The Incomers

by Moira McPartlin

  ‘What about an African princess?’

  ‘Are you a princess?’ Mary wrinkles her nose and looks round the kitchen. ‘A princess should live in a kingdom.’

  ‘I live in a kingdom.’

  ‘No, you don’t, you live in Hollyburn.’

  ‘Is Hollyburn not in Fife, and is Fife not a Kingdom?’

  Mary giggles, ‘Oh yes. So you do, we both do.’ The girl sighs and looks round the room then back to Ellie.

  ‘I love your beads,’ she says and Ellie puts her hand up to cover her juju and wonders what the villagers would say if they knew the real reason for such trinkets.

  ‘My mum doesn’t let me wear beads, she says it is wrong to buy trinkets when people are starving in the world,’ Mary continues.

  Ellie jams her tongue behind her teeth at the thought of the perfect doll’s house. ‘This is a charm given to me by my mother when my son was nearly born. To protect him and me,’ she says.

  ‘Like a St Christopher, you mean.’

  ‘Yes, like a St Christopher.’

  ‘Well, I have one of those.’ The satisfied expression returns to the girl’s face.

  ‘Good, then we will all be safe,’ Ellie says, too quickly.

  ‘Sit here, sit here, ’s more comfortable,’ Ellie says, steering Mary towards the wooden chair with the new red checked cushions she had finished sewing the night before.

  The baby’s black eyes screw up to slits and his face crumples like melting wax as he bawls like a construction truck horn. Mary looks as though the force of the bawl throws her hard against the chair back. She holds the baby at arms length as if he would hurt her with his noise.

  ‘What is it, what have I done?’

  ‘Nothing. He is hungry is all,’ Ellie says as she relieves the girl of her obvious burden.

  Ellie opens the buttons of her dress and eases her swollen breast out of her bra. She has begun to leak into her binding and can now smell the rancid odour of her stale milk. On her walk to the bathroom to wash her nipples, with her breast exposed and the screaming baby under her arm, Ellie is aware of the girl’s eyes on her. When she returns Mary’s eyes are focused on the floor as if examining for crumbs.

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the girl whispers, flicking her eyes to Ellie’s face and briefly to her breast before lowering them to the floor again.

  As the baby’s eager mouth latches on to her breast Ellie feels the satisfying tug of her union with Nat deep inside her belly. She wishes this other child would melt away, but there she sits, staring at them, with her cuts still to be cleaned and tears to wash away. When the child has gone, Ellie will bathe and wash away her alien stare.

  She smiles at Mary. ‘He is very hungry.’

  ‘Is he eating you?’

  A laugh rumbles in Ellie’s chest and Nat shifts in his contentment.

  ‘No, child, he is not eating me.’ Ellie lifts her other breast which rests on her bare belly. ‘This is my milk, Nat is drinking my milk.’

  ‘Milk? Like from a cow? You can be milked like a cow?’ The whisper escapes the lips of this ignorant child and Ellie can see behind the horror in her eyes, unthinkable thoughts and questions forming. Soon she collects these thoughts, sits up straight and looks Ellie in the eye.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ she asks and Ellie wonders how many more questions she has.

  ‘Only when he nips me with his new teeth.’ Ellie clamps down her teeth to demonstrate and watches the girl wince. ‘Yes, little white pincers are bursting through his gums now. In future he will need to be careful; he is strong and has the bite of a crocodile.’

  The crease on Mary’s brow tells Ellie the inquisition is not over but the girl remains silent. The kettle begins to whistle and Ellie stands and pulls it off the ring before returning to her job.

  Mary looks towards the window where a robin is pecking at the oats sprinkled on the sill but Ellie can see her eyes drawn back to the feeding baby. She sees the cheeks that a moment ago held tears now flush red as the girl turns to look at the robin again, then back at the little curly mop head gobbling up its dinner.

  ‘You have never before seen a woman feeding her baby?’ The wonderment in her own voice is even more extreme than the puzzlement painted on this poor child’s face. The girl’s flush deepens but she does not answer the question.

  Ellie wants to prevent Nat from falling asleep just yet so when he stops sucking she stops his feed. His bottom lip pulls forwards and he looks ready for another bellow but he stops when Ellie plops him on Mary’s knee again.

  ‘You play with him, he likes to play.’

  Mary holds the baby in straight arms.

  ‘’S ok, you can hold him closer, he will not bite you.’ Nat lifts his chubby hand up and tries to grab Mary’s nose.

  ‘Look, he likes you. That little boy there sees no one but me and his father, he misses my family.’

  Mary lifts him up and bounces him on her knee as if she has suddenly remembered she has held a baby before.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Nat. Short for Nathaneal. Means “God has given.”’ Ellie lifts her leaf from the basket and compares it to the picture in her book. The book confirms her guess; she is learning these new ways well.

  ‘I am named after the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘Yes, it is a good name.’

  After Ellie rinses the leaves she tears them into a tin basin before covering them with boiling water. A pungent aroma escapes the bowl and fills the room. She is aware the girl is watching even though she is cooing to Nat like a woodpigeon.

  ‘Ugh, what’s that horrible smell?’

  Ellie rumbles her laugh, ‘What? This? This is an old African medicine.’ Ellie tears lumps of cotton wool off a pad from the cupboard above the sink and steeps them in the concoction.

  ‘Africa, is that where you are from then?’ Mary asks as Ellie kneels to dab the warm damp cotton onto the girl’s wounded knee.

  Ellie straightens her back and looks at her on the same level.

  ‘Yes, that is where I am from.’

  Tears have left tracks on the girl’s face.

  ‘You must wash your face before you go home.’ Ellie did not want to speak about Africa.

  Mary wipes her sleeve across her eyes but does not say anything.

  ‘Why do I always catch you crying, Mary? Why is that?’ She can see those eyes fill up again and see the little quiver of self-pity tremble on the child’s lips.

  ‘Don’ know,’ she sniffs, ‘it’s just this place.’ She hugs the baby but sweeps the room with a roll of her head.

  Ellie smiles but stares wide-eyed. ‘What, my kitchen?’

  Mary giggles, ‘No, silly, Hollyburn.’ She rests her chin on the top of Nat’s head and he whips round and grabs a piece of her curls. Mary laughs, untangles the little black digits and examines them one by one.

  ‘I have ten black babies at school. That’s why Carol left me in the wood.’

  Ellie is not sure what she is being told but says, ‘Ten, that’s a large family for such a small girl.’

  ‘I am not small; I am nearly eleven.’

  Ellie sits back on her heels to wait for it all to come out.

  ‘Carol has nine black babies but they cost half a crown and she has been stealing empty juice bottles from the building site on the other side of the water pipe and taking them to the shop for the deposits. That’s how she pays for hers but she was caught the other night and the police went to her door and her dad leathered her with a belt and her mum is ill, in hospital, with something that makes her sleep all day and now she doesn’t have any money to buy the babies. I am already ahead of her with the stars table and now I am going to beat her with the black babies and Mrs Jenkins will give me a prize.’ The girl stops to take breath. She looks at Ellie.

  ‘Carol is my best friend.’

  ‘Is she?’ Ellie asks. ‘This girl, who tied you up and left you in the woods?’

  Mary’s head bows down. ‘Yes,�
�� she whispers. ‘She was the first person to speak to me when I joined the school at Christmas. But she hates me to beat her at anything. That’s all it is. And Eric Creighton is her cousin and he does whatever Carol tells him to do.’

  ‘What did they do to you, Mary?’

  ‘They came to my door this morning. I was playing upstairs, cutting Jacqueline Kennedy pictures out of Mum’s Woman’s Weekly. I love Jacqueline Kennedy, don’t you? Mum made me a Jacqueline Kennedy coat and a hat when I was younger but they are too small for me now.

  ‘Anyway, Mum came upstairs and said, “That Carol Wilson is at the door for you.” Mum doesn’t want me to play with Carol, she thinks she’s common, and I heard her telling Dad that her mum has a problem. Mum wants me to play with that Kate Jenkins, but she’s Mrs Jenkins daughter and I hate her, she’s so perfect; she has pure white hands and shiny hair and smells of Imperial Leather soap all the time. Mum won’t let us have Imperial Leather soap, she says it’s too dear; we have to use smelly old pit soap. Kate is in my class too and Mrs Jenkins teaches her. Imagine having your mother teach you and having to call her “miss” all the time.’

  Ellie nods. James’s mother was his teacher and Ellie thinks when she overhears him talking to her over the telephone, that his mother still expects him to call her ‘Miss’. ‘Yes Ma’am, no Ma’am, three bags full Ma’am.’

  ‘So your mother, she says you were not to go out to play with this Carol.’

  ‘No, she didn’t stop me because we are supposed to love everyone, but she told me to be home by three o’clock, so I can get washed and changed and have my tea before Benediction.’

  Ellie looks at the kitchen clock, two thirty; she will need to take her home soon.

  ‘Carol said we would go to the woods to look for Flannel Foot’s hideaway.’

  ‘Flannel Foot?’

  The girl’s eyes widen. ‘You live beside the forest and you don’t know who Flannel Foot is?’ Her voice rises to a monkey’s pitch. ‘He lives in a hideaway and in the middle of the night he breaks into people’s houses and steals things. But he is so quiet because he wears flannels on his feet; no one in the village has ever seen him.’ Mary looks out the window. ‘Aren’t you scared living here?’

  Ellie shivers. ‘The forest is a safe place. No one comes to this house, not even the painter of your wall.’

  ‘The painter of my wall?’ The question forms as the penny drops into the slot. Mary’s face flushes again but she does not pick up that thread. This child has learned to be selective in her chatter, Ellie thinks.

  ‘Oh, right – anyway, Eric came along. We went to Carol’s den at the building site first then we walked over the pipe and we came into the forest and Carol showed me the graves. Do you know where the graves are?’ Ellie nods but holds her tongue behind her teeth.

  ‘And then they said that they knew where Flannel Foot’s hideaway was but they couldn’t reveal it because he would find out they had and he would murder us in our beds before I had a chance to tell the police where it was. But they said they would take me there but I had to be blindfolded so I would never be able to reveal the location, ever.

  ‘So Eric blindfolded me and they spun me round, and then they started laughing and spun me round again and then I fell over because I was too dizzy to walk and Eric kept shoving me with a stick and I fell in some nettles and stung my knee.’ The tears spring back to her eyes and the self-pity finds its voice again.

  ‘And then Carol says they would put a docken leaf on it and I was to sit on a log and wait until they found one. I could hear them scrabbling about on the ground, I could hear them giggling and then I heard another rustling and a singing.’ She stops and sniffs and looks at Ellie. ‘Was that you?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Well it must have frightened them because I could hear Eric say, “I’ve had enough of this, Carol.” And Carol says, “No, it will be a laugh.” And Eric says, “Well, you do it.” I asked what was happening but they didn’t answer me. Carol says, “Eric, wait for me” and then I think they left me.

  ‘When I tried to stand up I fell over because they had tied my laces together, I took the blindfold off and you were there.’ Mary smiles at Ellie.

  ‘Thank you, you saved me from whatever they were going to do.’

  ‘Ants.’

  ‘Ants?’

  ‘Yes, those naughty children had ruined an ant’s home just so they could put them on you. I think this was their plan.’

  Mary’s face begins to crumble and Ellie holds her hand out.

  ‘No, ’s ok, they are gone, but please find new friends.’

  ‘But Carol is my best friend ever.’

  Ellie stands up and looks at the clock. ‘Come, we must take you home.’ Nat grumbles when she lifts him off Mary’s knee and wraps him in his hammock.

  ‘You have made a new friend here, no? This little boy, he likes you.’ Ellie gives Mary her hand and helps to lift her up off the chair. ‘How is your knee?’

  Mary bends it forwards and backwards and swings her leg from side to side. ‘It is still a bit sore but not bad. Thank you.’

  ‘Good. Come, we hurry, you can tell me of this black baby family of yours on the way.’

  As she closes the door Ellie notices the girl’s reluctance to go.

  ‘You come again soon, this time with no cuts or tears. You come for a cup of tea, my special tea, African tea.’

  The limp is forgotten on the path as Mary skips ahead then turns to grab Ellie’s hand. ‘It will be quicker to go over the pipe.’

  Ellie shakes her head. ‘I cannot go over the pipe.’

  ‘Why? It’s easy. It’s really wide and there is hardly any water in the burn just now.’

  ‘I cannot go over the pipe and I do not agree that it will be quicker.’ Ellie feels her voice change and coughs to clear the strange quiver that lingers there.

  Mary shrugs. ‘Suit yourself.’

  They walk down the wide track which opens onto the road just before the church.

  ‘Tell me, how does a little girl like you have such a big family of black babies?’

  ‘Oh, it’s great, the teacher gives you a card with a photo of a black baby on it and there are squares on the back and each time you pay a penny a square is marked. And when all the boxes are filled with pennies you are allowed to name the black baby in Africa and take the card home to show your mum and dad.

  ‘I have ten black babies because Dad gives me pocket money and I only spend half of it on sweets and the other half on black babies.’ She looks at Ellie. ‘I don’t have one called Nathaneal, I will call the next one after Nat. I have a Theresa, Bernadette, Agnes, Brigit – that’s going to be my confirmation name, she’s the best saint. I’ve also got a Joan and a Matthew – because some of the pictures are obviously boys, you have to take some boys.’ She ticks them off on each of her fingers as she lists them. ‘Paul, Clare, Margaret and Elizabeth. It isn’t fair because there are more boy saints than girls so it is easier to get boys’ names.’

  Ellie stops at the road sign, her mouth is dry and she tastes the bile she is sure is rising from her bruised heart. ‘I will leave you now; your friends cannot harm you here.’ But the girl is not finished. Someone, something has given her permission to continue.

  ‘Did you ever meet any of my black babies when you were in Africa?’

  Ellie cannot speak. This is worse than the Society of the Holy Childhood. Was her own education paid for by a small child spending half their pocket money to buy and own a black baby? Is this the value attached to her people, a trinket; a bauble to be collected and swapped? Why did the nuns keep this from her? Is this child making this up or could it be that some little girl, years ago had a card with ‘Ellie’ written on the back? Did part of this pay for her worn and patched uniform and the watered-down soup while the other part weighed down the young black fathers’ pockets?

  Ellie knows she had been fortunate to have been taken to the mission when she was small; her fathe
r never stopped reminding her it was one less mouth he had to feed and one more convert for the mission. She is grateful for her education but she was the one who was forced to leave her home for it. She was the one who worked hard for the nuns; she no longer owes a debt. This education should have come from her own, independent government, not from the charity of other nations who plundered the land, left it spent and threw it back into the care of a greedy few.

  The restriction in her chest releases as she puffs up with anger; she wants to scream at this girl who now looks at her, expecting some sort of answer to her ludicrous question. She wants to slap that white face – hard.

  ‘No, Mary, I did not know any of your babies.’ She wants to hurt her, to tell her that the children in Africa have no knowledge of her indulgent pennies, but she cannot.

  ‘And please do not call your black baby Nat, there is only room for one Nat and he is here, cuddled up to my back.’

  Ellie’s head is filled with cotton as she trudges home. She wants to walk, walk as far as the river they crossed that first day when she arrived in this pathetic country; walk south as far as she can, catch a boat at the end of this ‘civilised’ island, pace the decks because she knows that she will not be able to stop walking. And once she is on her continent she will walk over desert and through storm and heat and drought and famine until she reaches her mother and she will be welcomed with kola nut and celebration and she will at last be able to stop walking and take her baby from his place at her back and they can be at rest.

  But Ellie knows this is impossible because she has a husband who she has promised to obey and he is visiting his mother, a mother who has not yet set eyes on her own grandchild, because Perth and black do not go together.

  With this thought Ellie decides to visit Mrs Watson, the only person who can give her some comfort.

  The Pairty Line

  ‘See that new pit manager? They say he’s a right bad yin, like.’

  ‘And how dae ye ken that then?’

  ‘Annie Reynolds telt me, eh? Her man works the day shift and the Big Man there comes ower and sterts oan at the men afore they git intae the cage. Checking thir lamps and stuff. He says some o’ them were “contravening safety regulations.” He pulls oot wan eh the apprentices fae the line and sends him hame. Jist like that.’