by K. C. Finn
“Aw, sweet sixteen eh?” she said proudly.
“And never been kissed,” Blod added. It didn’t sound unkind, but I knew how she meant it by the glitter in her shiny eyes.
“Unlike you eh Blod?” said one of the farm boys, setting them both off into sniggers.
Bickerstaff choked on his beer, slapping his chest hard to sort himself out. He caught my eye down the long table with a guilty look until Mam put the cake down in front of me, blocking his stare.
“Right, all together now,” Mam said, holding up her fingers like a conductor, “And we’re doing it the Welsh way remember. One, two, three:”
“Penblwydd hapus I chi, Penblwydd hapus I chi, Penblwydd hapus I Kit, Penblwydd hapus I chi.”
Even Leighton had learnt it the Welsh way and it did make me break out into the first genuine smile of the afternoon, especially since Ness climbed up and stood on the table to belt out the last line at the top of her little lungs. Bickerstaff was mouthing the words, though I couldn’t hear his voice, watching the little girl carefully in case he needed to leap up and catch her if she fell. I blew out my candles without making a wish. The partygoers broke into applause and hip-hip-hoorays afterwards, but when the clapping died out I caught myself thinking about Henri once again.
I looked away from the happy scene, feeling like my throat was going to close up, only to notice a figure I hadn’t seen for a long time coming towards us through the old farm buildings. Officer Lewis, the local policeman, was ambling carefully over the cobbles and waving to get our attention. I tapped Blod’s arm and made her turn to see Lewis in the hope that her usual loudmouth style wouldn’t let me down. And it didn’t.
“All right there officer?” she bellowed, rising from the table to return his gesture, “What’s going on mun?”
“Idrys!” he shouted in his thick-as-gravy accent, “Yoo hoo! Mr Pengelly!”
Idrys eventually heard him and rose from the party table, his wide strides taking him to the officer before he was in earshot. They had a very animated conversation which all of the people at the table were watching, until Mam decided we were all being terribly rude and told us to get on with eating our cake. I did as I was told but my eyes kept flicking over to where the two men stood. Idrys caught my gaze a few times; he kept turning his head back in my direction as Lewis was talking to him. Eventually he nodded and the two men started off towards the front of the house.
“Where you goin’ Da?” Mam called.
“Be right back,” Idrys answered with a wave.
The table fell into an awkward silence, an atmosphere so dead that I could hear every individual at the table chewing on their cake and swigging their drinks.
“So Doctor,” said Mam, desperate to break the quiet, “Have you heard about Kit’s walking? Da said he’s phoned you a few times. She’s coming on well, isn’t she?”
Idrys had been phoning Bickerstaff about me? I felt a little betrayed and vowed to have that out with him when he was done with Lewis.
“Apparently so,” the doctor replied like he didn’t believe a word of it, “She’s due for a formal review next week, so-”
“You shouldn’t talk about her like she’s not even here,” Blod butted in bitterly, “It’s just bloody rude, that is.”
“Bloody!” Ness shouted gleefully, making Leighton and the farm boys giggle.
“What’s rude,” Mam said irately, “Is you butting into other people’s conversations, young lady.”
I was put out at that, because Blod might have actually just done the only nice thing she’d ever done for me, and now she was being punished for it.
“I’m not a child, you know,” she bit back at her mother. I wanted to stand up for her, but I didn’t know what to say.
“All the more reason not to behave like one then,” Mam answered sternly. There was a look in her eyes that told us all the conversation was over.
Bickerstaff drained his drink and cleared his throat to cut the tension. “As I was saying, I’ll be able to make a proper assessment on your progress with the crutches on Monday, Kit, if that’s agreeable for you?”
He was talking to me, not Mam. Blod had won the argument after all. I nodded politely to him.
“That’s fine. Thank you doctor,” I replied.
During the exchange, Idrys had returned but Lewis hadn’t. Instead of going back to his seat at the table the old farmer came to my side and picked up my crutches, putting them across my lap. He took the handles of my wheelchair and began to pull me away from my place.
“Here what you doing?” Mam asked, half a smile on her lips.
“It’s a secret birthday present,” he said, his deep throaty voice filled with glee, “So keep your noses out, all of you.”
“I never got a secret present!” Blod moaned.
“And you never will with that attitude,” her Bampi replied, turning my chair so I couldn’t see any of them anymore. “I’ll bring her back in a minute, you lot stay put.”
When we were far enough from the table to be out of earshot I demanded to know what was going on, but Idrys just chuckled and kept quiet. It wasn’t until he had wheeled me back into the black and white hall of Ty Gwyn that he spoke again. He rounded my chair and crouched down, putting a hand on my knee with a wide, old smile.
“Did you make a wish on that cake?” he asked.
“No,” I said, my brows tightening in confusion.
“Well you should’ve,” Idrys beamed, “’Cause it’s come true.”
He left me outside the door to the small sitting room but pointed to it, like whatever he had planned was waiting right inside. I could hear Officer Lewis in there talking his head off about something ridiculous, like there was someone else with him to hear it all. I got up onto my crutches and approached the door slowly, knocking it with a kick of my foot. Lewis came to open it with his familiar grin.
“Wow Kit, you’re looking well!” he exclaimed. “On your feet and everything!”
“Well I’m just-”
I forgot everything that I was about to say as the door swung fully open. Sitting by the fireplace in Idrys’s usual chair was a boy with messy hair, both brown and black. He looked like he was wearing someone else’s clothes; they were a little too tight on his tall, long-limbed frame, the trousers rising an inch too high above his shoes and socks. He had high cheekbones and ears that stuck out a little, he was rubbing one of them with a smooth hand as he turned at the sound of my name.
“Henri!”
“Oh, so you do know each other!” Officer Lewis said, oblivious to what was going on between us. “This young man claims to be related to you, Miss Cavendish. Is he right?”
I nodded fiercely, unable to say anything else. He was all kinds of right. Henri rose out of the chair to his full height; he had a good few inches on me even with the crutches holding me up. He smiled with straight teeth and chapped lips, rubbing his stubbly, chiselled jaw like he was as dumbstruck as me. All I could fix on were his eyes the colour of chocolate, those eyes I’d been looking through for the last ten weeks. And now they were finally looking at me.
“They’re very distant cousins,” Idrys explained from the door, “Best leave them to a reunion Lewis, they haven’t seen each other for… well for ages.”
I just about managed to say goodbye to Lewis as he doffed his helmet and left. Idrys gave me a knowing look as he too exited, shutting the sitting room door behind him. Then it was just us. Me and Henri and the fading teatime sun outside the window. My arms began to shake under my weight against the crutches and Henri took a step forward, reaching out for me.
“Do you need to sit down?” he asked, his rich voice shaking as much as my body was.
“That’d be a good start,” I replied.
“I thought you were dead,” I mumbled, “I tried to reach you and it was all just black, just nothing.”
“We crashed on the rocks when we came ashore,” Henri said, taking my shaking hand in both of his, “I was unconscious for a l
ong time, up until last night. As soon as I woke up, I told them to put me on the train here.”
“You must be so tired,” I said, gazing at his strong, smooth hands clasping mine, hardly daring to believe I could really feel them there.
“Not any more,” he said with a nervous laugh.
We were sitting together on the old sofa, which was very strange for me. The only chair I was used to sitting in always had wheels on, so leaning back into the cracked leather and feeling it under my legs was all very new. As was holding hands with a boy. And not just any boy at that.
“So you lied to them? Pretended we were related?”
I looked at Henri’s face again, watching his warm smile and his sharp jaw as he sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully.
“Well how else was I going to find you?” he said with a happy shrug. “The home guard in Scotland tracked down your evacuation home and gave me some train fare. I think it was cheaper than feeding me there, they had enough problems with the other boys that made it across.”
“That made it?” I asked, feeling his grip on my hand tighten a little. “Did some of them… not?”
Henri nodded solemnly, his smile fading off. “I was very lucky,” he whispered, “We lost half our own boat one night in a storm. It was a miracle the whole thing didn’t capsize.”
Without any warning I burst into tears, the culmination of two days of frantic worry and despair exploding in a fit of pure relief. I threw my arms around Henri so fiercely that he fell back against the sofa, cradling my head against his chest as I tried desperately to stop sobbing and looking like such an idiot in front of him. He stroked my hair gently with one hand, I felt the other hand hovering at my waist, like he didn’t know if it was okay to hold me there or not, but eventually he put both arms around my shoulders instead.
“It’s okay Kit, I’m safe now,” he soothed, “I’m here now.”
“It’s hard to believe you’re really here,” I sniffed, drying my eyes as I listened to the familiar thump of his heart.
“Imagine how strange it is for me,” he exclaimed, “knowing now that the voice in my head has a body and a face!” I looked up at him, laughing as he smiled down at me. “And a very pretty face, too,” he added shyly, his brown eyes glittering. His heart rate quickened where I was leaning over it. I was about six inches from his lips.
There came a knock at the door and I sat up as sharply as my weak form would let me, drying my eyes just before Mam and Idrys came in. Henri stood up immediately and bowed his head politely to them both, but Mam was upon him in moments with one of her bone-crushing embraces. She kissed both his cheeks until he started to blush, holding his lovely face up for appraisal.
“Welcome young man, Da’s told me everything about you!” she said.
Idrys, who was standing behind her, shook his head to us both as if to say ‘Not everything, obviously’.
***
Idrys suggested that Henri could stay with him at the cottage across the pasture and help out on the farm, an idea that Henri and I were elated with. He came out to enjoy the rest of my birthday party, introduced to the assembled people as ‘Cousin Henri’, my extremely distant relation, who had just made the amazing journey across the North Sea, escaping the clutches of the Nazi swine like the hero that he was. Mam enjoyed embellishing the thrilling tale from the bare bones that Idrys had given her and Henri couldn’t get a word in edgeways to correct any of the details, so the contents of my party were all terribly impressed with him despite the fact that he was rather shy of actually talking at length with any of them.
The only person who made it quite obvious that he disliked Henri was Leighton, which was terribly out of character for my little brother. Leigh was usually the first to want to make a new friend, but every time I looked at him he was giving Henri these nasty little sideways looks, most especially when Henri spoke to me or even just smiled in my direction. I tried not to waste much time worrying about Leighton when I could spend it returning Henri’s smiles and conversation. He was very softly spoken compared to the loud Welsh contingent all around us, but his deep smooth voice was easy to pick out in the din.
“I’m not sure I’m going to be much good on a farm,” he admitted, biting his lower lip. He had a little piece of cake stuck to it that I wanted to sort out, but the table was too wide to reach him. “I only know how to measure and cut.”
“Idrys knows all that,” I said quietly, “he’s not going to expect miracles.”
“So… he knows everything?” Henri’s brown eyes were dark and round with interest.
I nodded gently. “More or less. I didn’t mean to tell him, but it’s turned out really well to have someone to help me.”
“To help us,” Henri corrected, “I don’t think your policeman would have let me in if not for his influence.”
We were leaning very close to each other over the table to talk in such low tones and a loud spluttering from Leigh’s direction startled me backwards. I looked at him, panicked in case he was choking on cake, but all he did was give Henri another of those rotten looks. I was about to tell Henri to take no notice when Doctor Bickerstaff rose from the far end of the table. He was looking straight over our heads, blue eyes flickering to Blod for just a moment as he set down his napkin.
“Excuse me a moment,” he mumbled as he stalked off toward the house.
It was only a few seconds later that Blod started clattering about between Henri and me, collecting our plates despite the fact that we still had cake left on them. I gave her a knowing look and she scowled at me shamelessly.
“Well I’m going to get these washed up,” Blod said all too loudly, “Since I’m everyone’s bloody slave and it’ll be me that’s still doing them at midnight otherwise.” Her complaints didn’t have their usual confidence and her walk had less of its carefree sway as she too approached Ty Gwyn. Henri craned his neck to watch her go before turning back to me.
“It’s not impossible to imagine them together,” he whispered, shifting and sitting in Blod’s space so that he was beside my wheelchair, “The little girl is the image of him.”
I nodded quietly, but I wasn’t really thinking about Bickerstaff and Blod. Henri was so close I could smell the freshness of his borrowed shirt. He leant casually on the armrest of my chair, the soft brown hairs on his forearm brushing against my much paler limb. I watched him rubbing his palm with his fingertips; a trait I knew was always accompanied by the prickle of nerves in his spine. He smiled at me again when I had taken far too long to reply and I couldn’t help the toothy grin that escaped. I wanted to giggle, even though he hadn’t said anything remotely funny. There was something sparkling deep in his big brown eyes, like he too was in on the joke.
“Ouch!”
A bowl-cut hair style banged into my elbow as Leighton forced himself into the total lack of space between Henri and me. I rubbed my arm and curled my lip at him.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
Leigh feigned complete innocence. “It’s a bit chilly now,” he suggested, “I thought you might want to go inside.”
“No thank you,” I said through gritted teeth.
“But you look cold,” Leigh insisted, “I could wheel you.”
“If I want to go inside I’ll ask Henri to wheel me,” I insisted.
But my brother wouldn’t be put off. He put all his strength into pulling my chair back from the table and took me about ten feet away where we couldn’t be heard. His little freckled face was livid.
“Look, I don’t remember any Cousin Henri, Kit,” he whispered viciously, “I’m not stupid you know; I want to know what’s going on.”
“He’s come from a terrible place crawling with Nazis, Leigh,” I pleaded, “Telling them he’s family is the best way to protect him.”
“But how do you know him?” Leighton pressed, his little hands balled into fists. “He’s all… close to you. It’s weird. Boys don’t do that to you, Kit.”
I didn’t need reminding of tha
t, but Leigh was all too happy to point out my total lack of a social life, especially where any admirers might have been concerned. When I’d started at grammar school there used to be a lot of boys who liked to talk to me at the gate at lunch, but that was before I started to walk funny and become known as ‘the girl with the pink rash’. I was trying to appreciate Leighton’s protectiveness, but frankly he was getting in the way of the precious time I had with Henri before Idrys decided to go home for the evening.
“We were pen friends,” I lied irately, “We know a lot about each other, that’s why he’s so friendly. Now will you please take me back over there?” My brother’s rosy lip fell into a frown as he grabbed the chair handles and started to obey me. “And whatever you do, don’t tell anybody that we’re not really related to him,” I chided in a perfect imitation of Mum.
“Oops,” Leigh said quietly.
“What?” I demanded, “What have you said?”
“Nothing much,” he mumbled, leaning in near my ear, “But Doctor B asked me about Henri… and I think I said that I didn’t remember him.”