The Lemon Tree by Helen Forrester

Author:Helen Forrester [Helen Forrester]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007392155
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-04-21T01:28:40+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Before he had set out on his trip to Manchester, Benji’s mother, Eleanor Al-Khoury, had told him that, during the night, she had remembered his father saying that Charles Al-Khoury had a daughter. She looked exhausted from much weeping, and she added, as she wiped her eyes with a sodden handkerchief, ‘When your uncle died in Chicago, your dad wanted to bring his wife and child over here, to live with us. I was that upset about – about your dad’s passing, that I forgot. Funny to think you could’ve bin brought up together, in this house.’ Her nose was running and she sniffed:

He had looked down at her rather helplessly. ‘It doesn’t make any difference, Mum. It was my recollection, too. But I was put off by the name Wallace; I thought I’d been mistaken. Now, don’t you cry any more. I’ll look after you, you know that.’ He hugged her, and in hope of comforting her a little, he went on, ‘When I get back, we’ll go and find a real nice memorial for Dad’s grave.’

She rubbed the tears off her fair lashes, and said as bravely as she could, ‘Oh, aye. We’ll do that, luv.’

‘I’ll ask Mrs Tasker to step in, as I go down the street,’ he promised, as he kissed her goodbye. ‘I don’t want you to be too lonely.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ she told him, her face so sad he could have wept himself. She shut the door quietly after him and began to weep some more.

A few minutes later, a concerned Mrs Tasker arrived. She had a seed cake, freshly baked, balanced on her ungloved hand, and she trotted straight into the big kitchen and proceeded to provide tea and kindly sympathy, while the bereaved woman sat by the fire and sang the praises of her Jamie. Mrs Tasker had heard it all several times in the previous few weeks, but she felt that the more Eleanor wept the quicker she would recover. She made the tea very strong.

Mr Tasker had said that the Will held, no matter whether Eleanor was married to James Al-Khoury or not. But Eleanor knew that a wedding cancelled out earlier Wills; if she’d been married and there had been no other Will, Benji would have inherited; and she mentally belaboured herself for accepting the status quo for so long. She wept not only for James Al-Khoury but also for her sadly humiliated son.

While she sipped the tea made by her friend, she recounted to her the story of how the handsome, cheery young James Al-Khoury, who spoke English in a proper funny fashion, had come to her front door in search of a room to rent. ‘He hadn’t even the money to pay for a week in advance,’ she said with a dim smile. ‘But he looked that handsome, I took a chance on ’im. Put ’im in me best room – front ground floor. And, aye, he were lovely.’

Ten months later, little Benji had been born, as Mrs Tasker knew, though it was before she had come to live in the same street.

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