Coral Glynn (7 page)

The waiter collected the menus and hastened away.

Major Hart drummed the table with both his hands and looked about the dining room. After a moment he stopped his drumming and raised his beer. “To us,” he said.

She lifted her glass of sherry and sipped. It was unpleasantly sweet and as thick as syrup. It was an odd colour, too: an almost orange robin red.

“Mrs Prence sends her regards,” the Major said.

Coral found this difficult to believe. “Did she?”

“Yes,” said Major Hart. “She did.”

“When will she be leaving?”

“Who?”

“Mrs Prence.”

“Leaving?”

“Yes. She won’t be staying, will she, now that we’re to be married?”

“Of course she will,” he said. “Why would she leave?”

“I just thought—I mean, we won’t need her, will we? It’s only the two of us. We don’t need a cook.”

“Can you cook?”

“A bit,” she said. “And I can learn. I’d like to. I’ve often cooked for myself—simple things.”

“Well, of course you can cook if you’d like—Mother sometimes did—but that doesn’t mean Mrs Prence will be leaving. Hart House is her home. She’s lived there longer than I. Where would she go?”

The waiter returned and carefully lowered a bowl of soup at her place and a silver parfait glass of tiny foetal prawns at his.

A sheen of grease adorned her Scotch broth. She watched it wavering, recovering from its disturbing journey from kitchen to table. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“What don’t you understand?” Major Hart asked, when the waiter had left them.

“Everything!” Coral said. “Why Mrs Prence—”

“I don’t see what’s so difficult to understand.” He pierced one of the prawns with his fork and dandled it in the catsup. Then he lifted his fork and thrust forwards his head and swallowed it.

She said nothing. She rowed her spoon through the greasily iridescent soup.

He eliminated another prawn from the glass in the same savage manner. There was something barbaric about him, she realised. He ate as if the battle had not already been won and the food might bite back at him. He looked at her. “You haven’t tasted your soup. Is it as hot as all that?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is.” One of the tears that were sliding down her face fell in the Scotch broth.

“Coral! You’re crying,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

She laid her soup spoon beside the bowl and stood. “Excuse me,” she said.

*   *   *

When she emerged from the ladies’ he was in the hallway.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” he said. “I sometimes don’t know how to behave about certain things. Many things. You must forgive me.” He extended his arm to touch hers, but something about the way she stood there, her arms folded across her breast, prevented him from completing the action, so that his arm hung in the air between them for a moment, his fingers extended. Then he curled them into a fist and let his hand drop.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just upset.”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. Shall we return to our meal?”

She nodded and followed him back into the dining room. Once again everyone watched her, but their glances were covert, and she felt ashamed. Their soup and prawns had been cleared away. She was glad to see the soup gone; it was good to have the white blank tablecloth between them: a new beginning.

“Is it about Mrs Prence that you are upset?”

“Yes,” she said. “She has been unkind to me. She doesn’t like me.”

“Mrs Prence? That’s very odd. I have always known her to be a very kind woman. And I know my mother felt the same about her. Are you sure? Perhaps you mistook her meaning.”

“I am sure. She has said very unkind things to me.”

“Well, I will speak with her. I am sure there is some misunderstanding between you. Women often misunderstand one another, I am told.”

“I don’t think there is any misunderstanding between us.”

“Of course you don’t,” said the Major. “It is not your fault. Nor hers, I am sure. That is the nature of misunderstanding, isn’t it?”

She was saved from answering him by the appearance of the waiter with their food. When he had left them, Major Hart said, “Have you really got no family?”

For a moment the question confused her, as if there was a trick in it: Could you have none of something? “Yes,” she said. “Well, only my aunt. The one I mentioned.”

“A shame,” he said. “I ask because we’ll need witnesses, of course. I thought there might a relative that could stand up for you.”

“No,” she said.

“A friend, perhaps? You mentioned a girl in London.”

“No,” she said. “We’ve lost touch. There’s no one, really.”

He reached across the table and grasped her hand, squeezed it tenderly. This contact seemed to discomfit them both, so he quickly withdrew his hand and said, “How is your fish?”

“Very nice,” she said. “How is your chop?”

“Adequate,” he said. “Listen, about the witnesses. Seeing as how you’ve got no one, I wonder how you’d feel about using my friends Robert and Dorothy Lofting? They’re lovely people; I was at school with Robin, and Dolly’s mother and mine were close friends. They’re both almost like family to me. They’ll do very nicely for witnesses—that is, if you’re amenable.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Oh, splendid. Splendid! They’ve invited us to dinner this evening, so you can meet them.”

*   *   *

As a result of his injuries, Major Hart had been advised to treat his burns with skin grafts, but the notion of being literally skinned alive so soon after being almost burnt alive seemed barbaric, and he had decided he would rather live with his damaged flesh. And in a sad, curious way, he realised that he even welcomed his disfigurement, for it removed him from the arena of life he most dreaded: he felt that his damaged body disqualified him as a lover and therefore as a spouse, and he felt a great relief at the prospect of thus being excused from love and marriage and all the preliminary and subsequent complications and mortifications they involved. The Major considered himself set irrevocably apart from the world of intimate relationships, and this seemed a mercy to him, for he had never felt comfortable with other people in general and women in particular, and he knew that now no one would expect him to seek a wife. He was like the lame or weak-hearted boys at school, who were excused from games, and stood on the side-lines, cheering on the healthy lads, who bungled one another in the muddy field. But the arrival of Coral at Hart House changed him, and he felt his sense of ardour—which had, he thought, been successfully and permanently repressed—welling inside him. He had exiled love—successfully, he thought—but, like an unwanted dog abandoned miles away, it had come limping home.

Major Hart’s body was nowhere near as repellent as he imagined it to be. His right leg had withered within its metal brace, but the damaged skin was limited to his left leg and chest and upper left arm, yet, he felt the effect was total, in the way that a few prominent cracks in a ceramic vase ruin it entirely. And so the prospect of revealing his body to Coral was terrifying, almost paralyzing. He would have to find a way to turn out all the lights before undressing. But he knew that even the feel of his skin was disturbing. He often touched it himself, lying in bed alone: the dead skin on his torso that had no feeling left, that was as sensitive as linoleum. And then he would touch a patch of skin that had been spared, and the silken softness of it, the electric thrill of the feeling, seemed an even worse shock.

*   *   *

Upstairs in her little room at The Black Swan, Coral opened the silver box, peeled the tissue away, and lifted out the dress. She laid it on the bed. It looked as if a dead person lay there. She thought of Mrs Hart atop her bed, wearing one of her better dresses, waiting for the mortician to take her away.

She took off her clothes and slipped the dress over her head. It had a zipper and many hooks up the back, which she could not reach herself. It seemed very cruel to design a dress that the wearer could not don independently. Who would help her on the day of the wedding? She wondered if she could do up the dress and then wriggle herself into it from beneath. She took it off and tried this but could not fit it down around her bust and shoulders. For a moment she felt trapped within the dress. In her panic to free herself she ripped a seam.

*   *   *

Once again the bell jangled when she opened the door and a voice from behind the beaded curtain called out a greeting. Coral stood inside the door, clutching the silver box to her chest.

“Someone’s just come in,” she heard the voice say. “I’ll ring you back.”

And then the woman appeared through the beaded curtain. “Oh, hallo,” she said. “It’s you. Is everything all right?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Coral.

“Oh, goodness. What’s wrong?”

“The dress—”

“But it looked lovely on you! It fit perfectly.”

“Yes, I know,” said Coral. “But it isn’t right.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I want a dress I can put on myself. I can’t with this one.” She held out the silver box.

“Don’t be silly,” said the woman. “It’s a lovely dress.”

“I know,” said Coral. “But I can’t put it on.”

“Of course you can. You just need to be done up. Surely you can find someone to do you up.”

“I can’t,” said Coral.

“You said you were getting married. You don’t get married alone!”

“It wouldn’t be right for him to do it,” said Coral.

“Well, there will be others about, surely. Your mother, perhaps.”

“My mother is dead.”

“Well, a friend, then. Your maid of honour. Or matron.”

“Do you have a dress I can put on myself?” Coral asked.

“Certainly not! All my dresses are fitted. But this is ridiculous. I have never heard of such a thing. I’ll come do it up for you, if it comes to that.”

“I couldn’t ask you that. I just want a dress I can put on myself.”

“And I tell you I haven’t got such a dress. Besides, part of being a bride is being fawned over. Surely there’s someone—”

“I would like to return this dress,” said Coral.

The woman strode forwards and practically grabbed the box out of her hands. “Very well,” she said. She put the box down on the pouf and opened it. She pulled the dress out of the defiled tissue paper and held it up before her. “In all my years I have never known anything so ridiculous. This dress is absolutely perfect for you. Look—it’s been torn! You’ve torn it yourself.” She thrust the dress forwards, exposing the ripped seam. “You can’t return a torn dress!”

“It tore itself,” said Coral, “when I was trying to put it on.”

“I beg your pardon, but my dresses don’t tear themselves! You’ve torn the seam through some fault of your own and you’re trying to return it under some ridiculous pretext.” The woman dropped the dress back in to the box, pulled the tissue round it, smashed the top back on, and held the box out to her. “I’ll not be party to such tomfoolery.”

“I don’t want it,” said Coral.

“Well, I’ve told you, you can’t return a dress that you’ve torn. Surely you understand that.”

Coral said nothing.

“Do you? Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” said Coral. “But I don’t want this dress. I don’t need this dress. I am not getting married.”

“Oh,” said the woman. “Well, that is another thing entirely. Your plans have changed?”

“Yes,” said Coral. “My plans have changed.”

“I am sorry to hear it. But you know, I would be more than happy to mend the seam for you, and you can wear the dress on another occasion. Surely you can. It is that kind of dress.”

“You are very kind,” said Coral. “Thank you. But I don’t want the dress.” She turned and left the shop, left the woman holding the silver box, and stepped out onto the High Street.

*   *   *

On the way back to The Black Swan Coral passed the florist’s and saw the young man who had given her the flowers through the flower-filled window. She stood outside the shop window for a moment, and he looked up and saw her, and smiled at her, and waved. She pushed open the door and entered the shop.

“Hello,” the young man said.

Coral said hello. She stood just inside the door, once again amazed at all the flowers, the perplexing abundance of them. “How do you know,” she asked, “what to order?”

“Beg pardon?”

“How do you know what flowers people will want? They don’t last long, do they—flowers?”

“Well, there are tricks,” he said. “And people tend to want the same things, over and over, or certain things at certain times of year. But mostly they simply want what they see. Flowers are nice in that way. Would you like something?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m looking for a job. Do you need someone here?”

“I thought you were a nurse,” said the young man.

“I am,” said Coral. “I was. But I don’t want to nurse any longer. I can’t … I’d like to do something else. Something like this—” and she indicated the flowers around them.

“Do you have any experience with flowers?”

“No,” she said. “But I’m good with my hands.” She held them out, as if the fact that she had hands was proof of this. “And I could learn…”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t really need anyone else at present.”

“I could clean,” she said. “Or anything.”

“I’ll speak with Mrs Lippincott. She’s the one who owns the shop. What’s wrong?” he asked, when he saw that she was crying.

“Oh,” said Coral. “I’ve done something awful. I’ve been so foolish, so stupid…”

“What have you done?” he asked. He came around from behind the counter, removing the handkerchief that crested out of his jacket pocket, and handed it to her. “Here you are,” he said.

She felt the silkiness of it and saw its beauty, and although it featured a pattern of dogs chasing foxes, it did not seem a proper handkerchief for a man. “Oh, it’s so lovely,” she said. “I couldn’t. I’ve got my own.” She handed it back to him and opened her purse and found her own drab hankie, and dabbed at her nose and eyes.

“Is it about marrying Major Hart?” he asked. “Is that why you’re upset?”

“Where did you hear that?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s the talk of the town. People tend to gossip at a flower shop.”