Eva Moves the Furniture

by Margot Livesey

  Violet bounded across the room. “Congratulations, my dear. May the Lord bring you many years of happiness. Oh, look at your ring. That’s a sapphire, isn’t it? Such a pretty stone.”

  Lily meanwhile sat as if nailed to her seat. I felt a despair which, now that the moment was here, seemed entirely predictable. When Violet, still exclaiming, had sat down again, Lily said quietly, “When did this happen?”

  “A few weeks ago. I didn’t want to tell you in a letter.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “How much money does he have?”

  “Whatever he earns.”

  “Who’s going to pay for the wedding?”

  I had not thought of that. “I will,” I said impulsively. “I have Father’s money.”

  “That’s not what he intended it for.” She went over to the fire and rattled the poker in the grate until Violet complained she was wasting coal.

  Not until after supper, when Violet went to turn down the beds, did I have a chance to speak to Lily alone. Then, desperate to placate her, I blurted out the invitation. “We thought you might come and live with us,” I said. “Once we have a place of our own.” She was at the sink and at first I thought she was going to continue to ignore me. She scrubbed furiously at a plate.

  “Aunt Lily,” I pleaded.

  “The idea of you getting engaged to a total stranger, Eva. What on earth are you thinking of?”

  “He’s not a stranger to me.”

  “We know nothing about him. He could be the trunk murderer. Or Jack the Ripper.” She set the plate to drain, started on another. “David’s only been gone a few months. When I think how he was faithful to Barbara for a quarter of a century.”

  If she had hit me, I would not have been more confounded or more stricken. David was always in my thoughts, but it had never occurred to me that I was getting engaged within the traditional period of mourning; perhaps the years of nursing had dulled me to such distinctions.

  By the time I left next morning, Lily had still not vouchsafed the smallest sign of approval. Staring out of the train window at the green blur of the newly planted fields, I thought she was right. During the war I had seen many short engagements, but now there was no need. We could wait another year; Matthew would understand. And surely Lily would come around when she got to know him and saw that we wanted to respect David’s memory. As these sensible ideas took shape, my agitation was replaced by hunger. I had eaten almost no breakfast. I was unwrapping my sandwiches—meat paste and cucumber—when the door of the compartment slid open.

  “Those look good.” The woman took a seat opposite.

  “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed. Although the companions could find me anywhere, I was startled that they would board a train.

  She gave a little smile. “So how was Lily?” she said, gazing at me with her deep grey eyes so like those of Anne’s small son.

  “All right.” Then I ended up telling her about Lily’s reaction and how it seemed best to postpone the wedding. “I wouldn’t mind being matron for another year.”

  The train lurched and we both seized an armrest. “Lily was just surprised,” the woman said. “You were very closemouthed. And you know David wanted you to get married. Besides,” she added, “it would be hard to change your mind now. Mr. Thornton has already advertised your job.”

  The engine let out a piercing whistle and we plunged into darkness. When the train emerged from the tunnel, I was once more facing an empty seat. The thought of someone else occupying my cosy rooms gave me a pang, but the woman’s comment about David had comforted me. After all, Lily had said the same thing. And as for Lily herself, she had never liked change, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t come around. I picked up a sandwich and began to eat.

  In July I treated two sprained ankles at sports day; then my duties were over. Matthew was going home to Stoke-on-Trent, and I was staying in Edinburgh until the wedding. We had chosen a Saturday in August, almost the exact anniversary, Lily was swift to point out, of David’s death. Besides the aunts, I knew no one in the city. Mrs. Nicholson had moved down to Bath, and I had lost touch with Shona and Flo. Matthew and I had booked the church and sent out invitations before he went south, but the flowers and reception were still to be organised. And I had no dress. For years Lily had kept Barbara’s dress at the back of her wardrobe. Now it turned out to be too small; I couldn’t even begin to do up the buttons. Lily, however, only sighed and went on scouring the knives. Meanwhile, Violet reminisced about her own nuptials but offered no practical assistance. I took to leaving the flat, on the pretext of errands, and going instead to the park at the end of the road.

  One afternoon as I sat watching some boys play cricket, the woman strolled across the grass to join me. Her yellow cotton dress was very like one Lily had worn twenty years before. “What an excellent overarm that boy has,” she said.

  The boy in question had just bowled a thoroughly mediocre over. Now, following her gaze, I saw he was sending balls whizzing towards the wicket.

  “You know,” she said, “what always saved me from difficult situations were my friends. You have friends too.”

  “Not in Edinburgh.”

  “It’s not hard to get here. Oh, good hit!”

  The ball was still soaring as she rose to her feet and headed towards the gate. When the next over began, the bowler had returned to his former mediocrity.

  Back at the flat, I wrote to Daphne and, once the letter was posted, felt more cheerful than I had in weeks. After supper, I suggested a round of whist. Lily dealt and Violet campaigned to raise the stakes from a farthing to a penny. In bed, however, the jolliness of the game vanished. I lay there, puzzling over the companions’ role in my upcoming marriage. One evening towards the end of term when we were strolling across the cricket pitch, Matthew had confided in me his version of the day we got engaged. “I felt as if I were hypnotised,” he said. “After I dropped you off at the infirmary, I was on my way to the bookshop. Suddenly I found myself stopping in front of a jeweller’s.” He laughed. “Once I’d bought the ring, there seemed no point in delaying so I proposed on the drive home.”

  In the shadow of the cricket pavilion he drew me to him. Since our first clumsy embrace, he had grown more ardent and I had felt my own stirrings. But that evening, after a couple of kisses, I had said I must get back to my patients.

  I shifted uneasily. Beneath me the bed creaked. It was not only Matthew whose actions were governed. Hadn’t the girl arranged for me to be walking up Front Avenue as he drove by? Anxiety seized me. I remembered how the companions had helped me to a job at Mr. Laing’s and then got me fired; how after bringing me together with Samuel, they had torn us apart. Now they could not do enough to make sure I married Matthew, but who knew what their motives were or when they might change their minds? Once again I was struck by the notion that all the seemingly random events of my life were in fact organised according to some hidden pattern I knew nothing about.

  “I won’t betray you,” I whispered. “Don’t betray me.”

  As so often before, Daphne came to my rescue. During several day trips from Glasgow she found a dressmaker, booked a hotel for the reception, ordered the flowers. And, like the woman, she reassured me about Lily. “She’s just scared of losing you,” she said. “She’ll come round.” Even as the day drew near, this seemed to be happening: Lily began to take an interest in my plans, make the odd matrimonial joke. On the morning of the wedding she stood behind me doing up the thirty hooks on the back of my dress. “There. Let me have a look at you.”

  When I turned around she stared, without saying a word, until I tugged at the bodice. “Is it all right?”

  “I was just thinking how much you look like Barbara. She was a lovely bride.” She kissed me and hurried away to help Violet.

  Alone, I approached the mirror. There stood a young woman in a high-necked full-skirted dress. My trunks were packed and I was ready to embark upon what t
he chaplain called the journey of matrimony. Then I thought of Lily’s comment. Barbara, too, must have stood before a mirror on her wedding day, imagining a life bright with promise.

  The door opened. “What are you doing?” Violet demanded. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck for a bride to see her reflection?”

  She stepped in front of the mirror, immense in her beige frock, and I smelled her dry gardenia perfume. “The time to look in a mirror,” she went on, “is after the wedding, with your husband. It brings good luck. Andrew and I did that, and we were happy for thirty-seven years. God rest his soul.”

  I had not laid eyes on Matthew for nearly five weeks, and as I walked up the aisle on Mr. Thornton’s arm and saw him, waiting at the altar, I was amazed at how handsome he was. For months I had been rolling back my ambivalence. Now, as the minister joined us together, it finally tumbled away. How gladly I gave and received the promises of marriage. We turned to face our guests. In the front pew, Lily, Violet, and Matthew’s parents stood watery-eyed. For a moment, all I could think of was David. Then the organ started, Matthew gave me a gentle tug, and we were walking down the aisle, past other friends from the infirmary and the school. And there, standing near the back, were the companions, dressed in their best clothes, smiling.

  15

  Marriage, it turned out, did not entirely banish memories of Samuel. I meant to forget him, I had the best of intentions, but in the long hours of housework and reading he sometimes slipped into my mind, and before I knew it I was picturing him as he bent over a patient or leaned towards the cinema screen. Sometimes, I’m ashamed to say, this happened even when Matthew and I were together, listening to the wireless or playing cribbage; happily, he never seemed to notice.

  And then all thoughts of Samuel vanished. I was pregnant. I knew, with utter certainty, after only a few weeks but until Dr. Singer confirmed my condition, I mentioned it to no one. During this period of secrecy, I oscillated between joy and dread. I could not help worrying that history would prevail: the life growing within me would cost my own. Then I would remind myself that Anne had confessed to similar premonitions, and here she was, fit and well, with Robert.

  The companions seemed to guess my state almost as soon as I did myself. Because no house was available in the school grounds, Matthew had rented a cottage on a small farm a mile west of Glenaird, and there was always fetching and carrying to be done. One morning as I stepped out to the clothesline, the woman barred my way. “You have to be careful now,” she said, taking the laundry basket out of my hands. Between them, she and the girl hung the wet sheets on the line.

  The day after my appointment with Dr. Singer, I broke the news to Matthew at breakfast. “How could you be?” he said. His hand jerked and the boiled egg I had just set before him flew to the floor. On the one occasion before our wedding when we’d discussed children, Matthew had claimed he was too young for fatherhood. “You’re twenty-eight,” I had said. “The prime of life.” I had not thought he was serious.

  Now the viscous mess of egg on the linoleum made my stomach heave, and the reflection of the single bulb above the table off Matthew’s glasses hid his expression. Before I could overcome my queasiness, he glanced at his watch, announced he was late for morning prayers, and hurried from the room. A moment later came the cranking of the car. As the engine fired, I rushed to the door. Too late. All that remained was a plume of exhaust hanging in the chilly air.

  I wandered out to the main road. The hills were hidden in mist, and the narrow strip of wet macadam stretched to the horizon with neither car nor tractor in sight. I was standing, staring bleakly in the direction of the school, when the woman tapped my shoulder. “Come inside,” she said. “It’s freezing.” Her silvery hair was beaded with moisture.

  She led the way indoors, and there, to my amazement, a middle-aged man was seated on our sofa. He had the ruddy cheeks of a countryman and the same kind of moustache as David had favoured. I sat down in the armchair, studying him as closely as I dared. He looked familiar, but for the life of me I could not place him. The infirmary had filled my head with faces briefly glimpsed.

  “That’s better,” said the woman. “You shouldn’t be loitering in the cold.”

  “My father had a theory about the weather,” the man said in a soft Highland accent. “Buchan’s cold spells. It all has to do with certain key days—you know, if December the sixth is warm then the rest of the month will be cold.”

  “That sounds like mumbo jumbo,” said the woman.

  “No, no, it was quite scientific, but we’re not here to prattle about the climate.” A smile creased his cheeks. “Don’t mind Matthew. He behaved badly this morning, but he’ll come round. Men are odd about these matters. I myself was quite shocked to learn that my dear wife was expecting.”

  The woman nodded. “You must take care of yourself. Eat sensibly and don’t worry. When I was carrying my first child, my mother made me eat an apple and an orange every day.”

  She dispatched me to put on the kettle, and when I returned the room was empty. Still in a daze, I finished stoking the fires and made soup. Only as I sat down to write to Lily did I realise who the man reminded me of: Barbara’s uncle Jack. His wedding photograph had stood, next to that of her parents, on the sideboard at Ballintyre. Did Lily still have it? I wondered. And why, after all these years, was a new companion visiting? Then the excitement of telling Lily about the baby dispelled even these speculations.

  An hour later I heard the latch lift. Before I could rise, Matthew had me in his arms. “Eva, I’m sorry I was such a beast.” He kissed me, took off his glasses, and kissed me again.

  “So you don’t mind?” I whispered.

  “On the contrary, I’m delighted. I was just taken aback. I thought being a father was one of those impossible things, the sort the White Queen tells you to practise imagining before breakfast.”

  The difficult hours vanished like ice on the griddle. That evening over supper we discussed names. He favoured the heroic: Frederick, Tristram, Georgiana. I was more inclined to the biblical: Mary, Sarah, Ruth.

  “Do you want a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  Matthew wrinkled his forehead. “Both—either—I don’t care.”

  “Nor do I.” But I was sure I carried a daughter. For the first and only time I could read the future.

  A few weeks later, walking along the main road to visit Anne, I saw a boy approaching. Head lowered, he was dawdling along, swishing idly at the long grass on the verge with a stick, the picture of dejection. I must have walked like that, I thought, as day after day I wandered home from school with only the girl for company. Then, at the same instant, Scott and I recognised each other. He dropped the stick and ran towards me.

  “Matron!”

  We shook hands. In the months since I’d seen him he had grown several inches, and everything about him was too long and thin. I started walking again and he fell in beside me. “This is the wrong direction for you,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen you for ages.”

  “We live out at a farm now. You know I got married.”

  “The new matron is awful. She doesn’t allow any visitors.”

  Other people had made similar remarks about my successor, a London woman who’d rejected all my overtures of friendship; I tried not to show my pleasure at Scott’s comment. Instead I asked interested questions about his schoolwork. When we reached Anne’s house, he gazed at me beseechingly until I invited him to tea next day.

  Inside, Robert was asleep and Anne was at the kitchen table, peeling brussels sprouts. I made tea and told her about meeting Scott. “All the time he was ill, I thought if I could nurse him back to health, he would live happily ever after. And there he was, the picture of misery.”

  Anne plucked at a sprout. “It’s awful being a child. I remember wanting things so badly and feeling so powerless.”

  “What did you want?”

  “Piano lessons. More attention from my father. To be
taller than Oliver.” She cut a cross in the bottom of a sprout. “What about you?”

  I gazed around Anne’s cosy kitchen, the kettle still steaming on the stove, the gingham curtains hanging in the windows. “To be like everyone else,” I said. It seemed a safe approximation. “Yet here we are having babies.”

  “It’ll be different for them, though, won’t it? They can have piano lessons if they like.”

  I did not dare to answer. Anne peeled another couple of sprouts. “Of course, our parents said that too. Sometimes I watch Robert sleeping. One minute he’s perfectly peaceful, and the next it’s as if a storm has struck.”

  “Perhaps he has bad dreams,” I offered.

  “But how does he know about anything bad? Paul and I dote on him, yet already we can’t protect him. There’s something in the air”—she spread her hands—“a dark wind that blows him dark thoughts.”

  I sympathised with Anne’s anxieties but they were the anxieties of plenty; how happy I would be when I could worry about my plump, healthy baby having bad dreams. For now, all my wishes, all the good luck I had garnered from magpies and black cats, ladders and four-leaf clovers, was bent on that single moment of double desire: to bring my daughter safely into the world and to remain here to show it to her.

  The next day when I told Scott about the baby, he smiled and said he had always wanted a brother or sister. “My friend Fox has two younger sisters. I helped one of them learn to read. And in Nigeria my father’s assistant had a baby, but I wasn’t allowed to play with him. They said he was an abiku.”