The Oyster Catchers

by Iris Gower

  And now Nina was with child by him again. What was he to do? He could not marry Nina and give her child a name. All he could honourably do was to support her financially.

  He thought suddenly of Tom, his son whom Joe was only just winning over. What would he say when he learned that his mother had been betrayed yet again?

  ‘Damn and blast!’ Joe picked up the brush and slapped it against the underside of the boat in an explosive gesture that sent the lime flying around him like snow. He began work again like a man possessed and all the time his mind was going around like a rat in a trap, trying to sort out his muddled thoughts.

  ‘Joe!’ The voice was soft, cajoling, and he looked up with sudden gladness to see Eline standing above him, the breeze moulding her bodice against her small breasts so that she looked like a young nymph from another world. She slid down on to the rocks and sat beside him, her young arms gleaming softly golden in the sunlight, the sweet rise of her breasts revealed now by the opening of the calico of her bodice.

  ‘Joe,’ Eline looked at him beseechingly, ‘I must ask you something.’

  He leaned towards her, his coldness vanishing. How could he blame her for anything, this sweet child he’d loved since she’d been in her cradle? It wasn’t her fault that she had not caught for a baby, she was still so small, so vulnerable, little more than a girl herself. He should give her a chance to mature and fill out a little and then she would be ready for motherhood.

  He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Ask me for whatever you want, my little one.’ He smelled the sunlight in her hair and the freshness of newly washed skin, young skin, and his senses were aroused. He wanted to drown himself in her warmth and innocence; women of experience like Nina were around in abundance. It was only rarely that a man had the good fortune to find himself an innocent to love.

  ‘I want to know the truth about Nina Parks, Joe.’ Her words fell softly against the sudden wild beating of his heart. He heard the laughter of children and the barking of a dog as though they were in another world, a faraway world that had nothing to do with Joe Harries and the mess he had made of his life.

  ‘Is she having your baby, Joe?’ Her voice was low, that of a little girl, a trusting child and he could not see her thin face twist into lines of pain.

  ‘What is this nonsense?’ he found himself protesting. ‘Nina Parks is a woman almost forty. Why should she be having a child and in any case, what makes you think it would be mine?’

  Eline’s eyes were steady, so blue that they outdid the sea in splendour. ‘She almost said as much today in the grocer’s.’

  Joe got to his feet angrily. ‘I have told you before not to go over my name in public.’ He was suddenly incensed. Why should the women in his life act as though he was God with all the virtues and all the answers to their infernal questions?

  He put his brush down carefully in the pot of tallow and lime and wiped his hands on an old rag, rubbing vigorously at the white-lime that had become ingrained in the creases of his fingers as though the task was the most important thing in the world to him right then.

  ‘Joe?’ Eline’s voice was soft but insistent. He looked down at her, his anger washing away as suddenly as it had come.

  ‘I am a man, Eline,’ he said slowly, ‘and when a man is not welcome in his wife’s bed he must find a woman who wants him.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Joe!’ Eline said swiftly. ‘I’ve never denied you.’

  ‘But neither have you welcomed me with open arms, Emmeline.’

  He sighed heavily and sat down beside her, deciding he must end the lies and deceit once and for all, face up to what he had done like a man.

  ‘I went to her, it’s true,’ he said, ‘and if Nina is with child, then the fault is mine.’ He took Eline’s small hand in his. ‘I can only ask you to try to understand and forgive me for what was one lapse on my part.’

  He saw her eyes darken like the waters of the sea covered by clouds. She bent her head and her unpinned hair swept forward hiding her face.

  ‘I am at fault, too, Joe,’ she said at last. ‘I am not woman enough for you, I haven’t given you sons.’

  He felt pierced by guilt, he had cruelly taunted her with her lack of children and his thrusts had gone home hurting her badly.

  ‘There is time for that,’ he said gently, ‘I forget how young you are, Eline, there is time aplenty for us to have a family.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The problem now is Nina, what am I to do about her?’

  Eline bent towards him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘If there’s a problem, we’ll face it together, Joe, like man and wife should.’

  She rose and smoothed down her skirts and, as he watched her, Joe felt himself melt with love for her. ‘Come on, cariad,’ he said thickly, ‘let me take you home.’

  Nina sat in her kitchen, aware that the sickly feeling that gripped her now every morning was abating. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, relief bringing the beads of perspiration to her forehead.

  She got up and stared at herself in the mirror, she was very pale, with deep lines running from her nose to the sides of her mouth. ‘You are an old woman, Nina Parks,’ she said, ‘and this is your last chance to land your man.’

  Of course Nina knew she could not expect marriage, Joe was tied to that young silly girl, legally at least, but the two of them could go away, somewhere far from Swansea where no one knew them. They could live as man and wife and bring up their child in peace with no wagging tongues to bother them.

  She was well aware that Joe enjoyed her passion, the way he’d fallen into her arms so gratefully betrayed his lack of the love of a proper woman these past years. And what’s more his pale-faced wife had not given him chick nor child to care for, while she, Nina, had provided him with a fine son in Tom.

  She rested her hand on her stomach with a sense of sudden misgivings. Tom had gone on a trip and what would he say when he came home from the deep sea and found his mother with child? He was only just beginning to forgive Joe for abandoning him when he was a baby. He was coming round to the idea that he could be master of the Oyster Sunrise when the season began in September and instead of just being a hand on board a big ship, he would have another man and a boy to crew with him. If he proved as good an oyster fisherman as his father, he would make a fine living for himself.

  ‘Oh, duw!’ She sank once more into a chair. Why was she fooling herself? It was all a terrible mess. Joe would never leave his wife or his boats, he would never leave the shores of Oystermouth where he had made his living since he was a boy following in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather before him.

  She put her head into her hands and felt the hot tears; why had she conceived of a child so easily and after so many years? Irfonwy, Fon, as she was affectionately called, was almost sixteen, the sweetest daughter any woman could wish for, and as for the twins, Sal and Gwyneth, they were women grown and ready for marriage. Sal was already walking out with a young man she’d met at the house where she was in service and Gwyneth, well, Gwyneth had her pick of all the young men in Oystermouth, she was so pretty and full of spirit.

  Nina sighed and rose to her feet; perhaps she should try to eat a little breakfast now, keep up her strength for she felt fit for nothing and her with all the washing to do before supper time.

  Nina managed to eat some thin porridge and, after she had cleared away, she dragged the bath out into the yard. It was an effort to lift it on to the bricks that Tom had placed strategically near the wall but at least when it was in place, she would not have to bend so far to do the washing.

  Her thoughts wandered as Nina filled and refilled the kettle and the big potato pot, boiling up the water on the fire and carrying it to the yard, hearing it drum against the ridged bottom of the bath and feeling the steam cloud her vision. Or could the moisture be tears? But that was absurd, she was Nina Parks, Widow Parks, always willing and able to fight her own battles and she would not be defeated now. She would find a way out of this mess, she
would, if it was the last thing she did.

  It was much later that Nina sank exhausted into her chair near the fire. Her back ached and her arms felt as though they were being torn from their sockets, but it was satisfying to see the line of clean sheets flapping on the line, billowing like the sails of a ship as the wind caught them.

  The door opened and Gwyneth came into the kitchen, her face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Nina asked. ‘Found a gold sovereign have you?’

  ‘No,’ Gwyneth said, ‘but I’m going to have a bit more money at the end of the week.’ She rubbed her hands together gleefully. ‘Mr Davies is putting me in charge of the boot and shoe store when he goes into Swansea tomorrow. He’s a fine handsome man, mind.’ Her eyes were alight.

  ‘Don’t you go getting no fancy ideas about that Mr Davies now,’ Nina said sharply. ‘I know these gents, they have one thing in mind and that’s to have their way with you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Mam,’ Gwyneth said scathingly, ‘don’t you think I know that?’ She laughed as she pushed the kettle on to the fire. ‘I might let him have his way, too, but only if he offers me a gold ring.’

  ‘Aye, go on you, girl, be clever, but Mother Nature got a way of making you want a man, don’t make no mistake about it, that’s how babbis gets born.’

  ‘Well, you should know, Mam,’ Gwyneth said cheekily. ‘What’s for supper?’

  ‘I made a pot of stew yesterday, we’ll have to make do with that. I been washing all day, mind, up to my elbows in sheets and bolster cases. ’Bout time you did your own things now, Gwyneth, you’re not a child any more.’

  ‘Aw, but Mam, I’m working all day on my feet in the shop.’ Gwyneth slipped off her boots and began to rub her ankles. ‘You don’t realize how hard it is.’

  ‘Huh! And I suppose I’ve been doing nothing all day, just sitting about enjoying myself, is it?’

  ‘What time is our Fon coming in from the beds?’ Gwyneth said adroitly changing the subject. She leaned back in her chair still rubbing at her feet. ‘Funny, a few weeks ago we were all working the oysters and now it’s only Fon left on them.’

  ‘Well,’ Nina said, ‘Sal wanted to go into service because of that nice boy she got an eye for and I don’t see any harm in it, at least she has her keep and a nice room to herself and so long as she stays respectable, the work is steady all the year around.’

  ‘And me,’ Gwyneth said smiling, ‘I wanted something better than Joe’s charity and the cold days of winter spent freezing to death on the beach seeing to those damn oysters. Ruining my life they was.’ She looked archly at her mother.

  ‘Now I got the company of a real gent, he’s showing me ropes, like, how to keep the shop nice and how to speak to the posh customers who come in.’ She sighed. ‘Not that we get many of those, mind, it’s mostly folks like that fat Carys Morgan who wants barges to put her big feet into. God! You’d think she was the only one having a baby in this village. But she’s not, is she, Mam?’

  Gwyneth’s smile had vanished and she looked anxiously at her mother. Nina felt her colour rising.

  ‘Look girl, I’ve never hidden nothing from you. I had Joe to my bed it’s true, I couldn’t help it, like I told you, nature got a way of making you want a man.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve always been Joe Harries’s woman at heart, see?’

  She paused, giving herself time to think. ‘I suppose I might as well tell you, I’ve missed my courses for three months now and I get sick of a morning.’ Nina shrugged. ‘There’s no doubt about it really.’

  ‘Well, I think you were a bit quick taunting Eline with the good news,’ Gwyneth said drily. ‘Now all the village is talking about you.’

  Nina lifted her head defiantly. ‘So? What’s different about that? Haven’t they always had a good go at Nina Parks then? Why should I care about the villagers, they don’t keep me in bread, do they?’

  ‘All right, Mam, only saying.’ Gwyneth rose and fetched the pot of cold stew from the pantry, pushing the heavy black pot on to the fire. ‘Sit by there, you, I’ll see to the supper.’

  Nina felt tears sting her eyes, it wasn’t often any of her children showed her such consideration. Spoiled them she had, trying to make up for being both Mam and Dad to them, she supposed.

  ‘I’m going out after,’ Gwyneth said as later, mother and daughter sat together at the table. ‘Mr Davies has asked me to help him take stock of the boots and shoes.’ She smiled impishly. ‘And don’t worry, I’m not going to give him so much as an inch, I’m not going to make the same mistakes as you, Mam.’

  Nina flinched, her daughter sometimes could be too outspoken for her own good. She was about to remonstrate with her when the door opened and Fon came into the room, her white apron smeared with sand, her curly hair falling from its ribbons.

  ‘Duw, there’s a lovely smell.’ She sank down at the table and pulled off her heavy, sand-encrusted boots.

  ‘Get a bowl, cariad,’ Nina said, ‘and help yourself from the pot. There’s plenty of bread cut and there’s a bottle of dandelion beer in the pantry on the floor.’

  Fon smiled, her tawny eyes full of warmth. ‘Thanks, Mam, I’m that starving I could eat a whole loaf by myself.’

  Gwyneth pushed away her bowl and rose to her feet. ‘I’m going to have a quick wash and then I’ll be off back to the shop, Mam,’ she said. ‘Fon, don’t you go leaving all the washing up to Mam, now, and fetch the sheets in from the line for her before it gets dark.’

  ‘Been washing today have you, Mam? No wonder you look tired out.’ Fon fetched her soup and returned to the table and began eating daintily.

  Nina, watching her, wondered as she often did if this, her youngest daughter, was a changeling; she was so different to the other girls, so small and dainty, with a bush of chestnut hair and fine, expressive eyes. And she was so good-natured and kind while Gwyneth and Sal both were sharp-tongued enough to cut through the toughest leather.

  ‘Why are you going back to work, Gwyn?’ Fon asked, her large amber eyes resting on her sister with curiosity. It wasn’t like Gwyneth to be over enthusiastic about work.

  ‘Like I was telling Mam, I’m going to help with the stock taking,’ Gwyneth said importantly. ‘I mean to make myself so useful to Mr Davies that he won’t be able to do without me.’ She smiled wickedly and watching her, Nina thought how like herself was this, her daughter.

  Gwyneth had a sort of earthy quality about her; she was dimpled and rounded, her thick hair dark like Nina’s own, her eyes green as the sea on a stormy day. Nina feared for her, for if Gwyneth were to fall in love with this Mr Davies, then she would be lost for she had the same senuous nature as her mother, whatever claims she might make to having too much common sense to stray.

  Nina wanted to say something, to warn Gwyneth, but the girl was on her way out through the door. In any event, she wouldn’t have listened; like all young people she was so certain of herself, so sure that she could handle her emotions under any circumstances.

  ‘Well now then, Fon, tell me, how did you get on today on the perches?’ Nina rested her chin in her hands and looked at her youngest daughter.

  ‘Took up a few sackfuls for Joe,’ she said, ‘he’s delivering them tonight, oh and Mam, he said he’d call over and see you, wanted to talk to you about something or other.’ She paused. ‘Isn’t our Tom’s ship due in dock later tonight?’

  Nina’s heart dipped in fear; had Fon put two and two together at last? Did her youngest one know that Joe had become Nina’s lover once more and had filled her with child? But the look in her eyes was free of all guile.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Nina answered, shakily, ‘but you never know with Tom, he’s like will-o’-the-wisp.’

  She attempted to speak casually. ‘Did Joe say what he wanted to see me about?’ In spite of herself, Nina’s voice cracked with anxiety and Fon looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘No, Mam, but then he wouldn’t tell me anything, would he?’ She smiled. ‘I saw him and
Eline together, sitting on the rocks they were, so close together, kissing they were. They looked so lovely, mind.’

  She had no idea how much her words were hurting her mother, but then why should she? Fon never listened to gossip, her head was always too full of the lovely music she made up and played on her old accordion.

  Anyway, because she was so young, the women usually watched their tongues where Fon was concerned. She was a little ethereal, always lifting her eyes to the heavens, touching the silver cross around her neck and looking so saintly that it would be a shame to make her aware of worldly matters.

  What Fon would make of the fact that her mother was going to have an illegitimate child, Nina dreaded to think, but she would have to be told sooner or later.

  Fon washed up after supper and then went out into the back yard and brought the washing in from the line.

  ‘The sheets are bone dry, Mam,’ she said. ‘Come on I’ll help you to fold them.’

  Nina loved the fresh scent of linen that had dried in the sun and, as she flapped the sheets into neat folds, she smiled at her youngest daughter.

  ‘There’s a good girl you are, Fon, I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ She paused a moment. ‘But do me a favour, when Joe comes over, leave us alone to talk private like, will you?’

  Fon nodded agreeably, suspecting nothing. ‘That’s all right, Mam, I’m going over to the church for their choir practice after anyway.’

  Nina sank into a chair and brushed a hand across her forehead. She felt hot and weary and not a little apprehensive about Joe’s visit. What was he going to say to her? Would he want to take her to bed again, to hold her in his arms? She hoped so if only to give herself some comfort in the knowledge that she was not alone with her worry.

  When Fon had left the house, Nina washed herself over with some hot water from the kettle and a good flannel cloth and then changed into fresh clothes. She wanted to look her best for Joe, but when she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she saw a woman with fading hair and a tired expression around her eyes.