Dead Man's Embers (28 page)

Non's chair scrapes back along the floor as she jumps up from it. She has seen and heard enough. She has no quarrel with this child, she and her mother have to eat, have to have a roof over their heads, have to prepare for Esmé's future, and have to employ what skills they have to enable them to do so. She and Davey are lucky that Osian has a gift of a different kind. Non opens her bag and draws from her purse the rest of the money Davey has given her, and puts it on the small round table next to her chair.

‘Esmé says, be true to yourself!' Madame's voice follows Non
through the front door and up the quiet street. She is glad for once to hear a horse and cart clatter past her, the hooves and wheels throwing up dust into the dense air to form a curtain between her and the occupants of Number Thirty.

Davey is busy and distracted when Non arrives at the workshop. Osian sits as usual in one of the coffins ranged along the back wall, and there is no sign of the tramp, Teddy. Teddy, Non thinks, is a childish name for a man who has gone through a war, and then through heaven knows what afterwards to bring him to this. She sits on the one chair in the workshop, first brushing the sawdust from its seat. She wonders if Davey has found it strange to be without Wil today. It is hard to tell with men, she thinks, sometimes they do not seem to have feelings the way we women do. And then she remembers her father who had, it seemed, feelings in abundance, and never held back from expressing them. She smiles at the thought.

It seems a little cooler inside the workshop, shaded as it is from the most intense heat of the sun by its thick walls and the shadow thrown by the high wall of the yard at the back of the Castle Hotel across the road. A little sunlight dribbles in through the dust on the window at the side. She watches the sawdust swirl in the faint light; no wonder Davey's clothes and skin are powdered with it. How lucky that there is a tin tub here where he can sluice
off the dust before he comes home. Otherwise, she imagines, there would be dusty footprints all over the house, as if ghosts had visited.

Davey is working at twice his usual pace. She watches him; he does not even glance in her direction as he concentrates on his task. Eventually he stops, straightens his back with a groan, and reaches for a fresh piece of sandpaper.

‘Where's Teddy?' Non says.

‘Teddy?' Davey wraps a strip of the sandpaper around his block, making sure its edges are not sticking out to catch and tear. ‘I can't get used to calling a grown man Teddy. But he won't have Ted, or Ed, or Eddie.' He begins to sand the coffin again. ‘I've sent him to meet the train. I'm expecting a parcel of coffin handles.'

‘He's making himself useful, then?'

‘He's more of a hindrance than a help. I don't think the man has ever done any physical work like this. But what can I do, Non?'

Non is not sure she has an answer and stays silent. Fine dust flies from under Davey's sanding block, and she has to pinch her nose to keep from sneezing. She wonders if it is bad for Davey to be breathing in all this dust, day in and day out. But the scents of the sawn wood, the sap and oils, are redolent of the living forests where the trees once grew, and it is impossible not to breathe them in deeply.

Davey stops and stands back to look at the coffin. ‘This heat is a killer, Non. Albert's busier than he's ever been. I pity old Byron having to dig the graves in this heat, he's old enough for it to kill him.' He rubs a bit of sawdust that Non cannot see from the coffin. ‘Maybe Teddy'll make a better job of the polishing.'

‘Maybe Albert will get you an apprentice soon,' Non says.

‘And maybe pigs will fly,' Davey says. ‘I think I'm stuck with
Teddy for a while yet, Non. And, you know, I do feel obliged to him. Carrying my letter around with him all that time and then bringing it all the way here.'

‘It seems to me a strange thing to do,' Non says. ‘Excessive. He could have posted it.'

‘He says he felt he had to bring it himself,' Davey says. ‘I still can't remember him, Non. He says I gave him the letter when I was at the clearing hospital that last time. I can't remember anything about being there, and I can't think why I would do that, give my last letter to you to a stranger. How would he know if I was killed, or hurt? He wasn't with our lot.'

Non thinks of what Angela told her, about Davey's thousand-yard stare. He would probably not have known what he was doing, nor remembered it afterwards if he had been in the state Angela hinted at. He would not have written the letter over and over, if he had not been in such a state. She thinks, Teddy, Ted, Ed, Edward? Is Teddy the man Angela said was in a very bad way? Become a tramp? What can it mean?

‘If he's a tramp, he'll be moving on,' she says. ‘That's what they do.'

‘He's not really a tramp, though, is he? He's not travelling. He's come here to give me the letter, or so he says.' Davey shakes his head. ‘But I don't know what he is, Non. Anyway, I've got more work to do than I can manage, and I haven't got time to puzzle it out. But he seems to know things I've forgotten. He assumes I know what he's talking about.'

‘Tell him you can't remember,' Non says. ‘And then he'd explain.'

‘I can't,' Davey says. ‘Something stops me doing that, Non.'

He is squeezing the sanding block, and Non can see that he is trying to stop his hand trembling. It takes her back to early this
morning when she had found him once again under the table just as Gwydion had described – crying and shivering. She almost wishes she did have the clairvoyance Esmé had accused her of having; maybe she would be able to see clearly what was troubling Davey, then and now. She gets up from the chair and puts her hand over his. ‘Davey?' she says.

‘I'm afraid, Non,' he says. ‘Something is making me afraid that I've forgotten whatever it is because it's too terrible to remember.'

‘Oh, Davey.' Non reaches to hug him but he pulls away. She feels a surge of panic. Oh no, she thinks, not again. ‘Davey, I think you'd remember if you had done something terrible – because you're a good man.' But she recalls that she, too, had wondered what could be so terrible that it would cause him to lose his memory like this.

Davey stares at the coffin. ‘Some things I've forgotten are coming back. I remember more about Ben Bach, but not anything I can tell his mother, so don't tell anyone this, Non.'

‘Of course I won't.' Surely Davey knows he does not have to say that to her?

‘I remember how terrified Ben was – all the time, Non, shouting for Elsie. It put the wind up everyone in our trench. I was trying to get the high-ups to send him home. They were sending back the under-age boys by then, and Ben was under-age when he volunteered – he lied about his age, Non, you wouldn't think he'd have the wit – and it was obvious he wasn't fit.' Davey makes a circular motion with his forefinger by his head. ‘I thought I could get him home that way.'

Non is not surprised to hear of Ben Bach's terror. He had always been a fearful boy, large and tall, but a brain the size of a pea was what the school's headmaster had told her when she went there as a young teacher. Poor Benjamin.

‘Is that what you think Teddy's talking about? Ben being so scared? How would he know about it?'

‘I don't know how he would know about anything to do with us. But maybe some connection will come back to me, Non.'

She squeezes his hand. She smoothes the planed and sanded wood of the coffin. It is lovely to touch, like stroking satin. ‘You're a craftsman, Davey. You do your best work always, no matter what you're making.'

He bends to kiss her hair. That will do, she thinks, that will more than do.

‘I'd better get home,' she says. ‘I need to do some shopping on the way. I'll see you when you're done, Davey. I expect it'll be late.'

‘Oh, Non,' he says, ‘there's a Labour Party meeting straight after work. But it shouldn't be long.'

Labour Party!

‘It's important to us all, Non – it's the future.'

‘I know,' she says. And she does know that Davey believes this as fervently as Gwydion believes in his way to the future. ‘Shall I send Meg with something for your supper, then?'

Davey catches hold of her hand and kisses it. ‘Thank you,' he says.

‘And shall I take Osian with me?'

‘I'll send him back with Meg when she brings my supper,' Davey says.

They both turn to look at Osian who extricates himself from his complicated position in the coffin and comes towards them bearing a carving, carrying it on the flat of both his hands.

‘Look at that,' Davey says. ‘It's Teddy!'

Non has only had a brief glimpse of Teddy – when she opened the door to him a few days ago – but she recognises him instantly,
the lean, slouched body, the dipped head. She marvels again at Osian's skill. She takes hold of the carving and through the wood feels the nature of this man that Osian has captured. He is damaged. Badly. She hears Wil describing his empty face. Something clutches at her heart in a way that has not happened since she began to take fewer drops each day, and her hands of their own volition let go of the carving. She watches as it seems to float down into the sawdust on the floor.

Jackie Post had been late on his first round that morning, so only Non knows that the letter has arrived. She has read it so many times she really does not need to take it out of its envelope and read it to remember what it says. But she sits at the table and unfolds the pages, smoothing them flat.

Someone, maybe Seb O'Neill himself, has typed it, badly, with xxxxx crossing out several words, on a typewriter that is missing half its lower-case letter a. The whole thing is hard to decipher, but easy to understand. Seb hopes that she has followed his recommendations and is feeling well. His tests on her tincture have proved what he feared, that it is a particularly strong Convallamarin, which, he explains in brackets, acts like the Digitalin found in the foxglove, and which she does not need, underlined. Seb thinks he has saved her life, and he probably has.

The bad typing continues to tell her that she can lead a perfectly normal life, like any other young woman of her age. He means she can have babies, she supposes, without their births killing her any more than they would kill any other normal young woman of her age. She can think of several normal young women she
knew who died in childbirth. Seb would like, the letter continues, to see her again, so that he can check that she is as well as he hopes. And that, she thinks, is highly unlikely to happen. As highly unlikely as normal young women not dying in childbirth.

Seb has added a postscript in his own handwriting under his signature, which is as difficult to decipher as the typing, to say that he has told Angela the results, and he hopes that she, Non, does not mind, and that Angela sends her best wishes and hopes for a visit from Non when she goes to see Seb. Oh, dear, she thinks, I cannot show this letter to Davey. Not with that P.S. She wonders if she can cut that part off the letter, but thinks that it would look suspicious. She folds the letter back into its envelope and puts it into her skirt pocket.

It is official now: she is a normal woman and she can do what normal women do without fear of dropping dead. She has realised that until she slowed down the taking of her father's remedy she lived her life in some kind of dream where she saw the world through a haze which was not unlike the muslin curtains Madame Leblanc employed to separate this world from the next. She is not altogether certain what being a normal woman entails. She hopes it is not entirely about being a competent housekeeper and having babies. Babies! The thought makes her heart leap, but she is not entirely certain that she wants to bear a child of her own. It is a chancy business. What if the child inherited her curse? Or Catherine Davies's character? Or Osian's affliction? And is she able to bear a child? Since Davey returned from the War convinced of his unworthiness as a husband she has not needed to think about precautions. But before he went away the precautions she took because she dared not conceive had been entirely effective. She does know several women, Gwen Morgan for one, who have not found these precautions quite as effective. She wonders if this
means that she can never be normal, that she can never conceive and give birth. And how would Davey feel about having a baby? He is supporting his parents as well as his own family, and another mouth to feed would put a strain on their resources – although Wil has left them now, and that will make a difference.

She thinks of Wil, already six days into his first voyage. Is he still at sea or berthed in some foreign harbour already? It will take her longer than a week to become used to his loss! Her thoughts turn to other losses.

Yesterday Gwydion had received a letter from Aoife that had sent him racing away on his motorcycle early this morning to Aberystwyth, to see his parents. But I'll be back tomorrow, he had told Non before putting on his aviator's hat and goggles and running down the front steps to leap on his bike as if it were a horse champing at the bit. Non smiles at the memory, though she wonders what in Aoife's letter had required this urgent action.

And Meg no longer stays at home on her half days. She has gone to the beach this afternoon with her friends, to dip her toes in the water and squeal at how cold it is. And Davey and Osian are at work as usual. Non wonders idly what Osian makes of Teddy, then realises that she knows, and a shudder overtakes her as she thinks of the carving she dropped into the sawdust. Osian had carved a man who had lost everything. What had happened to Teddy to cause him to feel such despair – was it the War? But there was something underlying that despair that had frightened Non – an indifference? a ruthlessness? – she is not sure. She shudders again. What is Teddy doing here? What does he want?

The clock strikes the half-hour. She glances at it; it is half-past three, the time that she expects Catherine Davies to tea. She has invited old William Davies, too, but is certain that Catherine will not bring him with her. The little round table under the shade of
the large butterfly bush is laid with the tea things, but the plate of bread and butter is in the kitchen with a cloth over it, to keep it safe from the birds and the sun.