Spilt Milk (11 page)

‘Now that is a splendid gift,’ said Henry, standing behind her,
putting his arms around her waist. ‘They must think a lot of you. Just as I do.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Nellie. She was still thinking about Vivian. She’d been surprised when her sister had written to say she could not come to their wedding. Had she been paying Nellie back for not attending hers? Nellie took the old brown teapot down from the shelf and set about making tea. A memory of Rose drifted into her mind. Her sister’s grey hair scraped back into a tight bun, her worn hands reaching for the same teapot. How disappointed Rose would be to know the sisters had separated. There was a space on the dresser next to it where their mother’s best teapot had been. Vivian had taken it when she left.

She didn’t care about teapots, but there were shadows between her and Vivian she couldn’t get rid of. She still woke some nights thinking of the river. How cold the water had been, that moment when she hadn’t known which bank to swim to. She had not swum again in the river since that night. The baby owned it now. Every time she stood on the riverbank and considered swimming, she knew she could not.

Nellie made tea and buttered a few slices of bread. Henry liked sugar sprinkled on his. She set two plates down on the table and put out the teapot and a jug of milk and poured the tea. On the wooden dresser their wedding photo sat in a metal frame.

The photo had been taken in a studio. Nellie seated on a wicker chair, white lilies and trailing ivy in her hand, Henry standing behind her in his army uniform. A pair of fluted wooden pillars towered behind them.

‘Corinthian,’ said the photographer when Henry asked. ‘Don’t move. No smiling. Very good. Thank you.’ Behind the pillars was a richly painted screen. Ragged children playing in an olive grove. Blue skies. A glaring sun. ‘Ancient Greece,’ the photographer had told them.

Mrs Henry Farr. Friendship seemed to shine out of that name
like a lamp lit in the dark. Joe had said she would never leave the village and he had made it sound like a failing in her. He was right, but so what?

Here she was in a photo, getting married in ancient Greece. Wherever Joe was now, she would bet he had never been to ancient Greece.

She took the lid off the sugar bowl and spooned sugar onto Henry’s bread. She was sure they could be happy here, the two of them. A muscle twitched in Henry’s cheek. She reached out her hand very slowly so as not to frighten him, and stroked his face.

Vivian sat at her sewing machine, putting the finishing touches to a dress. She had thought she would never wear black again. Especially now when the war had been over for months and everybody seemed to want colour around them. Even the trees had held on to their autumn hues longer this winter and green shoots and catkins were coming through, shivering in the March days while the old leaves still clung to the branches.

In the high street, red, white and blue flags waved and snapped back and forth like wet washing in the breeze. Coloured bunting dangled in front of shops and buildings, tangled up in windows and wrapped around lamp posts. Fireworks still went off at the weekends, and the church bells rang out at all times of the day. On the trams the women conductors sang ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and let soldiers ride for free.

Vivian had decorated the guest-house façade with bright flags and bunting too; Mrs Dunn’s son Stan, a limping man who had not fought in the war due to his poor posture, had got a ladder up and done it for her. Then, in respect for Frank, she had asked him to take them down. She’d hung a black silk bow on the door knocker to show she was in mourning for her husband.

At the funeral she sat next to Dr Harding, Frank’s two brothers and their wives. Vivian looked behind her to where Nellie and her husband, Henry, sat together on a pew nearest the door. Henry was a tall man with a battered, scarred face and, Vivian thought, a rather caustic way of speaking, as if he thought he was a lot cleverer than anybody else. When she looked back later, as they stood to sing hymns, Nellie and Henry had gone.

After the service Dr Harding talked to one of the brother’s wives while Vivian sat quietly, relieved to be left alone for a moment. She listened to their whispered discussion about the tragedy of the war. The loss of a generation of young men. The woman’s sons had been lucky and were returning home. She hoped they might settle into jobs and find decent women to marry, the need for family being greater than ever.

‘The Empire,’ sighed Dr Harding, as if it were a shimmering thing he saw in front of him.

As the mourners left the church, Vivian saw Nellie standing with Henry among the gravestones, the wind whipping their coats. She hurried across to them.

‘There you are, Nellie.’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Henry. ‘I get a bit bothered in crowds.’

‘That’s all right. I was worried you’d gone.’

‘We’re so sorry,’ said Nellie. She hadn’t stopped saying this since she had arrived. The way she said ‘we’ annoyed Vivian. She wanted Nellie to speak to her as a sister, not as somebody’s wife.

Vivian had thought to link arms with Nellie, but as they walked back to the guest house Nellie slowed to allow her husband to keep up with her and Vivian was obliged to walk in front of them. Henry carried a cane, his stride stiff and careful. It occurred to Vivian that perhaps the sour look on his face was due to pain from his war wounds. She was surprised to see how gentle Nellie was with him. As if the man was breakable.

At the guest house Mrs Dunn provided sandwiches and glasses of sherry and fruit cake with royal icing, all laid out on white tablecloths. Vivian was relieved to see the old woman had put on a clean apron to serve the guests. Vases of lily of the valley were on the tables, filling the room with their sweet scent. She could see Frank’s brothers were impressed. She’d had long conversations with the undertaker about the style and ways of doing these things and had taken his advice freely. ‘Fashions change,
Mrs Stewart,’ the man had said, straightening a brilliant-white cuff. ‘But good taste must prevail.’ It was he who told her lily of the valley was the most fashionable flower for funerals this year. ‘I’ll have them then,’ said Vivian, and when he said they’d be out of season and costly, didn’t even ask the price.

Frank’s two brothers said she’d done a very good job of the funeral. They were aged, balding, short-statured men. They had the same mild, apologetic look about them that Frank had had, and both were fat like him. Edward was an insurance agent; Clifford, a post-office clerk. Vivian served them sherry and they agreed Frank’s death from influenza was an absolute tragedy.

‘He never actually told us he had married,’ said Edward. ‘He was always devoted to Mother.’

‘He worshipped our mother,’ added Clifford, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘We didn’t think he’d ever marry.’

‘She might have left the house to the three of us, but of course Frank was her favourite and got the lot.’

‘Isn’t Mrs Stewart a marvel, Edward?’ said Dr Harding, stepping into the conversation. He gave Vivian a pat on the arm. ‘I never saw Frank as happy as when he met and married this dear woman.’

Thank goodness Dr Harding was there to support her. It seemed every time Vivian was at a loss for words, he was beside her, at her elbow.

‘I’ll get another plate of fruit cake,’ Vivian said, and escaped thankfully into the kitchen. She stood at the back door, smoking a cigarette, looking out over the muddy gardens.

‘There you are. I’ve been searching for you.’

She turned. Nellie stood there, her pale grey eyes studying her.

‘Your hair suits you short.’

Vivian touched her head. She thought her new cut a touch too daring really, but her hairdresser had encouraged her to have it done. He’d said it showed off her neck. He’d been the one to suggest she wear a shorter hemline too.

Nellie still had her long hair pinned up in a top knot, pre-war style. She held a pair of gloves in her hand, and she wore the old black coat she’d had for years. Vivian could see the inexpert mending Nellie had done to the shoulder where the seam had come undone.

‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

Vivian smiled and threw the cigarette outside. ‘Frank got me into the habit. I rather like it, though I don’t smoke in public.’

‘If Rose could see us now,’ said Nellie. ‘You with your cigarettes and your big house. Me married to a soldier. She’d be scandalized. Do you remember how she liked to find newspaper stories about drunken soldiers?’

Vivian laughed. She felt the warmth of Nellie’s voice. They knew each other again. They were sisters once more. Girls who had grown up sharing a bed. Vivian could feel them both stepping back into the place where they shared thoughts and sentences, all the secrets of their sisterly hearts. It was, she discovered, all she wanted. If she could walk away from the guest house and back to the cottage with Nellie to live as spinsters once again, she would have done so without a second thought.

‘I’m hiding from Frank’s brothers. Frank has left everything to me in his will and they’re furious about it. He had life assurance too, so it turns out I’m worth a pretty penny. Apparently it was Edward who urged Frank to take out the policy. He must have thought the money would go to him.’

‘Blimey, Vivian the heiress,’ said Nellie. ‘A rich widow. I’m shocked.’

‘It’s not an awful lot, but I will be comfortable and I own the house. When I think how poor we were, growing up, and yet we were happy together, weren’t we?’

‘We were always happy together, Vivie.’

‘And you’re happy now, I suppose?’

‘With Henry? Yes. He is a kind man.’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’

They sat at the kitchen table. Vivian fetched her sewing box and mended Nellie’s coat while her sister made tea. She sewed a last stitch and broke the cotton with her teeth.

‘That’s better. Try it now. Good as new.’

‘Thank you. I always knew you were meant for a life like this. You were never a farm girl.’

‘Only because you and Rose wanted me to keep house. I might have been good working in the fields.’ She could have thrown her arms around Nellie, but she didn’t move. ‘I thought you might like to live with me here, now that I am alone. I have plenty of room. I thought that if you and Henry have children one day …’

‘Children?’ Nellie shook her head. ‘I don’t want children. Babies are too fragile. I’d be so afraid … After what happened to Josephine. And the thing is, Henry can’t—’

‘Josephine?’

They turned to see Henry in the doorway looking restless, his raked shoulders slumped as he leaned on his cane.

‘A friend of ours,’ said Vivian smoothly. ‘I was just mending Nellie’s coat.’

‘But did I hear you discussing children? Can’t stand them. Nellie doesn’t like ’em either.’

Vivian had been sure there would be children in Nellie’s marriage. She had already imagined them, their soft faces around this table.

‘But you’re married. And the Empire?’ she said, Dr Harding’s words coming back to her. ‘The continuation of the British Empire depends upon us all. It’s your patriotic duty to have children. Dr Harding says—’

Nellie reached across the table and took her hand, stopping her outburst. ‘The Empire? What’s that to do with me?’

‘Nell, we should be getting along,’ said Henry. ‘I do apologize, Vivian, but we have a train to catch.’

Nellie stood up. ‘Yes. We really should go now. The train takes an age and then we have to walk back to the cottage.’

‘What she means is she has to dawdle alongside me.’ Henry waved his cane at Nellie. ‘An old cripple like me takes a bloody age to get anywhere. Luckily your sister has the patience of a stone. I’m a lucky man to have her.’

To have her? But of course he did. Nellie was his wife.

‘So you are,’ said Vivian. ‘Very lucky.’

‘Are you ready to go home, Mrs Farr?’ asked Henry cheerfully.

Nellie stepped forwards and hugged Vivian.

‘Look after yourself. You’ve got everything you need now. Money. A house. I’m glad,’ she said, and pushed something into Vivian’s hand, whispering into her ear. ‘You keep it safe now.’

Vivian felt something cool and hard in her palm. The hagstone.

‘Goodbye, my sweet sister,’ Nellie whispered.

Vivian slipped the stone into her skirt pocket.

She saw them to the door and watched them walk away down the cobblestone road. She waved, but neither looked back. They were already thinking of other things, she supposed. The journey back home to the cottage. Their life together there.

After Mrs Dunn had washed up and gone home, Dr Harding settled in Frank’s worn old armchair by the fire and Vivian stood by the window, studying the marks sticky tape had made on the glass where she’d had taken down the blackout paper Frank insisted they put up. She could feel the stone, a small weight in her skirt pocket. Her daughter would be five years old now, had she lived. Nellie had loved her too, so how could she suggest she did not want any children? Was it the memory of that night by the frozen river, or simply her soldier husband’s wish that she remain barren? Vivian rubbed at the glass with her finger and looked out. Perhaps Henry thought the world too awful a place to bring children into.

The street lamps glowed, and rain sparkled in their light. Even now, months after the war had ended, there were still soldiers making their way home. Joe Ferier might be among them, walking somewhere, or sitting in a railway carriage, pencils and
paintbrushes in his kit bag. Perhaps he was thinking of her. Of that summer by the river. ‘I love you,’ he had said.

She closed the curtains, busying herself, lighting the lamps in the room. She topped up the doctor’s glass, listening to him talk about Frank, imagining Nellie and her soldier husband riding the train home, the dark walk back to the cottage, the sound of the poplar trees by the river. Perhaps it was the long day, the people, the sadness of missing Frank, but she felt tears coming. Or perhaps, she thought, it was homesickness that gripped her. The desire to be back with Nellie, living together in the riverside cottage, when that was now impossible and they both had their own lives to lead.

Nellie sold her furniture and donated what cutlery and china she didn’t need to the paupers’ fund in the village. In her old bedroom, Henry stored his trunk with his uniform and ceremonial sword and black boots. A pleasing smell of tobacco, mothballs and boot polish filled the room. Sometimes she went in there just to stand and look at his belongings. Now she helped Henry carry them all downstairs to the waiting cart. There was nothing much left in the room afterwards. Just memories of Vivian. She piled the toys they had had as children into a box. The oak apples and the marbles, the shells and pencils, little patchwork silks, whistles and odds and ends, scraps of wool and cotton reels. A headless porcelain doll bore testament to a particularly fiery row, though what the argument between her and Vivian had been about she could not remember, only the rage with which she had flung the doll against the bedroom wall. Nellie threw the valueless items into the orange flames of the bonfire that Henry was tending in the garden. It could all go, all of it.

‘It’s the local housing authority’s fault,’ Mr Westfield had explained when Nellie first received the letter stating the cottage was unfit for human habitation. ‘I’ve said I’ll make good the repair work, but they won’t budge.’

‘We’ll go to my brother’s public house,’ Henry said when they
discussed what to do. Nellie suggested they live with Vivian, but Henry didn’t think it a good idea. He didn’t want to share a home with a stranger. It was a shock to hear Vivian described as a stranger, but perhaps he was right. She and Vivian were not close any more.

At Liverpool Street Station, Nellie was startled by the crowds. She had never seen so many people. She felt stupid, standing on the sooty platform with no idea which way to go. She wanted to go straight back home again. She wasn’t sure what she had expected from the city. Women in fancy clothes and big motor cars, she supposed. There were plenty of smartly dressed people. And plenty dressed in filthy rags. What she noticed most were the pigeons. Clouds of them descending onto the smoke-filled platform like they were landing in ripe bean fields, and no scarecrows to put them off. More than anything, she thought, London was full of pigeons.

‘Bloody creatures. Worse than rats,’ Henry said, waving his cane at them. ‘Filthy things.’

Nellie liked them. They landed around her and she felt they were gathering in welcome. As they left the station she saw a flower seller. A woman with a hand cart crammed solid with rich-petalled blooms. Orange and red hothouse flowers, white lilies and exotic plants she didn’t recognize, boxes of violets and bright little spring posies. Colours that shone in the grimy station entrance. For a moment she wished Vivian was beside her, so they could point and stare together.