The English Wife

by Adrienne Chinn

‘Great. That’s great. I’m happy for you.’

  Raising her hands, she signs the words she’s been practising: ‘How’s Becca? Is she well?’

  Sam signs back: ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Sophie folds her right hand and moves it over her chest in a circle, then she spells out Sam’s name with her fingers. ‘I’m sorry about what happened.’

  Sam nods. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I think she’s forgotten all about it. She was just a kid.’

  He looks out over the tickle’s rippled blue water. ‘So, Princess Grace, what brings you back after all these years? I wouldn’t flatter myself that you’ve come to see me, and, knowing you, I don’t imagine it’s a holiday.’

  Her stomach jolts. How does he know? Can he read me that easily? She can’t tell him about the hotel. At least, not yet. She needs to handle this carefully. It affects everyone in the town, not just Sam. Say the wrong thing, to the wrong person, and the locals will dig their heels in and refuse to budge. A luxury hotel in the centre of Tippy’s Tickle is an idea that she needs to introduce when she’s warmed them up, planted some seeds. The closure of the fish processing plant is a windfall of good luck. The hotel will bring jobs, she’ll tell them; she’ll get the consortium on board with that somehow. Jobs bring money. And money, despite what they say, can definitely bring happiness. Or, at least something close to it.

  ‘Well, you’re wrong, Sam. I needed a break and I know Aunt Ellie’s birthday is coming up. I know I’ve been rubbish keeping in contact with her, so I thought it was time to come to see you all.’ She glances towards the store. ‘Though not particularly Emmett.’ She rests her elbow on the boat hull. ‘I’ve done nothing but work for the past ten years. I love my job, but I want more balance in my life. Otherwise someday my headstone will say “Here lies Sophie Parry. She worked herself to death”.’

  ‘So you figured you’d get some balance by coming here.’

  ‘Why not? I used to draw and paint when I was younger. My mother said I was like Aunt Ellie that way. I really enjoyed picking it up again with Aunt Ellie the last time I was here. I’ve actually kept it up since I’ve been in New York. I’ve just signed up for a painting class, too. I thought I’d spend some time working on some sketches up here. Maybe one day I’ll be good enough to have an exhibition.’ She waves her hand over the view of the tickle and the rocky shoreline with its spattering of colourful houses and wind-bent trees. ‘If I can’t find inspiration here, I’m a lost cause.’

  Sam rubs his forehead. ‘Well, you can do what you like, but don’t distract Becca. She’s studying for her entrance exams for med school. She wants to study at Memorial next year.’

  ‘Oh, I’d never do that, Sam. I know how important it is to be focused.’

  Sam looks at Sophie and shakes his head. ‘You know, I thought there was something between us.’

  Sophie’s heart jumps. You thought there was something between us? Why didn’t you say anything at the airport? Why didn’t you say anything?

  ‘Sam, you said you couldn’t get involved with someone who lived in a different country because it wouldn’t be fair on Becca. At the airport, when I left. You said something about timings and geography. Remember? I remember.’

  Sam sucks in a breath of air between his teeth. ‘I was an idiot, Sophie. Wince said as much.’

  ‘You told Wince? The guy at the garage?’

  He tugs the cloth out of his pocket and starts buffing the boat’s paintwork again. ‘You get in a garage, and you talk.’ He shrugs. ‘I thought you’d come back at some point and I could make it right.’

  Sophie reaches across and rests her hand on Sam’s. ‘But Sam, I have.’

  Chapter 52

  Tippy’s Tickle – 11 August 1947

  Ellie shuts the flimsy wooden door of the outhouse and skirts under a line of washing as she hurries back to the house. She stops to pick several stems of the wild fireweed that shoots up in bright purple banks around the scrubby yard, and swats at the mosquitoes that whine persistently around her head.

  Agnes looks up at her from her knitting as the screen door slams. ‘Don’t be bringin’ those weeds in here, girl! We’ll have bugs all over the kitchen. Was you born on a raft?’

  Ellie looks down at the flowers, her heart sinking. ‘I thought they’d be pretty for Emmy’s birthday.’

  ‘Weeds belongs outside. I’m not havin’ them in my house. Honestly, you’re as stunned as a dead cat sometimes, girl.’

  Ellie feels the heat rise in her cheeks. Nothing she did was right. She couldn’t sew a seam straight enough, or make dumplings plump enough, or find berries ripe enough when they were out berry picking in the marshes.

  ‘I always had flowers in the house at home in England. My father loves them.’

  ‘There’s no accounting for people’s ignorance. You wants the place crawlin’ with ants or worse?’

  ‘That never happened in England.’

  ‘There we goes again about England. England this and England that. Why don’t you do us a favour and go back there where you belongs?’

  Ellie blinks back the tears that threaten to spill over her hot cheeks. She was doing her best. But nothing she did was good enough for Agnes. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes. I thought they’d be nice.’

  ‘Well, I’m not chancin’ any bugs in here. Throw them out.’

  Her shoulders slumping in defeat, Ellie wipes the back of her hand across her eyes and opens the screen door. Out on the porch she closes her eyes and raises her face to the cool breeze blowing in from the ocean. If only she could go back to England. Persuade Thomas to pack up and leave this wretched place. But that would never happen. Not least because they’d never be able to afford to.

  She’s lost herself. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. Where’s the Ellie who’d dodged bombs and who’d driven through the devastation left by the Baedeker raids with supplies for the firemen in the Auxiliary Fire Service? Where’s the Ellie who used to giggle with Ruthie at the latest Marx Brothers film or swing around the dance floors of the Samson or the Lido? Where’s the artist? The daughter? The sister? Who am I?

  She swats at a mosquito with the bouquet of purple fireweed and heads slowly down the wooden steps. On the final step, she stops.

  This isn’t right. This is my home, too. I’m Ellie Parsons. I’m the wife of your son, Agnes. I’m a mother to Emmett. I’m Eleanor Mary Burgess Parsons. I’m a woman and I intend to live my best life, Agnes Parsons. I live here now. You’ll just have to get used to the idea, because I’m not going anywhere.

  She juts out her jaw and pulls back her shoulders. There’s nothing wrong with bringing some flowers into the house. Into my house.

  Ellie stomps up the steps and pulls open the screen door. Tossing the flowers onto the table, she heads over to the cupboard, shoving the pots and pans aside until she finds what she’s looking for.

  ‘What kind of racket do you think you’re makin’, girl? My teeth are fit to rattle out of my head.’

  If you had any teeth left, you old bat. Ellie dips the metal pitcher into the bucket of water by the stove and sets it on the table. Picking up the flowers she sticks them into the pitcher.

  Agnes sets down her knitting and glares at Ellie over the top of her glasses. ‘What are you, deaf as a cod, maid? Didn’t I tells you to throw them out?’

  ‘You did, indeed.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘But I fancy them, and I truly don’t see the harm in having a few flowers in the house.’

  Agnes shoves the knitting aside and pushes herself out of the armchair. ‘Are you givin’ me lip, girl?’

  Ellie folds her fingers around the back of a wooden chair to steady herself. ‘I am not. This is my home, too, and I’d like to have a few flowers for Emmy’s birthday.’

  Agnes’s mouth falls open. ‘You … you—’

  The thud of footsteps on the back porch. The screen door flies open and Ephraim strides into the kitchen, scratching his neck. ‘Jaysus God, those skeeters are some thick.’ He throws a stac
k of dried cod onto the table. ‘Well, look at that.’ He bends over and sniffs at the flowers. ‘Aren’t those lovely. Cheers the place right up.’

  A smile tugs at the corners of Ellie’s mouth as she glances over at Agnes. ‘Yes, don’t they? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go check on Emmy.’

  ***

  Ellie roots through the baking sheets and muffin tins in the cupboard beside the stove. ‘Have you seen the cake tins, Agnes? I’m sure I saw them here just the other day.’

  The kitchen is silent except for the click of Agnes’s knitting needles.

  Ellie rises to her feet. ‘Agnes? Have you seen the cake tins? I need to bake Emmy’s birthday cake.’

  Agnes peers over at Ellie, her pale eyes as hard as the ice of a ballycatter along the shore. ‘Hasn’t seen them.’

  ‘Martha Fizzard hasn’t borrowed them?’

  ‘Martha Fizzard’s gots her own.’

  Ellie kneels down on the faded green linoleum and pulls the contents out of the cupboard until they’re stacked around her like a fortress. ‘They’re not here.’

  ‘You must’a put them somewhere else last time you used them. If it wasn’t for your lack of sense, you’d have no sense at all.’

  ‘I put them back here. I know I did.’

  ‘Looks like there’ll be no birthday cake today.’

  ‘But Emmy’ll be so disappointed.’

  Agnes holds up a knitted needle with half a toddler’s pink wool jumper. ‘The baby’s only three. He doesn’t knows what he doesn’t know.’

  ‘You hid them, didn’t you, Agnes.’

  ‘Never did any such thing.’

  Rising to her feet, Ellie steps over the piles of pots and pans and pulls open the screen door.

  ‘Where’d you think you’re goin’, miss? You left a mess there in the kitchen.’

  ‘It’s Emmy’s birthday, and he’s going to have a birthday cake.’ The screen door slams behind her as she hurries across the yard and down the steps to the Fizzards’ house by the tickle.

  That spiteful old woman! First the flowers and now the cake tins.

  She says the words over and over again in her head as she makes her way to the Fizzards’: This is my home, too. This is my home, too. This is my home, too.

  Chapter 53

  Tippy’s Tickle – 12 September 2011

  ‘Have you spoken to them?’

  Sophie glances at her bedroom door and turns down the volume on her laptop. ‘Give me some time. I’ve only just arrived, Richard. I have to find the right way to do this. Most of the people in Tippy’s Tickle have been living here all their lives. It’s their home.’

  Richard removes his round, black-framed glasses. He huffs on the glass and wipes the lenses with a white handkerchief. ‘Sophie, we don’t have time. You know what we can offer. It’s more than generous. I don’t know why you’re making this so complicated. We only need the land around that big house on the cliff and access to the water for the marina. For a start, anyway. What’s that? Three, four properties? Everyone else can stay in their shacks, for all I care. Believe me, those folks will think they’ve won the lottery. They’ll be lining up once we start handing out the money.’

  He picks up a tiny white china espresso cup in a thick-fingered hand and sips the coffee. He sets down the cup in its saucer, the chink of china resonating over the Skype connection. ‘I’ve got a meeting with the consortium Friday afternoon here in the boardroom at two. I want to give them some good news, Sophie.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Richard slides his glasses up the bridge of his large Roman nose. ‘Failure isn’t an option.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Richard shrugs, the neck of his black turtleneck sweater swamping his chin. ‘If you don’t get every one of those people signing up to sell by Friday, don’t bother coming back to New York.’

  ***

  Becca runs up the road from the cottage towards Sam’s pickup truck, Bear loping at her heels, a stuffed dinosaur, frayed and faded, in his mouth. Standing with her hand on the pickup’s door handle, Sophie watches the girl approach; tall, like Sam, and so pretty in the loose floral cotton dress and oversized blue sweater embroidered with fabric flowers, her fine blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Sophie waves at her, signing, ‘Hello, Becca.’

  Becca nods politely at Sophie, her eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses the steely blue of a winter sea. ‘Hello, Sophie. How are you?’ she signs.

  ‘I’m well. It’s nice to see you.’

  A shadow of a smile flicks across Becca’s face, then she climbs into the back of the pickup truck with Bear, making a nest for herself amongst the easels and blankets.

  Florie hands Sophie a wicker picnic basket and a yapping dachshund. ‘Here you goes, maid. Make sure Hildy doesn’t get into the food. She almost had my finger off this morning when I was makin’ the cheese sandwiches.’

  Sam turns the key in the ignition. The engine sputters and chokes. He tries again, and the engine engages with a gritty whine. He leans out of the window. ‘Get in or we’ll miss the sun. It’s going to rain later.’

  ‘Sit in the front with Sam,’ Ellie says, coming up beside Sophie. ‘I get nervous when we’re driving along the coast. I’ll sit in the back with Florie.’

  Sophie glances through the window at Sam, who is twisting the radio knob through a range of static. When she’d put her hand on his earlier, he’d pulled away.

  What did you expect, Sophie? That he’d declare his love for you and you’d live happily ever after?

  ‘Are you sure, Aunt Ellie?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She nudges Sophie’s shoulder. ‘Go.’

  Sophie climbs into the passenger seat beside Sam. Glancing into the rear-view mirror, she catches Becca’s eye and smiles, but the girl turns away.

  Chapter 54

  Tippy’s Tickle – 24 July 1948

  ‘You sees how I’m doin’ it, Emmy? You takes the penknife and you just skims the wood a bit at a time till it’s smooth as margarine.’ Thomas hands the small carving to his son. ‘Does that feels like margarine to you, son?’

  ‘Yes, Da’.’

  ‘What does you think it looks like?’

  Emmett runs his fingers over the curves and something that looks like a beak. ‘A bird?’

  Thomas tousles Emmett hair. ‘It is a bird, b’y. Aren’t you a clever clogs? We’ll gets your mam to paint it up for you, so it looks one of the puffins we saw down the coast.’

  Emmett’s round face crumples into a frown. ‘There’s no wings.’ He sticks a finger into a hole on the side of the carving. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s where the wings goes. See? There’s a hole on each side.’ Thomas picks up two thin, tapered batons, and hands one to Emmett. ‘Here, son, put the narrow ends in the holes.’ Holding the bird’s round body steady, he helps Emmett slot the batons into the holes. He sets the tall wooden stand he’s carved on the table.

  ‘You sees how the bird has a nice round base likes a ball?’

  Emmett nods.

  ‘And you sees how the stand has a curve in it like a saucer? Now, you puts the bird on top. Don’t knock off those wings.’

  Emmett carefully sets the bird on top of the stand until the long baton wings splay out either side. He clutches the bird’s round body. ‘It’ll fall off, Da’.’

  ‘Let go, son. It won’t fall, I promises you.’

  Emmett releases the wooden bird. Thomas taps the bird’s plump body, setting it teetering wildly on top of the stand.

  ‘It’ll fall!’

  ‘It won’t, Emmy. See these wings? They’re balancing the body. It’ll just roll around and go back and forth, but it won’t fall off.’

  A knock on the store’s door. A waft of hot baking. Ellie walks in with a basket covered in a tea towel. ‘How are my boys? I brought you some tea buns fresh out of the oven.’ She sets down the basket on the battered wooden table. ‘Well, look at that. Isn’t that clever?’

>   ‘You needs to paint it likes a puffin, Mammy.’

  ‘I can do that, Emmy. Daddy will just need to find me some paint.’ She unwraps the tea towel and sets out the tea buns on a plate with a pat of margarine, a jar of home-made partridgeberry jam and a knife.

  ‘That smells good enough to tempt a saint, maid.’

  ‘I thought you might like a snack,’ Ellie says, slicing open a tea bun. She slathers it with margarine and jam and hands one half to Emmett and the other to Thomas. ‘You’ve been in here for hours.’

  Thomas lifts the tea towel and peeks into the basket. ‘You didn’t bring any beer, did you, maid?’

  ‘You and Ephraim drank the last of it last night. All eight bottles.’

  ‘Fishing’s thirsty work.’

  ‘Yes, but every night, Thomas? If you’re not drinking up Agnes’s beer, you’re off down at Rod Fizzard’s or Jim Boyd’s.’

  ‘Don’t be getting on at me, Ellie Mae. It helps me with the pain in my leg. It’s part of life here, anyway. Keeps us cheerful.’

  ‘The women don’t drink.’

  ‘Women don’t needs to drink.’

  ‘Thomas—’

  The door swings open and Ephraim enters the store. ‘You can smell those buns all the way to Jim Boyd’s.’ He pulls up a chair to the table. ‘Is it good, Emmy, b’y?’

  Emmett nods as he licks jam off his lip. ‘Looks what Da’ made.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that a lovely thing.’

  ‘Push it, Grandpa.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Emmy, b’y. It’ll fall right off.’

  ‘It won’t, Grandpa. Look.’ Emmett pokes at the carved bird, setting it teetering around the stand.

  Ephraim whistles. ‘Well, isn’t that a clever thing?’

  Ellie hands her father-in-law a buttered tea bun. ‘Have you heard anything about the referendum results? I heard Archbishop Roche was dead against Newfoundland joining Canada.’

  ‘Jim had the radio goin’ in the shop. Big crowd there listenin’. Most of the Catholics on the Avalon Peninsula listened to that old fella. They mostly all voted for independence, though some of them was upset they couldn’t vote to join the States like’s been talked up these past months.’