‘We follow the creek, I suppose,’ said Sparrow. Only now did he consider Griffin Pinney’s directions to have been somewhat minimal.
‘We follow it till we get to Harp’s hut. If he ain’t there we go on till we find the machinery,’ said Peachey.
‘Alright.’
‘First we gotta scuttle that boat.’
‘That’s a capital crime!’
‘It’s a capital crime to steal a boat!’
‘But we never stole it . . . swear on anything.’
‘You can swear all you like, we gotta scuttle the boat.’
Come the morning they inspected the grave, Thelma’s grave, and they followed the line of the creek for some miles, until they saw the hut and the gibbet and the horrible freight hung thereon, just the faintest movement in the breeze, some long-dead savage, gutted and stuffed with grass. The dog had picked both the shape and the faint movement and he was feet planted, all hackles and bark. Then a voice: ‘Don’t tell me that’s your game dog, he’s hardly more’n a pup.’
Harp Sneezby was almost upon them, buttoning his flap as he waddled along.
‘He’s pure game blood, and he’s a year old, almost, I reckon,’ said Sparrow.
‘I’m sure old Wolgan will be delighted to have you run through the pedigree. More’n likely he’ll eat him so don’t get attached,’ said Harp. He turned his attention to Peachey. ‘Griffin never said nothin’ about you comin’ along.’
‘Well he should’ve, ’cause here I am,’ said Peachey.
Harp turned to Sparrow. ‘You finally did it, you been talkin’ it long enough.’
‘I hope they don’t eat him, they better not,’ said Sparrow. The thought of anyone hurting the dog loosed a surge within him, a most unfamiliar churn. Made him think of Geraldine, too.
‘They ain’t gunna teach him tricks I know that much. They don’t teach nothin’ betsept skullduggery,’ said Harp.
‘He sniffed you out didn’t he?’ said Sparrow, though he knew that was not true.
‘Might be he did.’ Harp waved them onwards to the hut. They passed two graves, a small cross and a big one, each of them awry and weathered near to ruin.
‘Who’s that?’
‘That’s my missus and my boy. Why they call it small pox got me beat, by God it has.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sparrow.
Peachey whacked him on the shoulder and said, ‘Pssst.’
‘Not a soul but me shed a tear back then, no point doin’ it now,’ said Harp.
‘Where’s Griffin?’ said Peachey.
‘He’s gone back to Prominence for the wife sale. Says he’ll buy this woman so long as she’s hardy and pliant and still got her teeth; says she better have a civil tongue or he’ll be teachin’ her what for. I said complication, he said fornication. His priorities are clear I’ll say that much.’
‘How’d he find out?’
‘Guthrie on the river, a most untimely quirk of chance.’
‘I heard she’s a Romany,’ said Peachey.
‘So they say,’ said Harp.
‘I hope he comes back soon, whatever,’ said Sparrow.
‘Don’t we all, seems all I do is sit around waitin’ for Griffin,’ said Harp.
At Harp’s hut they were not invited inside. They sat by a cold fire, cross-legged in the dirt, and they drank bang-head for the better part of the day and slept into the early part of the evening.
When Sparrow woke he poked at Peachey and the two of them sat up and brushed off the dirt and looked about, stirring the quantum of recall that survived the assault of the drink. They could hardly hear themselves talk for the cicadas. ‘I got a hell of a head,’ said Peachey.
‘Me too,’ said Sparrow.
Harp lit the fire as the light sunk from the western ridge into the pit of the night. He made some hearth cakes and baked them in an iron pot with a heavy lid. They were speckled with little green bits of something. Harp said it was bush parsley.
They ate the cakes. The cakes were good, lots of salt. They drank some more and drew themselves closer to the fire, warming their hands and their legs as the chill of the night set in.
The pup lay down against the fire stones and warmed his back and they passed around a big jug of bang-head and sat quietly for a time and listened to the creature sounds and the sound of the stream that carried to the river, the sound of Pig Creek.
Harp was looking hard at Sparrow’s eyes, the yellowing of the whites accentuated by the firelight. ‘You look sickly you know that?’
‘Dr Woody says I got the jaundice,’ said Sparrow. He wanted no further discussion on the matter of his appearance. He hurried to change the subject. ‘He let you go, the doctor, the magistrate?’
‘He did that,’ said Harp.
‘Why?’
‘Said he knew I weren’t no principal. Said the tinsmith at Toongabbie made that copper worm for Griffin. Woody knows more’n me. Said I’m to look out for his boy, too.’
A lantern flickered on the table inside the hut, a lumpy haversack visible in the glow. ‘When do we go?’ said Sparrow.
‘We wait for Griffin, drink the proceeds in the meantime . . . hope he don’t turn up with another damn woman,’ said Harp.
‘Best hope she got no teeth then,’ said Peachey.
‘What I hear she got all the wiles to make a man stupid,’ said Harp.
Sparrow thought of Biddie’s teeth. They were by no means perfect, but they were quite lovely in his opinion. Then he thought of Biddie’s softness and the sweet plumpness of her limbs and those thoughts led on to sensations, tender sensations in his breast and tingling sensations in his nethers. He thought about the woods and the savages lurking therein, black as burnt bark and still as stone. He thought about the dead boy slipping into the depths. He wondered why he himself, personally, was so stupid. He wished he’d never come.
30
Atilio walked the corridor with the girl. He shepherded her to the barber’s chair and she sat herself down. Fish took to sweeping as close as he dared.
Gudgeon had stirred. His eyes were open, the fog clearing. He saw the girl. He saw the beribboned tether on the floor by the barber’s chair. He saw the hazy form of the big cook close by.
‘Put him on the porch, get the man some air,’ said Cuff, loud.
They were helping Gudgeon outside when Griffin Pinney stepped into the tavern, his old game dog at heel.
‘That her?’ he said.
‘That’s her,’ said Sam.
‘That’s her indeed,’ said Nimrod Parsonage.
Pinney crossed the floor and stood over the girl. He passed his musket to Fish and Fish took it as he stepped away, well clear, staring at the gun like it had come out of nowhere, like it might smoke and wriggle and turn into a snake.
‘Stand up,’ said the game hunter.
The girl stood, her eyes downcast.
‘Are you sound, girl?’ She did not reply.
She sensed Atilio’s presence by her side.
‘You got a tongue in that pretty head?’ said Pinney.
The sight of the man made her skin crawl. She nodded.
‘Show me your teeth.’
Atilio wiped a filleting knife on his leather apron, thereupon depositing a line of fish scales and watery secretions on the floor. ‘No,’ he said.
‘You show me them teeth right now.’
‘No!’ said Atilio.
‘I have every right to check this girl for soundness.’
Sam stepped from behind the counter. ‘Not in here you don’t.’
‘Custom says I do.’
‘Well, custom ain’t here just now, I’m here instead,’ said Sam.
‘That’s not right,’ said Nimrod Parsonage.
‘She is not a beast,’ said Atilio.
‘That’s for you to say and me to find out,’ said Pinney.
‘No!’ said Atilio, louder this time.
Pinney weighed the odds, Sam at his back and the big cook with knife in hand.
He snatched the musket from Fish.
‘Lovely day!’ said Cuff, as the game hunter departed.
There was something of a crush on the porch as the girl readied to leave the tavern with the tether tied about her waist. The porch crowd parted as Fish led the way, followed by the girl.
Gudgeon got to his feet with help from Nimrod Parsonage and the two parties came together in full view of the busy scene, market day in the offing, the comers on the parade, trestle tables, a few sacks of produce; chickens cheeping in wicker cages, a hutch thick with rabbits; a single basket of greens and a batch of eggs and a lone tray of river prawns and scarce but a dozen fresh fish laid out, blood oozing between fingers, and a few half ducks cured like hams and a single flitch of pork on a hog hook on the trade store porch, and flies on everything.
Gudgeon took hold of the tether as the wagoner, Dudley Boggitt, took to the centre of the precinct and declared the wife sale imminent. Under his old brown hat Boggitt was decidedly bald but he was otherwise well endowed with a booming baritone voice that carried into the deep reaches of every building on the square and made of him a suitable crier.
As he opened the proceedings Boggitt saw the hunting party led by Reuben Peskett come off the switchback path, a raggedy force, footsore, filthy, and thirsty into the bargain. ‘Just in time to buy a wife,’ he shouted.
The soldiers threw down their haversacks on the trade store porch, set their muskets against the wall and sat themselves on the porch boards.
Someone said, ‘You get ’em?’
‘We got ’em,’ said Peskett, patting his haversack. ‘Proof within.’
Boggitt beckoned Gudgeon and Nimrod took him by the arm and walked him onto the parade ground. The girl followed on the tether. At that point the big sealer seemed to regain a modicum of steadiness and he shrugged off his assistant. He fixed the tether in his hand, wrapping it once around his fist, and he led Bea Faa in a circle in full view of the folk gathered, the way a breeder might strut a brood mare at a county fair.
The soldiers passed a gallon demijohn up and down the line, gulping the contents as Boggitt called first for word of the doctor’s boy but no word came forth so he urged all present to keep a keen eye, particularly on the river.
Moving on, he let it be known that the sealer Gudgeon Ketilsson, formerly of Reykjavik and more recently the Firth of Clyde and more recently still the fur seal rookeries of the Southern Ocean, was about to offer for sale by auction a wife, the girl Beatrice Faa, a girl of Romany extraction from the Scottish borderlands.
On completing the first circuit, the crier called for a chair as Gudgeon was faltering. ‘Don’t pay to cross Atilio,’ said Cuff, chuckling.
They put a chair in the middle of the square and Gudgeon slumped into it, the tether still in his hand, dribble spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Boggitt kept on, now reading from a script drafted by Mackie: ‘Be it known, a man may lawfully sell his wife to another man provided he deliver her over, in full view of the public gathered, and she haltered, the exchange of said halter to signify the solemn public mark of the transaction; said transaction to be confirmed in writing, witnessed by a lawful magistrate, copies to all parties concerned. And be it known the arrangement must, as custom requires, be congenial to all parties. Thereafter said parties will retire to an establishment conducive to conviviality, solemnisation and cheerfulness, all welcome.’
Someone shouted: ‘Be you willin’ missus?’ It was Agnes Archambault.
‘Yes,’ said Bea but hardly anybody heard.
‘Do I have an offer, the bidding is open,’ said Boggitt.
‘Any bad habits?’ said Redenbach.
‘She got a civil tongue in her head?’ said Pinney.
‘That husband looks booted and spurred to me,’ said Alfie Shivers.
‘Will she submit in a wifely way?’ said Redenbach.
Abbott was heard to gasp.
‘All indicators confirm an obliging young woman,’ said the crier.
‘Three guineas and a dozen pelts, prime pelts,’ said Griffin Pinney.
‘Kindly specify the pelts,’ said Boggitt.
‘Wallaby,’ said Pinney.
‘Lord help that girl,’ said Sprodd.
‘Four guineas!’ Joe Franks walked onto the square, his britches muddied to the shins. He dropped his haversack and bent over, hands on knees.
The girl heard the murmur: Joe Franks, old Joe, well well . . .
She studied him. Watched as he leant against a cartwheel and took the weight off, his arse on the hub.
Cuff was relieved. ‘There, see! Ye of little faith,’ he said to Mackie.
‘Four guineas don’t best three guineas and all them pelts,’ said Pinney.
Cuff was not inclined to agree. ‘A dozen pelts at a shilling a pelt, you’re a bit short.’
‘I’ll match the guineas with the pelts then.’
The crier looked to Joe. Joe said, ‘Four guineas and a Whitney woollen blanket.’
Cuff was warming to the contest: ‘Mr Wallaby makes the better blanket but Mr Whitney carries the treasured mark of distinction.’
‘Dead heat, might have to cut her in two,’ said Alfie.
‘Four guineas! That’s a year’s bread for a man,’ said Monty Bushell.
Pinney wanted this girl. He wanted her even more than he wanted Thelma Rowntree on first sighting. He did not intend to lose to an old dog like Joe Franks. ‘Five guineas, and the pelts.’
Fish was upset to think the most horrible man on the river might get his dirty hands on Bea Faa. He felt safe enough standing at the chief constable’s shoulder. ‘You don’t hardly got a hut, even.’
‘An’ he smells like a savage,’ said Cuff.
‘Enough of the badinage,’ said Boggitt, ‘the bid is with Mr Pinney, the call is with ex-sergeant Franks, veteran of the American wars, of Mysore and Seringapatam and Travancore and more . . . Joe?’
Joe had enough credit at the store to bid more. He had the receipts in his pocket. But at that moment in time he felt his purpose dissolving. He was staring at his boots but his boots were a blur. The eyes of the gathered folk and the half-drunk hunting party were upon him. Silly old man, old fool. He thought himself pathetic and sad, say nothing of exhausted. How was it that Guthrie had persuaded him, at Mackie’s behest, to bid for a wife? He blamed Cuff, for what had begun in jest was ending in farce.
Joe shook his head. ‘I’m done,’ he said. The assembly seemed to groan in unison, whether at Joe’s misfortune or the girl’s was hard to say.
‘I say Joe’s still ahead,’ said Cuff, loud.
‘Here’s the equation,’ said Boggitt. ‘The blanket’s a Whitney woollen so it offsets all them the pelts, but on the cash money Mr Pinney is ahead.’
‘What we gunna do?’ said Cuff.
Mackie walked to the centre of the square where the crier stood by Gudgeon, who had hardly moved though he managed, still, to hold the tether. The chief constable talked and Boggitt listened, and then he walked back to the Hive porch and the crier started up again.
‘The bid is with Mr Mackie. The bid is twelve guineas. Six to cover the purchase, on Mr Franks’ behalf, and six to cover Mr Gudgeon’s convalescence whereupon he will depart the precinct in the company of his gentlemen companions, Messrs Parsonage and Parsonage.’
‘What’s that mean?’ said Crispin.
‘Means we ain’t welcome,’ said Nimrod.
Boggitt was not finished. ‘Here she is, dark as mystery, pretty as the morning, nimble as a bean, uncommonly tall, useful in a orchard, a picture, what more is there to say. Last chance, gentlemen.’
Cuff was chuckling to himself, recalling the conversation at Joe’s patch when they composed an advertisement for a wife. ‘By God I never thought I’d see the day you bid for a woman, Alister.’
‘I bid for Joe, no more nor less.’
‘Here’s hoping rumour gifts that interpretation to posterity.’
Griffin Pinney
stood hands on hips, a look of puzzlement on his face. ‘Why’d he do that?’ he said to no one in particular, the old dog asleep at his foot.
Abbott spoke softly in Mackie’s ear. ‘We are a nation sinking into muck and mire in the eyes of the world. This will carry, mark my words.’
‘Let it carry, let all parties know to whom she belongs.’
Woody could not restrain himself. ‘I know a church, and my shame for a part of it, where annulments are swapped for gold and the blessed poor have, in that regard, no redress at all,’ he growled.
‘It would seem sir that you have but two temperatures: mild and infernal.’
‘I have an infernal sense of forsakenness is what I have.’
‘In the cause of peace I will retreat to the rear of the assemblage, forthwith,’ said Abbott as he moved away.
Bea Faa reckoned Joe Franks might be fifty, but it was hard to tell. He was, perhaps, not as old as the doctor but he was just as wearied in appearance and rickety in his motion. In his face she saw a steady, contemplative man, a man quite unlike Gudgeon. She could but hope.
‘I am closing,’ called Boggitt. ‘The bid is with our chief constable on behalf of the ex-sergeant.’
Pinney kicked the ground and marched off, bound for Peachey’s Tap, the sleepy old dog hastening at his heel.
Boggitt paused, his forefinger pointing to the heavens. ‘Done! The girl is transacted for six guineas and six for the convalescence of the vendor.’
Mackie beckoned Joe Franks and the interested parties joined Boggitt in the centre of the square. They gathered about Gudgeon and the girl. Agnes was there too, as were Cuff and the Parsonage twins. Agnes took the girl by the arm and squeezed. ‘You can count your blessings, better dead than Griffin Pinney,’ she whispered.
Cuff peered into Gudgeon’s blank eyes. ‘Let’s hope the relinquishing party can follow the procedure at this customary juncture.’
‘I gave this girl my word she would have a right of refusal, as custom requires,’ said Mackie.
‘I do apologise for my late arrival,’ said Joe, ‘the river near beat me.’
‘Ask him, whatever you want,’ said Mackie.
‘I will not be ill-used,’ she said.
‘You can be sure of that!’ said Joe.
The Making of Martin Sparrow Page 18
