By
Santa Montefiore
It was a beautiful day for the funeral. Grace stood by the window looking down onto the frosty garden that glittered beneath a watery blue sky. Harry deserved nothing less, she thought, visualising her husband’s rugged face, the face of a man who had toiled the land for nearly fifty years. He had been handsome, too handsome for his own good, she mused, remembering the women who had fluttered in and out of his life like summer butterflies. Those big, rough hands had held them for a while then let them go. She had remained in spite of his infidelities. There was more than one way to love a man. After all, they had four children to think of and children need both parents and a solid foundation from which to grow.
“Are you ready, Mum?” Grace turned to see her daughter standing in the doorway with her two-year-old son, Jack, in her arms. “Gosh, you look nice,” Julie added in surprise, running her eyes over her mother’s new summer dress, the tawny hair let down from its usual bun and brushed until it shone, the carefully applied make-up, the faint smell of roses. She was about to make a joke about how her mother scrubbed up well, but restrained herself, it wouldn’t be appropriate on the day of her father’s funeral.
Grace smiled softly to herself and caught her reflection in the long mirror beside the window. In that brief moment she saw the young girl she had been in the war, when her cheeks had been stained with the first flush of love. The first kiss, the first caress, were all eagerly anticipated and worn thin by the gentle corrosion of her imagination. She blinked the image away and allowed her gaze to settle onto the garden her husband had loved so dearly. The trees were now bursting into blossom with the tentative flowering of her own fragile heart.
When Grace reached onto the bed for her handbag Julie noticed that her hands were trembling, but before she could communicate her sympathy with a touch or a look, Jack began to whine with impatience and she was distracted. Grace opened it, gazed upon the bundle of letters tied together with a blue ribbon, then clipped it shut. “Let’s go,” she said.
The village church was a kaleidoscope of colour. Friends from the many chapters of Harry Bambridge’s life filled the pews with their brightly decorated hats and pastel dresses, elegant suits and ties. As Grace walked down the aisle with Julie and Jack she was reminded of peacocks and butterflies. When she joined the rest of her family in the front pew she noticed her ill tempered sister-in-law and was reminded of the angry black bantams Harry had insisted on keeping in the yard on the farm. She hadn’t seen her for years. She had never married, choosing to baste in the juices of her own anger and self-pity. Once they had been the very best of friends. Once they had shared each others secrets. Now not even a trace of that friendship remained. They were strangers.
Grace held her head up. She was aware of the stares and felt the astonishment brush her skin until it tingled. She had never been beautiful and Harry had never encouraged her to be so, but today she felt more beautiful than the rarest butterfly.
Edna Hargrave leaned across to her friend Mable Waffleton-Shute and hissed indiscreetly, “If Grace had made such an effort in Harry’s lifetime he wouldn’t have found the need to stray as he did.”
“Shhhhh!” Mable replied with equal volume. “The dead have ears, you know!”
“Shame on Sheila Millet to show her adulterous face in God’s house,” Edna added. She ignored her husband’s elbow as it stabbed her in the ribs and continued with added vigour. “Good God, there’s Dorothy Blount! Poor Grace, the shame of it! Of all the times to show up they go and chose Harry’s funeral. As if they have a right. He was Grace’s husband. This is her day. Look at the trouble she’s gone to to give him a good send off. And they show up to ruin it.”
“Shhhh!” Mable hissed again, spitting onto the powdered cheek of her friend. Edna was too busy scanning the pews to notice so the shiny ball of saliva remained like an unsightly wart.
“Don’t know how she put up with it for all those years. She must have loved the old rogue. Poor girl. She’s a good person. A godly person. Far better than I. She’ll go to Heaven. Mind you,” she added with a wicked grin, “I’d rather forsake Heaven for an interesting life.”
“May God strike you down, Edna Hargrave,” Mable gasped, fanning herself with the service sheet. “We’re in Church.”
“And Harry is dead in that long box. We’ll all go in the end. My Charlie’s nearly eighty. Hardly worth him going home!” She felt another insistent stab in her ribs and straightened up with indignation. Reverend Pingle opened his bible and began to speak.
Grace stared at the coffin that contained the tired remains of her husband. They had been married nearly fifty years. Almost a lifetime. She remembered the promise she had made to him before he went off to war. That she would marry him on his return, when the beastly fighting was over. He had been vulnerable then. Afraid. Said he only wanted to farm the land as his father did. He had no desire to kill. Grace had wanted to comfort him. Never had she expected to lose her heart to….but she had promised and she couldn’t break a promise. Reverend Pingle’s voice faded as her mind wandered down the heavily trodden corridors of her youth. The Americans had landed, bringing nylon stockings and their own, unfamiliar brand of love. She clasped her handbag to her stomach and felt within it the hard bundle of letters bound together with a blue ribbon.
Molly Bambridge smouldered against the wall of the church, angrier than usual. The downward slope of her mouth could have been mistaken for grief had it not twisted so for the best part of her lifetime. She glowered at Grace, aware that her sister-in-law was too far away in thought to notice. No one ever noticed her. She had always been the little shadow of a sister who lurked behind Harry, while he hogged the sun. The only thing that gave her pleasure was the power of a secret that no one knew but she and Grace. In spite of resenting Grace for having the one thing that was denied her, she had never revealed it. After all, the secret was all she had. Without it life would have been entirely void of pleasure. But now Harry was dead. Didn’t she deserve a little sunshine too?
When her son Toby walked up the little steps to the pulpit Grace emerged from her thoughts and blinked up at him with pride. He was tall and broad and handsome, just like his father had been. She cast her eyes down the pew to where her grandchildren sat watching him, their small faces alight with wonder. Then she saw Molly and their stares were fused together by an invisible force too great to resist. In Molly’s brittle countenance she recognised her pain and her bitterness. She heard her silent accusations. That if it hadn’t been for her she might have found happiness in America. Grace wanted to shout back that she had kept her promise. That she hadn’t stood in her way. They had both suffered the loss of love but Grace had made a go of it, while Molly had simply given up.
Grace pulled away and stared down at her handbag. She became aware now of her sweaty palms and of the tears that stung in her eyes. Her lips began to tremble and she lifted her hand to steady them. Toby returned to his seat and Grace saw that he was crying too. He placed his big arm around her as the organ began to play the closing hymn. She was grateful for his support; but they were both crying for entirely different men.
As they emerged into the spring sunshine Grace was barely aware of the hands that reached out to touch her, to show their sympathy and affection. She was now retreating back into those well-trodden corridors where love had waited for her with the patience of time. Julie sidled up beside her and took her hand, but Grace’s lay limp in her grasp as if she hadn’t noticed. Jack ran off to play with his cousins and once more Julie was distracted, hastily hurrying to follow after him. Toby greeted their friends, comforted by his wife and children, brother and sisters. They all had each other. They didn’t need her any more. But Grace let them go. She was satisfied. She had played her part. She had kept her promise and she had loved and been loved. However, there are many different forms of love and now she awaited expectantly for the one love that had sustained her through almost an entire lifetime. A love unlike any other in power and endurance. She held her handbag ever more tightly and scanned the churchyard with a suspended heart.
Molly watched from the dark corner of her own isolated world. She could feel Grace’s nervousness like electric fibres in the air. She felt her envy wind itself ever more tightly around her neck, like ivy that stifles the very thing that sustains it. Then she saw him. She caught her breath and her head swam with dizziness as her tormented past resurfaced to torture her again with the unbearable pain of unrequited love.
Grace walked down the path with legs that felt distant and unfamiliar, blinking in the light of too many recollections. He hadn’t changed. His face was the same as the one she had held in her memory and caressed for years too numerous to count. He smiled diffidently but his eyes betrayed as hers did the sacrifice they had made. She extended her hand and he took it and with that first touch the decades fell away and they were young again, full of dreams and free of cares.
Molly felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She raised her hooded eyes to see Edna Hargrave and Mable Waffleton-Shute. “I’m so sorry,” said Edna, her fruity voice sticky with sympathy. “And as for Grace, she must have loved Harry very much.”
Molly took a deep breath. The deepest she had ever taken. Then very slowly the corners of her mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile.
“Yes, she did,” she croaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “In her own way.” Then she cast her eyes to the village green where her sister-in-law was now walking hand in hand with the American she had lost her heart to when Harry had gone to war overseas. “But not as much as she loved Gray Melody.”
“Gray Melody?” Edna repeated in amazement. She followed the line of Molly’s stare and her face shrunk like a deflating balloon.
“Gray Melody,” she said again and suddenly, with the mention of those unmentionable words she felt something hot on her face. The first rays of sunshine.
 |
| The French Gardener |
| Listen here |
