‘I know what death does to people,’ he said quickly, putting his polished boot in the doorway, making her step back a little. ‘I’ve seen death, I saw it when I was a little boy of twelve and my father died and I saw plenty of it in Africa. I know death has a way of crippling you so you can’t go on with life. I know what it’s like and if I have to wait till forever for you Edie, I can do it. I’ll wait till you’re ready, Miss Cottingham. I’ve waited this long. What will a little longer cost me?’ Edie didn’t say anything so he stepped back and placed the rose that he had hidden behind his back on her doorstep.
‘I am waiting, Edie. I’ll wait forever,’ he said, and really believed in his heart that he could. He walked off down the path, elated that he had finally found his voice. From the study window Beth watched him go.
Edie clutched Gracie tighter to her chest as though the baby was the anchor that would stop her running after him and keep her where she knew she belonged.
Later that night Edie took out her notebook, which she hadn’t opened since the day at the lake, that awful day when she had planned to do a terrible thing until Gracie stopped her. How could she forgive herself? Edie would make it up to Gracie, she would love Gracie above all else for the rest of her life — after all, loving Gracie was an easy thing to do. Edie turned to the last entry and ran her fingers over the words.
Wednesday Thirteenth December Five
Plan — Always keep the promise Mama asked of me. The promise I
should have said yes to when she asked.
She took out her pencil and added:
Sunday Fifteenth July Six
Note — He said he would wait forever.
Fifteen
At the Door
Sunday, 10 November 1907, when Theo has been wooing Edie for nearly eighteen months, he discusses the Harvester Case with Beth.
Everyone in town knew that Theo never gave piano lessons on a Sunday afternoon any more and hadn’t done so for the past eighteen months, so there was no point asking him. For eighteen months, every Sunday afternoon, he had put on his good suit and walked to Edie Cottingham’s house. He would stand at the gate for a few minutes and check his watch and at precisely three o’clock he knocked on her door.
Beth always answered. She always rolled her eyes at him as if he had just ruined an otherwise perfectly good day.
Then, having set the pattern for their relationship in their very first conversation, they bickered. If he said it was warm out today, Beth said that in fact it was cold. If he said it was going to rain, she said there was a drought coming. If he said the child was looking healthy, Beth said she had been quite ill of late. They exchanged curt, cross words with each other.
‘What do you think of the Harvester Case?’ asked Theo, knowing she would know nothing about it.
‘Do I look like a farmer to you?’ she said, putting her hands on her hips.
‘The Harvester Case is a legal ruling, Beth, made just this week. It means a minimum wage for every workingman. It’s a great step forward.’
‘Well, you seem not to have noticed but I am not a workingman. So tell me something that helps the working woman, Mister Hooley. Can you do that?’
He tried to think of something, anything, that would top her, but no words came to him and their war raged on, each waiting to see who would become exasperated first. He saw the smirk on her lips and the victory in her eyes.
She turned and hollered, ‘Edie,’ and her voice bounced off the walls like ping-pong balls as it echoed down the hallway.
Theo put his fingers in his ears and said, ‘Just shrieking this week? Normally you stomp off on me.’
‘Oh, I don’t like to disappoint you,’ she mocked and she spun on her toes and her dress flounced in the air like it was dancing and she stomped off.
A few minutes later Edie appeared at the door. Theo asked her to go for a turn about the main street. ‘Or would you like to take a ride on the trams? Or we could go for a picnic, or a steamer ride on the lake?’
And she answered as she always did: ‘I’m so sorry, Theo, but my father and sister need me. I can’t possibly entertain anything that would take me away from caring for them.’
Her face, which had been so open to him that day by the tree when he had asked her to marry him, was now shut and bolted. He couldn’t tell if she still loved him or if he was a weekly annoyance that she hardly thought of.
This made Theo more determined than ever to win her. He admired her perseverance and dedication to the child and her father, but sometimes he wanted to shake her, to make her see that he needed her more than they did. But he knew women didn’t like to be yelled at, or shaken, and he had never yelled at anyone let alone a woman, so as she closed the door he stooped and left the rose on the doorstep for her.
Just as he had done. Every Sunday afternoon at three. For the past eighteen months.
Sunday, 17 November 1907, when Lilly has a thing to say.
Theo arrived home after his weekly walk to Edie’s house, where he had been turned down yet again, and where he had left a rose on her doorstep yet again. He was hoping to go unnoticed to his bedroom, but as he passed the kitchen Lilly said
