Otherwise

  #

  William is alone in this studio where he will sleep this last night. When he plants his kit bag in a corner, it's a blot like ordure on the bright colours all around. He's not been in here without Edith before, and so he's quickly around, touching her books and cloths, her Javanese batiks and first attempts at pottery. Edith arrives with blankets. She watches from the doorway as William completes his daring inspection. "I love this room – I would sleep here all the time. But Daddy won't let me. 'The turpentine miasma would addle your brain, lassie'," she says in Frampton's voice.

  William turns and smiles at her, he understands he's invaded far enough.

  "When you're away – I shall remember you here. Every day, all day, you will be with me."

  "Should I smoke a pipe so you can have the memory of my cherry rum tobacco too?"

  Edith looks to the floor. "If that would please you," she says, but how she would hate that.

  "Edith." He takes her hands. "I want to–" His blood flows, but his lips and tongue cannot form the explosive word he yearns to use. "Please. Lie with me, here, tonight, before I go."

  Edith doesn't argue her case, why she won't surrender herself to him, but, for the moment, her expression tells him he's betrayed her. She says nothing, reveals nothing more, but frees her hands, and bends to fashion a bed for him.

  Some fellows would force her. Throw the woman onto the divan, one rough hand over her mouth, the other tearing away cotton through lace towards flesh, and then have their way. But William wouldn't know how to have his way. He has nothing of the brute in him. He doesn't know the mechanics of fucking, and would need competent Edith to help him through.

  When she's finished making up the bed, Edith kisses his cheek. "I'll bring you tea first thing in the morning. You mustn't be late for your train."

  18

  The heavy flapping could be a housemaid airing a rug on the back stoop. Edith remembers how Mary's strong hands could grip and whip the library's Persian carpet into a billowing wave. But stout Mary was one of the first to be taken by the influenza. So, it's a tui launching from the flax bushes. Edith skips to the French windows to watch its flight, always with marvel, resigned to the knowledge she could never capture its true form, the explosion of iridescence and its busting through the air. Still, on the studio wall, the newspaper clippings and gallery flyers pinned to the cork panel attest that Edith Frampton is finding her metier: no one is her match for exquisite watercolours of modest flowers.

  It was her father climbing the steps to her studio that disturbed the bird. Daddy's gait has become stiff and slow. His heroic exertions in the epidemic seem to have sapped the last of his vigour. He waves as he crosses the threshold, smiling at his feat. When he lowers himself onto her settee, the deep creasing of his face betrays his pain.

  Edith winces at her father's effort, how arthritis has invaded his every joint. "Hello, Daddy. You know you shouldn't have tackled the steps."

  Dr Frampton waves the envelope in his hand. He's out of breath. "From William."

  Edith takes the envelope and searches for the right knife to slice it open. She starts to read, her expression more one of resignation than anticipation.

  "How's he bearing up?" Frampton says, too loud.

  "He says he's fine – physically – rambles on a bit, though I'm afraid, something about gods and flowers."

  Edith sits beside her father. When he rests his hand on her knee, she feels the tremor and sees his bulging knuckles, and wonders how much longer he'll be able to carry on his practice, and how long he might keep going without his work.

  "Don't upset yourself, my dear. The lads are under tremendous strain up there. He'll be fine once he gets back, mark my words. The talk I hear is of one last push, and it will all be over. Then we'll go back to normal. Don't fret about what he says now under conditions of extraordinary pressure."

  "I'm not so sure," she says. "He was never quite the same after that damned Napier business. He still writes about it all the time you know. William was always such a good person, and so trusting, he should never have been exposed to something so indecent and deceptive as that wretched creature." She takes a cigarette from her case, but remembers her father's chest and slips it into the pocket of her smock. "Oh, I suppose it was all my fault, I should have protected him more."

  Frampton flails his hand.

  "Yes, Daddy. And afterwards, all he seemed to have left was doubt." She reads on. "Oh for heaven's sake! I really think his mind might have gone." She hands the letter to her father. "Here, have a look; go on, he says nothing to me." She adds, "It might be of interest to you – from a clinical viewpoint."

  Frampton reads:

  My dearest Edith,

  I am well and trust that you and your father are well too.

  It's the height of summer here and flowers are blooming all around us. Despite the devastation, Nature seems almost gay. I watch the butterflies flitting without cares beyond the trenches, and think how fine it would be to follow them there into no man's land.

  "Mmm." Frampton plucks at his beard. Edith touches her father's hand. It's a bad habit, and his beard has taken on a mangy look from it.

  "What's that?" she says.

  "The bit about the butterflies, I'm afraid that is a little worrying."

  "If you think that's a concern, I suggest you read on."

  Frampton looks down.

  Captain McMillan and Lieutenant Davidson bought it last week, so I'm the senior man around here now, not that I'm really up to it.

  I was remembering how your father used to refer to himself as Scotch gorse – 'a hardy perennial' – as I recall.

  Frampton chuckles. "Gorse, am I?"

  Edith watches the smile leach from her father's face as he reads on.

  And I started to think how much we are all like flowers. You are a jonquil, pure and virginal and, as for me, no doubt, I shall become a sacrificial poppy, soon enough: perhaps even before this letter reaches you. Isn't that rum? Of all the tricks the gods could have played on us, their jest was for you to be a jonquil and me a poppy – blooms of a different genus. Still, I suppose that's small beer next to the trick they played on Frances in making her an orchid.

  I think this will be my last letter to you.

  Try to remember the best times.

  William.

  Frampton's gnarly fingers struggle to fold the letter; shaky, he places it on the arm of the settee. He removes his pince nez and stows it in his waistcoat pocket. Edith had said it wasn't good enough, but he'd insisted on having her sketch of William framed, and it does indeed look fine among the pale floral images that have made her name. She goes back to her work. Edith's resilience astonishes her father, even though he'd raised her so.