Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind (18 page)

MEN OF RYE HARBOUR, CREW OF THE LIFEBOAT MARY STANFORD . . . QUICK TO HEAR THE CRY OF HUMANITY ABOVE THE ROARING OF THE SEAS . . . STAYED NOT TO WEIGH DOUBT OR DANGER BUT . . . THEIR PORTION IN THIS LIFE FOR THE RANSOM OF MEN WHOM THEY HAD NEVER KNOWN . . . WENT BOLDLY INTO THE LAST OF ALL THEIR STORMS.

Ben strolls across to stand beside her. “You know, this church is one huge war memorial.”

“Except for this window. Look, it’s the story of a local lifeboat disaster.”

In the pub, over cheese sandwiches and beer, they compare notes; they’re each scanning the history of Winchelsea.

“Hellfire. It’s been one disaster after another,” says Ben. “I didn’t realize. All the holidays we had along this coast . . . Listen to this trail of mayhem: French raiding parties, burning and pillaging, the Black Death, drownings—”

“And when you were dead, that was it. No avatars, no photographs. You know, I sometimes feel that Poppy should get an avatar of Mother.”

He drains his glass. “I’ll get another round.”

“So what about this job?” he asks when he settles the pint glasses on the table. He sits and knocks the table leg with his knee; beer slops onto the table.

“It’s a full-time senior lecturer’s post in a new European Studies department, focusing on early women artists and writers. I don’t want to apply unless I’m prepared to go. I honestly think I’ve a good chance of being appointed.”

“Would you go if you didn’t have to consider Poppy?”

“That’s a big
if
.
”

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world. It’s not like going to war. Look at those poor sods listed in the church.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I do feel ready for an adventure.”

“If you’re asking for my opinion, I’ll say this: you’re a long time dead.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

London, 2015

Fourteen of Toni’s friends have each sent her a photograph of a dead relative. She now reckons she’ll get an A-plus for her history project. So there’s no point in doing any more work on it; she can’t do any better than A-plus. She’s disappointed that twelve of the fourteen dead relatives are men, though, and only one died outside Europe. She’d like a better spread of photos across the map. And, she admits to herself, she had hoped someone would send her a woman who died in childbirth—to make the point that in the old days, young women didn’t have to go to war to end up in a coffin.

From the desk in her bedroom, she looks out onto the back garden. It’s a warm evening, and the door to her dad’s shed is open—he refuses to call his shed a
studio
. There’s a green flag in the beer bottle on his windowsill. A green flag means he can be disturbed. A red flag means don’t disturb him unless it’s an emergency. A yellow flag means if anyone’s going over to see him, bring a cup of tea. Toni suspects he’s forgotten his flag system, because the green flag has stood in the bottle for months. In any case, they send texts to one another.

She scrolls through the causes of death: seven died in action in World War I, three in World War II. One drowned in a canal—a woman. One fell from scaffolding. One drowned at sea. One died of diphtheria—a girl, in India. All these deaths happened more than fifty years ago, so she wonders if she could slip in some historical figures; it would be easy to find the names of famous people who died in disasters like the sinking of the
Titanic
. That would give her a pin in the North Atlantic.

But the deaths of her friends’ relatives would then seem less important, so she ditches the idea. Her teacher, Mrs. O’Brien, also sent her a photo—it showed her great-uncle in his Royal Navy uniform—and she remembered to write an interesting thing about him: he was the fastest runner in his school. He died in World War II.

Last week, Mrs. O’Brien stopped Toni in the corridor at school and remarked that her history project was “very engaging” but asked if Toni didn’t find the subject matter upsetting. Caught off-guard—Toni wasn’t sure what Mrs. O’Brien was implying—she blurted, “I’m going to be late for French.” Mrs. O’Brien blocked her way and said that anytime Toni wanted a chat, she’d be happy to spend some time with her, maybe during lunch break.

Toni prayed no one overheard this remark and, in desperation, backtracked; she said she found it sad about the little girl in India who died of diphtheria. The last thing Toni wants is anyone in school thinking she’s teacher’s pet, because someone will
then
call her a bitch. So there’s no way she’s going to meet Mrs. O’Brien for a lunchtime chat, even though Mrs. O’Brien is her favourite teacher in the whole school. Toni doesn’t want to tell her anything private. She reckons all the teachers gossip about the kids when they’re in the staffroom.

There’s a familiar clattering outside as her dad locks up his shed. He slides a big bolt and fastens the padlock. Toni likes this sound. She jumps up, leans out of her window and shouts, “Want a hand with dinner?”

“No need. I’ll barbecue.”

That’s enough schoolwork for one day, she thinks. She opens her desk drawer and brings out Mr. Lu’s aphorism cards and a red notebook, the first page of which is titled “My Life in Aphorisms by Toni Munroe.” None of Mr. Lu’s cards capture her most recent revelation; namely, that since she started “Toni’s History Project—Persons Unknown,” she hardly ever stresses about her dad having an accident.

She’s struggling to write her own aphorism, and the best so far is this:
Do not waste time imagining improbable disasters, for the worst disasters are always a surprise.
She reckons she can do better; she wants to write something more poetic. She tries again:
Do not waste time imagining improbable disasters, for the worst disasters are beyond imagination.
And again:
Premonitions of disaster are never as shocking as the real thing. To make a premonition is to waste . . .
She doesn’t know how to finish that one.

It’s far more difficult to write an aphorism than she expected. She writes:
The sign of true genius is making an incredibly complex task look ridiculously easy.

She hears her dad press the ignition button on the barbecue, and she hopes he makes some veggie skewers; he cooks more red meat than her mum ever did. In fact, she’d like to go vegetarian, but she’s holding back from mentioning anything to her dad. What’s that phrase she heard recently? Taking . . . ownership. Next time they have a barbecue, she’ll tell her dad she’ll make veggie skewers.

With her homework finished, she pulls out a plastic storage box from under her bed. She discards the lid and slides her hands under a neatly folded denim jacket—a surprise present from Natalie. She lifts the jacket onto the bed. It’s vintage; it’s an absolutely brilliant find. Natalie found it in the charity shop near her office. She’d spotted a tangle of unsorted denim in the chaotic sorting room at the back of the shop, and she had the cheek to ask if she could have a rummage.

Toni reckons that Natalie must be psychic, because this jacket’s the perfect colour, and it’s exactly what she wanted. She smooths her hand across the denim and pokes her little finger through each of the buttonholes in turn. She’s going to take her time with this jacket. Not like her first one, which was a size too big in the first place. She didn’t realize how much time she’d spend on the project, how much work it would involve. So this time, she’s making sure she has the following: the right jacket—cropped and
not
unisex; the right shade of blue—the lightest; the right kind of wear—mainly on the cuffs and collar. And she wants all her ideas sorted out in her head
before
she begins. Because she’ll never be happy with the end result if the starting point isn’t right. For sure, she’ll cut a strip off her mum’s psychedelic dress and stitch it to the underside of the collar.

Mainly, though, she wants this jacket to be a memento of her trip to China, so cherry blossoms will have to figure in the design. When she asked her dad if pink and purple embroidery would work against the pale-blue denim, he suggested she do some colour tests with pastel sticks. It wouldn’t be his style to say, simply,
yes
or
no
. And her pastel tests are now pinned to her corkboard. She stands in front of them, closes her eyes and counts to sixty in her head, hoping that when she opens her eyes, the best colour combo will jump out.

She opens her eyes and glares at the gaudy, pulsating colours. Purple—it’s clear now—is too close to the denim colour, because purple is made by mixing blue and red. But
pink
on pale blue looks a bit flat. She rummages in her box of pastels, finds the purple stick and cleans the end on a piece of scrap paper. She adds a few specks of purple on top of the pink. That’s probably the answer, but she’ll do some more tests. After all, it’s going to take at least a month to embroider a branch of blossoms across the jacket, so she’s determined to get it right. The blossoms, she reckons, will start on the back by the waistband, and one branch will curve around and stretch along one arm, and another branch will reach across to the shoulder and curl over, to end roughly by her collarbone.

Her dad whistles from the garden. Her mum would never do that. Instead, she’d call Toni’s name up the stairs and shout, “Set the table, please.” Toni admits she prefers the whistle; it never sounds impatient. She lays the jacket face down on the bed and imagines the whole design. She fancies sewing a Chinese sword from cloth scraps, and she thinks she’ll position it vertically from the collar to the waist. It’s likely to look more like a dagger than a sword, but that’s all right, she thinks. And she’ll embroider birds and musical notes along the blossoming branch to remind her of the music in the trees of the hotel garden in Suzhou. Everyone will think that’s cute, but Toni and her dad will know it’s a joke. The question is: What species of bird?

Her dad whistles again.

“Sadly, Anna took the hint,” says her dad. “So there’s no pudding this evening.”

“Very funny,” says Toni.

He laughs softly, and Toni’s smirk softens. There’s nothing better than a barbecue before the beginning of true summer.

“Maybe, Dad, you should bake something for Anna. Then she’ll know you were serious.”

“Serious about baking?”

“What else?” She pulls a face. She can feel herself blush—not because her dad is embarrassing; that’s
a given
. She’s blushing because whenever she’s at home, she imagines her mum can hear everything they say to one another. She’s always wondering if her mum thinks they’re doing the right or wrong thing. Like, for example, her dad joking about Anna Robecchi. If her mum were standing next to them, would she be smiling about the puddings, or would she think they were being rude and ungrateful? Her mum and Anna were pretty good friends.

“Listen, Toni. I might rent a studio for a month, because this painting for Mr. Lu will be a tight squeeze for the shed. So . . . the point is, I might not be home when you get back from school.”

“I’ll get on with my homework.”

“Good girl. I’ll have his painting finished before the summer holidays. Talking of which . . . I have some news.”

Toni puts down her knife and fork, sits back and frowns. “Good or bad?”

“I’ve booked a ferry crossing to France for the first week of your summer holidays. And . . . I’ve booked a small hotel near Arras.”

“Where’s Arras? Is there a beach?”

He shakes his head and laughs. “It’s near the war graves. I thought we should look for Arthur.”

He opens out the map of France and spreads it across the kitchen island. On his laptop, he opens a folder of bookmarked links: several pages on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, a map showing Arthur’s grave with coordinates, hotels in the area, cycle routes between the cemeteries, the Canadian war memorial. He also opens a bunch of files: the cemetery’s historical information, the route from the ferry terminal to the small hotel, the hotel’s details.

Toni stands with hands on hips. How did he keep all this preplanning to himself? she wonders. She looks at him. Sometimes grown-ups are a real surprise.

“I thought we’d have an adventure instead of going to a beach. We can make picnics and cycle around the countryside.”

“Is it hilly?”

“Rolling countryside. Not too hilly. I reckon we’d have a great time.”

“But your bike is better than mine. I won’t keep up with you.”

He taps the side of his nose. “How would
you
. . . like an early birthday present? I thought we could sell your old bike, and”—he looks at her, eyebrows raised—“maybe we should sell your mum’s bike, too.”

“Would she mind?”

He throws open his hands. “Honestly? What do
you
think?”

She puts her arms around her dad’s waist and hugs him tight. “Mum never really liked cycling.”

He kisses the top of her head. “And I’ve taken some books out of the library, novels set in the war—
All Quiet on the Western Front
,
Birdsong
.”

“So, you’re the official tour guide. That makes a change.”