Story, Volume I

by Dai Smith

  ‘All your evenings you spend like that?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘I like mixing with men,’ Emlyn said, ‘to save my mind and joints from getting stiff.’ He laughed uproariously at this. Rebecca and Jacob remained grave and unsmiling.

  ‘And your pockets from keeping full,’ Jacob added unctuously. ‘A poor old mongrel you will become, not worth a penny.’

  ‘Ha,’ Rebecca cried swiftly, ‘a runner after women he is too I should think.’

  Emlyn turned his bright, glazed eyes full upon her.

  ‘The wrong way you put it, Rebecca,’ he said softly, ‘nowadays the women it is who have the pleasantest tongues.’

  She drew back her head. Her bosom seemed to rise in a storm.

  ‘Vain as a silly peacock,’ she jeered, ‘nothing is there in you for a woman to get excited about.’

  He laughed again, loudly. There was a coarse maleness in his laughter, a flood of primitive strength.

  She sat there, high and proud, the colour deepened and vivid in her face. Jacob seemed to ignore them, sucking up his tea with solemn contempt. He knew that his half-brother was lost to the Baptists forever. His former protests and denunciations had all been in vain, and now Emlyn interested him no more.

  Supper finished, Jacob sat by the fire to read a chapter of the Scriptures before bed. Emlyn lit a cigarette and restlessly began to study a racing list which he took from his pocket.

  Rebecca cleared the supper things into the kitchen. Her heart beat with a hard painful throb that was unbearable, and as she carried the crockery into the kitchen she seemed to sway with a slight drunken movement, her head drooping.

  And as she was washing the dishes Emlyn came noisily into the kitchen and kicked off his boots. Then he turned and looked at her. Through the dim candlelight his eyes shone down on her like a cat’s. She crouched over the pan of water in a sudden fright: she thought he was going to advance on her and take her there, suddenly and silently. She began to pant in fear.

  They heard Jacob noisily clearing his throat and spit in the fire, and the spell was broken. But Emlyn, with a sleek, drunken smile, came over to her and pressed his hands over her swelling breasts. She moved in anguish and stared at him with remembering eyes. Ah, his grasp was familiar, this agonising rush of her blood suddenly familiar: she remembered her dream. Only the dark horror that had wrapped that dream was not here.

  She lifted her face; mutely they stared at each other. Then with a shy and ashamed look she resumed her work.

  He went back into the other room, whistling.

  VI

  Each day passed in an ecstasy of dreaming. When she rose in the early morning she took greater care of her appearance. But it was a relief to see the two men go off to work – then she was alone to dream as deliriously as she liked. Perhaps she was the only collier’s wife in the district who was dressed as though for a jaunt when the men returned from work. She bought a flimsy apron to wear over her frock, and a box of powder to soften the colour of her face: she began to look subtle. Once Jacob exclaimed irritably:

  ‘What’s come over you, woman! Extraordinary in your ways you are getting. No respectable woman dresses like that this time in the afternoon. Follow you how the others in the street are – hard-working women they look. A laughing stock you will make yourself.’

  Rebecca tossed her head.

  ‘Sluts they look,’ she said, ‘and sorry I feel for them.’

  ‘Half a dozen children you ought to have, Mrs Jenkins,’ Jacob answered warmly, ‘and come to your senses you would then.’

  Emlyn broke in:

  ‘Out of her senses! Like to see women become machines of flesh you do, Jacob. Use them until their wheels are worn out. Yes, use them, that’s all you see in women.’

  Jacob became angry. ‘A worshipper of women I am,’ he cried in the manner of a Baptist preacher. ‘Did not Jesus Christ come through a woman! And when I see one give herself over to frip-fraps and idle her flesh all day, vexed and disgusted I become.’

  ‘I work all day and change at four o’clock,’ Rebecca cried hotly, ‘because bright I want to be by the time you come home.’

  ‘Bright with a blouse and petticoat!’ Jacob jeered. ‘Bright enough it is for me to know that my wife you are. Without meaning are the clothes that cover your body.’

  Rebecca shrank back. She went about her work without another word. Not until the time came for washing Emlyn’s back did her averted and ashamed face lift itself in ardour again.

  She usually washed the thick coal dust off his back with movements that were far too delicate, so that it took a long time before his flesh shone white again. But he did not complain, crouching in the big wooden tub, and did not shiver, like Jacob, for whom she was never quick enough – the nightly bathe was always unpleasant to him.

  This evening she felt vengeful. Jacob had had his bath and was sitting in his shirt before the fire in the other room, warming his naked legs. She scooped water over Emlyn’s back and passed the soap over the collier’s black skin. And with her two hands, softly and ah, with such subtle passion, she began to rub the soap into his flesh, disregarding the rough flannel used for that task. Into the little hollows of his muscular shoulders, down the length of his flawless back, over the fine curves of his sides, she caressingly passed her spread hands. Beneath them his flesh seemed to harden, draw itself together as though to resist her. But – she could feel another answer to her quivering touch. She became exhausted, her breathing difficult. So she rested for a moment or two, and then, as he moved restlessly in his crouching attitude, she took a bowl of clean warm water and poured it over him. The flesh gleamed out, white-gold, a delicate flush beneath, like a heap of wheat burned hot in the sun.

  ‘There,’ she breathed, ‘you must use the towel yourself. Tired I am.’

  He did not answer, neither did he move up from his crouching. She went into the living room. Jacob, his hands clasped over his stomach, was dozing before the big fire. In his multi-coloured flannel shirt he looked gaunt and grotesque. She went up to the bedroom. Her eyes were gleaming with a kind of remorseless brilliance; her mien was profligate and mobile. She squatted on the floor like some brooding aboriginal dark in the consciousness of some terrific deed hovering. She squatted there, dark and brooding, and heard his steps approach, behind her. His hands were upon her shoulders and entering her bosom. A shock, icy and violent, went through her: she dropped her head. Yet she felt as though she lay amid the softest velvet, folds of soothing dark velvet about her. No word was spoken and presently she was alone.

  VII

  Then came the time of the Cyfarfod, the Big Meetings in Jacob’s chapel – a week of important services. A well-known preacher and other ministers came: every night there would be a long service with two sermons. A week of fiery oratory and prayers like flaming gas. Jacob, his deacon’s face pompous and weighty, directed Rebecca to see that his Sunday clothes were spotless, that there were seven clean stiff collars ready, and that a new heart-shaped tie was bought.

  As these instructions were given Emlyn blew whiffs of cigarette smoke to the ceiling, a secret and ironical smile on his face. Rebecca saw it with a little shudder. Jacob added:

  ‘Enjoy the preaching you will, Mrs Jenkins. The sermons of Mr Prys-Davies can make you cry, enjoy them so much you do. Sometimes, so great is his shouting that crack like a wall does his voice.’

  She was silent. Emlyn broke in:

  ‘Darro, Jacob, those meetings are only for brainy men and old women who cannot take pleasure in anything else.’

  Rebecca thought this incautious and she said quickly:

  ‘Oh, enjoy them I shall, Jacob. Little outings they’ll be for me, instead of staying in this house every evening.’

  Emlyn drew in his stretched legs and spat in the fire.

  ‘Gluttons for religion you two are,’ he jeered.

  The Cyfarfod opened on the Sunday; there was no hot dinner that day, as Rebecca went to the three services. She arrived home at t
en o’clock that night, her eyes rather wild and obsessed. Jacob had stayed back with the deacons in the vestry.

  Emlyn was reading a periodical, waiting for his supper.

  ‘God!’ he exclaimed, ‘their beds people ought to take to that chapel.’

  ‘The preaching was good,’ she said slowly. Her cheeks seemed to sag, her face was rather pitiful. He watched her.

  ‘Enjoy it you did!’ he laughed.

  ‘I did cry,’ she answered in a subdued voice.

  He rose from the chair and clasped her shoulders. But she drew away a little, her head dropped.

  ‘Ah, foolish you are like all of them,’ he said, ‘all those damned hypocrites.’

  She shrank further away. She was in that mystical state that by prolonged hymn-singing and prophetic preaching can so easily be induced in Welsh people.

  ‘No, no,’ she muttered, ‘peace was there tonight.’

  But he followed her, slowly and sinisterly, and as she reached the table pressed her back over it in his destroying embrace. He caught her unwilling mouth and warmed her with his lips. She tasted the sweet, languorous contact of his dripping tongue. She could have screamed in the violence of her soul. Her hands clasping his shoulders, she could have torn him in her agony of hate and lust.

  ‘Tuesday,’ he whispered, ‘Tuesday you stay home.’ Then he let her go and went back to his chair.

  Silent and still, she remained for some moments by the table, her arms across her face. Presently she muttered:

  ‘What am I to say?’

  ‘Oh, tell the old fool that your sickness is coming on again. You know, deceive him with soft soap.’ His voice was coarse and brutal.

  Jacob came in, fiery banners still burning in his soul. His long, arid face was lit with them. He began immediately, sitting down to supper:

  ‘The children of Israel sit down to their meat with thanksgiving to the Lord who gave it them. With singing voices and loud music we have praised his name, and on our bended knees given up our sins. We have listened to the voice of one whose soul is deep with wisdom. Out of his mouth has come big words and exalted phrases.’

  Emlyn listened gravely and said: ‘Ach, Jacob, strange it is to me that you are not a local preacher yet.’

  But Jacob waved this derision aside:

  ‘The wicked shall mock in their ignorance. How can they see the hand of the Lord in their whippet-acing and games of painted cards? But with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah they shall sit in misery.’

  He ate his supper with austere dignity, seated patriarchally in his armchair, his jaws working rhythmically. He looked rather fearsome. Rebecca did not say a word, but presently he turned to her:

  ‘Rebecca Jenkins, say you that the meeting moved you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did not the wings of angels beat about the singing!’

  ‘Very beautiful was the singing,’ she answered.

  ‘Tired you look,’ he said sternly.

  ‘Well, after three long services—’

  He bent his head to her; there seemed to be iron and fire in his voice as he said:

  ‘Yes, a good wife you have been today. When we were singing did I not think, Blessed is our union today: my wife Rebecca lifts up her voice with mine in Cyfarfod, her voice is as my voice, her body is with my body here.’

  She met his burning stare. Every motion seemed to flee from her consciousness and she had the taste of death in her. The fiery purpose of these eyes blasted her.

  Emlyn seemed not to hear or see anything; he ate his Sunday night cold beef with head bent at the other end of the table. When he had finished he went back to his periodical, stretched his legs into the hearth, and casually lit a cigarette.

  Rebecca’s steps dragged with weariness and dread as she cleared away the supper things.

  And the following two days she waited in a kind of numbness, her eyes glittering obsessively under her sullen brows. Tuesday, as Jacob hurried over his bath, she told him quietly:

  ‘I am going to stay home tonight and rest.’

  ‘Why, Rebecca fach?’ he demanded.

  ‘I— I,’ she muttered, her eyes cast down, ‘something comes over me lately. I could faint, so crowded does the chapel get.’

  His face hung over her; she could hear the roused intake of his breath.

  ‘Better ask Mrs Watkins next door to come in and keep you company,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Don’t you be silly about me,’ she answered hurriedly. ‘A little rest is all I want.’

  ‘Broody you will get, alone,’ he went on fussily. ‘Think you it is— ‘

  ‘Oh go on, like an old woman you are, making a bother. Wait you for plainer signs.’

  ‘All right. But take you care of yourself.’

  Later she went into the parlour and pressed her hands upon her head in an agony of mingled loathing and fear. She felt as though she bore a sword within her, a glittering blade which might at any moment split her being in two. She crouched behind the door, covering her head, her face contorted and ugly; she heard Emlyn go out and she went to her task of clearing the living-room after the men. Then Jacob came downstairs in his chapel clothes and after an admonishment that she was not to do too much, went off in dignified haste to the meeting.

  Slowly she went upstairs and entered her bedroom. Slowly and carefully, as though she were following some definite and dictated plan, she removed her clothes. Her face was repulsive, contracted in an orgasm of primitive realisation, her eyes fixed like balls of blue marble, her lips thick and distended. Unclothed, her body looked hewn out of pure hard flesh, barren of light and shade, solid flesh of marble, hard and durable. Her breasts sloped forward like cornices of white stone, her thighs were like smooth new pillars. From her head her loosened hair fell in a shower of silky gold threads, rich and lovely upon the polished stone of her shoulders. For moments she stood still in her gleaming nudity, as though she had indeed turned into a hewn white stone. Only when she moved to the bed there was the sudden grace of life.

  She heard the click of the front door latch.

  He was mounting the stairs; she called out in a voice strange to her own ears: ‘He has gone, Emlyn.’

  Emlyn went back to the front door and locked it.

  VIII

  She came downstairs and into the living-room. Emlyn was sitting in the armchair, smoking easily and contentedly.

  ‘Are you going to stay in then?’ she asked.

  He smiled at her, a fatuous, contented smile.

  ‘Don’t you be nervous,’ he said lazily, ‘or suspicious Jacob will get at once. I am going to sit in this chair until he comes in.’ He lay back deeper, his legs hanging limp. ‘A task it would be for me to go out tonight.’

  But Rebecca burned with a vivid heat that showed in her mottled face and lithe powerful movements. She looked flushed with strong life. Emlyn watched her move through the living room and said in a sniggering whisper:

  ‘A marvel you are, Rebecca, darling.’

  ‘Ach!’ she exclaimed, making a gesture of disgust.

  ‘But considerate of you I’ve been—’ he said calmly.

  Her cheeks flushed a deeper red.

  ‘But you wai—’ he continued.

  His lechery was like the stinging of a whip on her quivering flesh. Again, cleaving up through her desire for him, she felt a sword of destruction within her. She looked at his throat with haunted eyes.

  ‘Now, Rebecca,’ he coaxed, ‘take things in a natural way. Be ready for Jacob.’

  But she dropped on her knees, bowed down on the floor before him, crouching, her arms shuddering over her breasts.

  ‘What shall we do!’ she cried, her distorted face thrust to him. ‘Living in this house together. What shall we do!’

  He leaned to her rather angrily.

  ‘Rebecca, Rebecca, use control on yourself. Shocking this is. What if he came in now?’

  ‘How can we live together here now!’ she moaned.

  ‘Ach, certain we
can,’ he said sharply.

  She drew back. ‘But how can it go on? Two men, and you his half-brother,’ she cried again. There was horror in her face and her eyes seemed utterly lost.

  He stooped before her and pressed her between his thighs, lifted her up with his hand, looked at her long and steadily.

  ‘Go on we will all right. You leave it to me. Rebecca, enjoy it you should. A little secret between ourselves.’

  She laid her head on his thigh and burst out:

  ‘Oh, I love you, Emlyn. Only with you I want to be. Horrible it will be for me to go to bed with Jacob again. That it is will kill me. Always I am thinking of your arms and your mouth kissing me.’

  ‘Ah! a few good times we will have.’

  She wrenched herself free.

  ‘No,’ she cried with anger, ‘one or the other!’

  ‘Don’t you be a fool now! Go you cautious and everything will be all right.’ He became impatient with her, and her dramatic and hysterical mien alarmed him. Jacob might come in any moment. ‘Can’t you take patience with an old man like Jacob? Only a little soft soap he wants.’

  ‘Ha!’ she answered venomously, ‘a part of his God I have become. When I am with him in the night sometimes he prays as though he was praying through me. Like God he makes me feel.’

  Emlyn laughed.

  ‘Don’t you laugh!’ she shouted.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Well, don’t you joke about this.’

  He sat back and was silent. Anything to calm her. She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. And it was just then that Jacob came in.

  ‘No supper laid!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I was just starting—’ Rebecca said, coming into the living room.

  Jacob gazed at her. ‘More colour you have than before I went,’ he said. ‘In the first prayer tonight I asked God to see to your comfort. For indeed ill you looked.’

  She stared at her husband without a word.

  ‘Ignorant that she was unwell I was,’ Emlyn said hastily, ‘or stayed in I would have, to keep her company.’

  Jacob slowly turned his gaze to Emlyn. ‘So alone she’s been most of the evening!’ he said as though pondering over the fact.