Page 41 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘There wasn’t anywhere else,’ she said simply, and with a sinking feeling I noticed a suitcase big enough to hold three bodies parked by the door.
…slowly she bent and undid the heavy metal clasps securing the huge trunk, thedust of centuries thick and soft under her fingertips.
Yet something living and desperate bumped and whimpered against the lid, with the imperative, irresistible cries of a small child.
Needless to say, my sleep was even more disturbed after that, and I got up late and bleary-eyed.
There was no sign of Jane other than a beige cashmere coat tossed on to a chair, and a pale pink pashmina, neatlyfolded, on the window seat. I threw them both behind the sofa (out of sight, out of mind) and hoped that they, and Jane with them, would magically vanish all on their own.
I had lots of post. This little row of houses is out on a limb – literally a dead end, the occupants of the graveyard not receiving much in the way of snail mail – so the postman frequently doesn’t bother to deliver our lettersfor two or three days. Then we get a bundle, wadded together with elastic bands.
I opened the one with the foreign stamp first. It lookedmore exciting than the gas bill, but it wasn’t really, since it was just from my brother Jamie.
Dear Sis
Hope you liked the little present I sent you from out East.
We are still here on manoeuvres. Boz and Foxy and me went on shore yesterday and got absolutelyslewed, and Boz fell in the harbour, which believe me is not the healthiest water around here to fall in! Hope his hepatitis shots are up to date. (Ha! ha!)
Had a message from Pa the other day. I knew he’d come round eventually after I got the chaplain to tell him I wasn’t a harlot! He’s saying Jane’s going to burn in hell now, so the poor old thing’s definitely losing his marbles. We all knowyou’rethe one lined up for the eternal fire. Pa said your feller’s wife finally shuffled off too, but even marriage to the adulterer wouldn’t keep you from the fiery pit. Still, maybe when you’re a respectable married woman they’ll come round a bit.
Boz just came into a bit of money, and he says we could leave the navy early and set up a chicken farm, because at least there’s no Mad Chickendisease, so everyone will buy poultry. Foxy says geese would be better – I don’t know why. Still, might give it a go before too long!
See you next leave,
xxx Jamie
I did not fancy the chances of a poultry farm run by the likes of Boz, Foxy and Jamie, because intellectually the chickens would run rings around them.
Still, at least Jamie’s letter explained that battered parcel I’d had withthe pink silk Chinese slippers. Trust my brother Jamie to get the size wrongandI hated pink.
Fortunately, Alice’s Alternative Clothes Emporium intown, where I purchase most of my rather alternative clothing, had some very similar green ones in stock in my size, and took mine in part exchange.
I didn’t suppose Jamie would notice the change of colour when he paid one of his flying visits onhis way up to make a duty call on Ma and Pa.
You wouldn’t think from his letter that he was an officer in the navy, although he was never going to get to the top of the naval tree like George, who not only has a brain but is also deadly serious. He’s something in the Admiralty now, married to the runt of a titled family, while Jamie is eternally mentally fifteen.
I suppose it did help that Georgewas sort of semi-adopted by a rich relative when he was eight, because he had all the right connections when he needed them.
I have four brothers. George is the oldest, then Jamie, Francis and Edward. The sea and the Church are in the family blood, which probably accounts for George and Jamie’s interest in the navy. Eddie, too, ran away to sea at sixteen, and was next heard of via a postcardfrom Jamaica, which explains his long-standing ganja habit, although he is a New Age traveller now.
None of them has embraced religion, probably due to seeing Pa take it to extremes. He might have gone a long way if it hadn’t been for the brandy and going off at a tangent, since he was exceedingly charismatic when sober. Come to that, he was pretty compelling even when not sober, in a hell anddamnation sort of way.
Pa went to the USA as a young man, thinking he was some sort of reverse Billy Graham; but instead he converted to the Charismatic Church of God sect and brought that back here, eventually setting up his little community in Scotland. Several American members of the sect joined him there, all, strangely enough, wealthy widows.
I don’t know where he picked the brandy habitup, or how he squared that with his God, since he was very strongly against all alcohol in his preaching. In the family, if referred to at all, it was as ‘Pa’s medicine’, so clearly it conveniently transmuted in his mind into something other than spirits.
Francis and I are both sports, I suppose: he climbs things, and has a little shop up in the Highlands that stocks the sort of serious stuffclimbers need, and indeed is usually full of craggy, weathered, serious climbers, some wearing plaster casts. He was generally in mild favour with Pa, since they rarely saw him and so have not sussed that his climbing and business partner, Robbie, is female.
Eddie and Francis are my favourite brothers, even if they did think up most of the pranks that got us into trouble when we were children,mostly because Jane always snitched on us.
Eddie is Ma’s favourite too, and probably the only thing Ma’s ever stood up to Pa about in all their marriage. She believes he was called to his wandering way of life because he is touched by God.
Frankly, between you and me, Eddie is just touched. He’s as cracked as Pa in his own way, like a pleasantly glazed old piece of pot.
When Pa made it clearthat my relationship with Max would mean eviction from the family circle (as well as eternal damnation) I thought: Big deal, I never felt I was in it anyway, though I suppose the hope of one day winning their respect, if not love, never quite died.
But the boys all kept in contact like nothing ever happened, and popped in to see me if they could, except George: his idea of keeping in touch withanyone, including family, not useful to his career or social life, was to send an annual pre-printed Christmas card.
