Chapter 40
Herv stomped straight from the dining room, out of the house and down Kytson Hill to Emelie’s cottage hoping the strength of his emotion would dissipate by the time he arrived there to look at the old lady’s damp wall problem, but there was too much of it for that to happen. He had spent the past three weeks – since Kay Sweetman had opened her mouth – in a state of such tension that he wasn’t sure what he was capable of. To say he hadn’t been himself was a gross understatement. He had never felt as disappointed in a person in his life as he had done in Marnie Salt. He’d thought he’d known what sort of person she was, outwardly bolshie because inside she was fragile. Lilian had warned him that she hadn’t had the happiest of lives – without indulging in detail – and if he had any intentions towards her, then he should be prepared to be a little patient. He knew instinctively that she was battle-scarred and she would need some time to accept that he was a good guy without an agenda, and when he had kissed her, he knew he had been right to play the long game because she melted against his lips as surely as he had melted against hers.
Then he’d heard Kay Sweetman’s words and they’d been the equivalent of an arrow in his heart, never mind his Achilles’ heel. Marnie and Tine cut from the same cloth – it wasn’t something he could handle. The fall-out from what Tine had done had spread far beyond him. She’d smashed a wrecking ball against so many lives. His best friend had fallen hard for Tine. His pregnant wife had been crushed by his leaving her. Then Tine had stamped all over him too, deciding she’d ‘made a mistake’ as casually as if she’d ordered the wrong size dress from a catalogue. He’d taken an overdose, survived it, but his wife, who’d been prepared to take him back, couldn’t forgive him then for attempting to leave their three small sons in that way. It was a mess beyond mess and Herv knew he could never love another woman who could invade a marriage. He couldn’t trust a woman capable of that sort of destruction.
He’d been half-mad with fury, determined to spit Marnie out of his life and he stemmed the bleed from his heart with another woman’s soft touch. He’d met Suzy in a pub in Skipperstone, when he’d attended a fortieth birthday party there for one of the teachers he used to work with. She was skinny and tall, blonde and the physical opposite to Marnie Salt and he was ashamed to admit that that had been most of the attraction. He hadn’t made her any promises, but he’d known she’d wanted more than he could give, despite her ‘assurances’ that she didn’t. She was attractive and smiley and hung on his every word but he’d felt no quickening of his pulse whatsoever when he had kissed her.
His pappa had said that he had fallen in love with his mamma at first sight. They’d both been first-year students at Bergen university and she had leaned over him in the cafeteria to reach a serviette and accidentally brushed his hand. That’s all it had taken for the sparks to fly up his arm into his brain and fry it. She still made his head tingle thirty years later, Pappa said. Herv had wanted that feeling too, but he’d never been that lucky. Not until he raised his head on the day of the May fair to charge a visitor an entrance fee, whilst he was wearing an old hessian sack and false brown teeth and found a black-haired woman with the prettiest, greenest eyes he’d ever seen and he knew exactly what his pappa had experienced.
‘Come in,’ called Emelie, hearing Herv’s knock and he entered to find her waking up from a nap in her rocking chair.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Emelie,’ he said.
‘I’m happy to be disturbed by you, Herv,’ she said with a smile. ‘Did Marnie send you?’
He answered her with a grunt and Emelie knew that her name had caused that sound of displeasure.
‘I can smell the damp straightaway,’ he said. ‘How long has it been like this? It’s not good. You should have told someone before.’
‘It’s only been this bad for a little while. Have you got time for a tea?’
‘I always have time for a tea, Emelie, you know that.’
Emelie hobbled over to the kitchen and Herv thought that he hadn’t seen her bent over so badly in all the time he’d known her. She was noticeably in discomfort. And he wasn’t surprised at her cough as she waited for the kettle to boil. The black spores on the window frames would have aggravated any chest weakness.
‘Plenty of milk, half a teaspoon of sugar and stir it well please,’ Herv called to her as he went to inspect that wall behind her television set. He could stick his finger straight through the plasterwork. The whole lot needed to come off.
‘Here you go, Herv,’ said Emelie, bringing out a mug in one hand and a large slice of cheesecake on a plate in the other. She saw how he glowered at it.
‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry.’
‘I made it especially too,’ said Emelie, with a disappointed sigh.
‘No you didn’t, stop fibbing,’ Herv shook his head disapprovingly at her. ‘Where’s the damp coming from? Can I look in your cellar?’
‘I don’t have one,’ said Emelie. ‘The cheesecake is delicious. Apple strudel. Marnie made it for me.’
‘I don’t like apples.’
‘Oh, Herv Gunnarsen, you are not a good liar.’
‘I don’t want to talk about her.’ He lifted the mug which looked tiny in his hand, easily crushable. ‘There must be a water leak somewhere.’
‘I think Marnie likes you very much, Herv,’ said Emelie.
‘I don’t think she does,’ he said, his tone flat. ‘Have you noticed any damp patches upstairs?’
But Emelie was determined to pin him to the subject. ‘I also think that what Kay Sweetman said to you about her was evil.’
‘I really don’t care.’ Herv returned his attention to the crumbling wall in an attempt to assess the extent of how far the damp had risen.
‘Yes you do,’ chuckled Emelie, dropping back into her rocking chair. ‘You can’t fool an old fool. You know, everyone thought that Lilian was a little cuckoo, but I swear she could see into people’s souls. She told me that she knew from the first minute of meeting you, what a good man you were. And how you’d fit into Wychwell as if you were meant to be here.’
‘I thought a lot about her too,’ said Herv.
‘And she loved Marnie very much. Like a daughter.’
‘I really think you should move out of this house whilst the work is being done, Emelie. I’ll get my tools and some materials and come back tomorrow to start it.’
‘Herv, it’s Sunday tomorrow, it can wait.’
‘It can’t. I am free so I will do it. I’ll leave a note for . . . to tell . . . her it’s a definite priority.’
He couldn’t even say her name, thought Emelie. He wouldn’t have been so hurt if his feelings didn’t run so deep.
‘Thank you. I’m sure Marnie will agree to whatever you suggest. Lilian couldn’t have left Wychwell in a kinder pair of hands, could she?’ she said.
She saw him rub his forehead with his fingertips as if he was a genie rubbing a lamp to make an answer to that appear. And one that would avoid any reference to Marnie Salt’s name. But Emelie persisted gently.
‘You know, Herv, you might think I’m a silly old spinster who doesn’t know anything about life, but you’d be wrong. Love is a rare privilege not a common right. Don’t turn it away if you’re lucky enough to find it.’
Herv smiled at that. ‘My mother used to say the same thing.’
‘Both of us can’t be wrong,’ Emelie smiled back.
Herv picked a crumb from the cheesecake plate and placed it on his tongue. The flavour spread in his mouth and with it a picture of Marnie flooded his brain. It was the same with everything about her, a touch, a smile, just being in her orbit had that great an effect on him. For good and bad.
‘My mother and my father fell in love at first sight,’ said Herv. ‘They said it was the sort of thing that they’d only believed existed in books and films and imagination, but still they felt the full thunderbolt.’
‘I know that feeling too, Herv,’ said Emelie.
‘I didn’t think I ever would.’
‘But you did. And with someone who couldn’t have disappointed you more.’
Herv looked into Emelie’s wise, blue eyes. It was as if she could see inside his head, see the thoughts madly tumbling around in it.
‘People aren’t perfect, Herv. Saints have pasts and sinners have futures, as they say. But are you really going to take Kay Sweetman at her word?’
‘I asked her and she admitted it.’
Emelie came back at him more sternly now, ‘Oh, Herv, did she really?’
‘Yes she did. Only five minutes ago,’ and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why would she do that if it wasn’t true?’
‘So you came bursting into my cottage because you’d had a row with Marnie, hadn’t you? Maybe she’s as hurt and angry as you, Herv. Maybe she’s disappointed in you also for believing too easily the word of a malicious woman with an agenda.’
Herv fell silent, processing her words. She was right. His knee-jerk reaction to Kay’s revelation had led astray his common sense.
‘Now, about my wall. If you insist on coming tomorrow, what time shall I expect you? I’m always up and dressed by half-past seven,’ asked Emelie, moving away from the M-word. She didn’t want Herv bracketing her with the village busybodies. She’d done what she set out to: make him think for himself, not just regurgitate the words that fell from Kay Sweetman’s vicious tongue.