‘Ruddy wars.’
Ruthie’s cheerful face flashes into Ellie’s mind. She puts down her pencil and leans her head against Thomas’s shoulder, and they lie together in the shadow of the dune as the sounds of the crashing waves, the keening gulls and the crickets buzzing in the marsh grass wash over them, until the war is like a disturbing dream that dissipates with the warmth of the summer day. The kind of day when it seems wishes could possibly come true.
Thomas sits up, pointing to Ellie’s sketchbook. ‘Let’s have a look, then, maid.’
She sits up and hands him the sketchbook, watching him as he runs his fingers along the lines of the portrait. She’s managed to capture something of him, she thinks. The lines are right. The nose fine and long. The cheekbones sharp over his strong jaw. But, the eyes. Something isn’t quite right. The eyes have eluded her.
‘Best kind, Ellie Mae. You’re a talent.’ He rips out the page.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m keepin’ this,’ he says as he folds the drawing into a square. ‘It’ll remind me of you.’
‘Be careful. The charcoal will smudge.’
‘I don’t care.’
When he kisses her she doesn’t know whether he’s heard her wish through the thundering waves and the buzz of the crickets. All she knows is that he is here and she is here, alone in the shadow of a sand dune on a summer day that’s been offered to them like a gift. She reaches her arms around his neck. She’ll take the gift. Come what may.
Chapter 19
Tippy’s Tickle – 13 September 2001
Ellie throws the covers aside and slips out of the four-poster bed, leaving Florie snoring gently under the thick duvet. She slides her feet into her slippers and pads across the braided rag rug to the turreted bay window. A thin crescent moon hovers in the sky, casting a faint silver light into the room. Picking up the drawing from a small wooden table nestled in the curve of the turret, she lifts it up to catch the light.
So, this is Sophie. Her sister’s daughter. And George’s daughter, too, of course. She’d often wondered about her; even more since Winny’s death. What she looked like. What she liked to do. What she’d done with her life. Dottie had never written, but there’d been a scribbled note on the odd Christmas card from George over the years. And, in 1968, one small photo tucked inside the card.
Fingering the gold locket around her neck, she opens it and looks down at the two tiny photos. Winny’s sunny face under a halo of blonde hair on one side; Sophie on her fifth birthday, her fine brown hair cut into a blunt bob on the other. And now here she was. Just like she’d dropped out of the sky.
Oh, Dottie. Whatever happened to us? I know you felt I treated George badly. Maybe I did. Maybe I wasn’t as honest with him as I should have been. But Thomas … how can I make you understand that Thomas and I were … fated? I know you don’t believe in fate – you were always a better Catholic than me – but it’s true. We tried to keep away from each other, but it was impossible. I had to leave. Don’t you understand that? I loved Thomas. He was my husband. But leaving you and Poppy was so hard. You must know that. But I had to follow my life, and my life was with Thomas. Why did you cut me off? We could have worked things out. I know I upset you, but you upset me too, with some of the things you did. Awful things. But I forgave you. What did I do that was so unforgiveable? Why did you hate me so much?
There’s another thing, Dottie. Why did you ever marry George? Was it to get back at me? You ruined him, you know. He was a good man and he deserved a wife who loved him. Why did you make George so miserable? It was there in his letters, the ones after Thomas’s death. It was there if you knew how to read between the lines. Then the letters dried up. You did that, too. George told me. That time he came here. You made him stop. He’d been my friend, Dottie, long before we were engaged. Did you make him stop writing to punish me?
Ellie closes the locket. Well, Sophie, it’s just you and me and Emmy and Becca now. It’s time for the wounds to heal. Thomas, George, Dottie and my poor Winny are all dead, and I’m not young. Seventy-nine in three days. I know what harm secrets and misunderstandings can do to people, Sophie. That’s why I’ll never tell you mine.
Chapter 20
Norwich, England – 20 September 1941
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
Ellie steps through the Gothic archway and into the shadowed interior of the medieval tower. ‘George stopped by for tea on his way to the guns.’
Thomas reaches through the shadows and pulls Ellie to him. Pressing into him, she reaches her arms around his neck as he bends his head to her mouth. She closes her eyes and abandons herself to his kisses, meeting them with her own, their bodies embraced by the curved brick wall of the tower. His hand searches for the buttons of her uniform and slides beneath the thin wool, resting on the soft cotton blouse covering her left breast. Sucking in the air between his teeth, he pushes away from her abruptly.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’
Ellie presses her lips together and readjusts her jacket. ‘No, Thomas. I wanted you to. I wanted you to so much.’ She looks up at the open sky above them, willing her heart to stop its wild beating. The first stars push through the orange-streaked greyness of the approaching night.
‘You’ve got to do somethin’ about George, Ellie Mae.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Why haven’t you told him about us?’
Ellie takes a deep breath and lets it blow through her lips like the cigarette puffs she’s seen in the movies. ‘I don’t want to hurt him. He’s a good man.’
‘He’s a good man and I’m not? You’re worried about his feelings? You’ve got to be jokin’ me. What about my feelings?’
She closes her eyes. Why is she such a coward? What’s stopping her from telling George that she’s fallen in love with Thomas? What’s she afraid of? That George will hate her? No, he’d never hate her. He’s too kind. They’ve known each other forever. Maybe that’s it. They’re too familiar. It’s like having a faithful dog by her side. No surprises. Maybe she wants surprises.
She’d once had to walk along the narrow tread of a balance beam in a PE class. She’d wobbled, but it hadn’t been so hard once she’d adjusted her balance. By the end of the class she was doing it with her eyes closed. That had been her life until Thomas had crashed into it with the spilt Coke. Like a balance beam she could walk on with her eyes closed. What will happen if she lets Thomas push her off balance? Where will she land?
Thomas reaches through the darkness and takes her hand. ‘It’s best we leave, maid. I don’t trust myself.’
He leads her out onto the riverside path to a bench under the twisted branches of a silver birch. They sit down and he rests his arm across Ellie’s shoulders. She leans her head against the rough wool of his uniform jacket and watches the multiplying stars glint in the river’s mirror-like reflection.
‘No moon tonight.’
‘No.’
‘Do you think they’ll be over?’
‘Might be.’
‘They haven’t been over for six weeks. We’ve been quiet at the fire station. Fire Officer Williams is teaching me Honeymoon Bridge.’
‘They’ve probably gots their hands full in Russia.’
‘Do you suppose the world will ever return to normal, Thomas?’
‘Maybe a different kind of normal. I doubts it’ll ever be the same.’
They sit together for several minutes in silence, with just the ripple of the Wensum River and the occasional clatter of a vehicle over a nearby bridge filtering through the stillness.
Ellie feels Thomas’s chest rise under her cheek as he sighs. ‘I never in all my life imagined myself over here in England, Ellie Mae. When you’re bobbin’ along the sea in a fishin’ boat halfway to Greenland, you feels like the rest of the world is on another planet.’
‘Tell me more about Newfoundland.’
‘Oh, it’s a magical place, Ellie Mae. They calls the e
astern part Avalon, did you know that?’
‘Avalon? The place they took King Arthur?’
‘The very same.’
‘That’s very romantic.’
‘Newfoundlanders are hard cases with soft hearts. We’ve gots places called Heart’s Content and Conception Bay and Happy Adventure. And then there’s the fairies.’
Ellie giggles. ‘The fairies?’
‘Are you laughin’ at me, maid?’ Thomas bumps her shoulder with his. ‘Well, I don’t believes in them myself, but plenty does. They says the fairies are the angels that fell from Heaven but were shut out of Hell. When they fell on The Rock – that’s what we calls Newfoundland – they liked the look of it. So, you’ve gots to watch out for the fairies when you’re out pickin’ berries or walkin’ in the woods. You’ve gots to wear a piece of clothin’ inside out. That confuses them. And never anythin’ green. That’s just askin’ for trouble.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Oh, yes, I am. You’ll see some of the older folks about with their hat or their jacket inside out. That’s the reason. And they never goes out without a bun or a piece of bread in their pocket. That’s to appease the fairies if they comes upon them.’
‘A superstitious lot.’
‘Well, we gots our reasons. I don’t imagine there’s another place on earth like it. There’s a fog rolls in off the sea sometimes that sits on the land like a cloud. We calls it a mauzy day when that happens. Everythin’ goes quiet. Not quiet like this. Quiet like you’re in the middle of a bag of cotton wool. It’s soft and it’s quiet and the damp sits on your skin. Then you might hear somethin’ out on the sea beyond the fog. Like a fountain bursting out of the water. And you wonders what kind of creature could’a made that sound.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, some says mermaids.’
Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘Mermaids?’
‘That’s what some says. But they’re really whales.’
‘They’re that close to shore?’
‘Oh, yes. They loves to dance off the shore. I once saw about fifty of them when I was out in the boat with my dad. I tells you, you feels small when fifty humpbacks are spoutin’ and breachin’ all around you. It’s a sight to behold.’
‘That sounds terribly frightening.’
‘Oh, no, Ellie Mae. They’re just dancin’.’
Ellie rubs her chin against the wool serge of Thomas’s uniform. ‘What are we going to do, Thomas?’
Thomas leans his chin on Ellie’s AFS cap. ‘That depends on you, maid.’
Ellie shifts away and he drops his arm. She looks at him in the dim night light. ‘What do you mean by that?
‘I never thought I’d meet you, Ellie Mae. I don’t mean someone like you. I mean you. I dreams about you at night. I wants to wake up with you beside me.’
Ellie’s heart jumps, battering against her ribs. ‘We can’t, Thomas. It would be a sin.’
‘I wants to marry you, Ellie Mae.’
‘You w-what?’
‘Wait, I’m an idiot. Hold on a minute.’
Thomas kneels on the grass in front of Ellie. ‘Will you be the face I wakes up to in the mornin’, and the face I falls asleep to at night? Will you marry me, Ellie Mae Burgess? I might not have a ring, so don’t hold that against me. I’ll get you the finest ring in England, maid, and that’s a promise.’ He draws an X across his chest and kisses the side of his thumb. ‘Cross my heart and hopes to die.’
Her heart drums so quickly she can barely breathe. She looks at Thomas, his face outlined by the soft light of the starry sky. Every cell in her body screams at her: Say yes, Ellie! Say yes! But, what about her father? Her sister? She’d found a map of North America in the library and looked up Newfoundland. It wasn’t even a part of Canada. An island the size of Ireland on the other side of the Atlantic. Miles away. Another world. How could she leave her family behind? Never see Poppy again? Never get cross at Dottie again for stealing her lipsticks? She wouldn’t know a soul there but Thomas. What had she been thinking?
She drops her head into her heads. ‘I can’t marry you, Thomas. I’m so sorry. I just can’t.’
Chapter 21
Tippy’s Tickle – 14 September 2001
The gate of St Stephen’s Cemetery, once black but now seemingly held together by rust, screeches as Sophie tugs it open. It jerks to a stop, refusing to budge any further.
Handing the patchwork bag she’s filled with drawing materials to Sophie, Ellie squeezes through the opening. Sophie follows, wrenching the protesting gate closed behind her. Tufts of yellowing grass splay against the weather-beaten headstones and crosses on the gentle slope below. Beyond the hill, on its spit of land the other side of the tickle, the aluminium steeple of St Stephen’s Church points its glinting finger up into the blue sky. They stand for a moment on the hill, looking out to the sea below, which shines like new-polished silver in the morning sun, its stillness broken only by the occasional whale spout blasting through the surface and the tickle-ace gulls ducking and diving along the shore.
‘It’s lovely here, Aunt Ellie,’ Sophie says as she snaps several photos.
‘I’ve always thought so. I’ve been coming here for years, since before Thomas died. It was a good place to hide from my mother-in-law, Agnes. She wouldn’t come near the place. Said it was full of fairies who’d reach up from the graves and pull you down to Hell for disturbing the dead.’
Sophie laughs. ‘They don’t sound like any kind of fairies I’ve ever heard of.’
‘Oh, yes. They all believed in fairies back then. Emmett still does. Agnes infected him with that when he was a boy, I’m afraid. They weren’t the nice fairies of England or Walt Disney, like Tinker Bell. These ones played tricks, and led little children into the woods with their fairy music, or hit you with a fairy blast when you were out in the woods or fields on your own.’
‘A fairy blast?’
‘Yes. Agnes swore she’d seen a boy with a fairy blast once. All sorts of nasty stuff came out of the wound – fish bones and sticks and insects.’
Sophie shudders. ‘That’s awful.’
‘I loved those fairies. I always had the cemetery all to myself.’ She points to an old wooden bench peeking out from behind a stunted cedar near the gate. ‘Come on. It’s where I always sit.’
They sit together on the bench and Ellie reaches into the bag, dispensing charcoal pencils, pastels the colours of ice cream and a drawing pad to each of them. ‘Let’s have a go at drawing the church.’
Sophie picks up a charcoal pencil and squints at the gleaming steeple. ‘I don’t know if I can remember how to do this. I only draw construction drawings now.’
‘Just trust your eyes and your hand. Don’t overthink it.’
‘All right. Here goes nothing.’
After a few tentative lines, and the conviction that any latent artistic talent has deserted her, Sophie turns over a fresh page. The sun kisses her face with a soft warmth, and a light breeze dances up the hill from the ocean, rustling the tufts of grass like a mother tousling her child’s hair. Taking a deep breath, she begins to draw, letting the pencil find its way across the rough white paper. She feels her way, increasing the pressure on the pencil for the thick line of the church’s walls, and lifting the pencil to a fine point for the window frames and the door. She shakes out the tension in her hand and leans over the drawing, shading in the shadows with a fine cross-hatching, frowning as she attempts to transfer the white puffs of clouds to the drawing.
As she draws, she finds her mind settling into a calmness she hasn’t felt since she was a teenager drawing their cat, Sopwith Pusskins, a puff of fur curled up in front of the fire, for her final art-class assignment. The memory settles into her mind as she draws the lines of the rocky spit of land where it meets the tickle. It had been a chilly December Sunday afternoon. Her face warm from the gas fire, and the radio was on, probably Sing Something Simple, which her father liked. Rattling sounds from the kitchen – her mother
baking something for some Women’s Institute do. It had been … perfect. A moment of truce in her parents’ fractious relationship.
She flips over the page and starts another version of the church. Stronger lines this time as she draws the clapboard building. Softer on the waves slapping up against the rocks, looser on the tufts of long grass sprouting around the old headstones. Changing pressure on the charcoal pencil for the different effects. Remembering something she’d lost, something she hadn’t even realised she’d forgotten: the Sophie she once was, before she’d packed her away like an old coat. The Sophie who loved something.
***
‘What do you think?’ Sophie holds up her drawing to Ellie.
‘That’s lovely, Sophie. You have a wonderful sense of perspective. Why ever did you give up drawing?’
Sophie sighs as she closes the drawing pad, and rests it on her lap. ‘My mother wanted me to focus on a career. I think she resented having to give up her musical career when she married my father. Poor Dad … They used to argue. Or, she would argue, and he would just take it.’ Sophie looks at her aunt. ‘You know she was pregnant when they got married?’
Ellie nods. ‘Yes, I knew. You father wrote to me.’
‘She miscarried and then she was trapped. That’s the word she’d use with my father. Trapped. She wouldn’t divorce, being a Catholic. So, she decided to make Dad her project. Push him up the Norwich social ladder, but that only went so far. Then, out of the blue, after ten years of marriage, she gets pregnant. Shaking her head, Sophie smiles. ‘It must have happened during one of their truces. That was me, and I became her project.’
‘And, what about you? You never married?’
‘No. Why would I want to do that, after seeing how miserable Mum and Dad were? I wanted to be able to stand on my own two feet. Art, well, it wasn’t really a solid career choice. Dad thought I could give it a go, but Mum was dead against it. She wanted me to be financially secure. She said a “proper”—’ she tweaks her fingers to indicate quotation marks ‘—career would give me freedom. She was right.’
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