Eva Moves the Furniture

by Margot Livesey

  To escape Violet’s tyranny, I began to take the bus into the centre of Edinburgh, where I could wander around the museum or sit in a tearoom, reading a book. One afternoon I ended up in George Street, and the next thing I knew I was searching for Mr. Rosenblum’s shop. Dusk was falling, it was close to four, and I was on the point of giving up when, on the other side of the street, I spotted the name. Slowly, almost on tiptoe, I crossed over. The other shops were brightly lit, even though there still wasn’t much to buy. Mr. Rosenblum’s, however, was dark, and when I put my face to the grimy window the display cases were empty. I searched in vain for the words FIFTH COLUMNIST scrawled there not so long ago. If anyone had asked, I would have said I had already given up all hope of Samuel; yet, staring at the desolate shop, I felt a painful rending as if, quite unbeknownst to myself, some tiny, hardy shoot of expectation had persisted and was only now, finally, being uprooted. As I sat on the bus back to Violet’s, I counted off on my gloved fingers the days until I returned to the school. Mrs. Thornton’s wish for me—that I would grow fond of the valley—was coming true.

  I had been back at Glenaird for a little over a week when one evening a timid knock at the sitting room door interrupted my letter to Lily. I went to answer, expecting Mrs. Plishka; sometimes after supper I joined her and her husband in a hand of cards. Instead, a small boy swayed on the threshold.

  “I know this isn’t when you see people,” Scott whispered. “I just feel so rotten.”

  In the surgery he began to cry. When his sobs tapered, I took his temperature. The mercury rose swiftly past a hundred. He told me that he ached all over, could hardly climb a flight of stairs, utter a sentence. I put him to bed in a private room and telephoned his housemaster.

  “I thought he’d been shirking,” growled the master. “He tried to get out of soccer yesterday.”

  “He has a temperature of a hundred and one,” I said in my best official voice. “I’ll let you know what the doctor says tomorrow.”

  I went back to my letter to Lily.

  Maybe in the summer the two of us could take a holiday. A fortnight at the seaside. I’m sure by then hotels will be open again. We can stay somewhere posh and be waited on hand and foot. Weeks pass here without my spending a shilling. I’ll have plenty saved by July.

  On my way to bed I stopped to check on Scott. He was asleep, but his hair was wet with perspiration and his breath rose in sour gusts. Watching him, I was suddenly afraid. It was one thing to have a patient ill in hospital, quite another here in this remote valley with no sister to turn to, no doctors on call. I telephoned Dr. Singer.

  “Flu,” he said, when I described the symptoms. “Diphtheria,” as I continued.

  Half an hour later we were standing on either side of Scott’s bed. Together we ministered to the semiconscious boy. Dr. Singer listened to his chest, peered into his eyes. “I don’t know what to think,” he said at last, and promised to return first thing in the morning. After he had gone, I fetched a blanket and settled myself in an armchair near the door of the small room.

  By morning Scott’s temperature was 104. But when Dr. Singer examined him, his skin was unblemished, his glands unswollen. The doctor took samples of urine and blood. Presently he telephoned to say that, according to the tests, Scott was in perfect health. “I’m baffled, Eva. Maybe this is just a bad case of flu?”

  “Maybe,” I said, but instinct told me otherwise.

  During the days that followed I scarcely saw my flat. I was either in Scott’s room or tending other patients. Dr. Singer called morning and evening, and Scott’s friend, Fox, came steadfastly to ask after him. Besides them, my only company was the Plishkas. Anne and I sent notes but did not meet. I was worried, mostly on her behalf, a little on my own, that Scott’s mysterious illness might prove contagious. Like most of the masters, she and Paul had no telephone.

  One night when Scott was especially restless, I came back from fetching a basin of water to find the woman at the foot of his bed. She was leaning forward, watching him intently. Scott uttered a series of groans, the more heartrending for being almost inaudible. “Can’t you make him better?” I begged. “He’s only a child.”

  For a moment I thought she would shake me. “Eva, I can’t save lives any more than you can. In fact less—I don’t have your nursing skills. People can die at any age. One of my own children nearly died.” Her eyes shone with sorrow.

  Over the next few hours Scott’s temperature slowly fell, and by morning he was sleeping quietly. After breakfast the other boys on the ward settled to homework, and I took advantage of the lull to have a bath. Waiting for the water to run hot, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I wiped away the condensation to discover a half-familiar face. When had my cheekbones become so sharp, my eyes so large? Briefly I thought of the patients on the unit, the ones I felt sorriest for, who had lost their eyelids and were reduced to endless, ragged staring. Now I too looked more like a patient than a nurse. Don’t be daft, I told myself. I had scarcely slept for a fortnight. No surprise if I was exhausted.

  Later that morning—it must have been a Saturday—Matthew came to invite me to lunch. “Mrs. Plishka will watch Scott,” he said. “I already asked her.”

  Although the sky was overcast, we decided to walk across the river to the village; I was desperate for fresh air. We strode along, our paces nicely matched, and Matthew pointed out the pheasants rooting in the frozen stubble, the bullfinches pecking at last summer’s shrivelled rose hips. In the pub we sat near the fire, eating bangers and mash, while a father and son played darts by the bar. As I watched the father rocking back and forth, preparing to throw, I felt as I had sometimes in Glasgow after weeks of night duty, a stranger in the daylight world. Fortunately, Matthew seemed to understand and kept up an easy flow of undemanding conversation: teaching Milton, his ongoing struggles with Best.

  When we emerged from the pub, the sun had broken through and the weathercock was glinting on the church steeple. Suddenly the idea came to me—I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before—that my grandparents might be buried here. I asked Matthew if we could take a look in the churchyard. As we pushed open the gate, half a dozen sheep surveyed us warily from among the gravestones. Matthew explained that the minister had died the previous spring and they had yet to appoint a new one. “A local farmer minds the place in exchange for grazing. What were your grandparents’ names?”

  “Malcolm. William and Morag Malcolm.”

  He began to examine the graves along the path. A ram rose from beside a fallen cross. I was watching it make its way between the stones when I caught sight of the girl. She raised a finger to her lips and beckoned. With a hasty glance at Matthew—he was peering at an inscription—I followed her between the graves to a tall yew tree on the south wall.

  “Here they are,” she said, gesturing towards two stones, leaning on a third. Close up I could see that her face was pinched with cold; she wore neither gloves nor scarf. Before I could urge her to dress more warmly, she scrambled over the wall.

  I stared at the matching grey stones. Then I saw that the third gravestone, where the girl had stood, was for Barbara’s sister, Elizabeth, the one who had died of polio, whose grave she had visited as a little girl. SUMMONED BY OUR SAVIOUR read the inscription. Beneath it was a knot of flowers. Quickly I stepped forward to press my lips to Elizabeth’s stone.

  “Your ancestors,” said Matthew, when I showed him. “Maybe in the spring, after they’ve moved the sheep, we could plant flowers here—peonies or lavender—that will bloom year after year.”

  He was smiling at me, and after a moment I returned his smile. “I’d like that,” I said.

  Back at the san I hurried upstairs, worried Scott might have taken a turn for the worse, but as I reached his room the gentle percussion of Mrs. Plishka’s knitting reassured me. She furled her needles with a smile. “He’s getting better,” she said.

  Drawing near the bed, I saw she was right. Scott’s breathing was easier a
nd his cheeks were tinged with colour. After years of nursing I knew how easily a patient can slip back and forth across the line between health and illness, but I could not help hoping that he was at last on the mend.

  That night, as I sat reading beside him, the woman again appeared at the foot of his bed. Since my arrival at Glenaird her occasional fierceness had been held in abeyance. Now it was as if the window had been abruptly thrown open onto the winter’s night. A cold, crackling current swept through the room. “He’s not yours,” she said. “You need one of your own.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember David’s wish. What do you need for happiness?”

  She bent over me, and I understood her words. In my loneliness, I had been pretending Scott was my son and that these weeks of intimacy need have no end. “A family,” I said.

  She seemed to soften slightly. “Ask Matthew to plant heart’s-ease on the graves. It was your grandmother’s favourite flower.”

  “I will.”

  For some reason my acquiescence served only to exasperate her again. “Eva, use your brain. You’re fond of Matthew, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. Fond was exactly the word. However often I counted his many virtues, there was none of that quickening of the eyes and limbs I had known with Samuel.

  “Well, there you are.” She drifted over to the bed. “Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep and grow strong.”

  Now that Scott was better, Dr. Singer said it was safe to see Anne again. During the intervening weeks her belly had grown, and she was convinced the baby was a boy. We headed along the road, bypassing the Grange, to the top of the track called Patten’s First. The field below us was occupied by a flock of sheep, many of them ewes newly brought to lamb, and as we leaned on the gate, the back and forth of their bleating filled the air. I felt as if the world had been made afresh. Scott’s recovery, Anne’s baby, the brightness of the day, all were cause for rejoicing. “What a beautiful morning,” I said.

  “Yes. Paul’s taking the boys on a run this afternoon.”

  I saw her smile as she said her husband’s name, and I thought of how they were together. A continual flow of small gestures: hands meeting over a cup, a pat on the arm or shoulder. They were more than fond. “Have you chosen names?” I asked.

  “Robert,” Anne answered, without a second’s hesitation.

  A fortnight later I found a note on the san door—4 a.m. gone to Perth Infirmary—and presently Mr. Thornton telephoned with the news that Anne was safely delivered of a boy. The chapel bells pealed, and I joined the Plishkas in a toast. They served a curious colourless liquid which made me cough. “Very good,” they said, as I tried to repeat their Polish.

  Next day I was in the surgery, filling in the notes, when the girl appeared. Her stockings drooped and she was breathing hard. “Come for a walk,” she said.

  “I have to catch up on the notes. I’ve let them go for nearly a week.”

  “Please. There’s a flock of geese I want to show you. They have beautiful long necks and dappled feathers.”

  She opened her eyes wide and I laid aside my pen. “All right. A very short walk.”

  We hurried downstairs and out into the damp afternoon. Rain threatened. Once more I was about to protest, but she took my arm. “The geese will be going home soon. Let’s send a message to the snow princess.”

  As we reached Front Avenue, there came the sound of a car. The girl vanished behind a beech tree and Matthew’s decrepit green Ford pulled up. We greeted each other and remarked on the wonderful news about the baby. “I’m on my way to Perth,” he said. “Would you like a lift to see Anne?”

  “But I don’t have my things.”

  “What do you need? I can lend you money”—he delved into a pocket to demonstrate—“and a handkerchief. Clean, I promise.”

  His car, always noisy, had reached a new crescendo. As we clattered down the main road, he apologised for the muffler. I nodded, too excited for conversation. Because of the war I had never been assigned to the maternity ward and only once or twice had I seen a a newborn. At the door of Perth Infirmary, Matthew promised to be back in an hour. I watched him drive away and, turning to the hospital, forgot him. Inside, the familiar odour engulfed me. A couple of nurses were walking purposefully amid the uncertain visitors; I joined the latter.

  Anne was sitting up in bed, her fair hair tied back, her face calm, and beside her, wrapped in a woolen blanket, still somewhat rumpled from his passage into the world, was Robert. Together we praised his eyelashes, his tiny fingers. I touched his cheek, dizzy with desire.

  “Feel his hair,” Anne instructed.

  “Did everything go all right?” I asked.

  “They told me … look, he’s opening his eyes.”

  I leaned forward to catch my first glimpse of Robert’s deep gaze.

  On the drive back I could speak of nothing else. Matthew probably heard one word in ten, but he smiled and bobbed his head. We were almost back at the school, cresting the final rise, when he pulled over. “They claim babies can’t really see,” I was saying, “but I’m sure he was watching us.”

  He turned off the engine. In the sudden silence I heard the mournful cries of the lapwings watching over their nests in the nearby fields. Before I could ask what was wrong, Matthew was speaking.

  “This isn’t the way to ask,” he said, “but will you marry me?”

  I thought of Robert’s tiny mauve hands, waving like sea anemones, his grey eyes. I looked over and saw how tightly Matthew held the steering wheel. In the fields the birds no longer sounded melancholy. Yes, yes, they seemed to cry; I had only to echo them. “Yes,” I said.

  “You will?” He sounded so incredulous that, at the same moment, we both burst out laughing. Awkwardly, across the gearshift and the brake, we embraced.

  That evening Matthew came to my sitting room bearing a small box. He slid the ring, a sapphire with two diamonds, onto the appropriate finger. “The man in the shop said he could alter it, but there’s no need, is there?”

  “No, it’s beautiful.” I held out my hand for him to admire.

  Neither of us knew what to say or do next. Then Matthew looked at the clock and announced he’d better be going. “Well, good night,” he said, kissing my cheek. Touched by his ineptitude, I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.

  When his footsteps were gone, I sat down to wait. No one came. The chairs remained all four feet on the floor, the carpet lay flat, the pictures hung still. As the minutes passed, a kind of peace descended upon me.

  I did not feel that I had to tell Matthew about the companions. Nor did I fear their intervention. From that day in the churchyard, when the girl had kept her distance, I knew they would not come between us. As for the other things, the fluttering of the heart, the eagerness to touch and hold, I looked down at the ring and thought perhaps such feelings could be learned. Perhaps we could learn them together.

  14

  Everyone was pleased by the news of our engagement. Mrs. Thornton took it as a personal triumph. “The first day I laid eyes on you,” she said, “I told my husband you wouldn’t last six months.” Between us we agreed I would finish out the school year. Matthew and I would get married in the summer and in the autumn I would return as a master’s wife. Anne burst into tears. So did Mrs. Plishka. Dr. Singer shook my hand and wished me joy. The girl brought a bunch of primroses. The woman exclaimed, “C’est fantastique.”

  The one person I did not tell was Lily. “I want to do it in person,” I explained to Matthew and Anne. But it was more than that. A few days after his proposal I was stocking the medicine cupboard when I found myself remembering my conversation with Lily in the lane. Suddenly I wondered if she might still expect me to offer her a home. Of course, said Matthew over supper that night, and I could see he meant it. My own feelings, however, were more complicated; at the thought of living with both him and her, a kind of darkness came over me, as if upon reaching the climax of a book I turned
to a blank page. Try as I might, I could not picture our household. On one pretext or another, I put off visiting Edinburgh until the Whitsun holiday in May. Then I wrote, asking if Lily could meet my train, hoping to speak to her alone, but she had a church meeting to attend.

  As I climbed the gloomy stairs to Violet’s flat, I repeated to myself the sort of remarks Daphne used to make. I was twenty-six, a grown woman; besides, Matthew had all the credentials of a good husband. Lily opened the door, dressed in her best suit. I was exclaiming how smart she looked when Violet appeared, resplendent in brown. “That coat’s certainly seen better days,” she said, kissing my cheek.

  “Father gave it to me the winter I went to Glasgow.” I turned to Lily. “Remember going to Forsythe’s to choose it?”

  “Thank goodness you got it before coupons.”

  I excused myself. After five years of rationing, Violet still had prewar soap, a privilege which, at Christmas, she had warned me not to abuse; now I took pleasure in lathering my hands vigorously. When I came into the kitchen, Lily was setting the table. “They must be overworking you at that school,” she said. “Violet and I were both saying how pale you are.”

  “I’m fine.” I was taken aback that she could not tell, just by my face, that something wonderful had happened. While Violet talked about the cleaning rota for the church, I crossed my legs and straightened my skirt. I had never worn a ring before and, to my eyes, the small stones were dazzling, but the aunts did not appear to notice. Violet continued to hold forth, with occasional comments from Lily. At last tea was served and I could wait no longer. “I’ve something to tell you,” I said. “I’m engaged to one of the masters.”