The Swallow and the Hummingbird (12 page)

‘How one worries about one’s children. It’s the curse of motherhood,’ she said and heaved a sigh.

‘You can only do your best. You bring them into the world then you set them free. George has to find his own way. Destiny is a river you cannot control. It sweeps them off, around rocks, down waterfalls, then into quiet, peaceful waters for a while. You cannot swim after them so you have to surrender yourself to the greater force and put your trust in God.’

‘But how will I cope without him?’

Thadeus pulled her close. ‘The same way you coped when he was flying those planes.’

‘He may never come back.’

‘That is something you will have to deal with when the time comes. Don’t fear things that might never happen.’

‘It’s hard not to.’

‘Live in the moment, Faye. Unhappiness comes from trying to put up resistance. Let the current take you too, don’t swim against it. What will be will be. Life is a long time.’ She took his hairy face in her hands and kissed him.

‘Darling Thadeus, what would I do without you? You’re so strong and wise.’

‘Do you know why I’m wise?’ he asked, looking at her with pale, sensitive eyes. ‘Because I have made a point of learning from every experience that life has thrown at me. No experience is worthless, however small, however painful. Everything that happens to you is for your own higher good. Don’t ever forget that. Through pain we learn and through happiness we celebrate our learning.’

‘I shall try to let George go with gladness in my heart. He doesn’t belong to me. I will remember that.’ Then she smiled at him timidly. ‘It won’t be easy, though.’

‘If things are too easy you are in the wrong class of life. After all, if we are not stretched we don’t learn.’ He stood up. ‘Come, let us play some music together. There is nothing like the magic of music to soothe the soul.’ She followed him inside and watched him pick up his violin. He placed it under his chin and poised the bow above the strings. ‘Let us play Chopin. It reminds me of my childhood. Not even the Russians could rob me of that.’ And he played while Faye sat and listened, her chin in her hands, her eyes misted with admiration.

When Faye returned home for lunch Trees was washing his hands while Mildred sniffed the boots that reminded her of walks in the woods and picnics on the beach.

‘How is George?’ she asked, hovering at the door. Her hair was once again drawn into a tidy chignon. Nothing about her appearance would give her away, only the rosy hue in her cheeks and the languor of her gait, but she knew her husband’s mind was on the farm and his walnut trees. He looked up and nodded thoughtfully.

‘I think his future with Rita is secure again,’ he replied.

Faye’s spirits rose. ‘Oh, I am pleased. Thank God. Is he going to take her to the Argentine? Did he tell you anything?’

Trees shook his head. ‘He hasn’t said a word.’

‘Are they coming in for lunch?’

‘That will be them now,’ he said, turning off the tap.

Light, happy voices signalled their approach at the back door. Faye left her husband drying his hands and went to greet them. She was delighted to see the colour had returned to their cheeks and they were teasing each other and laughing again.

‘What’s for lunch, Ma?’ George asked, taking off his boots.

‘Cold meat.’

‘A man needs a good lunch after a hard morning on the land.’

‘So does a woman,’ said Rita, putting a hand on his back to steady herself as she too removed her boots.

While Faye laid the table and set out the food George told her of their plans. ‘So we’ll marry the moment I return. You’ll look after Rita while I’m away, won’t you, Ma?’

Faye smiled at Rita with admiration. ‘You are a good girl,’ she said. ‘George is very lucky to have you.’

‘I’ll wait for him as long as he wants,’ she replied, enjoying the attention her self-sacrifice awarded her.

‘You have the rest of your lives to be married,’ said Faye, recalling with wistfulness Thadeus’ wise words. ‘Life is a long time.’

It was only during lunch, when Faye stifled a yawn, that George remembered his mother’s midnight parting witnessed from his bedroom window. A secret rendezvous, perhaps. With whom he did not know and he instinctively sensed not to ask. He watched his father tuck into the cold ham, his thoughts far away as usual. If his mother was having an affair his father would be the last to notice. Then he looked at Faye. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks glowed but her expression was innocent, as innocent as an angel’s. He dismissed the idea as preposterous and felt ashamed for having entertained it. Faye was a devoted wife and mother and a good Christian besides. He took Rita’s hand and thought no more about it.

In the evening George drove Rita home, stopping on the way as they often did to sit on the cliff top and watch the sunset. It was breezy up there, a chilly northern wind that signalled for certain the end of summer. They both looked out across the sea and in the golden light of the dying day they felt the warm afterglow of an enchanted season.

‘Rita and George love each other again!’ squealed Eddie, running into the house to tell her mother the good news. ‘They’re sitting on the cliff kissing.’

Hannah continued to knit. She didn’t want to encourage her youngest to put her nose into other people’s business, even though Eddie’s news was heart-warming.

‘What were you doing down there?’

‘Collecting shells with Amy. I wasn’t spying, I promise.’ Eddie flopped into an armchair. ‘So does that mean Rita will be leaving us?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until she gets back.’

‘She’s always down on the beach. She should have been born a sea gull!’

‘What would that make you, then?’ Hannah laughed and paused her knitting needles to give full attention to her most amusing child.

‘A bat like Harvey.’

‘They’re rather ugly little things, bats.’

‘Not Harvey, he’s beautiful. Daddy always says that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I think he’s adorable.’ She pulled him off the sleeve of her jersey and held him in her hands. ‘Look at his little nose and shiny eyes. I swear he smiles at me.’

‘I thought bats were blind.’

‘He can sense me, though. We’re real friends.’

‘Then you’re most certainly not a bat, my dear, for you see far too much for your own good.’

Rita returned home with the good news. Humphrey poured himself a whisky and Hannah telephoned her mother.

Mrs Megalith put down the receiver and shook her head ominously. ‘That was Hannah. George is going to Argentina and Rita is going to wait for him here,’ she said to Max and Ruth. ‘It’ll come to no good. I feel it in my bones.’

‘For how long is he going?’ Max asked, putting down his book.

‘He has no plans. He’s just going to fly out there and take it as it comes. Damned casual if you ask me.’ Mrs Megalith sat down at her card table and plunged her hand into a bowl of small crystals. She breathed deeply, dragging the energy up her arms and into her tense shoulders. When she opened her eyes there were five cats sitting at her feet, licking their fur. ‘Rita should go with him,’ she said, ignoring the cats.

‘It’s not proper to go as an unmarried woman,’ said Max, not wishing to encourage Rita to leave Frognal Point.

‘Damned convention. She should flout it and leave or she’ll lose him.’

‘He might fall in love with someone else,’ said Ruth, who said very little but listened to everything.

‘He might well, Ruth, dear.’

Max rubbed his chin. ‘Poor Rita,’ he muttered.

‘She’s young, young people recover very quickly. A broken heart is a heart ready to be put together again. She’s far more resilient than Humpty Dumpty, I assure you.’ She touched her moonstone pendant thoughtfully.

Max recalled the night before when Rita had cried in his arms. She wouldn’t notice him now that she was happy. He stepped over the cats and out into the dark. He lit a cigarette, the way George did, holding it between his thumb and his forefinger. How he wished that he had been old enough to fight in the war, to wear a smart blue RAF uniform with wings. George was a brave and glamorous man. A hero. How often had he heard it said that it was because of men like George that the Nazis hadn’t occupied Britain? Where would he be now if Hitler had won? Dead like his parents? He would have liked to have blown some Nazis out of the sky. But he was still a boy and boys didn’t impress girls like Rita. He wandered around the garden, illuminated by the lights of the house. It was quiet, except for a cooing pigeon and the odd cough of a pheasant. If the war had continued he could have signed up. Now he’d never be a hero. But one thing was certain, he’d make something of his life, for his parents, for Rita, and then, when he had made his fortune, he’d buy back the Imperial Theatre his father had built and restore it to its former glory.

The autumn passed and winter set in. The day of George’s departure arrived and Rita was reminded of the day he left for Malta. She felt the same hollowness inside, the same wrenching of the gut, the same dread of being left on her own again with nothing but letters to connect her with the man she loved. But she told herself the sooner he left the sooner he would return and the sooner they would marry and begin their life together.

It rained all morning. George picked her up in the truck and they drove to the beach one final time. They hurried down the path and across the sand towards the cave. The sea was tempestuous, the sky grey and dark. There were few birds, black-headed gulls mostly, their barking banter carried on the wind with the salt and sea spray. It was a mournful sight. Looking at the desolate bay Rita felt spring would never again flower on this shore.

It was cold and damp inside the cave. They sat huddled together at the far end, where the sea had not encroached to wash away the love that they had left there. He ran his hand down her face and brushed away her tears with his fingers. He kissed her, tasting the salt on her lips and the unhappiness on her skin and promised that he would be home again soon.

‘One day we’ll sit here while our children are at school and we’ll remember today.’ Rita sunk her face into his chest and cried quietly. ‘I think you had better get Megagran’s dress out of the cupboard and start taking it in. It’ll need a hell of a lot of work. I want it ready by the time I get back.’ Then he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little black box. ‘I want you to wear this always,’ he said, placing it in her hand. She sat up and wiped her face on her sleeve.

‘What is it?’ she asked, opening it. Set firmly into velvet a small diamond solitaire ring sparkled.

‘I was going to give it to you on my return, but I want you to have something to assure you of our engagement.’ He took the ring out himself and slipped it on the third finger of her left hand. ‘There, it fits like it was made for you.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ she sighed happily. ‘Really beautiful.’

‘Every time you look at it I want you to remember how much I love you,’ he said solemnly. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

‘And I want you to remember, every time you look up at that moon, that I love you too.’

They stayed in the cave as long as they could, then walked back to the truck. Rita was unable to take her eyes off the ring and moved her hand around in the light to watch the diamond sparkle. They held hands all the way back to Lower Farm, where Trees and Faye, Alice and the children awaited them. It was a grim parting. Faye tried to hold back her tears, remembering the wise advice Thadeus had given her and Alice, who was saddened by her brother’s decision to leave again, held Jane in her arms and watched Rita with sympathy. Her husband Geoffrey had been lucky to survive the war like George. She didn’t think she’d cope very well if he announced on his return that he was leaving her again, for the other side of the world. Besides, she suspected what none of them dared to admit – that George wouldn’t be coming back.

George kissed his family, then held Rita in his arms for the last time, breathed in the scent of her skin and felt her tears on his face as he pulled away. He couldn’t express what was in his heart so he just gazed upon her with tenderness before climbing into the truck with his father who was to drive him to the station. He rolled down the window and waved. They all waved back, but his eyes clung to Rita until the very last moment when the truck turned the corner at the farm entrance. Only then did he look away.

Later that day Faye sat at her sculpture and tried to keep her mind distracted from her grief. She reminded herself of Thadeus’ words, that she didn’t own George, she had simply brought him into the world and loving him meant setting him free to make his own mistakes and learn from his experiences. It was a comforting philosophy.

Alice went for a walk with the children, returning later to her cottage to brood. When Geoffrey finally came home from France she was going to hold onto him.

Rita sat in her bedroom watching the drizzle through the window, allowing her misery to engulf her. She played with her ring and relived their most intimate moments. After a while she noticed a robin alight on the windowsill and proceed to peck at the glass with its small beak. It seemed to want to make contact. Slowly Rita stood up and with great care, so as not to frighten it away, opened the window. To her astonishment the robin flew in and, after circling the room for a while, landed on the bookshelf. It hopped from book to book then perched on the edge of a pottery bowl Eddie had made her at school, and danced about the rim before flying out in search of materials with which to fashion its nest.

Chapter 8

George sat on the deck of the
Fortuna
. The harbour was shrouded in damp, grey mist out of which the cranes of cargo ships rose up like dinosaurs from a bygone age. It was noisy too, voices resounding through the drizzle accompanied by the low rumble of engines and the distant bugle of a parting cruiser. He was numb with sadness and more alone than he had ever felt. A wheeling gull flew above the harbour, its melancholy cry echoing his own inner discord and reminding him of the cave, of Rita, and the youth he had lost up there in the sky. He felt like an old man. Burdened with guilt and resentment, weary of life. He wanted to iron out all his feelings. Remove them one by one and sort them into colour and shade. They were so jumbled up he sensed nothing but turbulence.