Emma is shocked. She knows there is nothing she can say that will help, but she says it anyway. ‘Oh, Tamas, I’m so sorry.’ Then she reaches out and rubs the big man’s shoulder.
‘My husband died just over a year ago,’ she tells him. ‘He had an undiagnosed heart condition.’ It is the first time she has volunteered this information to anyone. It feels like a small offering to a man who has lost his daughter– a man she didn’t even thank for finding out about the Bealings.
‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ Tamas says.
Emma is moved by his quiet formality. It seems very unlike the man who bounds and stamps his way into the Cabin delivering their flowers.
He looks away, out of the window. Without turning around, he says, ‘It is a journey you are on. Do not try to travel all of it on your own. This is what I say to Berta.’ He pauses for some moments. ‘I am not sure she is listening to me. I think perhaps she does not wish to travel with me.’ With this he gives a shake of his head and turns and leaves.
Emma watches him striding away down the path. Then she looks under the counter for theBack in 5 minutessign, hangs it on the outside of the door and goes to find Betty.
Chapter 24
Violet
Periwinkles
They are playing a waiting game. She is waiting for a letter to tell her if she can come for an interview. Her mother is waiting for the money order to be delivered for her work on board ship.
Her mother sits on the bottom step of the stairs, watching the letterbox, her toes tapping. She is humming to herself but they can’t catch the tune. She and her sister sit on the top step, watching their mother watching. Her mother has always loved games and she can magic them from the air. She makes a game out of sharing and a game out of doing without– she is very good at that one. Now she is playing the waiting game. The feet tapping in time to her private song are wearing her second-best boots. They are part of the game, too.
If the money order comes, then the running will start. Her brothers are home now and ready to go; they have played this game many times before and know just what to do. They raced in the back yard to find the fastest runner, tripping and shouting as they ran up and down. She thought her mother might fall out of the window, leaning out and calling to them, clapping her hands for the winners and losers alike and blowing them all a kiss.
The fastest runner has been chosen, and when the money order comes, he must run the first leg in the game. Down the alley, past the church, up the hill to the pawnbrokers where sits a pair of handsewn boots in the window. He must take the money order with him and race back with the change– shillings and pence– and the boots, of course. Her mother will want to be wearing them when the game ends.
When the money is back, runner number two must set off for the butchers at the end of the street and runner number three to the market, dodging between the carts and horses. Runner number three is usually her youngest brother. Small and quick, he never lets anyone cheat him out of what is his due.
Runner number four, slow and strong, will go to the coal merchant, trusted to carry the weight without spilling a single lump.
Now, the boys are stomping and stamping in the yard, like young colts ready to be off. They just have to wait for the game to start.
If the postman does not come, the game will not be spoilt. Runner number one will race to the pawnbrokers with her mother’s periwinkle broach, and runner number two will buy scraggy mutton rather than beef for dinner. As her mother always says, ‘God never shuts one door without opening another’.
She tries to imagine God reaching out to open their front door, but the hand she sees grasping the brass door handle isn’t God’s but her mother’s.
Chapter 25
Emma
Cerise Bougainvillea
‘Now this is nice. A day out, just the two of us. Not that I don’t love a bit of time with Les, but it’s not the same, is it? Men. They don’t always want to chat about the same things. I must say this is a very comfortable car. I had to give up my Mini when we bought the garden centre. Not practical really, although I once got a seven-foot Christmas tree in the back. I did laugh, and you should have seen Les’s face. But as he said, ‘Betsy, you need the right tools for the right job’. That was true, of course and the van is just the ticket. But quite hard on the backside when you’ve been driving for a while. I suppose it’s the suspension– it doesn’t have the give– not like these modern cars…’
They have only been driving for ten minutes, and Emma is already regretting asking Betty to come with her. It will be another two hours before they get to Stamford, which is where she has arranged to meet Tamas’s contact, Jane. She cannot think what has got into Betty.
‘Now, what music have you got here? It’s nice to have a bit of music when you’re driving. It’s one of the few times I sing: church at Christmas, the shower and in the van. You can really belt out a song driving along on your own. When I’m coming back from my sister’s, I put a bit of Elvis on. After all, there’s no one to hear me and it makes the journey go in a flash. Let’s have a look … um … I’ve never heard of them. Ah, Adele, you can’t go wrong with Adele. Even Les doesn’t mind me playing her in the bungalow…’
In the garden centre, Betty’s conversation flows gently like a stream. Now, trapped in the car, it swirls and buffets Emma until she opens her window just to hear the rush of air passing by.
‘You might want to put the window up, love– you won’t feel the benefit of the air-conditioning.’ Betty’s newly ironed hummingbird T-shirt is starting to wilt in the heat.
As they pass Northampton, Betty moves on to firing questions at her instead, and Emma starts to miss the monologue. Betty asks about where she grew up, about her previous work. ‘Fancy that, a scientist and a linguist. And you spent two years in Italy and France, you say…’
Then she progresses to family: does she have any brothers or sisters? Emma tells her about Guy in Singapore. She can sense what is coming next– parents. And sure enough, this is Betty’s next question. Emma has no desire to talk about her mother, but she does tell Betty about her dad and his love of gardening.
‘So you two were close, then?’
‘Yes, but we didn’t spend hours talking. I don’t know. It just worked– if that makes any sense?’ Emma knows she is not expressing herself very well, but smiles, remembering. ‘When I helped him in the garden, we could go for hours without talking.’
