Lewis drank, wiped his mouth, and set his hands on his knees.
‘Thought I’d come down to see you. Fact is, I ’ad a bit of a brainwave.’
Then he thought he was going on too fast, so he broke off and began to relate how he had met Trefor in the pub. Easter sat silent, still with his hand to his ear, and Lewis studied his features closely.
‘How the hell have you been getting on lately?’ he ended, as he felt the jug with the back of his hand.
‘Not so bad.’
‘Doing well?’
‘Not so bad. But I say, ’ave some more o’ this cider.’
Lewis held out his china mug. The firelight exposed his butcher’s hands, large, spongy, and puffy with frequent dipping into water. Easter’s were dirty, narrow, and callous. The silver ring shone.
Lewis rocked the chair.
‘Come on, Easter! Tot it out,’ he cried exuberantly. ‘Let’s ’ave another drop. We don’t meet every day…’
‘Come on, then, swallow it down. You drink so slow, a person mid think you’d summat in yer throat.’
He again refilled the jug, and the two of them drank faster. Lewis was not quite sure what it was he wanted to say. He kept jerking out questions.
‘Got married, I’ve heard?’
‘Ay, couple o’ years back.’
‘Well, what d’you think of it?’
The groom glanced stealthily at his only friend.
‘I’d as lief be over ’ere on me own,’ he said with infinite reserve.
‘Go on, all yer troubles are over when you’re married.’
He began to rock the chair violently. To and fro he swayed, a mad grin on his face, his cider slopping over:
‘I’m always glad I was married,
Oh, I’m always glad I was married,
My Lilian’s a treasure,
A – and a pleasure!’
‘Got any youngsters?’
‘One boy,’ said Easter, staring between his knees, his mug trembling in his fist.
‘I got a girl an’ two boys. You never told me you was married. Dammit, you never said nothing.’
‘Go on, pull into that cider – you’re slow, aren’t you? ’Tis getting flat.’
‘I baint used to that, mate. Had none for years since I been up in Manchester. Might upset me…’
‘Oh, she wore a belt…’
He was singing loudly.
‘Go on,’ said Easter in a throaty mutter, ‘get it back – it won’t ’urt tha. Come on with it, ’taint every day we kills a pig.’
Lewis’ confusion was increasing. He sang songs muddled up with an account of his life in Manchester, his shop which he had just had painted, his wife who was going to have another child soon, even his squabbles and how he got the best of them all.
Easter got up reeling and went into the back kitchen, a cold, stony place where he kept the barrel of cider. He now had to tip it. It was streaming with rain again; a regular depressing drip-drip came though a weak spot in the roof, forming a puddle in a broken flagstone.
The candles were flaring, while grease poured over the rim. Lewis was rocking again. Crazy shadows swayed on the ceiling, the chair creaked:
‘Oh she wore a belt
Whenever she felt
A pain in her tiddly push…’
‘Who did yer marry, Easter. Anybody I know?’
‘No, you wouldn’t know ’er.’
‘Well, you ’aven’t moved, so you must a met somebody round this district. Come on, out with it! I bet you got round Kilminster’s bloody cook.’
Easter growled like a baited dog. He filled his mug, spilling cider on the ashes.
‘Come on,’ he said, his fierce eyes on Lewis, ‘drink hearty and never mind about that piece.’
Lewis put his trembling lips to his mug, but persisted: ‘Well, tell us, who didst tha marry, old ’un?’
Easter’s throat swelled, but he made no movement and no answer.
‘Come on, out with it. Was it that girl, Doris Watts, that wouldn’t kiss tha…?’
‘Oh, curse you, curse you. Can’t you leave me be? What d’you want to know for? What the hell’s it to you? You be no doctor. Don’t ask me no questions. For God’s sake, don’t. What d’you come down here for, poking and prying? Want to find out all I been doing… Christ, what’s it to you?’
His strident outcry bewildered Lewis, who sat staring with watery eyes.
‘Surely we can know who one another married – we’ve always been pals. ’Er isn’t as bad as all that?’
‘I haven’t no pals; I haven’t no wife. Now bloody well shut your rattle or get outside,’ Easter vociferated, staggering to his feet.
‘I’ll bloody well close your trap,’ shouted Lewis, beginning to peel off his coat; ‘I’ll clump you one,’ he roared, the garment dangling from one arm as he became entangled in the sleeve. ‘That’s yer tune, is it? Come on outside if you’re a better man than me. We’ll soon settle this lot. Got yer bloody hasty on you, I should think.’
He stumbled and fell into his chair as Easter’s fist swept downwards across his face and the blood began to trickle from his nose. An arm of the chair crackled clean away and was left hanging. He wrenched at it and, with a jerk that nearly made him sick, pulled it clear, a horrible weapon with a nail on the end.
But the groom also had fallen back and lay with a ghastly livid face and twitching, gaping nostrils. Lewis held on to the mantelpiece, and the bit of wood fell from his hand. For several minutes he felt too ill to move, but, recovering a little, went and stooped over Easter. His eyes were open and he was moving his shoulders. A drop of bright blood fell on his face as Lewis pulled him up.
‘Come on, Easter; you don’t want to be like that. We don’t want to fight. You be takin’ me the wrong way. Up with you.’
Easter sat again on his stool, his head bent. There was a long silence. Lewis’ drunken eyes were heavy and swimming.
At length Easter spoke, sullenly: ‘I’m not so struck on marriage, Jack. I don’t want to talk about that lot. ’Taint me she wants.’
‘You want a woman like mine,’ said Lewis.
‘God, no! I don’t want no woman at all.’
The row died down as suddenly as it had broken out. Lewis went on talking drowsily, and Easter continued to be quite silent. He was not drinking now, but he heard very little of his friend’s murmurs, which developed now and again into song.
An hour later, maybe, Lewis went to fill the jug, stumbled over the chair and sat down on the floor, where he sat, gulping from the jug and squalling,
‘She took quinine
and chloride o’ lime
to cure the pippity-pop
Until she came
a what’s ’er name
a travelling doctor’s shop.’
‘That was a day we had that smash up. Remember?’
Receiving no answer but a heavy nod, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and continued: ‘We was only youngsters then, not quite so steady as we are now. Hell, it was a smash up. Our dad didn’t ’alf cuss. ’Ad to ’ave the float done up… smashed the float… poor old mare…’
He emptied the jug: ‘Well, that was all right. Easter, goin’ to ’ave some more cider? ’Ave to be up in the mornings now?’
‘All right… all right.’
Lewis pushed the hair away from his temple. His eyes were running terribly: his cheeks were of a bluish pallor.
‘My head, too… look, you can still see the mark. I’ll tell you what I come for. Well! Be damned if I can remember. I bin an’ got too much of this cider. I’ll ’ave to see you in the morning.’
Easter lifted his head.
‘Ah, that’s it. Leave it till morning, and ’ave some more cider. ’Ave some bread an’ monkey’s elbows.’
Lewis, however, had fallen asleep. Easter lay down on the floor with his head on his friend’s legs. The fire had gone out.
At first he lay like a log, stupefied, dead, for all his pulsing heart. And then, af
ter an hour or two his brain began to work all out of gear, causing great drops of sweat to break out on his forehead. His disconnected dreams were so horrible, so gloomy and terrifying that they half woke him, and he started up on his elbow to stare around him, pressing his unavailing eyes against the thick, cold darkness, groping with his fingers along the stone floor. He did not know where he was, nor what he was doing; only that there was a horrible flavour in his mouth, that he was a living thing – somewhere, that his last ghastly vision of a white, sculptured head was torturing him. He saw it again, trembling; the marble smile, the quick expression on the beautiful face, the white and sparkling brow, an effigy of a murderer on a great stone tomb.
His extended hand touched Lewis and it seemed that he had put his finger on the core of dread; his very heart paused and then leapt back to living in vehement bangs against his chest.
In the midst, sleep broke over him again like a vast breaker. He was buried, not in the black vacancy of deep water, but in the flying, stinging, outside spray of unconsciousness, and in this restless, tormented sleep he burst into a violent passion of weeping and woke himself by his own convulsive sobbing. His mouth was shaking, his lips salt, but this time he was broad awake, and he stood up, trying to recollect where he had put the lantern. He did not really want to light it lest he should come face to face with the shame of crying like a youngster in the dark. Now he was quite a man, hard, unbelieving, and proud – himself entirely who had no grief.
He opened the door and stepped into the road. It was night no longer. The moon had gone down, and in no quarter of the sky was light visible, yet he could make out the grey, torn shapes of clouds whose rents revealed the stars were failing, and the solider chain of hills behind which the sun would rise. The earth and air were fresh as though all human breath had blown away, nor was there one human sound. He walked a few solitary paces along the road as though he were the only man alive. A quick, cold wind ran through his hair, a sudden shower of drops from an elm fell on his upturned face. Then a cock crew, haughtier than a trumpet, imperious as an archangel’s summons. It was four o’clock. He returned to find that Lewis had been awakened by the air blowing through the door. He was sitting up and passing his cold hand over his head, while he cleared his throat and feebly moved his legs. The two of them were very stiff from lying so long on the stones. Easter lit the lantern. They badly wanted cider, but they found it was all drunk, and cursed before the empty barrel which yielded no more than half a pint, even when they tipped it steeply.
‘If I don’t want a livener this morning…’ said Lewis fretfully. He thought of his usual arising from a feather bed, and the pleasant way Lilian had of making tea.
They stripped and pumped on each other’s necks, Lewis white and clean all over, Easter tanned and dirty. Then they rekindled the fire on the ashes, brought out the ham and ate a few mouthfuls. Lewis lit a cigarette and told Easter the reason for his visit. He spoke in a hoarse voice, rubbing his rough chin and looking across the table with dissipated eyes.
He had a plan. He wanted to return to Salus and set up as a pork butcher; there was a business going, but he needed a little money to put to his own. It struck him Easter might have money after all this time. As he talked, the colour came back to his face. He was very ardent and persuasive. Easter sat, clasping one foot on his knee, his dusky eyelids dropped.
Well, had Easter any money?
The groom answered directly: yes, a little.
How much?
Two hundred pounds. His eyes were still lowered, his head inclined towards his shoulder as if in deep reflection. He knocked the ash off his cigarette against his callous foot.
Two hundred pounds! By God, that would do it! How did he get it?
Saved it.
Would Easter think it over?
Yes, and let him know within the month.
Lewis was more than satisfied. The groom repeated his words of the night before: he needed a change.
‘You’re bloody mysterious,’ observed Lewis, leaning on the table. He had taken a little comb from the suitcase and was combing his auburn hair. Still without raising his eyes, Easter smiled. The position in which he was sitting, his immobility, and the rays of the lantern striking upwards, revealed how deeply bitten were the lines on his forehead, how sunken the flesh.
As soon as it was beginning to get light, the friends parted, Lewis returning to Salus, Easter going off to the stables.
Lewis stopped and looked back at the cottage.
‘Two hundred pounds!’ he exclaimed, amazed.
He went over his shabby friend’s appearance, his way of living, his unpopularity, even Matt’s curtness the night before.
‘My word, I’d like to know more about him!’
He caught sight of Easter for a moment, striding along the edge of the quarry, arms swinging, easy and graceful.
Lewis had lost most of his former geniality and warm-heartedness in petty calculation, but now for a brief space he wished he knew more about Easter as a man. He walked on, puzzled and, for some reason, vaguely sorry.
The day turned out stormy and cold. Rain fell in lashing showers, dead leaves whirled. Women kept running in and out of their doors, fetching and putting out washing which, in the fine intervals, blew from the lines till Pendoig seemed to be in the midst of a white gala. The sharp, heavy flapping of sheets was heard on every side.
Easter rode by Vey’s cottage. He saw Ann outside, standing on the muddy path, disentangling a long roller-towel from a clothes’ prop. Her fine brown hair was all over her face, her hands and half-bare arms were red and soapy.
‘A bad washing day,’ shouted Easter.
‘Yes,’ she screamed, as a wet shirt flapped in her face.
In the middle of the morning, when Easter was preparing to take himself off to The Gallustree, the boy who worked for Matt rode into the yard on his low, red bicycle. He held the shiny handlebars in the middle and wore his cap back to front. He was a fair, thick-skinned youth of twenty-one, short, cheerful, with wide shoulders, a skinny waist and a bull neck.
‘Hullo, Easter.’
Easter answered in some fashion.
‘Old Kilminster come off yesterday.’
‘He did! Where?’
‘Rigg’s Pitch. Mare went down clean – slipped on them flints. He went over her head: ’twas funny.’
‘Hurt?’
‘Nah… right as rain. Scraped his hand a bit. The mare stood still like she was saying “Anything wrong?” I laughed, but it do make you afraid.’
‘The roads are awful. Well, so long, Cyril… keep your eye on this ’un. Off her feed.’
‘So long,’ said Cyril, and began to whistle.
IX
Phoebe was having a music lesson.
It was past four, getting dusk, and her master had just lighted a lamp. His old house looked out on a churchyard; the branches of the tall, silver birches brushed the window. The heavy curtains were undrawn. The room was long. In one corner an electric stove gave out a dry exhausting heat. The furniture comprised an armchair, a couple of music stands, a low-fronted chest of drawers on which lay a violin, and the Blüthner Grand, at which Phoebe was sitting. The board floor was bare.
The master stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. She stopped. The piano hummed like a choir of supernatural voices ascending to heaven. She took her foot off the pedal and there was dead silence.
‘I knew you couldn’t,’ said the master. He had a thick, Jew voice. ‘I told you you couldn’t play Chopin and, what’s more, you never will.’
‘Why not?’ cried Phoebe passionately.
‘You are too serious! It wasn’t badly done, you understand… but Chopin… he is laughing all – the – time. I’ve told you fifty times and – you – will – not – listen, you are so headstrong. Now you’ve had your way, you’ve failed, you see you – cannot – play – Chopin. Remember that: you – cannot – play – Chopin. Say it after me: one, two, three. I – cannot – play – Chopi
n.’ She was silent.
‘Ah, you’re obstinate…’ said the Jew balefully. He was a withered little man with a dark skin and a tangle of unshorn grey curls. He spluttered when he talked, wore canvas trousers, and frequently soliloquised. The townspeople thought him almost disreputable, but Phoebe’s grandmother knew what she was doing when she sent Phoebe to him. He had quarrelled with the organist of Saint Mary’s Church, whom he had utterly routed in a battle of correspondence through the Clystowe Times, and when he wished to be particularly unpleasant or harsh, imitated the organist’s hiccuppy way of talking and walked about the room on his toes, twisting his hands and blowing through his teeth.
‘I will play Chopin,’ said Phoebe suddenly. She had grown even more obstinate.
‘Ah…!’ he made an impatient gesture.
‘Now get up. Listen to me.’
He sat down to the piano.
‘I know I cannot play the piano; I am a violinist. But I can do better than that. Now listen.’
He pursed his irascible mouth and began. His hands were brown and supple with rather large joints and short, flawless nails. It was true that he did not seem to be able to play very well, but with all his faults he contrived to get at the quick of what he was playing. His method was unfinished, strong, domineering. Under his hands the music took on a kind of mournful, subtle humour.
He turned to her.
‘You see?’
Phoebe nodded unwillingly.
‘But how can you prove he was laughing?’ she asked triumphantly a moment later. The Jew was used to the expression on her face at that moment. He jumped up exasperated.
‘Miss Kilminster, you are like a little child, asking “Why does two and two make four?” I cannot prove it; there’s no need. I know! In theory you can prove anything. We, too, have our grammar, our multiplication table, but there is a time when all that is past – we enter a new region where there’s no proof, only understanding – sympathy?’
He added the last word doubtfully as though he were aware of its poverty, then resumed as he saw she was about to speak.
‘Bah!’ he burst out violently, ‘there are no words. You may know your grammar. Good. You can sit down and write out verbs. But you cannot write a living book…’
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