by H. E. Bates
The journey back was longer, more painful, more confused with shapes, colours and noises than the first had been. Yet at the back of all this was a dim sense of satisfaction that he could distinguish a shape from a colour, and the chest-of-drawers from the bed.
He lay down again, tired out. He shivered awfully, placed the money on his chest, and lay gazing at the sky. How far off it seemed, how many stars there were! And he thought: ‘If I could lie here and count all the stars I should still live a long time.’
Yet if he was to go on living there would be no farm, no cows, no orchard to live for, and he thought of how unhappy he would be.
How unhappy he was! His feet were numbed and the money, which he had placed on his chest, was too heavy ever to be lifted away again, and heavy also were the spasms going through his heart and the pain where the ball had struck him.
Suddenly the ball rolled by again and with the ball came a smell of frumenty. Then both were gone.
The room seemed to grow darker. Farther and farther seemed to stretch away the sky, the Milky Way and the stars. For one instant Israel longed desperately for lines to catch eels with, for summer, for the red ball of his childhood. And when none of these things were attainable he caught himself sinking into a sadness without terror, but with reproach and with regret.
‘If only it had been different,’ he thought.
He closed his eyes. And suddenly the young fir-tree, most graceful and lovely, stood up in the darkness before him. And whether because of this or not he knew that his life could not have been different. He saw this sadly, but clearly. And he saw suddenly the face of the man who had come and given him details of the burial of his pigs, the depth of the pit, the amount of lime, when swine-fever had come. And this to him was horrible and he shrieked: ‘Leave me alone! For God’s sake go away!’ Then he was quiet and lay still, listening. In the stillness it seemed to him that he heard the sound of bells on a winter evening. They came closer, jangled in his ears, and then died in the distance. He pursued them, trying to catch them as he had tried to catch the ball and the smell of frumenty. But they escaped him. Silence and darkness came, and he lay listening, longing with all his might for sounds, for shapes and light.
And suddenly the fir-tree appeared again, dark and sad-looking. Its branches trembled, whispered and sighed. And it seemed to him that they were whispering, ‘We are falling, we are falling.’ And he felt he must reply to them, ‘Fall on me – I shan’t feel you, I shall never know.’
Somehow he expressed this thought and waited. His body felt light and frail, like a shell. Yet he longed for the tree to fall, cease its agony and cover him.
And suddenly in the branches of the tree a lovely commotion began, as of gladness and relief, all the leaves seemed to shake with laughter, and the tree did fall.
And in that moment his beard gave a sleepy droop, his hands fell away from his chest, and he paused to draw a long breath in which, too, was relief, thankfulness and an end.
The Baker’s Wife
Again and again, shaking with anger, his voice bellowed up the stairs:
‘Janet! Janet! when are you coming down?’
But the woman in the bed only hunched her shoulders, and shrinking deeper beneath the sheets, remained silent. The flame of a candle standing on the chest of drawers at the bedside reeled and uprighted itself, burning with a proud, long sheath of light. In the shining eyes of the woman, as she watched it carelessly, its reflections were sharp and bright, giving them the same air of serene indomitable pride visible in the slow twining of a single black curl about her long right forefinger.
The voice called again, imperatively: ‘Janet, Janet!’ For a moment the motion of the finger went on, then suddenly the hair fell in a dark ringlet across her uncovered breast, and she answered slowly: ‘I’m coming now,’ and swung her feet to the floor.
She carried the candle with her to the dressing-table and set it against the clock there. The hands stood at half-past three. She shuddered and yawned, then went to the little cracked washstand in the corner and dipped her hands into the water. Her fingers moved like the pale feelers of some slow water creature, listless and dispirited. Her movements were apprehensive, too, as if she expected every moment another reminder from the voice below, and she brushed her hair in long, nervous sweeps that set her ears tingling, and stared at her young face in the glass from under lashes that blinked swiftly, as if repressing desperately a flood of regretful weeping.
And then again the voice from below startled her: ‘When the devil do you think you’re going to be ready, eh?’
Her lips moved quickly in a sharp reply and snapped together again. The other voice growled:
‘Every one else is on the road. Didn’t they wake you goin’ past? For God’s sake hurry!’
Without another word she dressed quickly, almost viciously. From the road outside the low rumble of passing vehicles reached her, with the sharp clap of horses’ feet and an occasional shout. When she had finished her hasty dressing she drew up the blind in impatient jerks and looked down into the street below. Between the long gulf of dark houses was passing a ragged procession of wagonettes, carts, vans and traps, each with its pair of lamps shining over the shadowy figures of the riders, men and women and even children, huddled together in the chill summer darkness. The sight seemed to weary her afresh and suddenly she blew out the candle fiercely. In the other houses there were no lights, and except for the lamps passing endlessly below, and a few stars hanging over the roofs in the clear sky, the sombre darkness was unbroken.
As she was descending the stairs, the warm smell of fresh-baked bread rose and met her. In a moment her nostrils seemed to quiver with nausea and she stood still, trembling. Then her husband came running from the bake-house, loaded with a great basket of fancy rolls. She could hear his breath hissing through his teeth. He caught sight of her standing there, and shouted as he passed out: ‘Don’t stand there like a dummy! Do something! You see how late we are!’
When he returned his mouth was full of bread. Angry and excited, he thrust a basket into her hands and told her to work. She obeyed without a word, but he filled four baskets to her one. She shuddered when he came near her. Everything – the sight of his lank figure, its pale, thin face running with sweat, its shirt wide open at the chest, its apron flapping like a dusty flag about his knees as he scurried hither and thither, its long, lean arms, its splay feet thrust into untidy slippers – was all hateful to her in its meanness. She flung her basket of rolls and pastries carelessly into the cart outside. One or two were damaged and thick jam ran from their wounds.
In the bake-house she asked: ‘About breakfast?’
He pointed to her damaged pastries which he had discovered and brought in. ‘Clear your rubbish up,’ he sneered. ‘And be quick!’
She snatched a roll. An oath was flung at her, but a moment later he shuffled off again, stuffing the pastries greedily into his own mouth. As she stood there eating tastelessly, a grey light began to penetrate the floury windows, and she heard some sparrows set up a confusion on the roofs outside. But the signs of dawn only seemed to increase her aversion against the day which seemed to stretch endlessly before her.
Less than an hour later they drove off through the grey light of the street. The dawn had still not come. The long, continuous procession was still phantomlike, the singing sound of its wheels mysterious, and its figures like a crowd of fleeing refugees. Only the bluff hails of the men and the shrill shouts of the women and children revealed their destination.
‘Burton Fair again! Burton Fair!’
‘By God, the years roll round!’
Often the baker would join in with hoarse, croaking greetings to his friends. At his side, however, Janet never spoke, but locked her arms across her breast and tried to keep from shivering. As they drove on the chill air began to awaken her hunger and sometimes, when the horse fell into a walk, she would catch the sweet smell of warm bread still rising from the cart beneath. But she
said nothing. The sensation of hunger grew into a pain. She began to wish she had eaten greedily, like her husband, but she remembered the long hours of twisting, weighing, and twisting the dough until midnight and recalled her sickness at the sight and touch of the rows and rows of pale, unbaked shapes that were to be sold at the fair on the following day.
Once she fell into a doze, but her hunger woke her again. When she looked around she saw that the sun had risen. The long line of vehicles had put out its lights while she slept. And now on the grasses and wheat-ears, over the waving red oat-stalks, on the spiders’ threads in the hedges, and dripping from the trees, everywhere she could see the heavy dew shimmering exquisitely. Overhead the larks were singing. Along the hedge-sides blackbirds squawked in terror, brushing off the dew with their wings. And whenever she bent her head against the breeze made by the motion of the cart, she could feel a faint mist settling in cool dampness on her face and hair.
A long hill, arched by great beeches and elms, came into sight. She watched the thin dark line of carts climbing it laboriously. On the nearer vehicles she could see the ribbons on the horses and women begin to sag listlessly, without a flutter, as the horses slowed down. Under the trees there was no wind. The thick roof of leaves rustled with the sound of wheels grinding, and of voices chattering gaily, and the sun threw stripes of gold between the trees on the glittering harness and the bright heads of the women.
She suffered the climb in silence. The hill seemed interminable. All the horses blew out great rays of cloudy breath and groaned heavily. Then, just as it seemed they would never reach the top, she was conscious of something green flashing by, mounting the hill like an arrow. Like her, every one followed with astonishment the course of that bright green trap, ascending effortlessly. The ring of its horse’s hoofs was like the crack of bullets in a quiet wood. The whisper travelled along the line like a spark:
‘It’s Sinclair. It’s Sinclair!’
Janet held her breath. The spot of green rose higher, flashing in the sunshine, never slackening, until the vast cluster of trees at the summit took it into its breast. Around her the chatter of the women and children went on. Those who had come farthest began to eat bread and meat and pies. Sometimes a bottle, poised motionlessly, would catch the sunlight and glitter like a star. The baker stuffed his mouth with bread again. To his grunts of invitation she shook her head vehemently. It was as if in its breathless passage up the hill the green trap had snatched away her hunger like a thief.
For the rest of the journey she did not speak. Her eyes remained staring ahead, as if she had some grievance with the horizon already shimmering with heat.
By noon they had erected their stall in the fairground. The great spiral brasses of the shows glared fiercely in the sun. The sky, like a hard blue gem, immovable and dispassionate, seemed to imprison the heat beneath itself. From the earth rose a dust of cinders and fine straw, thick with the smell of paraffin oil, which began to settle on the stacks of bread and pastry under the awning. In the relentless blue heat of afternoon Janet and her husband worked on and on, selling desperately. The very breath of the man, hissing quickly, seemed avaricious.
‘Wish we’d baked more. Wish we’d baked more,’ he whispered.
She flung a handful of coins into a bowl and bit her lips in silence.
‘Wish we’d baked more,’ the voice hissed on, ‘Wish we’d baked more.’
Sweat whisked from his forehead when he leaned forward, falling on the bread in shining golden drops, like sovereigns. The bowl grew heavy with money. The sight of its immense pool of silver and copper dazzled her. Filling up the empty spaces in the black trays she glared bitterly at the streak of sunlight just edging across them, the first timorous hint of evening. It crawled slowly as if sick of its own heat.
Then into that oppressiveness fell a vision of the green trap dashing up the long, tiring hillside. A breath of the fresh summer dawn seemed to rush under the awning, revolutionise her whole expression, and for a moment give her an air of girlish expectancy and grace. Then at her side her husband rubbed his hands noisily, winked and said:
‘Ah! Ah! A-a-a-ah!’
It was his harvest. Her own visions succumbed beneath its weight without a murmur.
Evening came at last. A double paraffin lamp shot out its smoky flame over some red and white game of chance long before it was dark. In the still, light air it burned steadily. It was a sign of opulence. By and by others flashed out, too. Some magic flung a dazzling circlet of blue, green and red and gold about the shadowy head of a great roundabout. A siren screamed into the sky, as if proclaiming that miracle of wonder. The harsh, returning echo seemed to bring down the twilight.
The baker tried to light his own battered lamp, but a fierce blue flame darted out at him like a snake and he gave up the attempt with words:
‘See well enough, can’t we? See by the lights each side. Plenty of light.’
And when she complained that she had difficulty in seeing the change, he snarled: ‘Paraffin might drop on the bread. Might ruin us. I can see – surely you can.’
His harvest went on. In the three years of her married life with him there had been no better. He gloated over the diminishing heaps of bread, over the pool of silver and copper in the bowl, over everything that passed through his hands. His only regret was a constant hissing through his teeth: ‘Wish we’d baked more. Wish we’d baked more.’
Suddenly she missed the sound of his voice. She discovered herself alone in the stall. Lifting the flap of the awning she called ‘Jack! Jack!’ in the direction of the cart, but he did not come. She called again. Sitting down on a box she resigned herself after the bitter reflection:
‘It happened last year. Now it’s the same again.’
She ate a piece of bread and took a drink of stale water from the bucket under the counter. Too tired to light the lamp, she watched the bright river of faces moving tumultuously past her. The last of the pastries vanished. The single remaining roll she tried to eat, but it fell from her hands into the bucket, floating there forlornly. She sat staring at it, astounded at her own wastefulness. Fear swept over her face, then regret, then suddenly and without warning, that same joyous grace of once earlier in the day, transforming her as the dew had transformed the oat-stalks, the grasses, the leaves and even the stones in the sunny dawn. Strange bluish lights seemed to laugh among her hair. Her hands played restlessly across her breast, as if solacing some painful ecstasy there. Her head dropped to her hands and both became still, as if she were lost in the remembrance of an immense wonder.
Aroused at last by the sound of a voice, she could not immediately banish this frame of mind. The brassy jangle of the organs reasserted itself like a pain. There seemed to her no reason why she should suffer its infliction, why she should relinquish her moments of poignant reflection, even why she should answer the voice asking questions above her head.
Nevertheless she raised her head at last. For a moment she did not move again. Then she stumbled against the bowl of money as she got up hastily and gestured pitifully to the figure of Sinclair asking for bread.
Her voice was a whisper: ‘We’ve sold it all.’
‘All? But you can find me something?’
She shook her head with a wan smile. They stood looking at each other, Janet’s eyes uneasy, the man’s in a profound stare fixed on her face. Then a whisper passed between them:
‘Where is your husband?’
Her hands sprang to her mouth, as if to suppress a cry.
‘He’s gone – he’s gone somewhere. Do you want him? Why do you ask like that? Why do you ask?’
In answer he beat a perplexed tattoo on one of the trays with his swagger-cane. His eyes lowered. At once her own swept up and fed on the changing expressions of his face, on his piercing eyes. Next moment he glanced up and caught her fully in this excited act. Her glance fell at once to his breast, to the smart check of the coat, the tip of the yellow bandana peeping from the pocket, the gold scarf-pin,
to a medal for shooting on his watch-chain, and to his brown muscular fingers.
‘You say you’ve no bread?’
‘It’s all gone.’
‘And your husband – he’s gone too?’
‘Yes.’
His glance swept in a half circle towards the lights. She saw their reflections run in a coloured panorama across his black eyes. Suddenly they swung back and stopped, utterly motionless, transfixed, as if fascinated by some magical thread in the coarse grey awning hung just behind her head. He bombarded her with a fusillade of whispers, of which the last seemed to strike her with deadly effect:
‘You have not forgotten?’
Her lips hung a little apart, poignant, perplexed. The word ‘forgotten’ burned in her head, actually as she imagined a bullet would have done. Its painfulness, sometimes usually warm, at others stabbing violently, left her utterly still. The jingle of mechanical music reached her as the sound of a hymn might reach a dying man – the faint remembrance of a detached existence, irritable, pointless, remote.
She snatched up a roll of striped awning suddenly, holding it across her breast, as if for a protection.
He caught the words ‘Impossible – going to shut up – a long journey.’
She vanished. Reappearing, she stretched out the canvas and hung it across the front of the stall. Her actions, quick, unpremeditated, flabbergasted him. His hands hung motionlessly at his side. She muttered disjointed things: ‘Close – be here half the night – darkness.’
And within the stall, where he found himself following her irresistibly, there was literally darkness like the strange dense air of just before dawn, still, expectant, inscrutable.
And there was a smell of paraffin which he forgot abruptly in locating her figure. A heavy jingle of money reached him. With outstretched fingers he groped towards it. ‘Janet! Janet!’