The English Wife. Adrienne Chinn
‘Yes, of course, Corporal Cross. I’ll think about it.’
***
Ruthie drags the blackout curtains across the cottage window and switches on the ceiling light in the tiny front room.
‘Mum’s out at her knitting club, Dad’s gone up to Uncle Jack’s in Fakenham, and Richie’s staying over at Bobby’s tonight. Do you want to stay for tea? We’ve got some tinned salmon. I can make a salmon loaf.’
Ellie kicks her shoes onto the blue carpet and flops onto the overstuffed green sofa. ‘Can’t tonight, Ruthie. I promised Pops I’d babysit Dottie. It’s Boy Scout night. He’s teaching knots.’
‘He’s the Scout Master now as well as the headmaster? He’s rather a glutton for punishment, don’t you think?’
Ellie shrugs as she thumbs through an issue of Woman’s Own. ‘He’s starting up a marching band too. He says it’s good for the boys’ morale.’
‘Righto. Two hundred Catholic boys running around, day in and day out, would do my head in.’ Ruthie heads towards the kitchen. ‘You’ll want bickies? Mum’s made her orange drop cookies. I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a quick cuppa. Turn on the wireless, would you, Ellie? See if there’s any music on the Forces Programme.’
Tossing aside the magazine, Ellie wanders over to the large wooden wireless on a table beside the gas fire and fiddles the knob until the strains of ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ filter into the room. She sways around the sofa and the two armchairs with their chintz slipcovers and lacy antimacassars, careful not to knock Ruthie’s mother’s china budgie collection off the display table.
Ruthie enters the sitting room carrying a pink plastic tray laden with a brown teapot, a small jug of milk, a dish with a couple of teaspoons of sugar, flowery china mugs and a plate of round cookies flecked with orange rind. She sets it down on the coffee table and pours out the tea, adding dollops of milk and a sprinkling of sugar. She hands Ellie a mug of the milky tea and sits on the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her.
‘So, what do you think of Charlie?’
Ellie blows on the hot tea and sits on the sofa. She peers at Ruthie over the rim of her mug. ‘The Newfoundland chap? Really?’
Ruthie dunks a cookie into her tea. ‘I think he’s a doll. He’s invited me out to the cinema next Saturday. We’re going to see Gone with the Wind at the Electric.’
‘You’ve seen that a half a dozen times already. I should know. You dragged me with you.’
Ruthie giggles. ‘All the more reason to see it again. I can concentrate on Charlie instead of Rhett!’
‘Oh, Ruthie. You’re incorrigible.’
Ruthie smiles slyly at Ellie as she chews her cookie. ‘What about Tom Parsons? He seems nice. Clumsy, but nice.’
Ellie shrugs. ‘I suppose so. George liked him. He’s going to give George the Newfoundland stamps from his letters for George’s stamp collection.’
‘So, George liked him, but you … didn’t?’
‘I honestly didn’t think anything of him one way or another.’
‘That’s a shame. I thought he was dreamy. A Gary Cooper type, except friendlier.’ She makes a face. ‘Oh well, I’ll have to find someone else to double date with me and Charlie.’
‘Ruthie, I’m engaged, remember? I couldn’t date the fellow even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.’
Ruthie bites into another cookie, catching the crumbs in her tea. ‘He’s a good one, that George. He never gives you any bother. You’re so lucky to have a fellow like that.’
Ellie settles back into the spongy cushions. She is lucky to have George. She’s just never really thought about it. He’s always been there, ever since they were children at St Augustine’s Catholic School. She just wishes he was a bit more … No, she’s being silly. Ruthie can have her Tyrone Powers and Clark Gables and Charlie Murphys. Maybe George isn’t a dish, exactly, but he’s certainly presentable. George is all she needs. And her art, of course.
Why everyone thinks life is so complicated, she’ll never understand. Life is incredibly simple. Only people make it complicated.
Northern Newfoundland Coast – 12 September 2001
Sam takes off his helmet and looks over his shoulder at Sophie. ‘There’s a payphone around the back by the toilet. Didn’t know they’d closed the library today. You hungry? I’m getting myself a Coke.’
‘I’m fine.’ Sophie winches the helmet off and runs her fingers through her brown fringe. She squirms off the motorbike seat and straightens her velvet skirt. What was she thinking, accepting the ride to Tippy’s Tickle on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle to see an aunt who might not even know she existed? She probably should have stayed in Gander with the others. This was quite likely a huge mistake.
She tugs at her jacket and readjusts her shoulder pads. ‘So much for my interview suit.’
Sam swings his leg over the bike and kicks the stand into place. He points at her scuffed patent leather shoes, the shine obscured by a thick film of dirt. ‘Looks like your shoes are done for, too.’
Sophie glares at him as she rubs a dusty shoe against her leg. ‘I didn’t exactly plan to be in the bloody middle of nowhere today.’
A short, burly man wearing grease-stained blue overalls and a Boston Bruins baseball hat ambles over to them from the garage, the stub of a yellow pencil tucked behind his left ear.
Sam slaps the man on his shoulder. ‘Life’s like that sometimes, isn’t it, Wince?’
‘Sure is, b’y. How’s she cuttin’, there?’ Wince grabs the handle of the petrol pump and unscrews the cap on the bike’s petrol tank.
‘Best kind, b’y.’
Sophie runs her hands over the wrinkles in her skirt. ‘I have no idea what you’re saying. I expect there’s toilet paper?’
Wince peers at Sophie with eyes that pierce her with their blueness, and raises a thick brown eyebrow. ‘Sure thing, maid. You hasn’t fallen off the end of the world yet. You gotta go up to Brimstone Head on Fogo to do that. We’ve gots plenty of toilet paper in Newfoundland.’
‘Sam said you have a phone?’
Wince jabs his thumb towards the weather-beaten clapboard garage. ‘On the wall behind the garage. The dial sticks. You gotta press hard. Make sure you got some loonies.’
‘Loonies?’
‘A Canadian dollar.’ Sam reaches into the back pocket of his leather trousers and fishes out a handful of coins. He flips a coin to Sophie.
She turns the brass coin over in her hand. The Queen’s head on one side, a swimming bird on the other. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ll need two if you’re calling your aunt and New York.’
‘I don’t have Ellie’s number.’
‘Give us your pencil, Wince.’ Sam takes a wrinkled receipt out of his jacket pocket and scribbles on the back. He hands the receipt to Sophie with another loonie. ‘Tell her I’ll get you there in half an hour.’
‘You know her number? And you didn’t tell me?’
‘How was I to know you didn’t have her number?’
***