by Priya Sharma
He fell silent again, contemplating the direction of Gideon’s path.
“You’ve been scarred by sorrow. Your heart is broken.”
John Belman’s story was well known. The bookish man who came back to Ormeshadow only to throw himself off a cliff. The story had carved out the contours of Gideon’s face.
“You’re a romantic.” Armitage followed Gideon’s eyes as they travelled to Eliza and back. “I don’t mean just about women. I mean about life. That sort of romance causes the most pain, only most folk don’t understand. You feel everything twice as much as everyone else. It’ll do you no good. A big heart will drive you mad if you’re not careful.”
Gideon stared at his hands. Even now, when confronted, he denied the depths of himself.
“You look like the rest of them”—Armitage nodded to the stamping, dancing Ormeshadowers—“but you’re like me. You don’t belong here. The sea is my best love. Yours is for the higher things in life. Learning. You crave it.”
Armitage cocked his head to one side. Their heads were so close that Gideon could see the pits scarring his cheeks.
“You must be sad to be here alone.”
Gideon was about to say, But I’m not alone, but then he understood.
Armitage put his forefinger to Gideon’s palm, tracing out a line. The same finger went to his open mouth.
“Gideon, you’ll remember me when the time comes, won’t you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I see change.” Armitage pointed to Gideon’s hand again. “Change so monumental it’ll be as if Ormeshadow never existed. Once this part of your life is over, it’ll never come again.”
Their heads were together now, like conspirators.
“You’ll be rich, boy. Richer than any of those merchants in Liverpool or London. A rich scholar.”
“How might that be, you old dog?”
It was Thomas. He’d crept up behind them, stealthy despite his size. The two of them had turned from the room, but the room had been watching them. Armitage didn’t tell fortunes for just anyone.
Armitage bared his remaining teeth at Thomas.
“Don’t tell me, you see a dragon,” Thomas sneered.
“Mind your own business.”
“Everyone knows the Orme story”—Thomas paused—“and Gideon’s disappointment in his fortune. Perhaps you could tell him where to look.”
Armitage ignored him.
“Or shall we find it together? An even split.” Thomas came closer, demanding Armitage’s attention. “No one could prove we found it on the Orme. Or maybe you’re an old fake? After all, you didn’t see that coming, did you?” He pointed to the weeping leg.
Gideon stared at them in horror, but Armitage shook his head.
“I wouldn’t cheat the boy if I were you,” the sailor said.
“Why?”
“I just wouldn’t. Some aren’t fair game. They’re looked after.” Armitage turned back to Gideon. “Remember what I said. Remember me when the time comes.”
“A child’s tale that’s as real as dragons are.” Thomas was reluctant to leave Gideon alone with Armitage now.
“Dragons are real.” When Armitage grinned the creases of his face deepened to grooves. He spat on the floor. “I’ve seen them. In the West Indies.” The dirty yellow glob of spittle landed at Thomas’s feet. “They were the size of a fully grown bull. All tooth and claw and scales, with great forked tongues. And they could shift. We ran like the devil was after us.”
“Did you see that at the bottom of a pint pot?”
“Why, what’s at the bottom of yours? You’re there often enough yourself.”
Thomas laughed and slapped his thigh, full of mock mirth.
“At least I’ve no need to lie about where I’ve been for the last twenty years. Merchant ship, my eye, you lying old pirate.”
“No, you’ve no need to because you’ve not been anywhere, have you?”
Gideon recognised the look, a falling away that left a blank, smooth fury on Thomas’s features. Armitage had wounded him.
“You’ll be stuck here forever, Armitage. And I’ll be right here with you, so you’d better mind how you go.”
“I’d wish you to hell, but you’re going there already, Thomas.” He grabbed Thomas’s hand and made a show of peering at it. “You’ll burn. You’re definitely for burning.”
The Ship
GIDEON HAD BEEN SENT to fetch his uncle. The Ship stood by the road out of Ormeshadow, its lamps glowing orange in the low windows. The door, battered by salt-laden wind, was blistered and peeling.
He could hear the men inside, laughing and singing, coarse sounds that made Gideon pause. Without the influence of women, the men who danced on Michaelmas Day and who nodded as they passed Gideon on the road changed. They became unpredictable creatures once inside these walls with a few pints of beer inside them. Dangerous. Gideon wanted to run away, despite the hiding he would get for it.
He lifted the latch and went in.
The men inside were as worn and weathered as the door. Their faces were raw and male, stripped by sunlight and harsh winds. There were some Gideon recognised and some he didn’t. They filled the cramped space with their tall stories and bravado, stooping where the uneven ceiling came down too low.
“Hey, it’s John Belman’s boy.”
An arm grabbed Gideon around the neck and he was pulled in a headlock into the centre of the room. The arm restraining him was covered in rough serge that smelt of cheap tobacco.
“What do you want here?”
The voice was Jim Carter’s, although Gideon couldn’t see him. On the few occasions he’d come to the farmhouse at Ormesleep, the man had been all mealy-mouthed, referring to Clare and Maud as the ladies.
“I’m looking for my uncle, sir.”
They laughed at him. Gideon tried to twist away, but he was caught like a rabbit in a ligature.
“Did you hear, Jim? You’re a sir, no less.”
They were a many-headed hydra, each one determined to have a say.
“Fancy man, just like his father was.”
“He thought he was better than us with all his book learning.”
“Scholar.” The word was spat out.
“He was a secretary!” Gideon shouted out the words before he could check himself.
The hydra roared again. The arm gripped his neck tighter than was necessary, turning to show him where Thomas sat in the corner.
“Yes, until his master tried his luck with your mother!” That was James Collins, a widower who sat in the front pew at church each week, his head bowed. He leered at Gideon from his stool by the fire.
“What did he do, boy? Was it a quick kiss in the parlour?” Another voice.
“Did he put his hand up her skirt?”
“Was it while your father was too busy reading a book?” They were a chorus now.
James Collins wiped his eyes. “There isn’t a man here who would pass her up, pardon my boldness, Thomas.”
“No offence taken,” Thomas replied.
Here at The Ship they could give full rein to their resentment without pretence at civility. Gideon’s face burned at the insults to his mother and the way Thomas let them go. These men resented Clare, who turned their heads but was so far above them and whom they could not have. They liked that Thomas cheapened her.
It had been a long time since Gideon had thought of Bath. It was as foreign to him now as the places Armitage talked about. He couldn’t remember why his father had said they had to leave; there were only memories of half explanations and evasions.
The heckling crowd pushed him away and he staggered head first into his uncle’s legs. The laughter died. Gideon looked up into his uncle’s black eyes.
“What do you want?”
“Mrs. Wainwright sent me. She says for you to come home. It’s the baby. It’s time.”
“What for? That’s woman’s work.”
Gideon was close to panic. Jessie Wainwrigh
t had been emphatic. Make him come, she’d hissed, soiling her apron with the muck on her hands. Through the partially opened door he could see blood and pain writhing around on a bed sheet.
Women. The weaker vessel.
“Please, Uncle Thomas, she said you must come now. The baby isn’t coming as easy as it should.”
“Did you not hear me?”
He knew from the fall of Thomas’s voice that a blow was coming.
He’d not dare, Gideon thought, not here, with witnesses.
The crowd of men strained at the smell of violence. Gideon realised there would be no help there. They were eager for it to begin.
Thomas raised his hand and Gideon shrunk away, trying to stand less tall. The flying fist was stayed by the only man in Ormeshadow brave enough to take Thomas on. The Ship’s keeper was as big as a shire horse and no one crossed him. Besides a thrashing, they’d have to walk the five miles to the next inn.
“Not here,” said the giant. “Feel free to take it outside, but not in here. I don’t like mopping up blood and teeth.”
Gideon was hauled out of the inn by the collar of his jacket. Thomas flung him to the ground. His boot followed, connecting with Gideon’s side.
Stay down, stay down, stay down, Gideon repeated again and again to himself. It was the secret of his survival. He could feel his own hands curling into fists. Don’t be stupid, he’ll kill you. Stay down.
“Don’t you ever contradict me again, do you understand?”
Thomas struggled to lift the winded boy under the armpits, nearly losing his footing in the mud. Frustrated, he caught the side of Gideon’s head with a slap that brought a satisfying trickle of blood from his ear.
“Do you know why I hate you?” Thomas’s words sounded muffled to Gideon. “You’ve been trying to cling to Clare’s apron strings for far too long. All you know are womanish ways. And you learnt those from your father.”
Gideon found his feet. Still laughing at his own joke, Thomas shoved him over again.
Stay down, stay down.
“You’re always creeping around. Watching us. You’re no use to anyone.”
Another shove. Gideon bit his tongue as he landed on his already bruised ribs.
“Do you think your mother wants you hanging around her all the time?”
So it was that Gideon went home, crawling before his uncle, to celebrate the felicitous occasion of the birth of a new life in the Belman house.
Discovery
GIDEON STOOD NEXT TO his mother, not in solidarity but because there was nowhere else in the room to stand. She didn’t ask him why his ear was bleeding.
They were in Thomas and Maud’s bedroom, a place he seldom had cause to go. There was a bed and a set of drawers under the window, on which was a chipped ewer and a basin. A mirror hung on one wall and there was a simple wooden cross on the other. The room smelt of sweat, blood, and milk.
Aunt Maud lay on clean pillows and sheets, leeched of all colour. The birthing linen lay on the floor, twisted and bloodied from the carnage.
Maud only had eyes for the baby in her arms who’d been hard fought for and hard won. It was red skinned and dry from being in the womb a week too long. Maud had fretted, wondering when it was going to come, until she felt the first sharp pain as she stood at the kitchen floor. Two hours later her waters broke. It was a torrent.
Such a little thing, with tiny fingers, to have caused so much fuss.
Maud’s engorged nipple popped from the baby’s mouth and it made a mewling sound as she buttoned up her gown. Gideon could see his cousins were embarrassed and he looked away too, but his aunt had never looked so radiant, so serene, as she did then.
“Samuel, Peter, Charity, this is your sister, Mercy.” Maud beckoned her other children.
They crowded round. Maud had grown tired of waiting for Thomas to come up from the barn, where he’d stayed with Nancy while Maud heaved and strained upstairs.
Charity stroked her sister’s cheek as if she were a doll.
“Careful,” Maud warned.
Gideon winced when Samuel put out a hesitant finger and then jabbed Mercy in her face, making her wail and thrash the air with her fists. His mother reached over and slapped Samuel.
“Go outside and play.” Maud ordered them out, as though they were still children who played with spinning tops instead of burly farmhands. Their descending feet hesitated as a heavier set came up the stairs. They scattered out of Thomas’s way. Thomas ignored Clare and Gideon.
It was time for Mercy to be presented to her father. He took the child with no great care, making Maud lean forward anxiously, as though bound to the babe by an invisible thread.
“Thomas, I’ve chosen a name . . .”
“Hush.”
He laid the bundle at the end of the bed. Exhausted from her long journey, Mercy had fallen asleep. Thomas ran a hand over her head, pausing to feel the life pulsing beneath the soft spot. He unwrapped the baby, noting the correct number of appendages. He appraised the baby, Gideon noticed, like he did a newborn lamb. There was no tenderness in it. It was all business. When he pulled the blanket back further, he snorted. “More damned women.”
“Thomas.”
He handed the child back to Maud and went out again. He had not asked his daughter’s name.
Now, it was just Maud, Mercy, Clare, and Gideon.
“Our child. Mine and Thomas’s,” Maud declared.
Clare nodded, nothing on her face, unable to deny the truth in this statement. Gideon shuffled, the room too small, even though there were now only four of them.
“Here. Take her.” Maud held out her daughter and Clare took her, holding Mercy away from her own body as though she were a bundle of canker. She laid the baby in the crib and started to pick up the soiled birthing sheets from the floor.
Maud rested back on the pillows, seeming satisfied with this at least.
* * *
Gideon could hear Nancy barking. It was sounded muffled to his damaged ear, as though he were listening underwater. He imagined her black-and-white face, nose to the ground, until she picked up Thomas’s scent and fell silent. Excited, she would run to him and, drunk or sober, Thomas would kneel down and make a fuss over her silky ears and let her lick his hands.
Nancy fell quiet. Gideon turned over in his bed, waiting for the sound of the kitchen door opening.
The low glow of the lamp Thomas had lit slunk under the closet door. Gideon held his breath. He’d had enough of a beating for one week. He sat up, fists readied.
Let him try it. Just let him try.
The footsteps were retreating. Gideon waited for their tread upon the stairs, but none came. There was still a faint glimmer of light, which meant Thomas was still downstairs.
Gideon shivered as he shed his nightshirt and dressed, careful to be quiet in the cramped space. A man fights better when he’s properly clothed. Pushing the door open, Gideon winced at the betraying creak of the door hinges. He raised his arms before him, ready to defend himself.
He could see the dim outline of the tin bath on the wall, the kitchen table and the spinning wheel in the corner. The illumination came from the corridor beyond, from the door that was ajar. His mother’s room.
Gideon crept closer, following the murmurings. There was a cry, like a gull on the wing somewhere far off, over the ocean, and then silence.
Afraid to look, Gideon peered around the door. The bed before him revealed everything. Without his shirt, Thomas was less of a man and more of a beast. His coarse, large frame moved over Clare, back and forth, like a tide. Her face was contorted and for a moment Gideon thought she was dying.
If I died for you, would that prove how much I love you?
Gideon’s black eyes shone in the lamplight. Thomas saw him, their Belman eyes mirrors, but he didn’t pause in his attentions to Gideon’s mother. Clare, by contrast, was lost.
Thomas took her hair in his fists. It spilled out between his fingers.
“Did my brother eve
r make you feel this way?” He was looking at Gideon as he said it.
“Never. No one but you.”
He kissed her.
“Why did you want Hipps?”
“You know I don’t want him. It was all for you. To make you jealous. I told you. Don’t you believe me?”
He kissed her again.
“You’re mine to do with as I please.”
“Ssshh.” She giggled, a sound foreign to Gideon. “Maud’ll hear you. She’ll sleep lightly now the baby’s here.”
“Do you mind her very much? Do I make it up to you?”
“Stop it. Don’t talk like that.”
She clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“All the time you were with John, did you dream of me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you glad he caught us?”
A floorboard creaked beneath Gideon’s feet. He didn’t wait to see his mother’s face, unsure whether she would be ashamed or jubilant.
Flight
HOW COULD I HAVE not known? How could I have not seen?
Gideon sat by the road, panting from the run. He felt like there was an iron band around his chest, which made it hurt to breathe.
A hundred things, viewed through new eyes, made a mockery of his life. Furtive glances and whispers. The anger and coldness that fell around him for no reason, surprising him at unexpected moments. The confusion and the double meanings. The way Thomas, Clare, and Maud had kept their children unbalanced with random cruelties and neglect. It was how they endured what was between them.
Gideon played scenes over in his mind, examining the evidence.
My father would have done this same thing. He would have stood crying as he imagined each infidelity and deceit. He would have stood on the Orme, one image after another bringing him closer to the edge. What finally sent him pitching forward into the darkness?
If I died for you, would that prove how much I love you, Clare?
Gideon went to his father. It was too late to save him, but he ran anyway.
* * *
The church was a brooding shadow on the hill. The trees that had been planted close together to provide shelter had been whipped into bent, gnarled men by the wind’s onslaught.