‘Is that so, my little Schubertianer? What a violent fellow you are becoming.’
‘Why is Gran afraid of him, Mr Werther?’
‘I don’t know but perhaps we can ask her, eh? You would like to take tea with me at Rundles on Saturday afternoon—you and your Gran, eh?’
‘Oh, yes please.’
‘Then I’ll write a little note. A lady should be asked nicely, yes?’
Gran was delighted. ‘How very thoughtful, how kind. But don’t tell your mother, Matthew. There’ll be another storm.’ Matthew screwed up his face and winked. Gran laughed at him.
Rundles dressed up every Saturday afternoon. Gold curtains with red tassels looped back over the high arched doorway. Green and gold carpet like spring grass rich in dandelions soft and springy under Matthew’s feet. The round tables had linen cloths so stiff that if they stood on the ground, Matthew pictured them remaining upright like tents you could crawl inside. The silver sugar bowls, teapots, milk and cream jugs looked like articles repeated and endlessly resplendent in a mirror. Against the walls heavy red sideboards were heaped with roses banked and tiered and on each table stood a single crimson rose in a slender green porcelain vase.
Ladies wore Saturday dresses with frills and bows and cameos and brooches and hats with flowers and ribbons and bunches of lace or net. Their faces were pretty with the powder and lip colour Mother used, from little scented pots all over her dressing table. The last time she bought face powder it was from a hawker knocking at the door, the sleeve of his old army coat looped up his arm. He unpacked and displayed his box of wares with one hand. Matthew watched as his mother selected jars and bottles, opened them, sniffed them, held their colours to the light, even dabbed a little on her finger to rub on the back of her hand.
Gran came out to see. ‘Has he only got one arm?’ Matthew had whispered.
‘Yes, poor man. He’s a returned soldier.’
‘How did he lose his arm?’ He thought of the lizard, a half-body scuttling away without its tail, legs now oddly misplaced.
The soldier grinned at him. ‘A German got me one night. Pow! One shot and there I was.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Like hell.’
‘What does it look like?’
‘Matthew! Don’t be rude!’ His mother was shocked.
‘He’s curious,’ said the man. ‘It’s fair enough. Wish more were like him. Wouldn’t mind if some others wondered what it was like to lose an arm. It’s no fun I can tell you.’
‘So brave,’ Margaret murmured. ‘So sad. You poor young man.’
He looked uncomfortable, a little resentful, then, noting her beauty, tolerant.
‘It’s hard to understand,’ he said.
‘You must hate the Germans.’
‘Not really. They’ve lost a lot of arms, too. The brotherhood of the armless supersedes, you might say, the brotherhood of just about everything else.’
‘Oh,’ his mother said, confused. ‘Oh.’
Gran smiled. ‘Let’s buy a couple of jars, Margaret—the Milady Powder, perhaps, and the rose water and glycerine.’
‘But you said … this month’s money …’
‘Did I? Can’t I change my mind?’
‘Oh, goodie.’ And Margaret pounced on the two jars she had reluctantly returned to the hawker. Matthew wondered if the ladies at Rundles bought their powder and rose water from one-armed soldiers. He hoped they did.
Mr Werther had booked a table. He stood up when they came and held a chair for Gran. They sat down, facing each other, linked by the small round table. Matthew felt both private and part of the Saturday afternoon crowd that talked and laughed and got up and sat down and walked in and out. Like others there he belonged to the general laughter and talk, but he also belonged to the special laughter and talk of Gran and Mr Werther. It was different when he came out with Mother. Then he felt alone, beside her but separate. She never closed off a world for herself and him. Although she sat with him he knew that in reality she skipped out of her chair nodding, laughing, flirting and frolicking around the room. People always looked at her. She insisted that they did.
Mr Werther ordered for them. Matthew decided to drink tea as they did.
‘No lemonade spider?’
‘You don’t usually like tea, Matthew.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he asserted. ‘I do like tea.’
‘Then tea it is.’ Later, when it arrived, he sipped it determinedly.
‘When the weather is fine,’ Mr Werther said, ‘I take tea at four under my grapevine. It is old now, a little thick in the waist and it rests its arms on the trellis. But its grapes, such a purple in summer, and under it the light is green and cool. Such a coolness you do not feel, not even in water.’
‘You make a little wine, Mr Werther?’ asked Gran.
‘A little. Just enough for a glass with my dinner. It is a great winemaking area, you know. Before this war I was invited—sometimes—to spend an afternoon in the cool cellars with other gentlemen, Enjoyable, yes? Occasionally. But now …’ He stopped.
Gran looked uncomfortable. He smiled.
‘You should not feel embarrassed for me. I do not miss much. Only one glass I wanted and it is hard you know to make one glass last a whole afternoon. I would hold it and sip it and hold it and sip again and tip the glass so—’ he imitated with his cup of tea, ‘—and not swallow it. It is tedious to just drink for hours. Wine is like experience: a little should be savoured at one time and then reflected upon much.
‘You have visited the vineyards, Mrs Keogh?’
Gran nodded. ‘Unhappily my son-in-law was one who drank in cellars on hot afternoons.’
‘Forgive me. I did not mean to make you remember sad things. Ah—the music, always so cheerful at Rundles,’ and he beamed at Gran and Matthew while a gentleman in black coat and white collar played lightly and brightly on the piano.
‘It frolics, yes?’
‘Wants our attention but has really nothing much to offer,’ Gran laughed.
Mr Werther looked happy. ‘What I think, yes. It
