The English Wife

by Adrienne Chinn

  She reaches into her apron pocket and takes out the one-page letter, the last one she’d received back in June. She unfolds it again, for the hundredth time, and rereads the scrawling handwriting.

  166th (Newfoundland) Field Regiment

  c/o APS Algiers, Tunisia

  May 6th, 1943

  My darling Ellie Mae,

  I must keep this short, darling, as we’re on the move. All is well in XXXXXXXX. Thanks so much for the package. Socks were just the ticket. It’s cold enough to skin you at night, and hot enough to poison you in the day. All the fellows enjoyed the chocolate. Where’d you get that from, maid? Did you wheedle it out of George?

  I think of you all the time, my darling. Can’t tell you much more than they’re keeping us busy here. May be heading to XXXXXXX next. Don’t know when we’ll be back in England again. Guess that depends on old Hitler.

  I’ve learnt a new word. Habibati. It means darling in Arabic.

  I’ll see you in my dreams, habibati.

  Your loving Thomas

  She refolds the letter and tucks it back into her apron pocket. Not a word from him since then, despite the letters she’d written him every week. Where are you, Thomas? Are you safe? Are you even alive? Why don’t you write? It’s so hard, Thomas. The not knowing. Sometimes I— You don’t know what it’s like, the not knowing. It’s so very, very hard.

  Over a year now since she’d last seen him, at the Cow Tower by the riverside that September when he’d given her the beautiful Art Deco engagement ring. Where he’d got it from, or how he’d afforded it, she couldn’t begin to imagine. She’d thought it best to keep the engagement secret, with Thomas away. How do you tell your Catholic father that you’re marrying a Protestant foreigner and moving to a place thousands of miles away? How do you tell your ex-fiancé, who mopes around you like a sad dog, that you’re engaged to someone else? It had just seemed best to carry on as normal. As if nothing had changed.

  She hadn’t accounted for Dottie poking through her things and stealing the ring. And not only the ring. Thomas’s telegram too! What had got in to Dottie? Why had she done these horrible things?

  She unsticks a needle from her sleeve and takes a spool of white thread from her apron pocket. Threading the needle, she picks a fat white piece of popcorn from a bowl on the coffee table and sticks the needle through its spongy skin. At least Dottie’s kept her promise. She hasn’t told Poppy about the engagement. And Ellie hasn’t revealed Dottie’s thievery to Poppy. It is an uneasy truce.

  She closes her eyes and tries to paint the picture of Thomas’s face in her mind’s eye, but it’s like water has been spilled over the painting, washing out the colours and lines.

  Nothing to do but to keep going. Wake up in the morning, wash, put on her uniform, ride to the fire station on the bicycle Poppy gave her for her birthday, type and file and make sandwiches and tea and deliver them to the firemen in the staff car, ride her bike home, cook supper, sleep. Then do it all again the next day. She was sleepwalking through her life, but was that so bad when so many others had lost everything? She still had the memory of Thomas, and she clung to it like it was a life preserver.

  At night she’d tuck herself around her spare pillow and imagine it was Thomas; bury her face into the soft feather pillow and pretend it was the rough wool of his uniform, that its scent was Thomas’s scent of musk and soap. She closes her eyes. Be safe, my darling. Come back to me. Come back to me soon.

  The front door swings open and Dottie rushes into the sitting room, like a colt bolting from its stable. Ellie looks up. When did her sister become so tall? Fourteen now. How had she not noticed?

  ‘Ellie! George found us the biggest tree! Bonds had a stack of them brought down from Scotland.’

  ‘George helped you?’

  ‘We bumped into him in the market.’ Dottie smiles slyly at Ellie as she unwinds her scarf. ‘I think he was buying you a present. He hid it when he saw us.’

  Henry Burgess stomps into the hallway, dragging an enormous fir tree. ‘Lift it up, George,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Careful of the telephone stand.’

  He veers through the archway into the sitting room, George shuffling after him as he grapples with the bulk of evergreen fronds. ‘Out of the way, Dottie, pet. Find an old blanket for us to lay this on till we put it up.’

  Ellie springs to her feet and pushes her father’s chair out of the way. ‘Good heavens, Poppy. We’re going to have to cut off the base to make it fit.’

  ‘Dottie insisted George find us the biggest one.’ Henry coughs into his handkerchief. ‘You know she has him wound around her little finger.’

  Dottie gallops back into the room, the cat dashing ahead, and tosses an end of the blanket to Ellie. They arrange it over the carpet as Henry and George manoeuvre the tree into place. They lay it down, its branches fanning out and creeping under the sofa and coffee table. The cat jumps on top, kneading the green bulk before it settles down purring.

  Ellie sets her hands on her hips. ‘Right. Dottie, show George where the saw is in the cellar. This is going to take some planning.’

  ***

  Henry rises out of his armchair and yawns as he stretches. He sets his sherry glass on the coffee table and stands in front of the tree. ‘You’ve done a grand job, girls.’

  Ellie glares at her sister. ‘No thanks to Dottie.’

  Dottie grimaces at Ellie from the carpet, where she’s curled up petting the cat. ‘Stringing popcorn is boring. And you always move where I put the baubles anyway.’

  ‘The colours need to balance. You can’t put all the red decorations together. It doesn’t look right.’

  ‘Spoken like a true artist.’ Henry taps Dottie’s foot with his slipper. ‘Time for bed, pet. We’ll be up early for Christmas Mass.’

  Dottie groans. ‘Oh, Poppy, do we have to? Can’t we just open presents and have a nice breakfast, play charades and listen to the king? Why do we always have to go to boring old mass?’

  ‘Because we’re good Catholics and we have to set an example for the boys who are boarding at St Bart’s over Christmas.’

  ‘Best listen to your father, Dottie,’ George says as he collects the last of the sawn-off branches.

  Rising to her feet, Dottie picks up the cat and buries her face into its patchwork fur. ‘I guess we better go, Berkeley.’ Dottie smiles at George. ‘Thanks for helping with the tree, George, even if you did have to saw off three feet.’

  George makes an exaggerated bow. ‘Always at your service, Dottie.’

  Dottie glances at a box wrapped in brown paper under the tree with a tag: To Dottie From George. ‘What did you get me, George?’

  ‘You’ll find that out in the morning, pet,’ Henry says as he heads towards the hallway. He waves his rolled-up newspaper in the air. ‘Goodnight, all. Happy Christmas. Come along, Dottie. Thank George for the present.’

  Dottie waves Berkeley Square’s paw at George. ‘Goodnight. Thank you for the present. I’m sure I’ll love it.’

  Ellie collects the empty sherry glass. ‘Can I get you anything else, George? I should be getting to bed too.’

  George clears his throat. Reaching into his pocket, he takes out a small box wrapped in the same brown paper. ‘I … I just wanted to give you this, El.’

  ‘Oh, George, you really didn’t have to. I haven’t anything for you.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He holds out the box. ‘Please, open it.’

  Sighing, she takes the box. She tears off the paper and lifts off the cardboard cover. ‘Oh, my word.’

  George removes the ring with its tiny diamond from the box. Kneeling on one knee, he holds it up to Ellie. ‘Will you marry me, Ellie? I’ve been an idiot. I’ll never forgive myself for taking you for granted. I’ve got to thank Thomas, because it took that … that situation to knock some sense into me. I love you, Ellie.’ He clears his throat again. ‘Will you be my wife?’

  Ellie’s stares at George’s earnest face, at the neatly combed bl
ack hair with its slick of hair oil, at the solemn brown eyes behind his tortoiseshell glasses. ‘George, I—’

  ‘Looks like I got here in the nick of time.’ Thomas stands under the archway, tall as ever, but his long, handsome face is leaner and shadowed with the need for a shave.

  ‘Thomas!’ Ellie rushes past the tree and throws herself into his embrace.

  ‘I’m sorry, George,’ Thomas says over Ellie’s shoulder. ‘I’m cutting in.’ He looks back at Ellie. ‘Have you got the marriage licence, maid? I’ve only wangled a few days’ leave.’

  ‘I have! I’ve had it a year. I’ve been waiting for you, Thomas.’

  George rises to his feet. ‘You made me think I had a chance, Ellie. All this time, I thought it was over between you two.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, George. I didn’t mean— We’re just friends, George. I love Thomas. We’re getting married. We’ve been planning to for over a year.’

  George sets the ring into the box and replaces the lid. ‘Just friends? You were never just a friend to me, Ellie. I thought you knew that.’

  Walking past the lovers, he enters the hall and picks his coat off the coat hook. He steps outside onto the stone stoop. A fog sits like a veil over the garden, obscuring all but the tallest Gothic spires of the boys’ school next door. Closing the heavy door quietly behind him, he heads down the steps into the ghostly night.

  ***

  On the top step of the staircase landing, Dottie clings to the banisters as she spies on Ellie and Thomas through the open door of the living room. Berkeley Square steps delicately into her lap. She grabs it by the fur on its neck and pushes it away.

  You promised me, Ellie. You promised me you wouldn’t leave me and Poppy. You cheated on George and you’re a liar too. You’re mean and selfish. I don’t care if you are my sister. I hate you, Ellie. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

  Chapter 41

  Tippy’s Tickle – 16 September 2001

  ‘Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Ellieeeee! Happy birthday to you!’

  Florie parades through the kitchen, the four dachshunds scampering through her legs, carrying Sophie’s and Becca’s towering chocolate cake aflame with tiny candles. She sets the cake on the table.

  ‘There you goes, Ellie. Created by the fair hands of your niece and your granddaughter. I couldn’t get seventy-nine candles on the cake. You’ll just have to pretend.’ She frowns down at the barking dachshunds. ‘Oh, me nerves, girls. You’ll be the death of me yet. Face down in a chocolate cake on the kitchen floor.’

  Jumping up from her chair, Becca signs excitedly at Ellie.

  ‘Of course, Becca,’ Ellie says, signing back. ‘Help me blow out the candles. Hurry! They’re melting into the cake, and it’s such a lovely cake. You and Sophie did a wonderful job.’

  The girl and her grandmother lean over the cake and blow into the flames, extinguishing all but two. Becca signs at her father.

  Sam looks over at Sophie. ‘She wants you to blow those out, Princess Grace.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ Sucking in an exaggerated breath, she blows out the two sputtering candles.

  Ellie picks up a knife and holds it, poised, over the creamy chocolate icing. ‘Help me cut the cake, Becca. None for Rupert or the doxxies. Chocolate’s not good for dogs.’

  ‘None for me, Florie,’ Sophie says, patting her stomach. ‘I could barely zip up my skirt this morning.’

  At the sound of his name, Rupert raises his great black head up from where he’s been snoozing by the door. Turning his head towards the door, he emits a husky woof. The door swings open and Emmett enters, carrying a cloth bag and a guitar.

  ‘There you are, b’y!’ Florie says as she licks icing off her bottom lip. ‘We thought you’d fallen off the wharf. Come in and have some birthday cake. Good, you’ve brought your guitar. We’re all set for a right good kitchen party now.’

  Emmett shuts the door and pulls up a chair next to Sam. He thrusts the cloth bag across the table at Ellie. ‘Happy Birthday, Mam.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Emmy!’ Ellie holds up the bag and shakes it beside her ear. ‘What is it?’

  Emmett frowns. ‘You has to open it.’

  ‘Of course I do. Silly me.’ Opening the bag, she pulls out something wrapped in a red bandana. Untying the bandana, she holds up a spherical vase the size of a basketball, constructed of an intricate design of dark and light wood polished to a soft gleam. ‘Oh, Emmy, it’s lovely!’

  ‘I used bits of wood from Silas Feltham’s old boat and some lobster traps.’ Emmett shrugs. Was just rotting down by the tickle. Figured no one would miss it. Didn’t cost me anything to do.’

  Ellie hands the vase to Sophie who runs her hand over the smooth surface. ‘It must have taken you hours to do this, Emmett. It’s stunning.’

  ‘I gots time.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of making things like this to sell?’ Sophie asks. ‘You could make beautiful objects like this for Sam’s business. People in places like London and New York would spend a lot of money on this kind of quality.’

  Emmett grunts. ‘Why would I wants to do that? I has my own business already. I don’t needs to work for Sam.’

  ‘Well, you could make more money.’

  ‘Where am I gonna spend money here? I gots everything I need.’

  Sam takes the vase from Sophie. ‘There’s more to life than working all hours of the day just to have a bigger house or a fancy car.’

  ‘Everyone needs to earn a living.’

  ‘We manage just fine.’

  ‘But there must be things you want. Things you’d like to be able to afford.’

  ‘Sure.’ Sam turns the vase around in his hands. ‘I’d like a boat like the one we went out in today. I’d like a new pickup truck.’ He shrugs. ‘But I can live without them. They’re not what’s important. I’ve got plenty of work putting in kitchens and bathrooms in Wesleyville and Musgrave Harbour when Emmett doesn’t need help on the boats. And the furniture sells at a fair price when someone buys it. We’re good.’

  He sets the vase on the table and reaches over to hug Becca against his side. She holds out a fork with a large piece of her cake to her father and he takes a bite. He swallows the cake and smiles at Sophie, chocolate crumbs around his mouth. ‘Now, birthday cake is important. Especially if it’s chocolate.’ He picks up a slice of cake and holds it out to Sophie. ‘Go on, Princess Grace. Live a little. Have some of your cake. He takes a bite, icing spreading onto his nose. ‘It’s delicious.’

  Sophie waves her hand at him. ‘No, really. I’m fine.’

  Becca claps her hands and signs to her.

  ‘Becca insists,’ Sam says, approaching her.

  ‘No, Sam. Really …’

  Too late.

  ‘Sam!’ She glares at Sam as she wipes at the icing smeared across her face and licks cake and icing off her lips.

  ‘Ooh, Sam,’ Florie says, sucking the air in between her teeth. ‘You’re playing with fire, there, b’y.’

  Becca jumps around the kitchen clapping her hands, setting the dachshunds off into a chorus of yapping.

  Sophie licks her finger and nods. ‘Wow. You’re absolutely right, Sam. That really is very good chocolate cake. Cut me another piece, will you, Florie?’

  ***

  Emmett picks up the guitar and begins to strum a jig, his long fingers flying over the strings.

  ‘Doxxies are all tucked up in the kennel,’ Florie says as she enters the kitchen through the screen door. ‘Well, now, looks like the party’s started! C’mon, Rupert, out you go, you big lump. We needs space to stomp about.’ She beckons to Becca. ‘C’mon, duckie. Music’s started. That’s our cue.’

  Becca runs ahead of Florie out into the hallway. A few minutes later, the reedy bellowing of an accordion and a tinny jangling announce their return. They march into the room and around the table, Florie pounding out a harmony to Emmett’s jig on the accordion. Becca jabs what looks like a rubber-boote
d mop hung with bottle caps onto the floor while she hits the caps with a drumstick.

  Sophie points to the stick. ‘What on earth is that?’

  ‘It’s an Ugly Stick,’ Sam says as he pulls a harmonica out of the pocket of his jean jacket. ‘It’s not a kitchen party without one.’ He joins in on the harmonica as Ellie drums out the rhythm on the table top with her hands.

  Emmett segues into another spirited tune, similar to the Irish music Sophie had heard once in a Dublin pub, when she’d been entertained by an Irish client who’d had more on his mind than the design of his restaurant. Becca thrusts the Ugly Stick and drumstick at her.

  ‘Have a go, Sophie,’ Ellie says. ‘Go on.’

  Sophie stares at the disfigured mop. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly. I don’t know how.’

  Becca brushes her right hand twice against the back of her left.

  ‘It’s easy, Princess Grace,’ Sam says as he gets up to get some more beer from the fridge. ‘Just bash at it.’

  ‘Thump it on the floor, duck, and whack it with the drumstick,’ Florie says as she squeezes a tune out of the accordion.

  Sophie jabs the Ugly Stick’s rubber boot onto the linoleum. She whacks at the bottle caps, releasing a tinny jangle.

  ‘There you goes, duckie,’ Florie says as taps her foot to the music. ‘You’re a natural. You don’t needs any talent at all to plays the Stick.’

  Ellie taps Becca’s shoulder. ‘Come on, sweetie. Let’s go dance.’

  Becca sits on the floor and pulls off her running shoes. Soon, the two of them are stamping their feet and twirling around the kitchen floor as Rupert adds a baseline of woofs from outside on the porch.

  ***

  Florie picks up the dozing child. ‘Time for bed, duckie. School day tomorrow.’

  Sam glances at his watch. ‘Sorry, Florie. Lost track of time. We should be going.’