The Still Point (10 page)

‘How long have you had this up your sleeve, Einar?’ asked Freely, for the cake was moist and dense and the fruit had soaked for weeks; Janssen, who hummed happily through his days and spoke little, peered up inside his huge tunic to the cavern of his armpit and shrugged.

In such good humour the day passed quickly. Dinner was a grand affair: smoked oysters, soused mackerel, a reindeer roast with peas, buttered potatoes and redcurrant sauce (not a scrap of raw fox meat anywhere in sight). The tender meat was, to Edward’s palate, finer than any venison he had tasted at his brother’s table; he thought of the club they attended in London and smiled a victory over pale insipid gravy as the rich maroon coated his tongue. And then — chink! — to the Queen, to
Persephone
, and to Emily Mackley’s tobacco and all their wives and children.

Janssen had a word in his captain’s ear then, and Edward announced that they’d stewed in their own juices long enough; it was a fine, clear night, the moon required their presence and all must step outside. What could be more invigorating than a walk in the snow at Christmas? He quieted their protests — ‘Patience, boys, you shall have your pudding.’

They staggered on deck with much griping, and clambered down onto the new-fallen snow, where their grumbles were slowly appeased by the beauty of the night. Every granule on the ground had its glimmer, and the sky was almost as close-packed with the powder of starlight. White on black like the shine in Edward’s eyes, as he strove to see wide and far, to see everything, longing to bring this perfection back to Emily; if he could only close a glass orb around it and carry the universe home to her.

And then Janssen appeared with his pièce de résistance — he couldn’t have lit it in the saloon, but out on the ice, the green-purple flame of the plum pudding was a beacon of cheer, an indomitable flame in the darkness. He bore it out to them, red-faced and beaming, and set it down among them as it guttered out. Overhead, the same green-violet fire flashed suddenly over the vast sky, a spirit burning incandescent. They looked one to the other then, in the hush of the milky moonlight, and shook hands in silence as they passed Nordahl’s flask between them.

Later they played sports on the ice, racing each other and clutching at full bellies, laughing like children let off school and delirious with snow. Janssen, spinning and spinning with his gaze skyward to the stars, fell giggling at Nordahl’s feet. Having worked so hard to bring comfort to all, in that place so far from any of their homes, no one could begrudge him a nip of the pudding brandy.

And at one o’clock, after an evening’s indolence and yet more gorging on candied fruit, nuts and macaroons, after one last smoke, they retired. And then, at last, Edward drew from beneath his bed that other, smaller parcel meant for him alone, which he had saved all day, which he had for months savoured the thought of.

A pocket watch, fine-filigreed, engraved
To Edward — For our hours apart, and so that he may find his path and come back to — His Emily
. He wound and set it and held it to his cheek, a cool disc against his skin, the ticking through his jawbone like her distant heart. He smiled as he thought of the pucker of her brow, following the trace of his diagrams as he explained how longitude is reckoned by the hour and the angle of the sun. Attentive, intelligent Emily, the brightness of her eye emblazoned always on his mind.

Just as he thought of her then, just as Julia imagines her now, so she might still be sitting in the dining room, if we descend to seek her there. See: fires are blazing in every hearth in the house, a beacon of welcome. All the curtains drawn against the frosty night.

Emily’s face burns; she thinks she will surely stifle; a dark flush colours her cheeks as it did the night she met Edward; she is sleepy with heat and wine and longs to run out to the garden and press her face into the frozen grass and imagine it is snow. When at last she is free to retire, she will open the window and turn down her sheet, and climb into the cold cotton with a sigh. She will take up the little bound notebook he gave her, which she unwrapped this morning in the dark, and read over again by a candle the poem scribed in his fine hand on the first page. The lines she has known, since she was a girl, by heart…

They are no dull sublunary lovers, who have spent months in the light of a constant sun. He has filled the words with meaning for her; this is his gift.

But now, at the table, she is far from the lonely bed she longs for and the little comfort she can draw. Her hair is caught up in the loops and curls that are forever reluctant to stay in place. Her shoulders, skimmed by the cut of her dress, are slender but strong. She shows her teeth when she smiles and laughs and cannot manage to simper; her hands are long but not tapering and must be kept in check, as they tend to gesture. She rests them interlocked on her legs
and feels the hardness still in her thighs from skiing, under her skirts. Her eyes are bronze-brown and bold.

She is not quite of her time. She looks, in fact, a little like Julia.

 

Julia sat in that same chair — or so it would be pleasing to imagine, the seating plans were not preserved — just over a century later, last Christmas. In the drawing room, in the bay window, there was a fine Scots pine just like perhaps the one that little Edward once imagined twinkling as he thrilled in the darkness. The house was full of the smell of it, and of spices and port, of orange and clove, of sage and roasting, of the warm nostalgia that has been worked into the wood for so many years — the festive glow which Julia had relit, resplendent. She had sweated and fretted over the goose in the kitchen, but now it was brought forth, complete with potatoes roasted in its fat, sprouts of course, redcurrant and bread sauces, a rich brown gravy and, most proudly of all, the chestnut stuffing (the liver dutifully identified and recovered by Simon from the plastic bag of innards). Her sister sat to one side of her, Simon to the other, and Aunt Helen wasn’t there but it was all in her honour, and Julia would do the day justice. She was wearing a dark red dress — yes, cut to show the angles of her slim sharp shoulders — her hair caught up in a failing bun, her colour a little high with heat and happiness, and Simon watched enraptured again as her hands looped and curled her words, her laughter flowing free with the wine, at last at leisure.

 

This is the only occasion on which Simon and Julia have used the dining room, although it amuses her sometimes to imagine them sitting at either end of the long table, politely smiling at each other, too distant to converse. They eat in
the kitchen, or on laps in the sitting room, or on a night like tonight — if all goes to plan — in the conservatory with the doors wide to the garden. But in the days when families were formal, and the damask was darker, the shine of the pattern more crisp, Emily took her seat at table thrice daily with her brotherin-law and his wife. There she sat, always the same seat, opposite Arabella, feeling like an unwanted relative’s orphan or a maiden aunt. John would attempt a light political sally, into a debate that a woman might have formed a view upon, not wishing to appal or confuse her; Emily, uncertain of her bounds, would respond politely. Then Arabella would yawn in a manner she thought discreet, and all would consider the matter resolved, as far as that table was concerned. It was a missed opportunity, for Emily’s mind was quick and John’s was surprisingly open. Arabella, for her part, had long since given up on broaching any subject of interest to herself, seeing that the endlessly fascinating activities of their acquaintances, and their intrigues and hat trims, were of apparently no consequence to her rather peculiar sister-in-law. Besides, these were not appropriate topics for the dinner table; she had no wish to irritate her husband, and anyway Arabella liked to dedicate her attention to the task in hand, especially if it came with a cream sauce. And so Emily’s first months at her brother-in-law’s table passed without interest or incident.

Come Christmas time John, knowing that Mr Gardiner, Emily’s father, would be alone for the festive season, invited him to stay at the house with them too; and now here they sit, it is Christmas Day, and a select band of the town’s luminaries have been invited to share the goose. Arabella, with the tact she considers foremost among her talents, has placed Mr Gardiner beside Mrs Dempsey, a widow of her acquaintance who has kept her good humour despite her loss, and a nice womanly figure besides. Daniel Gardiner, a kind and quiet
man who, for his part, will never quite recover from his wife’s departure, replies to her teasing in awkward monosyllables; he tries to respond to John’s generous attempts at conversation, but is a little hard of hearing and finds the words are lost in crossing the table, swallowed up in the nudging, pealing laughter of his neighbour. Well, he thinks to himself at the peak of one particular crescendo, perhaps tonight I might consider the Lord to have blessed me with deafness. And as he smiles his mild smile, he catches his daughter’s eye across the table. Emily is seated too far away for them to speak, between a clergyman and a lawyer, he surmises; she smiles back, helpless, and he knows that all her vivacity, as lovely as it is, can only be for show. Still, how lovely she is tonight. With her mother’s pale gold skin that he liked so much better than the fashion for blue-veined pallor.

She does her best to be gay. She wears the pink shawl Arabella gave her, with no apparent attention to Emily’s taste and colouring. She nods and agrees and avoids engaging the clergyman in any conversation that might be thought incendiary (such as why she should believe). She sings along to the carols although they are too high for her and her voice feels strangled; she imagines Edward singing Norse songs with his crew, his loud, easy laugh.

The plates are removed and she has barely time to sit back and ease her stomach with a sip of wine before the pudding is brought in — as if, she thought, another flame was needed here. By now she feels her own head might ignite (and wouldn’t
that
give them something to talk about). Portions are served, her protests ignored; Arabella likes to insist that she needs fattening and Emily will have to swallow her distaste along with yet another spoonful. A great, weighty, steaming slab is placed before her, slathered with brandy butter, and she dutifully digs her spoon in. And hits metal. And knows that whatever it is
will pain her and tries desperately to cut around it in the hope she might remove it discreetly, whatever it is; Let it be the coin, she thinks, she could keep it hidden under her tongue perhaps, she would even manage a simper if it meant she didn’t have to speak. But the coin has just been discovered — by her father, which pains her more greatly. ‘Ah, good fortune is yours, Daniel,’ says John, smiling at Emily and back to him as if to say he had his wealth already in the daughter he’d been given, hoping it would be enough for the company to let it pass. But they are already congratulating him on the riches that shall be his — this man who lives with just the charwoman to tend him, who can’t afford to keep his own daughter, who is relying on a younger man’s benevolence to house him for Christmas and never has guests at his own table, and Emily can’t bear to see him smile and nod and flush so and she holds it aloft, whatever it is, announcing, ‘The Gardiners are in luck tonight, Father!’; she holds it aloft and it fits, neatly, the end of her finger. The thimble.

Did Arabella’s eyes gleam a little then, or was it only candlelight and brandy?

‘Oh, but that was meant for me!’ cries Mrs Dempsey. ‘The thimble, for a happy, single life–I live it, each day, as you can all see for yourselves! Had you not taken so large a piece, my dear, it would have come to me!’ she says, using Mr Gardiner’s arm as a surrogate for the nudge meant for Emily. And Daniel Gardiner, despite his growing bruise, warms a little to her then for her kindness.

‘I had thought the thimble was for the spinster,’ observes the lawyer on her left, quite failing to register the awkwardness forcing the others’ jollity.

‘Well, that may be, Mr Worthy, but might they not equate?’ says John, and could kick himself because what comfort, really, could that be?

‘In either case,’ says Emily, ‘I should think my husband will have something to say about it when he comes home to find I am quite content alone.’ And from somewhere she conjures a carefree laugh, waggles her thimbled finger, and with a pretty moue and a pert little shrug slips a mouthful of pudding between her lips. How her father admires her for it; only he and Arabella, still watching, see the shine in her eye and the corners of her mouth twitch for a moment, as she reaches for her glass to wash the heavy lump down.

Everyone in the house had had their turn on Stir-up Sunday; any little maid might have dropped it in the bowl, not thinking of the hurt it would cause Emily should her spoon strike it. But it does seem that Arabella, who always enjoys the dessert course, is this Christmas particularly relishing her pudding.