He glances at his watch. Just gone eleven. Nine-thirty New York time. Nine-thirty and she was already working and emailing New York. Didn’t she say she was here on holiday? For someone on holiday, she had a hard time tearing herself away from her phone and her laptop. But then, she’d always been a workaholic. She hasn’t changed that much. Maybe she hasn’t changed at all.
So, why can’t I get her out of my mind?
There hadn’t been anyone else. Not seriously. He’d been careful. He had Becca to think of. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Sophie. It wasn’t fair on Becca. Bringing somebody new in, not when she loved Winny so much. Winny was still her mother. Winny would always be her mother.
But, Winny. It’s hard sometimes. Lonely. I miss you. I miss you, but you’re gone. I love you, Winny, but maybe I need to start over. You’d understand that, wouldn’t you?
Sophie wasn’t a stranger to Becca, and she was Ellie’s niece. That was a bit strange, Sophie being Winny’s cousin, but it wasn’t like he was related to her. Maybe that’s why I like her, Winny. Because there’s something about her that reminds me of you.
An image of Sophie sitting at his table in jeans and a Billy Idol T-shirt sketching out her ideas for the artists’ retreats floats into his mind. The habit she had of biting her lip when she concentrates; of tucking her hair behind her ear when it falls out of her ponytail. When she did that it just got him. His fingers itched to tuck that hair behind her ear. To kiss that lip.
Maybe it’s time, Winny.
***
Sam parks the bike and stamps up the steps into Florie’s shop.
‘Florie! You got any canned tomatoes? They were fresh out at Foodland.’
Florie emerges from the back room, two of her dachshunds at her feet. ‘Jaysus, Hildy and Mamie. Get outta my feet, girls. Sure thing, Sam. It’s over there on the top shelf. Just grab yourself what you needs.’
The screen door swings open and Becca enters, a look of urgency on her face.
‘Becca, maid, thought you were at home studyin’,’ Florie says. ‘Does Ellie need somethin’?’
Becca shakes her head, her pink pompom earrings swinging against her neck.
Sam sets two cans of tomatoes on the counter. ‘Becca? Where were you till all hours last night? It was past three when I heard you come in.’
She signs to her father.
‘You want to speak to me outside? Sure, all right, honey. Just let me pay Florie. I’ll meet you outside in a minute.’
Chapter 60
Tippy’s Tickle – 25 September 1952
‘I’s the b’y that builds the boat—’ There’s a crash of tin as the empty milk can by the picket fence tumbles onto the dirt road.
‘Jaysus God, b’y! Watch where you’re goin’. Your mam will fry us up with scrunchions for supper.’
Thomas grasps a picket and steadies himself. ‘Do you figure Mam’s cooked up cod and scrunchions tonight? I’m gut-foundered.’
‘You gots a hollow leg, b’y.’
Thomas stares at his father. Grinning, he slaps him on his shoulder. ‘Well, you’re not blind there, Dad.’ He lifts his face to the darkening sky and belts out the next line of the ditty. ‘And I’s the b’y that sails her—’
Throwing his arm around his son, Ephraim bellows out the song with Thomas. ‘And I’s the b’y that catches the fish and brings them home to Liza!’
Ellie slides up the sash window in the kitchen. ‘They’re back, Agnes.’
Thomas’s mother wipes her floury hands on her apron. ‘I’m not deaf as a cod, girl. My sister could hear that racket all the way to Salvage.’ She picks up the old metal kettle and thrusts it at Emmett, who is sitting at the kitchen table assembling a set of thumb-sized stone bricks into a lopsided house. ‘Fetch some water down the pump, Emmy. I’ll need to be pourin’ tea down the likes of them when they gets in.’
Eight-year-old Emmett slides off the wooden chair and silently takes the handle of the kettle, exiting through the back screen-door.
Ellie opens the pantry and takes out two tin pails, setting them on the floor in front of the stove. Agnes eyes her as she lifts the lid off the pot of soaking hard tack and pokes at the softening bread with a wooden spoon.
‘Where’re you off to with those?’
‘To get water to heat up for a bath for Thomas. It helps him sober up.’
‘He’ll have to make do without the bath tonight. I’s got beer stewin’ in the tub. ’Course you’d knows that if you wasn’t off dilly-dallyin’ all the live-long day with your pencils. I can’t have Rod Fizzard takin’ all Ephraim’s money.’
‘I wasn’t dilly-dallying. I brought you bakeapples for the crumble. They were even ripe this time.’
‘It took you six years to finds me ripe bakeapples when the marsh I showed you is full of them. You’re as blind as a snow-blind Canadian in a blizzard. I’ll hardly give you a prize.’
The front door slams open and the men stumble down the hallway into the kitchen. Ephraim grabs his wife and plants a sloppy kiss on her plump cheek. He drags over a pressback wooden chair and slumps into it, shrugging out of his pea jacket. ‘What you got for the scoff, maid? I’m that hungry I could eat the arse off a low-flyin’ duck.’
‘You think I lives my life at your beck and call, old man? Maybe I was out with my fancy man in Gambo.’
‘Don’t you be teasin’ a hungry man like that, Nessie, or I’ll be back off to Rod Fizzard’s. His wife’s cookin’ up flipper pie.’
Thomas slides into a chair and leans his crutch against the freshly painted yellow wall. ‘I’d stop there, Dad. Mam’s gots a face on her like a burnt boiled boot.’
‘It’s fish and brewis tonight with scrunchions,’
