A Small Country (13 page)

The baby slept.

It was ten o’clock when they halted. The sun was beginning to get hot, larks hung in the sky, when one stopped singing and descended, another began on the long thrilling ascent so that the song seemed endless. The sky was a golden haze.

They sat amongst buttercups and purple vetch and long slender grasses the colour of young apples, and ate bread and cheese and drank home-brewed from a stone jar.

Afterwards, the men took oats to the horses and Miriam nursed the baby. She took off her little sticky garments to let her feel the sun; it was the first time she had been out-of-doors; she waved her small arms about and kicked and lunged, drowning in a sea of air.

Josi came back alone, Robin bach was smoking his pipe and keeping out of their way for five minutes.

‘You look like a gipsy with that scarf over your head and the wagon behind you,’ Josi said.

Miriam shivered in the warmth of the morning. It was all too much for her. The tender breeze, the lovely grass; every blade was beautiful, every tiny flower. She picked a wild rose, so delicate its colour, shape and smell that she felt overwhelmed. What was its purpose? She crushed it in her hand. Only to ensure the future of the species, only to keep going the wheel of the seasons. It was heart-rending.

‘What’s it for, all this beauty?’ she asked Josi.

‘It’s for the glory of God,’ he said simply.

Miriam tossed her head, not angrily but sadly. ‘Listen to that greenfinch calling to its mate in the hawthorn. Such tenderness. Not even a song, just a little, “Here I am”, like you used to tap on my window. And when the fledglings are flown, they’ll go their own ways again. Everything, and all of us, betrayed by the power of the mating drive. It’s the cruelty of God, if you ask me.’

‘That too,’ Josi said. ‘You can’t separate the one from the other. Dark and light, light and shade, glory and cruelty; that’s how it is. You mustn’t fight it. It’s no use.’

She looked at him with awe. To Josi everything was straight-forward. If only I could put my weight on the earth squarely as he does, she thought; make living as simple as breathing in and out. She put her hand on his chest, at the top, where his shirt was open.

‘Wanton,’ he said, turning towards her.

Pain rose to her heart, exquisitely, like the larks rising.

Then Robin came back towards them, leading the horses. Miriam dressed the baby and Josi helped her back into the wagon.

They travelled slowly because of the heat of the day.

‘Is that the sea?’ Miriam asked, sitting up so suddenly that she woke the baby. Everything in the distance was so blue that she couldn’t be certain.

‘Aye,’ Robin bach said. ‘Aye, that’s it. That’s the sea right enough.’

‘We’ve arrived then,’ Josi said. ‘We turn off on this corner here.’

‘We’ll be near the sea then, will we?’

‘A mile or two, I think.’

‘Fancy forgetting to mention the sea.’

‘I chose the place for the view,’ Josi said, with a touch of irony. Then, in case he had been too severe, he sang a few lines of an old folk song.

On the seashore is a flat stone,

Where my love and I would meet.

Now the wild thyme grows about it

And sprigs of rosemary.

He was glad she seemed pleased about the sea. He doubted whether there was anything else about the mean little cottage to give her much pleasure.

‘Well, here it is.’

It was an uncompromising box of a house, peeling whitewash under a slate roof, four small windows and a door, a holly tree outside, a square garden in front, a yard at the side, a woodshed, a pump and a clothes line.

‘It’s very homely,’ Miriam said, as Josi lifted her and the baby out of the cart. She was pleased to find it so unprepossessing. A puritan streak in her nature wouldn’t have wanted anything beyond her deserts. The morning had confounded her.

‘I’ll make you a seat here,’ Josi said, marking the spot where he’d set her down with the palm of his hand. ‘And you can sit and look at the sea.’

‘I’ll have to go up to the house for the door key,’ he told Robin. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. Just up the road about a quarter of a mile; shouldn’t take me long.’

‘I don’t like the old sea myself,’ Robin said, as he took the horses out of the shafts. ‘On a day like today, well, it looks harmless enough, but it’s different in the winter when it starts churning about and reminding you of all the drowned. It’s not alive like the land is; it doesn’t produce anything, seed-time or harvest, except old fish. It just lies there skulking and churning about and reminding you.’

‘I’ve only seen it once before,’ Miriam said, as though to excuse her moment of excitement. ‘Close to, I mean.’

‘You’re close enough to it here, in all conscience, but that doesn’t mean to say you’ve got to go in or on it. As long as you don’t go in it or on it, it can’t do you too much harm, except like the river, it can go on your chest if you’re prone, and if you are, chewing an onion last thing at night and first thing in the morning is the thing to do. Baby won’t suffer though, you shall see, wrapped in it from infancy, she won’t be prone.’

‘I think I’ll go and peep through the windows,’ Miriam said, a little worried in case Robin felt it necessary to carry on talking until Josi came back.

‘No, no, not for the world. Oh no. It’ll bring you nothing but bad luck. There’s nothing so unlucky as to see your future home for the first time through glass. Nothing in the world.’

Miriam expressed her thanks for his warning and stayed by his side.

‘Not that I’m superstitious,’ he told her, ‘not in the least bit. Not on my own account. It’s only the moon I’m careful of, especially with sowing seeds or planting potatoes. It’s only a fool who ignores the moon. Aye indeed.’

Miriam moved the baby to her other arm. She was still fast asleep, drugged by the fresh air.

‘Stop a minute now. Was your grandfather Ellis Lewis the cobbler in Cefnmwyn?’

‘Yes he was. Did you know him?’

‘No. But I knew one of his sons, Sam. Your uncle he’d be. He went down South to the pits with me thirty-odd years ago. Sam Lewis.’

‘He’s still down there, Aberdare way. I’ve never met him as far as I know, but I heard a lot about him from my mother.’

‘He’s still down there, then. He was courting Nel the daughter of The Coach-in-Hand when I knew him.’

‘That’s right. My Auntie Eleanor. She came to stay with us once. She’d been ill and she came to us afterwards.’

‘A stout girl she was when I knew her.’

‘I can’t remember much about her, I’m afraid. It was years ago. Before my father died.’

‘Yes, very stout and jolly. She would have made anyone a good wife. Sam was with the horses in the pits. Good little man, he was.’

‘How long did you stay down there?’

‘Three years exactly. Aye, indeed. It was work and the money was good but it was out of the light of day and besides I was promised to Let the Mill as she was then, and back I came. Not that the girls down South are not pretty, they are, diawch-i, and one or two of them did me the honour of asking me home after a bit of a walk we might have had out on the mountain. But a promise is a promise and Let was waiting and home I came, thirty-three years old with fifty gold sovereigns saved; enough in those days to buy two good horses and a wagon. Aye indeed. And fancy you being Sam Lewis’s niece. Well, I’ll tell you something, then. Since you are niece to old Sam, I’ll let you into a secret. That man you’ve got there is one in ten thousand and don’t let anyone tell you anything different. One and all, rich and poor; everyone is the same to Josi Evans. I’ve known him since he was a slip of a boy, mind. One in ten thousand. So there you are; you can be happy. And remember that anyone who casts a stone is not half the man Josi Evans is. Here he is now. Not a word. Not a word.’

‘Have you two been talking about me?’ Josi asked. ‘Ruining my character?’

‘Not at all. Saying I was that a ship — now, people are always praising the beauty of a ship — but saying I was that to me a ship isn’t anywhere near as noble-looking as a plough. What do you say to that?’

‘He’s a bit of a poet,’ Josi told Miriam. ‘His father, Gwilym Cothi, was noted for it and it goes in families like a wall-eye.’

Josi unlocked the front door and they trooped into the house; Josi first, then Robin, and last Miriam and the baby.

It was the best kitchen they saw first; the paper peeling from the wall, the fireplace full of ash; a smell of damp soot; even in the midsummer heat, it was chilly. The kitchen was even worse, piled high with rubbish, old clothes and mattresses, discarded pots and pans and bottles, even old food to judge by the flies and the bitter, rancid smell.

‘Whoever lived here before had a poorish notion of cleaning up,’ Robin said.

‘Chap was killed. Thrown off a horse, broke his back. The wife was in a bit of a state, no doubt.’

‘Something else you didn’t tell me,’ Miriam said.

‘Not many jobs going before Michaelmas.’

‘Poor old fellow. It happens. Even among horses there’ll be a bad one now and then.’

‘What I’m concerned about now is why Isaac Lloyd didn’t see fit to have someone clean up a bit before we arrived.’

‘Too busy with the hay,’ Robin said. ‘Never mind, I’ll stay and give you a hand. Drag it all outside, have a good fire. There’s water in the pump so it’s quite safe and there’s not much in the garden to spoil. Go upstairs, my boy, and see what’s there.’

The two rooms upstairs were bare and relatively clean.

The men started on the work.

Miriam fetched the Moses basket from the wagon and carried it upstairs, setting it down by the window in the larger of the two rooms. Then she changed the baby and laid her down in it. She cried so lustily, though, that she had to feed her again before she was able to go down to help. By the time she had finished, most of the rubbish was already in the garden. The fire the men lit lasted for over an hour and all the time it burned, Miriam thought of the man who’d been thrown off his horse and had died. It seemed a bad omen. She knew she should be cleaning the kitchen but couldn’t begin on it. She stayed outside with Josi, feeding the fire, being near him. Being near him was to feel his strength.

Afterwards, when everything was burnt to a clean black ash, they fetched the food from the wagon and unloaded the table and chairs
and ate outside in the garden; bread and ham and onions, and afterwards Josi made a fire in the kitchen grate and got their new kettle and made tea for Miriam while he and Robin finished the beer.

He and Miriam sat close together and later Robin smoked his pipe, and in the heat haze of the early afternoon when even the birds were silent they rested and took in their surroundings; the sea dazzling in front of them, the green hills behind, no sign of any other house, no noise except the whirring of the mowing machine in some unseen field; the smell of mint and blackcurrants and Robin’s strong tobacco, the faint taste of salt on the tongue.

For the moment, Miriam felt at rest. All the guilt and discord and passion, like the noise of the million summer insects around her, dissolved into a low and peaceful hum.

*

All too soon, though, it was time to re-start work. They unloaded the wagon, setting everything down in the garden. Robin stayed to help Josi carry the bed upstairs and then he set off for home; Josi and Miriam standing in the road waving until he was out of sight. He had refused payment.

‘It’s my turn to work now,’ Miriam said. ‘I’ve got to clean out that kitchen before we can take anything inside. I’ve got my canvas apron and a scrubbing brush somewhere.’

‘I’ve got a hatchet and a bill-hook somewhere, too. I need to chop some wood before I do anything else. Afterwards, I’ve got to go up to the house again to get my orders for tomorrow.’

Miriam swept the floor in every room and then began to scrub the flags of the best kitchen and the kitchen. She got a rag and washed the windows inside and out and every shelf upstairs and down. After that she turned her attention to the kitchen grate. She didn’t have any blacking so had to be satisfied with rubbing it ferociously with an old piece of velvet. That done she sorted out the pots and pans, washing all the things which had been stored for months in Cefn Eithin’s barn, and finding places for them in the pantry and on the wooden shelves near the grate. She brought in the hand-made rug Auntie Hetty had given them and then carried in the new table and chairs. She set the clock going and put it on the mantlepiece with the tea canister and the pair of brass candlesticks she’d received from her pupils. She polished her mother’s armchair with some beeswax she found on a shelf in the pantry. She fetched kindling from the pile of wood Josi had chopped and made a fire. She went to the pump to fill the kettle and when she straightened herself she was so giddy from exhaustion and heat that she sat on the grass and wept.

Josi found her there when he returned from the farm.

‘You’re not strong enough for all this lifting and scrubbing,’ he said, carrying her to the chair by the fire. ‘And besides, that wasn’t what I hired you for.’

There was nothing much more to do but feed the baby again and have some tea. Josi carried the small chest of drawers upstairs to their bedroom and then they had completed their move.