‘You never mentioned Lilly had a son.’
‘No.’
Virgil could sense she was moving away from him and he had no idea how to bring her back. ‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she said, but he knew it wasn’t.
Virgil put his arm around her and tried to dance her up through the trees, taking her in his arms and twirling her. He would dance her out of her melancholy mood. But she wouldn’t join in and pulled away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘my mind is with Lilly. She said some strange things in the hospital. I expect she was just a bit delusional.’
‘Would you like me to take you home?’ he asked.
She shaded her eyes against the winter sun to look up at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘kiss me instead.’
‘I’ll do more than kiss you, Miss Cottingham.’
‘Oh, that wicked glint in your eyes makes me forget everything.’
He kissed her and left his lips glued to hers as they walked awkwardly back to the car and she giggled more than kissed. They only parted when they got to the car and he held the door open for her and she got in the passenger seat. He drove to Windermere Street. He kissed her again and kept kissing her all the way up the path and out of the corner of his eye he saw a man watching them from the corner of Urquhart Street, his features hidden by the shade his hat cast over his face. Virgil suddenly felt the need to keep Edie become more urgent. He fumbled with the lock and pushed the door open, rushing her inside and up against the wall. Without waiting till they got to the bedroom, he struggled with her clothing, desperately undressing her, doing it as quickly as he could before she vanished and he never had another chance. He made love to her up against the wall in the hallway, the pictures rattling on their hooks and the floorboards vibrating beneath them and at the end they both collapsed on the floor and laughed and he nearly had her back with him.
He took her hand and took her into the bathroom, lit the water heater and ran the warm water and then he got in and pulled her in on top of him. They lay like that as the water rose around them and when they were completely immersed Virgil made love to her again.
‘I’m glad I found you, I’m glad I have love in my life,’ she said, kissing him, but he still didn’t feel safe.
When the water turned cold they got out and got dressed and he drove her back to Webster Street. He knew as soon as he pulled into her driveway that the man sitting on her verandah was the same man he had seen in the street and he felt he had just lost something he hadn’t quite ever possessed.
Forty-Five
The Bovril
When Edie is in a quandry.
Her father was sitting next to him, a glass of water in his hand. Gracie sat on the other side of him.
Edie recognised Theo instantly and put her hand to her heart. She couldn’t feel it. Her heart had stopped beating; it had frozen.
‘It can’t be,’ she said.
She turned to Virgil. ‘I’m sorry but I have to go and I can’t invite you in. I’m sorry.’
Virgil looked at the man on the verandah and back at her and she saw his eyes fill with worry — or was it sorrow?
‘I have to go,’ she said urgently and got out of the car. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She watched as Virgil backed out and drove away and when the last speck of the brilliant blue of his car had disappeared she turned and walked towards the verandah, forcing one foot in front of the other when she really just wanted to collapse.
‘Look Edie,’ her father called out. ‘Your Bovril saved him after all.’
Edie looked at her sister, her lovely face poking up above her scarf and under her wide-brimmed felt hat. Even though it was winter Gracie looked like spring. Gracie turned and smiled at Theo and he put his hand on his heart and thumped it on his chest in time to his heartbeat and Edie remembered him doing that when Gracie was little.
‘Where were you?’ she asked him.
‘I was saved, Edie, by your Bovril and an Englishman.’
‘Hah,’ said Gracie. ‘Those brave Englishmen. It’s always the brave Englishmen.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t even know his name,’ said Theo, speaking slowly and quietly, ‘but he did save me. I remember his voice, it was gentle like a song and I remember him pouring hot liquid down my throat and later they told me it was Bovril that some Australian woman was sending to the troops. The only thing was, I lost my dog tags at some point, and so when they were found lying on the beach they assumed the rest of me was dead and washed away in the sea. So they sent the telegram. But I woke up on a hospital ship bound for England and it took an awfully long time for me to become well. Then they sent me out to East Africa with the English soldiers, and army efficiency being what it is, no one bothered to list me as now being alive or to send a new telegram. When I told them I was dead they laughed and said, “Some days, mate, we all wish we were dead and with this war we may well get our wish.” I just couldn’t tell anyone back home I was still alive in case I didn’t make it out of Africa; I couldn’t make you and my mother go through it all again, so I thought I would wait and see if I survived, which I did, and I got a job working on a farm, which it turned out I was quite good at, and I kept meaning to
