‘Dad closed off the top floors years ago,’ Thomas says as he points at the house with his crutch. ‘Too dear to heat. We just lives on the ground floor now.’ He looks over at his shivering wife. ‘Let’s get the baby inside. It’s cold enough to freeze the arse off the devil out here.’
Ellie frowns at her pile of luggage, which is accumulating a light dusting of snow. ‘What about the luggage?’
‘Don’t worry, Ellie Mae. I’ll come back for it.’
‘But your—’
The warmth in Thomas’s gaze turns frosty. ‘I still gots my two arms.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t mean—’
Ephraim picks up Ellie’s suitcase and several bags of provisions they’d bought in Halifax. ‘Don’t you worry, maid,’ he says as he heads up the steps. ‘Tommy and I’ll manage. We’ll gets the trunk up to the house together.’
Thomas scans the grey water and lets out an exhausted sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie Mae. I should’ve told you.’ He looks at her, his eyes the colour of the winter sky. ‘I was afraid if I did, you’d not come.’
‘Of course, I would have come, Thomas. It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t matter at all.’
Thomas shakes his head. ‘It matters to me.’
***
‘So, here she is, then. The English wife.’
‘Yes, Mam. This is Ellie Mae. My wife.’
A short, broad, grey-haired woman moves away from the wood stove and reaches for the baby. ‘Are you expectin’ to give the baby pneumonia? What kind of a blanket does you call this?’ She tugs Emmett out of Ellie’s arms and swaddles him in a heavy wool blanket she picks off a wooden rocking chair. ‘There you goes, sweetheart,’ she says to the baby as she starts rocking. ‘You’ll be right fine now Nanny’s got you. Will you look at you? You’ve got the mark of the fairies on your eyes. I’s never seen the likes of it.’ She squints at Ellie through her frameless glass and wrinkles her nose. ‘Catholic girl, I hears, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmmph.’ She looks over at Thomas. ‘Told you to stay away from those Catholic girls, Thomas. You can’t trusts them as far as you can throws them. Then you goes and gets one in England.’ She frowns at Ellie. ‘Thought everyone was Protestant over there.’
Ellie shakes her head. ‘No. No, not everyone.’
‘Now, don’t you be giving Ellie Mae a hard time, Mam.’
Thomas’s mother peers at Ellie over the top of her glasses. ‘We only gots the Church of England here. No Catholics in these parts. You should’a married a fella down the South Coast where all the Irish is.’
Ellie glances over at Thomas. ‘Oh. No Catholic church? I—I guess I’ll manage.’
Thomas lifts the rattling lid off the pot on the stove. ‘Where you putting us, Mam?’
‘Your room, of course.’ Thomas’s mother nods towards Ellie. ‘The Queen of Sheba wants the main room, I expects?’
‘Her name’s Ellie Mae, Mam. We needs a large bed for the two of us. Mine’s only a small one.’
‘Dad’s dragged down the big bed from the attic. Probably has bedbugs.’
Ellie jerks her head around to Thomas. ‘Bedbugs?’
‘Mam’s only pulling your leg. It’s a brass bed. Anyway, bedbugs would freeze to death this far north.’
Ellie edges towards Thomas and whispers in his ear.
‘Out the back door. I’ll takes you.’
She looks out through the dirt-streaked glass of the door to the stony cliff beyond. ‘Out the back door?’
Thomas’s mother chuckles. ‘She’s gonna be a fun one to have around, Thomas. Wait till you shows her the piss pot.’
***
Ellie sets the candle on a chair beside the brass bed and tucks the pink nylon nightie she’d bought at Buntings with hoarded clothes ration cards around her. She shuffles under the stack of sheets and blankets.
‘Jaysus wept, girl. Your feets are like ice.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it’d be so cold here.’ Lifting a foot, she rubs it under the covers.
Thomas takes hold of her hand. ‘Your hands is freezing too.’ He sandwiches her hands between his warm palms and rubs them until she feels the blood run back into her fingers. ‘Give us your foot, maid.’
Thomas’s face glows golden in the warm candlelight. ‘How do you manage here without electricity or plumbing?’ Ellie asks.
Thomas takes hold of Ellie’s left foot and rests it across his jersey undershirt, rubbing it like it’s kindling for a fire. ‘You don’t miss what you don’t has.’
‘But, you’ve had it in England, so you must miss it now.’
Thomas nods. ‘Too right, maid. I’d give up a lifetime of Jiggs dinners to have an indoor toilet. But the government won’t bring plumbin’ out to the outports because it’s too dear. They’re starting to get electricity poles up though. They’re as far as Gambo now. They’ll get to us in another couple of years or so.’ He releases her foot. ‘Give us the other one, maid.’
Ellie swings her right foot over and hits the stump of Thomas’s leg. He groans. She sits up in the bed. ‘I’m so sorry, Thomas. I didn’t mean to.’
‘I knows it, Ellie Mae.’ He rubs the scar on his cheek. ‘I’m not much of a specimen, am I? He grunts. ‘You half expects to die, but you don’t expects to come back half a man.’
Pressing her body against Thomas’s, Ellie tucks her head against his chest. ‘I don’t care. I’m just so glad we’re together again. We’re a family now. Emmy’s such a good baby. I’ll wager you’ve already forgotten he’s in here with us. He hardly makes a sound.’
‘He must take after you, Ellie Mae. Mam said I howled like a banshee till I was five.’
‘I don’t think your mother likes me.’
‘I’d say you’re right.’
Ellie’s head bolts up. ‘Thomas! You’re supposed to say something like “She’ll come round”. Or, “She’s just having an off day”.’
‘Mam’s a hard case. She’s lived in Tippy’s Tickle since the day she was born. Saw her mam and her four brothers die of TB. Lots of people die of that up here. Then my brothers and sister with the Spanish Flu in ’Eighteen.’
‘That’s awful. At least she has you and your father.’
‘And look what the war’s done to me.’
‘Your father seems nice.’
‘Best kind.’
‘Where did he go tonight?’
‘Rod Fizzard’s stage down on the tickle. It’s crib night. He’s the best cribbage player in Tippy’s Tickle.’
‘Cribbage?’
‘Well, that’s what he tells Mam. Mostly, they goes there to drink Rod’s rum.’
Thomas slides his fingers under the pink nylon strap of Ellie’s negligee. ‘What’s this get-up you’re wearin’, maid?’
Ellie runs her hand over the shiny pink fabric. ‘It’s the nicest negligee I could find in Norwich.’