Authors: Esther Freud
Mr Mac and Me (8 page)
And what is he doing now? He’s striding into the shallows as if he’d walk across the sea itself. And I watch him, fearful that he might be sending out a sign. I’ll have to track him, it’s my duty, and I’m pocketing my worms when a fish bites and I leap up and swing it in. It’s only a dab, but I inspect it anyway, glittering and flipping in my hands. Dabs are never worth bothering with, Danky taught me that, so I slide the hook out from its startled mouth, and my heart swelling with my goodness and my power I throw it back in. When I look up Mac has turned away from the shore, and is stepping along the beach, his black back the only mark in the whole bay.
I wrap the babbing string, still wet, around my wrist, and scramble along the top of the dune. He’s far ahead, and I’m sure I’ve lost him, but I keep down and press on, and then he appears, dragging himself up the scree, hanging on to tufts and strings of grass. He stops then and looks around, and as I duck down I can’t help thinking, if he is a spy, then he’s got some things to learn. But it’s not long before he’s off again, keeping to the high ground, winding along above the river until the old brick water pump comes into view. For a while Mac stops and looks at it, his head on one side, and then he steps off the path and staggers down towards it through the shingle.
I make ready to slide after, my heels are dug in, my back braced, when Mac stops again, and crouches down. What’s he seen? I look around but there’s nothing, just the empty day. Mac turns into the pebbled slope and lifts his binoculars to his eyes. ‘Come and look at this,’ he calls, and whipping round to check who else is there, I find there’s only me. ‘Beautiful, do you see?’ He holds out the binoculars, and when I come close, he guides me with the tip of his cane, to where a dark purple straggle of flowers cling to the slope. ‘Aubretia,’ he says. ‘Known as rock cress. The Campbelli or Parkinsii variety, I should think. See the white eyes?’
I nod. I do. And he leans forward and tugs at a spray, close down by the roots, and with sand and stones like tiny seed potatoes scattering, he pulls it free.
‘I’ll be off then, if that’s all right with you?’ And with the plant cradled in his arm he walks back towards the village.
At the church gate George Allard stands back to let Mother in before him. But Mother never can go straight into the church, first she must make her visit to the grave. I sit on the wall and wait for her, nodding to my starlings, just once, so no one but they will know. I wait for Mary too, watching the people hurrying in, nodding and ducking their heads, keeping any news they might have gathered until after the service. Mac and Mrs Mac pass by, their heads together under an umbrella, Mrs Mac in a loose embroidered dress, Mac puffing on his pipe. I dip down and pretend to be studying the pebbles of the wall, and then Danky’s sister pulls up in her little trap and waits while Danky carries in their mother. As they pass through the screen door the old woman catches her shawl on a knot and she looks up, so severe that I see Danky quiver.
Mary is usually here to meet us when we arrive, but today there is no sign of her. I wait out in the spitting rain until Mother hisses for me to come in, and we have already squeezed ourselves into a pew when she slides in beside us. ‘What kept you?’ Father frowns, and Mary puts her hands up to her mouth and her eyes are wide with fear. ‘There’s news from France,’ her voice is hoarse, ‘the Suffolk Regiment . . .’ here she looks around at all the Suffolk men and women, talking, shuffling, preparing themselves for the soothing words of God. ‘They fought for eight hours at Le Cateau – even the Germans begged them to surrender, they were outmanned from the start, but they wouldn’t give in, not until nearly all were killed, eight hundred, Mother, out of a thousand, and then they only stopped fighting when they were rushed from behind, and the last few men were taken as prisoners.’
A woman in the row before us tuts, without turning, and Mother takes Mary’s hands in hers. ‘Where do you hear such terrible things?’ she says as if it is somehow her fault.
‘It’s the truth, Mother,’ Mary almost chokes. ‘Sir Bly gets all the news, red-hot, from London. The Suffolks are slaughtered. It won’t be long before the whole county knows it.’
The vicar steps up to the altar and the congregation rises. We rise too, although there is a cold chill in our row. Pale light floods in through the high-paned window, washing the vicar’s head in white. Who will protect us now? I think, and I imagine the Suffolks lying on the ground like worms, writhing and dying, and I have to cover my mouth for fear I’ll be sick.
We sing a hymn,
Father, we praise thee, now the night is over
, and as we begin, I glance at Mac who is sitting in the pew behind. He has tears in his eyes. Has he heard? Did he listen in to Mary’s whispered news, or is he crying for some private Scottish grief of his own?
Our vicar has much to say about the war. The prayers and patience and the faith we must fortify ourselves with. I feel Father fidgeting beside me, twisting his fingers in his lap. If I dared I’d take his hand and hold it still.
We stand and sit and stand again. And then we kneel in prayer. I kneel on an embroidered sampler covered in a trail of purple flowers. Rock cress, is that what they are? And I stare at the creeping stitches as I mumble my own prayers. That Father will hold his temper, that Mother’s garden will stay clear of blight, that Runnicles will never again test us on equations, but all the while I’m praying that Mary has it wrong, that the Suffolks are still advancing across Europe keeping us safe from attack.
The service is longer than usual, with prayers for the men who are abroad, the ones we know, from Westleton and Southwold, Blythburgh and Dunwich, for the regular army, and for the seven hundred and fifty thousand others who volunteered in the first week of the war. By the time the vicar releases us, the sky has darkened and the rain is clattering against the wooden door.
‘Been fishing again recently?’ Mac asks me on the path, and I look around, hoping that this time there might be somebody else he’s talking to, but no. It’s me.
‘No, sir,’ I tell him. And he reaches into the pocket of his cape and brings out a box.
‘I have a wee gift for you,’ his voice is low, and Mrs Mac lifts the umbrella and holds it over our three heads. ‘It was most appreciated, the help you gave in getting us moved, and we haven’t had a chance to thank you.’
I open the box and look down at the oblong blocks of colour. It’s as if I’ve never seen colours before. They are so dense and clean they seem to burst out into the air, and fearful they will lose their shine, I flip the lid shut fast.
‘It’s a good box,’ Mac says. It’s much the same as the one he uses himself. And he draws out a book of paper and hands that to me too.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ but unable to explain what I’m apologising for, I pull my jacket round me, and holding my precious gifts against my chest, I run down the street towards the inn.
The next Saturday a package arrives for Mr Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mac must have given out this address when he hoped our good room would come free. The writing on the brown paper is fine and silky and I lift the parcel to my nose to breathe it in. I’m hoping for the perfume, peppery as freesias, that floats about the bright head of Mrs Mac, but instead I’m startled by the smell of liquor. Brandy it could be. Or rum. I sniff again, but the smell forces me to put it down. And anyway, why would this parcel be from his wife, when she works alongside him so closely that when he finishes a sketch of flowers he marks her initials beside his in a pencilled box.
I’d like to take the package to Mac right away, but first I must make my inspection of the beach, and by then George Allard will be waiting for me. I daren’t not go. He’s still not forgiven me for taking the morning off to move the Mackintoshes’ books, and the next day when I went to help him he said he’d got some other project to be getting on with, and he sniffed and turned his head away. Later I saw him walking through the village with a load of wood, and when he next had a use for me, there was a pulley, rusted and in need of oiling, lying on the ground by his back door.
Quick as I can, I climb the ladder to my room and prop Mac’s package up beside the small picture of geese. I left the painting of the sea in the good room for the soldiers. The gold and green of it, the white frill of the waves. They’ll need it to prepare them, they’ll need it more than me.
As soon as I arrive at Mr Allard’s, I see from his face that he’s heard about the Suffolks. It’s not his son that’s lost – he’s with the East Anglians – but all the same the news has robbed him of his strength. ‘I’ll do the turning today,’ he says, and with trembling hands he wraps the strick of hemp around my waist.
I’ve not made rope before, but he seems to have forgotten that. ‘Ease it out gently,’ he says, sitting at the wheel, ‘don’t let it plait until each strand is twisted tight.’
I keep the yarn as taut as I can and tread back carefully. It’s harder work than it looks and it’s not long before my arms are tiring. At first I’m sure I’ve got something wrong, the three strands are spinning tight enough to curl into a ball, but when I’m halfway down the garden they catch against each other and I grin as the first coil of rope is formed. ‘Keep going,’ Allard croaks. Even his voice has lost its power and so I keep stepping back, down the long length of the garden, until I become entangled in the branches of a small sharp tree that grows beside the gate. ‘On you go now,’ Allard’s voice is a growl, and my arms stinging, my jacket ripped, I reach out and tug open the door. I’m in the wide field, its furrows newly dug, a drift of gulls swooping away and then dropping down again when they see it’s only me.
The rope is twisting together nicely now. I tread backwards along the narrow path, watching the village from behind, the shape of its roofs and chimneys, and the tower of the church looking down as I step blindly towards the sea. I’ve forgotten about my arms. The rope is golden, strong as wire, and it grips against itself, spinning and twisting as I feed it slow and easy with my hands.
‘Helloo there.’ A high voice pipes up from among the reeds, and turning, I see the sharp freckled face of Betty walking along the path. ‘What are you doing?’ She is laughing. ‘Walking backwards across a field?’ And I’m surrounded, for both girls are here, squeezing against me, peering at the strick around my waist. I’m about to explain when there’s a whistle, and a sharp tug along the rope, and I look down and see that even in that moment the twine has bunched and twisted into kinks. ‘I can’t stop,’ I say, taking a quick step as I speak, and the girls press themselves against the hedgerow, laughing while I pass. For a while they stand and watch me, as if I’m some rare animal or bird, and then they wrap their arms around each other and carry on. I stare after them as I back away. The tall strong sister and the sliver of herself, both with scarves about their hair, and shawls across their shoulders, heads together, chattering as they rush along beside my newly twisted yarn. They’ve forgotten me already, I think, as they dip out of sight over the rise of the small hill, but just then Betty leans over and flicks at the rope and I feel it travel, the touch of her finger, right down until it twangs against my gut.
I’m nearly at the start of the marsh when the hemp runs dry and the rope, still twisting, flies out of my hands. ‘I’m finished!’ I shout, lungeing for it, and I hear my voice sailing over the fields into the Allards’ garden and down into the crook between the two arms of the building where the turning machine stops. For a moment I stand still. I stare up at the sky, the swirl of clouds, white shreds against the blue, and I gather up the rope, holding tight to its loose ends, as I stumble back along the lane.
‘Good lad,’ George Allard tells me when I come through the gate, and there’s a soft look in his eyes I’ve not seen before.
Mac isn’t in his shed. The door is shut and locked, and Bob Thorogood, when I ask, tells me he doesn’t know anything about where he might be. I walk down the lane to the Lea House, the package tucked under one arm, using it to bat away a swarm of midges that hang in the warm dip of the road. The gate is latched, the grass of the long garden singed with sun. ‘I’m not here for you,’ I tell the rabbits as they freeze, but I’ve not finished speaking before they are gone.
There’s a window of glass set into the side door and I can see along the hall and through into the main room. There’s a vase of honesty on a table, each disc rubbed free of its husk. I knock again, but no one comes. ‘Mr Mackintosh,’ I call through the slit for letters, but this parcel is too large to drop it through, and so I turn the handle and go in. The house is not so very different from before. But its emptiness feels purposeful. The white walls as if they’re meant to be bare. There are plates, with fluted edges and a stark black flowered stem, arranged against a shelf, and below, to hide the pots and pans, is a length of cotton, printed with roses in an overlapping pattern of pink and black and white. I walk through to the next room. There are books on the table in two neat piles. And the stack of pamphlets I arranged against the wall. I pick a new one up and open it. I do it quickly, before I can warn myself off, but as I flick through for pictures I hear a noise – the twang of bedsprings as someone sits up, and a small, dry ladylike cough. I set down the package, and my heart leaping, I slip the pamphlet inside my shirt, the cool side of it against my skin, and I’m away out through the door.
The midges are waiting to get me as I race into the lane, and with my eyes half closed against them, my nose and mouth too, I run out over the marshes, and up through the fields to the line of trees that leads into the Hoist. There’s no one else here. No lovers clinging together in the shadows, certainly not Ann who is most likely at home, waiting fitfully for the postman to pass by with a letter from Jimmy. I climb into the branches of a tree that’s fallen sideways, a hornbeam that continues to leaf. And I give myself a moment to regain my breath before I slide the book out. There are more pictures than words, and I flick through the thick pages of photographs – brick walls and giant black-framed windows, and above the entrance to a building: Glasgow School of Art.