Cold Light (61 page)

As an additional treat, she cabled Caroline Bailey, a friend from the League days who was now a reporter living in London, and asked her to buy the smart British sets and to send them out to her post-haste.

She was able to announce to Caroline that she was to be a married woman with family, though ‘still a Bloomsbury girl at heart’. She knew the marriage would send the radical Caroline into a rage. It didn’t. Caroline wrote back saying she envied her. She wrote again saying that Caroline could be an honorary aunt.

As an ice-breaking gift, Richard had suggested Dinky Toy models of the Corporal missile – ‘the rocket you can launch’ – timed to coincide with the British test firing. She knew the boys wanted them.

She had been able to tell the boys about this missile from the Firestone annual report, and they were interested that she ‘owned’ the company that made it. She had told them that she wished that the company did not make the missiles. She told them that she had invested in Firestone back in the 1920s because they were building a model workers’ village on their rubber plantation in Liberia, as part of the great experiment to repatriate American Negroes back to Africa. They were not interested in that information.

She supposed that the most that could be said for the Corporal was that missiles were smaller and more accurate than the gravity bombs, which were so indiscriminate. And Firestone sponsored classical music broadcasts in the United States. Sooner or later, she had to get advice about rearranging her share portfolio and decide what to do about Firestone, which had changed its nature so much since she bought the shares.

Anyhow, she felt pressured into buying the missiles as well as the Meccano sets, but the Meccano was to be the centrepiece to balance the Corporal missiles.

Having studied the catalogues, she learned that accessory sets were available – that would provide gifts for birthdays and Christmases for a couple of years. As she understood it, the accessory set 6A would convert a No. 6 set to a No. 7 set, and so on.

To her consternation, Caroline came back saying that because of the Korean War, which had caused a steel shortage, the manufacture of Meccano had temporarily stopped, but she would hunt around for any sets that might still be in the shops.

She organised her first children’s party with tentative advice from Amelia, who advised that there should perhaps just be the four of them – if there were other children, those children too might have to have gifts, and they agreed that it was too sensitive an occasion to risk anything elaborate. They settled on sandwiches without crusts in small triangles, cocktail sausages and tomato sauce, and an ice-cream cake eaten in the drawing room, not the dining room.

‘Different from the everyday,’ was Amelia’s advice, ‘but simple.’

To Edith’s disappointment, Amelia suggested that the boys were too old and too boyish for hundreds-and-thousands on buttered bread – fairy bread – which came from Edith’s childhood.

By that rule, they decided against the presence of grandparents at this point. That was still ahead of her. And, of course, where did Frederick fit – as a step-uncle? She thought she would leave Frederick out at this point. He did joke that he had now been a brother-in-law three times. She asked him not to make the joke in front of Richard.

She and Richard discussed the rules of child-raising. She did not want to clash with rules already in place and, given her inexperience, she was willing to be guided. He said that she had to make the home according to those rules with which she was comfortable.

Amelia gave her a copy of a book on child-raising by an American paediatrician, Doctor Benjamin Spock.

She had asked for a book on stepmothering, but Amelia shook her head – ‘With stepmothering there is, I suspect, no safe advice.’ She then looked at Edith and said wryly, ‘And I would be careful which fairytales I read to them.’

Another cable came from Caroline, saying she had found unsold sets and they were on their way airmail.

On the day of Richard and the boys’ moving-in party, the first coming together of the family in its new home setting of Arthur Circle, Amelia was present as backup. They suggested that, at first, she remain fairly much in the kitchen – unless there was a crisis. They had decided that Emily would add to their nervousness, and they had not involved her. When Edith had explained to Emily that she would not be following the Major to London and that to replace him she was bringing in an unknown man and two boys, Emily had expressed her feelings completely by saying, ‘It’s none of my business, Mrs Westwood.’ She agreed to stay on and Edith suggested she now call her either Edith or by her new married name. Emily said she would think about it.

Edith was as nervous as she had been about anything in her life.

She had met the children a few times at picnics and at dining-out occasions, and they knew that their father and she were increasingly together. On these occasions things had gone well enough – well, they had been polite.

She greeted the three of them at the door, and together they moved the boys’ things from the car into their upstairs shared room. The boys seemed impressed with the idea of living in a house with an ‘upstairs’ and were goggle-eyed.

They each had a box of their mother’s things – a memory box – which they held on to while the larger move-in was finished.

Richard told them to put the boxes down for now and that they would find a place for them later.

They reluctantly put their boxes down on their respective beds. But then George, the elder, turned and went back to his box and took out a photograph of his dead mother in a silver frame and put it on the table beside his bed.

Osborne then copied him, taking his framed photograph from his box and putting it on his bedside table.

It was, she supposed, a tender moment. Or it was a challenge to her presence in their lives. Richard smiled at her and she gave back a smile.

George pointed at her arm and said, with deliberation, ‘That’s our mother’s bracelet.’

She looked down at her arm and felt dismay. Oh God. It was something she often wore, and she had vaguely ceased to be aware of its origin.

‘Oh yes, you’re right, George. How clever. I was hoping that you boys might want it.’ She began to undo the clasp. ‘To have. To look after.’ She freed it from her arm and gave it to George, who took it and examined it, as if looking for damage. But he seemed to believe her. She felt glad to be rid of it. It had served a purpose that had now passed.

She put a gentle hand on each of the boys’ backs and they then all went downstairs.

She offered them lemonade with ice cubes and a slice of lemon in the Waterford crystal glasses.

They turned to their father and questioned the lemon slice. He said that it was a ‘classy way’ of serving lemonade. ‘Edith will bring a bit of class into our lives.’

They both removed the slice with their fingers and put it on the coffee table. Their father said, ‘If you don’t want it, put it on the bread-and-butter plate.’

‘There is no bread-and-butter plate,’ Osborne said.

‘Then use the ashtray.’

Edith laughed and said, ‘Who needs a slice of lemon in a glass of lemonade, anyhow?’ And kept laughing as she removed the unwanted slices with two fingers and took them to the kitchen.

When she came back, they were talking to their father about the glasses being too heavy, and he was explaining about there being lead in the glass.

She took over the explanation of glass-making and what distinguished a lead crystal glass from an inferior potash glass, laughing, talking too quickly. ‘Really, there is no crystal at all in the glass, but that’s how it’s described – and the lead means that the glass can be made more decorative . . . attractive.’ She found herself trying to break down the more adult words into simpler words.

They responded well enough to her questions about favourite school subjects and sports achievements and hobbies, which she knew about in a scattered way from their earlier meetings and about which she had been briefed a little by Richard.

Amelia said hello to the boys and introduced herself, smiled encouragingly at Edith, and then scurried back to the kitchen.

‘Who’s she?’ George asked.

‘Amelia – a friend. She’s helping out today.’

‘Why do you need help?’ Osborne asked.

‘So I can spend time with you without being distracted. During the week, I have another . . . friend . . . who helps with the household.’

‘Why can’t you do it?’

‘I like to have my time free for my work.’

She asked about the cub pack to which they were signed up, but they were not forthcoming. Richard urged them to speak but they didn’t seem inclined. The younger boy, Osborne, seemed willing to talk, but was taking his cue from George.

It was, she thought, time for the presents.

She announced that she had something special for them – ‘housewarming gifts’ – and left the room.

As she returned, she paused at the door and looked at the two boys and their father seated in the drawing room, and recalled the night that Ambrose had performed his song-and-dance routine in the room. My, how the wheel of life revolved. She held the four large boxes as best she could behind her back.

She came into the room and presented the presents with a flourish. Each of their names was written boldly on the wrapped boxes. She had thought about coloured paper, but had decided that brown might be more boyish.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘it is really a family-warming day, not a housewarming day. The house has already been warmed.’

Osborne was puzzled and looked to George, who shrugged.

‘Amelia brought bread, salt and wine when we had the housewarming party.’ Oh God, that was of no interest. She may as well go on. ‘A custom from Europe: bread, that the house may never know hunger; salt, that life may always have savour; and wine, that good times may reign.’

The boys – and Richard also – stared at her.

‘But as I said, this is a family-warming and I am not sure that there are customs for that.’ She pulled a face of helplessness at Richard and also at Amelia, who was standing at the doorway.

Richard clapped her for encouragement.

She had their attention.

They accepted the parcels.

‘You may open them now,’ she said.

‘Go on, boys, open them, and thank Edith,’ Richard said.

They thanked her in a low, mumbled way.

She had a strange feeling that she was competing with their memento boxes upstairs, but knew that that would not cross their minds.

‘You may get down on the floor to open the boxes,’ Richard said, and they left the lounge and sat down on the floor.

They ripped away the brown paper from the largest boxes to reveal the Meccano boxes.

They took off the lids of the Meccano boxes with the dozens of metal pieces laid out, fixed with rubber bands to shadow boards.

‘Osborne has a number 7 because he is seven years old and George a number 8 because he is eight years old.’

‘They’re the wrong colour,’ Osborne said.

‘Osborne’s right,’ George said, taking his hands away from his box.

‘How do you mean, the wrong colour?’ she asked. ‘They came from England. They were sent out especially for you. By airmail.’

‘Our friends have Meccano and they’re a different colour.’

She couldn’t understand what they were talking about and looked across to Richard, who seemed also to be mystified. She looked to Amelia, but she had disappeared back to the kitchen.

George said, ‘The bits are supposed to be green and red – these have yellow stripes and the plates are blue with yellow criss-cross lines on them.’ His voice implied that she was obviously ignorant of the way of the world, or the way of the world of boys.

‘They look smart to me,’ she said, her mind racing to comprehend why the colouring should worry them or why the English sets should be different.

Richard came to the rescue and said to the boys, ‘These are special English sets – probably better than the ones your friends have.’

They stared at the sets without touching them.

George said, ‘They won’t be the same as the sets of our friends.’

Osborne said, ‘I don’t want different colours; I want the right colours.’

‘Does the colour really matter?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure the models you can build will be the same as those of your friends.’

They stared at her as if she had said something foolish. She said, ‘Your models will be quite smashing – in the English colours.’

‘I’d rather have the Australian colours,’ George said.

She said, ‘It means you won’t get the pieces mixed up with your friends’ sets.’

George said, ‘Can’t you send them back?’ He was grumpy.

Richard said, in a jollying voice, ‘We can hardly send them all the way back to England.’ He looked to her and smiled comfortingly, and then turned to the boys. ‘Say thank you to Edith.’

‘We already have.’

They then opened the boxes with the Corporal missiles, and these pleased them. They fired the missiles over and over across the room at ‘the Russians’.

After watching the missile-firing with strained smiles of interest, Edith said, ‘Who would like some sandwiches and cocktail frankfurts?’