Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

  She looked at her watch. It would be tea-time when they arrived. She wondered what the cottage was like. Henry had said that the Cowans would be leaving them some food, but she had still brought some cheese and grapes, a few scones and a pot of home-made jam. The jam was made in someone else’s home admittedly, and it had probably done the rounds backwards and forwards between different bring-and-buy sales in Abbotslea, but it looked like nice jam: strawberry, and the pot had such a pretty cloth-cover over its lid. Amelia kept trying to ward off thoughts of Henry leaving, leaving so soon and maybe even going to war in the Gulf. The idea seemed quite absurd in the midst of all that sunshine and normality, the way, she thought suddenly with a little shudder, it must have seemed eight years earlier to the people waving off the men sailing for the Falklands.

  She shook herself. ‘Twenty-four hours,’ she said, ‘just think, twenty-four hours all to ourselves.’ She smiled as he put his hand on hers.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  As they Got Out of the car by the grey stone cottage with its garden all jumbled up with roses and foxgloves and cabbages, the front door opened and a small boy ran down the path and out of the gate, flinging his arms round Henry’s neck.

  ‘Uncle Henry, Uncle Henry! Mummy said you wouldn’t be pleased to see us but you are, aren’t you?’ The boy was five years old and quite convinced that his mother was being very silly.

  ‘Elvira was sick all night.’ He jumped up and down with excitement, stirring up little puffs of grey dusty soil from the road side. ‘First she was sick in her bed. And then she got into mine because hers was all icky and then she was sick in mine.’ His voice rose to a high pitched squeal, ‘And then …’

  Henry gave a pleading look over the child’s blond head. ‘This is Freddie, my godson.’

  Amelia smiled back helplessly.

  ‘Are you Amelia? Mummy said that you wanted to be on your own with Uncle Henry. You can come into my playroom, it’s quite big. Come.’ Freddie put his hand in hers.

  Freddie’s mother appeared at the door and, giving an embarrassed little wave, she called, ‘I’m terribly sorry, really I am, but you can imagine … camping with Elvira at the moment.’

  Henry hurried towards Jenny Cowan and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Mark’s inside watching the athletics,’ Jenny said, before turning to Amelia, shaking hands. ‘Come through, I’ll show you your room.’

  The trick is, Amelia thought, not to burst into tears on the Cowans’ doorstep.

  ‘I’ll get the bags,’ Henry said and disappeared off towards the car.

  ‘We know how things are with Henry’s “calling” and all that, so we’ve got you in the spare room,’ Jenny explained as she took Amelia through the house. ‘But I’m afraid Henry will have to share with Freddie. Actually,’ she smiled conspiratorially, ‘the little chap can’t believe his luck. He was so upset when he heard you were coming and he wasn’t going to be allowed to be here.’

  She opened the door into a small, sunny room dominated by a double bed that stood like an insult at the centre of the wall. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable. I’ll just go and check on Elvira. I’ll have a cup of tea ready in a sec.’

  Think positive, Amelia told herself as she hung up her clothes. It could be worse. How? She thought for a moment: at least the children make a change from Cherryfield, she tried. And Jenny does seem very nice. She brushed her teeth and tried out a smile before joining the others in the sitting room.

  Mark asked her if she wanted a large gin and tonic rather than tea. ‘To get over the shock.’ He grinned at her, as if they were all sharing in a really good joke.

  ‘Tea will be fine.’

  She went over to Henry who sat smiling with a look in his eyes as if he’d been struck by someone he trusted. She took his hand and said, trying to sound cheerful, ‘It’s lovely to have a chance to meet you both.’ She smiled at her hosts. ‘And the children of course.’ She was rewarded with a grateful glance from Henry.

  After tea Henry suggested Amelia came with him for a walk. ‘Can I come, can I come?’ Freddie, who had been busy building a Lego zoo, jumped up and began looking for his boots.

  ‘You don’t need boots, Freddie,’ Jenny called after him, ‘it’s dry as a bone outside.’

  Henry took her hand again as soon as they got out of the house. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Do you want to leave? We could go to a hotel.’

  Freddie circled them like a cheerful vulture. ‘There are planes on Uncle Henry’s ship.’

  ‘Helicopters,’ Henry corrected automatically.

  Freddie circled closer. ‘Amelia, there are helicopters on Uncle Henry’s ship. Hundreds and hundreds of helicopters.’

  Amelia smiled at him. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ And she whispered to Henry, ‘We couldn’t do that, could we? They’d be terribly hurt. It would be very rude.’ She half hoped that Henry would contradict her but of course he didn’t.

  ‘And this business with the rooms too,’ Henry put his arm round her shoulders. ‘You see, Jenny knows how I feel, how I normally feel about …’

  ‘Uncle Henry, does God love everybody?’ Freddie interrupted him. He had stopped circling and settled into their steps. His cheeks were bright pink and his hair was damp from the running.

  ‘Yes Freddie. God loves everyone.’ Henry looked unhappily at Amelia. ‘It’s all getting to be such a mess. If at least we’d had this one night …’

  ‘Did God love the dinosaurs?’ Freddie squeezed in between them and took both their hands.

  ‘Yes!’ Henry almost shouted. ‘Yes, the dinosaurs too.’

  Freddie frowned. ‘But if he loved them, why did he let them get extinct?’

  Freddie and Elvira were asleep and Amelia had helped tidy their toys away from the kitchen. She wandered into the garden to pick some flowers for the table and coming back with a bunch of foxgloves in her arms, she bumped into Henry on his way to get some wood.

  ‘Digitalis,’ she smiled at him. ‘For the children.’

  Henry let go of the woodbasket and put his arms round her, squashing the flowers. ‘I adore you, do you know that?’ he mumbled the words so quickly that they came out almost on top of each other. Then he let her go and hurried outside.

  Amelia stood looking after him, the crushed flowers in her arms. She had been told she was loved quite a few times by quite a few men, but never before had she been adored. She smiled as she arranged the flowers in Jenny’s vase.

  Henry opened the bottle of wine and Jenny served lasagne with a corner missing that had gone to the children’s supper. There were caramelized oranges to follow, and Amelia’s cheese. As Mark spoke of the possibilities of war, probing every angle, pulling out morsels of information from press and television, chewing over the options, Amelia kept hacking off little wedges of the cheese and popping them into her mouth absent-mindedly. Throughout their lives, she thought, at any particular time a war was being fought somewhere. Yet they could as well be sitting there talking of witches or dragons or a haunted house, as of war, because somehow, deep down amongst the fear and the excitement, none of them really believed in it.

  ‘Now Mark’s on to the Gulf he’ll go on for hours,’ Jenny grimaced at Amelia. ‘He used to be in the Navy too, that’s how we all met.’ She pushed her plate away and, putting her hand on Henry’s shoulder, she said, ‘You boys can do the washing-up. Come on Amelia, I’m dying for a chat.’

  Amelia stood up obediently, thinking it was like a sticky spider’s web, this kind hospitality, choking the life out of their weekend.

  Henry got up too. ‘Let’s get on with the clearing up,’ he said to Mark.

  ‘Oh, there’s no hurry,’ Jenny smiled at him. ‘You two hardly ever get a chance to have a really good talk. We’ll be all right, won’t we?’ She turned to Amelia. As there was no reply she tried again, ‘Won’t we, Amelia?’

  Amelia felt there was no more fight in her. She allowed herself to be seated on the sofa next to Jenny, allowed herself to be plie
d with coffee and mint-flavoured matchsticks, the extra long variety.

  ‘Don’t you just love these?’ Jenny giggled as she put a third chocolate in her mouth.

  No, Amelia wanted to say. I hate them. I only like the orange ones. But she muttered and smiled agreement.

  ‘You must be worried sick with all this talk of war.’ Jenny reached for the box again. Then, before Amelia had time to answer, she went on, ‘He’s totally wrapped up in you, you know. We’ve seen him with quite a few girls, but nothing ever seemed this serious.’ She added kindly, ‘He’s obviously been waiting for someone special and now it looks as if he’s found her.’

  ‘We don’t know each other all that well,’ Amelia said gracelessly, annoyed at having their tentative affections all tied up and despatched by Jenny. ‘I mean most of our meetings have been in a nursing home. I’m older than him too,’ she added for good measure.

  ‘And now you’ve got us around to spoil your last weekend,’ Jenny said. ‘Poor you.’

  Amelia blushed and apologized, but Jenny just laughed.

  Feeling hot, Amelia excused herself and hurried into the bathroom to put on fresh lipstick and some scent. When she returned, Jenny looked up at her and said, ‘Gosh, I remember making all that effort before we were married. I give you two months, and you’ll be as slack as the rest of us.’

  She hadn’t been listening at all, Amelia thought, but when Henry joined them at last, a tea towel slung over one shoulder, she felt as if the door to home had opened.

  Eventually, Henry had thought, Jenny would suggest that he would be much more comfortable sharing the spare room with Amelia, but she hadn’t. During dinner he had almost heard the clock ticking away their last night together as Amelia grew quieter and quieter. She had a way, he thought, of hunching her already narrow shoulders when she was unhappy or worried, which made her seem smaller than she really was. Next to her, Jenny had seemed indecently robust, dark-haired, pink-cheeked and so sturdily married that she seemed to have all but forgotten about people needing to be alone together. And Mark, Mark was his best friend, but he had been no better, going on and on about the Gulf. Henry thought of the young sailors and Wrens in his care sailing off with him that Monday, none of them knowing whether war was at the end of their journey. He felt suddenly furious with Mark and all the men like him who sat pontificating in the safety of their homes, wishing they were ‘out there’.

  On the bottom bunk below him, Freddie snuffled and snored, twisted and turned, legs and arms flailing; he was fast asleep though. Carefully, so as not to make a sound, Henry swung his legs over the side of the bunk, dropping down on to the soft carpet below.

  ‘Uncle Henry.’ Freddie sat bolt upright in the lower bunk. ‘Where are you going? Mummy says big boys should last the night.’

  ‘Go back to sleep, Freddie, please.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Go back to sleep, Freddie, I mean it,’ Henry hissed.

  ‘You’re being horrid.’ Freddie began to cry. ‘Mummy says that because you’re a chaplain you’re extra nice, but you’re not and I’m feeling sick. I want Mummy.’

  Henry sighed and knelt down by the boy, stroking the damp cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Freddie. I’ll get Mummy. Come with me to the bathroom first though.’

  Freddie gave a small smile and crawled out of bed, putting his hand in Henry’s.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ Jenny enquired brightly of Amelia the next morning. ‘I’m afraid Henry might have had enough of his godson for a while. The poor little chap was awake most of the night.’ She smiled lovingly at Elvira who sat, looking interested, in a bright red plastic high-chair. ‘Did my naughty girl give Freddie her bugs?’

  Amelia and Henry went to church on their own, no-one followed them there. Seated in the pew she looked sideways at Henry. Although this was not his parish, here in church he ceased being Henry and turned into a chaplain, public property. The thought of their kisses and mumbled endearments suddenly seemed nicely improper, like sitting in court and being the only one knowing that, under his gown, the judge was naked. Amongst all the dubious wisdom handed down to women, Amelia thought, there must be one about not lusting after officials.

  Next to her, Henry was deep in prayer so she stopped looking at him and mumbled Our Father, lest her unworthy thoughts should somehow vibrate across into his contemplation.

  After lunch with the Cowans they said their goodbyes and set off back to Exeter. ‘I’ll write with my new address,’ Amelia called through the open window of the car. ‘Promise you’ll come and see me.’

  Henry grinned at her. ‘Such warm farewells could be caused only by a bad conscience. Actually,’ he said, serious now, ‘you were marvellous, and I’m very grateful.’

  ‘I’ll come and wave you off tomorrow.’ Amelia stroked his hair, smoothing it behind his ear. ‘Isn’t your hair too long? Won’t you be ticked off?’

  ‘Probably,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll be very busy, you won’t mind?’

  She shook her head.

  They stayed for a while in the car outside Dagmar’s flat. Henry sat with his arm round Amelia’s shoulders, looking out across the park. Suddenly he took his arm away and, putting his hand in his pocket, pulled out a heart-shaped locket on a chain. Holding it out to her he said, ‘This belonged to my mother. I would like to think of you wearing it.’

  Amelia touched the matt gold of the heart gingerly with the tip of her finger. ‘It’s a beautiful locket.’

  ‘Please take it.’

  Relaxing a bit, she took the necklace, making a fist around it.

  Henry touched her cheek lightly, tracing her jaw-line round to her lips. ‘You’ve got what is known in the trade as an expressive face, so what’s wrong? Am I going too fast?’

  As Amelia looked away, he said softly, ‘You’re a very nice person, Amelia, and you don’t want to do anything to upset me because I’m going away and there might be a war, is that not right? But you see that’s why it’s especially important that you’re honest with me.’ He took her hand. ‘I suppose what I’m saying is, that I’d like to know how you feel about me.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Amelia said, ‘you’re five years younger than me, but compared to you I feel unformed. And … What’s the opposite of self-possessed?’ she smiled. ‘Unpossessed? That too.’

  She lifted his hand to her face, pressing it against her cheek. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped the last few months without you. And as you have probably guessed,’ she let go of his hand, ‘I would have loved going to bed with you. But you see, it wasn’t very long ago that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Gerald.’ She paused.

  ‘I’ve only just finished driving him away. I ought to have a break before I start on someone else.’

  ‘If that last bit was an attempt to lighten the atmosphere,’ Henry said, ‘it wasn’t very successful.’ But he was smiling again.

  ‘Henry, that locket belonged to your mother.’

  ‘I know, I told you.’

  Then he looked at her with such understanding sympathy that she wished that there was nothing for him to try to understand. She unfolded her fingers and picked the necklace up, about to put it on.

  Henry stopped her. ‘Truth, remember?’ he said.

  Amelia looked unhappily at him. ‘Why do you want truth at a time like this? I’ve been nicely brought up, I’m not used to it.’

  Henry began to laugh. ‘Take it and keep it safe for me anyway.’ He slipped the locket into her handbag.

  ‘I had always planned to meet the ship when you all return, if you wanted me to that is; we’re friends,’ Amelia said. ‘And I listen to you. It was you who told me that I drifted around expecting others to bring me the things I wanted from life. Like one of those women who sits around in middle-age thinking bitterly: I should have been a managing director’s wife, or I should have been the mother of a doctor.’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  She grinned at him. ‘Maybe not exactly, but something li
ke it anyway, and you were right. And it won’t do any more. I’m thirty-one years old and most of those years I’ve been flapping round like a homing pigeon whose loft has been demolished, trying to edge on to someone else’s perch. It hasn’t proved a great success. I’m not very proud of myself, in fact I come pretty low down the list of people I’d choose to spend an evening with.’

  She leant forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘And the thing is, soon you’d feel the same.’

  As Henry was about to protest, she put her finger softly across his mouth.

  ‘No, I mean it. I will have to like myself a little before I start all over again asking someone else to.’ She pressed her finger harder against his lips. ‘Please, Henry.’

  ‘You make me sound like some medieval princess,’ Henry said at last, ‘waiting for her sodding knight errant.’

  Amelia leant her head on his shoulder. ‘Some princess,’ she said.

  Henry twisted free and looking her straight in the eyes, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. ‘So I’ll wait,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The Lines of the large grey frigate seemed fluid in the mist of the September morning, making it seem to Amelia, standing at the brow, as if at any moment it would dematerialize, leaving the small crowd of women and children isolated in the drizzle. But the leaving was slow; the brow was removed, the riggers let go wires and ropes leaving a single wire attaching the ship’s fo’c’sle to the jetty: a rush of water as the engines eased the stern out. Three short blasts of the siren, the final wire detached from the bollard and the Union Flag was lowered. Now the ship was off, disappearing through the Narrows, past Devil’s Point and out into the Sound. Everyone was waving, the goodbye kind; no throwing up of the arm with the hand whisking the air in excitement but a slow salute held for a long while as if, while they waved, the ship had not yet really gone.

  ‘Henry has left. Admiral Mallett’s son, he’s sailed for the Gulf,’ Amelia said to Selma. ‘I watched them leave this morning.’ She was hoping for a miracle, for Selma to understand and say wise and comforting words.