Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Emma

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Back in Oxford, Emma heads to work. When she opens the door to the Flower Cabin, Betty is in full flow: ‘… so many places she knew of and short cuts into the colleges. And it was a treat to hear her speaking in, oh, I don't know how many languages.' She pauses. ‘Oh, hello, love. I've just been telling Les a bit more about our time in Cambridge.'

‘Has anyone heard from Tamas?' Emma has been worrying about him all night.

Both look at her, faces full of concern.

‘No word yet, love, but Les is going to give the wholesale market another ring in a bit. He doesn't want to make too much of a fuss.'

‘Mountain out of a molehill,' Les agrees, nodding.

Emma remembers her conversation with Roberto– people wanting to help but not wanting to push themselves forward. She is about to say something more when the door swings open with a bang.

Tamas stands there, flower boxes on his shoulder, smiling at them. He has the most magnificent black eye that Emma has ever seen.

‘Ah, Les, there you are. They have been telling me you have been ringing. You are a good man. But here, you see I am returned!'

‘But your eye,' Betty says faintly.

‘Ah, that is nothing. You should have seen my face when my cow stamped on it.'

‘But what happened?' Emma asks, ushering him in and helping him unload the flower boxes.

Tamas becomes overly preoccupied sorting the boxes. ‘It was nothing… I may have missed my turn and made a mistake… My van well it will need some work. But I tell the farmer I will replant his tree, and he is a man who knows how it can be.' He glances at them, looking like a guilty schoolboy.

‘My goodness!' Betty exclaims. ‘Berta must have been worried sick.'

‘I called her from the farm phone. But my mobile, the screen it is cracked so it is the only call I make.'

‘Ah, so that's how it was,' Les declares. ‘All's well that ends well.'

But Emma is not so sure they have heard the whole of it. She is all the more convinced that Tamas is holding something back when he changes the subject.

‘You have not won our game yet!'

Not knowing how to voice her misgivings, Emma resigns herself to the inevitable. ‘Hungary?'

‘No!'

‘Slovakia?'

‘Ha! No, that is not it.'

‘Poland?'

‘You people say we are all Polish. This is not true.'

Emma thinks this is a bit unfair; she has listed most of Europe before getting to Poland.

‘I give up!' she says.

Tamas stamps his large feet on the floorboards, making the buckets of flowers dance. ‘I am from Moldova!'

Emma feels a surge of laughter and lets go of her worries. Tamas is back being Tamas. They are all looking at her expectantly, so she says the first thing that comes into her head (thinking it in Spanish first). ‘I've read they make very good wine in Moldova.'

Tamas is delighted. More stamping, more dancing buckets. ‘This is true! Berta's family, they are famous for the wine they make.' He stops suddenly, looking down at his big boots. His shoulders slump.

The cabin falls silent, and Emma is reminded of films where everything stops, characters frozen, mid-action on the screen. From the corner of her eye, she sees dust motes hanging in the air, caught in the sunlight streaming through the window.

Still Tamas looks at his boots. Still they all stand waiting.

The large man in front of them seems to visibly crumble. Hedoesn't fall, but every part of him appears to sag as if in defeat. ‘I think Berta is leaving me.'

The spell is broken. Betty and Les spring into action. ‘Come over here, Tamas,' Betty says, touching his arm. ‘You come and take the weight off your feet and Les will get us all a coffee.'

Les is already halfway to the door. ‘I'll bring us some cake too,' he says looking towards Betty, who nods encouragingly at him. ‘Be back in a jiffy.'

Emma steps out of his way and pulls out a stool for Tamas to sit on. He hasn't said a word since his announcement, and again she imagines him as a large overgrown schoolboy: awkward, lost and, unexpectedly, painfully shy.

‘Oh Tamas,' she says, stepping forward and rubbing his shoulder. ‘I'm so sorry. Is it … is that why you crashed?'

She doesn't think he would have done it on purpose, but concerns about Berta might easily have affected his concentration while driving.

He shrugs his shoulders, helplessly.

Betty and Emma exchange a look behind his back.

Tamas stays slumped and silent, then his shoulders start to shake, and he gulps at the air as he sobs. He looks up at Emma and then towards Betty. His eyes are now streaming with tears, his face crumpled like an old cloth. He gulps again and wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve.

Betty pats his shoulder a few times in rapid succession and then walks briskly to the door to hang up the Back in 5 Minutes sign. ‘There we go– no one will disturb us now.' As she says this, Les reappears carrying a tray of mugs and slices of fruitcake.

They settle around Tamas, seated on an array of wooden crates and an upturned dustbin, and hand around the cake and coffee. Tamas blows his nose on some kitchen roll that Betty has handed him.

‘Now tell us what's happened since we last saw you, Tamas,' Betty says, patting his knee.

‘It is about Greta. I know this. I have tried, but it is hard.' He looks around at them, frowning and puzzled. ‘My Berta says I do not understand. But I do.' He studies the fruitcake in his hand, as though he might find the answer there among the raisins and dried apricots. ‘I want to make her smile, and she says I forget our Greta.' His left hand clenches and he thumps his chest. ‘This is like saying I forget to breathe. She thinks I have no heart. But my heart is too big. How can I tell her these things?'

‘Do you talk to her about Greta?' Betty asks.

‘I try, but it is making us so sad that I stop.'

‘Have you tried to tell Berta that? Can you explain how you feel to her?' Betty suggests.

Tamas glances towards Les, and Emma sees an unspoken exchange between the two men– these women, what do they want from us? We would do it if we could.

‘Could you write to her?' Emma hears her voice before she realises she has spoken. They all look at her. She continues, embarrassed, but determined. ‘It's just sometimes it's easier to write things than say them.'

And for a moment it is almost as if Will has pulled up an old crate and joined the circle. She would not be surprised to hear the scrape of the wood against the floorboards. They continue to watch her, expectantly.

‘My husband, Will—' she wants to say his name, acknowledge his presence‘—Will, he couldn't always put things into words. He was a lawyer, so maybe that was odd, but he was … well, he couldn't always say and sometimes the things…' She listens harder, strains her ears, not for the sound of the wooden crate shifting on the floor, but for the low sound of Will's laughter as she struggles to get the words out. ‘We used to write to each other,' she says, trying to free her mind of her husband, and looking directly at Tamas. ‘He would leave letters under my pillow, and when I read them, I understood.'

Her mind flinches at the next thought– would she have understood if he had written that he was having an affair? She stands up suddenly and then sits down again, dismissing the unwelcome thought of Will's affair. The movement makes her feel light-headed, but it helps, as though she has tipped the thought from her lap. Still, they watch her, three startled faces. ‘Could you write to Berta?' she asks Tamas again.

He seems to consider this for a moment. ‘When we were young, and I first see her riding through our village on the back of her father's cart, I follow her on my bicycle. She says she does not notice me, but I see her looking over her shoulder. I find where she is living and though it is far bigger than our house, I know her cook. She is a cross woman who is a friend of my mother, so I am careful. I tell her I look for work, but I find out Berta's name. That is when I write to her.'

Tamas's face relaxes as he talks, and Betty reaches out and catches the fruitcake as the plate becomes slack in his grip. He does not seem to notice as she plucks it from his hand.

‘She does not write back to me, not until much later. But I keep writing to her. I find out what books she is borrowing from the library, and I read these books. And one day I write out a poem for her from one of the foreign writers that she likes so much. Now when I see her on the cart, she smiles at me, and I know.'

He looks around as if he had forgotten they were there with him. ‘With Berta I always knew.'

‘Oh, love. you should definitely write to her. Tell her how you feel.' Betty's words exhale softly. ‘Are you certain she's leaving?'

‘She is not gone today, but I think she plans it. I see the cases– they were in the attic, but she has now put them under the bed.'

‘You need to strike while the iron's hot,' Les says, firmly, ‘No time like the present…' It seems that he is going to say more, but at that moment, the door to the Cabin opens and a young woman in a bright yellow dress stands in the doorway, ‘I'm sorry, are you open? Or should I come back later?'

As one, the four of them rise, and stools, crates and dustbin are pushed aside as they busy themselves clearing a space for the customer.

Later that afternoon, Betty and Emma sit alone on the bench outside the Cabin. The afternoon sun warms their faces, though the breeze is cool as it ripples through the magenta and cream stock planted in pots at their feet. ‘It was a very nice thought you shared with Tamas, love. You know, about the letters.'

‘Pillow post,' Emma says dreamily, looking at the puckered petals of the stock, breathing in their scent.

‘Is that what you call it?'

‘I guess. It's just something that started with my dad, or maybe thinking about it, his mum– I'm not sure where the idea came from. But it was something we shared, and it helped. My mum wasn't always…' Emma leaves it there; it is enough to sit among the flowers with Betty and think of her dad.

‘I might tell Ben about that. They're having a few problems with their eldest– it seems he hasn't taken to his baby sister. Wants her to go back where she came from.' Betty laughs. ‘Maybe his dad could write to him. He's very good with his reading and writing is our grandson, Zac,' she says, proudly. ‘Pillow post, you say?'

Emma nods. ‘I've been thinking, Betty– I'm going to go to London to visit the woman I've been emailing at the V look for ideas in other sectors; think how the Flower Cabin could attract more customers?

When she gets home, she takes these thoughts and a glass of wine up to the top field to watch the sun go down.