The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  She kept smiling. ‘Of course. How else would it have happened?’

  He felt a kind of creeping despair. ‘You know that we are supposed to wait.’

  ‘Darling, it’s a whole year . . . a whole year.’

  He realized that for her it was approaching eternity. She tried hard to explain. ‘All I do is wait.’

  ‘Sweetie, if you look at life like that all any of us do is wait.’ He took her hands. They were cold and damp and it was the hottest day of the year. ‘Listen, you are bringing up two children, two very happy children. You shop, cook, do the laundry, keep the house going . . .’

  ‘You do the hoovering – anything that you consider to be too heavy for me – you just . . . do it.’ For an instant that dreadful smile disappeared and then came back. ‘Anyone could do what I do. What they cannot do is have your babies.’

  He held her to him and his chest heaved with a gigantic sob. She was appalled.

  ‘Darling . . . William . . . we can still go to Cornwall. September is a whole two weeks away and this time I’ve only missed two periods so it’s not a proper miscarriage at all!’

  He could not speak. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to shake her hard. He could do nothing. He put her from him at last and stood up.

  He said finally, managing to sound almost jovial, ‘Mrs Pentwyn? The cove in the rain? You did mention yesterday that the long-term forecast was rain for September?’

  She nodded and made a face. ‘She thought I was a hussy and brought shame to her house. What on earth will she think now? Two children and three near misses – oh dear Lord!’ The smile was back and what she was saying was not in the least amusing.

  He said, ‘The others will enjoy it, darling. And we can have our holiday here. I’ll stay at home and we can have a drive most days.’

  The others cancelled the whole holiday. Rosemary borrowed the two children, Connie rested and William gardened in between enormous thunderstorms.

  Greta panicked. She said to Maurice, ‘She’s going to die. Right in front of us, with us doing sweet fanny nothing. We’ve got to get her back down there. She’s got to see it again and to understand . . . something.’

  Maurice, who after all had lived with someone very near death for twenty years, shook his head. ‘It’s a helluva risk, Greta. What if she has got to the pitch where she too walks into the water and forgets to come out again?’

  ‘Oh . . . Christ! Maurice, don’t talk like that. Connie’s not like that – she’s got Frankie and May to consider and she adores William.’

  ‘OK. I’m just pointing out that there’s no answer to this. She’s got to get out of her hole all by herself.’

  ‘And she only knows one way to do it,’ Greta said sadly. ‘Produce children.’

  She asked William very tentatively if they could try again the next year. Frankie would be six, May five. They would just adore the place.

  He told her about Harry and Lucy. ‘They offered the whole house. It’s big, it’s almost self-sufficient . . . it would be great fun. And it’s not Mrs Pentwyn and it’s not quite the cove.’ Suddenly he took her hand. ‘Greta, I have to say this while I can. Without you, Connie and I . . . would not be Connie and I. It’s not only that you bullied me into Worcester Cathedral that day but that you have been so – so – staunch.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it and felt the arthritic lumps along the knuckles and kissed each one. She said nothing and he looked up expecting tears. She was staring past him, seeing nothing. On her face was Connie’s small determined smile.

  ‘William. There won’t be any more babies after the next time.’ She spoke slowly, very clearly. And then the smile expanded properly. She patted William’s arm with her free hand and said, ‘Listen. You do the booking, darling. Will you? You know Harry Membury – I thought he was an absolute wimp actually! You sort it out with him and Mrs Pardoe. Let’s try again!’ It sounded like a rallying call, typical of Greta. William wondered if he had imagined that moment when she had not wept sentimental tears. Later he wondered whether he had made his small speech to provoke those tears, so that he could comfort and be comforted. As it was, he had been given a job to do. Next year.

  Arnold was sixty that November. He did not relish it at all and refused all celebrations. ‘What is there to celebrate? Anyone can manage it so long as they keep breathing.’

  Rosemary had already invited Greta and Maurice to lunch and was about to ring Maria and Marcus. It would be an interesting mix; a stimulating one too. Maurice was an easy companion and Marcus was even more pompous than before his marriage. The sort of company that would spur Arnold on to his provocative best. Greta giggled over the phone, ‘I hope you can keep Arnold in check, Rosie. Maurice is easily shocked, you know.’ They both laughed inordinately. In the background Arnold muttered something about wicked and conniving women.

  She replaced the receiver and left her hand on it. ‘What’s so awful about being sixty? The alternative of not breathing is better, is it?’

  ‘I haven’t tried it yet,’ he responded gloomily.

  She picked up a cushion by its tassel and dangled it in front of him. ‘We can always arrange something.’

  ‘OK.’ He lay back in his chair, spreadeagled, offering himself for sacrifice.

  She dropped the cushion in disgust. ‘I’m not trying to play games, Arnie! I’m trying to arrange a quiet lunch here that could be entertaining if you would only co-operate. I know you’ll go along with William’s plans for the actual day – but this was going to be something for you. Just you.’ She left the phone and stood looking at him until he felt ridiculous and struggled up in the chair. Then she went and knelt by him.

  She said, ‘Arnie. I am so thankful you are sixty. Please go on and on. Be seventy and then eighty and then ninety.’

  He made room for her in the chair and she tucked herself neatly into his shoulder. They sat there for some time, looking out at the November day. They did this quite often. Arnold called it ‘savouring the moment’.

  He was the first to speak. ‘I don’t want to leave you. Ever.’

  ‘No. I feel the same. You know that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What about Greta? And . . . the others.’

  She felt a chuckle beginning in his abdomen but all he said was ‘I don’t want to leave them either. But you know very well that in one sense I left them immediately I . . . left them.’ She did know that and was ashamed at her own insecurity.

  He said gently, ‘What about your first husband?’

  She was surprised. It never occurred to her that Arnie might feel any insecurity where her past was concerned.

  She thought about it carefully and was shamed again. ‘I can hardly remember how it was. I was devastated when he was reported missing so I must have loved him. Everything was different then, Arnie. I was a different person.’

  ‘I know.’ He used her own words. ‘I feel the same.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Your very small difficulty with Greta, my lamb, is nothing to do with me. It’s to do with her feelings for Connie. Try not to begrudge her loving Connie. She would have made a smashing mother.’

  ‘It’s easy for you, Arnie. I sometimes think you love the whole world.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Like heck.’

  ‘There were just the two of us. Connie and me. For . . . quite a while. I constructed a life for us – in my head – and tried to live it.’

  He kissed her hair and left his face there. His voice was muffled. ‘Then you constructed another life – for you on your own. And I came along and messed it up.’

  She chuckled and lifted her face and they clung together for a while. When they surfaced she said, ‘I put the remains of the curry in our lunchtime soup. D’you think it’ll be all right?’

  ‘Was it Lord Woolton who said waste not, want not?’

  ‘Who is Lord Woolton?’

  ‘He was the Minister of Food. In the war. Rosie, I am surprised you can’t remember that. You live by his book.’


  ‘Oh.’ She clung again, then said, ‘Arnie, I do so love you.’

  And he said, ‘She’s going to be all right, my love. Connie is stronger than you think.’

  They stood up reluctantly; it was after all past lunchtime and the soup was waiting. Rosemary said, ‘D’you know, William and Greta have already booked that farmhouse for next September.’

  He took her hand and they went towards the kitchen. He said, ‘After lunch I’ll ring Maria. You never know, I might get Marcus and I can ginger him up a bit, ready for the fray.’

  She laughed.

  Greta asked Connie if she had ‘felt anything’. ‘Just before Arnie’s birthday party, darling. I had one of my funny feelings when I sort of connect with you. You know. Like when our tummies touched that time and I felt May kicking in me. And then, of course . . . the labour pains.’ May would be five that late spring and nothing had ‘connected’ them since then. They never spoke of it. Greta had a horrible moment of disbelief. Had she imagined the whole thing?

  But Connie had never forgotten. She stopped smiling and looked up sharply from the sink, where she was washing up their few things from lunch.

  ‘I don’t think so. But it didn’t work like that before. Your feeling did not transfer itself to me. I simply . . . believed you.’

  ‘Oh Connie . . .’

  ‘What was it, Greta? Another baby? Tell me – don’t try to wrap it up – please – just tell me.’ She took dripping hands from the sink and held them out and Greta took them.

  ‘I was talking to William about the holiday. And it happened. And I said to him – interrupted him, I think – that after the next baby there would be no more.’

  She paused and added, ‘It didn’t mean you could not have any more. It meant that you would be happy then.’ Another pause, then, ‘I think.’ She squeezed Connie’s slippery fingers and let them go. ‘It was before Christmas, darling. I can’t really remember. What I do hang on to is . . . there will be another pregnancy and it will go full term.’ She swallowed, wondering whether that was what had really happened. ‘That was the sort of . . . message.’

  It was enough for Connie. She stood there, taking it in. Gradually – Greta saw it happening and said to Maurice that it was like an electric fire growing warm – Connie became radiant.

  She breathed, ‘Oh . . . Greta.’

  Greta said hurriedly, ‘Listen, just because of what happened when May . . .’

  Connie said, ‘You were right then, darling. You were right!’

  ‘I wasn’t right or wrong, Connie. It just happened.’

  ‘There’s something between us, Greta. Remember I dreamed about Maurice in Brighton.’

  ‘Darling, please don’t set too much store by this time. I wish I hadn’t told you now.’

  ‘You wish you hadn’t made me happy?’

  ‘Connie . . .’ Greta watched helplessly as Connie dried her hands and took off her apron. Connie saw her anxiety and laughed; actually laughed properly. She said, ‘Come on, it’s time to meet the kids from school. The daffodils are all out in the park, it’s Frankie’s birthday next month and May’s straight after.’ She shrugged into her coat and said thoughtfully, ‘Nineteen sixty-seven. I like the sound of that. I think seven is my favourite number. It rhymes with heaven.’

  They went outside. Connie tucked her arm into Greta’s. Greta felt frightened yet so special.

  Connie talked to William after they had put May and Frankie to bed that night. He was wary; she realized that he was frightened, just as Greta was frightened. She hated the fact that she was a source of such anxiety to them and wondered if her mother felt the same. Her mother would be better at hiding her feelings of course.

  William nodded and moved the fireguard so that they got the full heat of the crumbling fire. ‘I was there when it happened. It was very strange. She did not really understand it herself. But if it has helped you, Connie . . .’

  ‘Stop it!’ She was angry. ‘Stop pretending everything will be all right if I rest and recuperate. I am not ill, William! I simply need us – you and me – to be complete! Can’t you see that?’

  ‘No. You and me . . . that could have been completion. You, me and Frankie, that too. You, me, Frankie and May . . .’

  She held up her hand. ‘You’re right. Of course you are. But darling, just tell me this. Do you still love me?’

  He looked at her. She cupped his face with her hands and made a sound. Then she whispered, ‘Then . . . why can’t you trust me in this?’

  Still he was unable to speak. She brushed beneath his eyes with her thumbs.

  ‘All right, I know that too. I thought that Greta’s . . . what? Experience? I thought it would help you to believe that in this I might know best.’ She sighed. ‘Greta knows that there is another child for us. Waiting. I know it too.’

  He continued to stare into her velvet brown eyes though he could scarcely see them. He thought of his parents and his brothers. Killed so randomly. He thought of Arnhem. And he thought of Connie and their two children. He dealt in reason and logic and it had deserted him. He held on to her fragile body as if they might both be drowning. Just as he had held on to her as he dragged her from the sheer weight of water in the cove seven years ago.

  So, in September they arrived at the farmhouse set in the sandy soil of the dunes and decorated with upturned umbrellas and strips and swathes of nylon tenting like insubstantial arras. Hens clucked and scooted around their feet as they unloaded their luggage and Harry came from the slopes of the garden holding an enormous chip basket of kidney beans and a smaller one of late raspberries. He put them down, shook hands all round and pretended not to notice Connie’s enormous abdomen, then took them in to show them how to work the hot-water system.

  ‘Lucy has left a hotpot. And there are new potatoes and these beans.’

  William remembered the house from before. ‘You’ve extended the kitchen somehow,’ he said, admiring the long table and the sideways view of the lighthouse in the distance.

  ‘Yes. We started to use the old range and we needed to take full advantage of the heat from it. So we knocked the living room into the kitchen. It works well. Lucy likes it.’

  ‘You can turn your hand to most things?’

  ‘I learned when I was at the rectory. Matthew borrows Doc Carthew’s housekeeper now and then. She tells me she is doing a correspondence course in plumbing!’ Harry grinned. He was looking well. For a time after he and Lucy had set up together the locals had taken against them. Chippy Penberthy had broken all the windows on Lucy’s car during one of her weekend visits to the farm. One of the fishermen had left buckets of rotting fish around the house. Josh had dealt with that, probably using his fists; Matthew had dealt with Chippy by the simple threat of eternal damnation. Chippy’s grandchildren had converted their grandmother – and therefore Chippy – and though he did not believe in hell he felt it was too big a risk to take for someone so downright immoral as Lucy Pardoe. ‘It’s them two what’ll burn. Not me!’ he was heard to say on several occasions.

  It was a good reason for keeping their main base in Truro. Since the arrival of the Flower People everybody seemed to live with everybody else. After all, Harry and Lucy were not summer visitors.

  Soon the house sang with voices. Frankie and May called it the Magic House and May had discovered the tea tray at the top of the stairs on which she could hurtle down to the passage. Frankie, more cautious, fetched pillows and threw them down to provide a soft landing for himself. There was a cat, grey with rings around his tail and paws and a white bib.

  ‘He’s Tad,’ Harry told them. ‘He lived with Matthew and Mark in Truro but they are getting very elderly and he got on their nerves. So he lives out here now and makes sure we don’t get mice in the house.’

  ‘Oh thank God,’ said Rosemary, clutching her blouse theatrically. ‘May! You are NOT to come down the stairs head first. Ever again!’

  May looked at her well-trained grandmother with surprise then began to crum
ple her face up. Harry said, ‘Would you care to help me collect the eggs from the hen coops?’

  ‘Ooh! Yes, please!’ She put her hand confidingly into Harry’s. ‘We got a book at home called Polly and Peter and they live on a farm and c’llect eggs every day.’

  ‘You could do that for me. If you wouldn’t mind. Look, here is the trug and the tray fits inside it and you put one egg into each of those holes so that they don’t break or crack. Can you do that?’

  ‘I can do anyfing really,’ May said airily. ‘Anyfing Frankie can do I can do. An’ he’s a year older’n me.’

  ‘That’s good because he can look after you, can’t he?’

  She hesitated then said, ‘Yes. I s’pose so. Come on, Frankie. You can be Peter an’ I’ll be Polly . . .’ Her voice grew less strident as they made their way to the hen coops.

  Rosemary sighed. ‘It was a long journey, Arnie. Don’t let’s take May back in our car. Let’s have Frankie instead.’

  Arnie looked at her and grinned. ‘OK,’ he said.

  Harry left and they settled in. The sunset was amazing and they all walked on the beach and watched the enormous red ball drown in the sea. The children went to bed and William and Connie read to them until they were asleep. They left the others to themselves and went to bed. William massaged Connie’s back and she pretended to purr with delight. He was still so frightened; she had told him after three months that everything was all right this time but he could not overcome the terrifying sensation of not being in control. The sense of being lost at sea came upon him at times and he had to gasp for air. Once, only once, he had called out in his sleep, ‘What have I done?’ Connie had wrapped herself around him and whispered, ‘We’re all right, darling. We’re really all right.’ Their roles had changed that night; he had given himself up to fate and she had surrendered stoicism for gratitude.

  Greta said, ‘I wish I could give you things . . . like you give to me. The sheer sweetness of love, for instance.’

  Connie had crowed with delight. ‘That is what it is, Greta! So sweet, so very sweet!’ She revelled in it and tried hard to pass it on to William. The massage sessions were part of it and that first night at the farm when she rolled over and let him feel movement in her womb, he smiled.