Firebird (18 page)

She was glad her father had returned from the war, there was no question about that. She loved him dearly and she admired the stoic way he dealt with his disabilities. Sometimes, the wounds on his legs gave him pain, the skin breaking down into open sores. She had seen Joe make a paste from a mixture of boiled roots and herbs and coat the red raw flesh with the soothing balm. Some days, her father would be fit enough to oversee the work in the pottery, at times he would even take charge of the accounts, but much of the time he just sat silently lost in a world of his own.

Joe was so good with him, so patient. When Lloyd needed him, he was there. She swallowed hard. Joe. She was in love with him. He had not encouraged her feelings or even acknowledged them but sometimes she caught him looking at her as if he was trying to see inside her head.

He was a beautiful man, handsome, intelligent and different to anyone she had ever met. It was just a foolish dream, she knew that. Even if by some miracle Joe returned her love, it was an impossible match. One of which her father would never approve.

She moved to the paint shop and breathed in the familiar smells of oil, paint and lead. A line of pots stood on the long table in preparation for decorating. The printer, a man in a long apron over greasy trousers, glanced up at her briefly and nodded. Almost without pause, he continued to lay his colour on a metal slab which he was heating on the stove.

He reached for a pad of cloth and began to transfer the colour from the slab to the copper-plate engraving with the deftness of a practised printer. Llinos knew the process by heart, she had used it herself many times. She watched as the printer took a wet piece of tissue paper and laid it on the plate. He scraped away the excess paint with a blade and wiped it back onto the slab. He was clearly not a man to waste good paint.

He took the copper plate, covered it with paper and passed it under a heavy roller covered with thick flannel. Llinos could not count the number of times she had watched in wonder as the pattern came out of the roller fixed to the paper.

‘Miss Savage, could you help me?' The voice was subdued; one of the girls from the orphanage stared at Llinos, her eyes large in her pale face. She shifted awkwardly on the bench, holding a pattern up for inspection.

‘I think I've made a mistake with this scroll by here.' She sounded near to tears. ‘Have I ruined it?'

Before Llinos could speak, one of the older women came forward and snatched the pattern from the girl.

‘You stupid child! Can't you get anything right? I'm going to have a fine job transferring this mess onto a pot, aren't I?'

‘Let me see.' Llinos might be young but in her good gown and hair in ringlets she was every inch the daughter of the owner and as such must be obeyed.

‘It will be all right. A scroll missing will not be noticed.' Llinos returned the pattern to the woman. ‘What's your name?'

‘Mrs Smedley. Good transferer, me, but I can't work with that rubbish. This pattern won't come out proper, like. It will be unbalanced, anyone can see that.'

She stabbed angrily at the paper with a padded stump of cloth and the paper pattern was torn.

‘Look.' Llinos was determined to keep her temper, though it was easy to see that Mrs Smedley was deliberately being difficult. She picked up the bowl the young girl had been decorating and placed the pattern onto the surface. ‘You must dab, like this, sharply but not fiercely and don't rub, that's what tears the paper.'

Llinos demonstrated with expert hands and then handed the bowl to Mrs Smedley. The woman shot her a glance of sheer venom.

‘Thank you, miss, I see what I was doing wrong now.' Her voice rang with sarcasm. ‘Here, Lily,' she addressed the girl in sullen tones. ‘Take this pot to the barrel of water over there and get the paper washed off. Try to do something right, for a change.'

Mrs Smedley looked directly at Llinos. ‘I hear we are having some more of those new heathen patterns to work with,' she said in a deceptively mild tone of voice.

‘If you mean the American Indian designs you are quite right, they seem to have become quite popular.' Llinos faced the woman eye to eye. She was suddenly aware of how tall she had grown in the past months. She was no longer a child, she was a woman with the longings and urges of a woman. Urges that were directed to the most unsuitable of men.

‘Don't know what the folks of Swansea make of it all, eagles and strange cattle prancing over their pots. Not used to it, see?'

‘The fact is, the pots are selling.' Llinos paused, attempting to moderate the sharpness of her tone. ‘At least we are providing something different.' She added a note of caution.

‘If we are to compete with the bigger potteries across the country we will all have to pull together or we'll all be out of work.'

Llinos left the paint shop and retraced her steps across the yard. There seemed no place for her now within the pottery sheds. Everything had been organized efficiently without her. It was a strange feeling.

She saw Watt carrying a bowl of scraps on his head, stumbling over the rough ground. ‘Watt! Isn't that a heavy load for you?'

‘No, miss, it's easy. I'm taking it to the bins ready for the horse and cart.' He grinned cheerfully and for a moment Llinos felt a flicker of regret for the difficult months after her mother's death when she had tried to keep the pottery alive on a shoestring.

‘Well take care you don't work too hard. And, Watt, I'm Llinos, remember? No need to call me miss.' Llinos returned to the house and hung her apron behind the kitchen door. The sun was shining in through the windows, there was a dreaming silence about the house as if everything in it was asleep.

Then she heard sounds of movement, the creak of her father's chair as he manoeuvred it along the passage and into the room he had converted into an office. Somehow, the bond between herself and her father was not as strong as it should be. He quarrelled with her often, finding fault with what she wore, how she spoke. Worst of all, he criticized the way she had been running the pottery in his absence, it just was not fair of him.

Still, she should remember what he had been through and humour him. Perhaps she should find out if he needed anything. As she put her hand on the latch, the door sprung open. She made an involuntary move backwards as she came face to face with Joe. His dark hair was tied back from his face. There was a smudge of paint on his cheek. It was clear he had been working on the Indian designs.

His sleeves were rolled up and the skin of his arms was red gold in the sunlight. She breathed in the scent of him even while she tried to appear unmoved by his nearness.

‘Your father would like something to drink.' He moved past her towards the deep pantry. ‘There should be some cordial left in the jug.' He looked at her over his shoulder. ‘You really should get help with the housework. The place is too big for you to manage alone.'

Suddenly she felt anger so intense she thought it would choke her. She lashed out at Joe as though he was the source of all her frustration. And, perhaps, he was.

‘Oh, is it?' She felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Well, how kind of you to say so. I managed quite well before you came htre, remember? In any case, I don't appreciate being told what to do in my own house.'

He half smiled. ‘Do you wish to waste your talents standing over a stove or scrubbing floors? Is that your ambition in life, Miss Savage?'

‘Don't patronize me.' She knew she was being ridiculous but now she had begun, she did not know how to stop. ‘You come here, a stranger and take charge of everything.' She gestured towards the cup in his hand. ‘You don't even leave the smallest of jobs for me.'

Her anger evaporated suddenly. She sank down into a chair and covered her face with her hands. ‘I have no place here any more, I am no use to anyone.'

She stiffened as she felt his hands rest on her shoulders. She was aware of him as he stood behind her. She felt the heat of his fingers through the thinness of her gown. She wanted to turn and fling herself into his arms.

‘Your destiny is shaped for you,' he said. ‘Just as surely as the patterns are shaped on the clay, so your life will follow its own design.'

She rose from the chair and stood close, looking up at him. He read her easily and shook his head.

‘The time is not yet right, Llinos. Be patient.' He touched her cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers and then he turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

There were tears in her eyes and they fell hot and angry between her fingers. She wanted to scream and cry, she wanted to run in the breeze to be caught and held by Joe and to be pressed into the sweet grass. She wanted . . . she wanted the impossible.

‘I shan't be coming here for much longer, Father.' Maura hung the drying-cloths on the line above the mantelpiece and stared outside to where a pale sun was silvering the leaves of the conifers.

‘I know.' The vicar put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You need to conserve your energy for that new life you have in there.'

‘And I need to save you embarrassment,' Maura said drily. Father Duncan smiled.

‘I'm past being embarrassed at my time of life, Maura.'

‘Still, people will talk.'

‘So they will, but have things ever been different? Folks will make it up if they have no real gossip to exchange.' He patted her gently.

‘I'm sorry that offer of a rented house came to nought, child.'

‘I wasn't surprised,' Maura said. ‘The Pryces are a good church-going family, they wouldn't want to give a home to a fallen woman.'

‘Tosh! They did not think you would pay them the high rent they were asking, that is the be-all and end-all of it.'

‘But I must get out of Pottery House before the baby is born. The Savage family have been good to me for Binnie's sake, but I can't expect them to support me and my child.'

Father Duncan pushed the kettle onto the flames and perched on the edge of the table.

‘Will Binnie not marry you, Maura?'

She shook her head. ‘I won't lower my pride to ask him again, Father. Please, I don't want to talk about it.'

‘Right then, let's change the subject. Tell me about this man, this so-called heathen the folks of the town are so busy talking about.'

‘Joe? He's not a heathen.'

‘But he is a foreigner?' the vicar persisted.

‘Sure he's a foreigner – in some ways.'

‘Well, he is not a Welshman nor yet an Irishman nor even an Englishman so what is he?'

‘He's half American Indian.' Maura smiled. ‘His father is a rich English gentleman; he had Joe educated in a fine school. And whatever else he is, Joe is wise and gentle and beautiful and if I was not head-over-heels in love with Binnie I would throw myself at his feet, so I would.'

Father Duncan chuckled. ‘Not advisable in your condition, my dear child. How does he speak, then?'

‘He speaks like an English gentleman,' Maura said. ‘He has a voice like a crystal stream falling over rocks made of diamonds.'

‘Well, I can see you are smitten.'

Maura looked at the vicar soberly. ‘Joe is a good man, he saved the life of Captain Savage and brought him home. He has made a chair with wheels so that the captain can move about the house and when the captain is sick, Joe tends him as if he was a baby.'

‘No-one can ask more of any man,' Father Duncan said. ‘But I have heard that the Indian goes into trances, conjures up spirits of his ancestors, worships the buffalo, that sort of thing. If the man does that then is he not a heathen?'

‘I don't know about that.' Maura was on the defensive. ‘He does not go to church, not any church, but he is a very . . . a very . . .'

‘Spiritual man?' the vicar supplied.

Maura nodded. ‘Sure an' that's just what I would call him – spiritual. And Father, if Joe worships God in his own way, surely that's his right?'

‘Ah, I was displaying my idle curiosity, I didn't know we were going to have a deep theological discussion.' Father Duncan pushed himself upright and made a pot of tea. ‘Sit down, child, let us talk a little more before you go on your way home. I may be a man of the cloth but I too get lonely for company at times.'

Maura obediently sat at the table, easing her legs apart to accommodate her enlarged stomach. The baby kicked inside her and she touched her belly in wonder.

‘You have a lively boy in there, it would seem,' the vicar said easily. ‘I know it's a sore subject but what if I talked to your man, asked him to come to church and marry you before the birth of your child?'

‘He does not want to be tied down, at least that's what he says. He tells me the baby is my fault and says that at least he's standing by me.' She had been half expecting a lecture and she did not need it, however kindly it was meant.

‘Do you want me to have a word with him, then?' Father Duncan said.

Maura shook her head. ‘I'll speak to him again myself, I promise.'

‘Make it soon, Maura, that little one is not going to wait much longer. Now, let's drink our tea and talk about something else, shall we?'

Later, as Maura made her way uphill towards Pottery Row, she wondered how she could persuade Binnie to marry her. It was not so much the ring on her finger, although that was important too, it was the fact that she did not want her child born out of wedlock. Once a bastard, in the eyes of the world he would always be a bastard.

She shivered, the day had grown sunless and cold and she suddenly felt like crying. She belonged to no-one, she had no home of her own and soon she was bringing an illegitimate child into the world. How did she get herself into this mess? But she knew well enough: her flesh was too weak and her love of life too strong.