A Running Tide

by Ann Swinfen

  They stopped work at noon. The first flush of ripe berries had been picked and the plants could be left another few days before they would need to be picked again. They carried their baskets up to the kitchen, where Harriet would sort out boxes of the finest berries to sell to Flett’s Stores and the Portland buyer. The rest would be canned or made into jam, though everyone was worrying about sugar since rationing had started at the beginning of May.

  ‘I wrote down a low-sugar jam recipe off the radio,’ said Harriet, shaking her head, ‘but I don’t know. Would the jam keep? I reckon it would go mouldy without enough sugar.’

  ‘Grandma says she’s going to do all her fruit canning without sugar this year,’ Tirza volunteered. ‘So she can use the sugar ration for jam.’

  ‘Ayuh, I was thinking on that. And that reminds me.’ Harriet tipped a couple of pounds of the best strawberries into a small basket. ‘Take these home with you, Tirza. Abigail will be glad of them for dessert tonight.’

  ‘Come with me to the milk room,’ said Tobias, ‘and I’ll give you a can of cream to go with them.’

  Tirza started off on her homeward journey loaded down with the strawberries, the cream, the broom and a bag of chocolate brownies Harriet handed her at the last moment. She was thankful she had not ridden her bicycle that morning. As she passed the Tremayne house, she had a feeling that something looked different about it, but it was only as she started down the steep part of the path into Flamboro, carefully balancing the can of cream, that she looked back and realised what it was. One of the shades at an upstairs window had been raised.

  On Sunday morning, Tirza was surprised to see Sandy in church. He sat in a pew across the aisle from the Libby family, and gave her a smile as she came in. Afterwards, as the congregation lingered in the pleasant sun outside, discussing plans for the annual Fourth of July party, he came over to her. He was managing with one crutch now, and was holding a brown paper package by its string in his other hand.

  Tirza introduced him, first to her father and grandmother, then to the family from the farm, who were all present except Martha, who had not been near the church since Will’s death.

  Tobias shook Sandy’s hand with a look of curiosity in his eye. The story of the injured British pilot was common currency in Flamboro, but he had not been seen in the town before. Tirza felt a certain possessiveness towards him.

  ‘This is Sandy, Uncle Tobias. He spent a week at sea in a rubber dinghy before he was rescued.’

  She knew they were all longing to hear the story first hand, but their old-fashioned New England politeness prevented their asking outright. She had not liked to question him about it herself.

  ‘You’re staying at the Mansion House, are you, Mr... er...?’ said Abigail. Tirza knew him simply as Sandy and had not thought to find out his last name.

  ‘Fraser. But, please, call me Sandy.’

  When he smiled, his whole face lit up, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. Tirza noticed that now he was getting a tan, the smile lines at the corners of his eyes were etched faintly in paler skin against the brown. She wondered how old he was. Much younger than her father and uncle, that was clear. Perhaps about the same age as Pete Flett, who was twenty-three. Though those crinkles might mean he was older. She focused on what was being said. Her grandmother was inviting Sandy to join them for Sunday dinner, and he was accepting.

  ‘I’ll just need to tell them that I won’t be going back in the hotel car,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Tirza could give me a lift in Stormy Petrel afterwards.’

  She saw their heads swivel round as they stared at her. She had not mentioned before that she had met Sandy, or that she had taken him sailing with her.

  ‘No need for that,’ said Tobias. ‘We came in the pickup today because I had a load to bring into town from the farm. We can take you back with us. ‘Tisn’t much further along the road to Todd’s Neck.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to use up your petrol ration. How about it, Tirza?’

  ‘Oh, I’d be glad to take you.’

  What was petrol? she wondered.

  Sandy went to speak to the hotel driver and Tirza waited behind to show him the way while the rest of the family walked along the harbour front to Nathan’s house. Today was one of the regular Sunday visits by the farm family, and Tirza dreaded that it would be very dull for Sandy.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s taken care of. Now, before we catch them up, I have something for you.’ He led her to a pile of lobster crates on the wharf side and sat down to ease his legs. She perched beside him.

  ‘Here.’ He handed her the parcel he had been carrying all this time. ‘Something in exchange for the arrowhead, though not as special, I’m afraid.’

  Tirza took the parcel silently. She did not know what to say. Nobody gave her presents, just like that. Only for birthdays and Christmas, and then they were usually practical things. She untied the string carefully, wound it round her hand and put it into the pocket of the skirt Abigail obliged her to wear to church. She folded back the brown paper and found the largest of the Shaker boxes with painted scenes.

  ‘Oh, Sandy, it’s wonderful.’ She turned it in her hands. It was even better than she remembered.

  ‘Open it.’

  Inside was the next smallest box. Inside that, the next one. And so on until she reached the smallest one.

  ‘Open that one too.’

  Inside the last box was a snapshot of Sandy, dashing in uniform and standing beside a small aeroplane. On the back he had written: ‘To Tirza with affection from Sandy, because she has a forgiving nature.’

  ‘Something for you to remember me by, when I’m gone,’ he said.

  Tirza cradled her lapful of boxes and kept her eyes down, unable to look at him.

  ‘They’re wonderful, but I don’t think my grandmother would let me accept them.’

  ‘Does she have to know?’

  Did she? Tirza felt her chest churning with some feeling she had never experienced before. Why should Abigail have to know? She wanted the boxes and she wanted the photograph, and above all she wanted to go on being friends with Sandy. If she rejected his gift, he might be upset or angry. She lifted her head and her eyes met his. Her cheeks were burning, but she held up her chin defiantly.

  ‘No. I don’t suppose she has to know. It’s nothing to do with her.’

  Reverently she fitted the boxes one inside the other and wrapped the paper loosely round them again.

  ‘I’ll put them in the locker on Stormy Petrel for now,’ she said. ‘And I’ll take them inside later.’ She tucked the photograph into the pocket of her blouse, where it gave her a queer feeling, as though it was burning through to her.

  Sunday dinner was transformed with Sandy sitting down at the family table. He kept them all laughing with his outrageous stories of RAF leave in London, and treated Abigail with such deference that she soon relaxed and laughed along with the rest of them. Simon, emboldened, asked about the Spitfire’s crash into the sea. Sandy gave them a highly coloured version enlivened with comic details, but underneath it all Tirza realised how near he had been to death. She wondered suddenly whether the cheerful way he told the story was shaped by the terror of the real experience. Sometimes she would whistle a defiant tune when she was most afraid. She watched him, wondering. She had never felt this close to a grown-up before. His accident, his dependency on her when they had sailed in Stormy Petrel, all made him seem vulnerable, as though he wasn’t much older than she was herself.

  Sailing back to Todd’s Neck that afternoon, they were both quiet. Sandy lay back in the bow of the boat with his eyes shut. He looked drawn and tired, and Tirza nursed the boat along as gently as she could. When she came about for the final run in to the pier, however, the waves slapped once broadside on and threw up a fine spray which landed on his face. His eyes fluttered open, looking dazed and disorientated, and she realised that he had been fast asleep. He smiled apologetically.

  ‘Tried to do a bit too much today. Sorry
to be such a boring companion.’

  ‘That’s OK. Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘My right leg is hurting a wee bit. I’ll lie down when I get back.’

  She gave him her shoulder to lean on, from the pier to the door of the hotel. His feet dragged and she felt a tug of pity and concern. On the threshold he squeezed her shoulders.

  ‘You’re a dear girl. A real chum.’ Then he disappeared into the draped and polished interior of the Mansion House.

  The Boston ladies had decided to invite some of the soldiers to tea. ‘Our visiting heroes’, Miss Molly called them. Miss Catherine was not quite so sure about this description, but agreed that a few select young men might be entertained. It would give Susanna something to look forward to. Simon and Wayne were consulted, as they had made the acquaintance of most of the gun crews. Tirza suggested Captain Tucker, and asked if she could bring Sandy.

  ‘He’s a visiting hero, too,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s visiting from even further away and he’s certainly a hero. He’s shot down eight German fighters.’

  ‘Of course you must invite him,’ said Miss Molly. ‘Now do you think it will be acceptable if we invite them to tea? I am not sure what young men expect these days. I am afraid that we really do not go in for these cocktails they all drink.’

  Tirza, Simon and Wayne assured her that a tea party would be very welcome.

  ‘They say as how the food on base is pretty borin’, Miss Molly,’ said Wayne. ‘There’s plenty of it, but Jim says he sure does miss his ma’s home cookin’.’

  ‘Make one of your lemon cakes, Miss Catherine,’ said Tirza. ‘Oh, and could you make blueberry muffins? Sandy says he’s never eaten muffins. And he’d never heard of putting blueberries in cakes. He says blaeberries grow in Scotland, and bilberries in England, but I don’t know if they’re the same thing. He says they’re so small nobody bothers to pick them.’

  ‘Well, they can’t be a patch on our Maine blueberries, then,’ said Miss Catherine complacently. ‘Than which there is nothing better. I have a few Mason jars left from last year’s canning. I’ll certainly make some blueberry muffins. And some chocolate drop muffins as well.’

  ‘Flett’s is clear out of chocolate drops,’ said Simon. ‘It’s the war.’

  Miss Susanna, sitting in her chair and finishing off the last of her oak tree rug, tapped the side of her nose with her finger.

  ‘Kitty has a secret store of chocolate drops.’

  Miss Molly clicked her tongue disapprovingly and muttered something about hoarding.

  ‘Molly Penhaligon!’ said Miss Catherine indignantly. ‘It is not hoarding. I just saw all these big bags of chocolate drops for cooking when I was down in Boston last month, and I thought I’d stock up the larder. You’re fond of chocolate drop muffins yourself.’

  Simon was scratching his head, wondering how to make a delicate suggestion. He knew the soldiers would prefer beer, but did not like to suggest it.

  ‘Er, I’m not sure how many of them drink tea...’ he began.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Miss Catherine briskly. ‘We shall provide coffee as well.’ She looked at him shrewdly. ‘We shall not be providing strong drink. It will do them no harm to drink coffee.’

  Miss Susanna gave Tirza the ghost of a wink.

  ‘The new rug is great,’ said Tirza, stroking the soft, tight loops. ‘What are you going to make next?’

  ‘Ah, I have an idea for that. But there is a problem. I can’t seem to get hold of any burlap.’

  ‘It’s the war,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘All the burlap is going for war use – kit-bags and such. Sandbags.’

  Tirza paused in polishing the best Penhaligon silver, brought out for the party. Sandbags? But she didn’t say anything.

  Six soldiers were invited to tea, four o’clock sharp at the Boston ladies’ house. Jim and Danny from the gun crews, Captain Tucker and the lugubrious Sergeant Klinsky, and Tommy and Irvine who did the regular inspection run along the foxholes. It was to be a democratic party, a mixture of GIs and officers. Simon, Wayne and Tirza were to be there to pass the food and help out, and Tirza was to bring Sandy round in Stormy Petrel and manoeuvre him up the steep path. He had now abandoned the crutch and could manage with two sticks, but was still suffering from a good deal of pain in his damaged legs. The broken bones and raw wounds had more or less healed, he explained to Tirza, but the torn nerves and muscles were taking longer to recover.

  ‘You ought to get my grandmother to look at them,’ she said.

  ‘Your beer grandmother?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘No, of course not, you dope! Girna. Christina O’Neill.’

  ‘Ah.’ He cocked his head curiously on one side. ‘Is she some sort of native healer, then?’

  ‘She knows a lot about plants and things,’ said Tirza shortly, wishing she had not mentioned it. ‘Please yourself.’

  ‘Don’t be cross.’ He took her by the wrist. It was so slender, despite the work she did, a man’s work, that his finger and thumb encircled it.

  Tirza felt a shock run through her. It happened whenever he touched her, and left her legs shaking. She tried to pull her arm away, but he held on.

  ‘We’ll go and visit your grandmother after this tea party, shall we? I would like to meet her very much, whether or not she can help the pain.’ His voice was sober, without a hint of its earlier teasing note.

  Often, she felt awkward and unsure how to take him. Sometimes he said the opposite of what he meant – but he wasn’t lying exactly. She had read about British irony, but had no experience – here in plain-talking, uncomplicated Flamboro – in recognising it. It made her feel uncomfortable. At other times, when he was straightforward and serious, the things he said echoed her own thoughts so exactly that she wanted to touch his hand and say, ‘Yes. That’s just how I feel.’ But natural shyness and reserve held her back, and also this strange spark that jumped between them, as if she had touched the electric fence round the bull’s pasture.

  The soldiers arrived promptly for tea, their hair slicked down with brilliantine and their fingernails scrubbed. For most of them, the army was their first experience of being away from home. In their off-duty hours they had drifted into wildness, away from the restraints of curtain-twitching neighbours. Drink was cheap and it wasn’t difficult to find girls who were naive but willing. However, they were on their best behaviour now, sitting stiff and nervous on the edge of the brocaded chairs in the Penhaligon drawing room (opened up for the occasion) and balancing cups of coffee on their knees. Captain Tucker, a little older and more experienced than the others, seemed more at ease.

  Tirza and Sandy came in after the others. There were beads of sweat standing out on his upper lip by the time they had made the climb up the sloping garden and the long flight of front steps, but he smiled and shook hands all round as if he felt no pain at all. Watching him, Tirza could see that his manners and his way of speaking were different from the other men. It wasn’t simply his English accent. (Scottish, she corrected herself.) It was the way he spoke to people. Friendly without being too pushy. That was the nearest she could come to it, though she knew that did not begin to describe it. Formal, but relaxed. It baffled her, as she kept a proprietorial eye on him. She wished she could learn to speak to strangers like that.

  The talk, at first, was inevitably about the war. There was a rumour that a submarine had been detected by the naval patrols about ten miles off the coast and hit by depth charges. Patches of oil had appeared on the surface, but no one knew for certain whether any serious damage had been done.

  ‘Nothin’ ever comes within sight of our gun,’ said Danny longingly. ‘Wouldn’t I just like to have a shot at them Krauts myself!’

  Sandy was questioned about the RAF. He had been in the Battle of Britain and described it vividly, yet it somehow seemed unreal to Tirza, like a radio play. She couldn’t connect this man, sitting and enjoying Miss Catherine’s blueberry muffins dripping with Harriet’s home-churned butter, wit
h life and death duels over the skies of England. Captain Tucker wanted to know about the crash. Sandy gave an even livelier account than he had done at the Libbys’ table, till they were all laughing at his attempts to catch fish, using one of his socks. Tirza didn’t believe a word of it, but she laughed as much as any of them.

  ‘Now, I have something I want you all to do for me,’ said Miss Susanna. ‘I’m planning my new rug, and I thought I’d do something different this time. A patchwork affair, like the old wedding quilts when all the bride’s friends each worked a section.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Simon. ‘I can’t hook rugs.’

  ‘You could soon learn. But no, I was thinking more about the designing. I’ve drawn up a grid for the pattern, and divided it into ten rectangles, for the ten of you here today. So it can be a kind of memorial of this one day in June 1942. I want you each to draw something – a picture, or your initials in a pattern, or anything you like. Then I’ll convert it into a plan for the rug when I can get some burlap. I’ll want you each to hook one little bit, later, just to show you’ve had a hand in making it.’

  Danny and Irvine looked as though they had been clubbed and Tommy gazed into space with bemused eyes. But Jim looked interested.

  ‘I’ll have a go,’ said Sandy. ‘I can’t draw, but I’ll have a bash at sketching my old kite – my Spitfire.’

  ‘I hear those are great little planes,’ said Sergeant Klinsky, as though he hoped to change the direction the conversation was taking.

  ‘I suppose I can try,’ said Captain Tucker slowly. ‘I’ve got a fist like a leg of pork.’

  Simon, Wayne and Tirza exchanged glances.

  ‘You’ll be OK, Wayne,’ said Tirza. ‘At least you can draw.’

  They went through into the dining room, where a sheet of brown paper, cut to the size of the finished rug, was laid out on Captain Penhaligon’s vast mahogany table and weighed down with a book at each corner. It had been ruled out with a faint grid of lines to represent the weave of the burlap, and divided into five rows of two rectangles, with a border around each.