A Second Chance (56 page)

Milly had opened the bundle, and was pulling
out the clothes it contained. She abandoned the task at once and
snatched up the photograph. ‘Look, Eddie, it’s your dad,’ she said,
holding the picture out for Eddie’s inspection. ‘See, he looked
just like you.’

‘And here’s the cup he won.’ Amy picked up
the small silver trophy. ‘That was for being the best rider.’

Eddie seemed more impressed by the trophy
than by the photograph. He held out his hands for it, then turned
it round and round, examining it from all angles. He refused to let
go while Milly was undressing him ready for bed, passing it from
one hand to the other as she pulled a nightshirt over his head.

Amy made up the bed, then fetched a jug of
water. When she came back into the room, Milly had taken off her
dress and was standing in her petticoats and chemise, studying the
photograph again. ‘Just in case you want to have a wash,’ Amy said,
lifting the jug onto the chest of drawers.

Eddie was in the bed now, lying close to the
wall, and to Amy’s amusement he was still clutching the trophy.
‘That’s a lumpy thing to try and sleep with, Eddie! It might dig
into you.’

‘I don’t care.’ Eddie wrapped his arms more
firmly around the cup.

‘He’s like that,’ Milly said, taking her
eyes off the photograph for a moment. ‘When he gets an idea in his
head, he’s that set on it. I usually let him have his own way.’

Amy studied the little face on the pillow,
his bright hair sticking out at unruly angles, and the sense of
slipping back seventeen years left her lightheaded. She hesitated
for a moment, then bent over Eddie and planted a soft kiss on his
forehead. She stood up, expecting to be met with a scowl, but
instead Eddie gave her a smile of such sweetness that it lit his
whole face, and made Amy’s heart leap.

‘What a lovely boy,’ she said, turning to
Milly. ‘Thank you for bringing him to me.’

Milly looked startled, then gave a cautious
smile. It softened the pinched, anxious lines of her face, and made
her look much younger. ‘Mal never really talked about you. He went
on about his old man, and he talked about his brother sometimes. He
quite liked his brother,’ she added grudgingly. ‘I remember one
time I asked him if he had a ma at all, with him never saying
anything about you.’

Amy could not think how to respond, so she
said nothing. Milly seemed to be working herself up to say more; at
last she spoke again.

‘He should have told me. Mal should’ve said
what you were like. Then I wouldn’t have been so worried about
whether you’d want Eddie. I’d have known you would.’

Amy felt it was the greatest compliment
Milly could have paid her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then slipped from
the room, leaving Milly to her rest.

Milly and David had not got off to a good
start, and relations remained strained for the remainder of her
stay. But on the morning after Milly and Eddie’s arrival, David
lifted Eddie onto the back of one of the farm’s horses, led him
around a paddock, and found he had become a hero.

Lizzie came to see them that same morning.
David had told Frank of their unexpected visitors when they had met
at the factory, and when Frank passed on the news to Lizzie she had
lost no time in coming to confront what she was sure was a sly
creature who intended to take advantage of Amy’s soft heart by
foisting an unwanted child, fathered by some man who had refused to
take responsibility, upon her. Lizzie entered Amy’s kitchen in a
whirl of indignation, took one look at Eddie and stopped in her
tracks.

‘It’s uncanny, that’s what it is,’ she said
when she had recovered the power of speech. ‘I’ve never seen a boy
so much like his father.’ She turned to Amy. ‘You’re going to have
your work cut out.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Milly said,
indignant at the implied slight to Eddie.

Lizzie regarded her coolly. ‘Mal was a
handful. I expect this one will be, too.’ It was a relief to Amy
that Lizzie’s visit was a brief one.

David and Beth had both calmly accepted the
news that Eddie would be staying on, and made valiant attempts to
hide their satisfaction that Milly would not be. David kept out of
Milly’s way as much as he could, but there was no avoiding the need
for him to take her into town when it was time for her to leave.
Amy decided to go in with them, though it made for a crush on the
single seat of the gig, with three adults and one sturdy child.

Milly had wavered over whether or not she
wanted Eddie to see her off, concerned that she might upset him; on
the day of her departure she allowed Amy to persuade her to let him
come along. Amy was sure Milly would regret depriving herself of
that precious last hour with Eddie before she had to sail away.

Milly was keeping up a brave face, but when
they got to the wharf and found that the boat would be sailing a
little late because of a delay in loading the cargo Amy saw her
composure slip. It was as if Milly had screwed up her courage to
get through the exact number of minutes she had expected to have to
wait on the wharf, saying goodbye to Eddie and coping with his
questions; faced with another hour of this, her mouth drooped and
her hands began to tremble.

Amy suggested they walk up and down the main
street, while David took himself off to the general store. As they
passed the photographer’s studio a sudden inspiration struck her,
and she darted into the shop to ask if the photographer was busy.
She found the young man in question on the premises and with time
on his hands.

Amy ushered Milly and Eddie into the studio,
helped Milly to brush the dust of the road from her clothes and
Eddie’s, and to place her hat at a more respectable angle, then
watched as they were photographed together, Eddie perched on his
mother’s lap.

Having their pictures taken used a large
part of the time they had to wait for the boat to sail. ‘I’ll get
him to make two copies of the nicest one,’ Amy said to Milly as
they walked back towards the wharf. ‘I’ll send you one as soon as
it’s ready, and Eddie can have the other one in his room.’

A sailor stood at the end of the gangplank,
waiting for the last stragglers to come aboard.

‘You’re going back to the farm now,’ Milly
told Eddie. ‘You’re going to have a good time there, aren’t
you?’

‘Yes,’ Eddie agreed readily. ‘Uncle Dave’s
going to teach me to ride a big horse. And Granny said she’d buy me
some lollies.’

Milly managed a smile. ‘Well, you’ll be all
right, then.’ She glanced over her shoulder to where the sailor was
rattling the gangplank meaningfully. ‘I’ve got to go now.’ She bent
down and folded Eddie in her arms, determinedly dry-eyed but biting
her lip so hard that when she stood up again Amy saw a drop of
blood there.

Eddie clutched at her skirt, confusion on
his face. It had all been explained to him: that his mother would
be going away for a time, while he stayed behind on the farm, but
it had meant nothing to him until this moment. His mother had been
there every day of his life; the idea that the boat was about to
take her away was too big for his head to hold.

‘It won’t be for long,’ Milly told him,
disengaging her skirt from his fist. ‘I’ll send for you as soon as
I can. Now, you be a good boy for Granny.’ She raised her eyes, now
glittering with unshed tears, to Amy’s. ‘Will you write and let me
know how he’s getting on?’

‘Of course I will,’ Amy said. ‘Every week.’
She took Eddie’s hand in hers and held it firmly as Milly made her
way onto the boat.

Eddie watched the boat pull away, Milly
standing on the deck and waving at them. His face was solemn, and
he gripped Amy’s hand tightly, as if afraid she, too, might slip
away from him.

The boat rounded a bend in the river and
disappeared from sight. Eddie stood and looked after it for a few
more moments, then he let Amy lead him away from the wharf and off
to buy a large bag of sweets.

Eddie was uncharacteristically subdued for
the rest of the day, though he ate his dinner with his usual
enthusiasm. By the time he had had his second helping of pudding he
was yawning hugely. Amy took him through to his little bedroom, got
him into his nightshirt and tucked him in bed. Cautious enquiries
as to whether he was used to saying prayers at night brought a
determined ‘yes!’, followed by something that sounded like ‘Now lay
me sleep soul keep die wake soul take,’ but said at such speed that
she could not distinguish the individual words.

‘We might try saying that a bit slower next
time,’ Amy suggested. She studied Eddie’s face, his bright eyes on
her, showing little sign of sleepiness now. ‘Would you like a
story?’

Eddie looked puzzled. ‘What’s that
mean?’

‘You don’t know about stories?’

He shook his head.

Amy smiled. ‘It’s a long time since I had a
little boy to tell stories to. Move over a bit so there’s room for
me.’

Eddie wriggled across the bed towards the
wall, and Amy lay down next to him. She cast her mind back to when
she had been Eddie’s age, and her grandmother had told her stories
from what had seemed a never-ending hoard of them. The details had
blurred in her memory, so that some of the stories had become
entangled with each other, but she did not think Eddie would
mind.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘there was a
castle on a mountain…’

Telling the story took a long time, as Eddie
had a stream of questions regarding such matters as castles and
dragons. But there was no hurry. It was not like when Malcolm and
David had been small children. Back then she could only steal a few
minutes when putting them to bed, before Charlie would call her
away.

Eddie fell asleep before she had finished,
and Amy left the room without waking him. But later, when the whole
household had gone to bed, she found herself wakeful, thinking of
the little boy who had never before slept on his own.

She went quietly through the house, every
inch of it so familiar that she had no need of a light, and crept
into the verandah room. There was a moon that night, and a gap
between the two scraps of sacking that covered the window let in
enough light for her to see the small figure in the bed. Each of
his cheeks bore a telltale trail, turned to silver by the
moonlight.

‘I’m not crying,’ said a small voice.

Amy crossed to the bed and slipped under the
covers. Eddie snuggled into her arms, his body warm and solid
against her. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead,
whispering soothing words.

Eddie was soon asleep again. But Amy lay
awake for a long time, holding her precious burden close and
planning the letter she needed to write to Sarah, explaining why
she would not be coming to Auckland.

*

A day spent running around the garden,
climbing trees, being led around a paddock on horseback, and eating
a good deal of food kept Eddie from brooding on his mother’s
absence, and when Amy put him to bed the following evening he
assured her that he was a big boy, and not a bit frightened to
sleep on his own. She checked on him during the night, found him
peacefully asleep, and gave silent thanks for the resilience of
children.

Amy had forgotten just how much energy a
four-year-old boy had. Fortunately it tended to come in bursts, and
after encouraging Eddie to run around wearing himself out she would
be rewarded by times when he was content to sit quietly.

To her surprise and delight, Eddie appeared
to enjoy her company. He was often happy to sit with her in the
kitchen, most notably when she was baking. He took over the task of
scraping out the mixing bowls, much to David’s disappointment. He
had an inexhaustible appetite for stories; not just the fairy tales
Amy told him at bedtime, but stories of when his father had been a
small boy, and Amy’s own childhood memories of riding horses and
swimming in the creek. He was even, she found, interested in her
visit to Auckland the previous year, and fascinated by her account
of seeing plays; ‘stories acted out’, as she explained them to
him.

The first letter from Milly arrived a week
after her departure. Her handwriting and spelling were both a good
deal better than Amy had feared; Milly must have been far more
regular in her school attendance than had Malcolm, and was capable
of writing a perfectly legible message.

There was a determinedly cheerful tone to
the letter. Milly’s work was going well; everyone was very nice;
and there was a promise that she would get a chance at serving in
the dining room in another week or two.

The latter part of the letter was devoted to
asking after Eddie, and its very last sentence was ‘Give Eddie a
big hug from me.’

‘Come here,’ Amy said, holding out her arms
to Eddie, who was busying himself with a large glass of milk and a
plate of biscuits. He came at once, clambering onto her lap and
nestling against her. Eddie’s ready affection was still strange and
precious to Amy, difficult to reconcile with his startling likeness
to his father. For the first few days she had hardly dared ask for
these cuddles, as if she might break the spell that had produced
this loving creature in Malcolm’s image.

She squeezed him gently. ‘There,’ she said,
relaxing her hold. ‘That’s from Mama. She said in her letter I was
to give you a big hug.’

Eddie looked at the notepaper on the table
in front of Amy. ‘Where’s it say hug?’

‘Right here.’ Amy took his hand in hers and
guided it along the words. ‘
 
“Give
Eddie a big hug from me”,’ she read. ‘There’s your name, see?’ She
placed his finger under it.

Eddie was fascinated by the idea that some
scratchings on a piece of paper could convey such a thing as a hug
and his very own name. He had Amy read them out to him several
times, and afterwards he said them to himself under his breath. Amy
watched him, amused by his intense concentration.