Fragile Blossoms (40 page)

Luke took her home. Poor old Betty hiked out of her warm snooze early in the morning but it had to be done. Julianna wouldn’t stay. She said she needed to be there when Matty woke, that he was a little out of sorts.

‘Mrs Mac, who notices these things, said it was because of a dream.’

Body loose and soul singing, the living flesh of his flesh beside him, Luke was still very much within his own dream. ‘He told me of it.’

‘Of course he did.’ She leaned on him, her arm through his and her head on his shoulder. ‘He tells you everything.’

‘He dreamt of Stefan Adelman.’ Luke kept it simple, what else could he do, the dream was of a child’s telling. ‘He called him the German bear.’

For a while she was silent. ‘Yes he used to call him that.’

‘He said they were together, Mr and Mrs Bear.’

Her grip on his arm tightened. ‘Karoline and Stefan were in his dream?’

‘Yes. The German Bear told Matty they were going to be with Susan Dudley and her baby.’

‘Oh!’

‘Don’t cry, love. I think they came to comfort and not make you sorry.’

‘But it’s so sad. This world is so sad. Is it ever going to be happy again?’

‘Weren’t you just a tiny bit happy earlier?’

‘I was! Yes I was! I was so very happy. It’s just that everything changes.’

‘I know. It’s life, it is what it is and we must make the most of the happiness we have. Come, sweetheart, kiss me and make me happy.’

Tears wet on her cheek she clung to him. He whispered. ‘There was another bit to the message. Our little lad didn’t know what to make of it but I do and I think you will. There may have been a suicide but I doubt there was a murder.’

‘What was the message?’

‘The Bear said he didn’t do it.’

Luke carried her indoors. He needn’t have carried her but the snow was thick and he wanted to hold her as long as he could. Eyelashes heavy she smiled at him over the top of silky fur. Such a secret self! They can be together a thousand years and he will never know her such is the depths of those eyes. That’s alright; every soul has a right to silence. There is a similar silence back of his head, a shaded place that belongs to another Luke. There is treasure in that place, fairy treasure, dark and dangerous, a mix of male and female bodies interwoven and of sex that whistles and blasts and steams. It’s not likely he’ll ever open that door again but it’s not locked nor is it bolted. It exists and has the name Carrington above it. That place and that silence and the given notion of love don’t exactly fit together yet there is love there aplenty if a man has eyes to see and these days Luke’s eyes are wide open.

First thing tomorrow he’s back up North. He doesn’t want to go. Who the hell wants to go to Harrogate when all life and joy is not ten minutes away? But that’s the way it is, business is business. As yet there’s been no decision of where to live. He hasn’t told her of the beautiful old manor house in Aylesbury he bought last spring, hasn’t said I own that and half a cobbled street in Manchester. One thing has nothing to do with the other. If there is a decision to be made it’ll be a child makes it and the child’s future the guide rail.

Luke opened the parlour door and she was there in the room, her scent in the air! Once again he was inside her and her legs were about him, a tangle of images, white skin and pink nipple, lips and a mouth that opened to his probing tongue, silken flesh open and wildly hungry.

‘Aggh!’

He drubbed his head with his fists! Enough of that, a man must sleep as well as dream. Stripped of clothes he fell into bed. Eyes closed he lay thinking and then got back out again and bare-arsed knelt down by the bed.

Prayer is rusty on his lips but this wonderful night, this night-of-nights, he managed to get the wheels going long enough to say what he wanted.

‘Dear Lord, thank you for bringing me to this moment. I am grateful for Julianna and Matty. I will try and make them happy.’

He was about to get back into bed when with a half smile on his lips, and a hope that God wouldn’t be offended, he added a postscript.

He thanked the Gods of War for luring Daniel Masson away. Had that fellow been at the Nativity Play it would have been him rushing to put out the fire not Luke and Julianna wouldn’t now be wearing Luke’s ring.

It’s not about love. Luke knows Julianna loves him. It’s about opportunity and chance and being there at the right time. Luke was there. Masson was not.

Daniel watched the ship’s crew at work. He had nothing else to do. So far they’d had good weather and the French cruiser is fast, even so he’s stuck on this brig for another couple of days with nothing else to do but read yesterday’s headlines and reflect on how easy it is to foul up one’s life.

Queen Victoria is dead. The world turns, a queen dies, and Daniel’s heading back to England, his romantic interlude in South Africa, his ‘little fling’, behind him .‘I’m off tomorrow to Durban,’ she’d said. ‘It’s been fun but I’m sure you’ll agree our little fling is flung.’ Mona Dobson said that in The Montenegro a flea pit hotel in Port Elizabeth, the two of them in a marble bath, him one end, a hot water faucet burning his ass, and Mona the better end, hair screwed top of her head and breasts bared. Lovely breasts, delicate and round, and long legs and smooth hips, she had a body to dream about. Witty and brave, and more than a little mad, Mona was quite a woman, but not the woman for him, as he, she took pains to point out, was not the man for her.

Fling! The remark burned and later while they were dressing, a spiteful kid, he bit back. ‘For a Christian lady you are generous with your affections.’

Head down competent in dressing as in all else she continued to lace her boots. ‘What has my faith to do with it?’

‘Nothing, I guess. I’m making comparisons the buttoned-up women who shake tambourines in London slums and talk of the demon drink and you.’

‘I take it you’re referring to General Booth’s Salvation Army.’

‘I am.’

‘And being buttoned-up and shaking a tambourine marks a woman as chaste?’

‘No of course it doesn’t,’ he’d said repentant. ‘I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.’

‘Stupid and given the circumstances ungenerous I would say.’ She’d shaken out her hair. ‘I don’t shake a tambourine and I don’t trawl slums, and I hope I’m not buttoned up against anything of value, but I do love the Lord and am ready to say so. As for generosity I had thought ours a mutual giving.’

‘It was. Forgive me, I am not myself.’

‘Who are you then?’

‘A mixed up fool bent on ruining his life.’

She’d dragged a brush through her hair. Beautiful hair, a thick mane, he’d watched fascinated. Two minutes and she’d forgiven and hopefully forgotten his asinine comment. ‘Well mixed up fool I must go. I’m called to England.’

‘Who calls you?’ he’d asked. ‘I mean apart from your Baptist people, who supports you?’

‘I am here at the invitation of the British High Commission and I am supported, as are you, by the Lord God Almighty and His Holy Word.’

It was then Daniel closed his ears and what was left of his heart to Mona. Bible tracts and the reading of psalms make him real uncomfortable. Not that she preached to anyone in the camps. She was too busy scrubbing filthy bodies to care about their perjured souls. A Christian in the real sense of the word she was giving love without a thought of it being returned.

The better part of Daniel wished he did love her but he didn’t. Too late he’d realised it was Julianna, he’d gambled and by the sound of it he’d lost.

So that was it for South Africa, a handshake and they parted company with nothing but a pleasant glow to remind them they ever met. His fascination for Mona was over before it had begun. As with most things he’d debated the issue allowing his head to smother his heart. How perfidious is that, to be certain of the heart’s desire and then to turn aside for a fling, though he never really turned aside, all he did was create a diversion and hurt his mother.

He has written to his mother and to Julianna. Posted seven days ago it’s likely the letters are already on the mat. The letter to mother was a miserable mix of apologies and of excuses, sorry he didn’t get home, he’d spent a miserable Christmas squishing bugs, and that he would be home in time for her birthday.

In point of fact he spent Christmas Day combing bugs out a kiddie’s hair and in the evening out of his own. Unfair, Mona with all that hair and he gets the bugs. When he complained she’d laughed. ‘The Lord’s Word is Mighty. We didn’t need armed escorts and I don’t get nits.’ The rest of Christmas was about cooking over a camp fire and doling out utilities.

One thing is sure ‘The Word’ had gone out. Seven days among hundreds of refugees, and the hills massed with rebels, and not a cross word exchanged never mind gun fire. What was it he’d looked for in the trip? If it was the thrill of danger forget it. The only danger was in keeping up with Mona who rode like a wrangler, hauled crates like a drayman, and bathed babies with the tenderness of a mother. She quite wore him out. As for their twilight activity under canvas, her orgasms, if that’s what they were, were plentiful and silent, appreciation translated via the rapid semaphore of her eyelids. Once achieved, she’d wait for him to catch up, which the last two times, despite her helping hand, he couldn’t manage.

A bottle of strong brandy and Mona Dobson’s hands put the merry into Christmas. It was the only way she’d have it, saving her virginity for her husband. ‘You’re promised?’ he’d said.

‘Not yet but the beloved will come. The Lord has said so.’

In the afterglow of sex he’d joked. ‘Maybe he’s already here.’

Her denial was a little too emphatic. ‘I don’t think so. As nice as you are, Daniel, and has handsome, you’re not good husband material.’

‘Why am I not?’

She’d leaned back on her elbow. ‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-nine next birthday.’

‘And you are not promised?’

He’d demurred. ‘Not exactly.’

She’d rolled away and lit a cigarette. ‘There you are.’ He didn’t ask what she meant by ‘there you are’ but feeling largely
de trop
continued to question.

‘If the beloved is on his way, Miss Dobson, what are you doing with me?’

‘I’m lonely. You needed human comfort and so did I.’

‘And what about marriage vows?’

‘What about them?’ She’d frowned. ‘My skin doesn’t need a signature on a form to make it thrill under your touch anymore than your manhood needs a ring on my finger to make it hard. We are creatures of need. Our needs draw us together and the world pushes us apart.’

‘So what happens when the beloved does come?’

‘Then I am his.’

‘And no history to relate?’

‘Other than to have made him the man I love his past is of no use to me as mine is certainly of no use to him. You worry a lot about rules, Daniel, and yet you continually break them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean ‘not exactly’ suggests a promise.’

‘Well there is someone.’

‘Of course there is. She is in your eyes if not in your heart, which begs the question, what are
you
doing here with me?’

That night in camp he had no answer. He has none now. His breakaway reeking of the past and his father it sure does bother him. The refugee camp was a compulsion, a combination of blood on his shirt from the guy from Pretoria News, boredom, Mona Dobson, and of course mother. Hopefully the letter to Callie will smooth his path to Norfolk. The letter to Julianna was tentative as are his former hopes. He reiterated what he said to Callie that he had helped out at a refugee camp. No point in saying more. If the cable from John Sargent is right then anything else is a waste of ink. Wired on December 23 rd it came to the American office in Durban and was forwarded on, short and to the point every word a punch in the gut:
‘Damned Yankees. Stop. You left the garden gate open and a wolf carried the strawberries away.’

*

Daniel arrived at a country in mourning, flags at half mast and shops closed. Everywhere he turned there were draped portraits of the dead Queen, and alongside that the new King. The country had slowed down almost to a stop horses draped in funeral cowls, hooves muffled, and men and women in mourning. A black bombazine night had fallen. All this regret and yet an undercurrent of excitement, the Queen is Dead, Long Live the King.

The lethargy affected transport. He got into Southampton late Friday night, stayed at the Railway Hotel, and caught the nine am to Norwich. That train too was delayed which meant he didn’t get in until the afternoon by which time he was frozen and didn’t give a damn for Victoria Regina living or dead.

In Norwich he telephoned Greenfields to say he was on his way thus Crosby was at the station waiting.

Peter Crosby has been with the family years. Daniel doesn’t know how old he is but hunched over the horse, a cap pulled over his ears, thought he looked positively antique. Good man and a quiet man, a cleft palate leaving him monosyllabic. But for the constant chewing of his lip you wouldn’t know him there. He came to Callie at Dulce’s behest. As for Dulce can anyone recall a time when she wasn’t there. A polished Niobe she came as a girl and stayed. A more loyal servant you will not find nor one more dour. She rarely smiles. Callie says ‘given her beginnings why the hell would she.’ There is history but quite what he doesn’t know. It was Sam who brought her to the family and therefore Daniel he doesn’t ask. A lump sum and pension Callie has left her well-provided but such is their friendship and dependence one upon the other it is hard to see how one half of the egg would survive. ‘Ship ‘em both back to Philly when I’m gone,’ she said last time they saw a lawyer. ‘I don’t want them languishing in this cold climate.’

Daniel climbed into the carriage. ‘Good evening, Crosby.’

‘Evening, Mister Daniel.’

‘Mighty cold.’

‘It is.’

‘The Queen is dead then.’

‘Uh-huh. God rest her soul.’

The carriage rattled on. Daniel has been looking into motor-cars but so far nothing takes his interest. Maybe when he’s back in California, and he means to go back, he’ll invest in the production. It’s the way forward, Callie says so and she’s red hot on futures. In forty years she hasn’t put a foot wrong. An avid reader of Wall Street she’d ferry tit-bits to Sam and he to her. Money and how to invest was the one thing on which they agreed. How to spend was another issue. Sam bought baubles for his dollies, cheap stuff you’d find in a dime and ten, Callie bought jewels the rare and unobtainable.

Necklaces, bracelets and rings, the further away the prize the more she fought for it. It was an obsession. She’d hear of an item and seek it out. It didn’t matter that the necklace graced a woman’s throat or that a ring happily adorned a finger, if Callie wanted it she’d get it, or rather her broker would, Moshe Silvers, a bespectacled ghost of a man lurking in a New York cellar.

The latest acquisition is a six string choker said to belong to the Tsarina. Black pearls, black as to midnight blue, Callie got it in Lucerne autumn of ’97. Daniel caught a glimpse of the necklace the day it was ferried in an armed escort accompanying the messenger. He hasn’t seen it since. She doesn’t wear the more costly pieces. They are back in Philly in a vault, box 1576, C A G M.

Last October Daniel stayed with Cousin Francis for the grouse shoot. The morning he was due to leave Daisy Warwick came scratching at the bedroom door a jewel case in her hand. She was short of ready cash ‘did he think Great Aunt Callista would be interested in this ruby ring.’ He knew damn well Great Aunt Callista would be interested but the ring is a family heirloom, and not wanting to rattle the Warwicks shaky marriage, he cried off. He wonders now if in seeking Julianna he’d done less thinking and more giving of ruby rings and pearl necklaces then he wouldn’t be on the outside looking in.

The carriage turned into the drive. ‘How are things here, Crosby?’

‘Middling.’

‘Middling?’

‘Yes, sir, nothing too bad happening.’

‘But nothing too good either.’

‘No sir.’

As usual the House was a wedge of shadows only the Hall and first-floor front showing light. The louring shadows and general depressive air of Greenfields was in marked contrast to the cottage where every window blazed.

‘Is the Tea-Room open for business?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what’s going on? For a dreary day the place looks festive?’

Crosby cleared his throat. ‘I understand Mizz Dryden’s throwing a party for her maids and their families.’

‘I see.’

‘Mizz Callie did say she might pop along later but that was before she knew you were coming. I doubt she’ll bother now.’

‘Does she go out much?’

‘Mizz Callie don’t go out at all, at least not when she should.’

Daniel gazed back down the rise. The cottage sparkled, music and laughter drifting up on the evening air. It made him miserable to see it. It’s not how it should be. He’s been away. Julianna should be missing him, the cottage in darkness and a solitary candle burning in the window to bring the wanderer home. As with the death of Victoria it would seem life goes on.

‘Anna’s getting married.’

He’d barely a foot in the door when Callie came running. Most mothers not seeing their son in a while would rush to tell how much he’d been missed. Not Callie. She came down the stairs like the Crone in the Gingerbread House, black silk dress and a front tooth missing.

‘What happened to your tooth?’

‘I fell. They’ve called the banns.’

‘What do you mean fell?’

‘As I said, I fell. They’ve called the banns in St Bedes Church.’

‘Thanks, Crosby.’ Daniel took his bag. ‘I’ll manage it. Do you happen to know if the hot tap in my bathroom is working?’

‘It is, sir. It’s been fixed.’

‘Well that’s something.’ Daniel took to the stairs.

Callie followed behind. ‘Did you hear what I said, they’ve called the banns?’

‘I did hear you though I’m not sure what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about Julianna and the man she’s to marry, the builder feller, the one that’s tearing up half of England! The one’s that fixed the taps in your bathroom! She’s marrying him!’

‘You don’t say.’

‘I do say. They’ve put up banns and are to wed on the twenty-sixth.’

‘Good for them.’

‘Good for them?’ Callie scuttled along beside him Dulce trying to haul her back. ‘You can’t mean that.’

‘I do. I’m glad for them.’