Turf or Stone

by Evans, Margiad

  She went away and slept in a cart, covering herself with sacks and pea-straw. Nobody saw her the next day or night. Easter did not know where she was. A sergeant visited the cottage and while he was speaking to Vey in the kitchen, Ann walked in, dirty, pale, and in tears. The sergeant listened to the story.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he counselled her.

  It made no difference. She went her way. She had a child, but it died. Easter was as unpopular in Pendoig as he had been in Gamus and Brelshope. Stories of his doings and his strange marriage began to go about. He remained indifferent. Instead of drinking at the Pendoig Arms he kept a barrel of cider in the cottage, or if he felt like beer and spirits, rode his bicycle into Salus.

  On one of these expeditions he believed he saw an apparition. He began to be tortured by outlandish nightmares, and for hours afterwards he would lie awake, afraid to close his eyes lest it should invite a repetition of the visions, pondering over sights which he was afraid he might one day meet in reality.

  VIII

  One Sunday evening, towards the close of October, two years after Mary’s flight, Matt was leaning over a stable door at Pendoig, gazing into the loose box beyond. There was the sound of a horse munching, and vague soft movements.

  Easter led out a bay cob, saddled, and stood waiting for Matt to mount. He straightened himself, rubbing his hands as though they were cold, then, drawing a long breath, turned and looked at the impassive figure of the groom. Easter was looking at him; the eyes of the two men met in a long, hostile stare, and into Matt’s face came a curious tensity as though he had been insulted. The groom’s face, yellower and thinner than it used to be, with a perpetually sullen and gloomy expression, changed not at all, only his eyes intent yet restless played over Matt.

  The latter moved forward and gathered up the reins.

  The groom stepped back.

  ‘How long has she been off her feed?’

  Easter shifted his gaze.

  ‘Two or three days, maybe.’

  Matt mounted.

  ‘You take no interest in your work.’

  Easter gave a short insolent laugh.

  ‘I need a change.’

  Matt broke into an imprecation.

  Easter watched him ride out of the yard. He lit a cigarette, spat and put on his coat. The air was raw. From the pigsty came the heavy grunting of a prize sow. Easter laughed again while he twisted the ring on his finger. He locked up and strode through the yard with all his old graceful ease. The buildings behind him, with their narrow black, slit windows and deep sandstone walls of a mottled pink, were sturdy and threatening, like fortresses. The yard was snug and clean, deep in fresh straw, settling to the night. At the gate a thick-stemmed Spanish chestnut had scattered its leaves in the mud, and one of the men, in a faded jersey, torn breeches and puttees, was sweeping them into a glistening green and yellow heap. He wiped his spongy nose and shook his fingers in Easter’s direction. He was Billy Vey.

  The sky in the west was clear and brassy, shedding a metallic light over the fields and buildings which were still wet from midday’s rain. The pond across the lane behind a wooden railing, a big square sheet of water, was trembling in greenish ripples. The horses had just drunk and churned up the mud.

  Easter stood against the railings, inhaling smoke and watching the ducks scramble ashore, where a young boy with a pan and a hazel switch in his hand waited to drive them into the duck pen.

  ‘Lord, what a din!’ he thought, listening to the raucous voice. The boy waited until they were all ashore, then swished the stick and drove them before him, waddling pendulously and shaking their tails.

  The farmer’s wife, hatless, peering, and stout, ran down the garden path, looked over the wall, and flinging her voice in front of her as she returned, screeched: ‘Here comes dad, and the kettle not on!’

  Jones would not turn his eyes in Easter’s direction. He felt a great contempt for him, and righteous indignation against his way of living. The farmer was a Plymouth Brother, known as Slimy Sid. He shut his heavy front door with a clang upon the lewd man bare-headed in the lane, who smoked and stared across the fields.

  At length, Easter moved off. He avoided Pendoig village, and made his way to the cottage by a field path which ran along the edge of a small, abandoned quarry. Passing it, he peered into the red hollow filling with darkness, and chucked his cigarette end into the shadows.

  Entering the cottage, he kindled a fire and ate some bread and cheese. Then he drew a jug of cider which he stood on the hob to warm. He removed his boots and leggings. By rights he ought to have gone up to the stables again at eight o’clock, to take a final look round, but he did not intend to do it. He sat down before the fire, put on a log, and reached for the jug. He thought he would get drunk.

  It was quite dark; it poured with rain, which ceased after a while, and the lights of passing cars stencilled the lines of the window frames on the walls in rapid transitory shapes. The shadow of Easter’s head, with its stiff, tufty hair and harsh features, his bowed shoulders, and the hand holding the jug, was flung by the quivering firelight on the corner of the ceiling and the wall. There was no lamp in the room. Hours passed. A man came striding down the road past the cottage and on up the pitch to Pendoig.

  It was between nine and ten, a night of cloudy moonlight, a pale, shifty luminosity which seemed to emanate from the wind rather than the sky. The man turned into the Pendoig Arms. Coming into the light, he was seen to be a great, swinging chap with bold, full eyes under an overhanging brow, a longish nose and a saucy mouth. His chin was pressed against his neck; his hands were in his pockets. His age was about thirty-five. He wore a shabby overcoat of some fuzzy material, no hat, and carried a small suitcase.

  The only other person in the bar was a pale, refined man in smooth, dark clothes, whose black moustache was twirled into points. He looked at the stranger flatly, then turned away his eyes as though he was not interested. After a second he looked again. The stranger was brilliantly handsome. The top of his head was flat, covered thickly with damp, auburn hair, and the jaw just beginning to thicken, still perceptibly ran up to the ears in a delicate sharp curve.

  ‘Good evening,’ said the pale man in a careful voice.

  ‘Good evening,’ replied the handsome one.

  ‘Dark night.’

  ‘Blowing up for more rain.’

  The pale man thought before he acted. He leant forward, his hands on his knees.

  ‘Excuse me, haven’t we met before?’

  ‘Not that I know,’ the stranger answered, hanging his coat over the settle. The pale man persisted. He actually took out a pair of spectacles, perched them on his nose and leant still closer.

  ‘I’m sure I know your face.’

  ‘I have three sons. Maybe you’re mistaking me for one.’

  ‘Really…’ exclaimed the pale man, sarcastically, ‘how old are they?’

  ‘Forty-four, forty-five and forty-six,’ said the stranger very quickly. He exploded into laughter, turned crimson, and spat into the fire.

  The pale man sat back offended. He took off his spectacles and began to polish them in a finicky way with a bit of red silk. The other’s laugh roared round the room and expired in a glorious exhibition of regular white teeth.

  Suddenly the pale man moved in his seat: ‘Rasp!’ he shouted, as if he were calling a dog.

  ‘Eh?’ said the other, starting, ‘are you mad?’

  ‘I was only calling your dog.’

  ‘I haven’t a dog,’ said the stranger, with a mischievous glance.

  ‘My wife has, though,’ he added, ‘does that help you? It’s one of them little snapping yappers. It’s useful, though. What d’you think I do when my feet get cold? I put ’em in the dog basket and the dog lies on ’em.’

  ‘You had a dog,’ said the pale man; ‘how you jumped!’

  ‘Anybody would’ve.’

  The pale man again donned his spectacles. He was incessantly playing with them.
/>   ‘I’ve placed you now,’ he announced.

  ‘Allelujah,’ shouted the stranger.

  The landlord walked into the room, exposing a gold front tooth in a ready smile.

  ‘Did yer shout?’ he inquired, his head poked forward.

  ‘This gentleman did.’

  ‘Bring me a pint o’ beer, a packet o’ clubs and a box of England’s Glory,’ said the stranger in no strange dialect.

  The landlord did so.

  ‘Quiet for a Sunday,’ said the handsome man, paying.

  The landlord looked at him. He winked.

  ‘Playin’ skittles.’

  ‘Bloody heathen.’

  The landlord grinned, showing another gold tooth, and went away. The pale man nodded, as if to himself: ‘Well done, bravo, for a stranger. He showed a couple – when it’s three you stands a pint. Rare, you understand?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me my name?’ asked the stranger, stretching his long legs to the fire.

  ‘John Lewis.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lewis. He drank. ‘I – I – what a memory you must have! Don’t go shouting it about, though.’

  ‘Have you been up to something?’

  ‘No. I came down here to see one man and I don’t want anybody else. See?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘Name’s Trefor. You wouldn’t know me; your dad did.’

  Lewis was smoking. He pushed the packet of cigarettes across the table.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Trefor, ‘I’ll have a pipe.’

  Lewis stared at his knees.

  ‘Old Rasp died years and years ago. I left ’un down here with Tom Williams.’

  ‘He’s dead, too. Left the farm to his brother, who sold it five years back to Sidney Jones.’

  ‘Ah, did ’e?’

  Lewis occasionally lapsed into dialect and then his speech lost its vulgarity.

  ‘I come to see Rasp once. The bones was stickin’ through ’is ’ide and ’is coat – you know what a coat ’e ’ad?’

  ‘Like a mat.’

  ‘Ay. Well, he was all over sores. I took ’un out and shot ’un.’

  He fingered his empty mug.

  ‘Have one with me?’

  Trefor shook his head again.

  ‘You’re not very companiable.’ He shouted, and ordered another beer. After a pause, during which he gulped and puffed and examined the room from the bacon rack to the skirting board and set his watch by the brass-faced clock, he remarked that the place was changed. This led to a narrative of his unbridled senseless youth, and he recounted how one night they had drunk the previous landlord stupid, put him to sleep on the settle and served themselves. The landlady came downstairs at two in the morning, found her husband snoring and Lewis in the cellar.

  ‘This very settle,’ said he. He kept calling for more beer and tipping it down without showing any difference. He grew white when he was drunk, crimson when he was laughing.

  ‘I can guess who was with you that night,’ observed the pale man, whose cold, grey eyes were fixed on Lewis with a kind of severity.

  ‘You’re a bloody clever chap,’ said Lewis. ‘Who then?’

  ‘Easter Probert. He that’s groom to Mr Kilminster.’

  ‘You’re right. And he’s the man I want to see. Can you tell me where he lives?’

  ‘Nothing like coming sixty miles to see the devil,’ Trefor muttered. ‘Yes, he lives in that white cottage bottom of the pitch.’

  ‘I must’ve passed it. Oy, more beer!’

  ‘That went down quick,’ said Trefor.

  ‘They do with me.’

  The landlord brought another pint. He looked at the clock. It was ten.

  ‘Put ’un down quick, case the copper comes.’

  ‘He’s round these parts,’ Trefor observed, getting up. He turned a check muffler, very neat and clean, around his neck; having finally doffed the spectacles, he put them gingerly in his pocket and slowly blew his nose. Lewis also put on his coat and the two went out together. It was not raining. They stood a moment talking.

  ‘You still in the same business?’ Trefor asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. Had a bit of a dairy for a while, but I went back to the old line. More used to it. Has Easter been long with that Kilminster?’

  ‘Five or six years.’

  ‘Long time for him. Must be doing well…’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. People talk. But we don’t know much about him. He’s given up coming here. Not sociable, you understand. That was a queer marriage of his.’

  Lewis exclaimed. He seemed greatly taken aback.

  ‘Married, is he? Never told me. Who did he marry?’

  ‘Stranger. She was brought up among the gentry or something. It didn’t turn out too well. That’s only talk, though.’

  ‘Well, I shall see for myself,’ muttered Lewis, swinging the suitcase.

  ‘Oh, she’s not down there; she’s over at Kilminster’s. Probert’s half the week there, half here.’

  ‘Well, that’s bloody queer…’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Well, goodnight to you.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  The two men walked away in opposite directions, dogged by their pale shadows.

  The sky was obscure, broken, yet curiously symmetrical; clouds radiated from the moon like rays of darkness. Descending the steep pitch, Lewis could hear the river washing among the branches of a fallen willow. From the village behind him came the measured howls of the dogs baying to the moon. A woman would have been afraid out here alone in this mysterious night, or she would have felt unhappy, restless, disturbed. An imaginative man might have paused on the brow of that hill – Lewis was not so made.

  He possessed plenty of animation, charm, a sort of blowsy vigour, a destructive dreaminess which under mined all the practical side of living, and a wild, wanton humour. But his visions were all solid and selfish, they did not arise like ghosts from immaterial, intangible beauty, they never evoked melancholy, mild fear or maddening panic; they arose like aldermen, mayors, and corporations. Thus John Lewis saw himself a highly successful, wealthy man. The reflection was enough; he was satisfied; reality might go to the devil. In short, he was at least mentally ambitious. He and Easter had few characteristics in common, and here lay the first great difference: Easter had no ambition of any sort whatever, only a primitive longing to see that he obtained an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Easter’s imagination was purely visionary and unconnected with cupidity. Lewis loved, worked, revelled, ate, and slept without noticing where; from earliest childhood Easter had moments when he was arrested by moving wonder at a vast earth and scarcely comprehended sky. Therefore, when he might have lingered, Lewis descended the hill briskly, and, having paused a moment only to light a cigarette, knocked on the cottage door.

  Easter opened it, staggering slightly, one hand raised to his ear which was ringing like a chapel bell. He was half drunk, with haggard, brilliant eyes which could make nothing of the dark form in an overcoat.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  His tone was rude and harsh.

  ‘Get a light and ’ave a look at me,’ Lewis replied, holding the cigarette away from his face.

  ‘I don’t want to look at yer damned mug,’ shouted the groom, preparing to shut the door.

  Lewis came forward.

  ‘Easter, yer old b—’

  ‘God, it’s Jack!’

  Lewis burst out laughing.

  ‘Ay, that it is,’ he exclaimed, grabbing Easter by the arm and shaking him gently.

  ‘Strike me lucky, who’d a thought o’ seein’ you! Come on in.’

  They fell immediately into their old way of talking: Lewis in his loud, boisterous voice, with its flat town intonation, Easter in his swaying, pliant bass, blind by drink.

  ‘I bin over to Gamus and they told me I should find you ’ere. There weren’t no buses, so I had to walk; that accounts for me
bein’ so late. You’re out o’ favour there, Easter, or summat’s up. That Kilminster spoke to me death without mercy…’

  Easter’s only answer was to mutter unintelligible curses, during which his friend continued to pour out whole unheeded sentences and unbutton his coat.

  ‘Well, come on in, and don’t stand on the b— doorstep,’ broke in Easter, impatiently.

  ‘Why, what’s up with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied, holding fast to the door; ‘come on in, ’case you wear an ’ole through to Australia.’

  The two men entered the kitchen, Lewis towering over Easter.

  ‘’Ere,’ said the former, taking the groom by the shoulders, ‘’ere, aren’t you got a light? I want to see yer beautiful face.’

  ‘No, there aren’t no b— light, and my face is all eaten up by worms.’

  Lewis struck a match and held it up to Easter’s face. He stared wild and sullen, his mouth lifted, the pupils of his glowing eyes contracted, the sockets like pits.

  Lewis started back: ‘God, you look pretty!’

  During the years they had not met, Easter’s expression of malicious playfulness had changed and deepened into one of downright ferocity. He was in shirt and breeches, shoeless, with torn cuffs and an open neck. Entirely the kind of man that Lilian, his wife, would have called a lousy tramp. Lewis looked round the gruesome little room, which was hot and smelt of cider, and his eye fell on the two wooden candlesticks holding thick dusty ends of wax candles, unlighted since Easter bought them. He put a match to them, pulled off his coat and threw himself down in the rocking chair.

  ‘Queer old things,’ he remarked, pointing at the candlesticks. Easter nodded: ‘Made out of altar railings. From Pendoig Church.’ He went out and drew more cider. A jug three-quarters full was standing on the hob.

  ‘’Ave some cider?’

  ‘I don’t mind just a tot. Is it any good? ’Ave it got any mettle in it.’

  ‘’Taint so bad. Couple o’ tots’ll warm yer. What made you come down ’ere?’