She gazed at me for a time, sitting beside me on the veranda. My hair was raggle-taggle over my face and I kept my eyes lowered behind it. I glanced up when I felt her turn away, knowing my cheeks were burning red. She was staring at the trampled yard, at the pale clothes on the line, at the bony pile of dogs. ‘It doesn’t seem so long ago,’ she sighed, ‘when that baby was born and I smacked you for your sass. I don’t suppose you remember it, you were only the youngest thing.’
‘I remember,’ I said, leaning close to the warmth of her, hugging up my knees. ‘I remember Caffy being small enough to sleep in the dresser drawer. I remember Tin before he went underground, how he used to follow Mam like a puppy. I remember Devon and me playing handball in the yard and Audrey wanting to play but she was no good, the ball kept hitting her head. I remember Da breathing fire and Mam getting cross but hiding her face so we wouldn’t see her laughing. I remember when we had the shanty but we didn’t have the fence, or the well, or the cows or the chickens or Caffy to think of … Things were a lot different then.’
Her heavy hand stroked my cheek. ‘The angels have turned their faces from your family, these last few years. It began when that boy started digging and it’s gone on from there.’
I scowled. ‘Maybe Tin only started digging,’ I said, ‘because he knew the angels were about to turn away.’
There was blasphemy somewhere in that, I suspected, but Mrs Murphy didn’t remark on it. She smiled at me sadly and said, ‘Poor child. Poor ignorant waif.’
Da reckoned later that he could hear Mrs Murphy gossiping from twenty miles away, could see her rapping on the neighbours’ walls even with his eyes shut tight. She’d taken the lash of guilt to everybody’s back, he claimed, like some mad crusading harpy. Why else would they tramp a path to our veranda, he asked, bringing buckets of milk and crates of vegetables?
‘Perhaps they want to help us,’ said Mam.
‘They pity us,’ said Da. ‘They pity us, and that’s what I cannot bear.’
‘Look around you, Court. What do you have that makes you such a lordly man?’
For weeks afterwards I don’t believe they said a word to each other, Mam and Da, that wasn’t said through gritted teeth, and we children scuttled to the outskirts to lurk leadenly, muted and aggrieved. Da refused to eat what the neighbours offered and if Audrey cut Campbell pumpkin into our dinner he would fish the bits from his bowl and drop them splashing over to me. He would watch me eat it, his eyes glowing fiery and intent. He would not eat Robertson scones though they came with fresh jam, nor take Osborne milk in his tea. Soon he was eating almost nothing at all, and his flesh turned sallow and grey. He would sit gauntly at the table, his eyes following the arcs of our spoons. Audrey told me to take no notice but it was hard to find pleasure in the tang of dried apricot when Da reckoned it should taste bitter. ‘Are you enjoying that, Harper?’ he would ask hoarsely. ‘That don’t taste like poison to you?’
And the apricot would half choke me, would cling to my teeth with a strong nagging ache, and I’d run to the creek to rinse my mouth clean. I would drape my coat over the grass and curl up on it, my hands flat under my head. I tried, through those winter days, to stay away from the house as often as I could. Sometimes I went to Godwins’ and trailed after Izzy; sometimes I roamed the land alone, inspecting what caught my interest and swinging idly from branches of trees. I missed Tin, and looked for him wherever I was. I had not seen him for months. Gone, he became a bird in my mind, obliged to only the elements, owing undying thanks to none. Tin, I thought, had chosen the wisest way to live his life. I wished he had taken me with him.
The things Da said about the kindness of our neighbours did not wash off when Mam mopped the floor each Saturday morning, and it got so she could scarcely smile when she opened the door to another proffered pie. It ended the evening Lolly Fletcher stopped by, dangling a rabbit. It was a fine rabbit, sleek and hearty, and Da might have been pleased to have trapped it himself. But when Fletcher was gone we stared at the carcass and this time I didn’t feel that distant grapple of trying to make sense of a thing: this time, I understood.
‘Blast him.’ Da’s voice was scratchy. ‘Does he mean that as an insult?’
Mam shook her head slowly. ‘Lolly’s never been a cruel man.’
‘A rabbit.’ Da swore. ‘Do they think that I’m so daft I can’t catch myself a rabbit?’
I frowned at him, perplexed. ‘Da, he’s not meaning to hurt your feelings.’
‘What is his meaning, then? What’s his meaning, if he’s leading with my own suit?’
Audrey had her back to us; now she wheeled and made us jump. ‘Da!’ she cried. ‘Are you blind? The man gave us a rabbit because a rabbit is all he has! There’s no meat in his larder, there’s no vegetables in his ground! His children are hungry, same as yours! He’s trying to help us, but he doesn’t have any more than we have – all he could give was something he could find, same way we might find it. He’s as badly off as us, but he’s doing his best anyway, and you’re not even grateful. I wish he’d rubbed your face in that goddamned rabbit.’
Da was astonished and would have thrashed Audrey had she not been close to the door, and sharp to flee through it. She ran, her dress flying, and I tore after her. She must have heard me following and Mam hollering but she never stopped or looked around. She ran slower when we met the stony road and soon she was only marching and I let myself trot in her shadow. It was sundown and getting gloamy but I could see her face well enough to see she wasn’t crying. I expected her to snap at me, but she didn’t bother. She didn’t seem to care if I was alongside or not. So I hurried on, red dust icing on my feet and anxious to the pit of my stomach. Da hated us to give him cheek, and Audrey was in for a ferocious whipping. I had never seen her get a whipping, and I never wanted to. Seeing it, I reckoned, would make nonsense of my whole world. ‘I’ll take the strap for you,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t worry me.’
She glanced down. ‘Da won’t be strapping you or me.’
After a time I asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘To see Izzy.’
I supposed she was after consoling but she picked up a stick and jabbed it curtly into the road as she marched, and explained things to me.
‘I’m going to tell Cable I’ll be his housekeeper, if he still wants me. I haven’t heard that he’s changed his mind, so he may take me on. We’ll have some money then, and Da will have no more reason to complain. He’s making life a misery, and I won’t stand for it any more. You’ll have to cope without me, Harper, and I don’t want to leave you, but things will be better for everyone this way. Better for people like Lolly Fletcher, too.’
I could see there was no dissuading her so I didn’t try, though my heart sank dismayed to my heels. And I could reluctantly understand it, her wanting to go.
Izzy Godwin had changed in the years he had spent on his uncle’s land. He was still shy and softly spoken but he didn’t seem so breakable now, and his skin wasn’t white as a lily. He wore his scarlet hair slicked neat behind his ears and on his forearms he had several becoming scars. He was not so plain or coarse in his ways as most of the local boys, so all the ladies had eyes for him and would titter and be coy. He was kind and polite to each of them, but Audrey was his favourite, and she was besotted with him. He was my best friend, I reckoned, but I had outgrown my childish shine.
Audrey came straight out and told him exactly what she meant to do. ‘I’ll probably get one day a month to myself,’ she finished, ‘so I’ll be able to see you when I come home. I doubt Mr Cable will let you visit me there. I’ll stay only as long as I must, until my family finds its feet.’
We were standing in the yard of the Godwins, where Izzy had been digging manure into the kitchen garden. We could hear, from the kennels, the high-pitched yipping of greyhounds wanting their dinner. Izzy leaned against the fork, sighing. Audrey watched him through tired, steady eyes. Izzy looked at me, lingering on the veranda. ‘Harper,’ he said, ‘may I
have a word with your sister in private?’
I obliged and took myself down the side of the house, though naturally not going so far away that I travelled out of earshot. I was an eavesdropper from my days with Tin beneath the shanty, it was my unholy habit, and I crouched without a ping of guilt at a place where I couldn’t be seen. I heard Izzy jab the fork into the earth and then a long moment of silence, and I held my breath cautiously. Listening without speaking or daring to move, as in those old days, put me in mind of Tin. I could almost feel him beside me, could nearly see him listening too.
‘Audrey, do you know what people are saying about Vandery Cable?’
‘No.’
‘They’re saying it was him who took your cattle. That he hired those salesmen to do the job for him.’
Audrey scoffed. ‘Oh, that’s silly. That’s just silly, Izzy.’
‘I’m only telling you what people are saying. It makes sense, in a way. Why didn’t the men take Champion? A horse would have been useful to them, if they were ordinary thieves.’
‘Maybe they couldn’t catch him. Champy was running free that night, and he won’t come to anyone but Devon.’
‘Maybe. But it still leaves you wondering how they disappeared as they did, despite herding three cows and all. That would have been easier to do with the help of someone like Cable.’
Audrey mulled this over, and so did I. She asked, ‘But why would he do it? He said himself that the cattle were useless.’
‘They’re saying it wasn’t the cows he was after, that he got rid of them quick somehow. He didn’t want the animals, you see – they were just his means to an end. That’s why he didn’t take Champion: he didn’t need to, taking the cattle was enough. He’s made it so you have to work for him, because now your family’s got so much less than before. You refused him when you didn’t really need him so he made you have to change your mind.’
Audrey was quiet. I heard the veranda creak as she sat down on it, and Izzy set beside her. He said, ‘It makes sense, in a strange kind of way.’
‘It doesn’t. There’s no proof, none at all. It’s a foolish rumour put about by people with nothing better to think about. And if Cable hears of it, he’ll never take me on.’
Izzy didn’t answer but I reckoned he looked tenderly at her. I propped my forehead against the house, watching the meandering of some evening bug.
‘I have to do it,’ Audrey said firmly. ‘We need the money. We need it desperately, Izzy. My father – we can’t rely on him any more. My mother has to be there for Harper. Devon must stay, to take care of things. It’s only me who can do it. And I want to do it. I can’t bear being home. It’s horrible there now, and I hate the sight of everything I see. I need to be where things don’t remind me. I need to go where Caffy can’t find me. When you hear people spreading this story about Cable, tell them it isn’t true. Will you do that, Izzy, please?’
‘If you want me to,’ he said. ‘I’ll do whatever you say.’
I sat there while the night darkened from gloamy to pitch and nothing further was said, knowing that Audrey had forgotten me but not deeply minding. I didn’t feel alone – I kept thinking that Tin was stretched out next to me, and I kept being surprised to glance sideways and find he wasn’t there. I was dozing in a bed of crushed tree-bark and leaves when Izzy shook me half-awake and Audrey told me we were going home.
SO AUDREY PACKED HER good dress and Mam cut up a handkerchief to make ribbons for her hair and Audrey went to Cable’s just a week before I turned twelve. Da borrowed a mule and tray to take her and wouldn’t let me come. I clung to her at the roadside, struggling not to cry. Da had said I was not to make a scene. The house seemed large and listless once she was gone, as though it pined for her. At night-time I quaked under the covers, alone in the big bedroom. I remember the nights were windy then, and the roof of the house would rattle and groan. I was glad, in those days, to get up each morning and walk away to school, where I didn’t have to think about anything. Things were too sad at home, and I got to dreading the afternoon bell: I would linger, if I could, sweeping the floor or washing the boards, doing anything to avoid my fate. The teacher would be chafing, standing at the door shuffling books in his hands. On occasion I bedevilled him deliberately, so as an example to all rogues he kept me behind.
Some days, dawdling myself home, I would veer at Godwins’ and stop awhile with Izzy, but he was always full of cheer, thinking that was what I needed. I preferred the sober company of Devon and wandered the surrounds with him, as I had done when I was a child. Champion would wander with us in his simpleminded horse’s way. Devon had grown serious as he got older, and never wasted his words. It killed him that Audrey was working for Cable, but he hadn’t tried talking to change her mind. I told him about the rumour of Cable and the cattle and he said he knew of it already. ‘What should we do?’ I asked, but he didn’t look at me and he didn’t even answer. He plucked a snare from around a rabbit and took its front paws in his left hand, its rear paws in his right; he popped the creature’s spine in an instant by jerking his hands apart. Mam was calling us for dinner, and we headed for the house. I knew he’d heard my question and I knew he was thinking, but it was useless to ask what he thought. He threw the rabbit on the step and we went inside. There was space round the table for everyone now, no one had to eat with their plate upon their knees. But at the table we sat uneasily, like dogs tied up together who aren’t companions or friends.
Audrey came home at the end of the first month, looking much more contented than I wanted her to be. Cable’s man delivered her to the door at midday and was due to collect her in the evening. Audrey wore a dress that she hadn’t owned when she left us and she was carrying a quilted purse; slung at her elbow was a basket chocked with edibles. I was overjoyed to see her and hung around her neck while Mam brewed a pot of tea. ‘I make his breakfast and evening meal,’ she said, in answer to Mam’s query. ‘He never eats at noon.’
‘Never eats at noon,’ Da echoed, full of admiration. He had been bustling about all morning, going to the door over and again to look for sign of Cable’s jinker. Audrey’s working for the pig farmer had turned Da into the cat that swallowed the canary. He was always talking about the things he would do now our Audrey had made something of herself.
‘And it’s such a big kitchen, and the storeroom has so many preserves on the shelves – I hardly knew where to start, when I first arrived. While Vandery’s having breakfast I make his bed and lay out his clothes for the day. Once a week I trim his hair and draw a bath. When he’s left for the day, I dust, or clean the windows and the rugs, or I boil the clothes or polish the floor. In the early days I hardly had time to turn around, the house was in such a fusty state. There’s been no woman on the property since his wife died, all those years ago. But everything’s spick and span now, and sometimes there’s nothing for me to do in the afternoon, so I borrow books from the study – Vandery said I may. I have my own room which looks onto the garden and it’s nice to sit at the window and read in the sun.’
Da’s hands were under his chin. ‘Mr Cable must be pleased. It sounds like he badly needed you.’
‘Vandery,’ said Devon. ‘Why do you call him that?’
Audrey looked a touch abashed. ‘He told me to. It’s a habit now, I suppose.’
Devon crooked an eyebrow; Mam leaned close and asked, ‘And he’s treating you well, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes. I hope you’re not worrying about me, Mam.’
‘Of course I am worrying about you –’
‘Well, please don’t.’
Her eyes were skimming the room, not as if she were happy to see it and wanted to see things as fast as she could but as if what she saw made her eyes smart when she stopped and looked too long. She pressed her teeth into her lip, then smiled when she noticed us staring. ‘How have things been?’ she asked, and took up her tea. ‘I think of you every day.’
‘Nothing has changed,’ Da said promptly. ‘You know our circ
umstances. It must be like a different planet, living at Mr Cable’s. A comfortable life and getting paid to boot. He’s paying you properly, I trust?’
We knew what he was after: ‘Court,’ said Mam.
‘What? I’m just thinking, I hope he’s not trimming her wages for the time she spends reading in the sun.’
Mam’s face crumpled, but Audrey squared her shoulders. From the quilted purse she tipped a handful of coins and laid them on the table. Da snatched them up and counted them. There wasn’t much, I could see. He raised dark eyes to her.
‘Is that all you’re going to give us?’
‘I’m sorry, Da. Mr Cable said that, because I get my board and food, I can’t expect much in wages.’
Devon grimaced, disgusted. Da cradled the coins in his palm. ‘Just a little more?’ he piped. ‘We’re hungry here, Audrey. Just a touch more would set things right again. You’re getting your keep for nothing, as you say, so you don’t need to set aside anything for yourself –’
‘I’m not keeping anything for myself.’ Her voice was stringy and pained. ‘I’ve given you all I got –’
‘But this is a pittance! This is nothing! Where did you come by that new dress, I wonder? Dangling from a tree, was it?’
‘Court, leave her –’
‘Mr Cable bought it! And that’s all the money he gave me, every penny, I swear!’
Audrey’s thin face was blazing and Da stared at her ferociously. He glanced at the purse but it was hanging limp. He pushed the coins into his pocket and didn’t say another word. Over lunch Audrey picked at her meal, eating hardly anything, and between snips of stuttering conversation the air was tight and twanged. Afterwards she went to see Izzy and I paced about dejectedly until she returned, convinced she was gone forever, knowing I couldn’t blame her if vanishing were the thing she chose. I hated Da that afternoon, loathed him like I could have run him through with pokers. I wished he would disappear instead, so I’d never have to see him again.
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