Eva Moves the Furniture

by Margot Livesey

  I helped Lily with the dishes, and together we made a batch of scones; then she shooed me away. I carried my book, The Mill on the Floss, out to the bench in the garden. The bees were buzzing in the roses. On the page the print too seemed to buzz as Maggie Tulliver floated down the river.

  “Eva,” said a low, insistent voice. “Eva.”

  I sat up, startled. The garden was empty, save for a couple of sparrows in the apple tree. A dream, I thought, some remnant of the book, but I did not go back to sleep. I struggled to my feet and went inside to get a drink of water.

  I was at the sink, drying my hands, when Lily appeared. “There you are,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d fetch David. Tea will be ready soon, and he doesn’t like to rush.”

  I took the path through the woods. Beneath the trees it was dark and cool, a pleasant relief after the heat of the garden, but instead of slowing my pace I walked faster and faster. By the time I emerged onto the riverbank, I was trotting.

  At first glance, David appeared to be standing knee-deep in the water, leaning against the steep bank. As I came closer I saw that he had collapsed. His left hand still held the rod. It floated before him, bobbing in the current.

  “I felt a bit funny,” he whispered.

  “Father,” I said urgently. Beneath my fingers his pulse fluttered.

  I half rose, searching the riverbank for other fishermen, in vain. All the men were helping with the harvest. I did not know what to do. I must fetch a doctor, but at any moment David might slide down into the water.

  “We have to get you out of the river,” I said.

  I stepped behind him and slid my hands under his shoulders. I was used to moving patients, balancing their weight with my own. Now I tugged, I heaved, but all my straining did not budge my father. If anything, he sank a little lower.

  “Eva,” he murmured, “you’ll do yourself an injury.”

  I let go and stood up. My thoughts jostled frantically: to go, to stay, to go. Then into my mind came an image of the girl and the woman. “Please help me,” I begged. “Please.”

  Once more I bent to grasp David’s shoulders. There was nothing in the world save the need to move him to safety. I shut my eyes, dug in my heels, and leaned back with all my might.

  For a few seconds he remained obdurate. Then I felt him shift, a hair’s breadth, one inch, two. Opening my eyes, I saw two men in old-fashioned army uniforms, kneeling on either side of my father, and in the river stood a third, lifting his legs. David was free of the water. Led by the woman, we carried him over the grass and propped him against a beech tree. As noiselessly as they had appeared, the men retreated into the woods; beside me the girl helped to loosen David’s collar, remove his waterlogged boots.

  “He needs a doctor,” said the woman, and she and the girl too were gone.

  David stared at me. Before he could try to speak, I said, “You stay here. I’ll fetch Dr. Pyper.”

  “That’s not necessary.” He spoke with long pauses, as if he must search for each word in crowded rooms.

  “I just meant I’ll find someone who has a car.” I bent to kiss his cheek and felt the bristles; he had shaved carelessly that morning.

  I walked until I was out of sight. Then, heedless of the uneven ground, I sprinted. As I neared the road, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching and, with a final burst of speed, I leapt up the bank and hurled myself into its path.

  The car stopped a few yards away. Nora Blythe, as upright and efficient as she had been seven years before when she tried to make me into a secretary, opened the door. I spluttered out a couple of sentences. “I’ll fetch the doctor,” she said.

  I ran back the way I had come. Let him be alive, I prayed. Let him be alive. As soon as I saw him, beneath the tree, I knew that my wish had been granted. I stopped to catch my breath and straighten my clothes. When I thought I could appear calm, I hurried towards him.

  “I met Miss Blythe on the road. She’s bringing help.”

  “Good.” Even the single syllable seemed to exhaust him.

  I brought my face close to his, so that his eyes might dwell upon my countenance, and began to talk. Often at the infirmary I chatted to patients as they came out of the anaesthetic or when I was changing a dressing, but that was different. Now I spoke with desperate fluency, as if David’s life depended upon my words, as if all that anchored him to the world was the thin cord of my conversation.

  “Do you remember coming here when I was little? Before I started at Miss MacGregor’s, we would walk down in the evening. You would lean on the bridge and ask if I wanted a peppermint. I had to guess which pocket they were in. Then I put in my hand to see if I was right. There were little shreds of tobacco in the seams, and afterwards my hands smelled of tobacco and peppermint.”

  Above our heads the canopy of beech leaves trembled; the sunlight touched David’s face.

  “We used to go fishing on Saturdays,” I continued. “I brought my net and jam jar and you made me go downstream. I watched you wade out into the water, like a giant in your seven-league boots. There was that lovely hissing sound as you cast. The part I didn’t like was when you caught a fish. I don’t think you enjoyed that either. You always hit them on the head immediately.”

  David sighed.

  “Once we came in the autumn when the salmon were running: so many fish the water was shaking with silver. All along the banks, men were practically shoveling them out. You watched for a minute and turned away. Later you told Lily it was a massacre, like Passchendaele. She said you were too softhearted. I expect she was cross we weren’t getting a salmon.”

  I put my hand on his forehead. His eyes, which only the day before had been blue as the morning glories, were dim, and I wondered if anything reached him. Just then I heard voices. Miss Blythe emerged from beneath the trees, followed by Dr. Pyper, breathing hard but casting a spell of reassurance, and the Tyler brothers carrying a stretcher.

  In his hospital bed, hour by hour David grew weaker. He was slipping out of life as inexorably as he might, but for the companions, have slipped into the water. Lily and I sat with him. It was during the second night, when I had persuaded her to go and lie down, that David said, “I want to tell you my wish.”

  “Your wish?”

  “For my birthday. I wished for your happiness.”

  Beneath the warm flesh of his chest I felt his tremulous heart beat. If I could, I would have given him my organs, my life’s blood. In lieu of those impossible offerings I poured out what I had: love, gratitude.

  “Something happened by the river,” he said.

  “Yes.” A nurse padded by in the corridor. “The companions moved you to safety.” I stroked his chest, wanting him to know and understand before it was too late. “They’ve been with me all my life.”

  The faintest of smiles passed over David’s face. “Maybe Barbara sent them.”

  “Maybe she did.” At once the idea seemed right. My mother had sent back emissaries from that far country. Then I told him everything I had tried to tell Samuel, including what had come of my attempts to confide. “I wanted to send them away,” I said. “I’m so glad I didn’t.” While I spoke David’s eyes fell shut. I leaned forward to wipe his face. I found myself remembering our last visit to Barbara’s grave. Surely no day had passed without my father thinking of my mother.

  Lily and I emerged from the hospital to discover that victory over Japan had been declared. Ballintyre was probably the only house for miles around that did not fling open the curtains and turn on the lights. The funeral the next day was dominated by Aunt Violet. Her train from Edinburgh was late and she hurried down the aisle of Saint Cuthbert’s just as the organ started. In the high-pitched voice Mrs. Nicholson had imitated, she launched into the opening hymn.

  Afterwards she played the part of chief mourner. “A tragedy,” she kept saying, “but at least he didn’t suffer.” When the guests had gone, she raised her veil to glare at Lily. “The undertaker told me we’d lined the cof
fin with lead. I don’t know what you were thinking of. Every penny counts now.”

  “It was what he would have wanted,” said Lily quietly.

  We went to Mr. Laing’s office for the reading of the will. It was very brief; everything was to be divided between Lily and me. Violet asked how much that was, and Mr. Laing said to the best of his knowledge less than five hundred pounds. I had given no thought to the practical consequences of David’s death; now Mr. Laing made clear that Lily could not remain at Ballintyre. Even if she had the money, the lease was in David’s name, and the owner was anxious to repossess. “So, Miss McEwen,” he said awkwardly, “I’m afraid you’ll have to move.”

  “No,” I exclaimed. “It’s our home.”

  “Hush, Eva,” said Violet. She turned to Mr. Laing. “Lily can stay with me. We’re neither of us as young as we used to be, and I could do with the help.”

  “That sounds grand,” said Mr. Laing.

  I looked at Lily, waiting for her to disagree, but she sat clutching her gloves. Overnight she had shrunk from being the mistress of Ballintyre to a poor relation, a burden to herself and others.

  Next day, as if by prior arrangement, Lily and I rose early and, after a hasty breakfast, left the house, where Violet lay sleeping, and headed down the lane. The soft, tearing sound of the cows grazing in the nearby fields accompanied our conversation.

  “Can’t we find a way to stay?” I asked.

  “You heard what Mr. Laing said. We lived on David’s pension. That would pass to his widow, not to me. Besides, old Buchanan is very keen to get us out. We’ve been paying this tiddly rent for ages.”

  “But living with Aunt Violet …”

  “I don’t see, Eva, what choice I have.”

  Lily’s voice was thin as a reed, and at once I felt ashamed. After all, I had no home to offer. “Anyway,” she continued, “I’m not sure I’d want to stay here by myself. David did try to warn me. Last spring he said he worried about what was going to happen—”

  A shrill cry broke her words. Thirty yards ahead in the branches of an ash tree a magpie dipped and swayed, its plumage glinting in the sunlight. As we drew closer I could see the shining rim around each dark eye.

  “Remember the old rhyme?” Lily asked.

  Almost unthinkingly I recited:

  “One for sorrow, two for mirth,

  Three for a wedding, four for a birth.

  Five’s a christening, six a dearth,

  Seven’s heaven, eight is hell,

  And nine’s the devil his ane sel’.”

  “When you were born,” said Lily, “the midwife saw six magpies fighting in the garden.”

  “I know. You chided her for being superstitious.”

  With a final shriek the bird swooped over the hedge. We walked on. “David used to think you would marry,” Lily said, “and that would solve everything. After you brought Samuel home, he got his hopes up.”

  I turned to her, amazed—hadn’t she been opposed to my marrying Samuel?—but she was looking at the hawthorn. The flowers that year were especially creamy and abundant.

  Later that afternoon, when Violet and Lily were going through the china, I sat down to write to Samuel. I began with my father’s death, and then I found the words that I thought would please him. He was right: I had conjured up the companions out of my lonely childhood. If we were married, I would never see them again. As for Canada, I would be happy to go so long as Lily could come too.

  As I wrote, I kept glancing over my shoulder. I thought of David’s rescue, and my hand shook so, I could barely pen the sentences. Then I thought of Lily, hunched in her seat at Mr. Laing’s, and I went on. Surely the companions would understand that I was only trying to correct the mistake I had made by mentioning them in the first place. “I don’t mean any of this,” I whispered. “I’ll just keep you secret, like I do from Lily.”

  Ten days later I came down to breakfast to see an envelope by my place. At last. Another step, and I saw that it was my own letter. Next to Samuel’s name someone had scrawled: Not known. After a moment, I recognised the writing. Only three months ago the same hand had written Marry me.

  I sat down, oblivious to Lily’s offers of tea and toast but accepting both. Today we were sorting the linen. “David kept the bits and pieces Barbara brought from Glenaird. You’ll want those, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. Then I noticed she was watching me with a strange mixture of earnestness and embarrassment. “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “Before you came downstairs I was sitting here at the table with the place opposite, and it was as if I were waiting for David. I could hear you moving around and I was sure it was him.”

  “I feel the same. I keep thinking he’s just stepped out to feed the hens or see if his cabbages have grown. I don’t want to stop. There’s plenty of time to be sensible.”

  I gazed at Lily and she returned my gaze. Through the open window came the rustling of the wind in the apple tree, a bird cheeping, the distant clatter of a tractor in the meadow, and, in the midst of all these other sounds, a creaking noise—as if someone had opened and closed the garden gate—and, even more faintly, the crunch of gravel. We sat there, not moving, hardly breathing, as David passed by.

  Part III

  MY MOTHER’S VALLEY

  12

  One of the first stories I told Anne about Samuel concerned the would-be suicide. A young man, a navigator, whose jaw Samuel had been rebuilding for six months, had tried to slash his wrists but was foiled by the pedicle graft growing between his right arm and his mouth. When Samuel heard the news, he rushed to the unit. “For God’s sake,” he scolded the navigator, “don’t kill yourself until the pedicle is established. It needs another fortnight at least.” The two of them had burst out laughing and, later, so did Anne and I.

  But that was hours, days, weeks after I arrived at the school. That first day when I climbed down from the train at Perth Station, I could not imagine ever laughing again. Mrs. Thornton, the headmaster’s wife, had come to meet me. Her shelflike bosom and massive green hat reminded me of Aunt Violet, and at first she seemed just as stern. In a matter of minutes she had organised a porter to load my suitcases into the car, and we were driving with erratic speed through the town and into the countryside. For the last few weeks, as Lily and I emptied Ballintyre, the sounds of harvesting had filled the echoing rooms. Here, a hundred miles north, the stooks of corn still waited to be gathered in. While Mrs. Thornton pointed out landmarks—Huntingtower Castle, the Ochil Hills—I wondered what on earth I had done, coming to such an isolated place.

  “Lovely,” I said flatly.

  I felt her quick glance. “When Frank and I came here from London,” she said, “I cried every day. Now I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I hope you’ll come to feel that way too, Miss McEwen. Oh, my goodness.”

  The car swerved, and I thought there must be something in the road.

  “My dear, I forgot to say how sorry I am about your father.”

  “Thank you,” I said. It was a relief to hear anyone, even a stranger, offer sympathy, and for the rest of the journey I was able to pay attention to her conversation. At the school, she handed me over to the Polish couple who took care of the sanatorium. “Their English is not good,” she warned, “but they have hearts of gold.”

  In the kitchen Mr. and Mrs. Plishka stood side by side, stout and smiling, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. “How do you do?” they said in unison. Mrs. Plishka did the cooking and cleaning, Mr. Plishka the heavy work. As soon as Mrs. Thornton left, they introduced me to the most important member of the household, Tizzie. The calico cat nuzzled my hand. “She likes,” said Mrs. Plishka, and I caught the gleam of a gold tooth.

  I had not seen the matron’s flat when I came for my interview—the headmaster had offered some vague, awkward excuse—and now I climbed the stairs and wandered, marvelling, from room to room: a bedroom, a sitting room, a bathroom, and a kitchen, all for my sole use. From the sittin
g room window, I had a view across the cricket pitch to the main school. On the flagpole above the clock tower fluttered the white cross of Saint Andrew, and beyond, on the far side of the river, rose the bare hills.

  I had arrived the day before the boys, and once I had unpacked and organised my possessions, there was little to do. Mrs. Lancaster, my predecessor, had left the ward and surgery immaculate. On the desk lay a sheaf of notes. “The toilet window sticks, especially in winter.” “Do not leave the sitting room door open. Tizzie will sneak in.” “Dr. Singer inclined to be chatty.” Next to the notes a book recorded the details of every patient, over and over the same minor ailments: cuts, sprains, colds, measles, chicken pox. In ten years not a single death.

  The following day brought a flurry of introductions. Soon after nine Dr. Singer came by, and I invited him in for tea. A lanky young man with reddish hair, his singsong accent reminded me of Bernard; later I learned he too had been born near Oban. At first our stilted conversation seemed to belie Mrs. Lancaster’s description, but when he knocked the begonia off the table—he was praising the view—and saw that I wasn’t upset, he grew more voluble. His practise was based in a village halfway between the school and Perth, and many of his patients lived on remote farms. “It’s hard,” he said, “having no colleagues.” His ears reddened, almost to match his hair, as he confessed the muddle he’d made of his first case of diabetes.

  I was still washing our teacups when the next visitor arrived. A woman in a pleated skirt and blue cardigan, looking scarcely older than a schoolgirl, appeared at my sitting room door, her arms full of roses. As Anne introduced herself, the fragrance of the flowers drifted towards me, and briefly I was back at Ballintyre, where year after year David had tended his roses with tea leaves and ashes.

  While I chose a vase, Anne gazed around the room. “You’ve made it so much nicer,” she said. “Mrs. Lancaster kept it like a dentist’s waiting room. I am glad she’s gone. I knew she’d say something dire when she learned I was expecting.”