The English Wife

by Adrienne Chinn

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  Sam sets out the cribbage board on the coffee table with a stack of playing cards. ‘There you go. Red or blue?’

  ‘You want me to play cribbage with you?’ she repeats.

  ‘Look, Sophie. You’re right. You’re leaving tomorrow. I was … I thought … Well, never mind. Cribbage is much better than sex, anyway.’

  I like him. I like him a lot.

  Sliding off the hanging chair, Sophie steps over the snoring dog and sits on the sofa. ‘I’ll be red.’

  ***

  Sophie turns to Sam at the porch door. ‘Thanks, Sam. That was fun.’

  ‘Ah, to think you’ll always think of me as the man who introduced you to cribbage.’

  She laughs. ‘It was fun. Really. I never have a chance to just … to just be easy. It was easy tonight, with you.’

  ‘That’s me. I’m easy.’ The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles. ‘Or, I could be if you’d let me.’

  Sophie laughs. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  They stand for a moment, the silence broken only by the thundering waves on the beach below. ‘So, I’ll call a taxi in the morning.’

  ‘No, I’ll drive you.’

  ‘On the bike?’

  Sam raises his eyebrows in mock offence. ‘Don’t you like Miss Julie? There’s always the old pickup truck, but she could go at any minute.’

  ‘Miss Julie is fine.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you back to Ellie’s?’

  ‘No, she’s just up the hill.’

  ‘Okay. Watch out for those fairies.’

  ‘I will.’

  Sam shuts the door behind her. She turns towards the path. The waves crash on the beach below and the branches of the spruce trees whip around her in the growing wind.

  She turns back to the cottage. The door opens before she’s finished knocking.

  ‘I don’t have a heart of ice.’

  ‘I never thought you did.’

  Chapter 44

  Monte Cassino, Italy – 19 March 1944

  Thomas presses himself against the jagged limestone of the castle’s remaining wall. The burnt-out shell of the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino – immolated to sacrificial rubble in the Allied bombing of the previous month – lies ahead on the crest of Monte Cassino, now a nest for the German paratroopers who have dug in, allowing them eagle-eyed views of the smaller Hangman’s Hill and Castle Hill below. The strains of a gramophone recording of ‘Besame Mucho’ drift down from the monastery, filtering through the barrage of Allied artillery guns.

  He glances to the south towards Naples. The ink-black sky is washed with a glow of yellow and red where Vesuvius is throwing its innards into the sky. Too far away for them to worry about. There were other things to worry about. Like taking Hangman’s Hill without ending up like one of the poor suckers rotting on the rocky hillsides, their bodies blackened by the creosote poured over them to cover the stench.

  He fingers the cluster of wilted green weeds pinned to his uniform lapel. ‘Italian shamrocks,’ Father Ryan had said as he’d handed them out for St Patrick’s Day. St Patrick’s Day and his own birthday. Happy Birthday to me. And not even a Catholic.

  He closes his eyes and tries to draw Ellie’s face in his mind. Her hair the colour of the sandy beach at Lumsden, her eyes the blue-grey of an August sky over the North Atlantic shore. He breathes deeply, searching for the elusive lavender of her scent. The fingers of his right hand twitch, remembering the warmth of her skin and the hills and valleys of her body.

  Machine gun fire blasts through the sharp pre-dawn air from the direction of Hangman’s Hill, setting off a response from the Essex Regiment and the Newfoundlanders edging their way over the craters and rubble to the hill.

  ‘You ready, Tommy?’ Charlie Murphy adjusts the chinstrap of his helmet and picks up his rifle.

  ‘It’s madness, Charlie. They’re gonna pick us off like ducks on a pond if we tries to attack the monastery from Hangman’s Hill. They’ll have a clear view of us from up there.’

  ‘Don’t I knows it, b’y. But you gotta do what they says. We’re just soldiers.’ A thick cloud of white smoke wafts through the rubble of the castle from the smoke bombs being lobbed at the hills from the divisions below. Charlie coughs and waves at the smoke. ‘Holy Joe, how are we meant to see where we’re goin’ through this stuff? We won’t be able to see the white tape the engineers laid out on the path.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that, Charlie, the tape’s blown to hell. We’ll just have to try to figure out where to step. If you blows up, I’ll knows not to step there.’

  Thomas reaches into his tunic pocket and pulls out a metal flask. He unscrews the top and takes a long swig. He taps it on Charlie’s rifle. ‘Here you goes, b’y. Have some Dutch courage. You knows what they says, you gotta be a drunk or an idiot to be a soldier, and I knows I’m not an idiot.’

  ***

  Thomas and Charlie follow the others down the side of Castle Hill, stumbling past bomb craters and the smashed mountain stone. The bodies of Allied and German soldiers killed in the battles of the previous week litter the hill like debris, and Thomas is glad of the black night and the thick smoke that cloaks them from view. They are a few metres up Hangman’s Hill when a grenade crashes onto the hill above them, sending out shards of stone like daggers. A split second of silence, then the screams as men jolt back to consciousness. It’s true what they says. We all cries for our mothers and our lovers in the end.

  A blast of machine gun fire. Men falling through the smoke. Thomas grabs Charlie’s arm and they run towards an opening in the mountain face. Bullets ricochet off the stone around them as they dodge into the crevice and flatten themselves against the ground.

  ‘Holy, Jaysus, God,’ Charlie says as he pants into the dust.

  Outside, the air is a mash of the throbbing artillery guns, exploding grenades and blasts of machine gun fire. And the screams and cries of men.

  ‘We’d best lie low, Charlie. Till things calm down.’

  ‘Like I was ever gonna go out there, b’y. There’s no way in hell. I intends to live a long, long life.’ He lifts his head and yells towards the opening. ‘You bloody bastards!’

  A whizz. A ricochet. A gasp.

  Charlie slumps against Thomas, his eyes wide in surprise, a trickle of blood tracing down his cheek from the neat hole in his forehead.

  ***

  ‘Tommy? Komm nach draussen, Tommy.’

  A stone rolls into the crevice. Thomas’s heart beats a drum in his chest. Another stone hops along the ground, stopping an inch from his nose. His fingers turn white where they grip the barrel and trigger of his rifle. So, this is how it ends. Tom Parsons and Charlie Murphy dead on Hangman’s Hill. They couldn’t put that on their gravestones. His mam wouldn’t have that, that’s for sure. It would have to be something more … heroic. The dawn is colouring the sky above the smoke pink. He has a clear view of Monte Cassino and the ruined monastery, sitting like a pink pearl above the fog. Maybe heaven looked like this. Maybe he was already halfway there.

  Rising to his feet, he takes a deep breath. I’m sorry, Ellie Mae. I’m sorry.

  He runs out of the crevice, just as a grenade explodes outside. His body is in the air. Then he hits the ground hard, his head smashing against a rock. He is falling. Falling. And then, nothing.

  ***

  Thomas opens his eyes. He has landed amongst the branches of a long-dead bush on the hillside. His body is a map of pain, but none of it as bad as the fire emanating from his right boot. Raising his head, he sees his boot, bloated and distorted like a blown-out tyre. Above it his leg is a pulp of bone and shredded skin and wool. He falls back against the branches. His head throbs and he raises his hand to his forehead. When he looks at his hand it’s like it’s been dipped in a tin of red paint. Cold is seeping into his body. He shivers. He hopes it won’t take long.

  He drifts. He’s in Cow Tower with E
llie. Moonlight streams in through the open roof, lighting her face in a silver glow. She takes his hand and guides it to her stomach. Her blue-grey eyes watch him as he cups the roundness.

  ‘Our child,’ she says. ‘We’re having a child.’

  A flash of white light and his body is lifted as the explosion smashes into the hill beside him. His eyes fly open. The barrage goes off around him like an orchestra of war. Then, just as suddenly the guns stop.

  He closes his eyes and lets his body float in the emptiness opening up to him. He is lying on a raft that is being pulled over the sea, bumping and dipping as the raft slides over the waves. He turns his head and sees the barnacled grey-black skin of a humpback whale slide into the sea. He’d had no idea there were whales in heaven. He turns his head to the other side and catches the dark eye of another whale before it disappears into the deep green waves.

  When he wakes he is in a cave. There are others there, wounded, like him. They are moaning and crying out for their mothers and their lovers. In German.

  A medical orderly leans over him. He removes Thomas’s helmet and wraps newspaper around his head. He says something to another orderly when he looks at Thomas’s leg. The word echoes around Thomas’s head like a ricocheting bullet.

  Kaput. Kaput. Kaput.

  Chapter 45

  Tippy’s Tickle – 17 September 2001

  ‘Good morning, Princess Grace.’

  Sophie opens her eyes. She smiles. ‘Good morning.’

  Sam sits on the bed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, holding two mugs. ‘Coffee? Milk, no sugar, right?’

  Sophie stretches under the tangle of sheets and sits up against the pillows. The large bed almost fills the room, its wooden headboard further evidence of Sam’s woodworking skills. Tucking a sheet around her body, she holds out a hand. ‘Thanks. That’s perfect.’

  Sam watches her take a sip and smiles, fine lines fanning out from his dark eyes as his tanned, bearded face softens. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘I like you like this.’

  Sophie runs her hand across her face. ‘I must look a mess. Is my mascara all smudged?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You look cute.’

  ‘Cute?’ She hands him back the mug. ‘I’ve never been accused of being cute before. Now I have to look.’

  Sam sets the mugs down on a wooden chair beside the bed and reaches out for Sophie’s arm as she kicks at the sheets. Clambering over the covers, he rolls on top of her.

  ‘Sam. Sam, what are you doing?’

  ‘Just looking.’

  Sophie flops back on the bed and watches him as he spreads her hair across the pillow. His eyes are lit with something she’s never seen in them before. Her stomach jolts, setting off the familiar anxiety in her solar plexus, like moths beating frantically for an escape. Oh shit.

  He leans into her, pressing kisses, as light as a breath, along her neck.

  She swallows. ‘I’m leaving soon, Sam. Today. I’m leaving today.’

  ‘I know,’ he says as he traces kisses along her jaw.

  ‘I’m … I’m not sure this is a good idea.’

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  She shudders as a buzz runs up her body. ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ***

  Sophie stands at the window and sips her coffee as she rubs the flannel sleeve of one of Sam’s plaid shirts. Outside, just visible beyond the wooden railings of a deck and over the tops of the spruces growing below the hill, a sandy beach curves along the shoreline, framed by a green-black backdrop of conifers. Tickle-aces duck and glide over the choppy water, peeling away like Spitfire pilots when a bald eagle spins into the cove, claws outstretched, and plucks a squirming fish from the water. If only I could stay. But I can’t. I just can’t.

  ‘I see you found the coffee pot.’

  She turns around. ‘Yes. I had to step over Rupert in the kitchen to get to it. Much better than the coffee in the store.’ She nods towards the wood burner. ‘Fire’s out.’

  Sam walks barefoot out of the bedroom in his jeans and T-shirt, towelling his wet hair. He drops the towel onto the sofa and comes up behind Sophie, wrapping her in his embrace. The scent of soap lingers on his body as his warmth envelops her.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Better.’ She turns around, and reaching her arms around his neck, pulls him into her kiss.

  A crash of glass from the kitchen. Rupert’s deep woof.

  ‘Becca?’

  Becca stands by the kitchen counter, her eyes wide, a river of orange juice snaking across the wooden floor between islands of shattered glass. Spinning around, she dashes towards the porch. The slam of the screen door.

  ‘Becca! Becca, wait!’ Sam races out of the room after his daughter, Rupert galloping behind barking.

  Sophie stands on the braided rug, shivering as the chill of the unheated cottage filters through to her skin. Her stomach jolts and drops, like she is falling through air. Bloody hell, Sophie. What have you done now? She sets the mug down beside the photo of Sam and his family, and stumbles across the braided rug into the bedroom.

  Chapter 46

  Norwich, England – 11 August 1944

  ‘Good heavens.’

  Dottie spins around on the stool at Ellie’s vanity table, the cardboard lipstick tube primed and ready in her fingers. ‘I was just going to use a little bit.’ Her eyes widen. A wet patch spreads out over the Persian rug between Ellie’s slippered feet.

  ‘I think my water just broke.’

  Dropping the lipstick tube on the vanity, Dottie leaps to her feet. ‘Is the baby coming?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. It’s coming.’ Ellie picks at her wet dressing gown and holds it away from her body. ‘You need to call the midwife. The number’s by the phone.’

  ‘The phone’s not working. They still haven’t fixed the line since the storm.’

  Ellie cups her belly and shuffles over to the bed. ‘Hand me a towel, Dottie. Then go over to the school and use their phone.’

  Dottie eyes her sister as she tosses her a towel. ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘A little. I wish Thomas were here.’

  ‘What if he—?’

  ‘Don’t even think it, Dottie. Thomas’s fine. One of these days he’s going to walk through our front door.’

  ‘But you haven’t had a letter for ages.’

  Ellie presses her lips together. ‘Which is a good sign.’

  ‘You could always marry George instead, like you were supposed to.’

  The fine line between Ellie’s eyes deepens. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m married to Thomas.’

  ‘I mean if Thomas—’

  Ellie’s eyes widen and she clutches at her belly. ‘Oh, my word.’ She pants through the pain. ‘Tell the midwife the contractions have started. Hurry, Dottie.’

  ***

  George skirts the bicycle around an enormous pothole in the road outside St Bartholomew’s School and brakes beside a telegraph boy on his black Post Office bike who is squinting at the headmaster’s house behind the gate.

  ‘Are you looking for the Burgesses?’ he asks as he parks the bike by the flint wall.

  The boy’s pillboxed head shakes. ‘No, M-M-Mrs P-P-Parsons.’ He peers at the front of the telegram. ‘Mrs T-Thomas P-P-Parsons.’ He glances up at George. ‘It’s from the W-War Office. I h-hate these ones.’

  ‘I’m going in there now. I can give it to her.’

  ‘I-I’m supposed to w-wait for a r-r-reply.’

  ‘Why don’t you wait here by the gate, and I can let you know if there’s a reply?’

  The boy’s pale face, coloured with a sprinkling of freckles across his nose, floods with relief. He thrusts the telegram at George. ‘T-thank you.’

  George takes the telegram and heads through the gate. Ignoring the broken doorbell, he knocks on the door and reads the address as he waits. Mrs Thomas Parsons. How did that happen? How did he ever let that happen? He’d always thought he and Ellie would be together, fo
rever. He sighs and slips the telegram into his pocket. The War Office. My poor Ellie.

  The door swings open. ‘George!’ Dottie throws her arms around George’s neck and hugs him. ‘You arrived fast! It’s a boy!’

  George disentangles himself. ‘That’s wonderful, Dottie. How are they? How’s Ellie?’

  ‘They’re all fine. Nurse Blackmore said she’d never seen a firstborn in such a hurry to be born. He’s a tiny little thing. She had to give him a really good spanking to get him to cry.’ Dottie purses her lips. ‘Ellie’s called the baby Emmett Thomas. What kind of a name is Emmett?’

  ‘Emmett? That’s a perfectly nice name. It’s my middle name, after Joseph.’ Flipping open the flap of his satchel, he takes out a box of Mcklintock’s chocolates. ‘Give these to Ellie for me, would you, Dottie?’

  Dottie takes the chocolates and grabs George’s hand, tugging him across the polished brass threshold. ‘Why don’t you come in, George? I’ll make some tea. Ellie and the baby are asleep but Poppy’s out in the garden. I’ll call him in.’

  ‘No, don’t disturb him. I just wanted to come by and give my regards. Make sure everyone was all right.’ He reaches into his pocket. ‘I bumped into the telegraph boy at the gate.’ He hands Dottie the envelope. ‘He’s waiting for an answer. It’s from the War Office.’

  Dottie looks up at George. ‘Thomas?’

  George nods. ‘I believe so. You might want to give it to your father.’

  Dottie tears the telegram out of the envelope.

  PRIORITY MRS T A PARSONS

  THE WAR OFFICE REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND CORP THOMAS AUGUSTUS PARSONS HAS BEEN REPORTED WOUNDED AND HAS BEEN TAKEN AS A PRISONER OF WAR – LETTER TO FOLLOW

  ‘Wounded? He’s wounded? I thought he’d be d—’ Dottie bites her lip.

  ‘Dottie!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

  George shakes his head. ‘Poor chap. I hope they’re decent to him.’

  ‘Oh, George. I hate what Ellie did to you. She’s just awful to have thrown you over for …’ Dottie spits out the name like a sour lemon pip ‘… that Thomas.’