A Single Thread

by Tracy Chevalier

  “We’ve looked all round and not seen him,” Keith Bain said as she stepped out into the tunnel. “I expect he’s run off.”

  “We will walk you home,” Arthur added.

  “Thank you,” Violet answered. “I don’t want him to know where I live.”

  “We’ve thought of that,” Arthur said. “You live in the Soke, is that right?”

  “Yes. It’s not far.”

  “We’ll walk you via the back route that he is unlikely to know.”

  Arthur and Keith Bain held out their elbows and she took them. They began to walk, passing the dark eastern end of the Cathedral and through the Close around it. The path narrowed and swerved left, then ended in Colebrook Street, a small lane with a mix of properties along it – a rectory, a school, and rows of two-up two-down houses that opened directly onto the street. Violet rarely used it since she could walk along the nearby Broadway, where there were shops and people and she didn’t feel she was walking straight through someone’s front room. Some of the turnings off it led into slums – surprisingly close to the opulent Cathedral. There were few people out now; those who were up would more likely be out on the High Street or in a pub.

  The road turned sharply left, and at the end was the familiar bridge over the Itchen, and to the left, King Alfred on his plinth, where she could hear music and singing. Violet slowed down, then stopped, the men forced to stop with her. “If he is anywhere, he’ll be there, where everyone else is.”

  “I’ll go and see if I see him.” Arthur squeezed her hand with the crook of his elbow, then left them hanging back in the shadows of Colebrook Street.

  Violet dropped her hand from Keith Bain’s elbow, and they stood awkwardly. He is probably remembering that I turned down a walk with him, she thought. To ease the tension, she offered him a cigarette. He took it, got out his lighter and lit hers, then his.

  “I am sorry about all this,” she said, waving a hand to encompass everything, and aware that she was apologising yet again, though she was not exactly sure what was her fault.

  “Och, well, it made for a lively New Year’s Eve.”

  “But you won’t be able to ring for a month.”

  “To be honest, you’ve done me a favour. It’s cold up in the chamber in January! This gives me the excuse to put my feet up by the fire rather than get chilblains in the tower.”

  They were silent again.

  “What brought you to Winchester?” Violet asked, for she had wondered what would bring a Scotsman so far south.

  Keith Bain exhaled smoke. “My wife died – cancer – and I wanted a change. Put some distance between me and Paisley. I took the job that got me the furthest away.”

  “I’m so very sorry.”

  “Well, we’ve all got our woes, haven’t we?”

  Violet thought of asking more, but somehow his straightforward answer seemed to ease the awkwardness.

  They were stubbing out their cigarettes when Arthur returned. “No sign,” he said. “But let’s walk quickly. Best if you don’t look towards the crowd, Violet.”

  She nodded, pulled her hat low over her brow, and took their elbows again. As they came out into the open she peeked just briefly. A band had set up by the statue, and people were dancing. Then they were over the bridge, Arthur glancing around to make sure they weren’t followed.

  A few minutes later they were at Violet’s door. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both for – well, for all of it.”

  “You’ve had quite the New Year’s Eve,” Arthur replied. “Let’s hope the next one is calmer. In the meantime, I am going to find out more about Jack Wells. You will tell me if he bothers you again, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” But Violet wondered how she would get in touch with him if he wasn’t ringing for a month.

  As if reading her thoughts, he added, “You may always telephone the pub, and they will get a message to me.”

  She nodded.

  “Happy New Year, Violet,” Keith Bain said.

  “And you.” Violet held out her hand, and the men shook it in turn.

  Chapter 17

  “A VISITOR FOR YOU, Violet!” Mrs Harvey called as Violet was getting dressed the next morning. The landlady was using her normal voice. If it were a strange man at the door, she would have been more emphatic, her tone tinged with suspicion.

  A surprise New Year’s visit from Tom? Violet wondered as she smoothed her hair and dress and opened her bedroom door.

  Gilda was standing in the hall downstairs, twisting her green gloves and looking anxious, determined and annoyed all at the same time.

  “Gilda!” Violet slowly descended the stairs.

  “Happy New Year, Violet. I didn’t get the chance to say so last night,” her friend added pointedly.

  “Does your brother run the garage in the Brooks?” Mrs Harvey interjected.

  “He does.”

  “Ah well, I knew your mother back when she was alive. Do you know she grew up here in the Soke? Just a few streets away from the Brooks, but the river in between makes it seem far. Lovely girl, she was.” Mrs Harvey nodded, satisfied with Gilda’s Winchester pedigree. “Now, I’m off to my daughter’s,” she announced, pulling on her coat. “You’ll have to make your own tea. Put some more coal on the fire for your friend, Violet. And there are some Garibaldis left. No charge, seeing as it’s for Nell Hill’s daughter.” She stuck a pin through her hat with such force that Violet and Gilda smiled.

  “I’ll just put the kettle on while you build up the fire,” Violet suggested when Mrs Harvey had gone, then hurried back to the kitchen to make a pot of tea and collect herself. It was clear that Gilda had come to see her for a reason, and not a happy one.

  When Violet came through with a pot and a plate of biscuits, Gilda was standing by the bird cage, watching the budgies hop from perch to floor and back to perch again. She was still wearing her coat, though she had laid aside her hat and gloves. Dorothy’s gloves. Violet set down the tray and poured the tea, waiting for her friend to start, for Gilda always launched a conversation. This time, however, she did not speak, but moved to a chair and sat hunched by the fire with her coat over her shoulders, hands wrapped around her cup of tea, the saucer abandoned on a side table.

  “Thank you for inviting me last night,” Violet finally began. “I enjoyed myself very much.”

  Gilda’s thin face was drawn; she looked as if she had not slept. “Tell me, Violet, do you consider yourself a good friend?”

  “I—” Violet had been about to say she didn’t know what Gilda meant, but stopped herself. This was a serious question that required a proper response rather than one bought off the shelf. “I like you very much, but we don’t know each other well,” she answered carefully. “It takes time to build up the history that good friends have.”

  “Well,” Gilda replied, “a friend – not necessarily even a good friend, but a friend – does not leave a party suddenly without explanation.”

  “I did – I said I was going for some air.”

  “But you didn’t come back!”

  “No. There was a – a problem. I’m sorry. I was going to explain when we next met.” Violet was surprised that Gilda was so upset – that she cared about what Violet had or hadn’t done, when she was so caught up with Dorothy.

  Gilda frowned. “There’s no need – I saw you. With Arthur and that other man – the Scot. By King Alfred. You didn’t even stop to say hello or Happy New Year or anything. You just scuttled away. It was like you –” To Violet’s astonishment, Gilda choked back a sob – “like you were ashamed of me!”

  “That is not what it was. Not at all.”

  “What was it, then? I should like to know.” Gilda set down her cup, clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward.

  “It was ‘Tipperary’,” Violet said. Then she explained, first about the effect of the song on her, then about the corn man’s reappearance and her escape up the Cathedral bell tower, and finally Arthur and Keith Bain walking her back and h
er care to avoid being seen. “He was whistling ‘Love Is the Sweetest Thing’, which made me think he came from the pub,” she added. “I worried he might be by King Alfred and follow me home. That’s why I didn’t come and find you.”

  Gilda’s face softened, then hardened into something different – a fierce protection of her own people. “You mean he was in the pub with us?” she cried. “Well, then, I’ll soon find him out! There were plenty of people there – someone will know who he is. Then I’ll send Joe and his mates round to sort him out. He’ll not be bothering you again.”

  The thought of Winchester’s men swinging into action on her behalf made Violet feel sick and exposed. “No, please don’t do that. I don’t want Joe involved. Please.”

  “Hmph.” Gilda shot her a look. “Are you going to explain about Arthur?”

  Violet sipped her tea, cold by now. “There is nothing to explain.” She set her cup in its saucer, clattering it more than she had intended.

  Gilda grimaced. “Arthur is a good man. And he’s loyal. And he’s married.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then you mustn’t look at him the way you do. I saw in the Cathedral at Midnight Mass.”

  Violet searched in her cardigan pocket for her cigarettes and offered Gilda one. She needed that small comforting spark of fire in her hands.

  “What about the Scot?” Gilda persisted.

  Violet exhaled a shaft of smoke. “Keith Bain.”

  “He seemed nice. Why don’t you consider him?”

  “Why don’t you?” She regretted it the moment the words came out.

  Gilda contracted her arms and head into her coat like a turtle into its shell.

  “Gilda, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Please be kind. Please don’t judge,” Gilda whispered. “That was what I’ve come to say.”

  “Then don’t judge me.”

  Her friend sat up, indignant. “I’m not!”

  “You are. You’re making assumptions about Arthur and me.”

  “But – well, yes, I suppose I am.”

  “There is nothing between us. We are friends.”

  “Listen to me.” Gilda leaned forward, her eyes overbright. “I know what love looks like. I know. And it is there, Violet. I can see it.”

  Violet thought of what she had seen between Gilda and Dorothy the night before, and at the Cathedral – the wordless invisible cord that bound them. Had that grown between her and Arthur too? She should be appalled, but was secretly thrilled.

  “Can you tell me something about him?”

  “You just want to talk about him, hear his name – the way people do when they’re in love.”

  “I could say the same about you with Dorothy.”

  Gilda sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “He mentioned to me the memorial service just after the War for the bellringer and of hearing about their son the next day, and about Mrs Knight, but he didn’t go into detail.”

  Gilda’s face fell. “It was awful for them. Jimmy was declared missing in action for such a long time, which in a way is worse than knowing, because you keep hoping. And Mrs Knight hoped more than most, even after the War was over. She had this idea that Jimmy was in hospital somewhere with amnesia and no papers, and eventually he would turn up. The mind constructs such elaborate palaces when it wants to, doesn’t it? Arthur was more realistic, though of course he wanted to support his wife as well. Then they got a letter saying a tag Jimmy had worn had turned up on the battlefield at Passchendaele, eighteen months after he’d gone missing. It seemed –” Gilda caught her breath – “he’d been hit by mortar fire, and there wasn’t anything left. Just the tag.”

  Violet clutched her glass. Had Jimmy Knight fought alongside Laurence at Passchendaele? Had they patrolled together, lit each other’s cigarettes, laughed over a letter from home? She would never know.

  “Jimmy was a lovely lad, so funny and kind.” Gilda sighed. “Poor Mrs Knight took it very hard. That’s why they moved to Nether Wallop. She couldn’t stand the sight of the Cathedral. Arthur wasn’t much better. He didn’t ring at the Cathedral for a few years. Apparently he kept making mistakes and they asked him to take a break. But it was a shame he had to stop, because I think ringing gave him solace, took his mind off things. You know how embroidery can be so absorbing that you put aside your worries? I expect bellringing is the same.”

  Violet nodded, taking this in. It was hard to imagine Arthur making a mistake with anything.

  “It was quite a sacrifice for him, moving them to Nether Wallop,” Gilda added. “Arthur went part-time at his job, and last year took early retirement, so he could look after his wife. That’s why he doesn’t have a motor car any longer – no money with just a tiny pension to live on. That’s why you’ll see him with his bicycle everywhere. Cycling in from Nether Wallop – fourteen miles in rain and snow! And they have no telephone. And they grow most of their fruit and veg – he’s forever pickling something.”

  “Gosh.” Violet thought of her jars of fish paste bought on sale and the cheap neck joint she got at the butcher’s for broth and the cress sandwiches she ate for lunch. She had never imagined someone like Arthur having to worry about the price of food.

  She poured them more tea, and knew it would be unhealthy to talk more about Arthur. “So, do you and Dorothy have a – a plan, for the future?”

  “Yes, we want to live together in a little house,” Gilda answered promptly. “We’ve worked it all out. Between us we could just about manage. Dorothy’s salary as a teacher isn’t half-bad. It’s getting so crowded at home now that Olive’s had the baby. And there are sure to be more to come. So I have a good excuse to move out. It turns out awful Olive is a blessing in disguise. Who would have thought?” Her eagerness made it plain she wanted to share her plans with someone. It was unlikely she could talk to anyone else.

  “Have you told Joe and your father?”

  “Not yet. I’m waiting for the right moment – preferably when we’re all stacked on top of each other and the baby’s crying.”

  “And Dorothy’s family?”

  “They both died of the ’flu in 1918, same as Mum. Dorothy’s been living with her sister and her family. They’ll be glad of the space and one less mouth to feed. And it’s all right, isn’t it? Friends do live together sometimes, don’t they?” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

  “I suppose.”

  They sat in silence, finishing their cigarettes. Gilda took a bite of a biscuit and laughed. “Why did I do that? I hate Garibaldis!” She was clearly still nervous, and Violet searched for a way to set her at ease. It was difficult, since she was uneasy herself. Somehow during their conversation her relationship with Arthur had got tied to Gilda’s with Dorothy. If she expressed shock, dismay, disgust, or anything negative at all, it would be reflected right back at her. How had that happened?

  She realised she was frowning, and it was making Gilda frown too. So she asked the first honest question she could think of. “How long have you felt this way?”

  “About Dorothy or in general?”

  “Both.”

  “I knew the moment I met Dorothy a year ago at a broderers’ session. It’s just taken a while to win her round. We met again at Corfe Castle in the summer.”

  “Near Swanage.”

  “Yes. And that’s where things became clearer, to both of us. She’s so different from me! So – well, you know. She doesn’t say much, while I talk far too much. She daydreams while I’ve got my eyes on everything. She’s so tall and glamorous in her way, while I’m so –” Gilda waved a hand at herself. “But none of that matters with Dorothy.”

  “And in general?” Violet pressed, because she was genuinely curious.

  Gilda gazed at her. “All my life.”

  “So—”

  “So all of those things you will have heard: that women do this because they can’t get a man, that they’re desperate and unnatural and unhappy and hysterical be
cause they haven’t had – that. The sex act. None of that applies to me. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if it’s unnatural, but it’s how I am.”

  “Does your family know?” Violet was trying to imagine her mother’s reaction to such news in the family – or Tom’s, or Evelyn’s. How would they explain such a relationship to Edward and Marjory? Then she understood: the same applied to any liaison she had with a married man.

  “If they do, they’ve never said anything, bless ’em. I think they don’t want to know.” Gilda made a face. “Olive’s been the problem. She never says it outright, but she insinuates: makes faces behind Dorothy’s back, doesn’t want me to hold the baby. I think everyone will be relieved when I move, even if they don’t quite know why.”

  Violet thought about how good Gilda had been with her niece and nephew at the Cathedral. “What about children?”

  Gilda shrugged, though her nonchalance was unconvincing. “I am thirty-five years old. It’s too late for me, so it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?”

  “Thirty-five is not too late to have a baby.”

  “It is if you’re not going to marry.”

  They were silent, watching the coal burning bright in the grate.

  “So I am asking you what I asked when I arrived,” Gilda said at last. “Are you a good friend to me?”

  This was the moment when Violet had to decide. She stared at the fiery bricks of coal, crumbling in on themselves.

  “Yes,” she replied as firmly as she could, if not as she felt. “I am. Yes.”

  Chapter 18

  JANUARY WAS ALWAYS A grim month, and January 1933 was particularly so. Deep into winter proper, the trees were stark, the ground either as hard as iron or sodden, and the weather shuffled between cold and wet, but always grey. There were no festivities to look forward to or be distracted by, just the feeling that all energy had been focused on Christmas and now one had to get through the days somehow, depleted. Violet thought about how people used to store up food and sit out the winter, sleeping and eating and waiting. Despite refrigeration and shops where you could buy food year-round, she sometimes felt in January that she was subsisting like her ancestors, waiting for sunlight and its warmth to unclench her and the first shoots of spring to reassure her that life was continuing.