The Stone Book Quartet

FOR RALPH ELLIOTT

THE STONE BOOK

A bottle of cold tea; bread and a half onion. That was Father’s baggin. Mary emptied her apron of stones from the field and wrapped the baggin in a cloth.

The hottest part of the day was on. Mother lay in bed under the rafters and the thatch, where the sun could send only blue light. She had picked stones in the field until she was too tired and had to rest.

Old William was weaving in the end room. He had to weave enough cuts of silk for two markets, and his shuttle and loom rattled all the time, in the day and the night. He wasn’t old, but he was called Old William because he was deaf and hadn’t married. He was Father’s brother.

He carried the cuts to market on his back. Stockport was further, but the road was flatter. Macclesfield was nearer, but Old William had to climb Glaze Hill behind the cottage to get to the road. The markets were on Tuesday and Friday, and so he was weaving and walking always: weave and walk. ‘Then where’s time for wed ding?’ he used to say.

Mary opened the door of Old William’s room. ‘Do you want any baggin?’ she said. She didn’t speak, but moved her lips to shape the words.

‘A wet of a bottle of tea,’ said Old William. He didn’t speak, either. The loom was too loud. Mary and Old William could talk when everybody else was making a noise.

‘Is it sweet?’ he said.

‘Yes. l made it for Father.’

‘Where’s he working?’

‘Saint Philip’s,’ said Mary.

‘Haven’t they finished that steeple yet?’ said Old William.

‘He’s staying to finish. They want it for Sunday.’

‘Tell him to be careful, and then. There’s many another Sunday.’

Old William was careful. Careful with weaving, careful carrying. He had to be. The weight could break his back if he fell on the hill.

‘Mother!’ Mary shouted up the bent stairs. I’m taking Father his baggin!’

She walked under the trees of the Wood Hill along the edge of Lifeless Moss.

The new steeple on the new church glowed in the sun: but something glinted. The spire, stone like a needle, was cluttered with the masons’ platforms that were left. All the way under the Wood Hill Mary watched the golden spark that had not been there before.

She reached the brick cottage on the brink of the Moss. Between there and the railway station were the houses that were being built. The railway had fetched a lot of people to Chorley. Before, Father said, there hadn’t been enough work. But he had made gate posts, and the station walls, and the bridges and the Queen’s Family Hotel; and he had even cut a road through rock with his chisel, and put his mark on it. Every mason had his mark, and Father put his at the back of a stone, or on its bed, where it wouldn’t spoil the facing. But when he cut the road on the hill he put his mark on the face once, just once, to prove it.

Then Chorley must have a church next, and a school.

Father had picked the site for the quarry at the bottom of the Wood Hill. Close by the place, at the road, there was stone to be seen, but it was the soft red gangue that wouldn’t last ten years of weather. Yet Father had looked at the way the trees grew, and had felt the earth and the leaf-mould between his fingers, and had said they must dig there. And there they had found the hard yellow white dimension stone that was the best of all sands for building.

The beech trees had been cleared over a space, and two loads of the big branches had saved them coals at home for a year. It was one of the first memories of her life; the rock bared and cut by Father, and silver bark in the fire.

Now the quarry seemed so small, and the church so big. The quarry would fit inside a corner of the church; but the stone had come from it. People said it was because Father cut well, but Father said that a church was only a bit of stone round a lot of air.

Mary stood at the gate and looked up. High clouds moving made the steeple topple towards her. ‘Father!’

She could hear his hammer, tac, tac, as he combed the stone.

The golden spark was a weathercock. It had been put up that week, and under its spike was the top platform. Father’s head showed over the edge of the platform.

‘Below!’ His voice sounded nearer than he looked.

‘I’ve brought your baggin!’ Mary shouted.

‘Fetch it, then!’

‘All the way?’

‘Must I come down when I’m working?’

‘But what about the Governor?’ said Mary.

‘He’s gone! I’m the Governor of this gang! There’s only me stayed to finish! Have you the tea?’

‘Yes!’

‘Plenty of sugar?’

‘Yes!’

‘I can’t spit for shouting! Come up!’

Mary hitched her frock and put the knot of the baggin cloth between her teeth and climbed the first ladder.

The ladders were spiked and roped, but the beginning of the steeple was square, a straight drop, and the ladders clattered on the side. She didn’t like that.

‘Keep fast hold of that tea!’ she heard Father call, but she didn’t lift her head, and she didn’t look down.

Up she went. It felt worse than a rock because it was so straight and it had been made. Father had made parts of it. She knew the pattern of his combing hammer on the sandstone.

Up she went.

‘Watch when you change to the spire!’ Father’s voice sounded no nearer.

At the spire, the pitch of the ladders was against the stone, and Mary had to step sideways to change. The ladders were firmer, but she began to feel a breeze. She heard an engine get up steam on the railway. The baggin cloth kept her mouth wet, but it felt dry.

The spire narrowed. There were sides to it. She saw the shallow corners begin. Up and up. Tac, tac, tac, tac, above her head. The spire narrowed. Now she couldn’t stop the blue sky from showing at the sides. Then land. Far away.

Mary felt her hands close on the rungs, and her wrists go stiff.

Tac, tac, tac, tac. She climbed to the hammer. The spire was thin. Father was not working, but giving her a rhythm. The sky was now inside the ladder. The ladder was broader than the spire.

Father’s hand took the baggin cloth out of Mary’s mouth, and his other hand steadied her as she came up through the platform.

The platform was made of good planks, and Father had lashed them, but it moved. Mary didn’t like the gaps between. She put her arms around the spire.

‘That was a bonny climb,’ said Father.

‘I do hope the next baby’s a lad,’ said Mary.

‘Have some tea,’ said Father.

She drank from the bottle. The cold sweet drink stopped her trembling.

‘Don’t look yet,’ said Father. ‘And when you do, look away first, not near. How’s Mother?’

‘Resting. She could only do five hours at the picking today, it got that hot.’

‘That’s why I’ve stayed,’ said Father. ‘They want us to finish for Sunday, and there’s one more dab of capping to do. There may be a sixpence for it.’

‘Doesn’t it fear you up here?’ said Mary.

‘Now why should it?’ said Father. ‘Glaze Hill’s higher,

‘But you can’t fall off Glaze Hill,’ said Mary. ‘Not all at once.’

‘There’s nothing here to hurt you,’ said Father.

‘There’s stone, and wood and rope, and sky, same as at home. It’s the same ground.’

‘It’s further,’ said Mary.

‘But it’ll never hurt. And I’ll go down with you.

Down’s harder.’

‘I hope the next one’s a lad,’ said Mary. ‘I’m fed up with being a lad — Father! See at the view! Isn’t it!’

Mary stood and looked out from the spire. ‘And the church,’ she said. ‘It’s so far away.’ She knelt and squinted between the planks. The roof’s as far as the ground. We’re flying.’

Father watched her; his combing hammer swung from his arm.

‘There’s not many who’ll be able to say they’ve been to the top of Saint Philip’s.’

‘But I’m not at the top,’ said Mary.

The steeple cap was a swelling to take the socket for the spike of the golden cockerel. Mary could touch the spike. Above her the smooth belly raced the clouds.

‘You’re not frit?’

‘Not now,’ said Mary. ‘It’s grand.’

Father picked her up. ‘You’re really not frit? Nobody’s been that high. It was reared from the platform.’

‘Not if you help me,’ said Mary.

‘Right,’ said Father. ‘He could do with a testing. Let’s see if he runs true.’

Father lifted Mary in his arms, thick with work from wrist to elbow. For a moment again the steeple wasn’t safe on the earth when she felt the slippery gold of the weathercock bulging over her, but she kicked her leg across its back, and held the neck.

‘Get your balance,’ said Father.

‘I’ve got it,’ said Mary.

The swelling sides were like a donkey, and behind her the tail was stiff and high. Father’s head was at her feet, and he could reach her.

‘I’m set,’ she said.

Father’s face was bright and his beard danced. He took off his cap and swept it in a circle and gave the cry of the summer fields.

‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’

Mary laughed. The wind blew on the spire and made the weathercock seem alive. The feathers of its tail were a marvel.

Father twisted the spike with his hands against the wind, and the spike moved in its greased socket, shaking a bit, juddering, but firm. To Mary the weathercock was waking. The world turned. Her bonnet fell off and hung by its ribbon, and the wind filled her hair.

‘Faster! Faster!’ she shouted. I’m not frit!’ She banged her heels on the golden sides, and the weathercock boomed.

‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ cried Father.

The high note of his voice crossed parishes and townships. Her hair and her bonnet flew, and she felt no spire, but only the brilliant gold of the bird spinning the air.

Father swung the tail as it passed him. ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o! There’s me tip-top pickle of the corn!’

Mary could see all of Chorley, the railway and the new houses. She could have seen home but the Wood Hill swelled and folded into Glaze Hill between. She could see the cottage at the edge of Lifeless Moss, and the green of the Moss, and as she spun she could see Lord Stanley’s, and Stockport and Wales, and Beeston and Delamere, and all to the hills and Manchester. The golden twisting spark with the girl on top, and everywhere across the plain were churches.

‘Churches! I can see churches!’

And all the weathercocks turned in the wind.

Father let the spike stop, and lifted her down.

‘There,’ he said. ‘You’ll remember this day, my girl. For the rest of your life.’

‘l already have,’ said Mary.

Father ate his baggin. Mary walked round the platform. She looked at the new vicarage and the new school by the new church.

‘Are you wishing?’ said Father.

‘A bit,’ said Mary. I’m wishing I’d went.’

‘It’d be fourpence a week, and all the time you’d have lost.’

‘I could have read,’ said Mary. ‘You can read.’

She sat with her back against the steeple in its narrow shade. Glaze Hill was between her boots. ‘Have you asked if Lord Stanley’ll set me on?’

‘Lord Stanley doesn’t like his maids to read,’ said Father.

‘But have you?’

‘Wait a year.’

‘I’m fretted with stone picking,’ said Mary. ‘I want to live in a grand house, and look after every kind of beautiful thing you can think of: old things: brass.’

‘By God, you’ll find stone picking’s easier!’ The onion dropped off Father’s knife and thumb and floated down to the lawns of the church. It had so far to fall that there was time for it to wander in the air.

‘We’d best fetch that,’ said Father, ‘The vicar won’t have us untidy.’

He put Mary on the ladder and climbed outside her. Just as the sky and the steeple were inside the ladder, Mary was inside Father’s long arms that pushed him out from the rungs. He didn’t help her, but she felt free and safe and climbed as if there was no sky, no stone, no height.