A Time for Courage (4 page)

The dining-room table was laid with a white cloth, and her father sat in his mahogany carver chair at the end of the table. Mrs Brennan had placed her in the usual place, halfway down. The steamed fish looked small on the gold-edged plate, its flesh almost indistinguishable from the white bone china. There was no vegetable other than a small potato because it was Friday and the Vicar favoured fasting. Her father had salmon steak as usual. He was reading, his book lying on the bookrest that stood by his chair. It only needed an eagle to turn into a lectern, thought Hannah.

The light from the hissing gas lamps caught the elaborate mouldings of the sideboard, the dark shadows hiding the grey dust which Polly the maid could never clean from the sharpened carvings. The huge picture of the stag at bay hung as always on the wall above, looking in the dim light even more as though it was going to snap its wires and plunge onto the tantalus which held her father’s decanters of whisky and brandy. That would make him lose his place, she thought, and ate a small mouthful of fish slowly to make it seem more substantial.

Venison would be nice, she thought, looking at the stag. Her father had bought it because it seemed a lot of picture for a small amount of money and he liked to think he had picked up a bargain; or so she had heard him tell Grandfather before he died. She was glad her grandfather had been ‘gathered’, as the Vicar would say, because he smelt unpleasant and had hardly any teeth left so that he spat when he talked.

She took another mouthful. Mother obviously had not told Father about her behaviour because he had said nothing and she had not been banished to her room with no food. Not that this meal would fill her up.

Her father turned from his book and poured more champagne. He never allowed the cork to pop but eased it from the angled bottle, his lower lip protruding, watching the vapour before pouring. Her fish was almost finished now.

She watched as he took a sip and then some food before returning to his book. As he chewed his jaw clicked; it always did and as she watched she found her breathing was in time with it. She took another mouthful and then some of the potato but now she was chewing in time too.

‘Remember that we do not finish our meals, Hannah. One must never even suggest that we could be hungry. That is a state we do not recognise.’ His eyes flicked towards her and then back to his book.

‘Yes, Father,’ she replied, and laid her knife and fork down. But I am hungry, she wanted to say, but knew that it was a different sort of hunger, a poor hunger, that he meant. Did the needle sharpeners eat well before they died, she wondered.

He had finished his champagne and was leaning back in his chair now, wiping his drooping moustache first with his napkin and then with his finger, smoothing it back into shape so that it fell brown and glistening almost to his chin. She hated his nails; they were long and like those of the witch who had haunted her childhood and brought people poisoned apples. Harry had said that their father kept his nails long to show he didn’t have to do any rough work. Grandfather’s had been the same, he said. She couldn’t remember that, but she could imagine the two men together poring over their clients’ cases, pointing to the important items before advising them to buy property or sue a tradesman.

Did he know about the needle sharpeners? Perhaps he didn’t, and if she told him he just might think it wrong and forbid the use of needles in his home which would save a few lives; but she knew it was unlikely. She looked down the table at him. His brows were heavy, shading his eyes so that there was never any life in them or, when he looked at her, any love. They frightened her, and made her feel alone. She looked back at her plate.

‘Mrs Brennan says that needle sharpeners die by twenty-five. It’s not right, is it?’ It came out in a rush because of those eyes and she wished she had not felt as though she must challenge him with her sense of injustice. Her father sat quite still and she wondered if he had heard her.

‘Mrs Brennan talks a great deal too much,’ he replied, his voice as cold as usual.

He took a cigarette from his case and lit it, sucking the smoke right down before drawing back his lips and letting the smoke stream through his widely spaced teeth in strips. Hannah looked away; his teeth were like old park railings. They’d probably drop out like Grandfather’s and he’d chew his gums. She shuddered. He had returned to his book and she felt a flush of anger. He didn’t read when Harry was home or her mother was well enough to eat downstairs. He made no pretence at liking her. She was a girl, wasn’t she?

Hannah persisted. ‘But it doesn’t seem right that they choose work which kills them just so that they can make sure their families eat.’ Her heart was beating very fast now and it seemed to have moved up into her throat from her chest.

He put his leather bookmark in place before snapping the covers shut. She flinched at his violence. ‘This subject should not arise in a girl’s mind. Suffice it to say that society is not in any way responsible for these people. Every man starts with quite sufficient opportunities, as you would know if you paid attention at all to the Vicar in Matins. Therefore it is solely the fault of the people concerned if they do not rise to our station; they deserve their poverty and I wish to hear no more about this. You may leave the table and prepare for bed.’

It was still so hot in her room, up on the floor above her mother, but she had opened the windows so there was at least a breeze. She hoped that air still circulated in the room below. Hannah leant back against the pillows. Yes, her father had certainly taken opportunities when they presented themselves. After all she had overheard Eliza once saying to Simon that he had married mother along with one-third of the tin mine profits. But how could a needle grinder ever meet a rich woman? Or his daughter have enough money to attend Miss Fletcher’s? There never seemed to be an answer to these questions and it still wasn’t acceptable that they should die, or for that matter that Simon should die. If her mother had another baby would she then finally die? She felt the fear return, the anger. Why keep having the babies? She lay, looking at the play of light on the ceiling. Did the heart just stop beating, she wondered, or did it slow down so that you had time to call for help? She put her hand on her left breast, even though it was a sin to touch, but yes, there it was, thud, thud, thud.

She would lie each night like this so that there was no danger of being gathered while she slept and then, if it began to stop, the doctor could be fetched. She felt easier now, though what if her left breast grew more slowly than the other one because it was having to push against her hand?

Hannah leant forward, her arms round her knees, listening to the carriages as they passed until she found the answer. She would open her fingers so that the breast would grow through the gap and drag the rest along behind, then no one would know that she had touched herself. Only God, and if she was feeling her heart she would have time to ask for forgiveness should it stop.

The moon was high now, casting its light into the room. Harry would be home soon and perhaps, just perhaps, they would go to Cornwall again.

The dogcart looked new although Aunt Eliza had bought it last year; the leather seats were the colour of the sweet sherry in the decanter on Penhallon’s dining-room sideboard and still smelt of the polish the groom had used. Harry shook out the reins and the pony broke into a trot along the broadening track which led up to the junction where they would turn left away from the house and out into the high-banked Cornish lanes. He smiled. Yes, it was as comfortable as he had thought it would be. His father stirred beside him and craned his neck round the down.

‘Good idea, these rubber tyres, aren’t they, my boy?’

Harry nodded. The early morning mist still lay over the harbour and cliffs which they would soon leave behind as they travelled inland. Their fishing rods rattled as they rested almost upright in the back of the cart and he wondered whether he should wedge the picnic basket against them. He looked but the rods had not moved so he did nothing.

He loved the early morning but not the fishing. In fact he had forgotten all that he had been taught by his father when they were here two years ago but a repeat of the lesson might jolly the old man along a bit. He seemed even more taciturn than at Christmas, more preoccupied if that was possible. But bloody hell, fishing was so boring. Standing about waiting for the trout to bite, trying to think of things to say to the old boy. Feeling on edge all the time in case that tension which was never far below the surface of this dark man would snarl out from those eyes, that mouth, and make his stomach churn and his hands tremble. Was it fear his father aroused in him, he wondered, and knew that it was.

Perhaps Hannah was having the best of it after all, tucked up in a warm cottage; her feet weren’t going to get wet and her hands numb with cold. Women were lucky; looked after and cosseted as they were.

‘Move him on a bit, boy, we’ve a fair way to go this morning, you know.’ The pony had slowed to an amble and his father’s elbow dug hard into his ribs.

Damnation, he’d want to take the reins soon and that would mean a sweated pony and shaken wine. He edged further along the seat, away from the pressure of his father’s arm. ‘Yes, Father,’ he replied, but quietly, since the mist silenced the countryside, turning its atmosphere into that of the school chapel. To speak in more than a whisper seemed somehow vulgar. His father had shouted, of course. But now, all was quiet again except for the quickening hoofs, the creaking of the harness and the rattle of the bit as the pony mouthed the metal, tossing its head as it did so. Harry eased his shoulders. It was strange to come down so early in the school holiday but his father said that his mother had been ill again. He lifted his tweed cap briefly from his head and wiped the droplets of mist from his forehead with the back of his hand. The mist clung also to his sleeve, caught on the hairs of the tweed. The reins felt damp in his hand so he caught the leathers between his knees, shaking his head as his father leant over to take them, while he drew his gloves from his pocket. Then the pony shied at a magpie breaking cover from the hedge that seemed to loom higher than it really was in the uncertain light, and he breathed, ‘whoa, boy’, as he took up the reins again, pulling the glove over his wrist with his teeth.

A breeze was setting up, gentle but definite, which meant that the sun would soon break through the dim mist and the pony would settle.

His father was sitting with arms crossed, his chin on his chest, his eyes closed, and only now did Harry feel able to relax and think about why his mother had arranged for Hannah to stay with a friend of Aunt Eliza’s further inland and not with them. She had explained that Eliza had enough with three of them, especially after poor Simon’s death, but Beaky had said that Hannah had been difficult. Just that, nothing more, but she had clasped her hands as she said it and rolled her shoulders and though her face hadn’t smirked, her body had. He was glad that the old bat had not come down here with them and that Father had left the staff at home on board wages. That would wipe the smile off her face but it was hard on Polly and the gardener, he supposed.

What was wrong with Hannah, he mused. She was so quiet with him now and when he had asked what the problem was she had just looked at him. I don’t know, she had said, I wish I did, and had turned from him and walked from the room, over the terrace and into the old play garden.

He had noticed that she dressed in long clothes now and her hair was up; it had surprised him. Suddenly she looked quite grown-up, so that explained a lot. Girls were different when they were growing up; they couldn’t run or catch a ball, something to do with the way they changed shape, Benton Minor had said. Exercise made them ill. Yes, even her face was different – longer – and you could see that there were bones in it. This change had only happened recently though, because at Christmas her face was still similar to the one that had cried on the platform as she waved him away when he first joined the school. He had thought how round she was then, a round face and round body on top of frilled combinations, the blue sash of her white dress making her look like an Easter egg.

And then she’d sent him a drawing of the guinea-pigs with tears running from their eyes, and next to them, a girl in a dress with a blue sash with tears too. I love you, she’d scrawled in big joined writing, come home. There were kisses too. He had felt such a longing, a missing as he sat on his bed in the dormitory which was always dreary because the windows were so small and so high and his own tears had begun.

But then the paper had been snatched from his hand and a prefect had held it up to the dormitory and had gripped his hair, turned his wet face to the dormitory, shouting that cissies would not be tolerated. Harry could still feel that hand tearing the hair from his head and he pulled his cap on harder.

He remembered how the bugger had made the other boys form two rows after they had collected wet towels from the latrines, forcing him to run down between the rows while he was beaten. He shrugged his shoulders and clicked his tongue at the pony. His father was still asleep. He remembered the first stinging pains even now. At first it seemed as though his new friends were reluctant but the prefect called in his study chums to stand in the row too. One to every four of the younger boys and he was made to run back through the rows again. When he wouldn’t tear Hannah’s paper up he was made to run again and again. It was the noise he could never forget, it was like the baying of hounds after a fox. When the prefect grabbed him by the neck at the end of the fifth run and held the picture up in front of his face he did not see guinea-pigs but instead there was the swing rope and the horse-chestnut tree with Hannah whirling round and round as he pushed her faster and faster, hearing her laughter go on and on. When he still would not shred the picture into pieces he was taken to the latrines and his face was pushed into the water closet and he was sluiced in flushing water until his heart pumped for lack of air. It was this which made him do as they said.