Authors: Esther Freud
Mr Mac and Me (23 page)
‘Thomas.’ My mother looks as if she’s forgotten who I am, while Father, at the sight of me, puts his head in his hands.
I kneel down beside Ann. Her face is white and empty. Her eyes closed. And high up in her chest is the last tiny scratch of her breath.
I sit on a bench by the wall. I sit there through the morning and into the day.
The doctor comes, and shakes his head and, frowning, writes something on a square of paper, and might have said more if the man from the brewery hadn’t arrived, delivering barrels, his horses steaming and stamping in the cold. Father splashes his face and goes out to talk to him. And with promises and more promises, and no money exchanged, together they bring the barrels in. Mrs Horrod hovers in the kitchen. She comes out when the doctor is gone and puts her arms round Mother. But Mother has frozen, her face is set, and as soon as it is polite to do so, she shakes her off and goes upstairs to Ann.
Dear Betty
, I write when I’m alone
Now my sister is ill
. I don’t tell her the truth. That Ann has slipped into unconsciousness. Too much blood lost, the doctor says. That she’s unlikely to pull through.
I’m helping to look after her. Feeding her up with broth and rabbit stew. She’s getting married in the summer. To Jimmy Kerridge who’s been home on leave from the navy. How are you? How is the war treating you up there?
I draw her a picture of a hen. I don’t know why. Maybe because Ann liked to name them – Mirabelle was one, Clemency another, and Father once clouted her on the ear and said, now there’ll be tears when I wring their necks.
I put my hand up to my own ear and I think of Father, and although I know there is no use in it, I go over every thing he’s ever done that’s pitiful and mean. But this time I stand up to him. I’m a warrior, David to his Goliath, and I shout the truth so that he staggers, and while he’s off his guard, I knock him down. Yes. I raise my arm in triumph, and Betty’s letter falls to the floor. I pick it up, and I read it over, but my thoughts are frayed from fighting and I have nothing more to add. Instead I fold it smooth and slide it into my pocket, and I lie down on the bench in the main bar, and close my eyes.
It’s Mac who finds me. Sitting by the grave. His tread soft on the grass. He has flowers in his hands, a drooping hellebore, that Mother calls green winter rose. At first I think the flowers are for Ann. She already has a spray of them, but then I see that Mac has his plant by the roots and from the way he’s looking at it he’s not letting it go.
‘Will you come and have some lunch with us?’ he asks me. ‘Mrs Mollett has made a leek and potato soup.’ And although my stomach tightens at the mention of it, I tell him I’m needed at the inn, for I can’t leave Mother on her own for long.
‘I’d best be away then,’ he tells me. The plant is folding in around his hand. ‘But don’t be a stranger to us.’ And he pulls his cloak round him and walks across the churchyard and out through the gate.
No one mentions going back to school. Without Ann I must do my best to help with the running of the pub, for it’s not possible for Mary to give up her work at the hospital and come home.
On Sunday she cycles over and helps move Ann into the good room. ‘It’s the shock, I’m sure of it,’ she says, ‘that’s frozen her,’ and she sits and strokes her hair.
The shock of what? I want to ask her. Of the
Formidable
, or the sight of so much of her own blood? I squeeze Ann’s cool hand, and I look at her body, shrinking, as the thin soup Mary feeds her slips down the side of her face.
Mary stays that night, tucked up beside me on Ann’s side of the bed. I look over at her, her eyes open, and I wait, but she has nothing to say. Later we hear a Zeppelin coming in across the sea, thundering above us, making its way inland. A beam from the searchlight flashes across the window and I leap up and stick out my head and in the arc I see it, a fat, slick, gold cigar. A spray of gunfire bursts after it, jolting me so that I hit my head. But Mary doesn’t shout at me to come in, not as Ann would have done. Instead she lies still, the covers pulled almost to her eyes, while the Zeppelin keeps on its journey, the boom of its engine fading, and the sparks of the guns falling to the ground.
Ann’s work is never done. And there are my own chores to do besides. I let the chickens out, plucking up the eggs, warming my hands on them before I bring them into the house. I pull the water from the well, sweep and wash the floor. Lay the fire. And while I do so I think of Mr Button on his cart, and the sharp rattle of the horse’s hooves knocking against the road. I’d be at school now, copying battles from the board, and I find I even miss old Runnicles and the flash of his ruler as it thwacks down.
Mother is in the kitchen making bread. Kneading and slapping the dough on to the table, her tears leak into the creases as she pummels in the air. When I was small she’d give me a lump to scratch my name into, or mould into a boat, and even now, if the morning’s work is done, she’ll cut off a crust for me when the bread is baked, and let me have it with a scrape of jam.
As likely as not it’s then that Father stamps in. ‘What’s this?’ he scowls as if it’s a party that we’re having, and Mother gives an excuse to get me out of the house.
‘Get over to Mrs Lusher for some pepper,’ she tells me today. And I take her coin, and I’m out in the street.
‘There’s liquorice come in,’ Mrs Lusher offers, ‘put a smile on your face.’ But I’m having none of it. ‘An ounce of peppercorns is all,’ I tell her and she disappears from the window of her cave and I hear her scooping and weighing until she returns with a small white paper bag. ‘Thank you.’ I unroll the paper to peer in, and the smell of a distant heat-soaked land bursts up and makes me sneeze.
It’s April, and as cold as winter, with hardly a dry day. Father may be right about the guns in Flanders stirring up the rain, for there’s a squall blowing in across the German Sea. My jacket up around my ears, I walk the long way home. Buds sit shrivelling on branches, and the sheep come trotting towards me, their black faces hopeful, so hungry are they in their barren fields. ‘I’ve nothing for you,’ I tell them, but they cluster by the gate, their knees knocking together. A swoop of birds fly overhead, their shadows patterning the ground, but the sheep keep the stripes of their orange eyes on me, and even though I have nothing to offer, they follow me, on the other side of the fence.
I hand Mother the bag of pepper and watch her mash a pinch of it in the mortar. There’s no one in yet. Although Gory usually comes for his lunch. And Kett. And sometimes Tibbles too. But I take my bowl of soup and I sit in the snug bar, beside the fire, and I spoon up the soft diced potato and the veiny cabbage, and as I wait for the hot explosions of pepper to surprise me I forget for a moment about Ann, up above in the good bed, so far away and lost.
It’s the middle of April before the weather lifts, and Ann still in her bed. It’s been so cold that Mother has taken to wearing her coat indoors and gloves too, and if she can manage it, a blanket like a shawl around her shoulders. ‘It’s your spirit,’ Mrs Horrod says, ‘that’s weakened.’ And she mixes up a tonic and brings it round. But Mother doesn’t take it. She leaves it wrapped in muslin on a shelf, and after a week or so when the smell is faded she tosses it away.
I want to be like Mother and shun Mrs Horrod too. But I can’t. It hurts me to see the bright look in her face when she calls round. ‘Cooee,’ she stands in the door, unsure whether to come in, and Mother looks at her, bare-eyed, as if she’s speaking a language that she doesn’t know. ‘Fancy a spot of poltering tomorrow,’ Mrs Horrod tries, ‘I could call for you at first light?’ but Mother frowns and turns away, and Mrs Horrod saves herself by remembering that tomorrow after all there’s something for which she’s needed at home. I ask if she has any news of Vic. I don’t like to, but someone has to say it. And Mrs Horrod smiles and says that yes, he’s doing well. They had a letter from him only last week. And then she falls silent because Mother has left the room.
On the first warm day I stand in the yard and let the sun fall soft against my face. I’ve let the hens out and my chores are done, and so I walk along the river with a bucket and a length of stick, thinking I might go babbing for an eel. The sunshine is stirring the harbour into life, and there is a queue of people for the ferry. I keep on walking. There’s a jetty that’s not been used all winter, and if I lie down on it I can keep both hands on my line without the risk of slipping over. But as I pass Thorogood’s shed I notice that it’s open. Mrs Mac is inside sweeping with a broom and Mac himself is struggling with the shutter of its window. I pause but I don’t stop. There’s a jar of worms in my pocket and I don’t like to think of them there, twisting and turning, while I sit to eat a sandwich. I have a length of woollen worsted too, and when I reach my spot, I thread it with a worm, lowering it down into the river, staring after into the dark water, watching for its flicker. I’ve not long to wait before there is a bite. I jerk the stick up, but it’s only a dab, and I let it go. But after the third bite I feel a weightier pull, and there’s the narrow head of an eel. Quick as I can I toss it on to the bank, where, with no hook in its mouth, it begins to slide away into the grass. But I’m too fast. I throw myself at its long body, and grabbing at the slimy skin, I hold steady. ‘Got you,’ I say, and without looking into its ancient face I lie it in the bucket where it thrashes in the water.
I wait longer for a second catch. Are the others warned? Did they see its body disappearing upwards? But then another eel bites, and I have it, up on the grass, and I’m wrestling with every bit of strength to keep a hold of it. It’s a strong one, muscled as an arm, and I think it will get away from me but I slide my fingers up the length of it until I reach its neck. ‘Yes,’ I say aloud. And I hold it there, its tail twisting, before laying it in the bucket with the other.
Mrs Mac is sitting on a chair outside the hut when I pass by again. There is a clip of blossom in a vase beside her and she’s leaning over a letter. I lug my load a little closer. ‘Would you like an eel?’ I ask her and she looks into my bucket and gives a start.
‘Toshie?’ she calls, and he comes out of the hut.
‘Wait there,’ he says, and he goes back inside and returns with his pad of paper, and a pencil, which he sharpens to a point. ‘May I?’ And he sets the bucket at his feet and folding over a new page begins to sketch.
I wait. And watch the eel through his eyes. There are four of them now, and as Mac draws, they form the stems of a mysterious plant. ‘Any news of Ann?’ Mrs Mac asks, and when I shake my head she goes back to her letter. Who is she writing to? And I think of offering to take it to the post for her. But how would I steam a letter open without Ann? How would I seal it up again? A plague of loneliness drops over me. Don’t cry, I tell myself. Not here. But my throat is like a thistle and my eyes sting. I leave my bucket and step into the hut. The walls have been repainted white, the air is thick with the clean new smell of it, and all around are hung Mac’s flowers. Each one on its own grained page of Whatman, the colour bursting from the pencilled lines. I start at the beginning, by the door, and stare at the ragged pink and purple of the larkspur. Next is hung the borage, two blazing blue flowers, and two unpainted buds to show what might have been. A little further on I find the rock cress, the one I’d thought he’d given up on, although now I wonder if Mac hadn’t always meant to leave it like that, with its innards exposed. Both winter stock are here. As different from each other as two breeds of dog. And I feel my heart quietening. Maybe I can go on. Maybe I will. And I think of my brothers, imagine Ann flying through the sky with them, and I stare at a petunia and see the face of a bird in it. A comical bird with a yellow beard and two beaky eyes and I laugh because I’m sure I’ve conjured it, but when I shake myself and look again, it’s there. ‘Mr Mackintosh?’ I turn, but he’s bent over the eel, and I can only see the hunch of his back.
I find our pinecone, and a stick of rosemary I picked for him. There is the hard purple pillar of the hyacinth, and at the very end, the hellebore green. I see it as it was, wilting at the grave, and I think: this winter rose is holding up better than Ann. I’m about to turn away when something pulls me back – two baby birds, hidden in the centre of each hellebore. And without warning the tears are sliding down my face, catching on my lip, dropping from there into my collar.
I go closer. I look at everything again for what else is hidden. There’s the head of a duck folded into a sunflower’s stem. A cockerel perches on the sharp branch of the gorse, and the larkspur, when I examine it, has three chaffinches sitting amongst its papery blossom, their heads tucked down, their long tails preened. There’s a mother bird too, it is clear to me now, a trailing scarf of purple floating out behind her hat. And a smaller bird, her chick, happy, riding along behind.
I stumble from the shed, my face swollen with tears, and forgetting I ever offered Mrs Mac an eel, I take my bucket by the handle and I run back to the inn.
I stay with Mother all the rest of that day. I take one end of each sheet she’s washed, and twist it with her till it creaks, and once the water has been wrung out I help her peg them to the line. I sweep under the beds for her, and wipe down the window ledge in the good room where Ann lies motionless. I take the wood ash from the fire and spread it in little humps between the rows of seedlings, leaving it in mounds too high and soft for slugs to climb. When the fireplace is clean I sprinkle it with water to dampen down the bricks.