“It wasn’t so much,” he shrugged.
“Not so much you didn’t cry? Guess it was the wind I heard northering.”
“Ellen—”
“I’m not meaning to make you feel bad. Honest. Don’t I know we both have it hard?” Her blue eyes were very bright.
“Why don’t we run away,” he said dully.
“Sure we’d do fine. You twelve and me going on fifteen.”
“I’d take care of you.” Tom looked up to gauge her reaction. She was transferring tarts to a big oak paddle, then carrying them toward the oven, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Oh damn,” her hands tipped sideways suddenly, and the tarts cascaded onto the hearth bricks. “Ruined. Every one.”
Tom stooped to help her pick them up. “Bake them, anyway.”
“They’re covered with ashes—”
“Please?”
“What for?” She sounded bitter and sad. She banged the paddle back onto the table.
“Because you made them for me, and I want you to.” Tom stood facing her, his fingers seemed to float up from his side, and he touched a strand of her dark blonde hair.
Ellen put her hand on his wrist, but he didn’t want to let go of her, he moved his hand to her shoulder.
They were the same height, but he was thin and angular where she was already softly rounded.
Suddenly she was crying. She leaned forward, and he felt her wet face against his throat, her shoulders trembling.
“Hold me, hold me,” she whispered through her tears.
His arms went around her waist.
“Kiss me,” she said.
Tom looked in her eyes, hesitating.
“I want you to.”
“El—” Tom stared at her lips, swallowing hard.
“Please.”
Then her head darted forward, and he felt her mouth cover his. Her tongue parted his lips, and she tasted sweet. Ellen kissed his chin, his cheeks, his neck—
“We have to, we have to,” she said, “so when he comes in the night I can pretend it’s you.”
Her mouth opened hotly onto his and he kissed her again, even as he felt the hot dagger of hatred for his father.
***
The rain drummed louder and louder against the windows. He’d kissed her until his mouth felt rubbed raw. Ellen wanted him to do more—she even unbuttoned the top of her sprigged dress and her naked breasts lay against the white flannel of his shirt. He was intensely aware of them, the warm fragrant smell rising off the flesh, the skin itself—a tawny golden pink. Her small palm lay over the back of his hand, moving with his as he circled and caressed. Her nipples were softer than anything Tom had ever imagined.
“You can kiss them, if you want,” Ellen whispered, but he couldn’t.
Tom was suddenly aware of the acrid odor of charred meat, the stew pot sputtered, bubbling wildly with a throaty sound. His hands fell away from her. “The dinner, Ellen! Quick, it’s burning!”
“What of it?” Wearily, she turned her back and began to button the cotton dress.
Tom snatched the rod and swung the pothook away from the fire. “She’ll hit you,” he said.
“I’ve been hit before.”
He studied her. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“I have something to tell you,” she began.
Anxiety flashed through him, a static charge.
“I made the tarts as a farewell present…” she paused. “In a couple of months your mother’d have the priest after me, and they’d send me away anyhow. Do you know what I’m saying?”
He shook his head.
“I’m going to have a baby—”
He cut her off. “You said when he came you could pretend it was me. You just now decided to leave! I asked you to run away before, and that’s what gave you the idea—the rest about the tarts is a lie!”
“Well what of it?” Ellen said. “Don’t you see it’s just sooner than later, when…when I’m disgraced. I can’t face my mother, I have to leave.”
Her voice was hard; Tom wondered if she was convincing herself. “I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No, stay and get what you can.” She wrapped up some cheese and bread in oiled paper. She put the food in a garden basket. Ellen pawed through the cupboards, but he couldn’t see what she took down from the back shelf. It was wrapped in a towel, and she slid it under the hinged lid of the basket.
He watched her lift an old brown wool cape from the peg, then slip into it.
“You mean this minute? You’re leaving this minute?” Panic flooded through him. It was happening too fast.
She put one hand on his shoulder, then she ruffled his hair. “I’m glad we kissed,” Ellen said. “We can remember one another by it. Always.”
“Don’t go.” He clung to the drab cape. “Don’t.”
“You’re sweet. I love you.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. Ellen stepped away from him.
“No, you can’t, you can’t—”
He watched her open the back door. He saw the four lichen spotted stone steps that led up from the kitchen. The rain blew in sheets. His mother must be in the barn now, Tom thought. “You can’t go. It’s raining,” he said.
“Be careful of Rose,” she said. “Those stories about her? They’re all true.”
Then she was gone, hurrying up the stairs, ducking slightly as she emerged under the porch above, then bending her head against the wind and wet.
Oh Ellen, he thought, why couldn’t you wait until I was older? He sat miserably in the chair by the hearth a long time after she was out of sight.
If his mother caught him in the kitchen, he’d have to admit he’d known Ellen left. When the rest of them found out she’d run away there was going to be a family uproar. His mother would rave and shout. And his cousin, the one person who could make him feel better, was gone.
He opened the rolled edge of one uncooked tart and licked the currant jelly. Wet. Soft. Sweet. Yielding. He closed his eyes and poked around the pasty with his tongue, pretending it was Ellen’s mouth. He should have kissed her more. He should have done more.
Overhead, he heard the heavy thump of the front door shutting. Tom dropped the sweet and raced for the back stairs. He was almost to the parlor when he remembered the very last words she said. His chest burned with sorrow: His pig of a father had used up his pretty cousin, Rose was a hag, Ellen was gone.
- 2 -
Noreen frowned. “Well I don’t know as it should be me as tells her.” They didn’t expect May to be back for at least a week. She ladled the stew into a plate and passed it to Cedric. Tom watched the bowl circling the long table in the dining room. It stopped in front of his grandmother.
“She’s your sister, my dear,” Cedric said, handing another steamy plate round.
“Not that you’d open your gob. You wouldn’t say shit if you had a mouthful.”
Tom’s brother Bob snickered.
“Quiet and eat now. Be grateful to God you’ve meat on your plate,” Noreen glared. “Say the blessing, Delia.” His mother bowed her head, and his poor slow younger sister recited as much of the grace as she remembered.
“You’re not eating Tom.”
“It’s burnt,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s burnt.” He felt the eyes of the others on him. No one, not even Cedric had said a word when his mother had brought in the reeking tureen.
“Thank your slut of a cousin.”
His face blanched. He pushed the plate away. “I’m not hungry.”
“What about the rest of you, then, eh?” She looked at his brothers toying with bites of bread, ignoring the stew. “There won’t be any waste while I’m alive, do you hear?”
Tom put his hands in his lap. No one answered her.
“You hear? Think I’m going to give it to the pigs? I won’t. If you don’t eat it now, it’ll be on your plate for breakfast. And you’ll find it
at every meal until you finish it.”
Cedric opened his lips very wide, as if, Tom thought, it would somehow make the taste go away, and pushed a potato in his mouth. He grimaced.
“Delicious,” Rose said, laughing. Then she upended the bowl, dumping the thick stew into her lap. She tweezed a limp carrot from her dress and gobbled it.
“Rose.” His mother banged her fork down.
“From the lap of the gods,” Rose said. She tilted her head back and finger-fed herself a chunk of meat.
“All right, get out of here, all of you.” Noreen began cleaning up the old woman with one of the frayed muslin napkins. “Delia, scrape these plates!”
His sister hesitated, fear widening her eyes.
“Just give it to the goddamned hogs,” Noreen shouted.
Delia began to cry. She crumpled into a corner and flung her arms over her head.
“Oink, oink.” His grandmother went on trying to eat the mess in her skirts, her hand finding its way around Noreen’s fluttering napkin.
Tom felt his stomach roil. In his haste to get away, he pushed his wooden chair back so hard it fell over. He slammed the door on his mother’s shouting.
***
It had been four days since Ellen had left. Auntie May wasn’t back from the market. At supper every night his mother debated what they should tell Margaret about the disappearance. Every time Noreen brought the subject up Tom felt like he could never eat again, and Noreen got angry. “It’s not burnt, it’s not,” she shouted.
She was making Delia do the kitchen work. His sister made cabbage soup three days running. Noreen decided May could cook when she came back. Tom could take over what chores his aunt had done. He had no illusions that it might include going to town. She made that clear.
“I’ll explain it to you, how to make sure they’re not cheating us, and you can go Cedric.”
“Bob, perhaps—”
“Bob’s needed here.” His mother dipped bread into the boiled cabbage.
“It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to, my dear, but my manuscript is at a state—a state where I shouldn’t like to leave it just now.” Cedric smiled, then took a deep drink from his glass. He was the only one who had wine with dinner. The others got ale on special occasions and cider the rest of the year.
Tom saw the look in his mother’s eye as she glanced at the brocade vest, the ruby color of the wine in the only goblet in the house. He realized suddenly his mother had gotten to the end of her patience. Whatever reasons she indulged Cedric all these years were coming to an end.
Noreen wiped her mouth and flung the crumpled napkin next to her plate.
“What manuscript, Cedric?”
Tom shivered at the contempt in his mother’s voice, but his father didn’t seem to hear it.
“Why my book, of course, darling,” Cedric said. He beamed at Tom’s sister. “The soup is lovely, Delia.”
“There is no book, Cedric. Just a lot of used up pieces of paper and a Regency desk I scrimped and saved up for that’s going to be sold to pay for the new roof on the barn.”
“No.”
“The man will be here Friday to pick up the desk.”
“I need that desk—”
Noreen bared her teeth and shook her head, no.
“But my dear, it’s all different now. There’s no distraction and I’ve gotten on swimmingly.”
“You mean the last four days.” His mother laughed and reached over and seized the wine glass. “Too bad, Cedric.”
“Noreen, please.”
Tom heard the desperation in his father’s voice.
“You tell me, Cedric, what shall I toast to?” She sipped and held the glass up, “Because the first time I caught you when that little whore came in my house, you said she’d be an inspiration. Said the writing was going like a house afire.” She tilted her throat and swallowed all of the wine in a single gulp. She banged the glass down and it rang against her plate. “And now that she’s gone, you’re telling me you’re glad to be without the distraction.” Noreen’s green eyes blazed. “How far are you from the end, by the way?”
“Scant pages.”
“How many pages?”
“The work of a lifetime. You can’t rush these things.” He looked away.
“Just what I thought,” she said, her lips turned down in a sneer. “All right. Get out. All of you.” She stood up, and everyone scattered.
Tom saw his father leading Rose from the room, her skinny hand riding his forearm, her sunken old mouth working. She muttered something Tom couldn’t catch; at the door, Cedric suddenly turned. “Noreen,” he said, “I think you might be making a mistake—”
“Let me alone.” Her voice was tired, her eyes had a faraway look.
Noreen stared at her pale worn hands, at the broken grimed nails and yellow calluses as if the alien hands of a stranger had been grafted onto her wrists. Then she lowered her face against them and began to cry.
In the passageway, Tom’s grandmother clenched her fist into a tight knot, held it up against her shriveled lips and whispered, “It isn’t sweat and tears we want, it’s blood.” She shook her fist.
After she hobbled into the parlor, Tom saw two small reddish splashes on the scarred wainscoting. They were wet and he rubbed them with the ball of his thumb. Blood, he thought, at the same time from behind him in the dining room, he heard his mother give out a small gasp.
“Mother,” he said, reversing his footsteps and leaning into the doorway. She was wiping her hands furiously on a napkin, then pressing it hard against her palm.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “A blister that opened. Go away, now.”
He nodded, saying nothing. But the white napkin was soaked with blood.
***
Tom slipped down the stairs. The fire was banked, no more than a dim red glow. His parents’ argument whirled in his head. Was his father really on the verge of completing the manuscript? He felt his way in the dark to the desk. He knew there was a lamp on the right, and he turned up the wick and got it lit. The pile of manuscript pages was on the corner of the writing table. He began to glance through it. He saw it was an edited or recopied version. There were very few scratched out sentences; here and there a word was inserted or deleted with a thin black line. The stack was quite high.
He sat in the chair and opened the drawer. It was stuffed with earlier versions of his father’s book. These were the pages that were smudged, crossed through, and occasionally torn where his father had saved a few paragraphs. This put a new light on his father’s work. The family opinion was that Cedric spent his days smoking and scratching his chin with the tip of his pen. But here was work, honest effort. He pulled the stack of pages closer: Chapter 8, Chapter 14. Somewhere toward the middle, Cedric had neatly lettered Part IV. There were hundreds of pages of copperplate script. He skipped ahead, stacking the manuscript face down on the left. In his hands he held the last fifteen pages Cedric had written. He only scanned, but the book was exactly what he expected; his father was a devout admirer of Dickens, (had even written a letter to him but never received a reply) and the plot involved a character named Sedgewick. The pages Tom held were entitled, In which Sedgewick Finds his Past—clearly a conclusion. There were lots of names; threads, he supposed, his father had carried though to the end. He read some scattered paragraphs and laid all but the last few pages aside. Sedgewick was in a graveyard digging up his mother’s coffin, when suddenly the pen tailed off leaving a long ragged black stroke that ran down the blank space of the white page. He squinted to read the small uneven script, cramped against the edge of the paper.
Her cunt is hot, I fill her belly to fill myself.
Cunt. His face burned. Here was a word written he’d only even heard aloud once or twice in his life. He felt his stomach muscles knot. He must’ve read it wrong. Wherever the thought came from, surely it wasn’t on the paper. He squinted and then opened his eyes to look again.
It was there.
He moved
the page aside, and looked at the one beneath it. The creamy paper was badly wrinkled, as if it’d been crushed into a ball, then smoothed out. In the middle of all that space was the single word Ellen had written three times. Just like that, EllenEllenEllen. It looked pale against a spattering of black ink drops, brownish smears.
Tom felt his heart beat faster. He moaned softly. His cousin’s name was written in blood.
He was afraid, but he made himself look at the rest.
The pen stroked down wildly again, and on the next page he saw Sedgewick was back in gear, pulling at chunks of turf with his hands, then cutting a wider swath with a spade, his shovel at the ready to dig down.
It was like Cedric suffered a mental lapse, some kind of peculiar blank filled with dark imaginings.
He shoved the pages out of the way and put his head down on his arms. The words his father had written were terrible. He thought of Ellen crying in the kitchen, then running out to the rain, and Tom was aware inside himself there was a hollow place so vast, so empty it might never be filled again.
He’d known it, of course. He’d known, he realized, even before Ellen told him. What else had those night noises been? The creaking bedroom door, the lanternlight clicking as it moved down the hall, down the stairs. The soft half-grunts from the direction of the kitchen.
It was his father swiving Ellen. It was his father making her sleep in the room off the kitchen and creeping down the stairs at night when the rest of the house was asleep; but those small sounds had penetrated Tom’s dreams. And the last noise, Tom mourned, the last noise was most terrible of all: a little girl weeping.
***
He blew out the light, but he didn’t have the energy to climb the stairs to his sleeping loft. He sat, knees splayed in the chair, his fingertips still tingling from the touch of that page, from the awfulness of what he read. Tom shut his eyes. What in the name of Christ did sex have to do with writing?
Because as near as he could figure it, that’s what his father seemed to think—that potency created a kind of magic that fed his work. Ellen was gone, and the work stopped. He rubbed his eyebrow with his fingers. There were a lot of things grown-ups said or did that made no sense, but he couldn’t even begin to get any sort of handle on this one—
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