Turf or Stone (17 page)

‘Strike me lucky, who’d a thought o’ seein’ you! Come on in.’

They fell immediately into their old way of talking: Lewis in his loud, boisterous voice, with its flat town intonation, Easter in his swaying, pliant bass, blind by drink.

‘I bin over to Gamus and they told me I should find you ’ere. There weren’t no buses, so I had to walk; that accounts for me bein’ so late. You’re out o’ favour there, Easter, or summat’s up. That Kilminster spoke to me death without mercy…’

Easter’s only answer was to mutter unintelligible curses, during which his friend continued to pour out whole unheeded sentences and unbutton his coat.

‘Well, come on in, and don’t stand on the b— doorstep,’ broke in Easter, impatiently.

‘Why, what’s up with you?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied, holding fast to the door; ‘come on in, ’case you wear an ’ole through to Australia.’

The two men entered the kitchen, Lewis towering over Easter.

‘’Ere,’ said the former, taking the groom by the shoulders, ‘’ere, aren’t you got a light? I want to see yer beautiful face.’

‘No, there aren’t no b— light, and my face is all eaten up by worms.’

Lewis struck a match and held it up to Easter’s face. He stared wild and sullen, his mouth lifted, the pupils of his glowing eyes contracted, the sockets like pits.

Lewis started back: ‘God, you look pretty!’

During the years they had not met, Easter’s expression of malicious playfulness had changed and deepened into one of downright ferocity. He was in shirt and breeches,
shoeless, with torn cuffs and an open neck. Entirely the kind of man that Lilian, his wife, would have called a lousy tramp. Lewis looked round the gruesome little room, which was hot and smelt of cider, and his eye fell on the two wooden candlesticks holding thick dusty ends of wax candles, unlighted since Easter bought them. He put a match to them, pulled off his coat and threw himself down in the rocking chair.

‘Queer old things,’ he remarked, pointing at the candlesticks. Easter nodded: ‘Made out of altar railings. From Pendoig Church.’ He went out and drew more cider. A jug three-quarters full was standing on the hob.

‘’Ave some cider?’

‘I don’t mind just a tot. Is it any good? ’Ave it got any mettle in it.’

‘’Taint so bad. Couple o’ tots’ll warm yer. What made you come down ’ere?’

Lewis drank, wiped his mouth, and set his hands on his knees.

‘Thought I’d come down to see you. Fact is, I ’ad a bit of a brainwave.’

Then he thought he was going on too fast, so he broke off and began to relate how he had met Trefor in the pub. Easter sat silent, still with his hand to his ear, and Lewis studied his features closely.

‘How the hell have you been getting on lately?’ he ended, as he felt the jug with the back of his hand.

‘Not so bad.’

‘Doing well?’

‘Not so bad. But I say, ’ave some more o’ this cider.’

Lewis held out his china mug. The firelight exposed his
butcher’s hands, large, spongy, and puffy with frequent dipping into water. Easter’s were dirty, narrow, and callous. The silver ring shone.

Lewis rocked the chair.

‘Come on, Easter! Tot it out,’ he cried exuberantly. ‘Let’s ’ave another drop. We don’t meet every day…’

‘Come on, then, swallow it down. You drink so slow, a person mid think you’d summat in yer throat.’

He again refilled the jug, and the two of them drank faster. Lewis was not quite sure what it was he wanted to say. He kept jerking out questions.

‘Got married, I’ve heard?’

‘Ay, couple o’ years back.’

‘Well, what d’you think of it?’

The groom glanced stealthily at his only friend.

‘I’d as lief be over ’ere on me own,’ he said with infinite reserve.

‘Go on, all yer troubles are over when you’re married.’

He began to rock the chair violently. To and fro he swayed, a mad grin on his face, his cider slopping over:

‘I’m always glad I was married,

Oh, I’m always glad I was married,

My Lilian’s a treasure,

A – and a pleasure!’

‘Got any youngsters?’

‘One boy,’ said Easter, staring between his knees, his mug trembling in his fist.

‘I got a girl an’ two boys. You never told me you was married. Dammit, you never said nothing.’

‘Go on, pull into that cider – you’re slow, aren’t you? ’Tis getting flat.’

‘I baint used to that, mate. Had none for years since I been up in Manchester. Might upset me…’

‘Oh, she wore a belt…’

He was singing loudly.

‘Go on,’ said Easter in a throaty mutter, ‘get it back – it won’t ’urt tha. Come on with it, ’taint every day we kills a pig.’

Lewis’ confusion was increasing. He sang songs muddled up with an account of his life in Manchester, his shop which he had just had painted, his wife who was going to have another child soon, even his squabbles and how he got the best of them all.

Easter got up reeling and went into the back kitchen, a cold, stony place where he kept the barrel of cider. He now had to tip it. It was streaming with rain again; a regular depressing drip-drip came though a weak spot in the roof, forming a puddle in a broken flagstone.

The candles were flaring, while grease poured over the rim. Lewis was rocking again. Crazy shadows swayed on the ceiling, the chair creaked:

‘Oh she wore a belt

Whenever she felt

A pain in her tiddly push…’

‘Who did yer marry, Easter. Anybody I know?’

‘No, you wouldn’t know ’er.’

‘Well, you ’aven’t moved, so you must a met somebody round this district. Come on, out with it! I bet you got round Kilminster’s bloody cook.’

Easter growled like a baited dog. He filled his mug, spilling cider on the ashes.

‘Come on,’ he said, his fierce eyes on Lewis, ‘drink
hearty and never mind about that piece.’

Lewis put his trembling lips to his mug, but persisted: ‘Well, tell us, who didst tha marry, old ’un?’

Easter’s throat swelled, but he made no movement and no answer.

‘Come on, out with it. Was it that girl, Doris Watts, that wouldn’t kiss tha…?’

‘Oh, curse you, curse you. Can’t you leave me be? What d’you want to know for? What the hell’s it to you? You be no doctor. Don’t ask me no questions. For God’s sake, don’t. What d’you come down here for, poking and prying? Want to find out all I been doing… Christ, what’s it to you?’

His strident outcry bewildered Lewis, who sat staring with watery eyes.

‘Surely we can know who one another married – we’ve always been pals. ’Er isn’t as bad as all that?’

‘I haven’t no pals; I haven’t no wife. Now bloody well shut your rattle or get outside,’ Easter vociferated, staggering to his feet.

‘I’ll bloody well close your trap,’ shouted Lewis, beginning to peel off his coat; ‘I’ll clump you one,’ he roared, the garment dangling from one arm as he became entangled in the sleeve. ‘That’s yer tune, is it? Come on outside if you’re a better man than me. We’ll soon settle this lot. Got yer bloody hasty on you, I should think.’

He stumbled and fell into his chair as Easter’s fist swept downwards across his face and the blood began to trickle from his nose. An arm of the chair crackled clean away and was left hanging. He wrenched at it and, with a jerk that nearly made him sick, pulled it clear, a horrible weapon with a nail on the end.

But the groom also had fallen back and lay with a ghastly livid face and twitching, gaping nostrils. Lewis held on to the mantelpiece, and the bit of wood fell from his hand. For several minutes he felt too ill to move, but, recovering a little, went and stooped over Easter. His eyes were open and he was moving his shoulders. A drop of bright blood fell on his face as Lewis pulled him up.

‘Come on, Easter; you don’t want to be like that. We don’t want to fight. You be takin’ me the wrong way. Up with you.’

Easter sat again on his stool, his head bent. There was a long silence. Lewis’ drunken eyes were heavy and swimming.

At length Easter spoke, sullenly: ‘I’m not so struck on marriage, Jack. I don’t want to talk about that lot. ’Taint me she wants.’

‘You want a woman like mine,’ said Lewis.

‘God, no! I don’t want no woman at all.’

The row died down as suddenly as it had broken out. Lewis went on talking drowsily, and Easter continued to be quite silent. He was not drinking now, but he heard very little of his friend’s murmurs, which developed now and again into song.

An hour later, maybe, Lewis went to fill the jug, stumbled over the chair and sat down on the floor, where he sat, gulping from the jug and squalling,

‘She took quin
ine

and chloride o’ lime

to cure the pippity-pop

Until she came

a what’s ’er name

a travelling doctor’s shop.’

‘That was a day we had that smash up. Remember?’

Receiving no answer but a heavy nod, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and continued: ‘We was only youngsters then, not quite so steady as we are now. Hell, it
was
a smash up. Our dad didn’t ’alf cuss. ’Ad to ’ave the float done up… smashed the float… poor old mare…’

He emptied the jug: ‘Well, that was all right. Easter, goin’ to ’ave some more cider? ’Ave to be up in the mornings now?’

‘All right… all right.’

Lewis pushed the hair away from his temple. His eyes were running terribly: his cheeks were of a bluish pallor.

‘My head, too… look, you can still see the mark. I’ll tell you what I come for. Well! Be damned if I can remember. I bin an’ got too much of this cider. I’ll ’ave to see you in the morning.’

Easter lifted his head.

‘Ah, that’s it. Leave it till morning, and ’ave some more cider. ’Ave some bread an’ monkey’s elbows.’

Lewis, however, had fallen asleep. Easter lay down on the floor with his head on his friend’s legs. The fire had gone out.

At first he lay like a log, stupefied, dead, for all his pulsing heart. And then, after an hour or two his brain began to work all out of gear, causing great drops of sweat to break out on his forehead. His disconnected dreams were so horrible, so gloomy and terrifying that they half woke him, and he started up on his elbow to stare around him, pressing his unavailing eyes against the thick, cold darkness, groping with his fingers along the stone floor. He did not know where he was, nor what he was doing;
only that there was a horrible flavour in his mouth, that he was a living thing – somewhere, that his last ghastly vision of a white, sculptured head was torturing him. He
saw
it again, trembling; the marble smile, the quick expression on the beautiful face, the white and sparkling brow, an effigy of a murderer on a great stone tomb.

His extended hand touched Lewis and it seemed that he had put his finger on the core of dread; his very heart paused and then leapt back to living in vehement bangs against his chest.

In the midst, sleep broke over him again like a vast breaker. He was buried, not in the black vacancy of deep water, but in the flying, stinging, outside spray of unconsciousness, and in this restless, tormented sleep he burst into a violent passion of weeping and woke himself by his own convulsive sobbing. His mouth was shaking, his lips salt, but this time he was broad awake, and he stood up, trying to recollect where he had put the lantern. He did not really want to light it lest he should come face to face with the shame of crying like a youngster in the dark. Now he was quite a man, hard, unbelieving, and proud – himself entirely who had no grief.

He opened the door and stepped into the road. It was night no longer. The moon had gone down, and in no quarter of the sky was light visible, yet he could make out the grey, torn shapes of clouds whose rents revealed the stars were failing, and the solider chain of hills behind which the sun would rise. The earth and air were fresh as though all human breath had blown away, nor was there one human sound. He walked a few solitary paces along the road as though he were the only man alive. A quick,
cold wind ran through his hair, a sudden shower of drops from an elm fell on his upturned face. Then a cock crew, haughtier than a trumpet, imperious as an archangel’s summons. It was four o’clock. He returned to find that Lewis had been awakened by the air blowing through the door. He was sitting up and passing his cold hand over his head, while he cleared his throat and feebly moved his legs. The two of them were very stiff from lying so long on the stones. Easter lit the lantern. They badly wanted cider, but they found it was all drunk, and cursed before the empty barrel which yielded no more than half a pint, even when they tipped it steeply.

‘If I don’t want a livener this morning…’ said Lewis fretfully. He thought of his usual arising from a feather bed, and the pleasant way Lilian had of making tea.

They stripped and pumped on each other’s necks, Lewis white and clean all over, Easter tanned and dirty. Then they rekindled the fire on the ashes, brought out the ham and ate a few mouthfuls. Lewis lit a cigarette and told Easter the reason for his visit. He spoke in a hoarse voice, rubbing his rough chin and looking across the table with dissipated eyes.

He had a plan. He wanted to return to Salus and set up as a pork butcher; there was a business going, but he needed a little money to put to his own. It struck him Easter might have money after all this time. As he talked, the colour came back to his face. He was very ardent and persuasive. Easter sat, clasping one foot on his knee, his dusky eyelids dropped.

Well, had Easter any money?

The groom answered directly: yes, a little.

How much?

Two hundred pounds. His eyes were still lowered, his head inclined towards his shoulder as if in deep reflection. He knocked the ash off his cigarette against his callous foot.

Two hundred pounds! By God, that would do it! How did he get it?

Saved it.

Would Easter think it over?

Yes, and let him know within the month.

Lewis was more than satisfied. The groom repeated his words of the night before: he needed a change.

‘You’re bloody mysterious,’ observed Lewis, leaning on the table. He had taken a little comb from the suitcase and was combing his auburn hair. Still without raising his eyes, Easter smiled. The position in which he was sitting, his immobility, and the rays of the lantern striking upwards, revealed how deeply bitten were the lines on his forehead, how sunken the flesh.