2. Funerals and Friends

GEORGIE'S BODY WASHED UP ONSHORE TWO DAYS LATER.

Alec's father refused his pleas to attend the service. "You've no place upsetting your aunt and uncle again," his father said, "reminding them of your part in this mess. It's best you stay back."

"Georgie was my best friend. We were mates. How can I stay away? He would want me to come."

"Do you think Uncle Jack and Aunt Lucy could bear to see your face yet? Mates, Alec? Rubbish! Disobeying like you did and taking that poor lad to the Channel on such a nasty day! What were you thinking, boy? No, your place is here with Aga—for some time."

"But I tr—" Alec stopped. He wasn't ready to tell anyone about his pleading with Georgie that day.

"Tried what? What did you try, Alec?" his father asked.

"Nothing," Alec said. "I meant nothing."

"Do as I say and stay here. Aga will need you to fetch things for tea. You'll keep busy, but you are not to leave. Understand, Alec?" "Yes, Father, I understand." Alec watched as his father opened the door and started down the steps.

He caught the door before it closed and followed his father out onto the stoop. He started to call out to ask if he could at least go down to the water but stopped himself. His father had said he could not leave; he would not argue. Instead, he sat down on the stoop and looked far down the street to where it ended. He knew his father was right; his aunt and uncle would do better without him. He was almost relieved to miss the service. He had been to a funeral only once—when Margaret Woodhams, Farley's wife, had passed away. She had been as good a mate as Georgie. Alec's parents had tried to prepare him for his last look at his friend Margaret, but when he saw her lying there in the coffin, surrounded by roses and greenery, she didn't remind him of anyone he had known. Certainly not the Margaret Woodhams he had loved.

Margaret would settle Alec on the flapper bracket of her motorbike, and together they would rumble down to the Channel. Many days, the air was thick with the smell of fish and brine. In the mornings, heavy fog often surrounded the Dover port, hiding the pubs nearby. But by afternoon, when Alec and Margaret picked their way along the water's edge, the fog would have lifted. Ships came in to the wharf to drop their loads, and Margaret and Alec listened as fishermen up and down the wooden planks reported their news.

"Aye, it was a good day to toss out a line near Folkestone, mate," old Charlie bragged to a nearby sailor. "We snared big flounder and snapper and 'ad our fill by midmorning." Then, turning to his dockhand, he called, "Come 'elp me tie up and we'll sort 'em."

"Your fill by midmorning?" Margaret teased. "If that's the truth, Charlie, what are you doing getting back well past afternoon tea?"

"Aye, midmorning—as I say it, I mean it. We spent the rest of the time repairing that petrol engine in me boat."

"Don't listen to him, Margaret," another seaman answered. "He's daft to think he did better than this crew. I'll wager the middle of the Channel's got the best fish today."

Alec, caught up in the banter, would often move too close to the ships, forcing sailors to stop and back him out of their way. But Captain Cairns, skipper of the Britannia, took a special interest in Alec. "You remind me of a young soldier I knew in the Great War," Cairns told Alec one day. "I called that lad 'sonny,' because he was so young—young enough to be my own boy. And he was eager. Aye, like you—had big dreams, he did."

Alec liked the captain. Captain Cairns had the respect of all the workers at the dockyard. A short man with a face that suggested years of sun and wind, he commanded attention. Often, he strolled the docks in the evening, pipe stuck between his teeth, and stopped to speak to everyone along the way. Sometimes, it was just a word about their catch or cargo. Other times, he offered advice about dockhands who tried to pinch a shilling or two.

"Are they good workers?" Cairns asked. "Or can you do without them? If they're good, then it's worth your trouble to thump them into shape. Aye, they'll come around. If they're good mates, I'd keep them," the captain recommended. And his advice was never ignored.

"Cap'n Cairns," the dockhands would say, "now, there's a bloke what knows the sea. 'e's a good man, 'e is. And smart. So proper in 'is speech, 'e won't steer you wrong."

Cairns was rarely wrong about fishing, either. "I've sailed the Channel for thirty years. The best spot? Near Calais. The current's always pulling the snapper in from the lower Channel."

As the men squabbled and bragged, Margaret and Alec would settle on a bench and share the scones and sugared milk they'd brought with them. The smell of fish filled the air. Knives thudded and scraped across wooden tables as the bounty was divided up for supper. Fish heads and tails were tossed into nearby buckets. Alec would watch every movement, thinking only of his dream to join the men one day.

Once the commotion died down, Margaret and Alec would be left to the sound of waves lapping against the dock. Then Alec would watch as Margaret tilted her head back and let the fading sunlight warm her face. He always wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but he couldn't interrupt her moment. So he would sit in silence, letting his legs swing back and forth beneath the bench. Then one day, Margaret surprised him with a question.

"So what's a lad like you doing hanging around with an old tomato like me?"

"You're not old," Alec said.

"I am old, Mr. Alec Curtis. But I'm glad you come to the boats. It would be dreary coming alone. You make my days go faster when Farley's always working."

"Someday I'm going to work on the boats," Alec said. "Then you can come and watch me pull into port and listen to my stories. I'll be earning my wage on the water as soon as I'm done with school."

"That's showing cheek, Alec. Big dreams for a lad of ten." Margaret looked out across the port. "But I think you're going to do just that. You're quick to learn, and a good worker. You'll make a fine seaman."

Alec grinned. Margaret was like that—always telling him what a good lad he was and how proud she was of him. And she had time for him. Some days, when the fog lingered and the ships couldn't sail, Margaret and Alec would work in her garden behind the dairy.

"You have to get the soil soft, Alec," Margaret had once said. "The seeds will do best if the ground is not hard and rocky. Sift through the dirt and throw out the stones so when you dig the furrows and then plant the seeds, they'll have smooth ground to take root."

After he'd prepared the garden plot, Margaret would empty seed packets into his hand. And he would place each seed in the row, careful to cover it with soil.

Margaret trusted him to do the planting right. She didn't have to come along behind him and "fix" what he'd done. She just patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good job, lad. Summer's end, we'll have vegetables for supper."

Alec liked the way Margaret let him be. But his father was not so easygoing. Swiping at the stair rail after Alec's dusting, Alec's father would call him back to repeat the entire task. Or after Alec had built a fire in the grate, his father would come along and scold him for smothering the flames with too much coal. Though Alec could not see his mistakes when straightening the larder or carrying out the rubbish, he did the jobs again and again until his father left him alone.

Margaret was different. If the rows were not planted perfectly straight, she didn't care. "Vegetables grow with love and water; they don't need perfect rows," she would say. Or if the biscuits he'd helped make turned out a bit brittle, Margaret would pop one in her mouth and smile. "Warm and crispy—just the way I like them!" She never sent him back to the market if he forgot something. "I can get it another day," she'd say. "No need to bother with it now."

So in spring, he and Margaret planted her vegetable patch. In late summer, they harvested the bounty, and Alec returned to the inn with armloads of potatoes, carrots, and onions.

Then one day, working in the vegetable patch, Margaret looked pale and went in early.

The next day, she didn't answer his knocking.

"Have you heard?" Alec's father asked his mother that night at supper. "Margaret's not doing well. Farley's with her, but things look grim."

"What's wrong with her?" Alec asked. "I want to see her."

"Not now, Alec," his father answered. "She needs her rest. You can see her in a few days."

But things grew worse, and days turned into a week. The next time he saw her, she looked old and weary. Stretched out in a box at the Church of St. Mary, her hands folded and resting on her stomach, Margaret showed no hint of her familiar smile.

Alec backed away from the coffin and sat down next to his mum at the far end of the church pew. Soon he heard the vicar step to the front and begin his talk. "We're here today to say good-bye to Margaret Woodhams, a dear woman and wife of Farley. Margaret lived well...," the vicar continued, but Alec was no longer listening. He turned toward the windows and watched the rain streaming down the glass.

A few moments later, he heard the rustling of skirts and shuffling of feet as people prepared to leave the church. Not waiting for his parents, Alec darted through the crowd and pushed open the door. He looked back to see a queue of people forming near Farley Woodhams. Alec didn't want to talk to anyone. He closed the door behind him, moved off to the side, and turned his collar against the rain. In a few minutes, Mrs. Tanner and her friends stepped out.

"At least she didn't suffer long. She wouldn't have wanted that," one old woman said, snapping open her umbrella.

"No, Margaret was not one to waste away in her bed," another joined in.

"Well, I think she brought this on herself," Mrs. Tanner argued, ignoring the rain. "Acting like she was always on holiday, riding that motorbike all over Dover and then running down to the shore and throwing rocks into the water. Was she daft? You'd think she would have been more proper, considering that Farley was a respectable businessman and such. But she didn't seem to care; she just carried on like a young lass. No, this was sure to happen. People are supposed to act their age. It isn't natural to expect we can do such foolishness and not pay the price."

Alec could barely hold his tongue. He ran from the church toward home, far away from the gossip. When his parents returned later, he didn't tell them about the women and their words. He wouldn't talk about Margaret.

In the months that followed, he tried to visit Margaret's grave, but he couldn't bear to see her name on the stone. Then one day, Georgie had agreed to go along, and together they hiked up the hill and placed a flower on her marker. After that, the first of every month, Georgie and Alec went to the market and bought one flower for Margaret.

Now, sitting on the stoop, Alec knew he would be visiting the cemetery alone, and he would have to take two flowers. He wondered if his parents had talked to Mrs. Tanner at Georgie's funeral. Nosey parker that she was, she would blast him for his reckless ways. Alec didn't care, because Mrs. Tanner had been wrong about Margaret. Margaret did act her age. She acted the age of her heart, and her heart was young. Mr. Woodhams knew that. Her heart wasn't shriveled and dry like Mrs. Tanner's. She just used it up sharing it with others—sharing Alec's dream.

When he visited her grave, he sometimes imagined he could hear Margaret nudging him on..."Big dreams for a lad. You'll make a fine seaman." Alec wished he could hear her now. She would know what to say about Georgie.

"Alec boy." The voice startled him. He hadn't heard Aga step outside. "What are you doing out here, lad? It's the sadness pulling you here, isn't it? I remember what it was like—when I lost me husband. I should have kept him home. The Channel was rough then, too. But me husband wouldn't have it; he was a plucky old johnny. Not one to listen to anyone once his mind was made up."

"How did you go on, Aga?" Alec whispered.

"That's where your father saved me. When me husband didn't come home, I thought I would stay billeted in me flat forever. But then I knew I had to do something. Would he have wanted me to waste away in some grotty pub, feeling sorry for meself? He would not. Mr. Frank, he dropped in at the pub one day when some bloke was demanding another pint—though he'd already had too many. Your father, he stopped that bloke right then, sent him on his way, and offered me work here at the inn. Aye, Mr. Frank was a bit gruff even then, he was." Alec watched as Aga spread her feet apart, placed her hands on her hips, and mimicked his father: "Mrs. Greshem, if you'll help with our lad, you can have your own room near the kitchen."

She smiled at the memory. "And as you know, Alec boy, I've been doing the work ever since."

And a good worker she was. From the time he could read, Alec had called her Aga—after the nameplate on their Swedish cooker stove. "She's our Aga," Alec had announced. "Our cooker. She's warm and big."

Her body showed her fine cooking. Plump and stocky, Aga waddled more than walked. She was the comfort Alec needed when his parents were busy with guests and cleaning, as they so often were. Even now, she soothed Alec's sadness, leading him inside for biscuits and tea.

Later, when he had finished helping Aga clear the dishes, he took his journal and settled into the big horsehair chair in the drawing room. Looking out the window, he saw the chaps from the dock heading home from their work. Georgie is gone, and I am here. It was my mistake and it should have been me, Alec wrote in his journal. Then he thought about the weeks following Margaret's death. People had gone back to their jobs as if nothing had happened. As if Margaret had never been alive. As long as I live, Alec wrote, after brushing a hand across his eyes, I will be remembering Georgie, and I'm going to make up for what I did. Margaret would say that I'm right to try. She would say that what I decide to do, I'll do.

I will make things right.

Alec closed his journal and leaned back, watching as the first drops of rain crept down the window glass.