Fragile Blossoms (12 page)

Leaning heavily on a cane Callie moved away, Matty singing and whistling beside her. Desperate for the day to end Julia stood gazing down.

There was a cough at her elbow, Susan’s sister. ‘I need to be on my way.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘She was my sister. Just because others stayed away don’t mean I have to.’

‘No indeed. I thought Susan a very sweet girl.’

‘Did yer? It seems to me someone else thought the same.’

‘I’ll arrange for a cab to take you to the station. Do you have her things?’

‘If you mean the few bits in her room I left ‘em where they were. They were no use to her and they’re no use to me.’

‘Would you to take this letter? Susan meant it for your mother. It was dictated the night she died. She was anxious for it to be sent.’

‘I don’t know that I will take it. She was a worry to our mother from the day she was born. The times we’ve wept over her. A pretty girl, she’ll go far they all said. Look how far she went, a hole in the ground and a bastard child with her.’

‘Do take the letter! There’s money in the envelope, Susan’s wages.’

The woman took the envelope. ‘Thank you for your kindness. It’s a pity she didn’t come to you then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. She was a worry but as you say a sweet girl. She was like one of them lilies you tossed down the hole picked when fresh and then cast aside.’

Stefan is not well. Throughout the funeral he sat still and pale. At the graveside he almost fell, Daniel Masson supporting him.

Julia went to him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Indigestion.’ He patted his chest. ‘It is my own fault. The pigeon pie at luncheon was too tempting. Daniel has offered a bed at Greenfields but I cannot stay. I have appointments next week that are too pressing. If you will allow me to rest awhile, Julianna, I will catch a later train.’

An hour later at the cottage he was no better.

Julia was anxious. ‘You’re quite worn out. You shouldn’t have come.’

‘I had to. Knowing how things were for you how I stay away.’

‘You must rest.’ Julia took his arm and led him to the stairs. ‘In this moment I am the doctor. You must abide by my dictates.’

‘
Nein
, Julianna!’ He tried to smile. ‘Do not lay that curse upon yourself. One Sisyphus in this modern world is sufficient.’

Stefan sat watching the light change through the loose weave curtain. The forecast said rain later. He should leave now before the weather worsens but he is tired. Perhaps if he lies down awhile he’ll feel better before going home. Home, where is that? He pays lease on the house in Bradbury and a
pied a terre
in Knightsbridge not far from his practice but they are not home. They are a convenience. His home was in Dresden close by Frauenkirche. Every morning church bells ring and scatter the pigeons that were once the bane of Karoline’s life. ‘Do not feed them, Stefan,’ she’d say. ‘They are parasites.’

Pigeon pie is what he ate for luncheon. Indigestion he told Julianna. She knows it is more than that. She sees what everyone sees when looking at him, a heart bleeding. Saturday he was at a concert, Brahms
Eine Deutches Requiem
. In conversation afterward he said he’d like the last movement, ‘
Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted
,’ to be played at his funeral. A friend, grossly overweight and a drinker, said since the whole of the medical profession is on borrowed time they should recall the orchestra.

What is borrowed time? In terms of three score years and ten Stefan has entered the last third. Maybe that’s it once passed that Watershed an Angel presses a button on a stopwatch and from then on time belongs to God.

Rickard Adelmann, Stefan’s father, long gone, said we are only ever on loan.
‘Mitt Gott kanst du nicht handeln... wenn deine Zeit vorueber ist, ist es vorbei
.‘

When your time is up it’s up. There is no bargaining with God.

Lying here breathing in starched linen and lavender another quote slips into his mind, physician heal thyself. Professor Stefan Willem Adelmann of the Universities of Gottingen and Berlin, honorary Fellow of the Royal College and consultant to the Queen, can’t do that. He’s done the things he should, taken
Die Kur
at Wiesbaden, washed in the waters, fasted, consulted quacks, but the clock ticks. Angina pectoris is the curse of the male Adelmann line, generations of fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles have all fallen clutching their chests. Blocked arteries is the layman’s term and good enough since blocked is what they are by hereditary trait and love of hog-roast. It’s likely when he does fall angina will be given as cause but in truth his hurts are legion. Devils plague his soul. He once made a mistake and his wife paid for it. Now only the Lord God and a passing drove of Gadarene swine can set him free.

Julianna is right when she he shouldn’t have come but like her he feels responsible for the girl’s fate. It was he who brought Susan from the slum in Stepney. He had no trouble finding the address. He knows the area. A house there is familiar to him. 28, Beaconsfield Road is where he shares another life. It’s where once a week he goes to metaphorically exchange his button-boots for slippers and his stethoscope for pipe and tobacco.

Peggy Gresham lives at number 28 with her sons Jim and Tommy. Stefan has been supporting Peggy since the spring of ‘94. To her he is someone to hug when lonely. To her sons he’s the foreign bloke who pays the rent. He knocks on the door. ‘Hello, ducks,’ she’ll say her good-natured face glowing. ‘Come in and I’ll make us a nice cup-of-tea.’ Stefan loathes English tea as he loathes the stodgy rice-pudding she doles out every time he calls but he likes Peggy. As for her sons they are pleased to see him and pleased when he leaves.

A faceless person Peggy was char to his Knightsbridge house. In the spring of ’94 he found her bleeding into the sink her husband having broken her nose. That same spring the husband vanished. ‘Don’t worry about ‘im, mate,’ said the eldest son when Stefan enquired. ‘Go fill your boots! He won’t be troublin’ Ma again.’ Permission given, and the lads out the back door, Stefan did fill his boots, the bedsprings twanging. Hairy armpits and dimpled buttocks she’s no Rhine Maiden but she’s patient and once a week grips him between her knees and shakes his sorrows loose.

Every visit to Stepney is the last. He tells himself he needn’t go again Peggy is comfort against the trauma of a sick wife. Any comfort is short-lived. Yesterday Karoline was particularly difficult. Whereas before it was only his food she disdained now she begins to refuse all food. It’s no use saying she doesn’t know what is happening, a part of her, the shining self behind the abstraction knows. She used to ask for him. Now she asks for Julianna. ‘
Wo ist Frau Dryden
?’ He says nothing. What can Julianna do than that hasn’t already been done?

To say he was surprised by Julianna’s advances that day is to understate the case. Women are seeking votes and admittance to male bastion. Mrs Dryden never struck him as a suffragette. He saw modesty and liked it. Then suddenly, shockingly and delightfully, modesty had her hand on his thigh!

Both women are lovely in their way. To compare would be to insult and yet so tender was Julianna’s embrace his heart thrashed as a caged bird. A memory of that time is locked in the dark reaches of his mind. Foot poised on a stool and a tumble of lace and a scarlet garter she stretches to remove her stocking. He trails his hand down her long curving haunch to a shadowy cleft and to warm, wet, darkness, and she shudders.

The first touch of her hand on his flesh and manhood was stunned to silence Stefan too old and sad to respond to youth and beauty. ‘Forgive me!’ he’d whispered, ‘I am unable to give as you deserve.’ Her voice a throaty purr she’d closed him in her arms. ‘Close your eyes and let me be the one to give.’

So it was in the first fumbling, his hands those of an ape, she led the way until a change so sweet he can only think it a gift from God. A door to the past opened in that cheerless house transporting him back in time. It was his wife he held, Karoline Kleinman of the silver hair and chipped diamonds eyes, and he the young and strong Herr Doktor, newly minted and lately wed. They honeymooned in the bridal suite in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeitzen Kempinski. Naked but for a shift she undid her hair. An ardent and a powerful lover he was then and for an hour in Bradbury Julianna Dryden, and a mystical being, allowed him to be that lover again.

Stefan woke with a start. He’d slept! A storm is blowing and thunder rattles the window panes. Cursing, he swung his legs over the bed. He must leave the house no matter how late. Julianna is alone. He mustn’t stay. Her acceptance in this village is difficult enough. He must not make things worse.

When the door opened he was bending to button his boots. A softly glowing lamp in her hand and skirts whispering she entered the room.

‘Forgive me, Julianna. I slept.’

‘Good,’ she said closing the door. ‘I meant you to.’

‘
Nein
!’ he said anxious. ‘Do not close the door! I must not stay.’

‘Of course you must stay, at least until the storm subsides!’ She set the lamp on the table. ‘It’s raining cats-and-dogs out there. You’ll be soaked.’

‘Please be sensible. You are here alone.’

‘Alone?’ she smiled her beautiful face serene. ‘I don’t believe it’s possible to be alone in this house. I think the history of the world is encased between these four walls.’

‘Julianna! What are you doing?’

One-by-one she took combs from her hair. ‘Oh!’ she shook her head. ‘That’s better! At eighteen one can’t wait to pin up one’s hair. God knows why!’ She unbuttoned her blouse. So many buttons it took forever and then her skirt.

‘We must not do this!’ he said. ‘As of this moment we are only speculation. Come the morning and we are fact.’

‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘They’ll think ill of me no matter what I do. It’s vile out there. I wouldn’t send a dog out in this never mind a man, especially a man like you, my dear Stefan.’

He peered through the gloom. ‘Julianna?’ he said hesitantly. ‘
Bist do dass?
’

Lightning flashed illuminating a figure of white gold. She smiled. ‘It’s me, Stefan. Who else would it be?’

He left just before five. Julia was stirring porridge. Stefan stood at the kitchen door humming softly under his breath. She could feel his gaze. ‘Goodbye, then, Stefan,’ she said. ‘I wish you a quiet journey and a calm week.’

‘There is every possibility of a quiet journey but none of a calm day. I am to travel to the Cowes on Friday.’

‘Cowes? What are you doing there?’

‘I am visiting Osborne House.’

‘Ah yes Her Majesty! You move in exalted circles, Doctor Adelmann.’

Suddenly young he smiled. ‘I believe I do. Certainly last night was a heavenly experience. At least,’ he hesitated, ‘it was for me.’

‘And for me.’

Stefan gone the house was silent only a memory of the tune he hummed lingering, Schubert’s
Die Forelle
. ‘Karoline played the cello. We both played. I do still sometimes. It’s how we met. She loved the
Trout
. Schubert and Strauss were our favourites. We loved to waltz to the music of Strauss.’

This was Stefan at two am this morning, his head on the pillow and arm across Julia’s waist. ‘I love the Strauss music. People love to bring their heroes to their knees. A man can struggle for years to be successful and then one day he writes a piece that is so popular he is regarded by the cognoscenti as low-brow and coarse. Brahms whose Requiem I heard recently was not afraid to like the popular. Of the Blue Danube he wrote, ‘
unfortunately not composed by Johannes Brahms
.’

Owen would talk after making love. His talk was not of waltzes or of how he danced all night, his post-coital chatter was of the Great Pyramid and how he hoped eventually to see it. He would talk and then sleep. Stefan slept in similar sudden manner; finding him so Julia had crept away to her own room and to the windowsill, and the cooling rain, and to Luke Roberts gazing up.

Again the past was to be repeated rains beats down and a man shelters under the eaves. The only thing missing is an imperious wave of a hand telling her to go inside. No wave this time more a look in his eyes.

Unable to bear that look Julia had rushed downstairs and out of the door. ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ she’d shouted rain plastering her nightgown to her body. ‘Yes there’s a man up there asleep in a bed, a true and honest friend whose heart is breaking! And yes he did hold me and we did cling together but not as you think! None of it is as this dirty town imagines. All is so much kinder and so sad. It is caring! It is love, and nothing but love!’

Hair in draggled tails and feet thick with mud she’d shouted until she was hoarse. Heart and soul she’d tried telling him that wanting a person to be a certain way will not make them so; that we must accept people for who they are, wholly and lovingly, and if we can’t then we must leave them be.

Not that it mattered! There was no one to see her tears or hear her pleadings. Luke Roberts did as he always does on such occasions walked away. It was then turning back to the house she realised she hadn’t uttered a word, every shout, every plea for understanding, was in her head.

The rest was the wind and the rain.

Why does he bother! Luke should’ve stopped right there and walked away without a backward glance. ‘What is the point,’ he drove the chisel under the tile and it fell away rotten as is the rest of the roof. This house! So much to do he’ll be breaking his back to get the shell right. Some things are too heavy to carry for any length of time. Maybe Ma’s right when she says Julianna’s no better than she should be. A robe and her hair undone and alone in the house with that chap, he must step back and leave well alone.

It’s what he told himself the following week. It didn’t help. To judge without knowing doesn’t sit right with him. And who is he to judge! As he said to Albert their only connection is his heart and her indifference.

Early this morning Ma came to the Forge all aquiver, ‘could he help out to wait on tables; they’ve a full house this evening and nobility coming, a Lady Eve Carrington is to visit the Art Exhibition at Sandringham and has booked three nights for her and her brother and all with dinner!

The name Carrington is whispered hereabouts by downstairs maids as the one who kicked Susan Dudley out. Curious to put a face to a woman who could do such a thing Luke agreed to lend a hand. That she should choose to stay at the Nelson when there are grander hotels is odd, that she should visit Bakers End with Susan and the baby not a month in the ground is more so.

Word spread that she was coming. Even here in the backend of Norfolk newspapers are read, Milady’s comings and goings, her paintings in London galleries and her society doings and friendship with royalty are noted. Luke has another source of information in Mrs Mac. In the week following Susan’s death she talked all the while of Eve Carrington, how she is temperamental and artistic and never the same two days in a row, and how her brother, the Honourable Freddie, calls her Elliptical Eve.

Luke has his own thoughts about Susan’s death. Though years and circumstances apart he can’t help linking it to Jacky’s death. The night Susan died he was woken in none too gentle a fashion. At first he thought the bed had collapsed. There was nothing wrong with it. The Lord God had thrown him out, a voice thundering: ‘
Look for young Matty. He’s out dreaming with his dog and is afraid
.’ Luke ran and as he ran he seemed to know one child would be saved but another lost. He went to the funeral. Nan didn’t want him to. She said people would take it amiss. ‘What?’ he’d scorned, ‘me going to a funeral?’ She’d nodded. ‘They’ll think you’re going against them.’

Things between them are not good. He’d like to make it better but both Ma and Albert are hidebound in attitude and drive him crazy. Look what they’re doing now! The Good Wives of chapel that decided against attending Susan’s funeral are planning to do the same with the N and tea-room.

‘We don’t want it here,’ said Albert, his lip screwed up. ‘Fancy people playing at business, they waste their time and ours. Mrs Julianna Dryden can bake her cakes and polish her silver but we’ll not sup there. This is a decent town. She must shut up shop and take herself and her fancy-men elsewhere.’

The last word lies with the former Lansdowne House and the Americans. It will be the newcomers to English shores that make or break the tea-shop. The townsfolk are waiting to see which way the wind blows, the right direction and the N and N, and Julianna, may yet prove a winner.

Lady Evelyn and the Honourable Freddie arrived shortly after six. Luke helped with the baggage. A big fellow called Jamieson, more a bruiser than a valet, passed down a boxed-up painting. Luke reached up to take it.

‘Whoah!’ The brother, a chap in late twenties, sprang forward. ‘I’ll take that, my friend,’ he grinned. ‘That is my life’s blood. Busted I’ll pop a vein and die.’

‘Don’t be silly, Freddie,’ a voice drawled. ‘No one’s going to drop it, especially not this man. I have it on good authority Mr Luke Roberts has the safest hands in Norfolk. Which is why he’s about to extend a hand to help me down.’

There she was, Eve Carrington smiling through the carriage window big blue eyes shining. ‘Good day Mr Roberts! Or should I call you Mister Wolf?’

Luke laughed, he could do no other. This slender little creature, this elfin child with piquant face and cherub curls is the dreaded Elliptical Eve? It can’t be so. He laughed and she laughed with him her delicate fingers caressing his palm. ‘I know,’ she said smiling. ‘The world is absurd, don’t you think.’

That evening he served at table discussing the choice of wine with the Honourable Freddie. ‘Are you an artist too?’ he queried of Luke. ‘You have that mean and starvin’ in a garret look we’d all like to cultivate.’

‘I’m no artist.’

‘You are. I see hunger in your eyes and tell-tale damage to your hands. Mine are the same.’ Freddie spread his fingers. ‘It’s the price of being a dauber, fingers smashed to hell and back. Why are yours so black-and-blue?’

‘I’m reroofing a house.’

Freddie laughed. ‘That would explain it.’

‘And I do paint.’ Luke pulled the cork and poured a glass. ‘I paint walls and ceilings, three coats, but the brushes I wield a little hefty for your canvas.’

‘Keep it that way.’ Freddie emptied his glass. ‘Don’t even think of trying to translate the things you love through paint. It’ll break your heart.’

The Carringtons ate little and drank a great deal. Come ten o clock the Honourable Freddie was tipsy. Luke wasn’t particularly sober, his heart heavy and this fellow’s humour so brittle he needed some form of protection.

At the third bottle Freddie was following Luke to the cellar willing to try anything. ‘What is that? Oh a Madeira and a good one at that! Yes, open it up. I’m lately from Paris with Johnny Sargent where they’re all drinkin’ that filthy Dubonnet muck.’

Luke opened the bottle and poured. Freddie smacked his lips. ‘That’s not bad, possibly a little on the sweet side. What do you think?’

‘It’s not bad. It’ll carry as my mother would say.’

‘Your Mater is expert on wine?’

‘My Mater is expert on everything.’

Freddie waggled his head. ‘My Mater don’t do much of anythin’. She’s a kind lady but grey, if you know what I mean. My Pa as well as bein’ a High Court Judge is an expert shot. He keeps Purdey guns like other people keep chickens. He gives displays, a Master-class in Murder. Do you shoot?’

‘I trap the odd rabbit now and then but that’s all. What about you?’

‘I don’t see the sport in it. Now Evie’s a crackin’ shot. She went on Safari with her husband, don’t you know, the late Sidney Bevington-Smythe, twelve gauge Purdey braced up against that little shoulder and Kerboom!’

‘You’re kidding me! That little lady can handle a twelve bore!’

Freddie giggled. ‘That little lady can handle anythin’, male or female, never mind the size. A wonderful lady is my sister if you don’t mind sharin’.’

‘What do you mean share?’

‘Evie steals things. She sees somethin’ she likes and wants it. Don’t matter who it belongs to. She’s always pinchin’ my stuff.’ Freddie pointed with the glass. ‘Take you for instance? She knows I like you. She knows Ju-ju Dryden likes you. She knows you like Ju-ju. What’s the bettin’ she don’t pinch you?’

‘What if I don’t want to be pinched?’

‘Won’t matter! She’ll still have you. It’s what she does. She wasn’t always into paintin’. Writing was her thing. She saw herself a new Bronte. Then I started dabblin’. Now she paints and is better than me. It’s natural to her where I have to work at it. A mixed bag is Elliptical Eve. It’s not her fault. It’s the Black Dog.’

‘Black Dog?’

‘It’s the family curse. Every one of the Baines Carrington is bitten by the brute. Ruinous, you can’t do nothin’ with him gnawing at your feet. Darkness falls over your soul. It’s why she paints and it’s why I can’t.’ Freddie emptied another glass. ‘Did you know I got a work showin’ tomorrow at Sandringham?’

‘You did mention your painting as you life’s blood.’

‘It is and then again it ain’t. When it comes to paintin’ there’s only one Master, and that’s the Almighty. Man can’t compete with Him especially when the subject is Julianna Dryden. You ever sit for a portrait?’

‘What a hammer in one hand and a brick in the other?’

‘Seriously, you’d make a wonderful subject. Johnny Sargent would pay boodles for you. So would I.’ Freddie swiped the air. ‘I see it now, A Wolf at Bay, people offerin’ a king’s ransom and me turnin’ ‘em down.’

‘Is that the black dog talking or the Madeira?’

Freddie wagged his finger. ‘My dear chap you mustn’t joke about the Dog. He’s a fearsome hound. He’ll do for me and Evie. One day you’ll see the headlines, ‘heir to fortune leaps to his death, sister holdin’ his hand.’

Thinking the conversation taking a darker turn, and aware things said in the evening are resented in the morning, Luke emptied his glass. ‘I should be getting home.’

‘You don’t live here then?’

‘I live at the Forge.’

‘
Merde
!’ Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘Who are you? On the brink of a new century, trains on railways tracks, industry chewin’ our ears, us in charge of a bloomin’ Empire and you live in a Forge. It’s another world!’

‘Compared to yours I imagine it is.’

‘Talkin’ of other worlds.’ Freddie hauled up on a vat and sat with his feet dangling. ‘You’re friends with Ju-ju aren’t you?’

‘I’ve worked on the cottage.’

‘Is it a nice cottage?’ Freddie closed his eyes. ‘Can one wander through hosts of golden daffodils? I’d like to live in a cottage. Better than breathin’ London soot. She is our muse, Evie and me, the face we both try to lay on canvas.’

‘Good luck with that!’

‘I know.’ Freddie grinned. Silly arses we don’t come anywhere near. Evie’s better. It’s not Ju-ju but close. You should go see the
Fauns
while they’re local. Next week they’ll be back in the National, both of them.’

‘Fauns?’

‘Yes fauns. Julianna? Do you get it?’

Luke nodded. He got it.

‘Faun is a good name for her, bit different to my work. I call it the
White Lady
. I’d take you to my room and unveil the colossus except I have a thing about it not being seen until hung, superstition you know.’

‘I need to get back to the bar.’

Freddie wiped his mouth. ‘How is Ju-ju? I understand there was a tragedy at her place, one of her maids. I wanted to come to the funeral but Evie said no. How did Julianna manage? Was she devastated?’

‘She was unhappy.’

‘I imagine so. And the girl, Bella, there was a baby, wasn’t there?’

‘There was.’

‘Stillborn?’

‘Yes.’

‘A boy I heard.’

The hair on Luke’s head prickled. It was the look on Carrington’s face. ‘You knew Susan Dudley?’

‘We all knew Susan and were sorry to hear of her death.’ Evelyn Carrington and the bruiser valet were at the door. ‘She was a sweet girl, possibly a little wayward at times but one mustn’t speak ill of the dead.

‘Hello Sister mine,’ said Freddie. ‘You ready to climb the wooden hill?’

‘I think you are ready.’

Luke took the lamp. ‘I’d best be going. I’m needed elsewhere

Evie nodded. ‘Indeed you are needed elsewhere, Mr Roberts, and have been so this last hour.’

‘I’m sorry. Freddie and I got to talking. What can I do for you?’

‘You could perhaps help Jamieson here guide my brother, the Honourable Frederick Carrington, to his room.’

‘Oh look out, Luke!’ Freddie slid down the vat. ‘Evie’s ridin’ her pedigree horse and you and the rest of the world peasants.’

‘Come along!’ Evie leaned down and gripping Freddie’s arm pulled him to his feet; Luke saw then how a hand like that could pull a trigger. ‘I’m not on any kind of horse. I’m getting you to your room before you embarrass the staff of this excellent establishment. We have been well served. Let’s not spoil things.’

‘Oh don’t start, Evie,’ Freddie protested. ‘We were only chattin’.’

‘And you shouldn’t have been. Chatting with the hired help leads to trouble. One must keep the mind clear and not allow foolish notions of guilt to introduce assertions one will later regret. Go to bed and sleep it off.’ She turned to Luke. ‘In the morning if you’ve time I’d like a word.’

‘It’s not likely I’ll be here in the morning.’

‘Where will you be?’

‘Depends what you mean by morning, ma’m. I’m working on a house close by most of the day. Later in the evening you might find me at the Forge.’

‘The Forge?’ Teeth like shiny sharp pearls she laughed. ‘Of course! Where else would you be.’

She came to the Forge the following night. When she left Luke lay looking at the stars wondering how he could have thought her little. She reminded him of Justine Newman, both women able to carry all before them, recognition of wealth and education allowing them to be at ease with King or cobbler.

Eleven thirty she tapped on the door her carriage backed up by the willows, the valet and a maid whistling in the wind. Luke wasn’t surprised to see her. Such people ignore usual communication believing that for lesser mortals. She came knowing the topic of conversation that would ensure an open door. ‘Good evening, Mr Roberts. I’m here to talk of Julianna Dryden.’

Open Sesame! Luke dusted off a stool. She sat her silk gown trailing in dust.

‘I understand she’s not doing so well here, certain stories causing neighbours to cast her in an unwelcome role.’

Luke was silent.

‘You do not speak?’

‘I’ve nothing to say. The lady and her life are her own.’

‘So you don’t think she struggles to fit into village society?’

‘Every newcomer struggles to fit into any society.’

‘You think her happy here?’

‘I think, ma’m, you’d do best enquiring of Mrs Dryden. She is in a position to know. I am not.’

‘Are you are not?’ Glance clear she eyed him. ‘I am surprised. I was given to understand you were her staunch ally.’

‘Well if she were to call on me I’d help. As a matter of fact...!’ He hesitated. Then he thought the woman’s here and she’s asking so I’m going to say. ‘She does need help and I’m sure you’re the one to give it.’

‘How so?’