McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'Enough! Come on, I'll close my eyes. Hit me and get it over with.'

  I did close them, stiffening my jaw in anticipation of the blow. I heard her step back, and I clenched my fists. Nothing happened. The thought crossed my mind that she would kiss me instead, and at this idea I could not help smiling.

  'You're a fine big fellow, eh?' There was new anger in her voice. 'Presenting yourself like that. Stinking with pride.'

  'Do it!’I said.

  She cleared her throat twice, raking the phlegm. Was she going to spit at me? I wanted to say, 'Hurry up,’ but was prevented by a sudden fear that she was waiting for me to open my mouth so she could spit in it.

  I heard a sound some feet away. Perhaps someone else was come. I raised a hand to cover my lips. 'Susannah?'

  Silence, apart from a soft wind in the grass. I opened my eyes to

  see her walking to the cauldron. She began scouring it again, her back to me. Scrubbing dry lips on my shirt, I got up hoping none had seen us.

  About mid-morning Ferris took me over to the sough.

  'Supposing Sir George lets us live,' he began, 'we should consider winter drainage.'

  'Jonathan says this is beyond repair,' I said.

  He smiled at me. We were standing on the edge of the tumbled pit, the ruins of his first great project. Grass lay in limp ribbons over what had been bare earth, and at the bottom of the bowl there was a kind of quagmire, the water thick and greenish.

  'A frog Heaven,’ he said. 'Still, it drained off the field a bit. You can see the difference.'

  'The frogs will put you down in their histories,' I answered.

  'Though men will not. That's your meaning, eh? I will never be famous.'

  'Famous men have bad deaths,' I said.

  'This is a sough, Jacob, not the Tower of London. Do you think we could smooth out the sides and make it a pond?'

  We walked around it. 'The field could do with more,' I admitted. 'But will we be here in the spring to profit by it?'

  'No,' he said at once.

  'Then why, in God's name?'

  'To see the thing through to the end.'

  'I don't see the good of it.' I hacked at the edge of the sough with my foot and some crumbling clods dropped away into the slime at the bottom. 'Unless Sir George has died,' I said. 'He's choleric, by all ac­counts. Or he might be gone to war.'

  'The heir will be no kinder to us, God rot him.' Ferris clapped his hands together. 'Forget them. I have a notion of a long trough between here and the field, lined with tiles. There are Dutch ones to be had in London, an excellent design.'

  He looked up at me, eyes bright, then faltered. The word 'London' festered in the air between us.

  'You will go see Aunt and bring back some tiles,' I said, as a man

  might say, 'You will go to Paradise in my stead.' It was a feat of cour­age to bring out that word 'you' in place of’ we'.

  "This time.' He looked kindly at me. 'But when Aunt is better, Jacob, you could fetch things. And stay a while in town, since you like the place.'

  I nodded, unsure what London would taste of without him.

  'Well,' he went on. 'I propose that we begin the ditch now. e will have to break off for harvest, but we should do what we can before the ground grows hard.'

  'For noting?' I asked. But I began to warm to the idea. Did he mean, I wondered, that the two of us would work apart from the rest? The hope aroused by that thought was agonizing.

  Ferris said, 'Worst of all would be to fail of our own cowardice.'

  We walked towards the centre of the camp.

  'The corn is coming on well,' he said.

  'Too dry. We need rain.'

  'Have you been for the letter yet?'

  'I will do it now.’ I went towards my hut to collect the money, feel­ing an unease somewhere at the back of my head. It was not the Voice, but something else, and it picked at me like a needle probing a wound. At the doorway I stopped and looked back.

  Ferris was watching me. ‘Are you going now?'

  As I said.'

  My unease grew. Was it because he was come round so quickly after so great a rage against me? Or it might be an ill omen. I would be struck down by someone on the road, maybe even the three who had preyed on Caro: a cudgel on the back of the head and my peace with Ferris sealed forever. I started across the field towards the inn. At the hedge, where we had watched Harry and Elizabeth disappear with their anvil and mule, I looked back. He was standing motion­less near the huts. Having rounded the hedge I waited a few sec­onds and then looked again. Ferris had moved off towards the wood. I hesitated. To go back for no good reason was to act the fool, and I should have the whole journey to make again. Best fetch the letter, if there was one.

  It was hot work walking. I endeavoured to overcome the turmoil in me by admiring the swell of the hills and the deep colour of the

  fields on either side of the road. How wonderful, I thought, if a man could walk here and say, All this is ours, for we work it, instead of This land all belongs to My Lord So-and-So. Then we might stroll or dig or sit us down to rest with a fishing rod, and no one to drive us off. This is ours, as far as the eye can see. No working for hire, for the good things of the earth would be our own. Ferris had said no freedom by Act of Parliament counted unless a man could readily find himself in food and other necessities, instead of selling his body to another to get coins before he could feed. And he further said that it was surely no part of God's plan, if God there be, that the creation should not eat unless they could lay hand on a piece of metal (a thing in itself inedible) stamped with a tyrant's name and likeness. For what was the money, in comparison with the man starving for the lack of it, but a lifeless, soulless part of the creation? And the man but the finest and most precious?

  Fine and precious he was. I crushed down certain images which, born of my heat and the few drops of encouragement he had lately sprinkled on me, were springing up more and more luxuriant.

  The pamphlets were right, I reflected. Though the reading of them brought us to grief, they were the work of righteous men. Then I thought how the colony was also the work of a righteous man and would bring me more grief. With suchlike thoughts I tormented myself the rest of the way.

  Heat swarmed up from the walls and flags as I entered the yard of the inn. A huge rambling rose clung wantonly to one wall, sweeten­ing the blend of horses and sour yeast which hung about the place. As always, the inner part, dark after the sun, brought on an attack of blindness until he eye steadied itself. A pale young girl came down the stairs to tell me that the landlord was in the back talking to the ostlers, and did not allow her to give out letters to people.

  'But he will be back directly he is finished,' said she.

  'Then give me some ale if you please.’ My throat was like sand. I went to sit in a corner booth and she brought me the drink. I could no longer shake off the feeling that had dogged me ever since I set out for the inn. Well, I had not been attacked on the road and I did not think it would come to that on the way back. Could there be a letter to say that Aunt was dead?

  There was a juddering at the bar door as someone tried to come in but was hindered by the bottom end of the door catching in the frame. A crash followed as it flew open, freed by a kick, and banged against the wall on the inside.

  'God damn it, go tell Hector he's to come and take care o' this now,' came an exasperated voice. 'I told him Tuesday—' the angry noise broken off and I saw the landlord's face behind the bar, peering over towards my booth.

  'Come for letters,' the girl said. I swallowed the last of the ale and advanced towards them.

  'Ah yes, sir, I recall you.’ Though the man smiled, his eyes were all over my torn and stained clothes. 'Is Mister Ferris unwell?'

  'Nothing serious. He has a blistered foot, and would rather I did the walking.'

  'Very wise,' the man said. 'There is something for you.' I gave him the money and he groped under some cloths, brought out a paper ad­dressed to Fer
ris and put it into my hand.

  'Won't you read it, Sir?' he asked as I made to step away from the bar.

  'I am not Mister Ferris,' I returned, puzzled at the question.

  'I think you should read it, as you are a friend of his.' He was staring at me. All of my fears and premonitions rose in a wave un­til the small man at the bar seemed as sinister as the Destroying Angel.

  I turned the note about in my hand. It was not Bec's writing, yet there was something familiar about it. Doctor Whiteman?

  'Go upstairs, Nelly,' the man said. Nelly disappeared at once.

  Then I saw the seal, and trembled. A common device, in red wax. Fingers shaking, I fumbled to get inside the thing, tearing the folded corners.

  Sir,

  You are to be rid from the common around the Seventh of July. I cannot be exact as to the date, so take the road now, while your legs are still unbroken. Believe me when I say I have witnessed the business before and wish never to see it again.

  Your friend

  I recognised the character, and the paper and ink. 'What date is it today?' I asked.

  'Let us see.' He consulted an almanac hanging from a nail in the beam. 'Today we are the first of July. Shall I get you more ale?'

  'No.' Six days. I stared at the initials JW newly carved into the wood of the bar. Perhaps I would meet with JW sooner than I had reckoned on.

  'It was brought by hand,' the man said. 'Let me fetch you some­thing.'

  'No. Thank you — thank you—' I ran over to the door and out into the sun, blinded all over again. Out of the courtyard and on the road I kept running, from a frightened animal's need to move. While your legs are still unbroken. My bodily strength was all I had. To be crooked, to walk with a limp—

  I slackened suddenly. When Ferris came out with me that morn­ing to the sough, he had not limped.

  // is nothing, he bound the foot up in rags, I told myself. But my prickle of unease was grown to nausea. Again I heard him ask, Are you going now, and saw Susannah's hands move uncertainly on the cauldron.

  Is it off with the old and on with the new?

  Now you may watch out for yourself.

  She had said enough, had I been able to hear it. I began running in earnest, loping along the road despite the heat and glare. Sweat drenched me, my breath came like an overworked horse's and the stitch in my side would have frightened me into stopping had I not been filled with a terrible rage which fed off the pain. I could have run barefoot over broken glass.

  The flat dry earth made for speed. Soon the haystack came into sight, and the huts, rising and falling as I jerked my head about. Foam gathered at the corners of my lips. I charged at the colony, striking off from the earth, elbowing the air. The last field before the crops was downhill, and tussocky; I plunged over it, bounding unevenly until I came to the cultivated patch. Hepsibah and Catherine stood near the carrots. They turns and saw me, came towards me, and I ran be­tween them, pushing through their shouts and along the furrows, over

  the last section of grass to the wood. I was staggering now. Down the green track I went, slipping, crashing, the brambles lashing at my hands and face. Then I was full length on the grass with a tremendous slam all the length of my body and an explosion of pain in my mouth.

  Trembling from the shock, I raised myself onto hands and knees. At once there was a stab in my right arm. I had bitten the inside of my cheek in the fall, and my chest and belly were stinging from the ground. heat surged in my face, blowing the skin full of blood. I felt I would never rise again.

  It was cool under the trees. Birdsong trickled above me, and the air fanned delectably on my bursting head and neck. Gradually I ceased gasping, and was able to sit back on my heels. The inner part of my forearm had a blackthorn twig buried in it, the spines pressed full length into the flesh. Hissing between my teeth, I drew it out and stared, revolted, at six reddish-black punctures in the skin before roll­ing my sleeve down over them to take up the blood. At last, my breath under command, I rose, finding a painful scrape on each knee. Then I went forward slowly, quietly, some hundred yards or more, until I could just catch the sound of a woman's voice. For the last twenty yards I crept with extreme care so as not to frighten my turtle-doves. He was foolish — O, I would never have thought him so foolish! After all his care to decoy me away they were in our secret place, and in no condition to hear me approach. The run had emptied me of strength, else there might have been murder done. As it was, I stood and lis­tened, and after a while I shook with silent laughter. For after all, it was the stuff of jest.

  There was once a man who heard his wife and her lover together. He heard the secret things the wife whispered to the lover, and said only, 'Yes, that is she.' But then the lover pleaded to be touched, and the husband clenched his fists; and when the man cried aloud then the husband's nails cut deep in the palms of his hands.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Well-Loved Games

  On my bed lay a stalk of ripening corn. I took it up and tore off the head, then bent the straw into halves, and each half into three pieces.

  First of July. breaking the straw into six along the folds I had made, I inserted one of them into the earth at the side of my door.

  Take up the head. It is the seventh. It lay in my hand, too dry no mat­ter what Ferris said. I squeezed until the grains fell away, crushed. It is to be a Golgotha. The pieces of straw lay on the ground, condemned, until I should take them up. You are, and always have been, My own. By this may you see it plain, said the Voice. How could any other head of corn come into the wall, here? The others may dance and shine in the field but the choice is made, unalterable, as between the wheat and the tares.

  He must know by now. Hepsibah and Susannah had seen me run into the wood. None was come seeking me these five hours though they were supposedly digging new trenches. Send Jacob to London. Ha.

  Under a pile of sacking in the corner lay the note, blurred from the rubbing against my skin but still legible. It might stay there and the hut be thrown down over it, until the day it dissolved into earth, like Christopher Walshe. I could present it to Ferris and watch him run about, bruising himself with terror. But then - I hesitated. Whatever came of the colony, if they both lived he would take Caro to town, and that meant he would never shelter me again. This sank into me with such iron teeth, and cost me such a gush of heart's-blood, that I rested

  my head a moment or two on my knees. So soon, to go behind my back so soon. On that morning when Nathan found himself deserted, he probably woke from a dream of loving-kindness, thinking the pack beneath his head to be Ferris's arm.

  I endeavoured to reason, to blunt the edge of my pain. I was not entirely powerless, for it lay with me whether they would marry. I had only to say a few words and put my hand alongside the child's. As for my wife, I had music for her ears also. His having so treasured his honey, his Samson that I ate at his table and lacked for nothing. His proficiency with mouth and arse.

  There is a nobler and more terrible thing. Say nothing. Let them be taken unawares.

  I stared at the scattered grains, and shivered.

  When the cauldron was struck to tell us the food was ready, the day was far from over. I guessed the women, weary of sweated labour in the field, had begun their preparations early.

  My mood was altered. The heat and blood of my grief were gone off; I was passed over to a colder mode of suffering, and seemed to walk as lightly as my deceiver as I went silently over the grass. Sit­ting nearer the fire than usual, I smiled at each person whose glance I caught, ready to sing or dance with anyone who would partner me, and slit their throat after.

  Susannah was on kitchen duty again, and with her Catherine. The older woman doled out my share somewhat more graciously than last time but made no attempt to speak with me. So this is it, I thought. You see me in extremis and say nought.

  We were back to the bad old days of pottage, flavoured with thyme from the fields. I say between Jeremiah and Jonathan, both of whom were very E
saus in their relish for it.

  'You were missed this afternoon,’ Jeremiah said to me. 'We have be­gun the hutches for the grain. Come winter we'll raise a bigger store.'

  'Come winter we won't be here,' I said. 'Tell Ferris to save his strength and yours.'

  He stared at me. 'Susannah said you was sick.'

  'I am sick. And we won't be here come winter.' I hated his mouth full of pottage, hated the half-chewed paste pressed up against his teeth and the snorting breaths he took as he ate.

  'Do you think Sir George will drive us off, then?' asked Jonathan.

  'I know it!’I turned my eyes in his direction, for he ate more dain­tily than Jeremiah. A stone crunched between my teeth and I eased it onto my tongue so as to spit it out on the grass. He went on, 'Where is Brother Christopher?'

  'Why ask me?'

  'We thought you were in the wood with him. You were not, then?'

  'I have been in my hut.' I struck me that Ferris might be run from me while I was planning to run fro him. But no, his stubbornness per­mitted no escape. I had him in a corner, and could inflict what injuries I pleased.

  He was there. I saw him step over some tools lying by the fireside and look about to see who had left them. Caro was not with him. He glanced in my direction and went over to the cauldron to pull out the pot from inside it, helping himself before Susannah could rise from the grass, then sat down cross-legged to eat. I knew he had seen my eyes upon him. Let him wait, and wonder what form my vengeance would take. Since our fight in Cheapside I had understood that he had a particular fear of being held and hurt. The Voice had promised embraces hot and unbreakable. It knew.

  Catherine came up to ask would I help Susannah, Hathersage and herself with the drainage ditch near the dairy; the ground, the said, was hard and they had found large rocks just under the surface. I answered that I would think about it. She was offended and went so far as to tell me I was eaten up with pride.

  'I see you have been talking over my sins with Susannah,' I said. 'Did she tell you all of them?'

  'I speak for myself, but I'll wager she thinks as I do,' squeaked Catherine.