Eve of the Isle (39 page)

Suddenly a knock came on the door and shaking his head from his drowsy state, he went to answer it. Eve, her young man and the two boys stood on the doorstep.

Eve stepped forward to kiss his cheek. ‘Happy New Year, Joseph.'

‘And a happy New Year to you too. Come in, come in.'

‘Only if your visitors have gone.'

‘Yes, yes, I'm quite alone.'

They stepped into the hall and he led them into the front room where he took their coats and scarves.
Afterwards he fed them hot toast from the end of a fork and made fresh tea in the samovar. Whilst they were talking he gave the boys permission to climb on the shed and swing from the tall ship's bowsprit. Then, smiling at Eve, he asked if they had enjoyed a good Christmas. After a while the conversation turned to the events of the past year, the wonderful discovery of a germ-killing mould by Professor Alexander Fleming, the health of the king which had taken a turn for the worse in November, the Equal Franchise Act that the Commons had passed giving the vote to women, and the outstanding triumph of Amelia Earhart as she crossed the Atlantic in her small plane. But it was not long before they were recalling last year at this time when the skies had darkened and the ice and snow that had covered the country in a bitter winter had thawed suddenly in the Cotswolds and turned the River Thames into a turbulent enemy.

‘I never thought we'd get back into the cottage again,' Eve said as she sipped the hot tea. ‘And we wouldn't if it wasn't for my friends and neighbours and Charlie of course.'

Joseph could see by his guests' exchanged glances that these two young people, like those he had just seen off from his front door, were beginning the year with fresh dreams. Those two little boys, he thought as he listened to Eve and Charlie speaking, would benefit from the flood in ways that no one could have imagined. He felt that life had been very good to him,
allowing him to see such expansion. In Russia, his own dreams had been crushed, but other younger, brighter and more courageous souls would take over the work when his was done.

‘Joseph, are you feeling all right?' Eve touched his hand.

He smiled as he blinked at them. ‘Just a little tired, that's all.'

‘We must go.' Charlie shook his hand and Eve put her arms around him.

‘I wanted to thank you for giving us a home when we didn't have one.'

‘You were most welcome.'

‘Joseph, if there is anything me and Charlie can do . . .'

He smiled and nodded slowly as it seemed that a prayer might have been answered. ‘One day, my dears, I may call on you.'

When they went to the yard, Samuel and Albert were sitting high on the tall ship's bowsprit. They swung their booted feet and waved mittened hands, their breath white in the winter's cold.

‘A wonderful picture,' nodded Joseph in satisfaction.

‘A happy New Year,' said Eve fondly beside him as Charlie went to get them down.

Joseph nodded slowly. Nature had played its part in his life and in the young woman's. He was satisfied now.

When the family had departed, he went inside and drew a large leather pouch from the dresser drawer.

The soft material brought back memories of Gilda's long fingers and her gentle touch and the many love letters they had exchanged, the most precious of which he kept in here. He opened the pouch and began to speak softly to the woman he had left behind so long ago, but who had never missed a day in his thoughts.

It was Monday the seventh of January and the first day back at school for Samuel and Albert. The morning was bright but cold and breezy with an easterly nip. Eve walked with them to St Saviour's and watched them as they met their friends in the playground. They seemed to have grown taller over the Christmas holidays and they were more like one another now than they had ever been, with Raj's stunning good looks and his natural elegance. Today a young girl that she hadn't seen before, with parchment-coloured skin and almond-shaped eyes, haloed by long straight black hair, joined them. Her smaller companion, who Eve took to be her brother, was also almond eyed and his hair was a luxurious black. Other children surrounded them and laughter erupted. Eve smiled. They were obviously new pupils and it seemed that Albert and Samuel had taken them under their wing.

Eve left St Saviour's and hurried to the house on Westferry Road where she collected her baskets and waited for her first delivery of the morning. She was an hour late, but had arranged the time with Percy and very soon the old man and his horse and cart came along.

‘'Appy New Year to yer, gel,' he said, as he unloaded the stock sent by Queenie and Eve arranged it in her baskets. ‘You'll do the bee's knees terday.'

Eve nodded. Last week trade had been unusually quiet. But now everyone had turned the corner into the new year and she felt confident that interest would resume. Despite the cold weather, people still wanted a posy or two to cheer them up in hospital or to take to a loved one's grave, or a buttonhole for a jacket lapel or a sprig of heather for luck.

Once more, Eve's two regular customers, the girls from the factory, asked her to set aside posies, new year's gifts for their mothers. The talk that morning was of the events of the seventh of January last year, when the island's residents had woken to see the streets submerged in water. Eve felt a deep sense of well-being, as she discussed the ups and downs of the flood. They had come through a natural disaster and her business was better than ever. By eleven o'clock most of one basket had disappeared and Eve arranged the remainder attractively, so that by early afternoon, she was ready to go. She was about to take the basket on her hip when a figure passed by on the other side of the road. The man was swathed in scarves and a cap so she couldn't see his face. Since she knew most of the people who passed this way, Eve smiled at the stranger. He paused briefly, his hands stuck down in the pockets of a long, grey coat.

By the time she had raised the basket and adjusted the money bag under her coat, he had vanished.

Eve gave no more thought to the figure until she caught sight of him again after stowing away the baskets. He was walking behind her, though it wasn't his footsteps she'd heard, but an instinct that told her someone was there.

When she arrived at Isle Street, she turned back. There was nothing, just a horse and cart passing and a few pedestrians.

Eve hurried down the hill. Had he wanted flowers and saw that she had none? But why didn't he ask? There was something about him that seemed familiar. But when she got indoors, Eve soon forgot about the stranger as Joan was standing in the passage, a bowl of steaming water in her hands as the antiseptic smell of friar's balsam filled the air.

‘I 'ope you don't mind me going upstairs for one of your pick-me-ups, gel. I had to do somethin' as the smellin' salts wasn't working.'

‘Is it Peg?' Eve asked in alarm.

‘No, we got a visitor.' She jerked her head to the front room. ‘Peg's in there with 'im.'

Eve went in to find Peg sitting beside Joseph on the couch. The old man's collar was loosened, his head back on a cushion. His face was grey and he was breathing with difficulty.

‘Joseph, are you ill?'

Peg looked up at Eve. ‘He was trying to get up that flamin' slope. Saw him out the window with 'is shopping basket, taking one step forward and two back against the wind.'

‘Ladies, please, I'm just a little . . . out of breath.'

‘Here,' said Joan, placing the bowl on his lap and taking his bony hands to place round it. ‘Hold on to that and breathe in. It'll either kill or cure you, ducks.'

For a moment all four of them were engulfed in the cloud of Eve's strong balsam. Joseph coughed as he inhaled and Eve could hear his wheezy chest. ‘You should wrap up at this time of year,' she told him gently. ‘And going out was unnecessary. I could have done your shopping. I told you to call on me if there was anything I could do.'

He nodded. ‘I don't want to be a burden.'

‘Joseph, you're never that.'

‘Come on Joan,' said Peg, pulling her sister with her, ‘we'll make ourselves useful and brew a nice cup of rosie.'

When they were gone Eve took off her coat and sat down. The old man didn't look at all well. She smiled. ‘I think you've been doing too much running after all them visitors.'

He gave her a weak grin. ‘I thought a walk would do me good. I must go now.'

‘What for?' Eve chuckled. ‘Unless you've got more visitors to look after?'

‘No, the house is quite empty now.' He sighed softly
and looked into Eve's gaze. ‘How can I refuse my kinsmen? I know I'm getting old but they come to me for help. They are desperate, my dear.'

‘Is it that bad in Russia?' Eve asked curiously.

‘The new regimes are terrifying. Terrifying! The revolution in which our Czar died only bred a new kind of monster. His name is Stalin.' He stopped, struggling to get his breath as his agitation grew. ‘Those young people were threatened with the labour camps, an abomination to humanity! They refused to work in the mines under intolerable conditions. There is no freedom to choose, you see, just the good of the state.'

Eve gently pressed him back against the cushions. ‘There now, don't upset yourself. I'm sure you did all you could to help them and now you must try to take care of yourself. Lay back and try a little nap.'

He nodded, submitting to her pressure as his eyes grew tired and weary. A minute later, he was asleep.

Eve stood up and went out, quietly closing the door behind her. In the kitchen Joan and Peg were sitting at the table, smoking their roll-ups. The kettle was boiling and Eve turned it off.

‘Don't think Joseph will want one.'

‘Is he kipping?'

‘Yes.'

Joan looked at Eve. ‘If you ask me an old pot and pan like him shouldn't be running around after people.'

Eve sat down with them. ‘He won't stop.'

‘Who are they?'

‘It's to do with what's happening in Russia,' Eve tried to explain. ‘They come to find freedom as they have to work so hard in places like these terrible mines.'

Peg sat back and laughed. ‘Work in the mines?' she repeated incredulously. ‘What casual standing on the dock stones wouldn't give his right arm to work in a mine, no matter how terrible it is? You just ask them blokes that scrape infected hides off the floors of the skin holds with the stink of anthrax in their noses! Would these foreigners volunteer to work in such a way? Any docker will tell you that you don't have no freedom if yer belly's hungry and your wife and kids are starving.'

As Eve was considering this, there was a knock on the door. Hurrying to open it, Eve was shocked to see Charlie and beside him, Sergeant Moody.

‘Mrs Kumar,' Sergeant Moody boomed. ‘We have the pleasure of meeting again.' His voice was filled with sarcasm.

‘What do you want?'

‘Another body has been found in the river.'

Eve went weak at the knees. ‘But it can't be my husband if that's what you think.'

Sergeant Moody's face grew very red under his helmet. ‘Please get your coat and come with us.'

Eve looked at Charlie in confusion. He went to step forward but the sergeant put out his arm. ‘Stay where you are, Merritt. And leave this to me.'

Eve felt very frightened. What did Charlie want to say? And why did she have to see another dead body?

Eve didn't want to look at another dead man. The memory of Dilip Bal was still clear in her mind as he'd lain on that cold hard slab of a table, all the life gone from him.

‘Please step forward.' This time it wasn't Charlie who was beside her in the freezing cold mortuary, it was Sergeant Moody. Charlie had been dismissed and instructed to stay outside.

The terrible smell that she remembered so clearly was making her feel sick. The room was bereft of any comfort, not even a chair to sit on. There was only the table with a cover over it and an attendant standing behind.

Eve moved slowly forward, pulling her coat collar up to her chin as though she could hide under it.

‘Ready,' said Sergeant Moody and the man pulled back the sheet. Eve closed her eyes. Perhaps she could pretend she had looked. But when her arm was shaken she was forced to open them.

The gasp that came from her throat was like a cry. She put her hand to her mouth.

‘Do you know him?'

Eve nodded.

‘Is it your husband?'

Eve could only shake her head. She turned and Sergeant Moody opened the door for her as she stumbled out. In the corridor Charlie rushed forward. ‘Eve!'

‘That will do, Merritt!' Sergeant Moody ordered but Charlie ignored him as he helped Eve to a chair.

‘It's all right,' said Charlie quietly, ‘it's over now.'

‘I said that is enough, P.C. Merritt. Bring Mrs Kumar to the car immediately. She has made an identification.'

Charlie helped her to her feet again. He supported her as they walked along the corridor. Tears filled her eyes as she looked into his concerned face.

Outside, they stopped at the car. Quickly Charlie said, ‘Who is it Eve?'

As the car engine growled, she managed to whisper, ‘It was Singh, Charlie. Somar Singh.'

Charlie was seething. Sergeant Moody had been cross-questioning Eve for the past two hours and wouldn't hear of him being present. She had been allowed a drink of water, but nothing since then. It was now dark outside and as his superior's voice broke into his thoughts, Charlie pulled back his shoulders.

‘Step in, Merritt.' Sergeant Moody's order was abrupt.

Charlie walked into the small, cluttered office and saw Eve sitting on the chair, her face ashen. He wanted to put his arms round her and tell Moody to leave her alone.

The older policeman sat down and studied a large sheet of paper that was lying on the desk in front of him.