by Priya Sharma
“Leave it, woman.”
Maud shrugged and dropped the fleece. Gideon saw his mother look to his father, who nodded. She left his bundled fleece where it lay.
While they sheared the second pair, Gideon ran over to touch the fleece. The wool was coarse and greasy. He sniffed his hand where he’d touched it, pulling a face.
Maud cocked her head on one side. “It’s not very nice, is it? It’s the grease they make. It keeps them snug and dry. Feel the other side.”
By contrast it was soft and luxurious, like thick felt. He put his cheek to it and his aunt did the same, giggling.
“Gideon! You idiot. Get back here.”
It was Samuel. Gideon was surprised that another sheep was in the run, the men nearly having finished with the second set of sheep.
With each animal, his father’s movements became defter, his fingers faster, although he remained a fleece behind his brother. They paused only to take swigs from their water flasks, not daring to stop for longer.
It was furious work. The sun passed its highest point, but they pressed on until early afternoon, neither calling it time to eat until Maud demanded they stop. By then, they’d shed their shirts, grime and grease on their chests and arms, under their fingernails and in their hair.
Thomas took his bread from Clare.
“You smell of sheep,” she announced.
“That’s the smell of good, honest work, in case you didn’t recognise it.”
He made to lunge at her and she darted away, stifling a squeal. She seemed in good humour for once. Peter counted the fleeces and declared them neck and neck so far. John had caught up with Thomas.
The afternoon was harder. Stopping to rest gave their overworked muscles time to complain. Their wrists and backs ached, but both men were at pains not to seem bothered. They took up their positions and the sheep were stripped of their bounty.
Gideon watched his mother’s face glow as she willed the men on, her eyes darting from one to the other. Through the whole day she’d stayed that way, ignoring Charity’s pleas to come for a walk with her and Maud. Clare brushed off the small hands clutching at her skirt, annoyed at the distraction.
“You, pay attention.” Gideon, too busy looking at his mother, had not lifted his gate, delaying the next sheep, which was for Thomas. His cheeks burned, shamed by his cousins’ angry looks that suggested he’d tried to cheat to help his father get ahead.
The mood of the day was souring. It was finally spoilt when Thomas came apart at the clipping of a set of hooves. Blood jetted out, high arcs landing some distance away in the grass in a crimson stain. In his haste he had clipped too close and caught an artery.
“Damn.” Thomas could see his lead slipping away. John had finished his sheep and dropped it. It ran away bleating.
“Hold him still.”
Thomas bridled, despite the sense in John’s order. The animal could bleed to death.
John motioned to Maud, who pulled the string and knife from her apron pocket, which she carried for just this purpose. He knelt before the bleeding sheep, hot blood splashing him. He bound the ankle to stem the flow to the wound. The blood slowed to a dribble and then stopped.
“Clare, get that rope and tie her up on the cart. I’ll need you to cut the string off when I tell you to.”
He rinsed the blood off himself with the rest of his drinking water.
“It was just bad luck, Thomas. It could have happened to either of us. Do you remember the year that I did exactly the same on three sheep in a row?”
“We’ve not finished yet.” Thomas’s face was set hard, and nothing John could say would soften it. “Pick up your shears.”
So, they began again, this time with John at an advantage. Despite this, his hands dithered, where before they’d been certain. Gideon watched his father’s every move, convinced he was slowing down deliberately, just enough to let Uncle Thomas win by a believable margin. A skill in itself.
Clare snorted, saying nothing. Maud patted John’s back. “Hard luck but well done, brother. How many years has it been since you’ve done this?”
Thomas shot her a furious look and she bit her lip. He called his girls to him and walked away, carrying his shirt in one hand so it trailed on the ground. Nancy and Sweetheart loped along beside him.
He’d left the rest of the family there to load the cart. John lifted Charity onto the fleeces, laying her sleepy head on the cushion of warm wool. Peter and Samuel pulled the donkey’s harness to keep it moving while Clare and Maud walked up ahead, side by side but silent and separate.
“You let him win.” Gideon tried not to sound like an accuser. Fatigue had gathered in the creases around his father’s eyes.
“Sometimes it takes a better man to lose than to win.”
“But you were equal,” protested Gideon.
“For Thomas to win, Gideon, I must always lose.”
Lessons
GIDEON SAT AT THE kitchen table with his cousins and father, a book open before them at the final chapter.
Samuel struggled with his letters more than Peter and much more than Gideon, who was better than either of them. Gideon kept silent, even though he wanted to jump in and shout out the words that ran across the page, fleeing from Samuel’s forefinger as he attempted to follow them.
Thomas came in, banging the door behind him.
“Carry on, Samuel,” John prompted, “we want to know how it ends. You’re the man to tell us.”
“You’re filling their heads with nonsense.” Thomas put an end to Samuel’s reading.
Thomas had stripped to the waist to wash at the pump outside. Water dripped from his hair where he’d dunked his head in the stream of water. Sparkling drops fell onto his chest. Primal and predatory, he paced about the kitchen like it was a cage. His nakedness made Gideon uncomfortable. His father was always properly clothed.
Gideon looked away but he could still hear the sound of the rough towel rubbing skin.
“A man should be able to read and write more than his own name.”
“Meaning he’s an idiot if he can’t,” Thomas retorted.
“I didn’t say that. There’s fools who can read and there’s clever men who can’t. And I know you read and write as well as I do when you want to.”
“For all it helped you, professor.”
Gideon’s mother stood in the doorway. Gideon thought Uncle Thomas’s bare chest must make her feel uncomfortable too because her eyes flitted over him in an unfocused way too. Breathy and girlish, she looked ravishing in her best green dress.
“Mr. Thomas Belman,” she announced, “may I present your wife, Mrs. Maud Alice Belman.”
Maud’s boot heel struck each step on the stairs. Her mass of hair had been tamed. Clare had brushed it a hundred times until it shone and then fixed it into an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. Clare had made Maud a new dress in the same fabric as her own.
Charity cried at the stranger in their midst, so Gideon pulled her onto his lap so as not to spoil his aunt’s special moment. Samuel and Peter were openmouthed.
Maud curtsied. Clare slipped an arm around her waist. “Isn’t she a stunner?” They stood side by side and Maud suffered by comparison. The red flush of excitement on her neck and chest was highlighted by the green wool. The shape of the dress could not be faulted, but the shade was misjudged. It made ashes of her complexion and bleached the colour from her eyes.
Thomas did not pause from moving the towel across his chest. “A fine piece of craftsmanship. Pity it’s so wasted.”
Aunt Maud’s boots clattered on the stairs as she fled upstairs. Gideon’s mother followed.
Gideon never saw his aunt wear the dress again.
* * *
There was silence in the schoolroom after the master caned the new boy, Timothy, for the crime of being left-handed. Orphaned Timothy had come to live with his aunt in the village. Gideon was glad to hand over the mantle of newcomer, even though he’d been at the school for several ye
ars now.
The schoolmaster, Mr. Taylor, sat at the front of the classroom. On his desk were his inkwell, his writing papers, and the class register. The register was a ledger of attendance, in which the children were reduced to a list of names and columns of ticks. Mr. Taylor wrote down the reason for their absence, such as scarlatina or kept home for harvesting. Gideon was so close that he could hear the master’s pen nib scratching the paper as he wrote his important letters. Chalk dust still clung to his black frock coat. The sated cane rested on the window ledge. The man took out his pocket watch and checked the time. He waited for the hand to move a fraction and then snapped it shut and put it away.
“Jenny,” he called out, “the bell.”
Everyone knew the girls were Mr. Taylor’s favourites.
Jenny stood before the master’s desk in her blue pinafore, heaving the heavy brass hand bell up and down to mark the end of the school day. The clapper struck the sides, making a peal too loud for the small room.
“Eliza Dorcus”—another girl stood to attention when the master called her name—“you may stay behind and clean the blackboard.”
Gideon glanced over to Eliza. Her hands rolled into a single fist, which she held low over her belly, unhappy to be the recipient of such favours. She was one of the Ormeshadow children mocked by the valley pupils as a straggly gang, many of whom were shoeless and lice-ridden. Sometimes Gideon looked back along the cool green corridors of trees to see Eliza Dorcus in the distance, hurrying to catch up. Late Eliza was her nickname. Her mother, Hettie, was widowed and needed her oldest daughter to help her manage all her other children. She’d be expected home, and Gideon could see her fretting that Mr. Taylor would make her late.
There was the sound of heavy boots at the back of the room, too heavy to be a child’s. They all turned to see John Belman.
Samuel nudged Gideon. He shrugged in reply to the quizzical look from his cousin. When Samuel and Peter sat at the table at night, telling their uncle about the day’s lessons, John would nod and listen, but there would be a shadow of a frown on his face at the errors they recited. Afterward he’d ask Gideon if they had misunderstood or whether that was how the lesson had been taught. Caught between truth and lies, Gideon didn’t want to answer. His father could tell the truth of the matter and didn’t press him to reply. What if his father had come here to tell the schoolmaster about all his mistakes? Gideon had seen his best suit laid out on the bed that morning. Had he thought of wearing it and changed his mind?
“Eliza, you may go. I will see to the board later.”
“Thank you, sir.” Eliza pushed her way through the throng of children crowding to the door. She darted out as though she might be pulled back at any moment.
“John, what a pleasure. Come in.”
Mr. Taylor rose, his gold watch fob shining from his waistcoat. John Belman was in his work shirt and braces, cap in hand. The two men shook hands like old friends who were delighted to see each other again. Samuel lingered by the door, wanting to be involved.
“What are you waiting for?” The master turned on him, licking his fleshy lips. Samuel ran outside to join his brother. Gideon made to follow, but his father kept him there with a hand on his shoulder.
“Mr. Taylor and I went to this school together. I’m sorry I’ve not come to say hello earlier.”
Gideon felt a stuttering anxiety in his stomach. He wasn’t sure why his father had held him back or what was expected of him.
“We both sat at the front together, there.” John pointed to their desks.
The master was seated again, while John remained standing before the desk, like a reprimanded student. Gideon realised his father was nervous. He had released his grip on Gideon’s shoulder and was running his cap through his hands. Hands that were once soft and spotless, wearing kid gloves to handle rare volumes, now coarse from ploughing and planting. Dirt was ingrained in the patterns on his fingertips.
“Are you well, John?”
“Very well. What of you? Is there a Mrs. Taylor?”
“No, I’m unmarried, but then, all these children are mine.” He waved a hand at the empty classroom. “What about your brother, Thomas?”
The schoolmaster’s lips were thin as he said it. Gideon had heard the stories of how Uncle Thomas had caught the schoolmaster alone as often as he could, taunting him until he cried. His father used to intervene, chasing his brother off, and looked away while Richard dried his tears.
“Thomas is well enough.”
“His daughter will be joining us soon, won’t she? I look forward to it.”
Gideon could not imagine how Charity would manage in class. She was already the worst of her parents: Thomas’s temper and Maud’s timidity.
The schoolmaster seemed to be waiting for something.
“Mr. Taylor was clever, and he worked very hard,” John said after a pause. “If you work hard to apply yourself as he did, you might just become a schoolmaster like him, Gideon.”
“Not at all.” Mr. Taylor seemed embarrassed and pleased all at once. “None of us were as clever as your father.”
There was silence.
“I thought you had great ambitions for yourself, John. Expectations of your achievements were high when you went off to university.”
“I met my wife, Clare. I was suddenly a man with a family who had to earn a living.”
“Oh, I see.” The schoolmaster was solemn, but his eyes danced.
* * *
Father and son walked home under malingering clouds, picking blackberries from the hedgerows. At this time of year Maud sent the children out with cloth sacks to harvest what was ripe, be it berries or hazelnuts or fat, leathery mushrooms. Gideon liked to watch her making jams and pies, her hands deft as she worked the dough. When she washed the fruit, spiders climbed from the basin to flee the flood.
The blackberries were pale red, moving through to black and purple as they ripened in the autumn sunshine. They grew in luscious clusters, the ready ones falling into their hands without resistance. Nettles stung Gideon’s hands as he foraged, leaving white welts in red patches on his skin. The prize was worth the pain, though. The fruits burst in his mouth, sometimes tart, sometimes sweet.
Gideon thought about what his father had said about being a man with a family and having to earn a living. Once he had taken Gideon to see the university. It was a sacred place of high arches carved in white stone, and through the hallowed halls walked men of learning with books under their arms, their minds on lofty things. Their discussions were of Greek philosophy, not the price of wool.
John Belman had glowed as he stood there, but afterward said to his son, “I have done nothing, Gideon. I am nothing. Those men are truly great. Their dedication to learning is unwavering. They thirst for knowledge the way I thirsted for your mother. She is very beautiful.”
To think of it made Gideon’s chest hurt. I am nothing.
He turned to his father. “Why did you leave the university?”
“Leave it. It’s long past.”
“Was it because of us?”
“I said it’s long past.”
Gideon understood then that there were things they kept from each other. Things Gideon couldn’t tell his father and things his father could never tell him.
Sweetheart
“SETTLE DOWN, GIRL.”
Thomas perched on an upturned barrel in the yard. Sweetheart sat between his knees looking out at the world as he stroked her, his tone soothing. Without his normal gruffness, his voice was as rich and deep as his brother’s, with the same lilt.
It looked like he was just making a fuss of her, but Gideon knew better. His uncle was searching for something, his hands moving over her coat. He lingered around her neck and ears with all the care of a physician and once satisfied, he checked her belly and hindquarters. Then he went back to her head and took her snout, prising open her jaws to look in her mouth.
His eyebrows furrowed.
Sweetheart lifted a paw and l
aid it on his forearm as if asking for something. She glanced at him and then away, showing him the whites of her eyes. Thomas inspected each of her paws in turn, each claw and each of the fleshy pink pads.
“What do you want?”
Thomas seemed so engrossed that when he spoke it startled Gideon.
“Aunt Maud sent me to find you. Supper’s nearly ready.” Gideon came closer. “Is she sick?”
“Something’s bothering her.” Thomas carried on his examination. “But I don’t know what.”
Sweetheart had started to do strange things for a herder. She’d been nipping at the sheep’s heels to keep them in line, the frightened herd scattering before her, bleating in alarm. When Thomas scolded her she slunk toward him, full of remorse.
Even though the dogs cared for no one but Thomas, Gideon loved to watch them at work. They were never idle. When they weren’t in the field they’d herd chickens and children around the yard, just for the ecstasy of having a purpose.
“Can you fix her?”
Gideon’s anxiety over her affected Thomas, softening his reply.
“I don’t know. That depends on what’s wrong. I’ll keep watching her for now.”
“Shall I fetch her some water or meat?”
“No, she’s had plenty.”
Thomas patted Sweetheart’s rump and got up. She trotted after him, but he ordered her to her bed in the barn. As they walked to the kitchen, Thomas put a hand on Gideon’s shoulder. It was a short-lived affection. As Clare opened the door before them, Thomas’s hand fell away and hung by his side like dead wood.
* * *
The sheep were in a panic. They had scattered to the far corners of the field, deserting their dead compatriot. The ewe lay on her side, her fleece a matted mess of dried blood. One ear and cheek had been torn off in the struggle, revealing muscle and gleaming bone beneath.
“Don’t do that.”
Samuel was prodding the eviscerated animal with a stick. Its uncoiled intestines were exposed, pink tubes lying in the grass.
“I said don’t, Samuel.”
Samuel looked back at John and then dropped the stick amid the innards. Gideon turned away. Thomas was gazing at the carcass, his arms folded. Gideon’s father, by contrast, couldn’t keep still. He kept searching Thomas’s face, which remained impassive.