Serenade for Doubt
From TCWiki
- Author
- CantoAnathema
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I should probably just admit this is abuse of the wiki as a storage method. However, considering how erratically the wiki is online, it's a remarkably poor storage method and, secondly, this is actually vaguely tC-related, if only by the character. Again, Shiri related, as the unnamed character but if you couldn't figure that out you should probably stop reading anything I write. Just, you know, politely trimming down my target audience there. Anyway! Setting, shortly after WWII, in England or such. Enjoy.
She wondered if she would make a mess of things if she tried to paint the ceiling. Not that she was a dunce at painting; in fact, she was certainty far from it, having received quite a bit of praise for her latest dabbling. The issue was that she had never tried painting her ceiling before. The last time she had anything in the house painted it had been the garish walls in the upstairs� bath and for that she had hired a local man to do the job. Flowers on mauve worked passably in the kitchen but it was nauseously claustrophobic in the bath. But this time the painting would need to be the parlor's ceiling, to do away with the blemish that had arisen due to some shoddy painting from the previous owners.
Miss Bessett sighed, turning off the water just as it began to overflow the pitcher. She'd need a ladder, some painting sheets and a lot of other rubbish if she was going to paint it herself. Even just borrowing those would merit some inquiry and someone would be likely to offer their help. Maybe it would be for the best. She sighed again, this time for no particular reason aside from the vague sense that the first hadn't quite sufficed. A cab rolled along just past the gate, slowing a little. She fancied they were lost. The numbers were damned impossible the figure out in the neighborhood. Another sigh debated coming out to join its siblings and, as it pondered, she dropped some ice chips into the pitcher. She hefted the pitcher up and out of the sink.
The cab stopped just past her gate. A man got out, slinging a coat over his arm, facing across the way. It was the Sellick's house. Miss Bessett watched their children from time to time, right adorable terrors that they were. But the Sellick's were on holiday this week. The man turned around. She dropped the pitcher and it was a small miracle it didn't shatter in the sink. Instead, it only toppled and emptied; the water it had held went glugging down the drain. He was wearing dark glasses and a cap, handing the cabman the fare. Slowly he made his way to the fence, catching hold of it and running his fingers along the top till he came to the gate. Miss Bessett was already drying her hands frantically on a nearby dishtowel as he reached down and unlatched the metal clasp. It swung open with a whine that called for oiling.
He had almost made it all the way up the path when she came out the front door. They both paused. Miss Bessett cocked her head to the side and her hand, still damp from the sink, made a fist at her hip - a fierce inquiry to the man who tipped his hat up over his brow. He bowed ever so slightly and she was already off the steps and ensnaring his waist in her arms before he could straighten himself upright.
A light chuckle, something airy and lovely, came from his lips and she was torn for a moment. But the embrace and the feel of his fingers upon her hair made not seizing those lips in a kiss right away worth it.
"Hannah..."
She pushed herself from him, causing him to wobble a bit. But her fierce fingers were at his lapels, seizing them passionately as she very nearly shouted, "You bastard! You horrible, terrible, absolutely loathsome bastard!"
"Well I'd not put it that..." He started.
"I would!" Miss Bessett assured with a righteousness before she had her mouth on his. "What else would I call the better half of a bloody merry decade?" She continued afterwards.
The paradox of the situation left him a bit bereft of words and he could only find it in himself to tip his hat again. The cab man was understandably glad he'd stayed on for a moment and hadn't missed out on the ridiculous drama playing out in the front yard. But as Miss Bessett took the man by the arm and they entered the house, the cabbie returned to his car and towards the next fare. Inside, she led the man to the kitchen where she retrieved a bottle of gin. Such bottles had previously been kept in the highest cupboard, requiring her to fetch a chair from the room over, and even on this particular occasion she still found herself halfway to the chair before remembering she now kept the bottles at a more accessible level. He set out two glasses for her before going back to put up his coat and hat on the hooks in the hall.
"What would you have done if I had been out," she said to him, filling the glasses. "or had company? Honestly. Do you ever consider these things?"
"I try not to." He replied blithely, returning to the kitchen and taking a look out the window. At some point, she'd taken up gardening apparently. The rows of primrose and Lady's Smock were blooming already. Judging from a small pile of gardening tools just off the side of the house, she must have been at it with a fair amount of devotion. It felt as if she had begun from a corner and worked her way outward, slowly using flowers to combat the vast emptiness of grass. In time, it wouldn't surprise him if she had a meandering path of brickwork through a yard-field of flowers. She turned and proffered one glass to him, cradling the other against her chest.
"You're terrible." She said. He drank to that with a smile.
It was true, in a way. She coddled her drink just a bit more, watching him. He was still the same as ever, dressed as a businessman but with a deadly charm. It had killed her once and numerous times before, pining her down like none other could. His wit was as sharp as a dagger and she was such a Juliet at times. But she felt old next to him. That smooth cheek of his, the dark hair, and here she was. Her eyes were darker now, to match his own. But so were everyone's. He had merely been ahead of them and they had finally caught up during these last terrible years. She wondered where he had been.
"You still keep just as fine a bottle stashed away," he observed, titling the half-full glass against the light, "I'm glad."
"You've fared well," was unspoken. He had said it just the same and she, as always, had heard it. He turned to her, smile alight and warm. It was like taking her hand into his own, full gentle. He was glad, it seemed. She lifted her own glass to her lips with a shrug. Her fondness for gin was a secret known to few and none of them lived in this part of the country. It was the one thing she drank religiously; downing something that could be called - in a stretch - a sip each and every Sunday. But never, or rarely, more. Miss Bessett had never been needy.
She smiled wryly, "Are you on holiday then? Just brushing through the old haunts?"
"Oh, hardly. I had some work down in Guildford. It's the first time I've been called back here in ages, it feels. Could hardly let the chance pass."
"Good." It seemed, for a moment, he was about to say something in reply to that, so she went on, "So you'll be on your way soon enough then, I take it. I haven't got the guestroom set up if you were hoping of putting up here for a few days. So you'd best put that right out of your mind if you were."
"Not a problem. I'll catch the evening train back." He assured, brushing his forehead as if to tip his hat to her. It wasn't a tell. She knew he didn't have any.
"You're a terrible liar, m'dear."
"I could catch the evening train but..." But she was already kissing him and the years were briefly drowned by two glasses of pricey gin and reunion. He had always thought she tasted of fire. Not that he had ever tried such a thing but it was an unfairly trite metaphor that he couldn't shake. Even though her eyes now smoldered, she was vibrant and he caught her around the waist with his free arm. It would not and could not ever be asked what the truth of the matter was, whether it was business or holiday. There was honesty and there was truth. In some vague way, they preferred the latter. It fancied them both as they fancied each other.
"Love..." She had her fingers meandering like inquisitive paths beneath his waistcoat when he broke his lips free enough to murmur, "What time does Thomas come home these days?"
There was honesty and there was truth. He had tasted the dredges of deceit beneath her tongue and, ah, well before had known it was buried somewhere. She pushed back, letting his arm fall aside. This time she turned away, pivoting on her heels and taking steps towards the dining room. He waited but it was tension that he did not like. It made him feel cruel.
"Thomas..." Miss Bessett repeated, lightly. She turned, head low as if that might keep him from seeing the truth on her face as it ran from her eyes, trickled down her cheeks. Too early, too early! Hannah drank deeply, finishing her glass in one tilt. She lowered it, gasping softly and in that same breath she forced it out, "Thomas... doesn't come home... anymore."
"Did you send him off?" He might have said if there was not such preciseness in her voice. Instead, what could he say? He had heard her say it countless times in his head, during the short time since he had felt the silence in the house, lingering. But there was nothing, not now nor ever. She could only continue.
"I told him, you know, to come right home after classes let out." She was particularly adamant on how she had told him. "And he did, often enough. But..." She paused, refilling her glass. It worked too well and some gin ran from the counter to the sink. "But then he didn't. He didn't come home and I was fretting myself pretty silly," she stared at the glass and how the drink rippled within it as her fingers shook it, "and I went all the way there and... you hear those sirens so often, love, that you get used to it and if it's far enough you think nothing of it. But... but he was on his way home, like I told him, and." She stopped.
It was such a typical story, she knew. The sirens went off and in the bombing someone always lost someone. Sometimes entire families, though small mercy that, she thought terribly. She should have taken him away from the city and moved further out. But she hadn't. She couldn't, she had told herself. Move all the way out to the country with a ten year old? Besides, she had been waiting.
"They never found him, in all the rubble." She said finally, with a slowness that indicated there was nothing more she would ever want to say on the subject.
He finished off his glass and she did the same, though twice over. Some moments passed in stillness. He began to open his mouth and she knew it was a mistake. Nothing voiced would be right. Honest, maybe, but it would never be right. But she let him say it anyway.
"I'm sorry."
He had given them plenty. When she had come upstairs, in that dark flat she rented to him, during one of his erratic visits that left her feeling somehow delirious with danger, he hadn't shirked her. She had told him she didn't need him but he'd best take some responsibility. He'd done so admirably enough for such a man. She hadn't really known who he was, in all honesty. The charmer, the sweet gentleman, the one who reeked of everything wrong and quoted lines of Italian poetry to her hair upon the pillow. When she awoke in the morning, he seemed so natural there that she would always let him return, even if his real existence was elsewhere. He had given her a fortune to use wisely and set her up in decent neighborhood a bit further out. He was apologizing. They both knew he wasn't.
She had seen in numerous times on the faces of other women. Their husbands had duties, loyalty and yet when they returned there was that apology. But no apology can erase the distance when it is the most desperate. She reached out, taking his face into her hands. Absence is the justifiable sin that cannot be forgiven. She kissed him, desperately longing and he knew it.
Some time later, when the afternoon had descended to the murky colours of evening, she did consider shunting him into the guestroom. It would be enough for him to paint the ceiling of the parlor, in exchange for room and board for the few days he was about. But there was more to it than that and once she had felt his fingertips upon her hips, drawing the attention to herself warm once again, she could not push him away. Within the weight of him, there was a smaller figure that pressed upon her, clung to her like an echo. She held onto him tightly too.
When he did leave, later that week, he tipped his hat and walked down the path towards the gate. But he paused, leaned over and snagged a primrose from the dirt it was grounded in.
"You're terrible." She observed, from the front door.
He turned back and smiled, tucking the flower into the lapel of his coat. "I do try."
Miss Bessett rolled her eyes and went back inside. The door clacked shut behind her and he left laughing. She did watch him go though, traced his face as he got into the waiting cab. She loved him though, in truth, she did not see him look back at her once he had gotten into the cab. It was enough that he was gone.
