Turf or Stone (7 page)

‘You’re what I hate most… you’re what I hate most!’

He cursed her passionately while she lay inert, breathing hard and straining her eyes, his weight on her legs. He returned to his sing-song whisper: ‘A surprise for you. You wait!’

With a swirling movement he rolled the bedclothes towards her feet, and then she felt something furry burrowing into her neck beneath her ear. It was stone cold. There was a dreadful smell.

‘What is it?’

She began to writhe and scream. A little dead head snuggled hard under her chin.

‘Easter, Easter, take it away!’ She pulled at his wrists, her round, tossing hip hit him over the heart.

‘Take it away. I’m going mad! Please…’

‘It’s a dead rat. That’s what it is. Its eyes are running, there are flies’ eggs in the fur, the tail’s half off. It’s only a dead rat.’

And he pushed it deeper and deeper into her flesh, till, hanging round his neck, she dragged herself up, and with the poisonous little carcass crushed between them, seized him by the ear and tugged. They struggled furiously in the darkness. He did not strike her; he half carried, half dragged her across the room and poured a jug of water over her head. She relaxed, one mighty quake shook her, and she burst into shuddering groans. She fell prone on the floor, her wet hair over his feet. When he bent to lift her she crawled away from him and hit her head against the wall. She cried like a thrashed animal in snarling despair.

Easter struck another match: ‘That’s what you’ll get when you try to fight me. Stand up!’ he shouted. ‘Stand up and I’ll kill you this time.’

His lip writhed exposing the white teeth, and he lightly swayed his shoulders as if he were actually waiting for her to spring up and aim a blow at him. He touched his sore ear. Again the match expired; he struck another and another and another in a frenzy, not waiting until they went out, but throwing them down and stamping on them with all his strength. The boards cracked, the jug and basin rattled. Easter’s stiff hair stood on end; he yearned over Mary in the attitude of a murderer, which the intermittent illumination rendered still more horrifying. She remained on her knees. She pressed her face against the wall, her arms hung down, and there was a great wet patch over her back and shoulders, grey on the white nightgown. She shivered, cowering, her sobs becoming more pitiful. Her soaking hair looked black.

After nearly ten minutes had passed, he lit the candle.

‘Get up, Mary.’

He went to lift her. She moved her arms in a sudden shocked gesture towards herself.

‘The child’s leaping!’ she cried in rational terror, turning her face up to him.

His heart jumped.

‘They always do…’ he stammered, crouching beside her. She muttered: ‘Help me to the bed.’

Leaning on him, she crept into the bed. They were both very frightened. She lay down and Easter covered her up.

‘Is it quiet?’ he asked.

‘No.’

He was afraid to touch her whom a moment ago he had dragged across the room.

She was ignorant.

‘Is it going to be born now?’

‘No… no. They all jump about months before they are born,’ he exclaimed, listening to her chattering teeth. She heaved great sighs, her whole body was tense, and her tears ran down the side of her face among her hair.

‘My hair’s wet!’ she moaned after a while, ‘I’m wet all over. Go to the drawer and fetch me a clean nightgown.’

He did what she asked him. She raised herself, let the wet garment slip over her shoulders and lie round her waist, pulled on the dry one, and began nervelessly to rub her hair with the towel he brought her.

As they were feebly moving with disjointed activity, something scratched at the outer door.

‘What’s that?’

‘Only one of the dogs.’

‘I want it,’ she said. It whined.

‘It’s been off rabbiting.’

‘If it comes and lies down on the bed I’ll go to sleep.’

Easter let the dog in. ‘Now lift it up.’

A mongrel, filthy, weary, its short, whitish curls clotted with earth, its eyes blinking, it lapped at the pool on the floor. Easter flung it on the bed. Hot and panting, it stretched out its ugly body and fell asleep. Mary lay back gently screwing the almost hairless chilly ears between her fingers.

Easter was swamped by voluptuous tenderness. He clasped her in his arms, softly moving his head between her breasts, his eyes closed. A gentle, timid woman he might have loved with real intensity, and perhaps even constancy, since his promiscuous rovings were something in the nature of a search.

Mary listened for repentance: among the kisses and the quivers there was no keen word of self-reproach. Exhausted, more bitter than ever, she went to sleep in Easter’s arms.

When he took the milk up to the house in the morning, the cook twitted him on his looks. Sloppy, tumbled, his brilliant eyes all but extinguished beneath the heavy lids, he listened to her for a moment without a smile, then offended her by walking away abruptly. She said he needn’t be in such an unusual hurry. He took no notice; she had to run after him. Mrs Kilminster wanted to see him.

‘Is the lady up?’

He usually spoke of Dorothy as ‘the lady’, dragging the words like a gypsy. Of course she wasn’t up, and wouldn’t be for the next two hours, the cook said, crushing a snail under her shoe. The master was out all night. She gave a loud cry at the sight of the wretched dog who had followed Easter from the yard.

‘Full of fleas, the dirty brute!’ She drove it into the kitchen; ‘If it comes in like this, I’ll leave.’

She had to bath it.

Towards midday, Easter saw Dorothy. She was in the glasshouse, stroking a young pigeon’s splendid green and pink neck. She jumped up, scaring the bird which was lame and could not fly, until it hid itself behind the hot pipe.

While she was talking she roamed about restlessly, uneasy and irritable. She felt a cold growing on her, and her eyes were rather red.

‘Why didn’t you bring Mr Kilminster back last night?’ she demanded in an angry voice.

‘He’d gone to bed.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Mrs Davis.’

‘Oh… so you saw her?’

‘Yes, madam, I did.’

‘Then I suppose you went in?’

She wants to know everything but she’s ashamed of her questions, he thought.

‘No; Mrs Davis leant out of the window for a minute. She was putting him to bed.’

Dorothy went crimson. She opened her mouth, raised her hands, and twisted the pearls round her neck.

All day, waiting for Matt’s return, she grew more and more furious. She kept all three children near her, alternately scolding them and running down their father, her sharp, high voice blurred and hoarsened by the cold. She made the new housemaid (who was afraid of her) light fires all over the house so that she might wander from room to room. She shut all the windows, smoked endlessly, and refused to let the children go out in the drizzle. Stupid with aching foreheads and pale cheeks, very bewildered, they followed her about, carrying their books and games and her bright-coloured embroidery. It was a procession headed by the little talking woman in a fantastic
geranium-red
dress. The glow in her face did not diminish; she burned, and her fingers were so transparently white that they seemed to sparkle. She had a very bad cold.

Towards six o’clock her throat became so sore that she could only speak in a lifeless undertone and infrequently, which was a relief to everybody. Phoebe tried to make her go to bed; however, Dorothy was always obstinate with her. Rosamund, who was always very kind to sick people, ready to do anything for them, managed to get her
upstairs. She sat on the edge of her bed, shivering and hanging her head.

Rosamund ran down to fill a hot-water bottle; encountering Philip, she took her first opportunity that day to beat him for chalking in one of her picture books. Philip rushed to his mother. The two of them sat on the bed together in a bundle, crying and gripping each other round the neck. Dorothy, presented with the hot-water bottle, threw it at Rosamund. It burst. In walked Matt. He was not quite drunk.

‘Well…’ said he, sleepily. He leaned against the wardrobe, unshaven and hollow-jawed.

Dorothy pushed her head forwards with a curious snakish movement.

‘Philip, my darling son, ring the bell for mother.’

The boy jangled the bell and fell back on her breast, covering his eyes with his fists. After a moment the submissive new housemaid appeared, out of breath from running upstairs.

‘Ask Miss Phoebe to come here.’

Phoebe came.

‘Now you’re all here,’ said Dorothy excitedly. She strained her voice so that for the moment it was thick and strong.

‘Philip, sweetheart, sit up and look at daddy. Rosamund… Phoebe, look at your father. He’s drunk. He can’t stand up. Isn’t it horrible. Isn’t it disgusting?’

‘Yes, it’s disgusting…’ Matt admitted in a faint, faraway tone. He seemed as if he would have added a long speech to these few feeble words, but Dorothy interrupted.

‘You beast! you make a beast of yourself, d’you hear? Ah, how shall I live… how can I bear it? Think of it, the
terrible humiliation of a drunken husband!’

She pointed at Matt, speaking through red, rough lips: ‘
That
always near me,
that
owning me…’

‘He doesn’t own you. Nobody owns anybody,’ shouted Rosamund, waving the hot-water bottle.

‘That’s daddy,’ said Philip positively.

‘Yes, that’s daddy,’ said Dorothy, with bitter imitation.

‘Father, why don’t you go away?’ Phoebe urged, touching his arm.

‘Mind your own business, Phoebe!’ cried Rosamund.

Phoebe’s eyes opened wide in bright, angry surprise. Then, commanding her temper, she left the room and Dorothy called after her: ‘Come back,’ she shouted, springing from the bed: ‘you
shall
share my miseries. I
won’t
be left to bear everything alone. You shameful, disgusting man,’ she continued, addressing her husband while she shook his inert shoulders, ‘where have you been all day?’

He did not answer, but gazed at the carpet sodden and melancholy.

Phoebe did not return; they heard the piano – a succession of loud ringing chords.

‘Ah, you can all get away but me! Tied up for all my life, and what do I get out of it?’ Dorothy lamented. She gathered Philip into her arms and kissed him wildly under the ear. He stared at Matt, subtly, laughing.

‘Daddy, I hate you,’ said Rosamund.

‘What, you too!’ he burst out, ‘and I thought we got on well together. Damn you, you little beast; get out!’

He took her in a really cruel grip, overwhelmed by the abrupt rage that sometimes put fear into Dorothy. Rosamund screamed with temper and pain until all their
ears rang. He gave her a couple of savage slaps and put her outside the door.

‘Now I’m master of the situation,’ he thought.

He was very muddled.

‘Philip, come here.’

‘Philip will stay with me,’ said Dorothy.

‘Philip, come here,’ repeated his father emphatically, ‘
let him go
!’

Dorothy clutched the boy, but she wished the row had not gone so far. She remembered Matt violent….

‘Are you going to hurt him, Matt?’

‘Let him go.’

She released him. He sat down on the floor.

‘Come here,’ said Matt.

Philip went to him inscrutably.

Matt folded him in his arms, and stood holding him against his shoulder. He bent his head, swaying as though he were rocking the child to sleep.

‘I want to get down.’

‘No; stay here.’

They rocked together; there was deep silence in the room.

The cook interrupted the story of Gladys’ abortive courting.

‘We all have our troubles,’ she declared, her fists on the table. She wished with all her heart the new girl wouldn’t remove her glass eye at meals, smothering its blue stare in a handkerchief which remained beside her until they carried the pudding plates into the scullery. Mary, in the
loft, kept her misery to herself. She had received a letter from Miss Tressan; it was cool but anxious, and it contained five pounds. She returned the money that same day without acknowledgment or message. To be offered the sort of sympathy that any unlucky servant might excite, from a woman who had for some years almost yielded obedience, put an exquisite edge on her resentment.

Dorothy did not speak to Matt for nearly a week, most of which she spent in bed. It was not so much sulkiness as a deliberate attempt to find out how well silence would serve her purpose. Lying soothed in her room which reeked of ‘Dernier soupir’ in a successful attempt to smother the inevitable feverish odours, she was possessed by the strange idea that the man striding insolently about the yard and digging in the garden exercised a bad influence over the whole household. A trifle light-headed, one evening she called Phoebe to find out if milk were consumed absolutely as the udders emitted it. Phoebe answered, no; it was strained, and was obliged, before Dorothy would settle down, to give a full account of the proceedings in the dairy after Easter had carried in the milk.

Lying still, Dorothy thought: ‘Apart from anything else, his impudence is unbearable. He must go.’

She was really ill; the face that she watched in her hand glass bore a pale rose-coloured eruption on the chin. Her doctor said it was caused by nerves.

‘You must be quiet and not worry.’

He looked at her with his head on one side, and, charmed by his voice, she wished she were married to him instead of Matt.

He sniffed the ‘Dernier Soupir’ contemptuously.

‘Poof, what a fug!

The ointment he gave her to put on the rash and the spots themselves lent her a feverish look.

Matt brought her books and flowers.

‘Thank you,’ she said flatly.

One day he bent over her and whispered: ‘Do you want me to give you a smacking?’ and she could not help smiling; it was an old tender reproof which they had used towards each other before they were married. She remembered the first occasion in a Cardiff street when she had cried ‘Yes!’ and he had flicked the back of her hand and suddenly tears came into her eyes, to think that husbands really did strike their wives and lovers and also their sweethearts. When it was growing dark she wrapped herself up and went to the window. How it rained! The lane was like a cart track with slimy ruts; the monkey tree shut out the mildewy last light.