In her cold bath Ellie holds her breath, pinches her nose with her fingers and squeezes her eyes tight. The water pulses in her ears. Her lungs burn, she lets out a few bubbles to release some of the pain in her chest but the burning contains it and sets a vice turning.
Some drops of water invade her mouth and when her fingers slacken their grip on her nose, a rush of lavender scented water sends the burning to the back of her throat and lungs before she clamps her mouth shut again.
She can hear the slapping she is making but cannot find the edge of the bath with her fingers. She swallows more water; she grabs again, her fingers slide off the side, and grip the bath and she heaves herself up. Her eyes open but the water is still all around her, a cough brings the burning to the back of her throat.
‘Ellie, for God’s sake what are you up to in there? Do you have the radio on? I thought I told you not to take it into the bathroom.’
A breath finds her swollen lungs, she tries to call out ‘nothing’ but nothing comes out of her mouth. She spits into the water and blows her nose into her hand and tries again.
‘Just coming.’
Her heart is pounding in her throat.
‘Just coming,’ she repeats.
She grips hold of both sides of the bath and hoists herself out. The displaced water creates a wave that splashes out of both ends of the bath. The floor is already wet with her thrashing around; she mops it up with a towel and throws the sodden evidence of her foolishness in the wash basket by the door. James will know nothing of this.
Ellie attempts to wrap a dry towel around her but it does not quite meet. It is one of the bundles of pit towels James brought her back from someone in the village. A present, he said. They are new but they are not as large as the threadbare bath towels she used at the mission. They will not last long, she thinks.
Folded pyjamas wait for her on the floor by the door. She notices that some of the bath water has splashed on one leg when she pulls them on. The soft flannelette hugs her but the cold wet patch of the material clings to her thigh and knee. She feels her left slipper is also wet as she slides her feet into them. It is like plunging into an ice puddle. Sidestepping along the short passage softens the squelching sound of the sole.
At the kitchen door she takes a deep breath and hopes her face and red eyes do not betray her. She pushes open the door and feels the warmth pass over her. James is sitting at the table. The stove door is open and the fire is cracking with fresh wood and coal. The vinegar smell is stronger here and prickles her nose. James’s blonde hair looks shinier than usual and Ellie realises it is because he has turned off the overhead light and has illuminated the room with candles. Candles burn on the table and the window ledge.
James rises to his feet and hugs her. She can smell the outside lingering on his hair.
‘I thought we could have a romantic dinner.’ He smiles a shy smile. Ellie is tempted to ask why, he has not been romantic since Nat was born but the lump in her throat strangles her.
She sits down at the table and begins to cry.
‘Oh no, what is it?’ He grabs her hand and kneels down beside her chair. ‘I tried to get home as early as possible but Mum had loads of jobs about the house for me to do.’
Ellie sniffs and wipes her nose on her hand again. She looks around for a hanky but cannot see one.
‘’S not that.’
‘What then?’
She snuffles loudly and moves to wipe her nose with her hand again but James places his large white hankie with the blue embroidered J in her hand. Ellie looks at the hankie. She hates to wash and iron these, she can never get the creases out of the corners, but James prefers them to Handy Andies. She blows her nose and stares at the table. James pushes the chips towards her.
‘I’ve been keeping these warm in the oven for you.’
Ellie takes one but it is already starting to cool and she sees the fat congealing around the edge like a crust on a fresh wound.
‘What is it, Ellie?’
‘They think I am a witch.’
James laughs a little laugh that is not quite filled with merriment, as if he too believes this but does not want to think about it.
‘What rubbish is this you’re talking about? Who thinks you’re a witch?’
Ellie tells him about Mary and the boy policeman. She sees his fist bunch up and the blue vein on the back of his wrist starts to swell but he does not say one word until she is finished.
He stands up and takes a chip. ‘It sounds like you have had quite a day. I told you not to play with herbs.’
Ellie feels her anger return. ‘What do you mean about the herbs? You say this is my fault?’
But James does not answer her. He takes another chip and begins to chew.
‘Is this the same girl who gave you the macaroni book?’
‘Yes.’
James shuffles his feet and looks at her but does not come and put his arm around her as she wants.
‘I wouldn’t worry too much about the policeman. It sounds like it was just a stupid heavy-handed warning. He’s probably a new recruit.’
Ellie feels her heart sink. Once again her husband makes excuses.
‘What about Nat?’ she says.
‘What about Nat?’
‘He said I was to be careful – as a mother.’
‘Don’t be soft, Ellie, that doesn’t mean anything, it is just something policemen say.’
‘What about the nurse? She says this too.’
‘What nurse?’
‘Nurse Lynn. She said I was to go to the doctor and register him. She said I beat my baby.’
James blows out a breath which fluffs up his fringe. ‘She wouldn’t say that.’
‘She did say that. Why do you not believe me, husband?’
‘I do believe you, but she’s right, we should have got you both registered with the doctor. I’ll take you next week.’ He picks up another chip. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t taken much interest in your life since you came here. It is taking me a while to get used to you being here.’
The hands that lift Ellie to her feet are strong and sure.
‘Ellie, no-one is going to hurt you or Nat, or accuse you of being a witch or take our baby away. I will make sure of that.’ He takes her face in his hands and looks into her eyes. She can see her own reflection which makes her uncomfortable.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says at last.
‘For what are you sorry, husband?’ she says, even though there are niggles in her heart that all is still not well.
But he remains silent as if he does not know or does not want to tell her. The candles on the window ledge drip wax onto the sink and hiss. James turns from her.
‘Where did the daffs come from?’
‘Daffs?’
James points to the jar filled with white flowers with their yellow eyes staring around the room.
‘Daffodils?’
Ellie smiles, she had forgotten the kindness.
‘Dod.’ The word sounds strange on her tongue. ‘I have never heard of Britishers being called Dod?’
James pinches a corner of the tiny petal. ‘Short for George,’ he mumbles then turns to her. ‘Have you been up to the house?’
She remembers the pleasure she took when she lifted the bowl onto her head, her neck felt strong and proud again. When she is sad she will revisit that memory and reignite the kindness. She will go back to the hoose soon, she thinks.
Ellie looks around her kitchen, she will take a present, what will she take? Tea, she will make some nettle tea.
‘Dod is going to teach me how to make food for the garden. Mrs Watson keeps her vegetable scraps and they go into a heap to rot, worms eat the food and it turns into food for the garden. This is clever, is it not?’
James pulls a petal off the flower and Ellie moves to take the jar out of his destructive grasp. James does not seem to notice.
‘My mother has a compost heap,’ he says.
Ellie sits in the chair opposite
him and waits like a fisherman on the riverbank.
‘When Dad was alive he would turn it for her, he would take out the top layer and then dig the bottom out. The bottom was rich dark earth that he would spread over borders to nourish them.’
The petal is thrown on the table. ‘Mum still adds her scrapes each week but doesn’t have anyone to turn it and spread it; it just sits in the corner rotting while paid gardeners stomp all over her roses and ignore what is there for them to use. She watches from the safety of her conservatory. She tries to tell them, but they don’t listen. They are her gardeners, she pays them a fortune, but because she is old they take advantage of her.’
This is the most James has said to Ellie about his family since she and Nat arrived in this country, she believes. She is frightened to break the flow but knows she must ask him a question.
‘What do you want to do for your mother? What do you do in this country for your family when they become too old to work on their land? Where is your motherland? Where is her village? Her village should help her spread this food compost.’
James sighs and moves to the window, to snub the guttering flame out. ‘I am her family, I am her village.’
‘If she came to visit her grandson, maybe she would not be so lonely.’ Ellie cannot bite back her tongue.
James picks up the newspaper and flicks the overhead light on. The abrupt light makes Ellie blink. James throws himself into the chair by the stove; the chair with the new red cushions she made with some scraps of material her mother sent. Her husband has not noticed them and yet they have been finished now two days.
‘Don’t start that again,’ he says. ‘I’ve told you she isn’t ready.’
‘When do you go back to your mother’s house?’ Ellie asks.
‘I need to go back next week, I need to persuade her to sell that house; the house and garden are too big for her.’
They sit in silence for a few minutes. James rustles his paper and pretends that they have finished their talk. Ellie struggles to find a word to say. Her husband loves her, she knows this, so why does she feel so alone?
After each word of the newspaper has been read, James stokes up the fire and leads Ellie to bed. Sister Bernadette had always told her never to go to bed on an angry word and although her questions remain in her and she is sure her husband will protect her, Ellie knows if her words spill now he will become angry and sullen. The questions will wait until another day.
She wants to believe they have found each other again and although she enjoys his body, enjoys the warmth she first felt when they shared a bed on the wedding night in her village, something gnaws at her bones and like a termite in wood, allows a chill through the walls of her soul.
It is Sunday and the house has the silence of the forest that surrounds it. Ellie looks at her husband sleeping beside her, content with the love-making of last night. She knows he will sleep for another hour if Nat allows. When Nat calls out James will lift him into bed beside him and she is sure they will soon be warm and snoozing.
There is just enough time to make the 9 am mass. Today it seems appropriate. Her strength has returned and she must display that she is not to be easily beaten.
She slips out of bed and dresses in her pink and orange outfit. As she captures her wayward curls in the matching scarf she remembers the black mantillas of the village women: so drab, so depressing. Outside, Ellie breathes in the moist air with the pleasure of a new day. The green shoots that yesterday had been piercing her garden have opened into bursts of yellow yolks nodding her on her way. The black bird with the orange beak is agitating around smaller buds of purple and yellow; his brown mate, somewhere out of sight, sings Ellie her now familiar song.
Ellie hears the woodpecker tapping in the woods. James has told her she would soon hear a cuckoo and this makes her sad because she knows what cuckoo mothers do to disrupt the family. The cuckoo tells you summer is on its way, James had said, be happy with that.
‘Be happy with that,’ Ellie says to herself.
Her feet drift along in light steps in the shoes she hasn’t worn since the last time she went to church but then she had been driven. She is used to her red wellies; they make her feet sweat but are robust and comforting to her in the soggy ground of the forest.
As she walks her Sunday route up the winding road and through the gates with the lion guard, she begins to examine her motives for attending this mass. Is it to face her accusers or to ask the priest to appease her soul for her violent thoughts towards a misguided child? The spring in her step ceases as she see the cars file through the church gates. Groups of parishioners are walking towards her, families with two or three children, some laughing, others with their heads bowed watching their feet move one in front of the other.
One lady, stooped over a silver walking stick, seems to crawl up the road, and Ellie wishes one of the many cars would stop and offer her a ride to the door. Not one does. Some parishioners nod to Ellie as she approaches. She is the only one coming from the big hoose, and no one seems surprised.
As she walks through the church gates, she sees Mary with her father and mother, speaking to Father Grattan. He is shaking Mr Gallagher’s hand while Mary beams up at them like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head. The girl Carol steps out of a car and marches towards Mary. Mary waves to her and then sees Ellie. The colour in the little girl’s face fades from pale to ashen; she turns and scuttles into the church. Father Grattan moves from Mr Gallagher’s side and exclaims,
‘Ellie, so lovely to see you!’
She is aware of the change in Mr Gallagher’s face, from simpering sainthood to murderous death. He grabs his wife’s elbow and looks around, it is obvious he does not realise his daughter has already escaped. He seems confused; maybe he believes Ellie has magicked her away.
The priest clasps Ellie’s hand in both of his. They seem to pull her towards him and away from danger. He looks tired; a cough is bubbling in his throat and he drops her hand to bring a hankie to his mouth and coughs roughly: it sounds like the rattling of bones in the sorcerer’s bag. It sounds painful and Ellie thinks of the remedies in her book and realises that perhaps the priest is like Mrs Watson’s sister, beyond the help of any medicine.
The girl Carol pushes between them and cheeks up to Ellie.
Garbled noises come from the girl like the radio station that needs more twiddling of the dial. Fast syllables with consonants and vowels of a foreign language seasoned with a few snatches of English.
‘Pardon?’ Ellie says.
The girl’s eyes roll towards her forehead.
‘Ah said, where’s yer wee bairn the day?’
‘Don’t you be so cheeky, Carol. Mrs Mason will have left Nat at home with his daddy.’
‘That his name then - Nat?’
‘Enough, Carol, go and take your place – Was that your Die brought you here? Where are your mother and father this morning?’
At this the girl’s eyes change from challenge to sadness and the priest coughs in regret.
‘Tell your mother I will come and visit her tomorrow, would you do that, Carol?’
‘Yes, Father,’ the girl says, her shoulders slump as she slouches up the steps into the church.
‘I shouldn’t have done that – forgive me, Ellie.’
‘I am not the one to apologise to.’
Ellie wants to walk up the middle of the church to be engulfed in the pageantry of the mass, but instead she tiptoes around the back pews and down a side aisle. Coward, she thinks again. She shuffles into a seat which is not too close to the rest of the parishioners. A hymn she does not recognise is being played from the side altars by an elderly man with hair the colour of the flesh of coconut grown on the banks of the big river.
Ellie kneels and says a prayer of thanks for the health of her baby, her husband and her mother. She sits back in her seat and closes her eyes to wait for the service to begin and to listen to the shuffling and whispering around her. A sharp cough brings her back to awa
reness. A man the height of a palm tree and with a face of chiselled stone is standing by her side. Thick black-rimmed glasses cover inscrutable eyes. A large hand, nails chipped and soot-scarred, grips the bench at Ellie’s side. She does not understand and her eyes must tell him that because he says,
‘Yer in ma seat.’
Ellie looks at the empty benches to her front and back and side and indicates these to the man. He shakes his head.
‘Naw, hen, yer in ma seat. Ah always sit here.’
Ellie slides her bottom along the bench a couple of feet and the man slaps into the seat she has just vacated, kneels down and joins his large scarred hands in prayer. She looks around sure that everyone is looking but all heads are lowered over hymn books or covered by black mantillas.
At the end of mass the priest leaves the altar and enters the sacristy while the final hymn is still being sung. Ellie is aware of the large man stepping aside. Past him squeezes Mary. She grins at Ellie before she sits down between the two adults. Ellie feels a panic in her breast. She does not want to speak to this girl. She does not want people to see. She looks to her right and left, where are her parents?
‘Hello,’ Mary whispers.
Ellie remains quiet, intent on her hymn book. She keeps her eyes fixed to the front and decides she will escape as soon as the hymn is over. She looks to the left – the old lady with the stick sits at that end, surely she will leave early? But when the hymn ends both the old lady and the large man kneel to say parting prayers.
Mary sits back.
The Incomers Page 13