Author's note: Any films or television programmes mentioned in this book are imagined and have no connection with any real films or programmes that may have similar titles (I have no idea if there are any such).
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Serenity, felicity :-)
By
PART TWO: BEING TOGETHER
Chapter Twelve
Things to Do
Monday 11th - Sunday 17th September, Year 1 :
It was a busy week. Vibeke had to reorganise a section of the nursery and it meant getting to work a little early and getting home an hour or two late. Each evening she felt physically rather tired and sometimes rather frustrated because of difficulties she was having with the contractors who were building a new glass house behind the existing ones. Not that she was indifferent to the project - it would have better temperature and light control than the others and it would be used to grow rarer and more delicate tropical plants. The owner of the nursery had explained that he was hoping to be able to grow certain plants that could be used for medicinal research, which seemed to Vibeke to be a good idea.
On the Tuesday, they arrived home from work to find that one of the windows at the back of their house was broken, though not much of the glass had fallen in. They guessed that it had been hit by a bird. The window would need replacing, and Ember said she would organise for someone to come round and fit the new glass as soon as she could.
On the Wednesday Ember found herself needing to stay late at work in order to finish a dress for a business function that a valued customer was going to the next day - but at least it paid well. On the Thursday morning she had a dentist's appointment - just routine care - that meant she had little time for a final fitting of the dress with her customer. But, fast and precise as she was, she was able to complete the work on time and the woman even paid her extra for the quality with which she had done it.
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On the Thursday evening, Mrs Waechter phoned and asked if Vibeke and Ember might give her a lift to the home of one of her good friends that she was rather concerned about. He lived in a country cottage that had been converted from the gatehouse of an old country estate that had been divided up a century or so ago. Though he had told her not to worry, Mrs Waechter suspected that he was more unwell than he was letting on. Since it was not an easy place to reach by public transport, she hoped that Vibeke and Ember might be available to take her there.
They collected Mrs Waechter shortly after six o'clock. She opened the front door of her house just as they pulled up outside. Ember climbed out and gave her a brief hug as she reached them. 'Hi Mrs Waechter,' she said with a big smile. 'How are you?'
Mrs Waechter took her hand and patted it. 'I'm fine,' she said. 'Just a bit worried about Edward. He's a stubborn old goat in some ways. Thank you for helping out.'
'Not a problem.' Ember took in Mrs Waechter's brown skirt and green pullover and her rather large brown handbag. She noticed that Mrs Waechter had a certain nervous energy about her and wondered if perhaps she cared for her friend more than she might have admitted. 'Let's get going then,' she said, and opened the back door for her.
Mrs Waechter climbed and reached for the seatbelt and settled herself. 'Hello Vibeke,' she said as she did so. 'Nice to see you.'
'You too Mrs Waechter,' Vibeke said, turning to her for a moment. 'We'll be at your friend's place soon enough.'
Once Ember had climbed in, closed the door and buckled up, she gave Vibeke a quick grin. 'Let's go.'
Vibeke put the car in gear and pulled away.
For the next half hour they did not say much. Ember navigated onto a faster route, then among surprisingly labyrinthine country roads in an area of old farmland, small fields, stone walls, hamlets and run down farmhouses. The evening was dull and grey, low and uniform cloud seeming to brood over the world. Seeing a few falling-down cottages, disintegrating walls, fields overgrown with saplings or birch and pine, and decaying barns, there was a sense of gloom about the errand they were on.
At length Mrs Waechter pointed out her friend's home and Vibeke turned into its long drive and pulled up beside the old cottage. Its walls, once whitewashed, were rather grey and its roof was clearly in disrepair. Its garden was unkempt and overgrown with weeds.
'Oh dear,' said Mrs Waechter. 'I haven't been here in six months or more but Edward always used to like working in the garden. He at least liked to keep it under control. Well, let's go. He should be expecting us.'
They climbed out and walked up the short path. Mrs Waechter knocked on the door using a large brass knocker. They had to wait a little but then the door swung aside to reveal Edward in his dressing gown.
He might once have been quite tall and solidly built, or so Ember supposed. Now he was stooped, probably rather shrunken with age. His long-fingered hands were gnarled and emaciated and liver-spotted. His cheeks and eyes were sunken and his skin was waxy. Nevertheless his thin grey hair was neatly cut and brushed straight back and he was clean-shaven, and he managed a smile that suggested he was a kindly man who was glad to see an old friend.
'Hello Emma,' he said. His voice was hoarse and deep and might once have been a powerful baritone. He nodded to Vibeke and Ember. 'Please come in,' he said.
When he turned from them, they all noticed that he almost stumbled and that it was clearly an effort for him to walk.
Ember let Vibeke precede her into the house. It smelled of old wood, varnish and leather and a hint of pipe smoke. It also smelled of human age, though one of the windows in the living room was open. The rooms were small and the panes were deep set in the thick walls, dusty and failing to let in much light. Ember saw a simple, small but clean kitchen down a couple of steps with a door to the overgrown garden; and then she followed Vibeke into the main room.
Edward sat himself down in an armchair by the unlit fireplace. 'Please forgive me,' he said, seeming to struggle a little for breath. 'I'll offer you a cup of tea, but please give me a moment to catch my breath.' His thin arms shifting him awkwardly, he finally leaned back with a sigh.
'Let me make the tea,' Mrs Waechter said. 'I know where everything is.' She did not wait for an answer but bustled from the room, a woman with a purpose.
Edward regarded Ember and Vibeke and smiled at them then with surprising alertness and warmth. 'Please take a seat,' he said. 'It's good to see you Ember,' he continued as they sat down on the sofa. Then he regarded Vibeke and said: 'And you must be Vibeke. I've heard some wonderful things about you. And . . . my word, it's been a while since I had the pleasure of the company of a couple of young beauties such as yourselves.' He chuckled and his slightly self-deprecating air revealed his words to be clearly genuine.
'How are you Edward?' Ember asked.
He did not answer for a moment and his expression became thoughtful and perhaps grim. 'I've been struggling a bit these last couple of weeks. Can't seem to get my strength back.' He shrugged slightly. 'Damn. I remember when I visited my grandfather when he was ill. That was barely past the middle of last century. Didn't think I'd ever be like him.' He shook his head and then regarded Ember with his clear blue gaze. 'You seem to have found true happiness,' he said. For a moment his face was very serious, just as his words were. But then he nodded a couple of times and smiled at her, his eyes smiling too.
'I have,' Ember said. And she reached out and took hold of Vibeke's hand and gave it a squeeze.
'Good for you,' said Edward. 'I always hoped you'd find someone to be with. You didn't seem lonely, and in fact you seemed to be one of the happiest people I'd ever met. Still, it's good to find your soulmate if you can.'
'Thank you Edward. It means a lot to hear you say that.' She looked at Vibeke then and said: 'Edward was married to a woman he met in Southern Rhodesia. They lived there for a long time.'
As Ember said this Mrs Waechter entered the room carrying a tray with a teapot, four cups and a small jug of milk and a plate of biscuits. Vibeke moved the small coffee table from beside the sofa so that she could set the tray down, then Mrs Waechter took a seat in the armchair facing Edward.
'You lived in Rhodesia,' Vibeke said. 'That's fascinating. What took you out there?'
'I was an engineer,' replied Edward. 'Working on a dam, then at a power station. Margaret was studying in London at the time and I met her when she was visiting her parents. She was a real looker. Light auburn hair and green eyes. She always had to carry a parasol with her otherwise she would get badly sunburned.'
Ember felt warmed as she saw the pleasure that Edward felt in recalling his wife. Margaret had died four years ago - a sudden and unexpected heart attack while she slept.
As Ember poured tea for them, Mrs Waechter stood and went over to Edward and carefully knelt her heavy body beside his chair. She reached out and touched her hand to his forehead and looked into his eyes. More than that, Ember was aware that she was listening to the way he was breathing for he was doing so more quickly and deeply than should have been necessary. 'How do you feel Edward?' Mrs Waechter said. 'Really. I know you're a tough old soldier but you've lost a lot of weight and . . .' She trailed off and there was a suggestion of tears in her eyes - but then she seemed to scold herself so that she might be strong for him.
He looked away into the empty fireplace for a few seconds, then back at her. 'I've been having trouble sleeping. I don't seem to be able to get enough air into my lungs to relax.' As he said the words his pale face seemed to become almost grey with sudden fear; but then the look cleared as he took ahold of his emotions again.
'I think you need to see a doctor,' Mrs Waechter said very gently. She brushed his hair back from his forehead - not that it needed to be brushed back, rather she clearly just wanted to soothe him.
He nodded, looking away again. 'I suppose you're right. I just . . . Well, I suppose I'll have to face it.'
Mrs Waechter gave him a little smile and Ember could see the sadness in her face. She thought that Mrs Waechter might have guessed something about the nature of his illness. Ember too suspected that it was likely to be serious at best and perhaps that he would not recover.
'Let us take you to the Otterhampton hospital,' Mrs Waechter. We can go tonight. I'll give them a call to let them know were coming and we'll have someone check you out.'
Again Edward was quiet for a little while. At length he said: 'All right. Will you help me pack some clothes and a few books to read? I have a feeling I might be there for a while.'
'We don't know what the matter is,' Mrs Waechter replied. But then, as if sorry she had spoken if it might give him false hope, she said: 'All right. Maybe Ember can help you to your bedroom and you can tell me what you'll need and where I can find it.'
'Thank you, Emma.' Edward spoke the words softly and there was a great sorrow and gratitude and awareness in his tone and expression. Then, looking up he said: 'Let's just have tea and biscuits first. Maybe Ember and Vibeke can tell me of some adventures.'
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Less than three hours later Edward had been checked into hospital for 'at least a few days' so that he might undergo some tests and observation. Mrs Waechter talked with him for few minutes once he was settled in, and promised that she would be back to visit him the following day. Afterwards, Vibeke and Ember gave her a lift home. She asked them if they would like to come in for a little while, but Ember could see that she was rather upset and not really in the mood for company.
As they headed back to their own place Ember said: 'I hope he'll be all right.'
Vibeke nodded. 'He seems like a very good man. I bet he had quite the sense of humour when he was younger.'
'I expect you're right.'
Vibeke reached out and took Ember's hand and gave it a little squeeze. She could tell that Ember was feeling down but knew that she would talk about when she wanted to. She thought that perhaps she needed a little space before she might wish to put her thoughts and feelings into words.
But as Vibeke pulled into the driveway and parked, Ember said: 'More than anything I want him not to suffer.'
Vibeke turned off the engine, pulled up the handbrake and turned slightly towards her, watching her closely.
'I know people are afraid of death but a painful death is so much worse,' Ember continued. 'And it must be so strange. Most of our lives we feel we are going somewhere. It might only be towards the next day, when we look forward to going for a walk or reading a good book. Or it might be just taking pleasure in looking at old photographs and considering one's achievements. But then, suddenly, there is nothing one can look forward to much, and one's achievements suddenly do not matter becomes one knows they are about to be taken away in their entirety.'
Vibeke gave her hand another squeeze. 'We cannot really argue against it,' she said. 'I . . . I just hope that we can hope to find some kind of acceptance of it.'
Ember looked across at her then and gave her a smile. 'You know . . . I can accept it. I mean, to have to die seems such a little thing in comparison with what I have with you. Such a small price.'
Vibeke tilted her head slightly, returning the smile and looking into her eyes.
And then Ember giggled. 'You really have turned me into a mushball,' she said.
'You have had much the same affect on me,' Vibeke said, her eyes twinkling.
At length they climbed out of the car and let themselves into their house. As Vibeke set the car keys down on the hall table she said: 'Well, let's just hope Edward will be all right. And let's visit him and get the details of his adventures in Southern Africa. I think he'll like that.'
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On the Friday Vibeke had to go into work to make sure she was there in time for an early delivery. As she cycled to the nursery, her breath frosting in the chilly early morning air and the wind cold on her face, she considered how the week had been so far - without as much time for her and Ember as they were normally used to.
They had still managed to savour their time together. They had had breakfast together every morning, making sure they arose a little bit earlier so that they might have an extra fifteen minutes in which to enjoy the meal and each other. On two mornings they had managed to go for a run, though on the other three they had decided not to. On two of the evenings when Vibeke might have exercised, Ember had suggested they do some yoga together, and that had turned out to be fun - and Ember was really very flexible. Both times it had led to Vibeke watching Ember closely and finding herself unable to resist her flexible and very sexy love - and she had ended up carrying her giggling partner to bed. On three of the four evenings of the week so far they had also watched a little television, and on one evening had watched a film before turning in rather late.
Arriving at work, having enjoyed her cycle ride - it had certainly cleared her head after slightly less sleep than she might have liked - Vibeke found herself looking forward to returning home in the evening and spending the weekend with Ember.
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At nine o'clock that evening, Vibeke sat in the corner of the sofa with Ember leaning back against her. They watched a film called Fighting the Hurricane . It was a mixture of emotional drama and action with a fair amount of humour thrown in. It was a good choice and Vibeke found herself grinning at the way Ember would laugh lightly or do a little stationary dance or lean her head against her as if to punctuate her enjoyment of the humorous moments.
Vibeke considered that in comparison to Ember she was much less demonstrative and that she must appear to have a quiet stoicism that contrasted with Ember's vivacious delightedness in so much. She wondered what it was that Ember liked about her in this respect. Perhaps she saw Vibeke as strong and capable, which she acknowledged she was in most senses.
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'I don't really want to, but I'm wondering if we should go to the supermarket today,' Ember said over breakfast on the Saturday morning.
'Maybe we should,' Vibeke concurred. 'I like it when we manage to go before work because it's so much emptier and quicker, but we have so much to stock up on maybe we should go today. A trip to a DIY shop would be useful too. She took a small bite of wholemeal toast with butter and marmalade, chewed and savoured the mouthful and swallowed. After a sip of tea she said: 'Well, since I'm not usually that much of a fan of shopping, maybe we should dress up as pirates and swing in through the doors on ropes while waving fake cutlasses, plant a Jolly Roger flag on our trolley, rush about throwing things into it like lunatics while saying clichéd pirate things, and then politely queue at the till to pay just like ordinary decent citizens.'
'We could do that,' agreed Ember. 'Do we have any pirate gear, fake or otherwise?'
'No. And I'm guessing neither of us want to go looking for any.'
'How about going as lemurs instead?'
'We have lemur costumes?'
'No, but we could pretend. And then we could feign surprise when anyone fails to notice that we are dressed as lemurs.'
'Sounds like a plan.'
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On the Sunday afternoon Vibeke and Ember went to the hospital to visit Edward. He was comfortable and in good spirits but seemed to have weakened further. They enjoyed listening to him as he answered questions they asked him - they both saw how much pleasure he took from reminiscing about his life, especially when he had been young and most especially about his wife. They found that he had a curious mixture of directness and self-honesty combined with a rather wry and dry sense of humour and it made his stories and company entertaining. After twenty minutes or so, seeing that he was finding it more difficult to talk, they took over and talked rather more themselves.
'Thank you so much for visiting an old man,' he said to them from his hospital bed as they took their leave - they could see that he had had enough, much though he had clearly enjoyed their company. He took each of them by the hand, giving them a firm squeeze.
'I was our pleasure,' Ember said.
'It's been most interesting getting know you,' Vibeke said.
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They stopped at a Chinese takeaway on the way home. It was coming up to five o'clock and they thought a fairly early meal would be good. Then they could relax for the evening.
The Chinese takeaway was around the corner and about a hundred and fifty yards from the Indian restaurant where Vibeke and Ember had first seen each other. There were a couple of empty parking spaces outside it, so Vibeke pulled over and they went straight inside.
A bell rang over the door as they entered. 'Good evening,' a young Chinese woman said to them.
It was a small place that just provided a takeaway service - it had no eating area. It had a small table of white plastic and two chairs, and a long padded bench, where people could sit while they were waiting for their orders. The woman was sitting behind a long counter and had a pen poised over a pad she had been writing in. Vibeke noticed the calligraphy of Chinese words. They were exotic and seemed complex and she wondered if they were difficult for children to learn or if children took them in their stride as they did so many things that might seem insurmountable to adults.
Vibeke and Ember took a couple of menus and sat down next to each other on the bench. They looked through them for a couple of minutes.
'I always enjoy looking through takeaway menus,' Ember remarked with a chuckle. 'It's like there's this amazing degree of possibility, and just the process of imagining what a certain dish might taste like a is a great pleasure.'
Vibeke glanced across at her and saw how absorbed Ember was in her perusal of what they might eat. It gave her great pleasure just to watch her. She saw that there the suggestion of a smile was curving the corners of Ember's lips.
'How about spicy fried beef, and bean sprouts with pork and tomato?' asked Ember.
'Sounds good. Also some egg fried rice and Chinese chicken curry. And Cantonese fried noodles.'
'Good choice. Those are pretty spicy.' Ember nodded to herself. 'And some prawn crackers.' Looking up she remarked: 'I suspect that the noodles have very little to do with Canton.'
'No. I wonder if in Canton you can go to an English restaurant and buy a dish called Birmingham roast beef.'
'I wonder where all the décor in this place comes from,' Ember said then. 'I mean the calendar with Chinese writing and images, and the scroll wall hangings with more symbols, and the little red and gold lamp-shades.'
'I guess we could ask.'
Together, they stood and went to the counter and placed their order.
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Back at home, relaxing on the sofa together, they slowly finished their rather large meal. They had lit candles and Vibeke had put on some quiet, atmospheric, rather abstract music that suggested wind and waves and bird calls on an electronic landscape. The evening had drawn in early due to heavy cloud out and the first patter of rain could be heard soft against the panes and sills. There was a quietness and intimacy to the evening and Ember felt very alert and aware of the room about them, the flickering candlelight, the music, the rain, the deepening darkness, and most of all of Vibeke. She suspected Vibeke also shared her heightened awareness.
'I am about ready to explode,' she said as she finally put her not quite finished meal aside. 'That really was very good.'
'I think we are lucky with that takeaway,' said Vibeke. 'I've had a few meals from there and they've all be excellent. Good value too. I hope they're doing well - they didn't have any other customers when we were there, but I guess it was fairly early.' Putting her own plate aside, she sat forward and poured them each a mug of tea with milk. She handed Ember her mug with a grin. 'You seem to have taken a liking to this particular mug,' she said. 'Even though you brought your own when you moved in.'
'And I did notice that you started to choose it for me on a regular basis once you noticed I kept using it. What can I say? It has a picture of a happy-looking sheep on it.'
'Fair enough,' Vibeke said with happy grin. 'No more explanation necessary.'
'Where did you get it from?' Ember asked after a moment.
'I bought it. About two years ago, at the supermarket.'
'Hmm.' Ember pictured that, imagining a solitary Vibeke standing before the shelves that displayed mugs and cups for sale and trying to choose one. She considered what Vibeke might have been thinking and why she had chosen that particular mug. It was certainly cute and had pleasing colours. But as she thought of this she also felt a curious sadness and sense of poignancy welling up within her. She thought it was such a pity that Vibeke had made such a charming decision - small though it might have been - and had not had anyone to share this quirk of taste and personality with. She found it quite difficult to think of Vibeke being alone like that - adrift from others, with so much to her and yet without anyone to see it.
She reached out and took Vibeke's hand, and raised it to her lips and kissed the knuckles one by one.
A little later, after clearing away the remains of their meal and quickly washing up, they returned to the sofa and snuggled up together at one end, Ember with her back to Vibeke, wrapped in her arms. They had opened the window and savoured the increased sound of the rain and the brush of cool, damp air that drifted over them from time to time.
'I feel so happy,' Ember said.
She felt Vibeke give her a little squeeze and rub her face gently against her hair. 'Me too.' And Vibeke said: 'Did you enjoy this week?'
Ember paused a little before she answered, wondering for a moment why Vibeke might have asked this. But she thought she knew. 'Yes, I have,' she said at length. 'It's been rather busy. We didn't have any long stretch of time just to have fun together. Too many chores and work and things we really needed to do. I'm glad we did them though.'
Vibeke felt the warmth and solidity of Ember's body pressed against her, and smiled. 'Me too.' Then: 'You know, I'm glad we try to find so many moments to savour during our days, even if they are not long. I really like that we can spend a few minutes together before we go to work. I really like the conversations we have in the car when we are just going shopping. I really like waking up in the small hours and to enjoy being awake for a few minutes, being aware of you, of being in bed with you. It makes me feel so alive.'
'Let's never forget to enjoy those small moments,' Ember said softly.
'Never,' Vibeke breathed even more softly.
Chapter Thirteen
A Trip to Winchester
Saturday 30th September, Year 1 :
'Isn't this exciting?!' Ember exclaimed.
Vibeke looked across at her. She had not even started the car yet and Ember already had a beaming smile as she looked out and clearly looked forward to their trip. She wondered what kind of happy imaginings Ember might be thinking of.
'It's our first real trip together. I mean, for more than a day,' Ember went on. 'I wonder if we might ever go on a trip to Scotland, or Zanzibar, or Paraguay.'
'You want to go to Scotland, Zanzibar and Paraguay?' Vibeke turned the key in the ignition and the engine caught immediately. She depressed the clutch, put the car in first gear, released the handbrake and eased of the clutch. The vehicle started smoothly forward.
'Who knows where we might go, but I'm sure it'll be good! As long as we're together.'
Vibeke glanced at her again. She realised that Ember's words had not been said for effect or humour, had not been said mechanically. Rather, she had spoken the words utterly sincerely and had not apparently noticed that they might seem customary or contrived. Realising how deeply she had meant them, Vibeke felt a wash of emotion rush through her and felt a sudden lump in her throat and tears stinging her eyes. Amazing how Ember can do that to me so often and so easily , she thought. 'I love you,' she said with a smile after regaining control of herself.
Ember looked across at her, clearly not having expected this - as if this was an unexpected time. She was silent, watching, then finally said with wonder in her tone: 'I love you too.' And she reached out and rested her hand on Vibeke's thigh, rubbing her thumb gently upon the fabric of her worn jeans.
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The drive to Winchester could be done in about three and a half hours if they stuck to fast roads but they had decided to take their time. They took a detour along a stretch of quieter roads through hills and woodland and moorland that was particularly picturesque. The weather was very changeable. Sometimes huge, menacing clouds towered up into the sky, with clear blue around them, and in other areas there was low cloud that descended into mist over the higher ground. They found a layby where they could stop for a leisurely snack, sitting at a table and gazing out over a view of rolling farmland and distant tors. The temperature was cool and they were both wearing sweaters but not coats - Vibeke thought Ember looked particularly cute in the fluffy, dark blue woollen pullover that she had chosen. As they finished the cups of coffee they had poured from a flask, a fine drizzle began to fall from the grey sky and they retreated back to the car.
'I like being on the road,' Ember said as they set off again.
'You do?'
'Yes. I mean, I've not been on the road all that often, but the times I have travelled have been enjoyable. I remember when I moved to Otterhampton I felt really good. It was only quite a short journey - a gentleman called Mr Fairfax gave me a lift - and I felt such a sense of anticipation. But I also enjoyed just going. Watching the passing countryside. Liking the sense of movement. Maybe if I travelled more it would become less special.'
'Would you like to go anywhere in particular with me?' Vibeke asked. 'We could save up and try to organise something. There's no reason why we can't.'
'I'd like that,' Ember replied. 'I'm not sure I'd actually be a very good tourist, and I rather like being comfortable, but it'd be nice just to go somewhere very different.'
'I'd like to drive through the old Prussian lands,' Vibeke said.
'Do you think that's where your family came from?'
Vibeke shrugged slightly. 'I don't know. My surname is German but my first name is Norwegian. I have a memory of my foster-mother telling me some amazing fable about my family from hundreds of years ago, and she said they lived in Prussia. I know she was exaggerating at best and perhaps just making it up but she said that's where she thought my parents came from. When I asked my foster-father about it in more detail, he said he had just been told that I'd been brought over from Germany as an infant but he did not know any more than that. But the truth is I'm not really that interested in my family history. I would like to see some of the country though.'
'If you found you had a cousin who was alive and living in Brandenburg you wouldn't want to visit them?'
Vibeke considered this for a moment. 'I don't think so. They would just be another person to me, no more or less special than anyone else.' She shook her head once then in sudden confusion. 'You know, I don't have any idea why, but I've always had this subconscious conviction that I don't have any living family. Not even any distant cousins. I wonder why that is.'
They were silent for a little while, and Vibeke concentrated on driving. The rain was falling more heavily now and so she had slowed a little. She found that she enjoyed the sound of the water against the windscreen, and the wipers were doing a fairly good job. Sometimes there was a gust of wind that buffeted the car. At length she looked at Ember for a long moment. 'You know even less about your ancestry than me. Do you think have English blood?'
'My name and surname are both older English, but I've no idea. I'm just a foundling. Maybe I'm from a different world.'
Vibeke smiled. 'Could be. Your eyes are really quite remarkable you know. Utterly beautiful but nowhere to be found on the bell-curve of human eyes.'
Ember chuckled. 'No. The weird thing is that I was found with a birth certificate with my name, but the parents either couldn't be tracked or had falsified their names.' After a moment she said: 'Maybe we're both aliens. I rather like that idea. We could be the last survivors of two starships that crashed just after we were born. Perhaps the ships were carrying the last surviving members of two alien races with glorious pasts. And we are the last.'
Vibeke smiled, but also felt a pang of sadness at Ember's words. She realised that through all their lives they had not only been largely apart from others but had actually come to embrace the idea that they were really different. Not that she could imagine seeing herself in any other way now. She knew she would never be highly sociable and that she had no interest in fitting in with one group or another. All she wanted was to be with Ember.
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They arrived at their hotel at half past midday. It was in a built up area of shops and offices surrounded by suburbs - a town within a city.
'Looks good,' Ember said as they exited the underground parking area and walked around to the side entrance. The building was new and had a curiously rounded architecture. Its walls were faced with white stone and its blue-tinted window panes were tessellated in never-repeating patterns.
Entering the lobby, they took in the fountain and the little pond to one side. There were huge, sloping windows reaching high above their heads on the south side, illuminating the area in a pleasant glow despite the greyness of the day.
They checked in with a polite desk clerk - a man with an accent that Vibeke suspected was characteristic of New Zealand rather than Australia - and then took a lift up to the third floor and their room.
'Glad your client is paying for this,' Vibeke said with a smile as they took in the new and comfortable appointments of the spacious room.
'They seem to like my work,' Ember said. 'They're really wealthy but it was still generous of them to offer this to us. Hopefully I'll only have to spend about three hours with the fittings tomorrow and a couple of hours on Monday.'
They set down their bags and Vibeke walked over to the window and looked out and down at the street. It was quite narrow but fairly busy with a steady stream of traffic and plenty of pedestrians. She liked that the people were clearly of many different backgrounds and races and liked the contrasts between colourful casual clothes and formal business wear, older people and younger.
Vibeke :
I am glad you have the map and are deciding our route. It is not that I could not do so - I am sure I could be decisive and you would be happy to follow my lead - but I can see how much you enjoy choosing the streets you want to walk down, the famous buildings that you want to see, the parks and bridges that you want a view of. As we pass down a fairly quiet road that runs past the back of some old colleges of imperial sciences - aged and distinctive and rather beautiful as these buildings are, they are not places visited by tourists - I see the way you absorb and take in all that is around you. I have known for some time that you are remarkably observant, that you seem to bathe in the sensations of sight and sound and feeling and atmosphere that surrounds you. It is as if you let go of yourself and simply allow your mind and emotions to fly upon what you take in. Yet now I can see that you are also conversant with the details of what we see - that you not only appreciate the architecture but you really understand it.
You stop outside the low wall of grey stone outside the last of colleges. This one is not the most ornate of them - none of them are flamboyant, all rather understate. The brick walls are grey-black with the soot and dirt of many years. The windows are of leaded glass in small rectangular and square patterns, all set in impressive casements. There seems to be a lot of shadow to the complex walls, more corners and sections than necessary. It is almost as if the architect was looking for a kind of darkness in the design that would instill feelings of sombreness and hence sincerity. I like the grey slate roofs, the small rounded buttresses, the small windows into top floors that seem too shallow to house proper rooms - perhaps it is just attic space. The cloudy day - more uniformly cloudy than it was earlier, such that the light is clear, deep grey - enhances the impact of the structure.
But the building catches my attention far less than you do. I watch you as you look at it and is as if I cannot help myself - not that I want to. You stand there on the cobbles of the quiet street, a little back from the pavement to get a better view. Your beige walking boots, pale blue jeans and dark blue pullover are very fetching. You hold the map in one hand and you have your small backpack on your back, the straps over both shoulders. I watch you breathing. I take in the way you look at the building, seeing the way your lovely ice-blue eyes are made more silver than usual in the light. I see the fleeting expressions pass upon your features as you react to what you take in. I can see your appreciation of the darkness of the structure but there is also the touch of a smile upon your lips. The gentle, intermittent breeze ruffles your short blonde hair. I see such light and life in you and the emotion it triggers within me is so poignant that I feel as if I am falling, that I cannot endure its strange and pleasurable intensity.
Then you turn to me, and you smile widely when you see that I am looking at you, and your visage glows with the light of an angel.
Ember :
It is really charming that you led me to a bakery so that we could buy some bread not to eat but so that we could feed the ducks in St. Edith's Park. Especially since it meant leaving the park and then returning to it. You were a woman with a mission. I have a feeling that you were moved to do this partly because you could see that it is not the kind of park tourists go to and the businessmen and women tend not to see the ducks. Perhaps you worried that they were hungry.
I stand a little away from the pond and watch you. You are right at the edge of the bank, your knees slightly bent, leaning forward as you throw small pieces of bread out into the water, always aiming for the ducks that have not yet had a fair share. I like that you have such a sense of fairness about you - I suspect it is an earnestness that you might not even be aware of.
Your face is quite pale, your expression intent, your eyes so very deep - it is amazing sometimes how the light catches them and even in moments of simple pleasure like this I can see something behind your gaze: a depth and profundity that seems infinitely deep, ungraspable, astounding. I wonder what the truth of you is, what deeps of emotion you experience. Often I think you are so much more than anyone else I have ever met, as if there is an essential you that is ancient, suggesting vast experience. I know that seems like a strange thought but sometimes it seems quite true.
I like the way you brush your dark red hair back when it falls across your cheek or face, and smile when you tuck it behind your ear. I like each small movement you make. I take in your slim and nicely curved form in old jeans and green pullover. Your boots are black, very different to mine. For long moments I find myself staring at the shapes of your hands, the strong and slender fingers, the knuckles and nails. I see such beauty in you, and not simple beauty either.
You turn then and look into my eyes. 'Join me,' you say, perhaps wondering why I stopped feeding the ducks - then realising that I was enjoying watching you, for I can see a nascent chuckle and a slight, pleased self-consciousness revealed in your expression for a moment.
I join you and side by side we take our time throwing fragments of bread out onto the water. There are three male ducks, four females and five ducklings. I like the ducklings most. I am fairly sure you do too.
----------
For their evening meal they chose an interesting-looking restaurant on a road off the business district not far from their hotel. The place was called The Painting , and within many pieces of artwork were on display. But it was not pretentious, the atmosphere was relaxed and there was a mixture of businessmen, couples and a few younger people there, most of them eating but some of them just enjoying a drink by the bar in a separate room. It was quite a quiet place and was not expensive, and Ember wanted to try one of the fish dishes that she had spotted when they had stopped to examine the menu that was displayed outside.
A waitress dressed in a pleasant and rather old-fashioned outfit of black and dark green guided them to a table - and then Vibeke asked if they could have the one behind it, since it was in the corner and also by a window. Once they were seated she brought them menus.
'Anything to drink?' she asked.
'Water,' said Vibeke. She looked at Ember. 'A pot of tea?'
Ember nodded. 'That would be good.'
After looking through the menu for a couple of minutes, Vibeke said: 'Excuse me. I'll be back in a moment.' And she stood up to make her way to the toilets.
While she was gone, and now that she had chosen what she would eat, Ember looked around the restaurant. As she did so she noticed that a man of about thirty, sitting at a table with another man, was looking at her. He had fair hair and was fairly tall and athletic looking, and she supposed many women would find him handsome. He gave her a smile and raised his glass of wine to her.
Though she felt slightly discomfited by it, she acknowledged the gesture with a small smile of her own and then looked away.
The waitress returned then with a pot of tea, a small jug of milk and a larger jug of water, and set them down on the table. She also gave Ember a smile. 'Just visiting?' she asked. She had light brown eyes and long, curling mid-brown hair.
Ember chuckled. 'Is it so obvious I'm not from here?'
The waitress tipped her head slightly. 'Well. Winchester is so cosmopolitan that it shouldn't really be possible to guess whether someone is from here or not. I guess you just have very distinctive looks.'
'We are just visiting,' Ember said. 'We live in Otterhampton.'
'Oh, I've heard that's a nice town.' She glanced around her. 'Well, I'll come and take your orders in a moment.'
----------
The meal was very pleasant. Vibeke and Ember took their time, savouring their food and each other's company. They shared some of what they had ordered. They talked about what they had seen during the day.
'I really liked the view along the river,' Ember said. 'I think it's because the river is quite small that it looks so distinctive. All those old buildings, libraries, colleges, government buildings, places of business - all built up to the edge, none of them very large. A kind of architectural smorgasbord in a remarkably small area.'
Vibeke grinned. 'I'm not sure if it was a smorgasbord. Maybe a cornucopia, a profusion, a teemingness of styles.'
'Teemingness? More like a . . . copious verdancy and abundance of form and expression.'
'Indeed. You're right. And probably a smorgasbord too.'
'Would I be able to persuade you or bribe you into giving me a massage when we get back to the hotel?' Ember said.
Vibeke blinked, then chuckled. 'I like your sudden change of direction,' she said. She looked away for a moment and then back. 'I've noticed that before. It's really quite charming. In any case, no persuasion or bribes are necessary. I'll be happy to massage you in any way you wish.'
'Any way?'
'Yes. Any way.'
'Hmm.'
----------
After they had finished their dessert and paid the bill, Ember and Vibeke stood and made their way towards the front doors of the restaurant. As they did so, the man that had been watching Ember earlier approached them from the bar area.
'Hi,' he said, looking mostly at Ember. He smiled and seemed to have a strange mix of both uncertainty and confidence about him. She was not sure if his manner was real or just an act.
She did not say anything but just looked up at him, then across at Vibeke, then back.
'I noticed you earlier,' the man said. He was quite well spoken and his manner was respectful. 'I don't mean to disturb you, but my friend and I were wondering if the two of you would like to join us for a drink.'
'Oh,' said Ember. 'That's kind of you to offer, but I rather want to go outside and walk for a while with Vibeke.' She looked into Vibeke's eyes then and smiled at her.
'All right, no problem,' said the man. 'I'm just in town for a few days and will probably be here tomorrow if you happen to stop by.'
Ember had found herself staring into Vibeke's eyes and did not look back at him until after he had stopped speaking. Then she turned to Vibeke again. 'Come on, let's go.' Then, to the man: 'Thanks again.'
He nodded and they turned away and made their way out of the restaurant.
'That was interesting,' Vibeke said as they walked along the pavement. There was not too much traffic on the street so it was not too noisy. There were quite a few pedestrians though, many of them out enjoying the evening. 'He liked you.'
Ember took hold of Vibeke's hand and gave it a squeeze. 'He seemed to. Maybe his friend had been admiring you all evening but didn't have the courage to approach us.'
Vibeke smiled. 'It's weird you know. He seemed polite enough, and I certainly do understand why someone would find you attractive. But I felt such a surge of . . .'
'Protectiveness?' Ember offered.
Vibeke looked slightly sheepish. 'Yes. I guess I felt there was a potential threat there, though not a likely one. Probably he was completely harmless and just liked you. And it's fair enough he would approach you. But I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable.'
They were quiet then as they headed back to their hotel. The walk was enjoyable after the large meal they had had and it was good to burn off a little energy. They would be glad to get back though as it had been a long day.
Ember :
You have fallen asleep before me, which is quite unusual. Sometimes I have worried that I have prevented you from falling asleep or that you have become uncomfortable because I am wrapped around you and sleeping half on top of you. I have woken up in the small hours from time to time and have often seen that you are not asleep. But I have come to realise that you like those times of wakefulness, mostly - though sometimes I know you cannot sleep even though you are very tired. I am glad you feel confident enough to wake me at such times now so that I might rub circles upon your belly or back, or simply talk quietly to you, soothing you until you can fall asleep.
Now I simply watch you in the dim lilac light of the streetlamps that slides around the curtains. You are breathing deeply and evenly and seem very peaceful.
And I consider some of the differences between us that I like so much.
I was concerned when I first got to know you that perhaps I talk too much. I know I am not exactly a chatty person and certainly not a gossip, but I can sometimes go into long discourses, exegeses and digressions - hopefully with some sense. You are quieter, rarely making speeches, usually offering your thoughts in one or two sentences. I think that you worried that your silences might disturb me just as I worried that my talkativeness might disturb you. Now I know that you like listening to me, while I find your silences curious and fascinating. When I watch you, seeing the suggestions of the thoughts that fill or distract or puzzle or concern you, I see such strength and determination revealed. You wish to get to the bottom of things, to the root of any problem or notion or idea, to see what you might learn and what you might do with that knowledge. At other times I notice that you have managed to put aside all thought - a difficult thing to do but a skill very much worth mastering. And then I see the straightforward honesty of you, your ability to be yourself in the world, the clarity of your emotions. When I watched you driving earlier today I saw this. Later, as we sat together on the bus that took us into the centre, I saw it again.
Sometimes you seem so real to me that all the rest of the world seems to fade into shadows and indistinctness, noise and illusion, while you stand strong at the centre of my universe. I know such ideas are grandiose. But I like them.
I snuggle down, rest my head upon the pillow by your shoulder. I listen to your breathing, feel the warmth of your naked body that brushes mine. I reach out and place my arm over yours, needing the contact. Perhaps when I wake up I will be wrapped in your arms, my head upon your chest, with no memory of how I moved to get there. The thought makes me smile and I close my eyes to rest and sleep.
Sunday 1st October :
Vibeke and Ember walked together to Ember's customer's house. Stopping outside the gates they saw that it was almost a mansion and had the appearance of a stately home. Grandiose and impressive, it was also a little forbidding. The roofs were of dark red tile that was rather overgrown with moss, and the brick walls were dark with age and in many places covered with climbing ivy. The front garden was well-tended and there were two gleaming cars - a Mercedes and a Bentley - parked out the front. A gardener was sweeping up a few leaves around one side.
'Are you sure you don't want to come in?' Ember asked. 'Mrs Cornell is really very nice and I'm sure she won't mind you waiting. Probably she'd get her cook to bring you a snack the size of a buffet for twenty.'
'Thanks,' Vibeke said. 'I'll come back around midday so that I'm here when for when you finish your fitting.'
'All right,' Ember said. 'Have fun.' Her eyes twinkled. 'Maybe you're a better and more enthusiastic tourist than you think you are,' she said.
Vibeke gave her a brief hug and then waited as Ember pressed the buzzer by the recently-painted gate.
'Cornell residence,' said a tinny voice.
'Hi, it's Ember Leaves here,' Ember said.
'Hello Miss Leaves. Please come up to the house.' There was a click of shifting metal and then the gate rolled back along a track.
Ember looked up into Vibeke's eyes for a moment and held her forearm, the touch lingering. 'See you later.'
'See you later.' And Vibeke nodded as Ember walked in and up the drive. The front door swung open before Ember reached it, revealing what Vibeke guessed to be a housekeeper. She saw Ember exchange a few words with the woman, then turn and look at back at her and give her a wave and a smile.
Vibeke returned the wave and grinned, then set off towards the library she had decided she wanted to visit. It was just a ten minute walk away and she had read that it had a large collection of old poetry and medieval texts - accounts and diaries and stories mostly. Though Winchester had many old libraries, and this was certainly not the most well-known of them, she wanted to be able to read some records of people who had lived many hundreds of years ago. It was not that she was looking for anything in particular, nor anything spectacular. Rather she thought it would be interesting to learn something of everyday lives from centuries ago according to the people who had lived them.
The day was cool and cloudy and there was an erratic breeze. There was also a distinctive smell of approaching autumn in the air. Vibeke wondered if it might rain later.
---------
Vibeke took a different route from the library back to the Cornell residence. Not that she had intended it, she found herself walking past a well-kept green, in the centre of which was a war memorial. Since it was still twenty-five minutes before midday, she decided to cross the edge of the green to have a closer look.
The memorial featured a simple stone block about ten feet high, fifteen feet across the base and tapering to about twelve feet across the top. On the sides were carved many names of people who had died in battle. On the top was a green-tarnished metal sculpture of two men - one lying back, shown to be suffering and dying, the other holding him.
Vibeke walked close to the base of the stone and read a few of the names. They meant nothing to her and it was that very fact that made a sudden rush of emotion well up within her. All these men, and a few women too, people she knew nothing about except that they were all dead as a result of human stupidity and callousness, the hunger for power of a few and the primitive tribal convictions of many. She wondered how many people now, many decades after the war, remembered or knew anything about those who had died. She wondered if the soldiers had thought that their deaths were worthwhile or if, in their suffering, they had wondered what they had been doing and found it pointless, empty and destructive. She hoped that as many of these men as possible had died quick deaths and not slow ones. She was glad that now, for her and Ember, there seemed little threat of a war that would touch them and that she had never faced the possibility of having to fight. She suspected she would be a good fighter but a bad follower. She knew that she would much rather be a pacifist in most senses.
Looking around the green, she took in the hedges and green-painted railings that bordered it, and the three old trees - a plane tree and two large beeches - that grew there. Those trees, she knew, would have been alive when the men listed on the memorial had been alive. She wondered if any of the men had passed by here, or even lived here, and remarked upon the trees and appreciated their beauty. It seemed poignant to consider all that had happened around the trees since they had begun to grow here. So much history, so many lives, the changes of the city all about, the countless people that had passed them by.
---------
Vibeke reached the Cornell home at exactly midday. She pressed the buzzer and was welcomed in by the same voice she had heard earlier. Walking up the drive, she was aware of the gate sliding closed behind her again. As the front door opened and the presumed housekeeper appeared there to greet her, she found a stirring of amusement within her. It was as if she was stepping into a very different reality.
'Good morning,' the woman said as Vibeke made her way up the three wide, shallow front steps. 'I'm Mrs Tewly. Miss Leaves is still busy with Mrs Cornell's fitting, but I was told to expect you. Please come in.'
Vibeke entered the stately and grandiose house. The entrance hall was large, with large tiles of cream and beige marble upon the floor, old paintings on the walls - some country scenes but also portraits, presumably of family members. Flowers and potted plants, rather ornate and fussy antique furniture, large candelabra and the trappings of wealth and tradition were very evident.
'Do come into the front room,' said Mrs Tewly. 'Make yourself comfortable. You can watch the television if you wish and today's papers are on the side there. I'll bring you some refreshments. Would you like some coffee, tea, or anything else?'
'Tea would be very good. Thank you.'
The housekeeper nodded and left.
Vibeke looked with interest about her, taking in the rich, mostly dark furnishings, some sculptures that looked to be of Indian origin, a few musical instruments that appeared to be more for their decorative value than to be played. There were a couple of old skins on one wall - some kind of African antelope she suspected. There was a sideboard that was well-stocked with bottles of various spirits and bottles of wine. Some rows of leather- or cloth-bound books filled a bookshelf and Vibeke wondered if anyone had paid the books any attention at all in the past ten years.
Mrs Tewly returned shortly carrying an ornate silver tray with a more ornate silver teapot, a small jug of milk and a rather fussy and delicate cup and saucer. She had also brought a small plate with a selection of biscuits and another plate with a couple of precisely-made square sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
'Thank you,' Vibeke said from where she was standing by the mantlepiece and looking at a few small, aged black and white or sepia photographs in silver frames.
The housekeeper set down the tray for her.
'That's very kind of you,' Vibeke said. 'Are these photographs of the family?'
Mrs Tewly approached her. 'Yes, that's Mr Cornell's grandfather. He was a general, just like his father, a strict military man who had a supposedly glorious career.' Mrs Tewly shrugged slightly and Vibeke was amused by the scepticism she heard in her voice. 'That's Mrs Cornell's family around her, and her as a child. That photograph must have been taken in the grounds by the summer house. And that is Mrs Cornell's great-grandfather. He was a mining magnate and politician.' She nodded to the oldest of the photographs. It was faded and had a crease down one side and showed a stern-looking man with a fierce beard.
Vibeke regarded Mrs Tewly for a moment. She was a woman of middling height who was well into middle age. Her hair was cut short and she had allowed it to grey naturally. She was wearing a uniform that was casual and practical, but still a uniform. 'Do you have a family?' she asked.
Mrs Tewly looked at her, seeming slightly startled, then pleased. 'Yes, I have two wonderful daughters. They're in their early twenties now. I do worry about them finding someone good to settle down with though. It can be so difficult and require so much luck to find a good person.'
Vibeke nodded. 'Yes, it can.'
'Well, I'd best be getting on with my tasks. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything. It's down at the end of the hall on the left.' And with that Mrs Tewly made her way from the living room and Vibeke was left to reflect that perhaps people very rarely asked her questions that concerned her and not the people she worked for.
Half an hour later, Ember came and found her. She had been sitting in an armchair and reading and was glad when she looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and saw her love round the corner and almost skip over to her.
'Hi!' Ember said happily.
Vibeke stood and Ember embraced her, squeezing her hard about the middle. 'I missed you too,' she said with a grin.
Ember stepped back after a few seconds. 'Let's go. I'm hungry and some lunch would be excellent.' And she took Vibeke by the hand and led her from the house. The gate slid open before they reached it and closed again behind them.
----------
They found a pleasant place to eat with pillared, arched windows all about it and airy, vaulted ceilings. It offered a form of cuisine that was based on Sri Lankan styles but largely limited itself to cold dishes, vegetarian dishes, salads, breads and samosas and an interesting range of desserts. They drank large amounts of green tea and sat by one of the large windows that overlooked a pedestrian area with cobblestones and many shops. The decor of the establishment was light, simple, the tables and screens of pale-coloured wood.
'I'll be accompanying Mrs Cornell to a fabric shop tomorrow morning,' Ember said. 'We had a fair number of fabrics to work with today but there are a few rare ones we could do with and Mrs Cornell seems to be treating this as some kind of adventure.'
'Are you enjoying the work?' Vibeke asked. She looked into Ember's eyes. 'Is Mrs Cornell not too demanding to work with?'
'She's very nice actually,' Ember said. 'A little difficult to read sometimes, and it seems to me she's rather detached from the world, perhaps unaware of some realities. But she's patient and kind. She has this kind of plump, placid, patient manner and sits there quietly with her hands folded upon her ample lap while I work, or just stands there very still as I take measurements and fit her.' She looked sideways slightly, then back. 'I wonder if she's lonely.'
'She certainly lives a different kind of existence to any I've ever known,' Vibeke said. 'Have you met her husband?'
'No, he's been overseas for the last six months. I suspect their marriage is very steady and solid and faithful and with very little emotion at all. They had two children but one of them died as a child and the other seems to be very independent, not liking to have too much to do with them.'
For a little while Vibeke and Ember were busy with their food. It was fun to try all the different little cakes and fried breads, delicacies and sauces and dip and mixtures of vegetables - cresses and types of spicy fresh beans and shoots of some greens that they did not recognise.
'Tell me a bit more about your trip to the library?' Ember asked.
Vibeke did so, relating a few of the things she had read. 'I think the most interesting book I found was a kind of diary kept by some kind of petty baron or lord of the manor - I've no idea what his title was - from the early fourteenth century. I couldn't understand all of it as the words were sometimes unfamiliar and the spellings just plain weird. It was really good to read. The parts that listed farming stock and the levels of grain storage and so on were dry and factual but he also put don quite a few thoughts and observations, frustrations and hopes. And a couple of bawdy poems too. Maybe they were even songs, though there was no mention of it.'
'Maybe we lived lives before, back in the same era,' Ember said. 'Wouldn't that be funny, if we lived before but only have the vaguest hints of emotion and memory to remind us of it? If we did live then, I hope we would have met each other and found a way to be together. It would have been very lonely for us otherwise.'
Vibeke smiled and reached out and took Ember's hand. She rubbed her thumb across Ember's knuckles and looked into her eyes. 'I hope we would have been together too,' she said. A frown touched her brow then. 'Actually it seems somehow impossible that we would not have been together. For that to be the case we would have had to be completely different people.'
Ember chuckled. 'I have a feeling we're on the edge of a very complex philosophical conundrum regarding the nature of identity and change,' she said.
As they talked onwards a little, it began to rain outside. The window at their side was streaked with raindrops and the street was darkened with water. People hurried or huddled under umbrellas. The sky became indistinct and darker and the light more ominous.
Not wanting to get wet and enjoying the comfort of where they were, Vibeke and Ember took their time over their dessert and then sat and sipped cups of a distinctive and refreshing kind of green tea - they were on their second pot.
'I stopped at a war memorial on the way back to the Cornell place,' Vibeke said after a while. The thoughts she had had when she was there had been circling in her head ever since, though she had not been sure what to day about the subject until now. 'It really quite moved me. It was depressing but it also made me feel very aware of being alive and also aware of how lucky I have been - never having to fight, or to struggle in a war-torn country.'
Ember regarded her quietly. 'Yes,' she said at length. 'It is hard to imagine how awful it must be for people who cannot find enough to eat, who need to feed their families, while bombs are falling about them and enemy soldiers are prowling the streets.'
'I don't think I would fight in any but the most extreme circumstances,' Vibeke said. 'To protect you or someone I cared about. Even to prevent some bullying I might happen upon while walking along a street. But to fight for a country against another country . . . I don't really understand that.'
'I guess sometimes one has to push back,' Ember said. 'But it is never very clear what the consequences of national movements towards violence will be.'
'It was so strange to read those names of faceless men and women,' Vibeke said. 'Dead people, mostly forgotten. I wonder if they felt their lives were worthwhile.'
'We all die,' Ember said. 'Spectacularly obvious though that may be, we do tend to live as though it were not the case.'
----------
That evening, after making love with much pleasure and at some length, they sat in bed in their hotel room and watched television for a little while. They had made themselves comfortable, Ember leaning back against Vibeke's chest, Vibeke's arms about her waist. They shared some chocolate they had bought at a small newsagent run by a black man of remarkably small stature, and sipped cups of hot chocolate.
Turning off the television, Ember wriggled around until she was facing Vibeke, both of them propped up against pillows. 'Did you ever want to do something of great value with your life?' she asked. 'I mean, something that would make the world a better place? Whether campaigning for environmental issues or working for medical relief charities in Africa, or simply being a really good doctor and helping people as well as you could. Putting your energies into doing good for others and leaving your mark on the world.'
Vibeke considered the question, though in fact she had considered it on many occasions before. 'I'm not sure,' she said at length. 'It would have been good to have done something that brought great value to others. I really admire people who are motivated to do something good for others, as long as there is sense in what they do - I suspect too many people think they know what would bring benefit to others but are just seriously misguided, and that causes all kinds of problems. But I could never imagine myself being a campaigner, or doing volunteer work in Africa. I don't know whether that makes me lazy or callous. I guess the best I could imagine was doing something in a professional capacity that would bring benefit to others, but I didn't have much of a direction when I was in school or at university. I can think of a few fantasies that would be nice - doing medical research for example. But I think we shouldn't forget how important some comparatively simple jobs are. It's not like we could live without farmers and the people who distribute their crops, and plumbers seem pretty essential too.' She shrugged slightly. 'I help grow plants and flowers that are mostly just to bring people some quiet pleasure. I like that. I know it is such a small thing, that it doesn't really touch the world. I'm certainly not changing the world in any major way. It's hard to imagine doing something much grander and more ambitious.' She smiled then. 'I think you make people pretty happy with the dresses and outfits you make for them.'
Ember looked into her eyes for a long moment. She was naked, the sheet wrapped across one shoulder so that one breast and one leg were bare. 'What about a more ambitious career for yourself?' she asked. 'I don't mean something valuable and world-changing for others, but just something on a large scale for you.'
Vibeke chuckled at this. 'I never really had enough desire for that. I probably have a good enough brain for it, but my personality really doesn't fit with that. I'm too much a loner, too uninterested in getting to the next place and climbing the ladder over other people. I've noticed some people think I'm strange, or negative, or that I gave up in many senses when I was young, I even used to give myself a hard time about it. But now, I don't know. I guess I just prefer having a quiet and simple life. I don't know anything else, and don't really want to try anything else. Maybe around the time I'd graduated, if I'd been offered a high-power job I would've taken it and adapted to it. But I never wanted to look for anything like that.
'And you know,' she continued, 'when I consider things now, my priorities are so clear. And you are so far above all the rest of them. The happiness you bring to me makes everything else so pale in comparison. Every day I find myself smiling, thinking how seemingly impossible it is to be as happy as I am, and yet still I am, because of you.'
They had entwined the fingers of their right hands as they had spoken, and now were simply silent for a while, looking at each other with open vulnerability, exchanging tender touches.
'What about you?' Vibeke asked softly, at length. 'Did you have some spectacular ideas about how to live your life?'
'Not really,' Ember replied with a small smile. 'I always felt so alienated and different that the idea of really actively participating in the world never really occurred to me. I just wanted quietness and space and time in which to paint and to be myself.' She looked down, then back up, her head tilting slightly to one side, a curious and slightly quizzical expression upon her face, a slight twinkling in her eyes. 'I did try to imagine finding love, but those imaginings were pale things compared to the reality and I certainly never expected to find it.' She smiled widely then, and tipped her head back as if to laugh, then looked forwards again into Vibeke's eyes. 'I love our life together. I love its simple quietness. It amazes me, and I know that I am such a different person living in such a different reality to how I was less than a year ago.'
Monday 2nd :
They drove back to Otterhampton in the late afternoon. They took their time, driving slowly due to heavy rain and wind that buffeted them at times. Neither of them minded. For a while they sang songs together, though they realised that they did not know many that they both knew the lyrics of. It was fun though and they really enjoyed it.
They took a short detour to the coast shortly before they returned home. At a small clifftop village they halted and went to a fish and chip shop, and bought cod and chips for them both. Then they found a small lay-by off the main road, parked and climbed out of the car. They sat against the side of the front of the vehicle, eating their meal and looking out to sea. The rain had stopped though an erratic breeze still blew. The air was cool and damp but the sky had partially cleared. Heavy mauve clouds, their edges touched yellow with evening sunlight, moved through deepening blue skies. Everything was fresh and wet. The sound of the waves rolling heavily against the rocky shore beneath them was a regular and energising thunder. Looking out over the darkening grey water, standing in the cool breeze, hungrily eating a somewhat decadent meal, they happily enjoyed the place and time and each other and wondered what the autumn and winter would bring.
Chapter Fourteen
Thoughts on a Rainy Morning
Wednesday 11th October, Year 1 :
It was just after half past six in the morning when Vibeke and Ember emerged from a shared shower. Steam filled the bathroom and their skins were flushed pink and dripping with water.
'Here,' Vibeke said, handing Ember a thick towel.
'Thanks.'
They towelled themselves dry, turned off the light and returned to their bedroom, holding hands on their way along the darkness of the short hall. Ember found herself smiling at the sensation of being gently towed along by Vibeke while she followed along like an aspiring limpet that was not yet quite close enough to press its body to its beautiful intended target.
'Wow. Dark day,' Vibeke said as she opened the curtains.
Ember peeked past her shoulder. 'Hmm. It's still early and the days are getting shorter, but it's as if you just opened the curtain of a window of a tank at the bottom of the sea.'
It was raining steadily but not too heavily. What little they could make out of the sky was just a low and heavy overcast that seemed almost brown against the darkness. As the wind shifted, fine raindrops hissed upon the window pane.
'Pretty cold too,' Vibeke said. 'And I don't really feel like going for a run. I think we already had quite a bit of exercise this morning.'
After a lingering hug they separated and brushed out their damp hair, and dressed. Vibeke put on jeans, a dark red t-shirt and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. Ember put on a long dress of dark blue material that was stylish but not formal. It had long sleeves, was form-fitting around the waist and then hung loosely to her ankles. Over it she put on a cardigan of pale beige wool that was soft and a little fluffy.
Vibeke and Ember found themselves glancing at each other and grinning as Vibeke put on her Clyde the Cat slippers and Ember put on her rabbit slippers.
They stood and walked up to one another again and embraced. They were still full of tenderness after the love that they had shared after waking early together. Since about five o'clock they had kissed and caressed each other in slow and then more urgent desire.
Vibeke circled Ember's waist with her arms, then stepped slightly back so that she could look down between them. She pressed the noses of two Clyde the Cats against the noses of two blue rabbits. 'I think they like each other,' she said.
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They had a slow and leisurely breakfast. They had woken earlier than usual, though they had risen at their usual time. They were not going to exercise as they usually did. And neither of them were in any rush to get to work. Ember's working hours were fairly flexible anyway unless it was her who was opening the dressmaker's shop - and usually Evelyn Compton preferred to do that. Vibeke's day was sometimes a little stricter due to the need for her to be there when vans would arrive to collect flowers and plants to distribute to florists and garden centres. Though Felicia Harper always dealt with lists and requests, orders and invoices, Vibeke was still needed make the decisions about which plants and flowers were ready to go. Today, however, there were no scheduled pick-ups.
'Damn, I'm hungry,' Ember said with a smile as she buttered her second slice of toast and then covered it in honey.
'Pancakes and bacon were clearly not enough for you,' Vibeke agreed. 'Me too actually.' She took another sip of her tea, then took her last bite of pancake with blackcurrants and maple syrup.
The sky was lightening just a little outside, though the sky was still dark grey and the rain seemed to have set in for the day. Vibeke smiled as she felt Ember's fingers entwine with hers across the corner of the table they were sitting at, and felt her thumb rub the back of her hand. When she looked across at her she found that Ember's light blue gaze was deeper than usual in the muted light, the blue-grey of deep ocean.
'How would you rate the decades of your life in terms of happiness?' Ember said to her then. She spoke the words gently, though Vibeke was no less startled by the suddenness of the question.
Vibeke looked down, then back up at her. 'I think that's difficult to answer clearly,' she said. 'I know it's not the kind of question that is designed to have a definitive answer, but it's still difficult.' She raised an eyebrow. 'Why do you ask? I'm just stalling for time here you understand.'
Ember chuckled. 'I was thinking about the differences in how I have perceived things at different times of my life,' she said. 'When we were in the shower this morning I felt so very good. And then I realised that I have nothing to compare that kind of happiness to from before I met you. I mean, it is just so very different. It's wonderful.' She shook her head, smiling with clear amazement. 'I was generally happy through my life but in a very different way. Now it is a happiness that is not just light and enjoyable but also with such thunderous depth and such amazing meaning. Everything has shifted, opened, deepened.'
'And I know you are still more than capable of feeling the lightness of pleasure you had before,' Vibeke said. 'It's just that your delightment has become . . . more.'
'More,' agreed Ember.
They were silent for a while then, holding hands and looking out the window, and sometimes just looking at each other.
'I think that when I was a child and through the first half of my teens, I was most focused on playing,' Ember continued. 'Just like most children I guess, though I think I was rather more focused than most.' She tilted her head and gave Vibeke a sideways, rather wry smile. 'I remember quite a number of occasions when one teacher or another, or one of the house guardians, would have to physically drag me away from whatever it was that I was doing. Not that I resisted really. I was almost always pretty placid I think, and they usually liked me for it - except in one case, where one of the guardians seemed to hold it against me. It's pretty funny when I remember being in the tatty, unkept garden of the orphanage when I was about four years old. Three days in a row I was out there playing with daisies and dandelions. Each day I allowed myself to pick just two daisies and two dandelions because although I liked to carry them, or enjoy their fragrance, I preferred just to watch them in the grass, their colours bright in the sunlight. I watched a tiny spider climb onto a daisy on its web. Sometimes a breeze blew and I enjoyed watching the daisies and dandelions nod and bob as if talking to each other or to me. I wondered what they were saying and if there was some magical and mystical and wonderful message that they had to give me. I dreamed of what that message might be and felt such a sense of happiness and well-being. They were really beautiful days. The sun was warm but not hot, the sky mostly clear blue, sometimes with a few cotton wool clouds.'
Ember finished her tea, and Vibeke poured her another cup. 'Thank you,' she said, and took small sip.
'And then,' she continued, 'each lunchtime or before the evening meal - and a couple of times before breakfast - Mrs Carter would call me to come in and eat, but I would be too absorbed to pay any attention. I wasn't being disobedient, just didn't want to leave the flowers that so fascinated me and brought me such happiness. So after a couple of tries, Mrs Carter would come out and take me by the arm and gently lead me back into the house, even as I looked back at those beloved daisies and dandelions. I remember her smiling and shaking her head in bemusement. I think she liked me but wondered if I was quite right in the head.' Ember smiled at the memory, then chuckled. 'A few times, in the autumn as I recall, Miss Melford came to drag me in from the garden. I was playing with fallen leaves, or looking for particular colours or shapes of leaves, comparing them and setting them out in large patterns upon the ground. It was a bit damp and my clothes got a bit dirty. Miss Melford was the teacher that didn't like me. She tried shouting at me and was a bit rough when she dragged me in. But I think the fact that I didn't really react to her callousness protected me just like it did from the children who were rough or tended to bully others. She and they could hurt me but I didn't feel it emotionally. And they could see that, because I did not cry or act distressed as other victims did, and then they mostly left me alone.' She chuckled. 'A few times other children disturbed what I was doing - whether I was drawing a picture or putting together a jigsaw puzzle or whatever. For a while they found it funny that I did not complain or react but simply started again. Either they would repeat their behaviour until they got bored and left me alone, or if they were particularly persistent then I would just go and do something else. A couple of times, when they followed me, I simply went into a room where a teacher or guardian would prevent any particularly bad behaviour and I would just sit quietly, doing nothing at all until the spiteful children left me alone. Even then I was actually pretty happy. I remember the dreams that I had and they were quite magical.'
Ember sipped a little more of her tea. 'And you know, I wonder now at the nature of those dreams. They seemed to have purposes in themselves. I mean that they were good and enjoyed them and they were enough. They brought me much pleasure. But now I wonder if they were preparing me in some way. I had dreams of love, and now I am with you.'
Vibeke rubbed her fingers over the back of Ember's hand. 'I guess when children play - or puppies or lion cubs or whatever play - they do not generally think of the reasons why they do it. Nevertheless it lets them become familiar with their bodies and limitations, with their desires and biological purposes. Disguised practice that is fun.'
'I guess that's right,' Ember said after a moment. 'You know . . . When I was in my late teens and early twenties it was a bit different. By then I was focused mostly on my studies and my artwork. The artwork had become its own purpose. I still took simple pleasure from the things around me, and sometimes I enjoyed the people that I met. I didn't have any close friends, but I liked listening to a particular lecturer at university, or the way a girl behind the counter at a local shop spoke. I was a spectator in many ways. It seemed enough, and I was happy. But now I have a different perspective on those times. I feel as if I was waiting without knowing that I was waiting. Even if I did not clearly think it, I suspect I must have known on some level that there was more - though I'm sure I could not have guessed just how much more.'
Vibeke had been watching Ember closely as she had spoken. It fascinated her to watch the way emotions and thoughts were reflected in her expressions and in her eyes. She saw the way in which she looked inwards, or regarded her cup of tea for a moment, or looked up into Vibeke's eyes. She took in the way the light shifted with each movement of those lovely orbs, from light blue through clear silver through shadowed blue that suggested deep northern waters. She liked to watch Ember's shapely lips move, and the crinkle of skin at the sides of her eyes - and sometimes at the sides of her nose - when she smiled. She took in the movements of Ember's hands and fingers when she occasionally gestured. She absorbed the way in which she breathed, the rise and fall of her breasts.
'You moved around a bit before you came to Otterhampton,' Vibeke said. 'Were you restless?'
Ember considered this for a little while as she drank more tea. She looked out of the window, into the greyness and the rain. 'I am not sure,' she said at length. 'I lived in three different places while I was studying at Salisbury. Then four places in the southwest before I came to Otterhampton. I think I was more curious about experiencing different places than anything. I didn't really mind what jobs I had as long as they were comparatively simple. I never went very far afield though.' She shrugged slightly, then looked fondly at Vibeke and her gaze warmed. 'Maybe I sensed that you were somewhere around here and I was searching for you. It's a nice idea.'
Vibeke smiled too. 'Yes, it is.'
They were quiet then, simply sitting there and enjoying the tenderness between them, the gentle warmth that was there. And Vibeke reflected how very special these moments were, how wonderful this breakfast was on this workday, when breakfast could so easily be rushed and not enjoyed.
'My first decade of life was very mixed,' she said at length. 'It was very difficult sometimes, but there were also really good times. I suppose that, like all children, I didn't have the experience to really contrast and put in context my times of difficulty or joy. But I do remember some things very well, including intense pain or enjoyment.' She was glad when Ember gave her fingers a little reassuring squeeze. 'My foster-parents had quite an effect on me of course, though I think it was not so pronounced as the effect most true parents or most involved adopting parents have on their children. My foster-mother was rather eccentric, by turns energetic and full of cheerful chatter and frenetic activity, then listless and moody, taciturn and irritable. When I was older and became able to question such things, I realised that she was probably ill in some way, or at least quite unbalanced. My foster-father more obviously cared for me than she did, at least until he became distant and withdrawn in the years following her death and when I was older.
'I think, like you, many of my happiest childhood moments were when I was alone, absorbed in some toy or activity. I remember spending hours on summer days juggling tennis balls and throwing them and bouncing them off walls. I remember sneaking out into the woods and exploring, even though I wasn't supposed to. I climbed trees, and sometimes I would sit high in a tree and read a good book, and that was really enjoyable.
'At school I felt genuinely lonely. I do not mean that I could not make friends or was not liked. I just mean that even when I spent time with other children I did not really enjoy their company. I actually felt lonelier when I was with others than I did when I was on my own. I did not understand it. I knew that I wanted a friend, and I dreamed of having a good friend, but I did not know anyone who could become such a friend. I think that my dreaming seemed to me to be not just a purpose in itself but rather a manifestation of what I thought was missing.
'I had some trouble with the spite and nastiness of some of the other girls at the schools that I went to. In itself it did not disturb me all that much, though I was not quite an impervious to it as you describe yourself. I think what hurt about it was not that they made fun or me or tried to find ways to hurt me - after all, I did not really care much about them and did not care if they did not like me. Rather, they were able to remind me of what I was missing. Physically, none of the girls would try to hurt me though. I was taller than most and good at sports. I remember playing football with the boys, and cricket too. I was quite good at them. They did push me around though, and I got into a few fights. Sometimes I came off better, but against older boys I sometimes came off worse.
'I think I felt lost in many ways. The dreams I had seemed somehow unobtainable, and I did not have the sense that my life was going in a good direction. As a teenager that became worse. I did not think about it with any distance, but I was actually quite depressed at times. I thought that death might be preferable to life. I remember all those evenings of coming home, and my foster-father being out at work. I would sit at my desk in my room and stair out into the street - light in the summer, or dark except for the orange glow of the streetlamps in winter. But everything seemed grey. Then I would do my homework, or revise for tests. I actually quite liked that. It was a way to lose myself for a while.
'I suppose that from my late teens to my early twenties I was focused on my studies and on exercise and individual activity. I went to the mountains in Wales a few times, and to Bodmin Moor and Exmoor, where I walked a long way every day, camping or staying in youth hostels. I preferred camping of course. And I read a great deal during those years, and listened to a lot of music. I think that the sense of loneliness that had been so deep within me for so much of my childhood had actually receded a lot by then. I think I had just become used to being alone and had come to enjoy the things that I liked to do alone without such a sense of something being profoundly missing.' She smiled then, and chuckled. 'I was glad when I moved here and found work. When I started at the nursery I was particularly glad because I knew I would enjoy it. But I had no idea what was coming. I find it so amazing that you have just changed everything. You have brought me so much happiness, so much warmth and love and joy. I see everything in such a different way now. When I am at work it is as if I am doing a different and much better and fun kind of work. When I exercise it feels better than it ever did and seems to have real purpose. Even just going to the supermarket to buy food it can be quite entertaining.'
Vibeke looked into Ember's eyes for long seconds. And then she moved her chair closer to her, and embraced her in a warm hug, holding her close.
Chapter Fifteen
Shopping
Tuesday 17th October, Year 1 :
Vibeke sat down on a plastic chair by the table in the little kitchen of the main building at the nursery. She had just made herself a large mug of tea and had opened her packed lunch. She smiled as she saw the exquisitely-drawn picture of Clyde the Cat that Ember had slipped into her lunchbox. Clyde was looking at her with a big smile and a speech balloon above his head said: 'Ember told me to tell you she thinks you are just wonderful. She also wanted me to give you a kiss for her, but I think I'll let her do that herself.'
Vibeke took a bite from a tomato and removed her wrapped sandwiches. They were quite thick, of wholegrain bread with butter and spicy strips of chicken breast and leaves of fresh spinach. 'Wow, these look great,' she murmured. Then there was a peach, a couple of cookies and a couple of fudge brownies. Vibeke and Ember took turns - approximately - making their packed lunches. Vibeke was fairly sure that Ember was consistently better at surprising her than she was at surprising Ember.
As Felicia entered the kitchen, Vibeke looked up. 'Hi there,' she said. 'There should still be some hot water in the kettle if you want some tea.'
'Thanks Vibeke.' Felicia was fifty-three years old and rather plain looking, with dyed brown hair and curiously coloured eyes - brown-green with obvious flecks. She wore rather old-fashioned clothes. She was quiet and competent and occasionally asked Vibeke if she had watched one or another television programme the previous night. She had a husband who was even quieter - Vibeke had met him a couple of times when he had come to collect her, and he was a very small man with a face like a gerbil and a manner like a mouse. They had two children who had both left home and they liked to watch television.
Felicia made herself some tea, then brought out her own lunch. Settling down opposite Vibeke, she ate quietly for a few minutes as Vibeke did the same. Then Felicia cleared her throat with obvious amusement, making Vibeke look up at her.
Vibeke had been in a reverie, both enjoying her excellent lunch and thinking of Ember - wondering if she was taking her lunch break at the same time and if she was talking with Evelyn Compton or sitting alone and perhaps reading a book. Or perhaps Ember was dealing with a customer, and if so she hoped that it was a pleasant customer that she would enjoy making a dress for.
Vibeke found herself smiling in response to Felicia's smile and the fact that Felicia was looking straight at her. 'What?' she asked.
Felicia shook her head a fraction and set down the roll she had been eating. As she picked up her tea she said: 'I'm not meaning to say anything too personal, but I can just see that you are very happy. When I came in your were smiling and it was such an innocent, simple expression. You looked really beautiful.' Felicia looked down, seeming suddenly to realise what she had just said, then looked back up again. 'And then when I looked at you again you were grinning again. I'm glad you're happy.'
Vibeke regarded Felicia for a long moment. They did not generally speak very much except about the nursery and what work needed doing and when and which order, though sometimes Felicia would offer some small talk and Vibeke might make a comment or two of her own. So Felicia's comments were something of a departure, but Vibeke was glad of them. 'I am happy,' she said.
'I always hoped you'd find someone,' Felicia said. 'I'm glad you did.'
Vibeke looked down for a moment. 'Yes,' she said. 'Me too. It has been amazing.' And she wondered about what Felicia had said. She was surprised - she had not thought that Felicia considered her in terms other than as her colleague such that she might have hopes for her happiness. 'Thank you for saying that,' she said.
Felicia smiled. 'You're welcome. And even though I've only met her briefly a couple of times, Ember seems like a lovely young woman. You two have such distinctive looks and you really are remarkable together. I bet you get a lot of stares when you're just walking down the street together.'
That made Vibeke smile. 'True enough,' she said. 'Sometimes we speculate that we're from some other world and the natives here can't quite pinpoint what is different about us.' She finished her last sandwich, chewed thoughtfully, then said: 'Didn't your son go to the University of Salisbury?'
'That's right,' said Felicia. 'He's a clever one. He's a physicist.'
'Ember went there too. She really liked the place.'
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Vibeke arrived home at half past five. She had enjoyed the cycle ride from work, liking the cold air in her lungs and rushing upon her face. The ride always refreshed her, gave her a short break after work and gave her energy for the evening. It could be a difficult ride in winter - a few times she had had to ask Felicia for a lift when there had been too much snow on the road or if there was a very strong wind. Usually it was something she enjoyed in all weathers.
She set her bike in its usual place in the garage and took off her cycling helmet and hung it on the handlebars. Then she went from the garage to the front door, let herself in and set down her small backpack.
Ember, who preferred to walk to and from work - it was barely twenty minutes away at a quick pace - was not home yet. After a quick trip to the bathroom she went into the kitchen to make herself some tea.
She grinned as she heard footsteps outside and then the front door opening. Walking out into the hall, she waited as Ember stepped within and closed the door behind her.
Ember's cheeks were a little flushed, though the rest of her face was quite pale. 'It's getting cold out there,' she said.
'It is,' Vibeke agreed. 'Good evening my love.' Once Ember had set down her bag she stepped forwards and embraced her.
'Hi Vibeke,' Ember replied softly. She laid her head upon Vibeke's shoulder and rubbed Vibeke's back through her pullover.
Vibeke nibbled the edge of a conveniently placed ear and felt a shiver of pleasure run through Ember. Then: 'I was just making some tea,' she said softly. 'Would you like some?'
'That sounds great. And then shall we go?'
Vibeke stepped back and nodded once.
'Let me just go to the bathroom and I'll join you for that tea.'
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A few minutes later they were sitting together on the sofa in the living room. 'I wonder where we'll end up eating tonight,' Vibeke said. Her arm was around Ember, who was leaning against her.
Ember slid her hand inside the bottom of Vibeke's pullover and the t-shirt below and gave her a little tickle. 'Shopping with me is so bad that you're only thinking of what we might eat afterwards?'
Vibeke smiled at this. 'Actually shopping with you is really all right. I've never much liked shopping, perhaps with the exception of looking for something interesting to eat in a quiet supermarket, or looking for interesting books or music. But with you it can be fun. I like watching you when you see something you like. And though I'm hardly good at clothes shopping, I do like considering what you will look like in one item or another.' She turned her slightly then, looking down at Ember with a raised eyebrow.
One ice-blue eye with a deep pupil peeked up at her quizzically.
'Maybe we could find some sexy underwear for you,' Vibeke said.
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It was a twenty minute drive to the shopping centre on the other side of Otterhampton. They had decided to go to the supermarket there first, then load the car with their groceries before they took their time with the other shops.
They parked the car a little way away from the supermarket's entrance - it was easier to walk than to contend with the cars and people closer to it. Then they made their way towards the main doors, and Vibeke pulled a shopping trolley from one of the rows outside. 'It's always a little bit dangerous shopping for food when one is hungry,' Vibeke remarked. 'But fun, too.'
'True enough,' agreed Ember. She patted Vibeke on the arm. 'You're hungry? We could stop for a snack if you want.'
'That's all right. I'll wait and it'll enhance my enjoyment of whatever we have later.'
Into the supermarket they went then, past the fruit and vegetable section to buy heavier goods first - they would come back for fruit and vegetables at the end so that they would not squash them with other items.
A little later, with their trolley half full, Ember said: 'Wow, look at that display of fish!' There was indeed an impressive number of different fish laid out in imaginative array on a bed of ice. The man behind the counter, dressed in apron and wearing a white chef's hat, smiled at her exclamation. 'Can we get a selection?' she asked Vibeke.
Vibeke was charmed by Ember's manner and enthusiasm. 'We can get anything you like,' she said.
'Help me choose. Look, that red fish is ugly but looks really interesting. And maybe we could get a couple of those really small ones, they're quite cute. And two large trout.'
'You want me to choose those?'
'Yes,' Ember said with mock seriousness.
'All right then. I'd like the ugly but friendly red fish, two of those small ones and two large trout.'
'Maybe this trout?' asked Ember. 'And this one? Oh, and look! They have mussels. We have to get them.' Ember looked up at the man behind the counter and gave their order. 'But we'll need to freeze some of the fish,' she said. 'Will that affect the flavour much?' she asked the man.
'I'm sorry, I don't know,' he replied. He was clearly amused by them.
'Well I guess we'll take a chance. We'll have the mussels tomorrow evening and freeze the rest. Can you pack them with some ice please?'
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A little later, having dropped their grocery shopping off in the car, they headed back into the shopping centre, which was a pleasant enough place laid out as three large triangles around a central area of fountains with a domed glass ceiling.
Vibeke was very aware that Ember's birthday was coming up the next week and hoped that Ember might let something slip or that she might find some inspiration as they wandered among the shops.
There were quite a lot of people in the halls of the centre, though no more than they had expected and far fewer than would be there on weekends. Vibeke found herself wondering about all the shoppers. There was the usual mixture of mothers and small, energetic and usually noisy children, husbands getting in and out quickly or struggling with boredom, old people who seemed oblivious to the people they held up on the escalators or in doorways, teenagers and young people dressed in colourful outfits having fun. But these were really just first impressions and somewhat stereotypical, and Vibeke wondered about some of the individuals she saw. A girl of about sixteen with silver piercings and purple-streaked hair was being rather loud and full of herself with her friends, but Vibeke also detected a hint of anger or desperation about her and she wondered what had caused it. A man of about twenty-five, sitting on a bench and staring at one of the fountains seemed lost in some inner world, his expression revealing a deep unhappiness. An old lady who was helping another, weaker old lady along the way was smiling and seemed utterly at one with the world, as if she had found the secrets of true acceptance and balance. A young mother quietly took control of one of her young children - a little girl who was crying - and Vibeke saw the tiredness and general weariness revealed in her, but also wondered at how intensely she might experience moments of deep love for her offspring.
On and on, people hurrying or dawdling, people with a need to buy something or simply wondering what they might by. Vibeke was not sure that she liked this place and was generally not enthusiastic about crowds, but she admitted she found it quite interesting.
Ember held her hand. 'You are thinking about people,' she said. There was humour in her voice.
Vibeke looked at her. 'Yes. I was wondering rather than observing, and I know it's impossible to really know what they are like. Still it's sometimes good to consider what people's lives might really be like beyond what we see. I often find myself trying to guess if people are happy or merely struggling.'
Ember seemed to look inwards for a moment. 'I think many of us find that we are not sure if we are doing something that will make us and other people happy, or if it is just causing problems. Sometimes the effort we put into things is painful and the results do not justify it - or may be very negative. But sometimes we feel that when we do not try so hard, we are giving up on something that could be good.' She shook her head slightly. 'You know, I sometimes think that people spend too much time trying to predict and control their futures rather than simply being adaptive in the present. There is a tendency to end up neurotic rather than to ride happily on waves of perpetual change.' She chuckled then. 'Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't try to philosophise.'
But Vibeke thought about what she had said - until Ember let out a sound that was almost a squeal and tugged at her arm. A moment later she found herself being dragged at some speed between shoppers until they were in front of a pet shop.
'Look at those guinea pigs!' said Ember, grinning. 'They're all in a pile!'
They stood and watched twitching noses and whiskers and feet for a minute.
'They really have a remarkable mixture of patches and patterns,' Vibeke said. 'I wonder what they looked like before they were domesticated and bred - what the original guinea pigs looked like.'
'Maybe we could look it up on the internet,' Ember suggested. 'Although then we might find out that they are descended from aliens.' Looking up she said. 'Those three birds are really beautiful. Are they types of parrot or something else?'
'I don't know,' Vibeke said. 'But when I was studying I was very interested in the classification of species, how they fit into this immense evolutionary tree. I was always amazed at the varieties. But I don't know much of the specifics outside certain aspects of botany.'
Ember took her hand. 'Let's go in,' she said eagerly, seeming on the edge of jumping up and down.
'I think you might explode if we don't.'
Ember adopted a mock-indignant expression, bumped her with her shoulder and pulled her inside. In truth Vibeke was very happy to go in and see what other animals they had.
It was a long but narrow shop and not large. It had the distinctive scents that most pet shops had - of animals and animal feed, straw and sawdust, dog snacks and chew-toys, and waterweed and fish from the many small aquaria that lined one side of the wall near the back. There were many lights of slightly different colours in cages and fishtanks. There were not many people there and those that were spoke in noticeably quiet voices. A middle-aged man was at the counter and a young woman was stocking some shelves on one side. It was a peaceful place that seemed almost like an oasis in the busy shopping centre.
Ember and Vibeke stopped at three cages piled one atop the next, each of which contained a few rabbits.
'That one with patches of orange and black is really cute,' Ember said. 'I love the way their noses twitch, little upside-down triangles.'
Next they stopped at a large cage that contained a number of budgerigars. 'They're really nice, aren't they,' Ember said softly. 'I think I like the blue ones more than the yellow. There's something so restful about them.' She turned to Vibeke then and looked up into her face and Vibeke noticed that her expression was open and quite serious. 'Did you ever want a cat?' she asked. She was still holding Vibeke's hand and now she took hold of it with both hands and gave it a little squeeze. 'I mean, I know that your appreciation of Clyde the Cat doesn't mean that you would actually like a real cat as a pet but I just thought maybe you might like one. I can imagine you might like cats.'
Vibeke found it charming that Ember was being so earnest. 'Are you suggesting that Clyde the Cat doesn't exist?' she asked. 'Because if so then the universal spirit that hears all - the spirit of Clyde the Cat I mean - might be quite offended.'
'No, obviously Clyde the Cat does have a transcendent existence,' Ember concurred.
'But yes, I do like cats,' Vibeke said. 'I know that it's easy to forget that domestic cats are actually well-armed killing machines, predators without a doubt. Still, that is how they are and . . . I like that they are rather aloof, that they are independent and not like humans. I know that dogs are much more loyal, but dogs sometimes seem rather too similar to people to me. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Pet owners just have different tastes.'
They wandered down to the aquaria.
'These are so beautiful!' Ember said, going to a tank that contained a small cloud of small fish - probably the smallest fish of any that were for sale. They were grey-white on their backs and bellies and they had reflective mauve stripes down their sides. They swam almost as one, turning together mostly, swimming in the same direction. Vibeke wondered how that happened - she assumed there was not some leader that they all followed. Perhaps each of them just had some kind of potential to swim and turn and the one that reached that potential first did so and the rest followed; but some other fish might reach that potential first the next time.
'They really are,' Vibeke said. As she watched, her thoughts just seem to fall away, perhaps even to stop, and she just observed and was captivated by the colourful fish and their movement. After a minute or so of simply standing next to Ember and gazing into the tank, she came back to herself and looked at Ember, who was still watching. She felt almost as if she had been taken into quite a different kind of awareness for a little while: one that was peaceful but also seemed quite profound.
Together, they looked into other aquaria then. Sometimes they pointed something out - a fish or a kind of water weed or a layout of stones. It was only when they finally turned to leave that they realised that they had been speaking quietly as if they were in a library.
Outside, back along one of the main halls, Ember led the way. Vibeke was not sure if she simply wanted to see what they might find or if she had some target. They both wanted to buy some clothes which was why they had come here.
When they made their way up to the first floor, Vibeke felt a sudden awareness of strategic thinking. There were three jewellery shops there. Two were fairly conventional but the third, opposite them, was anything but.
Gently, Vibeke led Ember over to the window display. It was full of interesting, glittering, colourful pieces. Curious necklaces with odd stones in strange shapes sat next to bracelets fashioned into weird-looking serpents or long-winged birds or other animal, and chains of all metals and colours and types. There were trays of earrings, some of which were outrageous, some whimsical or fanciful. The shop also sold a few items of clothing - scarves and wraps and belts.
'What an interesting place,' Ember breathed. 'I wonder if that buckle would go with my grey-blue skirt.' Then she giggled and said: 'Hey, look at that parrot brooch. Wide-eyed, innocent and cute.'
Vibeke listened and then led the way within.
----------
'Mmmm!' said Ember. 'Wow, that looks sexy.' And Vibeke could even hear the slightly throaty way in which she said the words.
'Thanks. Uh, this top is a bit revealing isn't it?' It was a silvery satin blouse with a cut-away back and rather open at her cleavage. The two of them were standing by the mirrors in the changing rooms of a clothes shop. They had a small hill of items piled on a table to try on.
'Well, yes, but in a good way. Although I might not be able to keep my hands off you.'
'I'd be happy to wear this at home but it's not really casual. And I'm not sure about going out in it. I'm not really a provocative type of person.'
Ember regarded her for a few seconds more. 'I see your point. Maybe we can just stick to underwear for the really sexy stuff.'
Vibeke looked up at that and took in the way Ember was watching her. Her eyes were slightly darkened and she could see the desire that was revealed there. As she became aware of it she felt a slight, tingling flush upon her skin and deep in her belly. She also felt a profound sense of amazement and awe. Perhaps it should not have surprised her that she had such an effect upon Ember but nevertheless it seemed so very special and incredible and good. Is my body really that good? she wondered. Or maybe it's just Ember's taste. At the same time she felt a very pleasant and rather unexpected sense of vulnerability, as if all her emotions and desires and self were open to Ember; and somehow, Ember accepted and loved what she saw there.
'How about you try on these two now?' Vibeke said, lifting two interestingly-shaped lightweight tops that they had spotted. One was really for the summer and would leave Ember's belly bare but it looked very good and seemed worth trying.
Chapter Sixteen
Ember's Birthday
Friday 27th October, Year 1 :
Ember awoke in the darkness before the dawn. Though she thought she had been wrapped around Vibeke most of the night, her head on her shoulder, her arm around her waist and her leg over Vibeke's leg, she was immediately aware that she was alone in the bed. Sometimes she wondered if she might make Vibeke uncomfortable because of her tendency sometimes to lie half on top of her, but Vibeke clearly liked the closeness. She sleepily smiled as she considered that they sometimes slept like a couple of cats, curled up in a pile.
As she automatically reached out she felt that the bed was still warm beside her. Perhaps Vibeke had just gone to the bathroom. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was a few minutes before six o'clock and that they would be getting up soon. But she still had a few minutes to doze.
Settling back on her pillow, she closed her eyes and almost immediately drifted into a half-sleep in which she thought she was running with two friendly-looking blue kangaroos across water that inexplicably bore their weight. With amusement and delight she chased them around a number of crystalline fountains.
Then she was waking up again, blinking and wondering what kind of psychedelic chemicals her brain produced. Now she could smell coffee and something toasting and she grinned broadly. Vibeke was making breakfast for her - and though she might have climbed out of bed and gone to join her she decided that she would just get up, go to the bathroom, then come back to bed - guessing that Vibeke intended to bring her breakfast in bed.
When she came back from the bathroom she found that Vibeke had sneaked into the bedroom while she had been gone: there was a chocolate rabbit wrapped in colourful foil sitting on her pillow. She chuckled as she climbed back under the covers and examined the creature.
A few minutes later the bedroom door opened and the light of a flickering candle lit the dark room. Vibeke was standing there with a laden tray - a single birthday candle set into a croissant, plates of pancakes, a bowl of strawberries, a jar of maple syrup and more.
Ember crawled further up in the bed, sitting up and grinning.
'Happy birthday Ember,' Vibeke said, smiling at her as she reached the bed. She set down the tray on the bedside table then propped pillows up behind Ember, set another one against the headboard for herself and then slipped into bed beside her. Once they were settled she reached across to the tray and took a single flower from it - a yellow bloom that Ember could not name. Vibeke handed it to Ember. 'For you.'
'Thank you, my love.' Ember held the flower to her nose and inhaled its gentle, refreshing fragrance. 'I love yellow flowers,' she said softly.
'That's actually from the new greenhouse,' Vibeke explained. 'It's a Burmese variety related to the buttercup.' She shrugged slightly. 'You know, it occurred to me that bringing you breakfast in bed on your birthday, and a flower, was something of a cliché. But then I thought I'd do it anyway.'
Ember gave her hand a squeeze. 'I'm glad you did. And the chocolate rabbit was hardly a cliché. Though it does seem a little cruel to consider eating it. It's also true that this is not the first time you have brought me breakfast in bed with a flower.'
'And you've done the same for me.'
'Maybe we could get Clyde the Cat to bring both of us breakfast in bed sometime.'
Next Vibeke reached across and carefully set the tray down in front of them - they were both sitting cross-legged. 'Grapefruit juice, and coffee ready to pour when you're ready,' she explained.
'This looks great!' said Ember. 'Wow, pancakes, and toasted croissants with butter and marmalade. And great-looking strawberries. This is quite a feast.'
Vibeke chuckled. 'Well, we've got to keep our strength up.'
For a while they simply enjoyed their breakfast, taking their time with it and often feeding each other. Sometimes they found themselves looking at each other with poignant tenderness.
'How do you expect your day to go?' Vibeke asked as she sipped her second cup of coffee. She had placed the tray back on the bedside table and now they were digesting, replete, satisfied, happily and decadently well-fed.
'It should be fairly straightforward,' Ember replied. 'I'm working on a wedding dress but I'm not under any real pressure with it and it shouldn't take much longer to finish. I'm currently working on the lace. It's pretty detailed, but I like it. Evelyn's always telling me she doesn't understand how I don't get frustrated with complicated designs that require a lot of fine manipulation, but I find it more enjoyable than just working on plain forms. It's true that correcting mistakes can be very time-consuming, but -'
'I'm guessing you don't make many mistakes,' Vibeke said.
Ember gave her a little shrug. 'Rarely.'
----------
Vibeke left work at half-past four. Felicia had just smiled and waved off her thanks when she had agreed to Vibeke going home early. 'Have a nice evening,' she said. 'Say happy birthday to Ember from me.'
She cycled home, quickly took some plates, knives, forks, candles, matches, a bottle of sparkling water and two blankets and put them in the boot of the car - all ready for some of what she had planned for her and Ember a little later. Then she walked the rest of the way into Otterhampton to meet Ember at the dressmaker's shop. She had thought of driving in to pick Ember up but the weather was quite pleasant - cool and overcast but still and dry - and she was aware that Ember liked the walk home as it refreshed her after her day's work.
The bell above the door sounded as Vibeke stepped into the shop. Evelyn Compton was just finishing dealing with a customer at the counter. Looking up she smiled and said: 'Hi Vibeke! Ember's in the back. Tell her it's time she got out of here and started celebrating.'
'Thanks Evelyn.'
Going into the back room, Vibeke saw that Ember was at her workbench working on a lace cuff. 'Hi, my love.'
Ember looked up - apparently she had been utterly absorbed in her work. 'Vibeke!' She almost squealed with delight, then slipped off her stool and ran around her table and into Vibeke's arms.
Vibeke held her tight. It was so very good to feel Ember pressed against her like this, to feel the soft solidity of her body, to inhale the scent of her hair as she kissed the side of her head. 'How has your day been?' she asked.
Ember made no move to pull back but simply nuzzled closer against her shoulder and neck. 'Well, I found half a dozen small chocolate rabbits in my lunch box, which was a bit of a surprise. Not sure how they got there,' she said with a grin, giving Vibeke a little poke in the side. 'Maybe the larger rabbit you gave me this morning has started breeding. Anyway, it was very charming. And then I worked. And now I feel much better now that you're here. I didn't expect to see you until I got home. I'm glad you came to collect me.'
Finally they stepped back from each other but held onto each other's arms. 'Shall we get out of here?' Vibeke suggested. 'Evelyn asked me to pass on instructions to you to make yourself scarce and celebrate.'
'That's kind of her. All right, let me just tidy this up a bit so I don't lose my place.'
'And Felicia said to say happy birthday to you as well. I know you haven't spoken much but she really likes you. When she mentions you it's clear she thinks you're some kind of angel. Which I happen to agree with,' Vibeke said with a smile.
Ember glanced up at that. 'Maybe an alien. Not so much an angel.'
Vibeke watched as Ember quickly moved about the table, ordering the cloth and threads and pins. She noticed not for the first time how dexterous Ember was - every movement graceful, swift and very precise. Today Ember was wearing a long skirt of grey-green and a white blouse with rounded shoulders and cuffs. It was a look that evoked echoes of Victorian fashion, though there was nothing uncomfortable or unduly fussy about it.
When she was ready, Vibeke took Ember's green, tasselled shawl of loose-knit wool from the clothes stand by the door and held it open for her. With a near pirouette Ember turned into it, wrapping it about her shoulders. Then she gathered up her small backpack of dark brown leather and was ready to go.
A minute later they were walking home hand in hand - more of a leisurely stroll.
'So,' Ember said. 'What is the plan for this evening?'
Vibeke looked across at her. 'I'm sorry I asked you if you could put your birthday plans on hold until tomorrow,' she said.
'That's all right,' Ember replied, giving her hand a little squeeze. 'I am more than happy to be surprised.'
'Well, I had this idea and . . . well, maybe we can just go and you can see for yourself. And I do have a birthday present for you, but if you don't mind it'll be better to wait until a bit later for me to give it to you.'
Ember looked happy with this. 'Adventures are good,' she said. 'What should I wear? Should I take anything with me?'
'Wear something casual and warm and bring a coat.'
They arrived home soon enough. Ember and Vibeke both changed and then they sat in the kitchen for a little while and drank some tea and chatted briefly about their days.
Vibeke filled a thermos flask with hot water, filled a small bottle with milk from the fridge and grabbed a few teabags, thinking that they might want some hot tea later.
And then they climbed into the car, throwing their coats and bags into the back.
'First, let's make sure that we will not be hungry this evening,' Vibeke said. And she carefully guided the car out of the drive and headed into Otterhampton. A few minutes later she pulled up in front of the Indian restaurant where she and Ember had first seen each other.
Ember chuckled. 'Our place of first meeting!' she exclaimed. They had eaten here before and had sometimes had a takeaway from the establishment but it always gave both of them pleasure to think that this was where they had first laid eyes upon each other.
'Well, probably,' Vibeke said. 'Though sometimes I have dreams of you and impressions of you that seem so full of recognition and memory that it is as if I knew you before, and will know you again.'
'I dream and feel just the same,' Ember said, resting her hand on Vibeke's arm.
Vibeke checked her watch. 'All right, let's go and get some food.'
As they entered the restaurant the waiter by the door smiled and nodded to them. 'Good evening,' he said. 'Your order should be ready in a few minutes. Would you like to take a seat?' And he gestured them across to a pair of comfortable, padded leather benches near the bar.
As Vibeke and Ember sat side by side on one of the benches, the waiter brought over the bill for the order Vibeke had placed and Vibeke paid cash. Then he went behind the bar and removed two glasses from a refrigerator. Returning to the, he set the glasses in front of them. 'Banana lassi, madam' he said to Ember, indicating the drink he had set down for her. 'And Keralan lassi,' he said to Vibeke.
'Oh, I love banana lassi!' said Ember.
The waiter nodded and left them and Vibeke said quietly: 'Maybe he's psychic.'
'Or maybe you placed the order earlier,' Ember replied. She picked up her drink and took a large sip, closing her eyes for a moment and savouring the cool mixture of yoghurt, banana, cardamom and pistachio nuts. 'That's really good,' she sighed.
Vibeke tried some of her own drink. 'This is pretty good too. Would you like some?'
'Thanks. I've had it before but I'd like to be reminded of it.' She tried it and tilted her head in appreciation. 'It is good. I find it a bit strange though. Maybe I just need the sugar in the banana lassi. Do you want some?'
'That's all right. I must say I do like watching you drink it.'
They were quiet for a little while then, enjoying their drinks. Sitting next to each other, Vibeke was glad to feel Ember's touch, her hand upon her arm - she was not sure if it was a conscious or automatic gesture but it made her feel good either way. It amazed her how much such simple contact gave her such a sense of warmth and belonging. She had never considered herself a person who was in need of much physical contact and yet with Ember it was something she wanted all the time: that connection, that being together that made her feel warm and at one and which made her emotions flow so clearly and such pleasure.
There were two other couples and a group of four in the restaurant, talking and laughing. Indian music played softly in the background.
'We did not speak to each other when we first saw each other,' Ember said in a contemplative tone.
Vibeke considered this. 'It was . . . so startling for me,' she said. 'I remember it very clearly. Your beauty was just so amazing. I felt as if I had suddenly come alive, as if I had woken up. I could not stop thinking about you after I left here.'
Ember chuckled softly. 'I felt the same,' she said. 'I wished I had actually spoken to you. But I've never really approached people spontaneously. I don't think I was ever afraid of doing so, it's just that I never had. And the habit of not approaching people was too strong for me to overcome it then, I think.'
'I think I just did not want to be intrusive,' Vibeke said. 'Even when we met later at the florist I was going to leave before you stopped me.'
'Why did you feel that way?' Ember asked.
'I think I felt that you would not want to speak to me.' She shook her head. 'I don't usually like it when people I don't know expect anything from me, or even just hope for something from me. I guess I felt that it would disturb you if I talked to you. And you know, I do understand how irrational that is. To think that someone would welcome my saying hello is no greater an assumption than thinking someone would find me intrusive.' She shook her head. 'I think I was afraid of rejection. I think I was also punishing myself, which has sometimes been very easy for me to do.'
Ember clearly thought about this for a little while. 'You had some bad experiences when you were younger,' she said. 'You had entered a kind of pattern of living, of loneliness.'
'Yes, you are right. Although, I had not usually wanted anything other than my loneliness. Yet after I saw you . . . I was just fascinated, uplifted, made to feel alive. And that made my loneliness feel more poignant than I could remember.'
Ember gave her a little bump with her shoulder. 'I'm just damned glad we saw each other again in the florist and that we got to speaking to each other.'
A couple of minutes later, just as they finished their drinks, the waiter returned from the door that led to the downstairs kitchen. He was carrying a rather large and full paper bag and brought it over to them.
'Thank you,' Vibeke said as she stood up and took it from him.
'Thank you madam. Enjoy your meal.' And he escorted them to the front door, which he opened for them before stepping aside. 'Enjoy your meal and have a nice evening,' he said.
'You too,' said Ember, following Vibeke out.
Vibeke smiled as she felt Ember hook a finger through a belt loop of her jeans. It was not infrequently that Ember did that and it always charmed her. It was as if she was some cute creature that needed to be connected to her. Which she was, of course.
'Do you think you ordered enough?' Ember asked with a grin as she took the bag of takeaway food from Vibeke and settled in the passenger seat.
'Well,' said Vibeke as she closed her own door and buckled her seatbelt, 'better too much than too little.'
'That really does smell good,' Ember said. 'And I'm very hungry indeed.'
'Not long to wait,' Vibeke said. 'Maybe twenty minutes. Hopefully the food will easily stay warm enough.'
Ember looked at her but did not ask where they were going. Instead, as Vibeke drove south out of Otterhampton and then southwest through farmland and woods towards the hills and moors, she looked about them with interest, clearly wondering where they were headed.
And then Vibeke noticed that Ember was spending just as much time looking at her. Glancing across at her she said with an amused quizzical look: 'What?'
'I was just thinking how great it is that you planned our evening like this. And then I was looking at you and I saw the way the darkening grey light was falling across your face, and the look of easy concentration as you drove. You are very beautiful and every shift in the light reveals different things about you. I know I've taken a lot of photographs of you but I was thinking how I might take many more. And I'd like to sort through the images I already have and find some I could paint from. You are my muse you know.'
Vibeke reached over and took hold of Ember's hand. 'And you are mine,' she said softly. It always amazed her how they could go from talking about small things, or enjoying banter and playfulness, and then they would suddenly find a tenderness and seriousness in the moment. It was something very special and she felt the welling of emotion suffusing the entirety of her being, so deep that nothing was left untouched by its wonder.
---------
'We are almost there,' Vibeke said a few minutes later. She pulled most of the way off the small road onto the verge - there was no parking area or layby nearby - and turned off the engine. About them were gorse bushes and heather and a few stunted trees - hawthorns and oak a couple of ancient pines - and many exposed boulders. To their right was a low hill - not so low when they considered that they had driven most of the way to its summit. Everything was rather shadowy in the deepening gloom of the evening. It would be dark soon.
They climbed from the car and shrugged into their coats - it was cool and there was a breeze up here on the moors. They took their bags and Vibeke included what she had placed in the boot earlier. Then she turned to Ember and said: 'All right, let's go. It's only a short walk.'
Five minutes later, heading around the side of the hill on a barely-visible path, they came out onto a flatter area of grass mixed with some heather. 'This is it,' Vibeke said.
Ember stopped still, looking around. 'Vibeke, this is fantastic! I didn't know this was here so close to where we live.'
There was a stone circle about the flat area. It was not large and several of the stones had fallen over or sunk. The standing ones were just three feet high or so. Nevertheless they appeared to have been laid out perfectly. To one side were some boulders, including a fairly flat one tilted at an angle across the stones beneath it - perhaps put there deliberately.
'I thought this might be a good place for a birthday meal,' Vibeke said. 'Is this all right?'
'It's great!'
'Right then, let's get everything out. I think both of us are starving.'
Vibeke quickly laid out a blanket on the flattest part of grassy ground to one side of the circle's centre. Then she set down plates and cutlery, cups, and water. And she also brought out six tea-light candles and lit them - though the wind made them flicker a lot it did not blow them out.
And then they sat together cross-legged on the blanket and set out and opened the various dishes of Indian food they had brought. Quickly they spooned rice and different vegetable and meat dishes onto their plates. Ember broke and shared some naan bread.
Then, grinning like idiots at each other, they began to eat.
'This is so good,' Ember moaned after a bite of a particularly spicy spinach and chicken curry.
Ember :
I feel the gentle wind upon my face. It is cool and pleasant. I feel the heat of the food that we eat and know that my hunger makes this excellent food taste even better. I am so very aware of our surroundings. Though it is almost dark now, I still like what I can see - suggestions of moors and rounded, stony hills rolling away to the southwest, and the woods and distant fields behind us. The evening drew in early because of the heavily overcast sky. The candles burn brightly, their flickering suggesting to me the laughter of mischievous spirits.
I cannot hear anything except the gentle sighing of the wind on the occasions it is strong enough to be heard; and of course Vibeke's and my movements, the clink of knife or fork on plates. I am glad we have kicked off our boots and drawn a blanket over our legs.
I am so aware of you. Always I am drawn to you, want simply to look at you. I'm sure I would have been happy if we'd just had an ordinary evening at home, but your idea of coming here and the uniqueness of this place and time and weather and food is just magical. I feel so awake, so alive, as if more conscious than I usually am. I smile as I realise that you often do that to me: make me feel more aware than I used to think possible. It is a slightly scary feeling because it is so poignant and involves a feeling of vulnerability. But it is very pleasant. Sometimes I feel as if I am no more than my awareness of you - it happens most times we make love. I feel that now, breaking over me in waves that retreat only long enough for me to think a moment about the experience before I am overcome again. These are times of a kind of rapture and oneness that I utterly treasure, and you have told me that you feel the same. I marvel that we fit each other so well and evoke so much in each other.
---------
They took their time eating. They talked of small things but were mostly quiet. Yet even their few simple words they spoke with soft voices. Each was so aware of the other. Ember marvelled at how a few sentences about Vibeke's day meant so much to her. It seemed impossible that this sense of connectedness and love filled her in such a profound manner, yet in Vibeke's manner and voice and the tender and slightly shy and touches and looks she gave her, she knew she felt the same.
After finishing eating they packed up the remainder of the food - quite a lot and it would make a fairly good meal tomorrow - and set their plates to one side. They had taken off their coats before they had started eating, and now Vibeke wrapped them both in the second blanket she had brought. That done, she dropped teabags into the vacuum flask of hot water she had in her bag, and after letting it steep poured tea for them.
And they sat their in the near-darkness for a long time, silently watching as the hills slowly shifting clouds became one and indistinguishable. Around them the candlelight still flickered with warm yellow radiance.
They lay down at length and Ember crawled into Vibeke's embrace, laying her head upon her shoulder and wrapping her arm about her waist. 'This is wonderful,' she said softly. 'Thank you for bringing me here.'
'You're more than welcome,' Vibeke replied. 'There is a little more to come for your birthday, but it'll have to wait until we get home.'
Ember did not reply to that, but after a minute said: 'Do you think the spirits of the old gods and goddesses of Albion are watching over us here?'
'Perhaps they are,' Vibeke said. 'I certainly feel sometimes as if there is something extraordinary about the fact that we even met. I know that it was probably just luck, but it was the most amazing and profound luck.'
'I think so too,' Ember said, snuggling more closely against her. Since she was lying on her side, her head on Vibeke's shoulder, she could look across her chest and see the shape of a couple of standing stones that were illuminated by the candles, and beyond them she could just make out the shape of rounded top of the hill they were on. 'What can you see, looking up?' she asked Vibeke. She could have looked herself but for the moment did not want to move - she felt utterly content and in a state of bliss where she was.
'Very little,' Vibeke said. 'Just a shifting of darkness, dark grey and black. Away to the north, the hint of yellow streetlamps.'
'You may not be able to see him, but I think the spirit of Clyde the Cat is with us,' Ember said. And she felt rather than heard Vibeke chuckle, her chest moving slightly against her. Then she said: 'I like listening to your heartbeat. It makes me feel safe. It is really quite slow when you are resting. You must be very fit. Well, I know you are.'
'I like listening to your heartbeat too. Sometimes when I wake in the night, or before you in the morning, I love listening to your breathing. You seem so peaceful and it makes me feel peaceful too.' She paused then said: 'Have you noticed how often we breathe in time with each other?'
Ember nodded slightly against her. 'Yes. I used to do it deliberately sometimes. Still do, actually. But more often now it just seems to happen of its own accord.'
Vibeke turned her head slightly, nuzzling her hair. 'I've done it deliberately as well sometimes,' she said. 'And sometimes I've just been mesmerised, watching your breathing, the rise and fall of your breasts.'
---------
It was almost eleven o'clock when they got back home. They had been quiet during the drive back, a deep peacefulness and gentle tenderness between them. When Vibeke turned off the engine of the car and turned off its lights, they sat in silence for a half a minute. Vibeke suspected that Ember was quite sleepy.
Entering the house, they both blinked in the comparative brightness of the lights. Ember sorted the leftovers of their meal and put it in the refrigerator while Vibeke returned to the car to collect the rest of their things. Both of them made trips to the bathroom, and when Vibeke returned to the kitchen, Ember was making some tea.
'Hi,' she said.
'Hi, Ember.' And, walking up behind her, she put her arms about her waist and laid her head on her shoulder.
Ember patted her hands. 'That's nice.'
Once they had taken their mugs of tea into the living room, Vibeke said: 'Sit down and relax. I'll be back in a minute.'
'Sounds mysterious,' Ember said with a grin. And she sat in the corner of the sofa and brought her feet up under her.
Shortly, Vibeke returned to the living room carrying a birthday cake with three candles lit upon it. She stepped across to Ember and set it on the coffee table before her. 'Happy birthday Ember,' she said.
'Oh!' said Ember when she saw it. She put her fingertips to her mouth in surprise. 'A cake in the shape of a rabbit!' Then she chuckled.
'I hope you like it.'
'I love it!' Ember said. 'That's really thoughtful of you.'
'I'm sorry to say that I didn't make it myself, but honestly you're probably better off that I didn't. I'm not much good at baking. The baker at the end of the parade on Green Street made it. Mrs Kelly or her husband I guess. Let me go and fetch a couple of plates and a knife.'
She returned carrying not only the plates and knife but also a large, colourful paper bag with handles.
'Should I blow my candles out now?' Ember asked as Vibeke sat down next to her.
'You can do as you wish,' Vibeke said.
'I think I'll leave them burning for the moment then. They look nice.' She picked up the knife and cut two generous pieces and set them on the small plates. 'Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate?'
'Pretty much.'
'Just absolutely my favourite kind of cake then.'
The cake was moist and the layers of icing were soft and so they used teaspoons to eat. 'That really is great,' Ember said, closing her eyes in appreciation as she savoured the cake.
They ate, and then Ember said: 'I guess I do have to blow out those candles now before they burn down. And I know that it's traditional to keep one's wish secret. I think it's not supposed to come true if one reveals it. Is that right? Or is it that twenty tons of hamsters fall from the sky? I don't know.' She looked into Vibeke's eyes. 'But since it's a superstition anyway, I'd like to say my wish out loud.'
Vibeke reached out and took Ember's hand. As Ember turned and looked at the candles on the cake, she absorbed the way their flickering light was bright, reflected in her eyes almost as if they were silver-blue mirrors. Then she listened as Ember said:
'I wish for us to always be able to bring so much happiness to each other as we already have done in our togetherness. I do not doubt us at all. As my love for you is endless I feel it reflected in you and know that we will always feel as we do. Whatever fears I have are only that the world changes and things happen that we cannot control. I wish that nothing in the universe will ever happen to hurt us or frustrate our togetherness.'
And then Ember leaned forward and blew out the candles. Leaning back, looking up at Vibeke, she smiled.
Vibeke looked back at her for a long moment, gazing into her eyes, seeing such tenderness and hope there. Then she took her in her arms and held her close for a little while, gentle rubbing her back with comforting, circular movements of her hand and nuzzling her neck, breathing her in.
They had never spoken much of fears that they might have in their relationship, she thought now. And she realised that what fears she had were much the same as Ember's. She trusted her own feelings for Ember and trusted Ember's feelings for her. Indeed, it was not so much a matter of trust as a sense that anything else was unthinkable, that maiming or death would be preferable, that a change in their feelings for each other would be like becoming different people, ripped into parts that could not be reassembled and that would make no sense. Yet she acknowledged that the world could be a dangerous place and that life always entailed risk. It was possible that one or other of them - or both - could succumb to an accident or illness. There were no guarantees against such things happening.
Then Vibeke thought: there is always death. And she said, knowing that Ember was thinking along the same lines as her: 'Though we will always love each other there is always danger and death. But to be with you while alive makes me feel that I can accept death very easily. I could not bear to be alone after what we have and I think you feel the same. But I could die with you, happily enough even in those last moments.'
Ember squeezed her more tightly. She sniffled slightly and said softly: 'I love you Vibeke.'
They sat back from each other after another minute. Vibeke wiped away Ember's few tears with her thumb.
'I'm sorry,' Ember said. 'My wish seemed rather morbid I guess.'
'It was also beautiful,' said Vibeke.
Ember looked up at her and smiled. 'You know, your words really echoed what I was feeling. It's such a strange thing, isn't it? My perception of death has changed so much because of being with you. It seems so much . . . less.'
'That's how I feel too.' She chuckled. 'And it's probably a good thing that twenty tons of hamsters didn't fall on top of us.'
They settled back then, and picked up their plates to finish their slices of cake. Then Vibeke said after a couple of bites: 'Maybe you'd like to open your birthday present?' And she set the colourful bag before her. 'I'm actually a little bit nervous.'
'I'd be happy if you gave me no more than a kiss,' Ember said. Setting her plate down, she looked within. 'More than one present, apparently,' she said. She grinned as she took out the first item. It was quite small and wrapped in paper that had teddy bears on it. 'Hmm, I wonder what this is. It's quite heavy.' She shook it slightly. 'I really don't know.' Then she slowly unwrapped it until a belt buckle was revealed, and she looked up at Vibeke with a grin. 'I'd forgotten about this,' she said. She held it up to look at the metal patterning and the blue stones that were set into it. 'Thank you. I have a feeling you might have been listening for hints when we went shopping.'
'Perhaps,' Vibeke replied.
'Now, what's this next gift?' Ember said as she reached in and took out a rather larger package. It was soft and square and quite thick. 'An item of clothing perhaps?' Soon enough she had unwrapped it and revealed a pullover of light blue, loose-knit wool. It was fluffy and its colour was striking.
'I hope it'll fit all right,' Vibeke said. 'The colour reminded me of your eyes so I just had to buy it for you.'
Ember ran her fingers over the softness of the pullover, then held it up, admiring it. 'It's beautiful. I shall try it on in a moment. But first . . .' And she reached into the bag again and removed the last gift. This was small, and when she unwrapped it a jewellery pouch was revealed. Opening it, she tipped a gold chain bracelet into her hand.
A little gasp escaped her when she held the bracelet up and examined the little golden ornaments that dangled from it all the way around. There were three small, golden letter Vs, three small, golden letter Es and six small, golden infinity signs. They were laid out so that there was an infinity sign between each of the Vs and Es.
Ember did not say anything for long seconds, but just stared at it, absorbing its meaning. And then she set it gently down and reached out and took Vibeke in her arms, holding her close.
'Forever,' she said.
'Forever,' Vibeke replied.
And then Ember made space on the sofa and drew Vibeke down beside her, and they lay wrapped in each other's arms, full of wonder.
Chapter Seventeen
Edward's Life
Monday 4th December, Year 1 :
Vibeke pulled up outside Mrs Waechter's house, pulled up the handbrake and turned off the engine. She sat back in the sudden silence and turned to regard Ember.
Ember was wearing traditional black - a skirt and suit jacket that were quite nondescript, that were simply made to fit in. It was as if Ember had shed her individuality to become anonymous at the funeral - which was exactly what the kinds of clothes worn at funerals were intended for in some ways: forgetting about the self so that one could think about the deceased.
Vibeke was also wearing a black skirt and jacket.
She reached out and took Ember's hand. 'Shall we go and get Mrs Waechter?' she asked.
Ember nodded. She did not say anything for a few seconds, simply looking down, but then she looked up into Vibeke's eyes and said: 'Edward was very kind.'
Vibeke knew that she meant several things by this: not only that he was kind to others and perhaps kind to himself but also that it was sad that he should have died given how much he had brought to other people's lives; how it seemed unfair not only to others but to him; how kindness did not result in much control at all over life or death.
Vibeke gave Ember a hug, then climbed from the car and went around to the passenger side and helped Ember out. Together they walked up the short path to the front door. Ember lifted and dropped the knocker.
Mrs Waechter opened the door almost immediately. She looked pale and appeared to have applied rather too much powder to her face, which made he skin look aged and cracked. Her eyes were bloodshot. But still she smiled with warmth and perhaps a little relief and warmly embraced the two of them, Ember then Vibeke. Then she took them both by the hand and led them into the house. 'Come in,' she said. 'Would you like a cup of tea before we leave? Maybe a sherry?'
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Vibeke found a parking spot just down the road from the church - its small carpark was full. As Ember gave Mrs Waechter a hand to climb from the back seat, she walked around the car and then closed and locked the doors after them. Then together they headed for the church.
There were a few small shops at one end of the street, and a green around a curve in the road. There was a small primary school and a small public library next to each other. There were rather older terraced houses with bay windows. And then there was the church in its small grounds and graveyard, with a few old trees around it, almost bare of leaves now in the encroaching winter. The church building was made of orange-red brick, with roofs of darker tiles and a simple steeple. It was perhaps a hundred years old and though it did not have a grand design or intricate architecture and did not have the prettiness of an old country church, it was still attractive. The limited grounds were well-maintained but the trees and some bushes allowed to grow quite freely. Vibeke thought that it was a pleasant place and that, in such a small area as it occupied in an ordinary suburb, so much significance and feeling and purpose were captured.
Other people were gathering at the church, some of them entering it, a few waiting outside in the cold, still air of the grey day. Their funeral clothing was predictable, their manner - quiet, supportive, rather pensive, vulnerable in some cases and almost confused in others - were also what Vibeke supposed were common to most funerals. It occurred to her just how many gatherings like this must take place every day, few of them very different to each other, as the living tried to accept but never really understood the passing of the dead.
Mrs Waechter quietly greeted a couple of people she knew. One was a very old lady who was thin and rather stooped, who peered up through thick glasses and smiled as if surprised when she recognised her. The other was a younger woman with rather fussy and heavily hairsprayed auburn hair. She was glad to see Mrs Waechter and it seemed she had been crying.
Mrs Waechter, Ember and Vibeke followed them into the church and they made their ways to the pews. Mrs Waechter sat in front of Vibeke and Ember with friends that Ember knew from the card games they sometimes played. Vibeke sat by a pillar at the end of their pew and Ember beside her; and a younger man of about twenty or so with a woman who was probably his sister settled beyond Ember.
The church's interior was pleasant, the wan but coloured light filtering through the stained glass windows was evocative. Vibeke glanced at a few paintings on the walls between tall, leaded windows. But mostly her attention was caught by the coffin that had been placed before the sanctuary - dark wood in a simple design. She was very aware that Edward's body was within and wondered what he would have thought had he been able to look in and see himself now, and if he would be pleased with the way he had been dressed and set out, and if his expression was peaceful or anguished or haunted.
The organ began to play and the last few people took their seats. There were about forty people there in total.
Then the priest, a balding man with a thin grey hair and kindly grey eyes took his place and the service began.
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The words of much of the service did not particularly touch Vibeke. Grand statements about salvation meant little to her. But the eulogy, and the place, the solemnity, the hymns that were sung meant a great deal indeed. Mostly of course she thought about Edward. And the emotions of everyone present were clear.
Vibeke kept hold of Ember's hand, very aware of the fragility Ember seemed to have had since they had woken that morning and wanting to be there for her love. On the one hand Ember was so full of life and in some ways so accepting of difficulties that she was very strong indeed, yet her sadness today seemed to be almost overwhelming. Perhaps it was simply that, just as Ember could take such delight and pleasure in the simplest of everyday things, such as how just an angle of sunlight and shadow through a window could make her happy, so a sad thing like Edward's death would not only be felt very clearly but also, as Ember felt most things, very deeply.
Vibeke reflected then that she had not known Edward as well as Ember but that perhaps her quiet distress went beyond the loss of her friendship with him and also in some ways beyond his death. She wondered what it might be and hoped that Ember would wish to talk with her about it when she was ready. She would, she thought. Ember did not hold things back from her. The only reason she might wait to tell her anything was if she did not really understand how she felt and so had to become surer of what it was before she could really communicate anything about it.
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The burial took place not within the church grounds but at another graveyard a few hundred yards down the road. Edward was lowered into the ground in an area that had been freed up recently where a dying tree had been cut down and dug up.
Afterwards they went to the wake at a country pub to the east of Otterhampton, about ten minutes' drive from the church.
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'I live life in the present, mostly,' Ember said later as they sat upon a bench outside at the back of the pub. The light was pale and the air was cold, winter very much here and bringing the promise of snow. Across the road from where they were sitting was a hedgerow and a rising field already ploughed for the spring. 'And I think that today I was struck by how the present ends - subjectively, at least. It frightened me, and saddened me regarding others. But then I thought of you and realised how happy I am now. And that I will be happy even when we die to know that we shared such happiness. I have no doubt that I will want more but I think I will be able to accept it. Today it was a bit difficult though.'
Vibeke held her hand and listened. She was surprised when Ember said: 'Are you all right?' She had not really been thinking about herself.
After long seconds she said: 'I am. I just realised that I am sometimes tired in some ways and that I think I can see that tiredness in you too on occasion, no matter the life and energy and excitement we share. We focus on bringing each other happiness mostly, which of course brings happiness to ourselves. I don't know if it was because of difficult childhoods or something else, but it is as if we have found sanctuary in each other and that now we can rest and play and create. In some ways we ignore the rest of the world except in so far as we try to be good for others when we interact with them. It is selfish and unselfish, like many things in some ways. It is also love, and amazingly profound at that.'
Ember regarded her. 'Some people might say we have old souls,' she said with a small smile.
'Yes, they would.' Then Vibeke gave her a small shrug. 'You brought Edward happiness by being his friend, and by visiting him in hospital, and just by being a beautiful person. That is so special in itself, no matter where it came from.'
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Returning inside, Vibeke and Ember listened to many people as they spoke about Edward's life. His small remaining family had many stories of him. His two nieces and nephew talked of how they remembered him as their favourite uncle - though they had only had the one. His sister and cousin, who had not seen each other in many years, reminisced about summer holidays sixty years past.
They all had different ways of describing Edward. None of them were absolutely true but none of them were invalid either. They were simply the ways in which they saw him.
'It's amazing how he touched people in so many ways,' Ember said once.
Vibeke nodded. She thought of how that was true of everyone in the long term: how even the most insignificant action changed almost everything in the world given enough time.
It was amazing, she thought, to learn about what Edward's life meant to people that cared about him and were interested in him.
They sampled and ate the food provided, and drank cups of tea. Vibeke had felt very emotionally aware most of the day and she did not doubt that Ember felt the same and more. Yet they tired quickly too, and Vibeke was a little relieved when Mrs Waechter approached them and told them that she would like to leave. Some others had already left and the wake was drawing to a close.
They politely said their goodbyes, and then headed out to the car. Vibeke did not miss the deep breath of cold air that Ember drew in and exhaled, clearly glad that they were going. Like her, Ember sometimes struggled when she was in a situation where people usually talked a lot and she did not have much that she wanted to say.
They drove back to Mrs Waechter's house in silence except for a couple of comments Mrs Waechter made about how she thought Edward would have been pleased. When Vibeke pulled up in front of her home she said: 'I would invite you girls in but . . . Well, I think I'd like to be alone and I suspect you have had enough for the day as well.'
'That's all right Mrs Waechter,' Ember said.
Mrs Waechter squeezed Vibeke's shoulder and Vibeke patted her hand. 'Thank you Vibeke.'
'Good night Mrs Waechter.'
Ember hopped out and gave Mrs Waechter a hug, then climbed back into the car. Vibeke did not pull away until Mrs Waechter had let herself into her house and turned to wave.
'Time to go home,' Vibeke said.
'Any chance we can climb out of these uncomfortable clothes, take a shower, put on sleepshirts and curl up on the sofa in a blanket with mugs of tea and watch a silly movie?' Ember asked.
Vibeke grinned. 'I'd like that,' she said.
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