wasn’t conducive to kissing. Wilfred didn’t know much about these things but he knew that much.
The following Saturday when Wilfred entered the cottage, Flora was standing. Wilfred had pictured her resting on the blanket again, but this time she was standing in the centre of the cottage, wearing a simple linen dress, her dark brown hair held high on her head. And she was here, she had come. The message had said, The cottage, the cove, Saturday. Wilfred had hoped, rightly, that the message meant more than just that one, first Saturday last week.
‘Hello, Flora,’ he said, and he was surprised by the sound of his own voice. Last Saturday she had been mute apart from a gentle, ‘Oh,’ when her earring had fallen into her lap. She had neither greeted Wilfred nor bade him farewell. She had sat serenely and patiently and then left by bicycle.
‘Hello, Wilfred.’ Her voice was fresh and cool with a strong Welsh lilt. They could speak to each other! Wilfred realized. There could be even more than the rich silence they had when they met before. There was a whole world of talking to Flora. But then there was a pause, a silence after the enormity of their first words – and the silence moved into awkwardness as Wilfred tried to think of something to say. It was a charged pause, difficult to shift. Now they had spoken to each other once, it was possible, necessary and natural that they should speak again. But what to say?
Wilfred’s mind reeled, increasingly panicked. He knew the men in the Rugby Club would have suggestions: ‘Make a joke,’ the lads said. ‘Make her laugh and take her dancing.’ It seemed good advice, but this wasn’t a dance in the Queen’s Hall and Wilfred didn’t know many jokes – cracking jokes wasn’t part of the undertaking trade. He could only ever remember two riddles: What’s the difference between an onion and an accordion? No one cries when you cut up an accordion. And: What’s got a mouth but can’t talk? A letterbox. No, thought Wilfred, that wasn’t funny at all. And Flora might think it was rather an odd thing to say, like that, out of the blue: ‘Hello, Flora. What’s got a mouth but can’t talk?’ Flora might think he was a bit deranged, not quite the round shilling.
As an undertaker he liked to be able to have something to say at solemn occasions and this was a momentous occasion. But it wasn’t a funeral. Wilfred was beginning to realize that the profession of undertaker wasn’t much use to him when it came to matters of romance.
‘Hello, Flora,’ he repeated. It wasn’t a very imaginative piece of conversation, but then he heard himself say it again: ‘Hello, Flora.’ A third time! His self-consciousness grew to enormous proportions. She would think there was something wrong with him. With nothing to say for himself! And him owning a business! He glanced at her and saw that she was smiling and there was a warmth in her deep-set brown eyes.
‘Hello, Wilfred.’ They smiled at each other and Wilfred took in Flora’s beauty. It was difficult not to stare; the soft down on the nape of her neck, the gentle way her body was held together and the silkiness of her. She was so lovely, he thought.
Wilfred reached out and placed his hand around Flora’s shoulder. Then he stood beside her, accidentally bumping her slightly. It was difficult for men – he knew this because he had thought about it – to touch women gently and easily. Men’s bodies were for rugby, for great, big, clumpy movements and bashing into people. And he, like most men, had large hands. Craftsmen made intricate objects with their hands, he himself did dovetail joints on coffins, but compared to the refined quality of Flora’s downy skin and the grace of her body, his hands would always be large and clumsy, his touch would always seem butterfingered. Women – apart from the really old, fat ones, and the ones from Carmarthenshire – were nearly always daintier than men. With Flora he felt like a dog trying to touch a china figurine with its paws. But Flora was smiling; she liked his hand stroking her arm, self-conscious though Wilfred’s gestures were.
When Flora spoke, Wilfred was startled all over again.
‘I have my blanket.’ She went to the fireplace where there, as before, was the same simple cream blanket buckled in a leather strap. She leaned down and