

  ‘All of the cities must be so busy, really, these days. And frightening, too. It’s not just London, is it? Everywhere is suffering. Still, my sister says that as much as possible, life is continuing on as usual. Everyone is being so brave.’

  ‘Margaret, you say that as if bravery were a virtue when it is merely moral duty.’ This woman is stern-mouthed, her glasses thick and very clean indeed. Her grey hair is wiry, scraped back and rolled, and she wears a small tortoise-shell pin on her collar with a silver St Andrew holding his cross in his hands. A sweetheart brooch, Connie tells me later, from her father’s days as a Cameron Highlander in the Great War.

  Mrs Scott smiles. ‘Duty, yes, of course, Miss Clarke. However, duty is not always easy, is it? Courage is still worth mentioning, perhaps. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  She turns to ask Connie about the biscuits on the plate – how did you manage with the sweetness? – and Connie tells her that she used honey and a little cinnamon, too, but that the trouble was with the margarine because the recipe called for 2½ ounces, which seems like a lot of the ration to begin with, and the biscuits really needed another half-ounce to hold together, which was difficult and she is so glad that Mrs Scott likes them. Would she like another?

  I worry my needles between my fingers, the wool impatient, and Muriel leans over towards me. ‘You feel as odd-pea-ish sitting here as I do?’ she asks, grinning. ‘What I wouldn’t give to step outside for a long cigarette’s while right about now.’

  ‘I have some in my purse. We could go and puff away in the loo.’

  ‘I think I’ll like you.’

  She says she’s known Stanley from primary school and asks how he is. I tell her he has been made an officer because of his university degree and that he’s been put to work training pilots.

  ‘I thought he read geology.’

  ‘Well, in its wisdom, the military marked his enlistment papers scientist, so logically, he’s equipped to teach rudimentary physics.’

  ‘Gosh. I guess gravity is gravity, rocks or otherwise.’

  ‘It’s better than bombing runs,’ I say. ‘He teaches them the basics – flight, weight, thrust and drag as well as how to read all the dials in a cockpit. He says he’ll be on leave in October.’

  ‘That’s not long, is it?’

  Miss Clarke clears her throat and Connie stands to pour more tea.

  ‘We’ll chat properly later. Because this is the moment for no’ but serious needlework.’ Muriel buckles down with her socks and I return to my scarf. I feel hopeless when it comes to woollen things. My father once suggested it lowered my value on the bride market, as if such a thing were funny. Stanley didn’t make the slightest enquiry into my knitting at any stage in our courtship. Cake was always more my pride, and I eye the tea things on the table now.

  Muriel catches my glance and grins again, launching into a story about her grandfather’s funeral, a grand affair by the sounds of it, with family from here to Glasgow and a table simply laden with the work of so many kitchens. Muriel soon organized her cousins, the boys at least, to set up camp under the table with pilfered plates of macaroons.

  ‘Oh, your grandmother’s macaroons were a treat,’ says Mrs Scott. ‘Soft and light like, well, like a tropical dream. Perhaps her far-flung brother inspired those divinities – oh pardon me, Mrs Thomson. Didn’t he work abroad? Bahamas, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it was. Came home brown as a coconut himself for the funeral, and you should have heard how Granny cried when he handed her a bottle of rum. Too late, of course, for that kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh dear, Miss Grant,’ says Miss Clarke.

  ‘I only meant that my granddad liked the rum and he couldn’t drink it, could he? Because it was his funeral,’ Muriel continues, her eyes wide and innocent.

  ‘I know what you meant.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ Mrs Scott says. ‘I will need to ask your mother for that macaroon recipe. So very light. Though I wonder what I could possibly use these days. What might make a mock coconut? Well, it would be good simply to have the recipe. Once this war is over, I will make them for the village fete. When everyone marches home.’

  5

  RAIN FALLS FOR SEVERAL DAYS AFTER I MEET MURIEL. I stay at home and my knitting progresses slowly. Most of the time I spend filling pages with notes, sometimes about the poems I read, taking tender steps back towards my degree work, more often just thoughts for Stanley. I decide I won’t describe Mrs Scott’s hands and that I will mention the food and my tangled knitting. I wonder about the clothes he is wearing. Are his stitches even? Does he notice?

  At the end of the following week, the weather breaks and I knock on Muriel’s door. Her mother tells me that she is working in the garden. Along the walk, pots of geraniums, marigolds and seashells are set out in patterns. Laundry flaps on the line beside the house, white tea towels, pillowcases and aprons.

  Muriel is standing on a stepladder in blue dungarees, picking runner beans. She drops them down into a square wicker basket on the ground.

  ‘Goodness, I’m glad to see you. Everyone’s been in a bit of a mood around here because of the soggy weather, and I’m all out of fags and compassion. Climb on up and sit down. There’s space for two. I’d offer you a chair, but it’s easier to keep out of the pig’s way up here.’

  A ruddy sow roots around under the trees at the end of the garden
, ignoring both Muriel and the chickens pecking their way across the grass towards me.

  ‘Here,’ I say, tossing Muriel my cigarette packet and climbing up to join her. ‘That will help dry you out.’

  ‘Absobloodylutely. It’s been awfully dreich, hasn’t it? And all those aeroplanes and the awful kerfuffle of the ack-ack guns. Glad to have them there, though. Not a word against the defence. I just can’t think for lack of sleep.’

  ‘I wanted to pop by to say thank you for the other day at the manse. For your kindness. Connie was lovely to invite me, but it isn’t really my thing.’

  ‘Nor mine. However, my beloved mum sends me along to keep up appearances. And supply the brave soldiers with pair after pair of lumpy socks.’

  ‘We all contribute,’ I say. ‘Those beans look super.’

  ‘It’s a good crop. Beans are easy. The more you pick, the more they grow. They need plenty of water, but that isn’t a worry, is it? You can take some home if you like. We’ve got miles of them.’

  ‘Thank you. That will be a bit of a treat.’

  ‘I’m more of a choc ice girl.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky, these days.’

  ‘I was the other evening, sort of. Izaak took me out in Haddington. Bought me a shilling ticket at the pictures and then an ice, too. Not real, but it fitted the bill.’

  ‘I don’t think I could. The chocolate is like burnt Bakelite these days.’

  ‘Better than mock coconut, I should think. Macaroons. Imagine. Well, I will certainly eat my fill when that fete comes around.’

  ‘Do you think she believes it?’

  ‘I think she has to. Two boys gone and her husband has stopped talking altogether. She says he’s rather poorly, but my mum says only as poorly as any cushion might feel as all he does is sit up in a chair all day and watch the sky. He takes his meals as right as rain, and sometimes walks down to the end of the garden, but he won’t say a word or lift a finger about the house. And Mum says there are sheets on the laundry line every blessed day. Mrs Scott has her work cut out for her. So she keeps cheerful as she can and ever optimistic. Always that rosy glow. I’ll speak no ill of her at all. Did you know that she tucks little notes into each pair of socks she finishes? Good luck, boys! Love, Mother. That sort of thing. Sentimental and an absolute brick.’

  ‘She seems fond of you.’

  ‘Well, yes. She’s auditioning for the role of mother-in-law for all she’s worth. I’ve had a bit of trouble with her boys, and now she’s quite certain we’ll be family soon.’

  ‘That sounds like a story.’

  ‘No, nothing like that, you goose. Nothing serious. They’ve just taken turns walking me home and asking if I need any help digging the garden. Sweet boys, but not for me. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be bothered. It seems too brave a thing, loving another person.’ She takes a long drag from her cigarette and kicks her feet against the legs of the ladder. Under the trees, the pig makes a satisfied gruntle, and Muriel grins. ‘Who knows, I might get swept away. Some gangly lad will come along with a heart full of love for a skinny malinky longlegs like me and he’ll fly me to the moon in his beautiful balloon. Is that how it was for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I laugh. ‘Yes, it was. Not in the specifics, but yes. Completely swept away. He came into the shop where I worked, looking for chocolate. Always keeps some in his jacket pocket. He has a very sweet tooth.’

  ‘Look at you. You’ve gone all pink. You really do have it bad, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I married him.’

  ‘Heavens. And now you’re living alone out here. Are you pregnant?’

  ‘No,’ I say, trying to sound just as blunt as she does. I smooth my dress, then take another puff on my cigarette. ‘That’s what everyone’s thinking, with me all of a sudden out here on my own. But that’s not why I married him. And not for the officer’s income, either, which doesn’t make much of a difference anyway. Not with rations. No, it was just love. Is that mad?’

  ‘Sure, it’s mad. Lovely, too. And lonely?’

  ‘A bit. Not a lot of distractions out here other than knitting. But I couldn’t stay at home in Edinburgh, going dancing while Stanley was away to war. For a while, I thought I might go to London. Train up as a nurse and do my bit. Only now Stanley says that Scotland shouldn’t be drained of all its young people or how will it stand?’

  ‘He wouldn’t let you?’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t like that at all. We talked about, well, everything. About how London might be valorous, glamorous even, but work has to continue everywhere for Britain to be properly defended. Like you and your garden. Life just has to continue, doesn’t it?’

  ‘So, what’s your work?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue, to be honest. It was just the idea that convinced me.’

  Muriel’s mother came down from the house with a tray of glasses.

  ‘Gin already, Mum?’ Muriel calls out. ‘Just the ticket.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, girls. Hitlerism seems to be putting a stop to all good things. Except possibly the sunshine. Isn’t it glorious? And don’t those beans look good? They’ll be just the thing tonight with a bit of ham.’

  ‘As they were just the thing last night with an egg.’

  ‘Wheesht, my dear. When we have beans aplenty, we eat plenty of beans. Now, Muriel, will you get down and shift that basket over here, so I have somewhere to set this tray. Glad to see you settled comfortably, Jane. Muriel says that you are the one who married Bunty Hambleton’s son. Such a shame she’s moved herself out of the village. A gentle soul, Bunty.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I like her. She’s gone north with her daughter Violet.’

  ‘Well, perhaps that’s for the best. These aeroplanes are terrible overhead, aren’t they? Is it hard on your own? You have a good shelter for the raids? You can come and camp here anytime you want company. Plenty of room in our Anderson shelter, you know.’

  ‘I am managing quite well. It’s all rather novel, being on my own. There was an awful pile of us at home.’

  ‘Lucky lot. I wanted a houseful. That’s what my sister got. However, for us, only Muriel came along, didn’t you, my love?’

  ‘Only Muriel. Aren’t I enough? Dad says I’m better than a barn-load of boys.’

  ‘And perhaps more trouble, too,’ she says, laughing. ‘But I wouldn’t trade you for all the world, my dear, and you know that. Right in your bones. And where did you get that smoke, young lady? I thought we were clean out. Sweet talking the poor Polish boys again?’

  ‘No, this one’s from Jane.’

  ‘I’ve plenty in the pack, if you’d like one.’

  ‘Well, kind of you to offer. And maybe I will say yes. Keeps the spirits up, doesn’t it? Thanks, that’s lovely.’

  The pig snuffles loudly and I startle, dropping my cigarette. ‘Oh dear, don’t let Rosie bother you,’ says Muriel’s mother. ‘She’s just on her feet because she senses someone new in the environs.’

  ‘Just caught me a little unawares.’

  ‘I imagine there aren’t many pigs in Edinburgh’s back gardens.’

  ‘Not pigs, no. Some families keep chickens, but not pigs. Especially now that everyone is growing vegetables. There wouldn’t be the space.’

  ‘We’ve space above and beyond around here, and she seems to be easy enough to feed. We’re still getting used to each other. I had a bit of a pause yesterday when I was preparing lunch, though. We’ve been giving her all the peelings, but while I was washing some of Muriel’s gorgeous tatties, the voice of Churchill himself seemed to whisper in my ear, “Sacrifice and glory”. All those good nutrients gone to a scraping waste. It’s a shame, though. She likes potato skins, does our sausage. Well, we can always let her out into the wood on the other side of the wall and see what she might rummage around for there. Acorns and the like.’

  ‘You won’t be collecting those for us then, Mum? Or pine needles? Pebbles for a nice soup?’

  ‘Oh you. I’m not quite at that
level yet. We’ll see how it goes, won’t we? Really, I’d like to get another pig. They’re such social animals and I’ve read that they put on more weight when they have company.’

  ‘We’d be popular with two pigs. Bound to be with more bacon and sausages on the table.’

  ‘You’ll spread the word with all your gentlemen friends, won’t you?’

  ‘I’d be happy to contribute my scraps,’ I say. ‘If that would help. And bacon at breakfast would be a welcome change from powdered egg.’

  ‘It can’t be easy on your own, my dear.’

  ‘Well, nothing seems to stretch, but I’m making do.’

  ‘You’ll still be at the playing-house stage, won’t you? Just moved away from home and starting out as you are. And your husband – is he stationed nearby?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s still down at Padgate. But we are hopeful.’

  ‘I’m sure it will work out. With all the new airfields around here, something is bound to open up. He’s such a charmer, too. No need to blush, now. You’ve found yourself a good man. Gentle, too, like his mother. In days like this, that will be particularly important. Far more miles in gentleness than all the fancy manners and scent of the Polish boys Muriel has her eye on.’

  ‘I haven’t got my eye on anyone, Mum. Izaak just asks me to the films. And buys me ices, too.’

  ‘And plies you with strange foreign cigarettes. Have to use your own teeth as filters with some of them, though it’s good of you to share whenever you do get some. But this Dunhill is lovely. A classy girl, this Jane. Well, I’ll just leave the two of you to your blether and get on with the day, shall I? Jane, would you like to be staying for some lunch?’

  Muriel’s house sits out beyond the village, away from the other houses and close by the sea. It is nothing like my parents’ flat, which is always crowded with kids and middle-class civilizing efforts. Like the thin window in the room at the front, which enables you to glance out to the street for the children as you play the piano in the afternoon. There are high ceilings and decorative moulding in the front room, and you’d never know the boys slept there unless you stayed too late after tea and saw them yawning in the hallway. Muriel has a bedroom to herself at the back of the house, with space for a bookcase and a chair. Wealth untold. Mr and Mrs Grant sleep in the larger bedroom at the front of the house, and there’s also a living room and a dining room and space in the kitchen for a fair-sized table, too. Everywhere, there are shelves and the pantry itself is large enough for a bed, with space for a dresser with a marble shelf.