Theo walked home quickly.
‘Mum, I need you to iron and starch my best shirt.’ She washed the onion juice off her hands and got out the ironing board and put the iron on the stove. She liked it when the onion juice made her cry; she had a lot to cry for, it got very tiring being cheery all the time, being able to cry was as good as having a nice lie down. She didn’t know what Theo was up to but he seemed to have perked up and that had to be a good thing, and he had put a rose — heavens knows where he got it — on the kitchen table and that was really sweet of him. Maybe he had even put on a skerrick of weight — or maybe she was imagining that bit. She inspected the shirt for creases and, satisfied it was good enough, left it hanging on his doorknob.
Theo stood in front of the hall mirror and filled his hair with oil and twirled the ends of his moustache. He had put on the shirt and his new good suit and polished his boots. Then he called out, ‘Mum I’m just popping out for a bit.’
‘What, again?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said and picked up his rose and kissed her on the cheek and was out the front door and on his way. He walked from his mother’s house in Ligar Street, cutting across the railway line and over Doveton Street to Webster Street to arrive at Edie’s door at precisely three in the afternoon.
Theo thought about how he had stood before this very door some eight months earlier, full of hope for their future together. He looked at the door and felt dwarfed by its unyielding size; it was a tangible barrier between him and Edie. The last time he had stood there for hours, never knocking.
‘Come on, Hooley,’ he said to himself. ‘You faced more daunting things than a wooden door in Africa.’ He breathed deeply and knocked loudly and waited. He supposed it would be Beth the maid who would answer. So he was ready when she did; he’d practised his lines so they wouldn’t get stuck in his head.
‘I’m here to see Edith,’ he said with rehearsed coolness so the servant girl wouldn’t see his desperation.
Beth raised an eyebrow at him and stood there like she could see more than he gave her credit for.
‘Well, go on, go and get her, that’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?’ he said, thinking her eyebrow was mocking him and surprised at how well he just handled her.
Beth glared at him and yelled through the house, ‘Edith!’
What an impertinent creature, he thought and knew immediately that the battle lines had been drawn and the trumpet sounded.
‘If you were in my Company,’ he said slowly, ‘you’d be punished severely for insubordination. I said go and get her, not yell at her.’
He saw her looking at him as if she would teach him not to muck with her. But maybe he was tougher than anyone thought, tougher than he thought. He sighed loudly, letting her see his exasperation, and reminded himself that she was just a servant and not worth getting too upset about.
‘How do the Cottinghams put up with you?’ he said, and that made her turn on her heel and stomp off, leaving him alone to wait for Edie. He wasn’t sure who won that fight — he suspected she had. Perhaps he had been a little too harsh, he thought, and tapped his foot on the stone front step in time to his heart as he waited for Edie to appear.
It seemed to take longer than all the months just past. Surely she wouldn’t leave him standing there? Surely she would come?
Finally Edie was before him, with the infant over her shoulder. He looked at the chubby legs kicking under the lacy baby dress. He didn’t think of babies as human and he felt an urge to reach out and touch those fat pale kicking things, they looked so foreign to him. He thought the infant looked like something that should be kept pickled in a bottle, like a museum exhibit.
Then he saw that Edie was gently patting its back over and over, as though the child was part of her. She seemed completely natural with the baby, as if she was simply twiddling her thumbs or absently rubbing her elbows. And he realised with a terrible shock that the child had become part of Edie. His heart lurched as he wondered why it couldn’t be their infant. If it was theirs it would bring them together, whereas this child had forced them apart, and he hated it. Then he realised that Edie had been gazing at him for some time, waiting for him to speak as she rocked the baby.
He removed his hat in readiness to give his prepared speech. On the way over he had decided that he needed to take things slowly. Begin again, as it were. Work his way up to asking her to marry him.
‘I was wondering, Miss Cottingham, if you would accompany me on a stroll around the lake next Saturday afternoon. There’s a prediction of fine weather,’ and he looked at the sky as if he had a contract with it, already in place for Saturday afternoon. Then he quickly looked at the ground, not daring to read her face in case he saw something in it that wasn’t hopeful. It seemed to take another forever before she answered. His heart thumped so loudly he wondered if she could hear it.
‘Everything has changed, Theo, there’s Gracie now. Gracie and my father need me,’ she said slowly and he looked up as she made to shut the door.
He thought at first that he hadn’t heard her properly, but when he saw her beginning to shut the door he knew he had. That’s
