Just Haven't Met You Yet(78)

Sandy goes to make a pot of herbal tea, and she and Gerry carry on chatting as I sit beside them tapping away on my keyboard and making calls from Sandy’s mobile. I change my flight, email work with an update, giving them Sandy’s phone number and the address at Sans Ennui in case of emergencies. I call Maude from Sandy’s phone, asking if she’s seen my mobile at her house; she hasn’t but gives me Jasper’s home number. I call him and it goes to answering machine, so I leave a message explaining the situation, asking if we can meet for lunch at his place tomorrow.

Having been subjected to hearing all my logistical arrangements, Gerry and Sandy both pretend to yawn at how boring I’m being.

“It’s a wonder the human race survived as long as it did without mobile telephones, isn’t it?” Gerry says, pushing his neck back against his collar.

“You are king of the Luddites, Gerry,” says Sandy. Then she turns to me and says, “He was opposed to the wheel when that came in too.”

“Terrible, newfangled round things,” says Gerry in mock disgust.

Taking the hint, I shut my laptop, return Sandy’s phone, and give them both my full attention. I know they are only teasing me, but now I feel rude to have disturbed their peaceful evening. As we drink tea, they share stories about the island and its history, what happened here during the war. Gerry tells me about the Occupation, how the Nazis used forced labor to build most of the tunnels and sea defenses still visible around the island. A few of these prisoners escaped and were sheltered by local families who risked their lives to help them. He tells me his mother and grandmother hid a starving Ukrainian in the eaves of Sans Ennui for more than a month. “He was called Avel and he loved birds; he left scratched drawings of starlings and seagulls in the beams of the loft, and you can just about make them out if you crawl up into the rafters.”

“Oh, you must tell that story to whoever buys your house,” I say, “otherwise it will be lost and no one will even know the drawings are there—that’s a part of history.”

“A lot of history gets lost,” Gerry says somberly.

We move on to talk of cheerier things, and I absorb their words and stories like warmth from a campfire. Sandy kindly suggests I can borrow her bike over the next few days if I want to get around independently. Eventually she stands up and says, “Right, Gerry, I should be getting you back or they won’t let me take you out again. Strict curfew, they said.”

“Rules are there to be broken,” Gerry replies.

“Not by me.” She holds out an arm to help Gerry to his feet.

“Do you think Ted’s OK then?” I can’t help asking for a final time. I wonder if he’s tried to call me.

“He’ll be back, Laura,” says Sandy.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because he shaved that beard off, didn’t he?” she says with a wink. “I know what that means, even if you don’t.”

Before I can ask her what she thinks it means, she’s helping Gerry over to her car, and Ilídio appears from across the road, wiping his hands on a rag. He must have been in the workshop.

“You boomeranged back here already, Gerry?” he says.

“Yes, and I’ll be back in a few days to check you’re doing your cabinet joints the way I taught you, young man,” Gerry says, waving a finger at Ilídio, his face contorting into a pretend scowl. Ilídio laughs.

Once Sandy and Gerry have driven away, I ask Ilídio, “How’s my commission coming along?”

“Come and see,” he says, beckoning me to follow him back across the road to the workshop.

He shows me the bare bones of what he has made, and I feel excited about how it’s going to look, how much I hope Ted will like it.

Looking over at the window, I wander across to the workbench where the soldering iron stands, running my hand across the pockmarked wood covered in scratches and imprints from tools. How many things must have been created here over the years. The creations of Mum’s I loved the most were the necklaces she made from soldering together solitary earrings that had been bereft of their other halves. This gnarled workbench makes me think of her—of the hours she committed to breathing new life into lonely old stones.

Then I think of the Ukrainian man’s bird carvings in the rafters of Sans Ennui. How wrong it feels that whoever buys the house might not know they are there, that the only remaining physical evidence of the man’s story could be lost. On impulse, I ask Ilídio, “Could I use this workbench?”

“Of course,” he says, “keep me company.”

“Do you have any silver wire?” I ask.

“I have everything,” says Ilídio, walking over to a tall chest of drawers. I follow him and watch as he searches through a cabinet full of tools, buttons, hinges, and cardboard boxes. He pulls out some brown paper bags and inside one finds a coil of silver wire. “I keep all sorts. You never know what you might need. Use whatever you like.”

“I can pay for whatever I use.”

He shakes his head as he gives me the wire.

“Comes with the commission.”



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*

The porch door of Sans Ennui is open. Ted told me they rarely lock the house, which feels so alien to me, a Londoner with two security bolts on my front door. Inside, I call out his name, though I know he’s not there because the drive is still empty. I pick up the shoebox, which is sitting on a window ledge, waiting for me to take it. Then, on a whim, I pick up the jar of sea glass too. My veins pulse with a long-forgotten feeling, the anticipation of what I might create.