A Year of Marvellous Ways (20 page)

42

N
ed Blaney was out in the bay running two lines
from the back of his boat. Ever-dependable Ned with his shock of thick curls bleached white by the sun, oh you could recognise him anywhere. Should’ve been snatched up ages ago, everybody said so. A deep thinker, he was, even before the war. But war had made him quiet; as quiet and as deep as the channel he fished.

He was fishing for himself that day; kicking back, a quiet moment between man and boat. He leant across the seat and adjusted his radio till he found a familiar song. These Foolish Things. Oscar Peterson on piano. He sang along, hummed when he didn’t know the words.

He reached down to his feet for the Thermos flask, unscrewed the lid and poured himself a cup of tea. He touched the lines briefly, checked for the flick of life. Nothing. He turned the radio up. A brief thought about war but he let it pass like a floating mass of knotweed.

He raised his cup to the sky even though he didn’t believe in Heaven, but he had to put his brother somewhere and the familiar blue cushion above the estuary was as good a place as any.

To Old Times, he said.

43

O
ld times returned to the creek, and life became
busy and expectant, and the valley echoed with the sounds of bridge-building and a young woman’s laughter, and Marvellous was suddenly wrenched out of old age like a seed potato wrenched out of the familiar comfort of dark. She had little time to think about Death, pushed aside as it were, by activity, youth and noise. Things were required of her again and this time by people and not by dreams. And Marvellous blossomed, having quite forgotten what an exciting and necessary jolt being needed gave.

But what are you looking for? she said, as Drake disappeared into her shed.

Paint, he called out.

But what kind of paint? she said.

Any kind, said Drake.

But there’s lots of different kinds.

Just paint, said Drake.

But there isn’t just paint, she muttered.

Drake backed out and looked at her, exasperated. Any paint, Marvellous! Whatever paint you have.

I only have one kind of paint –

– that’ll do.

And Marvellous squeezed into the shed and moments later came out with a tin of gloss for boat hulls.

Cobalt blue, she said. Perfect he said, and he ran into the woods without saying anything more.

She was about to settle down for a rare afternoon of quiet when she heard the sound of bicycle wheels clatter over the woodland floor. It was the postman, a man who never came now that everyone she knew was dead.

Letter! he shouted, as he puffed his way down to the riverbank.

I hear you, said Marvellous, walking up to meet him.

The fella addressed it to Miss Marvellous Ways, Gypsy Caravan, Falmouth Wood, Cornwall, said the postman. But this ain’t Falmouth Wood, is it? So it’s been round the block a few times till it ended up here. But at the bottom it says
United Kingdom
. The last two words he pronounced emphatically and clearly. This ’ere’s from
abroad
, he said.

Abroad? said Marvellous.

Aye, said the postman. Feels like a postcard inside, and Marvellous took the envelope from him and offered him a cup of tea and a saffron bun. Next time, he said, declining the offer on account of his full sack.

She undid her oilskin and sat down on the mooring stone. She wiped her glasses and studied the stamp:
America
. She said the word out loud. She opened the envelope and, sure enough, a postcard was inside. She brought it up close to her eyes: a river at sunset. A wooden bridge and trees growing out of water.

My dear Marvellous
, the card began.

I hope this letter reaches you and finds you well. Last weekend I went fishing with my grandfather and I talked about you, about your kindness. I am studying now, business, at Atlanta University. It is not a perfect world, the world I inhabit. But I have a future and not so long ago many men my age didn’t. But this time the fight is different.

We were taken by surprise at Omaha Beach. It was chaos. Many boats sank before they could land; often blown up by mines just below the surface. We scrambled from the landing craft and ran into heavy gunfire. We hid behind burned-out tanks and beach defenses and bodies. We were trapped and needed to retreat. To go left or right? That was our choice. In that moment I remembered your words, Marvellous. I went left, as you told me to do. I ran left. Those who went right fell. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

Henry

Marvellous held the postcard up to her eyes again and studied his script. She saw gratitude and promise in the flourish of his hand. It had been a long time since she had cried, but she knew she didn’t need her tears any more because there was no point in tears outliving eyes, so she let them fall.

And that was how Drake found her an hour later. As he came towards her, she looked up and said, Henry’s all right.

I’m glad Henry’s all right. But are you all right? he said.

Yes. I think I am, and she reached for his hands and brought them up to her cheek. His cobalt-blue fingertips shone bright under the warmth of a benevolent afternoon sun.

It was late when Peace got back to the bakehouse. She went inside and placed her bags in the cool. She poured herself a glass of water and came back out to watch the spray of colour begin to bruise the evening sky. She felt tired, exhausted in fact, having spent the afternoon away looking for a worthy flour supplier. The millers had been brusque and unhelpful, and she had sifted through bags of flour like a prospector sifting through silt. She knew what was gold and she knew what was fool’s gold, and she knew the price of gold and would not pay a penny more. She taught them more than manners that day.

A blackbird sat on the memorial cross. Its song was bright and incessant, last song of the day. The bird revived her, hopping from the horizontal to the vertical. Hop hop. Song song. She went back inside to refill her glass and she was about to prepare for a night of baking when her sight was drawn back outside to the glinting granite cross. It was coated by the last buttery rays of sun, and it was this evening yellow that brought out the vivid blue of his name.

Not S Rundle but his full name, Simeon Rundle, her brother, for all to see. It was neatly scripted in bright blue paint. She touched the S with the edge of her little finger. It was sticky but dry. She leant against the hedgerow surrounded by primroses. She drank her water and watched the sun slip below the valley casting out tears of red and gold and pink and mauve.

She lay awake in the early hours, restless, spooning the curved back of impatience. She opened the window wide, not a sound stirred. She walked down the stairs into the calm familiar smell of her baking. She opened the back door and knelt down. She leant close to the willow hoop, hoping to hear the rumour of love. A light breeze sifted through the fishing twine, and the razor clams and whelk shells clacked. All she could hear was the sound of the sea.

44

Drinks at 7. No need to dress up. MW

That was the note that was pinned to the boathouse door together with a small trumpet of cowslip.

Drake hadn’t bothered to heat the bath water, the day had been warm enough as it was. He was in a good mood, a light mood. The troughs were dug out on both banks and the first of the slats added. He dried off quickly and moved the metal tub out of the way by the door.

He ransacked the boathouse for a mirror, but only the glass from a carefully positioned balcony door offered up any kind of reflection. His hair was scraggy, he pushed it away from his forehead. It had been weeks since he had thought about the things that kept his hair in place or made his skin smell nice, but he thought about them then, and searched through his suitcase to see if anything from his old life remained.

He took out a white shirt. It smelt of laundry soap. It felt good on his skin. He did up the top button and loosely knotted a blue woollen tie. He rolled up his sleeves because his cufflinks had long gone. He found a small tube of Brylcreem, the end rolled like toothpaste. He squeezed the pomade on to his fingers and smelt it. Thought it would do. He sat in front of the glass door and ran it through his hair. With a comb he styled it the best he could and wondered why he was bothering about his appearance so much. No need to dress up. That’s what she had said. But he was.

Marvellous brushed out her hair and tied it back in a bun. She smoothed her hands over the front and pinched her cheeks as she had always done. She bent down and opened up the cupboard beneath her bed. She took out a clean lavender-smelling fishing smock that had once been red but had now faded to pink. It complimented the tone of her skin well. She slipped it over her head, and in the words of someone-or-other, felt a million dollars.

And then as best she could, she applied lipstick to her wide-smiling lips. At this point she thought a mirror might be useful, but it had last graced the wall back in 1929 – not that she would ever remember the date – and it had been broken up and used in a wind chime. It didn’t make sense to have a mirror; she was an ageing woman and a child at the same time: the confluence of two rivers, and everyone knows that confuses the fish.

No need to dress up
, that’s what she had written.

She reached down to the wireless and turned the volume up as high as it would go. The caravan began to vibrate with song. She rocked side to side in Paper Jack’s old boots.

Peace reread the note that had been pinned to her door with a stem of bluebell. She couldn’t remember the last time she had ever dressed up and wondered if the requirement to
not
dress up was actually harbouring a secret request
to
dress up.

She stood back from the mirror. She stood in profile and smoothed her bust. She had always had a good bust and Wilfred said she had a better bust than Rita Hayworth. She pulled nervously at the pale yellow cuffs that hung slightly too high above her wrists. Her hands seemed even larger than they normally did, had a strange resemblance to bread paddles. She liked the dress. It was the only dress that had ever suited her and she had bought it for Wilfred’s funeral. In his instructions he had forbidden her to wear black but her grief had forbidden her to wear anything jollier than moss green. Moss green matched her eyes, and between her moss-green eyes and her moss-green dress was her wide mouth, now painted orange. She tried to look objectively at her colour palette but she couldn’t. She knew she looked like a marrow. But a
beautiful
marrow, Wilfred would have said.

She wished she had unsensible shoes and wished for stockings with seams, and she had never wished for those things before. She combed her fringe and checked that it ran evenly across her brow line. She put on a tailored Harris Tweed jacket, grabbed her handbag and ran out through the bakehouse door.

No need to dress up
. The words collided in her mouth like marbles.

She was hot and sweaty by the time the riverbank came into sight. The boathouse door was ajar, and she was aware of how nervous she felt. She waited until her breathing had settled before she called out his name.

Come in, called Drake. It’s open.

She entered the quiet space and found him about to drag a tin bath out of the doorway.

Hello, he said. You look hot.

I think I’m overdressed.

Have some water.

She went over to the earthenware flagon and poured out a large glass of cool water.

Delicious, she said. I feel better already.

Of course you do. Tears of a saint, that stuff is. I’ve drunk it since I got here and I haven’t had worms.

My gosh, said Peace. That is holy. ’Spect you’ll be walking on it next.

And Drake laughed and she removed her tweed jacket and let the cool breeze from the balcony doors blow across the pale hairs on her arms.

Thank you, she said.

You don’t need to thank me. Have another glass.

No. Thank you for Simeon. I wanted to come earlier, but . . . Thank you, that’s all, for putting things right for him. For me. And they are right now. So—

And Drake wrapped his arms around her and she leant into his shoulder and smelt washing powder and Brylcreem, and she drank in the Shh that came quiet from his lips.

Here, let me help you, she said, pulling away.

They took an end each and carried the bath out of the door and poured the water on to the honeysuckle and briar rose that framed the wall outside. Drake looked at the sun, looked at his watch. We should head down, he said.

That’s interesting, said Peace, pointing to the picture above the hearth.

Is it? I did it. When I was a kid.

Who is it supposed to be?

My father.

You look like him.

I’m not sure that I do. I never knew him, you see. It’s just how I imagined him.

And was he kind, your father? In your imagination.

Yes, I suppose he was.

Brave?

I’m not sure about that. I pieced him together from my successes and failures. Bad swimmer but good at running. That kind of thing. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself as brave, he said, and he went and picked up his sweater from the bed.

And he’s always watched over you? said Peace.

Yes. I suppose he has.

Like God?

Drake laughed. I don’t believe, I’m afraid.

Hmm, said Peace, putting her jacket back on. But you believed in a man you never knew and never met watching over you? she said.

Come on, said Drake, smiling, holding the door open for her.

And Peace said nothing more as she walked on ahead towards the waiting boat.