Fair Fight (25 page)

‘The shirt’s stained,’ he said.

‘I could clean it –’ I began.

‘Ho, Tom!’ came the cry from outside.

Tom jerked as though pulled on a string. ‘I must go, kiss me, quickly.’

I kissed him and he rushed from the cottage, slamming the door in his haste. I went to the window to see him run to a grand carriage pulled by four horses. A gloved hand opened the door, a slice of Mr Dryer’s thin face showed itself. My husband’s broad back, in its well-worn shirt, disappeared inside that glossy coach, and then the groom flicked the reins and they were gone.

I’d not told him to take care, nor wished him good luck. I didn’t know when he’d come back. I stood at the window a long time, looking out at the blank hedge of the lane, the feel of Tom’s rough cheek still upon my lips.

15

N
o one had been near me for weeks, not a soul since Tom left. The pantry, so well stocked to begin, was dwindling to nothing, its shelves as bare and cold as the trees outside. Why hadn’t we guessed that I’d be left thus? We’d had our heads turned by the food and been kept nervous by Mr Dryer’s coming whenever the fancy took him. As soon as Tom was gone, so was the liveried footboy. Who’d bring beefsteak to a wife? Mr Dryer always had dropped me from his mind, whenever he’d no use for me.
But oh, Tom, how could you not have thought of it?
We’d neither of us thought of it, or Tom would’ve asked for a few shillings for me against future earnings, or asked that the pantry be filled, even just a little, till he came home. He might’ve asked when he’d be home. I’d no notion of when he might come.

Now I stood in the pantry and looked over what was left. The flags were cold on my bare feet but I’d not fashed myself with stockings. I’d not changed from my gown for a good while, even to sleep, and my nice sprigged dress didn’t look so pretty any more. I didn’t like to wear the lilac dressing gown. I wasn’t sure how long it was, because all days had grown the same. It had been long enough.

I had a crust of bread, grown hard, which I kept because somehow matters would seem the worse if there were no bread at all. Better to keep this drying crust as a charm, that might in time call other bread to its side. I had enough oats for three good bowls of porridge, or perhaps seven or eight bowls of gruel. I had no milk, no eggs, but a little cheese left. I had some butter, turning rancid now. I had three turnips, one gone a little soft about the tip, and four small potatoes, and a bowl of fat saved from the last of the bacon, which I was eking out as long as I could stand. I had a jar of preserves, half empty, and a handful of flour, but nothing more to make bread with. And I didn’t know when I might get hold of anything else at all. I stood before the shelves and looked over this sorry collection again and again. Each time I broke down and ate something was a defeat, and all I had left must be counted again. Hunger, that wasn’t much to me, but I was used to stepping out of my door into streets filled with people I knew and folks selling foodstuffs from carts and trays. If I’d been in Bristol I’d have had no trouble making a few pennies by my fists, or even by my cunny, if driven to it. Instead I was trapped in the middle of flat fields and grey sky and not a soul around, either to buy or sell.

I went out walking, though I hated to. Inside the cottage I could almost make believe that I wasn’t alone and miles from the places I knew. Outside on the lane, hemmed in by those tall hedgerows of bare and tangled sticks, I could see nothing but what was ahead and behind me, which was to say, only more lane, stretching away till it turned, to wind off to God knew where. When once I wound with it, and the cottage went from view, the sameness of it made me feel trapped, and as blind as your arsehole. The lane was a devilish place, a gaol roofed by blank grey sky. Here and there I came to the gaps in the hedge, crossed by wooden gates, where the wind roared through the gap to bite my face, and dull earthen fields stretched away with only a few scrubby trees to break the view. I felt adrift in an endless and empty world. I could almost have believed that I’d died and been left in limbo as the Papists believed, neither Heaven nor Hell but a blasted, lonely waiting. I’d never in my life been so much alone. I’d never been alone even for a day before Mr Dryer took us.

This, then, was the countryside. These, then, were fields and farms. But where was all the food? Where was the wheat, the cows fat with milk, the chickens, the women with baskets of eggs? I’d not a penny about me, but I’d have worked, or bargained for a supper, if only a farmer could be found. I couldn’t imagine that here was the land from which all food sprung. If it was, it was whipped away before ever I saw it, and by invisible hands. I saw nothing I could eat at all, bar nettles, which I gathered and cooked just as I had in Bristol, and once a flock of distant sheep.

I went out walking each day that I could stomach it. I walked in either direction along the lane, but I never chose the road behind the cottage, through the tall gates. I knew that Mr Dryer’s house must lie up there, though he himself, I thought, must be in London with my husband. I knew that someone must be there, to keep house for him, Old Pious and the liveried boy, but I couldn’t go a-begging. I was saving that road. If I came to walk it, I’d know I’d lost my pride. I walked the lane and went as far as I could stand, though I came to understand later that by the terms of the countryside I walked no distance at all. I’d grow disheartened and turn back, taking with me what damp twigs I could to make the coal go further. The coal was dwindling faster than the food, and the days growing frosty with it.

Back at the cottage I took a knife from the kitchen and went back out to hack what I could from the hedge, though I scratched my hands and arms cruelly. What I did gather was too green to burn well and smoked miserably.

I let the cottage grow filthy. I didn’t comb my hair, or brush down my skirts. I couldn’t sleep at night, with the world outside the window filled with animal rustling, and the dark as deep and black as Hell. I slept sometimes in the day time, as the misses were doing at home. I slept in front of the hearth, with my old cloak spread beneath me to keep the worst of the cold from the flags and my good cloak acting the part of a blanket. Sometimes I was fashed enough to go up and fetch the blankets off the bed, but still every night I took them back upstairs, to lie sleepless in that beamed attic.

One day, fetching water from the well, my eye fell on the dummy hanging in the yard. I left the bucket and stood before it, letting all my rage rise up to my fists. I fibbed it hard enough to knock the straw from it and oh my stars, I wished I’d not. The hit set the bones of my hand aflame. I sagged to my knees, holding my hand in front of me, curled over it. Water came to my eyes, not just for the pain. I wasn’t built to be a wife, in a cottage, with my husband gone; I was born to stand before a crowd and hear them scream as blood hit the sawdust. Weeping a little, I got back to my feet and beat the dummy with my good left hand till that one sang out too. I didn’t care a fig; it was better to break both hands than be brought down to nothing but wife. I beat the leather dummy till I knew I was only beating myself – my good hand was near as sorry as the bad by then. Having injured myself enough, I crept back inside, to sit and stare at nothing.

And so I went on. I ate almost nothing but nettles, preferring to watch the turnips grow soft rather than strike them from my list. I believe I may’ve been taken mad by loneliness. I began to be sure that Tom was gone for ever, and that I was left to die, but I think now that I didn’t believe it in truth. If I had, I hope I’d have gone out and taken Mr Dryer’s road. If I couldn’t bear to do that, I could’ve caught a sheep with my bare hands, or walked till I found a living soul. I’d like to think I’d have walked till I came to Bristol, as I often thought of doing. The one great fear I had in that direction wasn’t that I shouldn’t find the city, or die before I reached it, though I did think of those things. My fear was that once I walked too far, when once I’d gone past too many crossroads, I’d never again find the cottage. I’d not an idea in the world where I was, nor even what was the nearest town or village. I had to wait for Tom. It didn’t occur to me that if he found me gone, he’d surely think to look for me at the convent. I felt as though, in losing the cottage, I’d lose him for ever. I didn’t know if he’d ever return but I had to do my part. I had to wait for Tom.

Days passed. At last the coal was gone, but for a couple of handfuls of small coal of the kind normally used to set a fire going, nothing that would keep warm my bones. I sat in the window of the bedroom, wrapped in all the blankets we had – I had, the cottage had – gazing at the drear laid out before me. It was raining and had been for days. The inside of the window had its own coat of drops, from which I tried to hold back the blankets. Tucked up there as I was, I couldn’t stop them getting a little wet. I was miserable cold. I’d eaten nothing at all that day. There was nothing left save oats and a turnip, and what could I do with that, with no fire to cook on? I was trying to stir myself to go down and eat cold oats and water, but I was so devilish cold I couldn’t move. I’d have to go out into the rain, mind, to fetch the water from the well. The hunger gnawed at me with the teeth of a rat, then it would hide a while and sleep, only to come back again.

The drops raced each other down the pane. All was murk and mist outside, though I knew well enough by now what view there was to be had; the lane with its walls of hedge, and the fields stretching away. In the distance the dark spread of woods began, like black clouds fallen to earth. And that was all.

I thought over again what choices lay before me; they were as dismal as the fields. I could wait there for Tom’s return, perhaps to die in the waiting. I could take my handful of oats and turnip, and set out to walk to Bristol, though I’d no idea which way to take. Surely I’d find a soul along the way who might help me, at least in the direction, if not with food. If I met no one, I’d likely croak it on the road. I’d prefer to die by the roadside than here, like a bunny forgotten in a hutch. How far could I go on foot, with a turnip and a handful of oats? What if I took the wrong road and walked into the wilderness, never to come out of it? I felt that I’d landed there already. I could take the last choice and walk Mr Dryer’s road behind the house. This last made me feel as though I might as well die. It made my insides crawl, as I must surely crawl before Old Pious when once I got there, and I couldn’t be sure that he’d help me. I thought that it would be worse, perhaps, to be turned from Mr Dryer’s house by Old Pious to starve, than to stay where I was and choose starvation by my own hand.

I named the raindrops ‘waiting’, ‘Bristol’ and ‘Old Pious’, after the roads I might take, and watched them race. The drop that first reached the bottom of the pane was the path I’d choose. The first time I did this, the droplet named for waiting alone came out the victor. The drops I named for walking got lost and ran into other drops. I began again; this time ‘waiting’ came to a halt halfway down the pane, whereas ‘Bristol’ ran into ‘Old Pious’, ate him and sped toward the finish. I liked that, for Bristol could eat that shit-sack, I thought. Bristol was bigger and more teeming than any cull alive. I missed the city near as much as I did Tom. I won’t say that the race of drops made my decision, but instead showed me a new road, a road I might take more safely. ‘Bristol’ should eat ‘Old Pious’; the two paths together to make one more sure. I’d walk Mr Dryer’s road first, go to Old Pious, and ask which was the road to Bristol. I’d have to beg for food for the journey, but I thought that even if he turned me away without, he’d surely tell me the road. And I’d ask him to take word to Tom on his return and tell him where I’d gone. The rain was beginning to ease; I’d leave as soon as it let up.

I rose and began to search out what things I’d need; there wasn’t much. I had my two cloaks, of course, and I’d take Tom’s old coat, for extra warmth. I longed to take one of the blankets from the bed, but couldn’t risk being named a thief. The oats I put into the small jar that’d held preserves, now scraped quite clean. My precious things, the dressing gown and the box of feathers, I folded and put into the basket that’d brought them there. The little portrait of the girl was still inside. I’d never brought it out. The oats and the turnip I put on top. I stood for a moment, considering my padded mufflers. They were heavy, but I thought I’d best bring them. It wasn’t just that they were my own, and few enough things could be called so, it was also that I thought I might use them, if ever I found a town or village, to put on a display of sparring and science in exchange for a few pennies. At last I tied them to the basket by their laces and let them dangle, even though I knew they’d swing and hit against my legs as I walked.

This done I sat at the table, in the chair I’d called Tom’s, and waited for the rain to lift. My belly shuddered and clenched and grew quiet again. After a time I grew cold enough to put Tom’s old coat on and my cloak on top of that.

I sat and imagined Tom hearing where I’d gone to, and coming back to find how I’d been left. His rage would be something fearful, and I only hoped he’d keep sense enough to hold his temper toward Mr Dryer. I wanted Mr Dryer to die, I wanted him locked in a room to starve, I wanted to hear him beg me for food, for company, for any piece of hope – but I didn’t want Tom’s hand to serve the devil his due. My husband I wanted safe, not thrown into a gaol, not sent to swing. I’d have to leave word, along with my direction in Bristol. I’d have to leave a message with Old Pious that Tom would understand.

I looked about me. The cottage wasn’t clean; it was worse than not clean, it was shameful. I didn’t care for Mr Dryer’s sake, I’d have burned it down, if it were only he to find it. It was the thought of Tom, finding out what low state I’d been brought to, that I couldn’t bear. I rose and began making things, not nice, mind, but a little less ugsome. The grate I swept out and put the ashes out of the door. The rain was so light now that it was more a wetness in the air than anything you could call falling. I made the bed. I swept the flags. I put my dirty dishes in the scullery and though I couldn’t heat water to wash them, I stacked them neatly beside the sink and called it good enough. The thunder pot beneath the bed I’d not emptied for days and was too full to carry easily. I realised how weak I was grown; my arms trembled and set up aching the minute I lifted it. I carried it down the stairs as slowly as I could, holding it away from my body, but still a little of the mess slipped over the rim to foul my skirts. I had to put it on the floor so that I could free my hands to open the door and when I did I near fainted away, for there was Old Pious upon the step, his fist raised to knock. He startled me so that I stepped back in surprise and bumped against the pot. More filth slopped out and wet the flags.