He was shocked. Then he was spellbound. His emotions swirled in his chest and he grasped it tightly to stop the tornado inside him. He wanted to savour that ankle, to look and look until he was completely familiar with its curve and its softness. It was a fragile, slender thing that he could encompass in his hand. He reached out his hand to touch it, to run his finger along its arc, then he remembered where he was and quickly gripped the organ stool. He wanted to run down the aisle and claim that ankle as his own and cover it up. He felt urges that weren’t right to feel in church and quickly pulled the hymnal off its perch on the organ. It fell to the ground with a thud and the Reverend stopped mid-sentence and waited and watched, and the entire congregation waited and watched with him, while Theo leaned over, picked up the hymnal, checked it for damage and then laid it over his lap. There were stirrings in his blood that he hadn’t felt since looking at naked black women in Africa. Despite himself he couldn’t tear his eyes away and gazed blatantly at Edie’s ankle until he felt Reverend Whitlock boring holes through the back of his head. Theo glanced at the Reverend. The Reverend glared back at him and the sermon spilled out of his mouth once again. Theo felt his cheeks burn hot with embarrassment as Reverend Whitlock’s eyes settled accusingly on the hymnal in Theo’s lap.
Theo turned his back on the Reverend and stared at the organ. He turned the hymnal over and opened it to the next hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art’, and slowly placed it back on its stand. Reverend Whitlock finished his sermon and sat down behind the pulpit. Theo struck the opening chords; the notes blurred in front of his eyes and he played from somewhere inside him where he knew the hymn by heart, his brain filled with hot blood and images of Edith. Before he knew it, the congregation had stopped singing but he wasn’t with them, so they had to wait for him to finish the last bars, which he did, thumping the keys as though he was finishing with a crescendo on purpose. After Deacon Blackmarsh gave the announcements, the congregation stood to sing the final hymn, ‘Abide With Me’, and Theo played the introductory bars thinking how lucky he was that his fingers could again dance over the keys from memory, as the notes in the hymnal no longer wrote the song, but formed the word Edith, over and over, as if they were reading his heart.
Edie thought he maybe was looking at her after all. It was hard to tell. Just in case he was, she gave him her good side to study. She kept her head at an angle with the sun warming her cheek to a pink glow and she gave him a few minutes to admire her before she turned and gazed at the ceiling so he could see that she was thinking about God and Reverend Whitlock’s words. Then she lowered her eyes, crossed her legs and put her ankle out into the aisle for him to see. She willed him to look down and notice it, but he didn’t seem to and she wondered if all her planning had been for nothing.
These secretive looks were seen by everyone — well, they were seen by the women, and soon the men would know because their wives would tell them.
The women whispered, ‘Nothing will come of it. Vera Gamble has much more hope. She’s embarrassing herself, really.’ While Reverend Whitlock bellowed the final prayer Missus Blackmarsh turned to Missus Turnbull next to her and said that if Theo was interested in Too Girl then maybe he had just spent far too long in Africa and perhaps any white woman looked good to him now.
Missus Horlick sitting in the next pew leant back and muttered that Theo might be getting on, but he still had the pick of any handsome young girl who’d be happy to marry him.
Everyone whispered, What on Earth could he see in Too Girl?
‘Blowed if I know!’ they answered.
And then they stood for the Benediction and the gossipers smirked as if they knew more about Edie and Theo than Edie and Theo did.
If Theo hadn’t had the clout knocked out of him, he might have told the women exactly what it was about Edith Cottingham that made his heart feel as though it was going to fly away. Her lips, for example, were always curled at the ends, ready to smile. And Edie bounced when she walked, as though she was always dancing; yet when he listened to her talk she was down-to-earth and not giggly at all. Her chin was always held too high, too defiantly for a woman, and he liked that about her; she wasn’t afraid of life. To him, Edie was straightforward. She didn’t worry and fret continuously like the other women he knew, like his mother did. Edie was still so young and trusting and he felt so very tired and so very old after the war. He felt worn out and dusty, as though the slightest knock could make him crumble away to nothing. When he saw Edie he felt the warmth of her heart on his skin. It was as though she was bathed in light, as though the sun
