The English Wife

by Adrienne Chinn

  Thomas grabs Ellie’s hand. ‘Not that way. There’s a cellar. The door’s at the back.’

  ‘No, I need to find George.’ Ellie pulls away and fights her way towards the stage. ‘George!’

  A pair of arms enfold her. The familiar brown wool suit. ‘I’m here, Ellie.’

  Thomas taps George’s shoulder. ‘C’mon, b’y. There’s a cellar. We’ll be safe there.’

  ***

  Ellie sits on a wooden crate packed with wine bottles beside a large beer cask. The cellar windows are blacked out and reinforced with a crisscross of masking tape, and a single electric bulb hangs from the ceiling, throwing an eerie yellow light over the round-bellied beer casks and wooden crates of wine and soft drinks. Others have found their way to the cellar as well, and they sit together in an uneasy silence, waiting for the all-clear.

  Thomas nods at the crates. ‘We’re not goin’ to go thirsty, that’s for sure.’

  George squints through his glasses at Thomas’s face, lit pale yellow by the electric light. ‘How did you know there was a cellar?’

  ‘I always makes it my business to check these things out. Just in case.’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad you did.’ Ellie shifts on the crate, away from a splinter pushing through her navy skirt. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be squeezing into the shelter up the road with everyone else.’

  George removes his glasses and tugs the handkerchief out of his breast pocket. ‘I saw your friend Charlie,’ he says as he wipes a film of dust off his glasses. ‘He said to tell you he’d gone back to Filby early on the train.’ He tucks the handkerchief back in his pocket and pushes the glasses over his nose.

  ‘That’s not like Charlie. He’s one for a party.’

  ‘He asked about Ruthie.’

  Thomas nods. ‘All right, then. I see.’ He looks at Ellie. ‘He liked your friend. He talked my ear off all about her for months. He kept looking for her at the dance halls every time we came to Norwich.’

  Ellie presses her lips together, willing the sob that’s forming in her throat not to spring into life. If it does, she can’t trust herself not to stop crying. She’d thought she’d cried all the tears allotted to her body, but she was wrong. They were like a perpetual spring with a source that never dried up.

  The ear-splitting wail of the all-clear slices through the heavy stillness of the December night. They rise and stretch, unfolding into the pale yellow light illuminating the cellar. The revellers pick their way over the crates and beer casks and make their way up the cellar steps.

  Outside, a half-moon hangs like a Christmas bauble in the twinkling sky. George holds out his hand to Thomas. ‘Thanks for your help tonight.’ His breath forms into a cloud that sits on the cold air. ‘Will you get back to Filby okay?’

  Thomas shakes George’s hand. ‘No problem, George, b’y. There’s always someone happy to give a soldier a lift.’ He looks at Ellie and touches his forehead in a mini-salute. ‘See you anon. Thanks for the dance.’

  Ellie watches as Thomas walks down the street, his tall figure growing smaller, his outline growing fainter, until he melds into the black winter night.

  Chapter 15

  Tippy’s Tickle – 13 September 2001

  The screen door from the yard into Ellie’s kitchen swings open and Becca bounds into the room, the great black bulk of Rupert at her heels. She runs over to Florie, who is drying the breakfast dishes at the sink, and gives her a hug. Scampering over to the table where Ellie and Sophie are drinking coffee, she hugs them both. She pulls out a chair and sits down beside Ellie.

  ‘Sam!’ Florie calls out. ‘Sam! Get that dog outta here! This place isn’t big enough for all of us!’

  The door springs open and Sam strides in holding a bright pink school bag, his leather jacket replaced by a plaid flannel shirt and a jean jacket. ‘Rupert! Get out here, b’y!’ The dog lumbers across the linoleum floor, pausing for a pet on the head from Sam, then pads out of the door.

  ‘Jaysus God, Sam. I don’t even let my doxies in here,’ Florie says as she wipes the breakfast dishes dry by the sink. ‘They’ve got a right nice kennel behind the shop. Don’t know why you don’t do the same for that bear.’

  ‘Rupert’ll go into a kennel the day palm trees grow in Tippy’s Tickle, Florie. You might be all spit and vinegar, but Rupert knows you’re a soft touch. I found date-square crumbs on him the other day and Becca swore it wasn’t her.’

  ‘Well, one date square won’t hurt him. Look at the size of him.’

  Sam hands the school bag to Becca and takes the cup of coffee Ellie offers him. Nodding at Sophie, he sets the mug on the table and bends to give Becca a kiss on her blonde head. ‘Be a good girl, honey,’ he says, signing to her. ‘Listen to Nanny, and show me what you learned at supper tonight, okay?’

  ‘You down at the store today, Sam?’ Ellie asks as he heads to the door.

  ‘No. Heading down to Gander to see what’s going on with the planes. Meeting up with Thor and Ace to move some supplies around to the legion hall and the gym for the CFAs. I’ll be back by supper.’

  ‘Could you ask about my flight, please?’ Sophie asks as she spreads thick purple blueberry jam on a warm scone. ‘BA101 going to JFK in New York.’

  ‘Can’t wait to get out of here, can you?’

  Sophie blinks at Sam, the scone halfway to her mouth. ‘Well, I need to know when to get back to Gander. I’ve got a meeting—’

  Sam jerks his head in an impatient nod. ‘Yes. You’re a high-flyer, we all know that.’

  ‘Come over here for supper, why don’t you, Sam?’ Florie says as she slides the final plate into the plate rack over the sink. ‘Doing macaroni and cheese tonight. There’ll be plenty.’

  ‘I’ll see how I go, Florie.’ The door slams shut behind him. ‘Don’t wait if I’m late. I’ll be back in time to put Becca to bed.’

  ***

  ‘That’s enough studying for today,’ Florie says as she stomps into the kitchen and drops several wicker baskets onto the old wooden table. ‘Grab yourself a basket, girls. We’re going out berry picking. I’ve closed up the shop. Anyone needs anything, they’ll just have to wait till tomorrow. I’ll makes a pie for supper tonight when we gets back. Nothing like Newfoundland wild blueberry pie. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven, Sophie. Becca’ll teach you what to look for.’

  Sophie looks up from her mobile phone. ‘Berry picking? I don’t have anything to wear for that. My suitcase is still in the plane.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Ellie says as she corrects Becca’s spelling test. ‘I’ll lend you some clothes while you’re here.’ She runs her eyes over Sophie. ‘They won’t be fancy, mind you.’

  Sophie glances down as her crumpled velvet skirt and the white silk blouse now webbed with creases and spots of maple syrup from the morning’s pancake breakfast. ‘They kept our suitcases on the plane. I only dress like this for work.’

  ‘Which I understands you does all the time,’ Florie says as she folds tea towels into the baskets. ‘Sam said.’

  ‘Sam doesn’t know anything about me.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Florie raises an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t mean to hit a nerve there, duck.’

  ‘Show Sophie your lettering, Becca,’ Ellie says, signing to Becca.

  Becca passes a large piece of cardboard covered in crooked green-crayoned letters to Sophie. ‘B-E-C-C-A B-R-Y-N-E,’ she signs as Ellie says the letters.

  Sophie looks over at Ellie. ‘What do I do if I want to say something? I don’t know how to sign.’

  ‘Just face her so she can read your lips.’

  Sophie nods. ‘That’s very good, Becca. But isn’t it supposed to be …?’ Sophie frowns as she concentrates on the green letters. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be B-Y-R-N-E?’

  Becca rolls her eyes and nods. ‘B-Y-R-N-E,’ she corrects herself.

  ‘Well done, Sophie.’ Ellie rolls up the cardboard, securing it with an elastic. ‘You’ve been paying attention.’


  Sophie slides her phone into the pocket of her velvet jacket, which she’s slung over the back of her chair. ‘Well, the London office has my work there under control, and there’s nothing I can do about the New York interview right now, so, consider me a student of berry picking.’

  ***

  Sophie follows Florie, Ellie and Becca up a rocky path in a pair of Ellie’s jeans, a large striped sweater pilfered from Florie’s closet, and an ancient pair of Adidas trainers, wading through knee-high bushes and over fallen logs as they pass clumps of fat blueberries sprouting from the rocky scree. Every now and then, she stops to take pictures with her small digital camera.

  ‘What about these ones?’ she asks as they trek by a large clump.

  ‘Nah, maid. These ones has been picked over,’ Florie calls back to her. ‘There are better up higher. The berries likes the slopes, and there was a forest fire up there a few years ago. It stimulates the berries. There’s lots more up there.’

  They stop on a slope near the top of the hill where the mash of grey rocks sprout masses of thick bushes heavy with ripe blueberries. Beyond the tops of the fir trees, the inky blue water of the ocean glimmers in the sun, and down the coast, a red-roofed lighthouse and a tall white house can just be made out on a protruding cliff.

  Ellie hands her basket to Sophie. ‘Pick some for me, too, Sophie. I’m going to draw.’

  ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing.’

  Florie waves at Sophie. ‘Come on over here, duck. We’ll shows you how it’s done.’

  Sophie joins Florie and Becca beside a carpet of blueberry bushes. Squatting beside a bush, Becca cups a clump of plump berries with her hand. She pries them away from their stalks with her thumb and lets them roll off her palm into her basket.

  ‘Just do what Becca’s doing, maid,’ Florie says. ‘You’ll knows if they’re ripe if they just falls into your hand. If they resists you, best to leave them be. Your hands are going to get purple. You don’t minds that, do you? They stains like the devil.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll wash them later.’

  Florie chuckles as she bends over a blueberry bush. ‘Yes, sure, duck. You do that.’

  Sophie wanders over to a clump of berries and tests out Becca’s technique, abandoning it when she finds herself pulling off huge stalks of unripe berries. Sitting on a warm rock, she settles on a one-berry-at-a-time method.

  Ellie wanders over, her drawing pad under her arm. She sits on a rock near Sophie and flips open the pad. ‘Do you mind if I draw you?’ she asks, a pencil poised over the paper.

  ‘Me? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather draw Becca or Florie? I’m pretty slow at this.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the berries. Those two can pick for England, and I draw them all the time. I’d love to have a drawing of my niece.’

  Sophie tucks a strand of hair that has escaped her ponytail behind her ear. ‘I look like a wreck.’

  ‘You look lovely.’

  Sophie smiles. ‘I think you need to put your glasses on, Aunt Ellie.’

  Ellie looks down at the turquoise glasses hanging around her neck and slides them onto her nose. She peers at Sophie. ‘Ah, you’re right. My mistake.’

  ‘Aunt Ellie!’ Sophie says, laughing.

  Ellie giggles. ‘I’m teasing, Sophie. Just relax and pick your berries. Ignore me.’

  A companionable silence settles over the berry pickers and the artist, overlaid by the buzz of insects and the hammering of a woodpecker deep in the woods. After about half an hour, Sophie stretches and sits beside Ellie on a velvety cushion of green moss. She looks at the drawing, her eyes widening. ‘Oh, you’ve made me look quite nice.’

  Ellie laughs. ‘You’re very nice-looking, Sophie. You’ve got your parents’ dark hair, but the blue-grey Burgess eyes. Becca has the same eyes. Winny did too.’

  Sophie smiles at Ellie. ‘You have them too. Mum had dark eyes though.’

  ‘Yes. Like our mother, Winnifred. She was half French. I named Winny after her.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that.’ Sophie sweeps her eyes over the drawing – the confident outlines of her own face and her body bending over the berry bushes, the fine feathering of her hair where strands are caught by the wind, and the craggy stones and fat, shaded ripeness of the berries.

  Her mother had never told her anything about the family, shutting her down with a sharp ‘That’s all in the past!’ whenever she’d asked. And all her father would say was that her grandparents had been ‘lovely’. She’d given up asking, in the end.

  ‘I used to draw, too, a long time ago. Mum thought it was a waste of time. She said I’d never be able to make a living that way.’ Sophie shrugs. ‘I became an architect instead. Mum didn’t have a problem with me learning technical drawing. Everything had to have a purpose for her. She didn’t believe in art for art’s sake.’

  ‘Really?’ Ellie flips closed the cover of her drawing pad. ‘She didn’t used to be like that. She was an excellent pianist, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Dad told me. She played in concert halls and everything. I never heard her play. We had a piano, but she never touched it.’

  Ellie shakes her head. ‘That’s a shame.’ She slides her glasses off her nose and lets them fall against her chest. ‘You should take up drawing again.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d be awfully rusty, and I don’t have much free time.’

  ‘You have plenty of free time here. Let’s go out tomorrow. We’ll go drawing together. I’ll teach you some techniques.’

  ‘Um … sure, why not?’ Sophie glances over to the others who are scrambling over the rocks in a competition to pick the most berries. ‘Will Becca and Florie come too?

  ‘No, Florie’s starting Becca on her multiplication tables tomorrow.’

  ‘Sam mentioned you teach Becca at home.’

  ‘For now, anyway. Sam thinks she’s too young to be sent off to board at the school for the deaf in St John’s, and, since the primary school in Tippy’s Tickle closed a few years ago, the closest public school is an hour bus ride away in Wesleyville. I used to teach Emmy at home before the old school reopened back in the Fifties. I taught art at the high school in Wesleyville for years, too, before I retired. Becca’s in good hands.’

  ‘How did Winny meet Sam?’

  ‘They met at Memorial University in St John’s. He’d come back from Boston to study mathematics there and be closer to his mother in Grand Falls. She wasn’t well, poor thing. Ovarian cancer. His father died in a car accident down in Boston when Sam was sixteen and she’d moved back to her hometown. He stayed in Boston until he finished high school.’

  ‘What were they doing down in Boston?’

  ‘Sam’s parents moved down there when he was a boy. Looking for more opportunities, I suppose. They had relatives down there. A lot of Irish Newfoundlanders do.

  ‘Sam and Winny got married at St Stephen’s here after she graduated with her Master’s in Psychology. They moved back to Boston and Sam had a very successful property development company there. They tried for years to have a baby. They’d almost given up when Becca finally came along.’ Ellie sets the drawing pad and the pencil in her lap. ‘Then …’ Ellie sighs as she looks out over the grey-blue ocean. ‘Then, she died. There was an accident.’ She shakes her head. ‘She was only forty-five.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ellie clears her throat and picks up the drawing pad and pencil. Flipping open the cover, she bends over the pad and draws sweeping strokes onto the paper. ‘Poor Sam was beside himself. He was here with Becca for the funeral. We buried Winny’s ashes in St Stephen’s Cemetery. This was her home, after all.’

  ‘Why didn’t he stay in Boston if his business was there?’

  ‘Things became … difficult for him in Boston.’ She opens her mouth as if to say something, but presses her lips together.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Becca needed special attention and … Sam took Winny’s death hard. F
lorie and I were worried. There were … problems with his business. He had to close it. We persuaded him to come to Tippy’s Tickle. So, three years ago he came and started helping Emmy in his boat-building business.’ She smiles at Sophie. ‘I had to twist Emmy’s arm. He’s never been one to like working with others. He fished for years up in Fogo, saved every penny he could. When Rod Fizzard’s boat-building business came up for sale twenty years ago he bought it. He’s been working there ever since.’

  ‘So, Emmett owns the business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Sam’s his employee?’

  ‘Well, part-time. It was always meant to be a temporary arrangement until Sam got back on his feet financially. Sam’s started his own business working on the houses around here and he’s making furniture as well; Emmy showed him how to turn wood, and he’s really taken to it. He’s got a real talent for it.’ She looks over at Sophie. ‘I doubt Sam’ll stay for long. Becca loves it here. We love having them, but people move on. Tippy’s Tickle is a small place for someone like Sam.’

  ‘It can’t be easy for him, after running a big business in Boston.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Ellie smiles at Sophie. ‘Things change. Life never stays the same. I hear people say they don’t like change. That’s just ridiculous. If you don’t make choices, you can be sure choices will be made for you. I’ve always thought that it’s better to be the agent of your own destiny. Though sometimes you’ll wonder if you’ve made a huge mistake.’ She smiles at Sophie. ‘There were times I certainly did.’

  ‘You did?’ What kind of mistakes? What had happened between Ellie and her mother? Was that one of the mistakes?

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Never mind. We all make mistakes, don’t we?’ Ellie gestures to the expanse of sea glinting in the late summer sunlight below. ‘Anyway, my decisions have brought me here, and that’s just fine with me.’

  ‘So Sam didn’t choose to be here.’

  ‘No. That’s why I expect he’ll move on, unless he finds a reason to stay. I think he’s getting restless.’ Ellie holds the drawing up to Sophie. ‘There, all done. What do you think?’