Tiger Ragtime

by Catrin Collier

  He finally looked at Micah. ‘Even if I wanted to talk, and I don’t, you’re the last person I’d talk to.’

  If looks could kill, Micah knew he would have been six feet under. ‘I’ll buy you a drink if you’d like one.’

  ‘It’s Sunday.’

  ‘All the pubs and hotels on the Bay serve travellers. We could be travellers. Please, David, give me a chance to explain my relationship with Edyth.’

  ‘I’ve eyes in my head. What I saw you doing to Edyth doesn’t need explaining.’

  ‘Edyth’s upset –’

  ‘And you both probably had a bloody good laugh at my expense,’ David interrupted furiously.

  ‘If you think that, you don’t know Edyth – or me – very well.’

  ‘I’ve known Edyth for a damned sight longer and better than you. As for you,’ David added contemptuously, ‘I don’t want to know you. You’re supposed to be some sort of vicar and you were kissing a married woman.’

  ‘A woman whose marriage was a short-lived disaster. I’ve asked Edyth to marry me as soon as she’s free,’ Micah confided.

  ‘I hope she had the sense to tell you to go to hell.’ Even as David said it he knew he wasn’t making any sense. Micah hadn’t been forcing himself on Edyth. From what little he’d seen, she’d been kissing Micah as passionately as he’d been kissing her.

  ‘At the moment she’s not free to give me an answer.’ Deciding that a change of subject might be tactful, Micah said, ‘Judy told me you want to be a sailor.’

  ‘What if I do?’

  ‘I can help you.’

  ‘I don’t need your help.’

  ‘Please, David, you’re a member of Edyth’s family –’

  ‘I thought Judy’s uncles were your friends,’ David interrupted.

  ‘They are,’ Micah confirmed, mystified by David’s train of thought.

  ‘They need jobs on ships, so why don’t you help them?’

  ‘Because I only know Norwegian ships’ captains who ferry timber out of Scandinavia and carry coal back, which doesn’t pay well. Most of them are having a hard time employing their existing crews, but see that ship over there?’ Micah pointed to the Vidda.

  ‘I’ve eyes in my head,’ David snapped.

  ‘The captain is a friend of mine and if you’re prepared to work for your keep and a seaman’s ticket, he’ll take you on as an unpaid apprentice ordinary seaman. He’s sailing out on the dawn tide tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ All David could think about was Gertie’s offer.

  ‘You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but it will be a chance for you to sample life at sea and see something of the Norwegian coast.’

  ‘You just want to send me as far from Edyth as possible.’

  ‘I don’t want that at all, David.’ Micah looked back up Bute Street. Couples and families were walking out in their Sunday best, on their way either to or from church, chapel, or visiting friends and neighbours. He wished he and Edyth were among them. ‘When Edyth saw you run off like that, she was worried about you.’

  ‘If she was so worried why didn’t she come and find me herself?’ David questioned.

  ‘Judy told us that you were staying at my sister’s boarding house. Edyth went to look for you there. She said she’d wait until you turned up.’

  ‘You’ve just given me reason to stay out all night.’

  Deciding another change of subject was politic, Micah said, ‘It wouldn’t cost you anything to talk to the captain.’

  David moved away. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be taking anything from me. The captain said he’d take you on, not me.’

  ‘You persuaded him,’ David pointed out logically.

  ‘I asked him if he would consider the idea, but I won’t even go with you when you talk to him if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘You won’t?’

  ‘I have to get back to the mission.’ Micah wanted to find a boy who would take a note to Helga’s house to let Edyth know that he’d found David, safe, sound and still angry with both of them.

  ‘Why are you so eager to help me?’

  ‘Because Edyth likes you and regards you as her friend,’ Micah replied honestly.

  ‘And you don’t want to send me away from her?’

  ‘Not unless you want to go. I want what you want for yourself, David.’

  ‘And you’ll let me talk to the captain by myself?’ David moved away from the rail.

  ‘When you get to know me better you’ll find out that I always keep my word,’ Micah reiterated wearily.

  ‘That’s the ship?’ David pointed to the Vidda.

  ‘It is, ask for Captain Nordheim and tell him that you’re the boy I talked to him about.’

  ‘I will.’ David walked away without giving Micah a backward glance.

  Chapter Six

  ‘What does it say?’ Judy asked when Edyth read Micah’s note, which had been hand delivered to Helga’s house. ‘That David’s safe and talking to a Norwegian ship captain who might give him a berth.’ Edyth folded the sheet of paper and slipped it into her pocket. She had kept every note, no matter how trivial and mundane, that Micah had sent her. As a result she had a biscuit tin full of keepsakes, ticket stubs from films, concerts, and plays they had seen together, as well as the notes. She had even pressed some of the flowers he had given her and pasted them into a book.

  ‘The sea is the best place for David,’ Judy commented, uncharacteristically sarcastic for her.

  ‘You two didn’t get on too well?’ Edyth guessed.

  ‘He thinks he knows it all.’

  ‘That’s only the front he shows the world. He’s always been unsure of himself away from his farm,’ Edyth said, remembering how tongue-tied and nervous David had been the first time Harry had brought him to their parents’ house.

  ‘Then he should go back there.’

  ‘Harry and Mary would probably agree with you. But perhaps David left there to assert his independence. As the oldest boy he regarded himself as head of his orphaned family until Harry married Mary. And if my brother has one fault, it’s a tendency to try to make people’s decisions for them – always from the best possible motives. But I’ve sensed David’s resentment, especially when Harry talks about making a home elsewhere for himself and Mary in a few years, and handing the farm over to David.’

  ‘But it is David’s farm, isn’t it?’ Judy asked.

  ‘The Ellises have managed it for generations and they will own it in a few years,’ Edyth said vaguely, not wanting to go into the intricacies of Harry’s inheritance, ‘but I don’t think either Harry or Mary have thought to ask David how he feels about taking full responsibility for running it.’ Edyth checked the time. ‘You should go back to the shop, Judy.’

  ‘Not without you.’

  ‘You know what sailors are once they start talking. It could be hours before David returns here. There’s ham, cheese, and fruit cake in the pantry, make yourself some supper and go to bed. It’s hard enough to get up at four in the morning during the week and doubly hard after a lie-in on Sunday. After a late night I’m never fit for much, which means I’ll probably be relying on you more than usual tomorrow.’

  ‘You relying on me? That will be a first.’ Judy smiled and left the table.

  ‘Thanks, Judy.’

  ‘Ask one of your uncles to walk you back,’ Helga advised her.

  ‘The shop’s only ten minutes away and it’s not even seven o’clock yet.’

  ‘And the docks are full of unemployed sailors, who manage to get drunk at all hours of the day and night no matter how little money they have.’ Helga lifted the vase of flowers from the centre of her kitchen table and set it on the window sill.

  ‘Helga’s right.’ Edyth helped Helga spread the patchwork quilt she was making on the table. ‘Besides, don’t your uncles go down to the mission most evenings? It will only take them a few minutes longer to walk you past the shop.’

&nb
sp; ‘You’re a pair of fusspots,’ Judy said fondly, before kissing Helga’s cheek. ‘Bye, Helga, thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Thank you for helping me to clear up after my lodgers. And good luck with the audition tomorrow.’

  ‘You told her?’ Judy asked Edyth.

  ‘And Micah,’ Edyth confessed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Judy said. ‘It’s just that I’m tired of being on the receiving end of sympathy when I get “thanks for coming but no thanks”.’

  ‘Tomorrow will be different,’ Helga assured her.

  ‘How do you know?’ Judy picked up her cardigan from the back of a chair.

  ‘I inherited my grandmother’s second sight.’

  ‘I wish I could believe you.’ Judy opened the door.

  ‘It’s true, you’ll get the job,’ Helga lifted her work box on to the table alongside the quilt, ‘but only if you believe in yourself.’

  ‘That sounds more Irish than Norwegian to me.’

  ‘Can I help it if my native culture’s been affected by living in this melting pot?’ Helga picked up her needle book.

  ‘Did your grandmother really have second sight?’ Edyth asked, after Judy had left and she and Helga were sitting at opposite ends of the table, stitching patches on to the quilt.

  ‘So everyone in my family and our home village believed. Hasn’t Micah told you the family legends?’

  ‘No.’ Until that moment, Edyth had assumed that Helga was unaware of her relationship with Micah. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Micah never knew her; he was only a few months old when we left Norway for Gdansk when my father was asked to manage the Norwegian Mission Church there. But our parents talked about her all the time. She must have been a strong woman. She was only ten when her father was lost at sea. Three years later her mother died after falling from a hayrick onto a pitch fork, yet she kept the family farm going and brought up her six younger brothers and sisters.’

  ‘A strong woman indeed.’ Edyth knew that Micah’s parents had died young, which was why he’d followed Helga and her husband to the home they’d made for themselves and Moody in Cardiff. But she knew nothing else about his family and hoped that Helga would tell her more.

  ‘I was very small, only three or four years old, when I last saw her, but I remember her as very tall, slim and upright ̶ like Micah ̶ and her hair was even whiter than ours. The last thing she said to me was that Micah and I were going to have long and happy lives and that I would have four children and Micah three. Mine have been a long time coming, but Micah’s even longer.’

  There was a tone in Helga’s voice that alerted Edyth. ‘Helga, you’re …’

  ‘Three months, but don’t tell Micah. He frets over me like a mother hen with a single chick whenever Alex is away as it is. He’ll be ten times worse once he knows he’s going to become an uncle.’

  Alexander Brown, Helga’s West Indian ship’s engineer husband, had sailed out on a vessel bound for Australia six weeks before and wasn’t expected back for months. ‘It will be hard for you, keeping house for your lodgers while you’re pregnant.’

  ‘Moody helps, and not just with the housework. You’ve no idea how glad we both are that you kept him on when you bought Goldman’s. A steady job these days is worth more than gold – no pun intended.’

  ‘Moody’s a brilliant baker. I’m lucky to have him.’ Hoping that worsening trade wouldn’t force her to close the bakery, Edyth crossed her fingers superstitiously under cover of the quilt.

  ‘I’m sure my grandmother knew when she waved us off from the dock at Oslo that she would never see any of us again. I remember looking at the tears in her eyes and thinking they were more than just goodbye tears. She was dead from lung disease within a year.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know how you feel. I was very close to my grandfather. He died four years ago.’

  ‘I was only a child and children accept loss more easily when it’s at a distance. We hadn’t seen her in months. I had new friends, a new dog; a new place to live, a new city to explore, which was much grander than our home village.’ Helga stabbed her needle into a patch, and ceased stitching. ‘It was much worse when my parents died, especially for Micah. I had left Gdansk the year before to come here with Alex. But friends wrote and begged me to go to Micah after it happened because they were worried about his sanity. It was a terrible time for both of us but more so for him because he was with them.’

  ‘How did they die?’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth Edyth realised she was prying. ‘I’m sorry; you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Micah has never talked to you about our parents?’

  Edyth shook her head.

  ‘Which means he still hasn’t come to terms with their deaths. There was an epidemic of diphtheria in Gdansk. There was a shortage of beds in the local hospital so my parents threw open the doors of the mission and took in the overflow. They worked day and night with the local doctors and nurses for a week before they caught the disease. Micah did all he could, but they died within four hours of one another. My father went first, my mother died without even knowing he was dead.’

  “‘Micah did all he could”?’ Edyth repeated in bewilderment. ‘But what about the doctors?’

  ‘He’s never told you that either? Micah was only six months away from qualifying as a doctor when our parents died.’

  ‘I had no idea.’ Edyth reflected how little she knew about Micah’s life before they had met. ‘So that’s why the police send for him whenever someone gets injured in a street fight.’

  ‘Oh, he’s happy enough to patch up cuts and bruises, and even strap up a simple broken bone on a drunk, but despite all my nagging he refuses to go back and finish his studies. I tried arguing with him when I went to Gdansk to help him arrange our parents’ funeral and I’ve carried on arguing with him ever since he arrived here, but,’ she picked up her needle again, ‘you know how stubborn he can be.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Edyth said thoughtfully.

  ‘So, are you going to marry my little brother when Peter sends you those papers?’ Helga asked.

  ‘Not immediately,’ Edyth replied.

  ‘I can’t say I blame you. You’re what – eighteen?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘I didn’t marry Alex until I was twenty-five and even then I’m not sure I knew my own mind. You’ve made a good and independent life for yourself, Edyth. I told Micah you’d be foolish to give that up to wash his socks.’

  ‘You’ve discussed me with Micah?’ Edyth was more surprised than annoyed.

  ‘He asked my advice. He wanted me to tell him how he could persuade you to marry him. I told him that the only person he should discuss marriage with is you. I’m on your side.’

  ‘Thank you, Helga,’ Edyth said gratefully.

  ‘I’ve never had a sister, so I’m looking forward to having you as a sister-in-law.’ She parried Edyth’s quizzical look. ‘I did say I had second sight.’

  Unsure whether Helga was serious or not, Edyth moved the conversation on. ‘If you need any help here or with the baby …’

  ‘I’ll call on Micah and Moody first and you next. Family is everything.’ The front door opened and closed.

  Helga glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes before eight. ‘I expected David to be later.’

  Edyth braced herself. She hadn’t read out the last line of Micah’s note to Helga and Judy, the one in which he’d said that David was still angry with him – and her.

  David walked into the kitchen, flushed and excited. ‘Mrs Brown, I’m sailing to Norway and I’ll be leaving before dawn.’ He saw Edyth sitting at the table and fell silent.

  ‘You have a berth on a ship?’ Helga asked.

  ‘On a Norwegian ship that’s taking coal to Norway, and returning with wood for pit props.’

  ‘Then I’d better make sandwiches for your supper, and a few extra that you can take with you. I
f you’re sailing at dawn, the ship’s breakfast will be late. Do you want to leave any of your things here?’

  ‘I only have the one suitcase,’ David reminded her. ‘Sailors don’t carry suitcases, they take canvas kitbags.

  My husband has a spare one upstairs. I’ll get it for you.’ Helga tactfully left the room.

  Edyth waited a few moments. When it became clear that David wasn’t going to acknowledge her presence, she began, ‘What you saw earlier in the yard –’

  ‘Forget it,’ he broke in.

  ‘I can’t, not after what you did when I married Peter.’

  All the emotions David had kept pent-up for the past year finally erupted. ‘You must have known how I felt about you. I loved you. Do you know what that means? How serious I was about you?’

  Encouraged by the ‘was’, she murmured, ‘You never told me.’

  ‘What did you think I was doing at all those parties at your parents’ house? I only danced with you, no one else. Only you.’

  ‘There’s a difference between dancing with someone and being in love with them.’ Edyth recalled her visits to Harry and Mary on the farm where David had lived all his life. The wilderness around it, how isolated it was and she realised how lonely David must have been when he’d been growing up, with only his immediate family for company. It was little wonder that he had set so much store by the casual friendship she had offered.

  ‘I could understand you not wanting to go back to live with your parents when Peter left you. I could even understand you wanting to run your own business,’ he reproached, ‘but to start carrying on with another vicar before your marriage to the first one is over –’

  ‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes,’ she acknowledged, not wanting to hear any more. ‘And I’m sorry for hurting you. But it’s the last thing I intended to do. If I could turn the clock back I would.’

  ‘To do what?’ He folded his arms across his chest and stood before her, silent and self-contained.

  ‘To take the time to get to get know Peter properly. If I had, I never would have married him. Also, to explain to you that I couldn’t help falling in love with Peter any more than I could help falling in love with Micah.’