Turf or Stone (2 page)

Booming, the bell answered him. Mary lifted her head, her face shining with tears.

‘Easter!’

‘He’s drunk,’ said the vicar angrily. His practical ignorance was colossal.

At that moment the bell’s powerful motion wrenched the rope from Easter’s unpractised grip; with a terrific swing it leapt the vestry partition. The verger and the clerk both held the vicar, who had quite lost his head. They forced him down.

‘Be careful, sir, it’s coming back,’ the clerk cried, and they all cowered to avoid the blow. The rope slapped
against the wall, jerked once or twice and became still. The bell vibrated. Easter pulled up his trousers and jeered at the vicar. The vicar puffed out his cheeks and his eyes were vicious.

‘This is outrageous…. I must speak to you outside,’ he expostulated, smoothing the top of his head.

They went out.

The verger pushed a poker under the fire and it burst into roaring flame. Mary drew back from the heat. Her head ached, and, forgetting that she was in a church, she took off her hat, which had pressed her beautiful red hair close to the sides of her head: it clung to her temples and the delicate, prominent bones below her ears. The clerk watching her thought of Mary Magdalen, for to his mind this woman with her pale, miserable face still wet from tears, her full trembling mouth, her wan and working features, resembled his favourite saint. He poked the fire again and touched the cold hand lying in her lap. Like the carter earlier in the day, and the vicar, his pity stirred.

In the porch the vicar repeated that he considered Easter’s behaviour outrageous: he really could find no other word to describe it. It seemed poor enough to a man of Easter’s violent vocabulary. He smiled.

The wind blew the vicar’s cassock against his legs and he wished he had not left the vestry without putting on his coat. He turned blue – the veins showed on his cheeks, he rubbed his freezing hands.

Easter disliked men, who were, most of them, larger than himself. As a rule he avoided them. When that was impossible he quarrelled with them, or ignored them. He felt neither shame nor repentance: he regarded the vicar
boldly, not troubling to dispel his disapprobation, and making no attempt at a connected conversation, he broke into speech abruptly.

‘I want my ring back. And then I must go. You’ve married us, there’s no more to be done in there? Well, then, we’ll be off. I gave the money to the clerk.’

The vicar flushed: ‘In this case I shall of course, accept no fee. Good heavens, don’t you feel the disgrace,’ he burst out in a flood of indignation.

Easter smiled at him, cruelly, enigmatically silent. The vicar examined the face before him, the half-bared upper teeth, the dangerous eyes, and his mind grasped at reassurance.

‘I hope you will be good to your wife?’

Easter raised his shoulders. He walked away between the trimmed yews to the gate, leaned over it, spat into the road, and taking out a cigarette, stood waiting for Mary.

The vicar returned to the vestry: ‘A pariah,’ he muttered full of resentment. Mary was standing up. The vicar went up to her as close as he could, so that he might probe the texture of her skin with his dim eyes… women fascinated him.

‘Your husband is waiting for you. But don’t hurry,’ he added vindictively. Once more he held out his hand, which almost trembled with emotional sympathy, and taking it, Mary said dully: ‘Thank you, I’ll go,’ fixing her swollen eyes on his face as if she were dazed from her weeping. He continued to hold the outstretched hand, slightly squeezing the palm and working his fingers towards her wrist, bare and warm above her glove.

‘My child…’ he murmured. His voice was tender, but
he could not go on because Mary’s vague gaze was so indifferent. He felt too embarrassed.

The clerk and the verger thinking he wished to be alone with her, took up their hats and went away, rather downcast by the doleful ceremony. The clerk untied his dog, which jumped up at him playfully, then leapt the churchyard wall and ran up the road, ahead of his master.

Easter turned back to the church, scowling and blowing smoke.

Would Mary never give over? What in hell could he do? He was beginning to be very angry when at last she appeared.

‘Come on,’ he said.

As they walked away together the vicar watched them, distressed and helpless. He was obliged to tell himself that he had done the right thing. He said it once, and that was enough for him. Later he repeated it three times to his wife, and still she was not convinced.

Easter said: ‘I want my ring back.’

‘Take your ring then.’

He put the ring on his finger and looked at his wife as she walked sadly in the wind, wrapping her loose coat about her, hard and desolate. And she looked at him with disgust; at that moment they both remembered the night of their mating, she shameful of her traitorous flesh, he quickening to desire. Her tears were no longer falling, but she could hardly speak. Her voice sounded rough and thick, her breath shuddered: her features were slightly swollen,
her under lip was moist and parted from the upper; the tear marks, though dry, still glistened on her pale skin. Her eyes, heavy and cast down, were sullenly averted.

He had taken her when for a while she had put aside her airs and abandoned herself to caresses. She seemed with out airs now… she wanted to yield, she would yield….

Easter loved women who were sad and gentle, and suffered him. He came close to her, put his open hand on her side: ‘Let’s go home, Mary.’

She hastily retreated. He pursued until she pressed against the frosty hedge and cold flakes fell on her upturned bitter face. He threw one arm around her, his large eyes burning eagerly, approached her own. She pushed him away, evading the kiss.

In an instant he was enraged, and no longer wanted her. He pinched her arm, wrenching at her clothes in spite, and gave her a rough shove which caused her to stumble. She fell sideways to the ground, on the frozen grass and mud. Easter’s teeth gleamed.

Then she cried out; she complained aloud in tense misery between groaning and screaming. On market days buses run along the country roads to and from Salus. A few minutes later one approached. Easter stopped it, and leapt in, leaving Mary standing shaking the frosty leaves off her coat.

‘You can go home by yourself – or not at all. No loss,’ he shouted.

Mary was aghast at his brutality. He had been a peculiar unsatisfied lover. He bid fair to make a terrifying husband. She stared through the windows of the bus, and women leaning over their heaped-up baskets stared back openly.

The bus moved on. Mary stood absolutely still until it had gone. Then she followed. She walked to Salus by the river. Before the frost had set in there had been floods, and they had left the low water meadows gritty and littered with rotten sticks. Bundles of brushwood like untidy nests were tangled in the withy branches, draggling in the red swift river, whose turbid water poured with solid volume through the arches of the bridge. The path through the meadows was solitary; beneath the rusty wishing-gates which squeaked and creaked on their bent hinges, were puddles of ice; the grass, the empty iron seats, all were the same dismal brownish hue. A few ponies with their long, youthful manes flowing, hung their faces mournfully over a gate into the high road.

The carter, having concluded his business, stood with his arm on the rough counter of the canteen in the cattle market, his hand on an empty pint measure which he was pushing across to the man on the other side. The man, huge, a tower of fat and irritability, was a bit of a bruiser. You had to be careful what you said to him! He grabbed the measure and attended to other men.

The carter’s eyes swept over the market square. A little boy was running the length of the pig pens, switching every pig in reach with a thin, supple stick; a cow was bellowing; across on the greensward two cheapjacks were trying to shout each other down. Their hoarse blaring voices cut across the general din. A crowd had assembled about them, throwing in words now and then, jeering or
facetious, but seldom buying. Pink and grey pigeons waddled between the marketers’ feet, pecking at wisps of straw from the cheapjacks’ crates, and sidling in a deliberate heavy fashion away from the traffic. Close to him three or four men in leggings and heavy boots inclined their heads towards a drover who was binding his hand with a green handkerchief. The carter saw big blood stains forming. The man must have a bad cut….

He did not want another drink yet. He strolled out of the market up the steep hill, into the Town. Salus was busy – thronged with women in groups on the pavements, an outer circle of parcels and baskets projecting so far from their backs that it was impossible to get by without stepping into the road. The market hall swarmed. It was too early in the year for the colourful flower stalls… the bartering was for carcasses and butter and eggs.

The women held all the centre of the town. In the high street before The George, men spread right across the road. The glass doors opened and shut; it was barely twelve o’clock and custom was waxing.

Neither nature nor necessity hurried the carter: leisurely in movement, as in disposition, he made his way to The George and drank another pint. Emerging, he saw Mary on the opposite side of the street, by the saddler’s. She was walking away from him fast; before he could get clear of the crowd she was a long way ahead, work as he would with his powerful, thrusting shoulders, in spite of the unexpected sinuousness he displayed in gliding through narrow apertures, where rough and ready shoving would have been the only means employed by smaller and more avid persons. He attained the opposite pavement in time to
see her turn into a teashop which had been newly established in the Ticestor Road. He followed her, feeling conspicuous and ashamed. He stayed several minutes outside the shop before he could make up his mind to go in, gazing through the glass window at the people inside… he saw an expectant-looking waitress in a green linen dress standing with her eyes fixed on the door, and another very young girl who, with her slender arm stretched out, hung intent over the tray of cakes in the window. Behind her there were hints of easy forms reclining in coloured cane chairs, cigarette smoke floating lightly up to the ceiling. These sights interested him, but now his errand seemed ridiculous. He hesitated: ‘What, frightened of the women? Shall I stand here and wait till she comes out and then hand her the prayer book? No, I’ll go in. I’ll buy a bag of doughnuts for the children!’ His face lightened at the thought; he pushed the door open. A woman in furs was coming out, with a little veil dropping from her hat over half her face. Beneath, her painted mouth was parted. He stood aside to let her pass, and she was so close to him that he smelt a sweet dusty perfume, and saw the line of rouge along her lips. She turned her head over her shoulder, smiled at him, simply and gaily. This farther encouraged him, and he entered without awkwardness.

While the fragile ladylike waitress piled doughnuts into the bag with surprisingly thick fingers, he looked around the room for Mary.

She was sitting at a small table in the corner, drinking coffee, and holding a cigarette in her drooping hand. She looked cold and pale, with dry lips and heavy eyes. The carter regarded her, sighed, and took his doughnuts absently:
he drew the prayer book from his pocket and, going across to her, laid it on the table beside her plate as the best means of indicating his presence and the reason for it.

She glanced up, astonished at the sight of her book and the rough hand on the tablecloth, and recognised the carter who had taken a pace backwards. She smiled. This man was now her equal. Such folk would be the only ones to cross her threshold. Formerly she would hardly have acknowledged a good day from this labourer, least of all in front of gentlefolk – of whom she had always considered herself – now she was almost effusive. She wanted familiarity that she might press the insult close like a corrosive iron upon her tenderness, and burn away all feeling – once and for all.

She spoke loudly and easily. Everyone could hear.

‘Have some coffee with me?’

He shook his head, and peered at the bag in his hands on which warm grease stains were appearing.

‘No, thank you. No, thank you, miss.’

‘Oh, you must!’

‘I must be off. I picked that up in the cart this morning after you’d gone. It’s a pity the ewes ’ud trod on it. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s nothing,’ she touched the soiled leather cover, and for a second or two seemed to forget his presence. Her fingers smoothed the dog-eared leaves. He would have gone away silently. He was out of place here – it would be better to return to The George.

‘Tell me your name.’

‘Dallett, miss… William Dallett. I works over at Gillow. Good afternoon, miss.’

‘Don’t go. Please sit down, and have some coffee with me.’

She saw that he was puzzled and for the first time it occurred to her that she might be making him look a fool, might be hurting him. Several people were regarding them. Immobile from bewilderment and fright he repeated that he must be going.

‘Sit down, please. Or won’t you have anything to do with me?’

He hastily sat down, but refused everything she offered him, nor would he open his mouth. Mary continued to smoke. She pushed the packet of cigarettes towards him.

‘Would you like to please me… would you? Then take those cigarettes.’

Dallett was more abashed than ever: ‘I don’t want to rob you, miss.’

‘There… I don’t want them. Put them in your pocket.’

He did so.

‘Thank you, miss.’

‘Don’t call me “miss”. I was married this morning.’

He gaped.

‘I hope you’ll be very happy.’

She felt a thrill of anguish. She spread her smooth hands on the table.

‘Look!’

‘Why, where’s the ring?’

‘My husband married me with an old worthless one of his which he took away as soon as we left the church. What do you think of that?’

‘Tchach!’ the carter ejaculated contemptuously. The waitress thought them a most peculiar couple, the man
without a collar who sat looking between his knees and the elegant woman who sometimes spoke so loudly that her voice could be heard in the kitchens, and at others almost below her breath, sinking her head as if she were ashamed.