A Running Tide

by Ann Swinfen

  She lifted the bucket away from Dancer and held it behind her back. The horse looked at her reproachfully, her head hanging and water dripping from her muzzle. After she judged the water had settled in the horse’s stomach, Tirza put the bucket down again, and squatted in the shade of the stone wall. Tobias was lying flat on his back with his handkerchief spread over his face.

  ‘Muffins in the waxed paper and lemonade in the bottle,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘And an apple. You can have a fifteen-minute snooze if you want.’

  But Tirza was not sleepy. She ate her muffins and watched a lizard basking on a flat stone just a foot away from her. It was about four inches long and the colour of a burning coal. She had seen green lizards before and brown ones, but never an orange one like this. Ordinary lizards blended in with their surroundings, but this fellow stood out like a bright light against the brown of the soil and the grey of the stones lying heaped round the edge of the field. The lizard was as motionless as a statue and when it blinked – the lower lid rising up and meeting the upper lid across its eye – Tirza was startled. She reached cautiously for the bottle of lemonade, trying not to frighten it, but suddenly it was gone. One flash of orange in the uncut hay close against the wall, then it disappeared.

  When Tobias had rested enough, they began on the second half of the field. His shirt was patched dark with sweat, but – although the top of Tirza’s head felt like a skillet when she touched it with the flat of her hand – there was a very slight breeze up high on the hay rake that made the sun bearable.

  ‘Hay’s fine and dry,’ said Tobias when they had finished raking the whole field. ‘I think we’ll get it in straight away. I’ll go back for the hayrack. You want to come?’

  ‘Ayuh,’ said Tirza, gathering up the paper and bottle and stuffing them in the empty bucket. ‘Can I drive?’

  ‘OK. Lucky we don’t have many summer people along this road.’

  Tirza swung up into the seat again and Tobias perched behind her, holding on by the back of the seat. She drove out through the gate and turned left. A few yards along the county road they were overtaken by a jeep full of soldiers which roared past and cut in close under Dancer’s nose. The driver tooted his horn cheerfully and the soldiers shouted a greeting. Dancer, usually calm and reliable, shied towards the sandy ditch at the side of the road and the whole rake lurched sideways. Tirza struggled with the reins, calling out soothingly to the horse and holding her steady. One wheel of the rake dragged along the sandy edge of the ditch, but she managed to turn Dancer back on to the road and ease her down to a walk again.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Tobias. He had restrained himself from taking the reins out of her hands. ‘Forget what I said about the summer people. None of them are as crazy as these GIs.’

  An hour later, when they arrived back at the hay field with the hayrack hitched up to Dancer, it was Tirza’s turn to do the heavier work. The hayrack was a wide-bodied cart, extended upwards on all sides by posts that leaned outwards like a sagging, gap-toothed fence, so the top was several feet wider and longer than the bed of the cart. Tirza pitched the hay from the mounded stacks up over the rim of the hayrack while Tobias packed and stowed. She could pitch quite well now – plunging her fork into the mound, lifting it with a twist and then giving it the heave that sent the hay flying off the tines. Tobias fielded and placed each forkful exactly where he wanted it, treading it down and packing it so that the whole mass held together, even though it projected far over the sides. They proceeded along the field together, man and girl and horse. Dancer did not need to be driven. She stopped automatically at each pile of hay until Tobias called to her to get up again.

  It took them three trips to carry all the hay back to the farm and unload it. By the time they drove the last load home the breeze was almost chilly against their sweat-drenched bodies. Tirza sprawled on her back high on top of the hay as the rack swayed below her like a ship at sea. She ached in every muscle and sharp bits of chaff had worked their way inside her shirt and shorts, but the soft mountain of hay held her surrounded by its scent of captured summer sun. She could look straight up into the pale, washed-out sky and see the moon rising, shimmering and swimming like a pail of milk, while the sun was still in the sky.

  Next morning, after lifting her lines and delivering her crabs to Pierre at the Mansion House, Tirza walked along to the Tremayne place to investigate the animal track she had noticed the day before. It was difficult to find again and she realised that the light must have been falling at just the right angle to reveal it on the previous day. The track led from the dry stony ground of the cliff path over a fallen patch of the Tremaynes’ wall and then, clearer in the juicy growth of weeds and unkempt grass, down to the boundary of the Libby farm. Here the stone wall was in good repair, and the track stopped directly in front of it. Some sort of animal which could jump or scramble over it, then. Tirza found footholds in the rough stones and hauled herself up. Peering over she could see the track begin again on the other side.

  There was a small thicket of silver birch here, on this far side of Tobias’s cornfield. It had never been cleared for ploughing because the ground was rough and broken, caving away into miniature ravines between the trees and stubbed with large boulders. Tirza let herself down gently, a couple of yards away from the animal track so that her bare feet would not leave a scent and drive the creature away. The ground was slightly damp under the trees – it had rained a little last night and here the ground stayed moist longer, shaded by the branches.

  She crouched down with her chin almost in the weeds and looked along the level of the ground. Christina had taught her long ago to read animal tracks. They were faint and blurred, but Tirza thought they were the footprints of a fox. She crept forward, still half crouched, and saw a hole leading into the bank of one of the ravines. Her nose confirmed what she had suspected. Foxes. She was glad she hadn’t betrayed them to Simon. They would be dead by now. But she reckoned there was no need to kill the creatures. This far away from the farm buildings they were not an immediate danger to Harriet’s chickens. Much easier for them to steal young birds from the gulls’ nests along the edge of the cliff and the rabbits which had taken over much of the Tremayne garden.

  Tirza settled herself on her stomach. From here she could watch for the foxes and by lifting her head she could see across the field to where the farm track came down to the head of the beach. There had been no sign of a jeep today, so the soldiers would not be around, inspecting the sandbags and creating a disturbance. Her patience was rewarded almost at once. A big fox, probably the dog fox, appeared at the mouth of the hole and looked warily around. Tirza had been careful to approach downwind, and he did not seem to see or scent her. After spying out the land he trotted off along his track towards the Tremayne place as confidently as a dog in its own garden.

  Nothing happened for a long time. In the quiet and warmth under the trees, with no sound but the boom of the breakers below the cliff, Tirza nearly fell asleep. Her eyelids were drooping when she caught sight of movement just inside the hole. One by one, five young fox cubs tumbled out into the ravine, followed by their mother. The powerful fox smell was strong now. The mother fox pinned down one cub with her paw and began to wash it, nibbling and pulling at burrs and ticks in its fur. The cub struggled to get away, then flattened itself resignedly on the ground. The other four cubs scavenged about, nipping at insects and jumping out at each other from behind fallen branches. The vixen released the first cub and started to wash another while two of the cubs chased each other around her brush and over her back.

  Tirza was so absorbed in watching them that she did not notice the figures over on the farm track until they were almost at the beach. Then her eye was caught by the flash of sunlight on a white shirt. The man she recognised as the captain who had been dating Martha when the news had come about Will’s death. She had seen him in Flamboro since – most recently on Saturday night when the soldiers started an impromptu dance with girls from the village.
They had installed a wind-up Victrola and a pile of records just inside the door of the Schooner Bar, and danced in the street where there was more room. She had seen the captain jiving with Wayne’s sister Clarice, while the Victrola played ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me’.

  Walking along hand-in-hand with the captain now was Martha, and Tirza drew in her breath sharply when she saw what her cousin was wearing. When she arrived from Washington, Martha had brought with her a flesh pink two-piece bathing suit. Tirza remembered the first time Martha had worn it to sunbathe on the farm lawn, one of the earliest warm days of spring, back before the telegram came. Harriet had turned pale.

  ‘That thing isn’t decent,’ she said, shocked. ‘You look as though you haven’t any clothes on. You practically don’t have any clothes on. What will the men think of you?’

  ‘What will the men think of me, Mother?’ Martha said. She smiled sleekly to herself and ran her hands down her sides.

  ‘They’ll think you aren’t a decent woman,’ said Tobias, backing Harriet up.

  Martha tossed her head and laughed scornfully.

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose anyone is going to see me.’

  Now here was Martha walking down to the beach, holding the captain’s hand and wearing that thing which looked like underwear. She had sandals on her feet and a loose robe thrown round her shoulders, but the wind lifted it and blew it back so that even from where she lay inside the thicket Tirza could see the thin stuff of the bathing suit clinging to Martha’s breasts and the high, small round of her stomach. Bare skin showed between the bottom of the bra-shaped halter and the top of the pants, which dipped a little over her stomach. As Harriet had said, the colour of the fabric made it look as though she was stark naked.

  Tirza felt a hot flush of shame swamp her, so that her skin burned. The couple disappeared over the ledges on their way to the beach. Suddenly the dog fox appeared again, loping back along his track to the den. He was carrying a dead crow in his mouth. Its head dangled back from his jaws, and one wing swept the dust.

  Simon had left the farm early that morning. He was bored with haymaking. At first he had enjoyed driving the tractor, towing the mowing machine through the standing hay and watching it fall to the sharp blades, swish, swish, swish, in a fast rhythm the old horses could never have achieved. He liked the smell of the engine too, and he had discovered that he was quicker than his father to spot the source of the problem when the tractor gave trouble.

  After a while, though, the monotony of going up and down the field began to drive him crazy. And sitting with Sam and his father when they took a break from scything the edges of the field, listening to their slow, careful talk, started his arms and legs fidgeting as if he had no control over them. He didn’t want to have a break from driving the tractor. He wanted to continue until the job was finished. Why were they always so slow?

  He couldn’t stay in the house. He always seemed to be in the way of Harriet and Patience’s chores. And now that Martha had emerged from her room and sat about in a rocking chair on the porch, she embarrassed him. He could not forget the night the telegram had arrived, or the occasions since, when she had run shrieking from the sound of a plane flying overhead. He tried to keep away from her. Then Billy, who never seemed to be able to play by himself like other children – except when he sneaked off to forbidden places like the pond or the lime pit – would come and plague Simon. He would walk into Simon’s room without knocking, or grab his comic book so roughly out of his hand that it tore. The farm, which had once fitted round him like a comfortable old suit of clothes, now chafed and irritated him.

  He had done his early chores this morning, feeding and watering the chicks and cleaning the tie-up after his father and Sam had finished the milking. But after breakfast, when he should have been going down to the haying with them, he had sneaked away and come to Flamboro. Now he was lying on his back on the stubby turf of the headland beside the concrete base of the anti-aircraft gun, smoking a Camel. Here he felt relaxed and peaceful, though he found it difficult to smoke in this position. The smoke kept going accidentally up the back of his nose, making him choke, but he had seen the soldiers smoke in this casual, sophisticated way, and he was determined to master it.

  The crew had shared their lunch with him, heated up on the kerosene stove. Jim called it ‘shit on a shingle’. Creamed chipped beef on toast. He and Danny were sitting on the gun base with their legs dangling and boasting about the girls they had knocked up. Simon wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but he wasn’t going to show his ignorance by asking. He had a pretty good idea anyway. His attention was caught by something Danny said.

  ‘Trouble is, ain’t nowhere private you can take a broad round here. Back home, we had an empty house on our block ever’body used.’

  Simon rolled over, coughed on the cigarette smoke and sat up.

  ‘I know an empty house you could use.’

  The two young soldiers gaped at him, as if one of the gravestones had spoken.

  ‘The Tremayne place,’ said Simon, eager to show he could be useful.

  ‘That old spooky place, along the cliff towards the beach?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Yeah. It’s been empty for years. The doors are all locked up, but I can show you how to get in.’

  They exchanged glances.

  ‘No fooling?’ Danny asked cautiously.

  ‘Cross my heart,’ said Simon so earnestly that they grinned, and he felt foolish. ‘No one goes there. The kids round here all think it’s haunted, so they keep away. And the manager gave up looking after it years ago.’

  ‘What about the owners?’

  ‘Oh, they moved away to Boston around when I was born.’

  ‘OK, kid,’ said Jim tolerantly. ‘When we go off duty you can show us this place of yours. If you’re sure no one else knows how to get in.’

  ‘Only my cousin, and she never goes there.’

  When Tirza was coming away from the Mansion House later that week, she cut through the garden as she carried her empty baskets back to Stormy Petrel. Now that the summer weather was here, most of the guests had gone down to the beach by mid-morning. Some stayed on Todd’s Neck, prepared to put up with the narrow cramped beach to save walking any distance. Others – usually the families with children – hung themselves around with picnic baskets and bags and towels and hiked off to Libby’s Beach, whose mile-long stretch of wide silver sand tempted them away from the hotel.

  Tirza was not supposed to go into the formal garden, but it was a shortcut back to the pier and she rarely saw anyone there in summer except a few old ladies nodding over their books, or a couple of old men playing chequers on one of the curly cast-iron tables. So she was surprised when she rounded the tall hedge enclosing the rose garden and collided with a youngish man. Her baskets hit something hard and the man staggered. A long thin object went flying. Tirza saw it was a crutch and stooped to pick it up. He took it from her, balancing awkwardly with the other one under his armpit.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said simultaneously, and they both laughed.

  ‘I didn’t see you.’ She swung her baskets up on to her hip again. ‘I’m not really supposed to come this way.’

  He sniffed, as though she carried some aroma with her.

  ‘You must be the kid who brings the crabs for the chef.’

  ‘Ayuh.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  He stared at her, half smiling. She felt a blush rising up her neck.

  ‘Nothing. Yes.’

  ‘That wasn’t what you said.’

  ‘I said, “Ayuh.”‘ She glowered at him. ‘Haven’t you ever heard that before?’

  ‘Well, no, I haven’t. Ayuh.’ He tested the word on his tongue. ‘It’s a Maine word? Meaning “yes”?’

  ‘Yesss,’ said Tirza, hissing it out affectedly.

  ‘Where I come from, people say “Aye”. Bit the same, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought you
were foreign. You talk funny,’ said Tirza challengingly.

  ‘Mmm.’

  She turned away and headed towards the small side gate of the garden, which opened on to the path to the pier. He eased himself awkwardly round on his crutches and began to limp along beside her. Tirza found herself pulling ahead of him and felt impelled to slow down. She held the wicket gate open while he swung himself through.

  ‘Much obliged.’

  They started along the path. It was covered with some kind of fancy gravel which clogged his crutches and slowed him even further.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, rather breathless.

  ‘Tirza,’ she said shortly.

  ‘That’s a funny kind of a name.’

  ‘It is not. It’s a good Bible name.’

  ‘Well, is it, now? Can’t say I’ve ever come across it.’

  They had reached the pier. Tirza stepped on to it, and leaned over to put the baskets in the bottom of Stormy Petrel. She untied the painter from the post.

  ‘What’s your name, then?’ she asked, balanced with one bare foot on the pier, the other foot holding the boat steady by the gunwale.

  ‘My name’s Sandy.’

  ‘Sandy? Sandy?’ She laughed. ‘That’s not a name, that’s a beach.’

  He grinned at her.

  ‘It’s a name where I come from. Short for Alexander.’

  ‘Well,’ Tirza conceded.

  He watched her hoist the sail and ease Stormy Petrel out into the ocean. He raised his hand to her once, and she raised hers in return. As she was about to round the end of Todd’s Neck she glanced back. He was still standing there on the end of the pier, balanced on his crutches.

  Once a year, the Shakers paid a visit to the Mansion House. Their community lay inland, some miles away, and they started before dawn with their old-fashioned horse-drawn buggies and carts, reaching the hotel about midday on a Monday in late June. They stayed until midday on Saturday, packing up and driving back in time for the Sunday services at their community.