A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees (28 page)

In spite of everything he has slept. He wakes surprised, then becomes dimly conscious of a noise at the window.

‘Silas! Get up! Come on you old dog. Get up. Now. Hurry.'

Joseph. My brother-in-law now, he thinks numbly, and then looks at his new wife. She has propped herself up on her arms and is swivelling her head to look, first at the window and then at Silas.

He had just stripped off to his underwear to sleep. He leaps out of bed and immediately wants to cover himself. He sees her swiftly examine him; her eyes passing down his jerkin and then his long johns – neither item scrupulously white any more. He sees what she sees – his thin small shoulders, his small paunch stretching the fabric of his vest, and his legs, obviously thin even though they are covered. Caradoc's words come back to him. Maybe she would have preferred someone her own age. Perhaps she is already a little disgusted. He remembers too well how the middle aged appeared to him in his youth. He has never had time to consider his age before. Middle aged. He gives an indiscernible shrug. At least he's alive. At least he's made it through this long. So many don't. Megan. At the thought of her something vital seems to drop from him. That wedding night had been so different from this one. His shoulders slump. He knows she had been expecting something from him, more than a dry kiss on the cheeks and her own side of a cold home-made mattress.

‘Silas!' The voice is in their kitchen now.

He hurries into his trousers, pulls a shirt around him and yanking at his belt lurches into the living room and then the kitchen.

‘What?'

‘It's Jacob. He's back. Mam told me to come and tell you. She said you'd want to know, just in case.' He stops. Miriam has come into the kitchen behind Silas. She stops at the doorway in her nightclothes, a blanket around her. Her face is flushed and the skin around her eyes swollen and not just because of sleep. ‘Are you all right, Mim?' Joseph asks and steps towards her, but she hangs her head, steps back into the living room and then retreats to their bedroom again and closes the door. Joseph looks at Silas, as if he is waiting for him to say something. But Silas looks away. ‘Everything's fine,' he says, ‘or it will be. It's all taking a bit of getting used to, that's all.'

Joseph nods curtly and goes to the door, then stops. ‘Mam said that if there's any trouble to call on us. We're your family too now. She told me to tell you.' He seems to think for a while and then looks up again. ‘I think that's all she said.'

‘How did you hear he was back?'

‘Ieuan said. He went into the village early and saw the ship there, and Jacob coming.'

In the living room Miriam is sitting on Megan's chair examining her hands. She looks up as he enters. ‘What have I done, Silas? Or is it something I haven't done?'

He sits down beside her and presses her head to his chest and strokes her hair. ‘It's not your fault,' he says gently. ‘I've been on my own too long. Even before Megan died I was on my own.'

She forces her head away. ‘How?'

‘She didn't speak. You must have seen it. She'd drawn away. She was too sad, too full of grief. She couldn't bear it. Some people can't. You must have noticed. They go inside themselves where nothing can hurt them.'

She nods.

‘But...'

He is interrupted by the thudding of horse's hooves and then a neighing, loud and close. He stiffens. ‘Get into the bedroom. I'll deal with this alone.'

‘But I want to be with you.'

‘Later. I promise. Now get yourself dressed.'

Someone hammers on the back door. Whoever it is must know there is no need. He opens the door and the wind catches it and throws it wide. It is Jacob – holding on to his hat so it is low on his face, his great black coat loose and flapping like a cloak around him.

‘You!' he says, prodding Silas in the chest. ‘What have you to say for yourself?'

Silas steps back.

‘I've heard it all from Caradoc.' He steps forward, releases his hat so it rises away from his head. His watery-blue eyes are rimmed with red and flooding.

‘I'm sorry, Jacob. It just happened. I did everything I could.'

‘You killed her.' Jacob is breathing heavily, two dark red patches in the paleness of his cheeks. His years in Buenos Aires have made him look drawn and ill, and he has allowed his beard, now grey rather than gingery-brown, to grow in odd tufted clumps all over his cheeks.

He prods Silas again, a finger hard in his stomach, and Silas grabs hold of his hand. Even though Silas is smaller he is stronger. Jacob tries to pull his hand back but Silas keeps hold, his hand tightening. ‘She did it to herself, Jacob. Are you listening? There was nothing anyone could do...' A sob erupts from him. ‘I tried, Jacob. I tried everything. Listen to me. She was my wife, for God's sake. My life. I loved her more than I could ever love anyone else.'

Jacob opens his mouth to reply but then looks over Silas' shoulder into the house and closes it again.

Silas glances behind him. Miriam. How could he have forgotten? He can't take the words back. They are true but it does her no good to know them. His hands have relaxed and Jacob snatches his own free.

‘Look at her. A child. How could you, Silas? What did you say to her? What lies? That you would look after her like you looked after Megan?' He draws back his lips into the grimace of a smile. ‘God sees what you do. Taking a young girl like this. You disgust me.'

‘Go away Jacob, you've said enough.'

‘I've not started yet.' His voice is close to a sneer, and his smile widens to a grin. It reminds Silas of another grin – the private one that used to belong to Edwyn.

Jacob brings his face closer. ‘What are you going to do about it, eh?'

Silas' fist smacks forward. There is a crack and Jacob staggers back, his legs stiff like broom handles, holding his hand to his nose and then drawing his hand away again so he can inspect it. Blood is escaping freely from each nostril.

‘Your answer to everything, it seems,' Jacob gasps. The rest of his face is drawn and white. He staggers back then forward again. ‘Is it guilt, I wonder,' he says, panting, ‘which makes you answer everything I say with a fist?'

‘Leave me in peace,' Silas hisses through his teeth.

Jacob holds a handkerchief to his nose and steps closer again, his chin jutting upwards, his beard lifted from his chest.

‘He said he wants you to go,' Miriam says loudly. She is beside them now, holding onto Silas' arm. ‘He married me because he's fond of me, Mr Griffiths. That's the truth of it. He loved Megan, but now he's fond of me as well. And I love him. And maybe he'll never love anyone as much as he loved your sister, but I know he'll try. He's a good man, he just wants the best for everyone. You should leave us alone.'

Jacob has started at her words, his mouth changing from grimace to open-mouthed astonishment.

‘Silas? Miriam? Is everything all right here?' John has arrived with Joseph and Ieuan beside him, their faces set, as if ready for battle.

‘I think so.'

Jacob slowly turns. ‘I was just giving Mr James my congratulations,' he says, pointedly dabbing at his nose and wincing. ‘He's a lucky man.' Then, unwilling to turn his back on them, Jacob walks backwards to where his horse is tethered. ‘Shall I see you on Sunday?' he says as if he has just come across them in the village, ‘I am looking forward to giving my first sermon in the new chapel.'

‘Perhaps, Mr Griffiths. We shall see.'

They sleep side by side as if there is a cold barrier of bed they mustn't cross. During the day she clutches him when anyone sees them, holds his hand or his arm, and leans her head on his shoulder, but never kisses him. And he is aware of her as he would be of an adoring child: another Myfanwy but older and bigger, her body heavy on his, but sometimes too close, sometimes pulling him and weighing him down.

The summer is coming and the wheat is ripening. For an hour Silas and Miriam work side by side almost in silence, intent on their work even though it requires little concentration. Then, abruptly, she pauses and looks at him. ‘What must I do for you to love me, Silas?'

‘I do love you.'

‘Not as a friend. You know how I mean.'

He doesn't answer. His face is burning. He snatches at the weeds, counting them as he pulls them from the ground.

‘Look at me.'

He stops. Stands upright.

‘What is wrong? My hair? My legs? My face? What is it that repulses you?'

All of these things he thinks guiltily – and yet none of them. ‘You are perfect. The fault is mine.'

She strides next to him. ‘Hold me.' He touches her on the shoulders.

‘Properly.'

‘I can't.' He whips his hands away and she stares at him – eyes round and full of tears.

‘Is that what's wrong? I want children of my own, Silas. Your children. Our children. How can I have them if you can't even bear to touch me?'

He looks away, kneels down again to dig at the weeds and her shadow stays there, across the ground in front of him unmoving.

‘Won't you even talk to me?'

‘I can't,' he cries out. ‘I can't tell you what I think. Everything is confused. You, me, Megan, Jacob, Edwyn... I'm sorry. I didn't know it would be like this. I'm sorry.'

‘Why did you marry me, Silas?'

He doesn't answer. He is close to sobbing and breaking down. The smell of the earth, the sound of the river close by, even the tugging of the wind is reminding him of so many things he would rather forget.

‘I think you just wanted a slave. Because that is what I am now. Promised to you before God... but then you made a promise too, Silas, and as far as I can see you have no intention at all of keeping it.'

It is January and the sun shines down with a hard dry heat. The ground bakes. The ears of wheat are turning yellow, becoming ready to bloom. Every day Silas inspects them and then goes into the village. The same question is asked again and again – in small groups outside each house, inside the warehouse where they all meet to buy supplies, outside the chapel – is it time yet? Shall we wait another day?

Edwyn calls an informal meeting for everyone who is around. Only Jacob is missing, but Jacob doesn't need to know; he has chosen to plant vegetables rather than wheat and can often be seen tending them alone in his field.

‘I think we should harvest now,' says Caradoc, and Selwyn agrees. ‘Wait another week and everything will blossom and be ruined.'

The American, David Parry, nods. ‘The weather is so hot here and things happen quickly in the heat.'

‘I agree we should be vigilant,' says Edwyn, ‘but if the Lord has given us the sun, surely we should make the most of it. Every day the ears become more golden and fuller. Surely we should wait for as long as possible.'

‘There is a danger of being too greedy,' says Silas quietly from the back, and everyone turns to look. The people around him agree. ‘At the moment a harvest would be easy, the weather ideal and we all know how quickly things can change.'

‘Just another day,
brodyr
, then. Let us make a compromise. Another day and we start the harvest – agreed?' Edwyn's face slowly rotates on his neck. It is like a light, illuminating each nodding head in turn.

Silas goes back to his house and waits. It is cool in the living room and Miriam and the children have gone in there to get out of the sun. Miriam and Myfanwy are absorbed in the book and he enters so quietly they do not look up. The place has begun to smell of Wales, he realises. The perfume of a damper, greener place rises from everything here like a memory from all the pieces of furniture, books and blankets that Miriam has begged or borrowed from friends or family.

When he sits on Megan's old chair it creaks, and the two of them look coolly at him. How alike in their ways they are he thinks. Although Myfanwy looks like a paler, plumper and smaller version of Megan, in mannerisms she mimics Miriam: the way they hold their head slightly to one side, and the way a smile always has to be earned, and then is only given so grudgingly. Miriam stands and smoothes down her skirt. She is plumper than she was he notices – her hips have broadened, and she seems to have done something to her bodice so her chest swells like a rooster's. He smiles.

‘What are you smiling about, Dadda?' Myfanwy asks.

‘I was admiring what I see.'

Miriam walks from the room into the kitchen and returns with a basket of washing. ‘The sky is getting heavy out there. I think it is going to rain.'

He frowns and rushes out. There are clouds building up in the east, a fine even-coloured layer, dividing the sky into two unequal sections. But apart from that the wind has changed direction and lessened. She is right. There is a heaviness. And he fancies the air is not quite as dry. He goes to his horse. The stallion seems restless as if he knows something is about to happen. Silas swings himself into the saddle and yells over to Miriam.

‘I'm going to tell them in the village. You go and tell your father. Maybe no one else has realised. Then get the sickle ready. We're going to have to move quickly, I think.'

The rest of the villagers do not take long to persuade. Edwyn organises them, tells each farmer to tell someone else, but most of them have realised already and as he returns to his farm Silas can see them out in their fields, small shapes frantically sweeping the air with their scythes. Miriam is waiting for him, her shorter work clothes on, her sleeves rolled up and a scarf and hat on her head.

The sky has become darker now, the layer to the west larger and more grey. It is a smooth bank of cloud, the line between it and the clear sky to the east straight and perfect. It creeps across the sky towards them and below it the climate gradually changes from the heat of a dry summer day to a colder and more humid autumn. They work quickly and efficiently, side by side, Ieuan coming to join them once he can be spared from his father's plot. Silas cuts and Miriam ties the wheat into sheaves. It is something she only learnt to do last year and he is surprised and pleased at how well she does it. The wind has picked up now, buffeting all of them, picking up the wheat as he cuts it so that she sometimes has to run after it. She is lean and strong, grabbing the wheat like a boy, then tucking it under her arm like a woman picks up a wilful child, and tying it with such an expression of serious concentration that he smiles.

They stop just once for the food she has brought for them both – a couple of hard-boiled eggs and some bread – and finish just as the sun is about to set behind the mountains. Then the rain that has been threatening for the last two hours finally falls – heavy cold drops on the hot land, and they run to the house exclaiming and laughing. Beside the house they pause. It seems like the rest of the valley has succeeded too. All the plots that they can see each have their collection of sheaves. They will have a fine time collecting them all together in the warehouse. There should be a celebration. At last the entire valley has proved itself to be fertile.

‘Mam says she is keeping Myfanwy with her for tea so we can have a rest,' Miriam says, slipping in through the door. He face is still flushed and glistening with sweat. Silas pours water from the kettle onto some yerba leaves in two mugs. They have sometimes taken to having their tea the native way, in a mug with a straw.

‘You did well today,' he tells her, bringing the two mugs into the living room. She is sitting on their newest piece of furniture – a long settle he has made which she has padded well with cushions. She wedges herself into the corner, sighing, stretching out her legs and arms. Her stockings have holes, and her arms are scratched up to where her sleeves end. He says nothing but comes back with a little soap and water, then sits beside her to dab her skin clean. She laughs and cries out, pretending that it hurts her more than it does, then, when he has finished, demands that she returns the compliment.

There is a tear in his trousers, and the material around it is matted with blood. ‘I should see to that,' she says, and tries to roll up his trouser leg. ‘This isn't working,' she grumbles, then smiles suddenly and grabs at his belt.

‘Hey!'

‘I'm your wife, Silas, remember. Don't you think I've seen you plenty of times already?'

Mumbling disapprovingly he allows her to peel them from him. The wound is not deep, in fact he cannot remember it happening, but it spreads across the whole of his thigh. She kneels before him with the bowl of water and he watches as her slim fingers squeeze out the cloth and then firmly apply it to the outer edges of his wound, working inwards as she would if she was treating a stain. He leans back, his eyes closed, tries to pretend her hands are not there, but he can feel them, travelling over that part of him that used to belong exclusively to Megan, claiming it for herself with every wipe, every dab. When she reaches the wound he gasps. The pain is close to pleasure.

‘Sorry, shall I stop?'

‘No, it's all right, carry on.' He hears his own voice, soft, low, like that of a cat being stroked.

She pauses as if registering it. He can feel her looking at him, can hear that she smiles – the almost silent snaps as the strands of saliva drawn apart by her lips break. Then she starts again. Her motions are wider now and her hand more gentle. When the wound is clear she discards the cloth and continues with her hands, one each side of his leg, kneading his flesh – cold but becoming warmer.

‘Silas?'

‘Yes?' He doesn't open his eyes. He doesn't want to see. He just wants to imagine what is there.

‘Don't ever leave me,' she says. ‘Promise me.'

His eyes open. Not Megan. He attempts to keep his face steady. He reaches out to touch her hair as he would stroke Myfanwy's. Her smile broadens and he leans over to kiss her lightly on her head. ‘I promise,' he says.