The Oyster Catchers (12 page)

‘But the
Oyster Sunrise
is only yours through marriage,’ Eline said sharply. ‘And did you even consult me before you handed it over to Tom Parks?’ She stood before him. ‘It’s about time you realized that I am no longer a
child, I’m a woman, Joe, with feelings and needs. And what about our own children? What will they have left to look forward to when they come along?’

He rose to his feet and took his coat and cap from the door. He stood poised for a moment, his hand on the latch.

‘I’ve tried my best to give you a child,’ he said coldly. ‘I wanted nothing more than a son by you, Eline, but you have failed me.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The fault lies with you, Eline, for I know I am not lacking.’

He left then and Eline sank down into a chair and stared at the closed door. She tried to examine her feelings, but all she could recognize was that a host of conflicting emotions were sweeping through her. She wanted children, of course she did, but did she want them to be Joe’s?

After a time, Eline rose and pulled on her light shawl beguiled by the sun streaming in through the window. She would walk to the shops, buy some fresh vegetables and a piece of lamb for Joe’s tea. If there was no way of escape, then she must make the best of things; she could not go on living in disharmony with her husband otherwise she would lose even the last vestige of respect for him.

The sea was washing the gentle shore with small, white-flecked waves. The sand was golden in the bright light and the rocks of Mumbles stood out sharply against the sky. Soon it would rain, Eline decided, for the haze of heat had disappeared and there was a clarity of sea, sky and land that hinted at a storm.

The skiffs were laid up in the pool. Some of the men had already begun to white-lime the bottoms of the craft and they lay beached, like black-and-white fish, stranded above the shoreline.

There was a crowd of women standing around the grocer’s shop and Eline recognized Carys’s heavy figure and above a white-lace collar, the rotund face beamed broadly in welcome.

‘
Duw
, there’s nice to see you out and about, Eline. Have you been poorly then?’

‘No,’ Eline said cheerfully, ‘just busy in the house.’ It was a lie and they both knew it for Carys must have heard the rows that had been taking place between Eline and Joe.

‘Well, I’ve come to get some greens, there’s some lovely cabbages, look,’ she said, ‘fresh from the farm, they are.’

As Carys stopped speaking abruptly, Eline became aware of a sudden silence, the chattering of the women had ceased. She looked over her shoulder and saw Nina Parks smiling triumphantly as she moved through the throng.

‘Well, if it isn’t Mrs Harries,’ Nina said with a show of outward respect, but with a sly smile in her eyes. ‘How are you this fine day?’

Her eyes moved meaningfully over Eline’s slim waistline. Eline felt herself flush but controlled her anger.

‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘And you, Widow Parks, how are you?’ She knew the word ‘widow’ had hit home and suddenly Eline was ashamed of herself. She searched her mind for something conciliatory to say, but Nina Parks was suddenly confronting her, hands on her hips.

‘What a pity you can’t give your husband sons,’ her voice was harsh, ‘but never mind, we are not all barren, thank the Lord.’ She turned away amid a wash of speculation and Eline was suddenly breathless.

‘Take no notice of Nina Parks,’ Carys said easily, ‘she is full of wind and water, that one.’

‘What did she mean?’ Eline said in a whisper, ‘she can’t be having …?’ There was a gust of laughter from the other women and Eline’s words trailed away into silence.

Colour stained her cheek and she felt she must turn and run. Then she became aware of the tall figure beside
her and, looking up, she saw Will Davies looking down at her with compassion in his eyes. He took both Eline and Carys by the arm and led them towards his shop.

‘Come along, ladies,’ he said loudly, ‘the new boots you wished to see have just been delivered.’

Will unlocked the door and once inside the coolness of his shop, Eline sank into a chair and stared up at Will. ‘You heard everything?’ she asked and her colour rose as he nodded.

‘Take no notice of that one.’ Carys had seated herself on one of the absurdly small chairs, her broad legs spread apart to accommodate her large stomach. ‘Nina’s
old
, got to be getting up to forty years of age, she has, can’t be having no babbi at her age, surely?’

Will brought two glasses of iced tea from the back of the shop and Eline sipped the drink gratefully. ‘If this is true, it’s the end for Joe and me,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on living in the same house as a man who has no scruples.’

‘Men are men,’ Carys shrugged and glanced up quickly at Will, ‘present company excepted, Mr Davies, but when the husband gets restless, as they do, they will find what they want in another woman’s arms.’

Eline finished her drink and set the glass down on the counter. She rose to her feet and stood before Will. ‘Thank you for your kindness,’ she said softly. She could not meet his eyes, she felt ashamed and degraded, wondering how Will must see her now. What must he think of a woman who couldn’t even keep the loyalty of her husband?

The door sprung open and Gwyneth Parks entered the shop. ‘Am I late, Mr Davies?’ she asked coyly. ‘There’s sorry I am.’

‘Don’t apologize, I’m a little early.’ He spoke absently and at his side, Eline stiffened. Carys sniffed and walked past Gwyneth and after a moment, Eline followed her.

‘There’s sorry I am for poor Eline,’ Gwyneth’s voice
carried into the street, ‘she must feel so bad that she can’t have little ones, not that it’s right for her husband to stray, mind, I don’t agree with that.’ There was a pause before Gwyneth spoke again. ‘Mind, I suppose you can’t blame a man for straying if his wife is found wanting, can you?’

Eline didn’t wait to hear if Will made any reply, her cheeks were burning, her humiliation was complete.

Joe sat beside the
Emmeline
and stared out towards the placid sea that for days now had lain quietly against the sun-bleached land in shades of turquoise and azure. The sand was honey coloured, hot to the bare feet of the children who romped and played among the rock pools that sparkled like gemstones in the haze of heat.

The brush containing white-lime and tallow rested against the rock where it had fallen for Joe had forgotten all about painting the boards of his boat in an attempt to prevent them separating in the summer sun and was rubbing the beads of sweat from his forehead. How, he wondered, had he managed to make such an ungodly mess of his life?

His young wife, Eline, whom he loved with a desperation that verged on the obsessional, was drifting away from him, alienated by his fecklessness and his philandering with a woman old enough to be Emmeline’s mother.

And yet Nina was like a part of him, a woman of warmth and sensuousness and more; a woman who was so fertile that he only had to plant his seed once and a child sprang up within her. He had lain with her only a few times before his conscience and the return of Tom to the family home had put a stop to the affair.

And now Nina was with child by him again. What was he to do? He could not marry Nina and give her child a name. All he could honourably do was to support her financially.

He thought suddenly of Tom, his son whom Joe was only just winning over. What would he say
when he learned that his mother had been betrayed yet again?

‘Damn and blast!’ Joe picked up the brush and slapped it against the underside of the boat in an explosive gesture that sent the lime flying around him like snow. He began work again like a man possessed and all the time his mind was going around like a rat in a trap, trying to sort out his muddled thoughts.

‘Joe!’ The voice was soft, cajoling, and he looked up with sudden gladness to see Eline standing above him, the breeze moulding her bodice against her small breasts so that she looked like a young nymph from another world. She slid down on to the rocks and sat beside him, her young arms gleaming softly golden in the sunlight, the sweet rise of her breasts revealed now by the opening of the calico of her bodice.

‘Joe,’ Eline looked at him beseechingly, ‘I must ask you something.’

He leaned towards her, his coldness vanishing. How could he blame her for anything, this sweet child he’d loved since she’d been in her cradle? It wasn’t her fault that she had not caught for a baby, she was still so small, so vulnerable, little more than a girl herself. He should give her a chance to mature and fill out a little and then she would be ready for motherhood.

He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Ask me for whatever you want, my little one.’ He smelled the sunlight in her hair and the freshness of newly washed skin, young skin, and his senses were aroused. He wanted to drown himself in her warmth and innocence; women of experience like Nina were around in abundance. It was only rarely that a man had the good fortune to find himself an innocent to love.

‘I want to know the truth about Nina Parks, Joe.’ Her words fell softly against the sudden wild beating of his heart. He heard the laughter of children and the barking of a dog as though they were in another world, a faraway
world that had nothing to do with Joe Harries and the mess he had made of his life.

‘Is she having your baby, Joe?’ Her voice was low, that of a little girl, a trusting child and he could not see her thin face twist into lines of pain.

‘What is this nonsense?’ he found himself protesting. ‘Nina Parks is a woman almost forty. Why should she be having a child and in any case, what makes you think it would be mine?’

Eline’s eyes were steady, so blue that they outdid the sea in splendour. ‘She almost said as much today in the grocer’s.’

Joe got to his feet angrily. ‘I have told you before not to go over my name in public.’ He was suddenly incensed. Why should the women in his life act as though he was God with all the virtues and all the answers to their infernal questions?

He put his brush down carefully in the pot of tallow and lime and wiped his hands on an old rag, rubbing vigorously at the white-lime that had become ingrained in the creases of his fingers as though the task was the most important thing in the world to him right then.

‘Joe?’ Eline’s voice was soft but insistent. He looked down at her, his anger washing away as suddenly as it had come.

‘I am a man, Eline,’ he said slowly, ‘and when a man is not welcome in his wife’s bed he must find a woman who wants him.’

‘That’s not fair, Joe!’ Eline said swiftly. ‘I’ve never denied you.’

‘But neither have you welcomed me with open arms, Emmeline.’

He sighed heavily and sat down beside her, deciding he must end the lies and deceit once and for all, face up to what he had done like a man.

‘I went to her, it’s true,’ he said, ‘and if Nina is with child, then the fault
is
mine.’ He took Eline’s small hand
in his. ‘I can only ask you to try to understand and forgive me for what was one lapse on my part.’

He saw her eyes darken like the waters of the sea covered by clouds. She bent her head and her unpinned hair swept forward hiding her face.

‘I am at fault, too, Joe,’ she said at last. ‘I am not woman enough for you, I haven’t given you sons.’

He felt pierced by guilt, he had cruelly taunted her with her lack of children and his thrusts had gone home hurting her badly.

‘There is time for that,’ he said gently, ‘I forget how young you are, Eline, there is time aplenty for us to have a family.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The problem now is Nina, what am I to do about her?’

Eline bent towards him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘If there’s a problem, we’ll face it together, Joe, like man and wife should.’

She rose and smoothed down her skirts and, as he watched her, Joe felt himself melt with love for her. ‘Come on,
cariad
,’ he said thickly, ‘let me take you home.’

Nina sat in her kitchen, aware that the sickly feeling that gripped her now every morning was abating. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, relief bringing the beads of perspiration to her forehead.

She got up and stared at herself in the mirror, she was very pale, with deep lines running from her nose to the sides of her mouth. ‘You are an old woman, Nina Parks,’ she said, ‘and this is your last chance to land your man.’

Of course Nina knew she could not expect marriage, Joe was tied to that young silly girl, legally at least, but the two of them could go away, somewhere far from Swansea where no one knew them. They could live as man and wife and bring up their child in peace with no wagging tongues to bother them.

She was well aware that Joe enjoyed her passion, the
way he’d fallen into her arms so gratefully betrayed his lack of the love of a proper woman these past years. And what’s more his pale-faced wife had not given him chick nor child to care for, while she, Nina, had provided him with a fine son in Tom.

She rested her hand on her stomach with a sense of sudden misgivings. Tom had gone on a trip and what would he say when he came home from the deep sea and found his mother with child? He was only just beginning to forgive Joe for abandoning him when he was a baby. He was coming round to the idea that he could be master of the
Oyster Sunrise
when the season began in September and instead of just being a hand on board a big ship, he would have another man and a boy to crew with him. If he proved as good an oyster fisherman as his father, he would make a fine living for himself.

‘Oh,
duw
!’ She sank once more into a chair. Why was she fooling herself? It was all a terrible mess. Joe would never leave his wife or his boats, he would never leave the shores of Oystermouth where he had made his living since he was a boy following in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather before him.

She put her head into her hands and felt the hot tears; why had she conceived of a child so easily and after so many years? Irfonwy, Fon, as she was affectionately called, was almost sixteen, the sweetest daughter any woman could wish for, and as for the twins, Sal and Gwyneth, they were women grown and ready for marriage. Sal was already walking out with a young man she’d met at the house where she was in service and Gwyneth, well, Gwyneth had her pick of all the young men in Oystermouth, she was so pretty and full of spirit.