A Time for Courage (8 page)

She parted the leaves and saw large late strawberries clustered in their shade. She slipped her hand beneath the largest and felt the straw which lay on the soil digging into her skin. She let the fruit lie heavy in her palm. It was round and red and shiny, with each seed embedded in it like the buttons on the back of the chair in her mother’s bedroom. Sin seemed so dark and frightening, not laughing and strong and full of sun like this family.

The heat was striking up from the path into her face now and she rose at the sound of Joe’s boots on the bricks. He held a straw hat and Mrs Arness called from the doorway, ‘Take the hat, Hannah. It will save you getting too much sun. Your mother might prefer it.’ She smiled and waved and Hannah was grateful.

‘The jingle’s over here.’ Joe led the way along the wall past a shiny, dark-leaved bush. Hannah stopped and touched the shrub. ‘That’s myrtle,’ he said. ‘Father painted that, it’s above the bed in your room.’

Hannah hadn’t noticed but she said how nice it was.

Joe laughed. ‘I don’t know what Father would think of the word nice. He’d want to know what effect it had on you, the design, the colour.’

‘I see.’ Hannah thought for a moment wondering if this family would do nothing but surprise her. Could they really want to know the effect of a painting on a girl; a girl who was not supposed to consider herself or her feelings, only those of others. She turned to look at Joe as they walked; he was smiling at her and she sought words to talk of her private responses and it made her feel full of shyness but of excitement too. A clean excitement.

‘Well, the marigolds above the washstand made me feel warm, made me feel as though I wanted to stretch and grasp in all the heat of the sun.’

‘Now, that’s a good deal better, isn’t it?’ he replied. They were at the stables now and Joe harnessed up a moorland pony, backing him into the shafts of a cart.

‘Where’s the jingle?’ Hannah asked.

Joe swung the string bag over the side of the cart and Hannah thought of all the crumbs.

‘This is it. Carrying your cornish pasty, or crumbs,’ he grinned. ‘It’s a Cornish cart. Up you get then.’

The floor was covered in dried mud and there was straw and loose cabbage stalks as well. She lifted her skirt and sat on the seat and looked around. ‘Are we going on our own?’ She felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

Joe stopped and stared at her. ‘Did you want someone else to come? Who, your brother?’ Then he paused, a frown beginning. ‘Do you mean a chaperon; with me?’ Surprise was in his voice.

Hannah looked from him back at the house. There was a metal stork on the roof, to ward off evil spirits, Aunt Eliza had said when they had driven up last night. To stop the birds from messing more like, Joe had laughed. Eliza had too and Hannah had blushed. She was blushing now. Eliza seemed changed somehow. ‘Well, I always do have a chaperon. If I were to be alone with anyone like you I think my mother would expect it.’ By anyone like you she meant a man; and Joe was very nearly a man, wasn’t he? Her hands were gripped tightly together and the freedom of the last minutes was forgotten. She looked up at him as he sat next to her. His eyebrows had drawn together now and he had a deep line between them. He shifted in his brown jacket. His tie was also a tweed, but green with a light blue check. She would look at that, not into his face.

‘Oh, Hannah, I’m sorry. Mother has to sort out the term’s work and Father is painting. Shall we stay here instead?’ And then she did look at him. His eyes were a darker blue somehow. Was it because he was frowning, Hannah wondered, unable to think of an answer that would satisfy her mother but still enable her to go, for that was what she wanted. But if she did her mother would say she was spoilt for ever and her distress would be too hard to endure. She knew she would because they had said the same of the daughter of her father’s late partner, the one her father had insisted should resign.

‘I know. We’re dropping off the jingle at Old Bernie’s. He’ll sit on the step and watch us. He can see right the way across the moor so that’s all right, isn’t it?’

He did not start the trap yet but waited and she realised that it was her decision. It was a strange feeling. She set the hat more securely on her head and looked across the moor; you could see a long way, she realised and nodded to herself and then to Joe.

The cart jolted down the track and she held the reins as Joe leapt out and opened the gate. ‘Go on then, drive him through.’

She flapped the reins; the pony’s tail swished and he began to walk.

‘Keep him going,’ called Joe as he threw the rope which secured the gate over the post and ran alongside, leaping up beside her. His arm touched hers and it felt good. Like Uncle Simon again. The cottage she could see at the foot of the track was small and an old man sat on a wooden seat at the front door. He rose to his feet, leaning heavily on his walking-stick. His hands were gnarled and his face was scarred down one side. ‘Morning, Master Joe,’ he called and lifted his hat towards Hannah.

She climbed down by herself, shaking her head at Joe’s proffered hand. ‘I can manage, thank you.’ And she could.

They set off across the field, keeping near the walls. ‘It’s drier here,’ Joe said. ‘Out there in the middle it’s still wet from the last night’s rain and the morning mist.’

Hannah nodded, looking ahead at the wall which cut across the bottom of the field. Between the stones she could see daylight. ‘Who is that old man? Does he work for you?’

Joe moved the bag on to his other shoulder. ‘Not really. He’s from the Penhallon Mine. You know, the one your family run. He’s too old now and Father gave him the use of the cottage and pays him for a bit of gardening.

‘Hasn’t he done enough work?’ Hannah said indignantly, turning to Joe, holding her hat on her head. It dug into her bun and hurt.

‘That’s what we thought, so you can stop glaring,’ Joe said, his smile less broad now. ‘But he should be in the workhouse now because he’s too old for the mine, him in one and his wife in another. Just like your sort of schools. No sort of life for him, is it, and he wouldn’t come to the cottage when we offered it because it smacked of charity. So we asked him to do some work, just enough gardening to make him feel of use, that’s all.’ He shouldered past her, striding on up to the gate.

‘It’s hard working in the mines, you know,’ he called back. ‘You take a look round when you go tomorrow.’

Hannah stood still and watched as he pushed through the small gap at the end of the wall.

‘Come on then,’ he called and was gone.

She hurried on, frightened of losing him out here where there was no familiar landmark. The moor was spongy under her feet. They had been walking for what seemed like hours now and Joe had removed his jacket and tie, and undone his top button. He spoke of the land where he had been born, of its space, its growth, how there was a chance for everyone. He explained how there was no set pattern of class and privilege as there was in this nation, how a poor man could make good, and to Hannah it was a revelation, a story which could not be true, but he laughed and said it was.

Here there were fewer wild flowers. There was none of the clover which had darkened the fields they had tramped through or any smell of late violets, but there was still some bird’s foot and lady’s slipper though these were becoming more infrequent. There were lichen-covered, stunted oaks standing alone. Close to them were a few moorland mares, nuzzled from time to time by their foals.

‘The river’s not far off now,’ Joe said.

At the thought of the cool wetness she lengthened her stride. But still she could not see the glint of sun on water which she remembered from the days she had come with Uncle Simon. ‘Where is it?’ she asked Joe. ‘I can usually see it further off.’

‘You’re coming from the other direction, remember. There’s a steep bank this side, almost a cliff so you won’t see it until you almost fall in. But we’ll go off down to the right.’ He pointed to where stunted trees were clustering. ‘It’s a more gentle slope there.’

It took at least twenty minutes though Joe had promised only fifteen. They sat down facing the water which was quite gentle here, though as it sank down to the lower moor it gushed and tore over the boulders. Not far away a mare was cropping the grass, tearing it up so that roots hung from the side of her mouth. Hannah leant back against a moss-covered boulder. She was so hot, her bodice was too tight, and the stays so hard. She used her handkerchief to wipe her face which felt swollen with heat.

The foal was stretching her neck, sucking at the mare. Hannah looked away, over to the water. Joe was searching through the picnic. He handed her a pasty.

‘I wonder if she wanted that baby,’ Hannah said quietly, picking at the crust which was folded over and ridged with fork marks. She should not be talking about babies to anyone, but under this high blue sky the words were there in her mouth and tumbling out before she could suck them back. Would he pretend not to have heard, to save her pride?

‘Animals do, helps to keep the species alive.’ Joe was talking with food in his mouth and his words were slurred. He was lying back, as unconcerned as though she had asked him about the weather. Joe was too easy to talk to and more words came. Words which had long wanted to break out but which had never found the right time or place, words which would have signalled her wickedness to the world; but here, things were different. Thoughts were brimming in her head and had been since the morning had stirred them. Thoughts could become words, she felt, out here under the high sky under all this light, so now she let them flow.

‘They just come anyway, poor things, don’t they? Whether they want them or not.’

‘Animals maybe but not humans. Shouldn’t anyway.’

She bit into the meat and potato. It was peppery. There was swede as well.

‘My mother does. She can’t seem to help it and they die.’

Far, far away the old man would be watching from the house. But not listening.

‘Your father should prevent it then.’

Hannah saw that he had reached the jam end of the pasty.

‘What have fathers got to do with it?’

Joe caught a piece of pastry that was falling to his lap and scooped it back into his mouth. ‘They give them the babies of course.’

Hannah did not understand. She had seen the swelling body of her mother of course but no one would ever discuss the matter. Esther did not know either. Her mother would not talk to her about such things, she had said, in case it made her unwell.

So Joe took a stick and, while the birds flew low over the stream and then rustled in the tree that threatened to tip over into the water like a man with a great thirst, he drew pictures and talked in his quiet voice and then Hannah felt as though she would be sick; as though she wanted to run from here, pulling her hair from her bun until it covered her face and her mind, shutting out the thought of her mother and father. Yes, she could see why Esther’s mother might fear it would make her unwell. She felt hot and sick and angry. She did not want to imagine this sort of behaviour from her parents; those two bodies close together, her mother allowing that man into her.

Joe was unscrewing the flask. He poured the tea which she had helped to make this morning into the metal cup and handed it to her. ‘Drink this,’ he said quietly and she watched him as he knelt and passed it across but could not take it. Her hands were heavy. Her pasty lay on the dry grass. An ant was crawling on the crust, quickly, darting in a zig-zag.

Joe moved nearer. ‘Here take it.’ His voice was louder now, ‘But just by the rim. It’s hot, you see.’

Yes, she did see. And yes, the cup was hot. She could feel it as she took it from him. The cup was hot and the air was hot and the thought of the two bodies rose again.

The tea was sweet. She did not usually have sugar. Joe must like it. So
he
was to blame for her mother’s illness; her father was to blame, and not his daughter, and not her mother either, for how could she force a man as strong and powerful as her father away from her or, for that matter, to take measures to prevent children if he did not choose to do so. There was no relief in the knowledge that the guilt was not hers just anger that the blame had been laid on her at all and revulsion at the thought of his body on her mother.

She finished the tea. It tasted strange. It must be because of the milk Joe had poured from the brown medicine bottle. Yellow blobs of cream had floated on the top of the tea. She had tried to catch them with her lips as she drank but they had melted before she could. And still there was anger and it was growing. Anger at her father. Pity for her mother. Anger at them both for blaming her for the illness and still the dull ache of her new knowledge.

Joe was taking his boots off. I’m going for a paddle,’ he said and drew his socks from his feet. She looked away. His feet had hairs on the toes. She had not seen a man’s foot before and it shocked her. It was ugly and big and powerful. So different from hers. Men were very different, weren’t they? Was her father hairy like that, were his joints large, his bones thick?

‘Come on,’ he called as he turned towards the water.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not allowed.’ Not wanting to be too close to his maleness.

He walked carefully over the grass and stones, down to the sloping bank and over, stepping in, pulling his trouser legs up. ‘It’s lovely,’ he called as though he had not heard. ‘Come on in.’

But she wanted to think, to try and hold the facts. To push the images away.

It’s wrong, she thought, for Mother to have to go through all this illness when it’s not necessary. It is wrong of him. She was making herself think the words slowly and clearly or they would run away too fast, letting the pictures of the two of them together take over. But it is also wrong of Mother to let him. But she had no power, had she? She had no power. Oh Mother! And pity was mixed with rage again.

She looked at Joe, at the coolness of the water and her mouth felt hard, as though it was in a straight line, as though her lips had disappeared completely. She wanted to hurt them both, to break their rules as, in her mind, they didn’t deserve her obedience. She took off her boots and stockings, rolled up her sleeves and undid her button. She would be brown tomorrow when she went to the mine, but what did it matter?