The Click of a Pebble

by Barbara Spencer

  Keeping his arm tucked around the little girl, Yöst loosed the animal’s halter, the horses parading slowly round the barn, the two children squealing with delight.

  ‘Why doesn’t your Pa allow doors?’

  ‘’Cause he was imprisoned for a real long time. Pepe too … and Maestro.’ Rico’s voice had altered, its tone all at once more grown-up. ‘Told us, he never saw daylight the whole time he was in prison. Never spoke about it again.’ He shifted his arm, holding Zande more loosely around the waist, the little boy sitting confidently astride, his hands grasping Barone’s mane, his knees firm against the silken sides of the horse.

  ‘Why were they in prison?’

  ‘Never said,’ Rico shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. ‘Tell you what. Once this rain stops, I’ll show you round.’

  ‘You showed me round. Enough?’ Yöst lifted the little girl down to the ground, leading the horse back to its stall.

  ‘Not really I didn’t. Not everywhere, only as far as the hilltop. In the summer, we can go right into the hills. There’s loads of animals and plants up there you never see down here. Can you walk, TaTa?’ She nodded. ‘And march? See, like this.’

  Swinging his arms high, his back straight, he began marching to and fro, Tatania following like a diminutive copy. At once Zande joined in, calling out loudly, ‘Left, right,’ leaving Yöst to bring up the rear. Within a minute, they were running and chasing one another, giggling loudly. Instantly, Yöst sensed a difference in his body. Once again, it felt light and invigorated, no longer heavy, instead tied to the earth by a single thread, the children’s obvious enjoyment creating a warm place in his heart. Rico had done that, made them happy again.

  ‘What?’ Rico collapsed down onto a straw bale. ‘I never spoke,’ Yöst objected.

  ‘You don’t need to; your face speaks for you.’

  ‘Can the others do that?’

  Rico’s tone was dismissive. ‘What? Read your face? Nah, only Ma and Adelita.’

  ‘Adelita?’

  ‘She says when you got here your eyes were drowning in tears. That’s gone, ’cept for sometimes. Oh, and Maestro. He sees everything.’

  Yöst raised his eyebrows. ‘What am I saying now?’

  Rico grinned at him. ‘You’re not tricking me like that. I may be a lot of things …’ His expression altered becoming morose. ‘A fool’s not one of them,’ he added bitterly.

  Yöst reached out and grabbed his sleeve. ‘Wish I was more like you, good with kids. Pascual said I had to learn …’

  ‘Ma!’ Rico rolled his eyes, his willow-the-wisp attitude sunny again. ‘What does she know? Only joking. Nothing to dealing with kids; not at this age, anyway. All they need is food, water, and love … bags of it. They don’t need nothin’ else.’ He stood up, the light-hearted attitude of the moment before vanished. ‘Just like me.’ He called out, ‘Come on, you two. Let’s go and ask Katarina for a biscuit.’

  18

  Before Rico’s bruises had faded completely, a cold snap descended on the hillside, with frost rimming blades of grass until the sun reached round with its long fingers and melted it again. Pascual and Katarina, taking advantage of the brief lull in the wet, covered the clothes line with garments, which instantly froze.

  Seeing them, Adelita, who was washing pots in the sink, called through the window, ‘Trousers without a man in them, that makes a change.’

  Katarina glared and shook her fist at the window. Maestro gave a high-pitched squeal, as if he’d been sat on, squashing the air out of him.

  He hated the cold, refusing to get out of bed in the morning until the stove had been made up. Grumbling, Pascual allowed Rico to serve him coffee. ‘If you want breakfast, you can get up. I’m not feeding you in bed. You’re not ill,’ she chided.

  ‘I will get up when Adelita has finished knitting me a dressing gown,’ he replied, huddling under the covers.

  ‘Why can’t we have glass in these windows, Pa, like the kitchen? The house is never warm in this weather, even with the stove,’ Rico grumbled, sitting down at the breakfast table. ‘All the houses in town have glass. I swear Pepe had frost on his toes last night.’

  ‘If he’s cold, he can share with me.’ Adelita flicked the big man with her shawl. Pepe laughed, the guttural sound grating against Yöst’s eardrums.

  ‘With this frost, at least it’ll be light early,’ Ramon called across the table. ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll can get that pruning done before the rains start up again.’ He frowned fiercely at his son. ‘As for glass, when I have money it will be bought. Meanwhile, if you’re cold, wear more clothes.’

  ‘He can’t.’ Adelita blew him a kiss. ‘Maestro is wearing them all.’

  A ripple of amusement ran around the table. Yöst joined in, the idea of working outside lifting his mood. Tied to the house by the incessant rain, and his promise to Ramon, his life felt as worthless as the small coins Ramon had paid him with. He had given those to Adelita, hoping there would be enough to buy Zande a drawing pad and Tatania a book, and now while Zande practised his letters, he read aloud to his sister.

  ‘Gain,’ Tatania would call with the closing of the book, smiling and clapping her hands, as if a string had been tied to its cover, cajoling her into action whenever Yöst attempted to put the book away. And Yöst, recalling Pascual’s homily, would reluctantly start once more from the beginning, each repetition more boring and tedious than the last, eyeing each word with intense dislike. Yet, despite every bit of interest he was showing in their well-being, new words learned, praise for the pencil drawings Zande produced, the mornings still dragged. By the time Ana came to fetch the children for some lunch, he felt as if he’d been the punch bag in a fist fight, his spirit bruised and battered, the persistence of the little girl, together with Zande’s nonstop questioning about nonsensical things … did the worm mind when the bird ate it for dinner … reducing his thoughts to mush.

  Despite his talk with Pascual, his sleep remained troubled, waking tired each morning. Nevertheless, he was up well before dawn, the air in the beehive house still resounding with the sounds of sleep: the soft murmurs of the children, deep in kindly dreams; the snorts and restless stirring of the adults, their sleep patterns influenced by the quantity of food and wine they had consumed the night before. Even Maestro was curled up asleep, his tiny figure swamped by the bedclothes tucked over his head; Pepe as well, his feet uncovered and dangling over the end of his pallet.

  After visiting the outhouse, Yöst lingered by the back door, the solid shape of the barn blocking his view of a moon hanging low in the sky. It was now when night was ending and with day not yet begun that he missed his island the most. Humans were overwhelmingly daytime people; they paid no attention to the splendours of the night, preferring to sleep those hours away. And that was how they spent their lives. Ruled by daylight and the vagaries of weather, they regarded their waking hours almost as a punishment to be got through. For the carinatae, order had never been allowed to hold sway. Life was something to be lived, a celebration of nature and of the god who made them. Even Monsieur Meijer had admitted on occasions that his wife didn’t understand … how could she? Only someone born into the carinatae life could possibly appreciate how very dissimilar the two species were, his human frame only a small part of something far more magnificent. Once they had gained power enough to achieve the celeste, they raced through skies patterned with bats and owls, mingling with the moon and stars, sleeping whenever tiredness overtook them, making love as often as desire demanded; investing their offspring with a similar eagerness for life.

  A sound made him swing round. Beyond the shell curtain, the flooring was swept with moving shadows, dawn light trickling through the closed shutters. Spotting movement, he saw Rico awake and watching him. Swinging his feet to the ground, Rico padded across the floor.

  ‘You always look as if you want to be somewhere else,’ he complained.

  Yöst bit his lip; the guilt of keeping so many secrets lock
ed away an added source of misery. Yet if he tried to explain, Rico would feel hurt and offended, believing Yöst a false friend.

  ‘Only outside; I’m used to fresh air.’

  Rico pointed to the nearest shutter, cold air seeping through its gaps. ‘You’ve come to the right place then. Get dressed and I’ll put the kettle on for coffee. Ma showed me how. If we’re started early, we’ll get back early, and then you can play with Zande and TaTa.’

  ‘You’re very thoughtful.’

  Rico shoved his bare feet into the legs of his overalls. ‘You just discovered? Keep tellin’ myself, if I’m nice you might decide to stay here permanent.’

  Yöst blinked.

  ‘What?’ Rico demanded.

  ‘How can you stand all this rain? We’ve had days and days of it. It’s driving me mad.’

  ‘It’s not raining today. Anyways, happens I like sleeping.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘You just wait. Pa works us that hard, by the end of the year that’s all you’ll want to do as well.’ He paused, his attention fastened on Yöst, still staring out over the yard. ‘I know you don’t see it but we’re very alike.’

  ‘How?’ Swinging away from the open door, Yöst began to put on the garments he wore to work in, a flannel shirt under a pair of overalls, fastening the buttons on its bib.

  Rico wandered through the archway into the kitchen in his bare feet, and filled the kettle from the cold tap. ‘Chuck some wood on the stove, will you?’

  Opening its hinged door, Yöst placed a couple of logs on the embers. Flames flared up, nibbling at the edges of the bark, as hungry for food after the long night as they were.

  Placing the kettle on the hot plate, Rico stood gazing into space. ‘Let me see. We both got arms and legs and ten toes.’ He spoke mournfully, his voice low pitched and dull. ‘And we’re both dead scared of that priest.’

  ‘That doesn’t make us the same,’ Yöst argued.

  Rico reached into a cupboard, pulling out a tin of coffee. ‘Will you fetch the milk and put it on to boil? Ma leaves it by the door to keep cool. Can’t see why she bothers in this weather,’ he grumbled. Standing on tip-toe, he scratched at the glass in the kitchen window. ‘See, solid ice. Okay, so what else? We both got family; you, a brother and a sister; me, worse luck, four sisters and two cousins.’

  Yöst grinned.

  ‘You get miserable and unhappy sometimes. So do I.’ Rico held up his hand to prevent Yöst interrupting. ‘More than you even. Fortunately, never at the same time, so we’re good together. And we both pee standing up and can hit a wall at ten paces. And you don’t want to be here living this life, no more ’an me. There,’ he grinned, ‘that good enough?’

  Dumbfounded, Yöst could only nod a reply.

  ‘With Adelita, that makes three of us.’ Rico laid a friendly hand on his arm. ‘You didn’t know?’

  Yöst shook his head.

  ‘No, well, I don’t go around shoutin’ about it. What’s the point? Pa and the girls are happy enough and Ma just wants to be with Pa.’

  ‘Is that why you spend time with Adelita?’

  Rico eyes sparked with mischief. ‘You mean drivin’ her to church? Yes, that’s me, a good little altar boy.’ Picking up the kettle, he poured boiling water into a jug. ‘If you teach me numbers and I teach you about the countryside, we’ll be even more the same.’

  Filling a cup with the warmed milk, he counted slowly to one hundred, before picking up the coffee pot and adding the dark brown liquid. He held it out. ‘There, you go. Just tell me it’s as good as Ma’s and I’ll be your friend for life.’

  Ramon ambled in, absentmindedly scratching his buttocks. ‘Good lad.’ Taking the coffee cup out of Rico’s outstretched hand, he wandered out again, his overalls over his arm. ‘I’ll go and wake Pepe. Sort us out some bread and cheese, will you, Yöst? I want to get started early.’

  The temperature had risen slightly by the time they were ready to leave, daylight ushering in a pall of grey cloud like mouldy washing left out on the line, and although no one spoke much, even Barone seemed grateful to be outside, trotting briskly along the road that led to the vineyard.

  ‘When I first came here, this was all scrub.’ Ramon pointed behind him to the neatly pruned vines, their stubby silhouettes like soldiers drawn up ready for battle.

  Leaving the river behind, they headed uphill, the track increasingly narrow and twisting. Here, trees and shrubs fought a pitched battle for supremacy leaving the atmosphere close-confined and shadowy. Starved of light and air, saplings had grown up twisted and bent, any number falling victim to the wind and rain that tore across the exposed reaches of the hillside in autumn and winter. Under the continuous bombardment, streams of mud and water had loosened the soil, leaving roots exposed and depositing silt in the river.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ Rico blinked himself awake.

  ‘Smelling the fresh air.’

  ‘You’re always sayin’ that.’ Yöst caught a hint of impatience. ‘What was it like, the place you lived before?’

  ‘It was different.’

  ‘How?’

  Yöst felt his mind speed up as it always did when questioned. He daren’t talk about the island, nor admit country air felt bland by comparison, sea air pungent with the scent of seaweed and adventure, open fires and gaiety. He couldn’t do that, not to Rico. Searching for something placatory, ‘I was thinking about Zande.’

  Rico’s tone instantly changed, expressing concern. ‘He’s all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘He will be,’ he said, repeating Mme Meijer’s words. ‘I lost my mother about that age. I can’t really remember now,’ he admitted, ‘old enough for school, anyhow. I was lucky, I had my grandmother.’

  ‘She still alive?’

  ‘No, she died a while back.’

  ‘Still, that’s all in the past. As Ma says no use bothering over spilt milk. Besides, you got me now.’ Rico raised his voice. ‘Pa, where do we start?’

  ‘What do you think, Pepe?’ Ramon called out, inspecting the area on both sides of the wooded track.

  Repeating his action, Pepe made some strange noises, unintelligible to Yöst, although Ramon obviously understood them. He swung round, following Pepe’s finger directed at the river bank.

  A far cry from the playful trickle that had wandered slowly across the meadow before the autumn rains made their appearance, the river seemed now full of spite, the fast-flowing torrent angrily crashing against rocks on its way downstream.

  ‘Pepe says to stay up high and clear the sides of the track.’ Ramon climbed down from the cart. ‘You ever used a billhook, Yöst?’ He pointed at the curved blades lying in the bed of the cart.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Ask Rico to show you. Keep your elbow bent and use a half-swing. Not downwards, a flat stroke. I’ll mark the trees then help Pepe with the cutting. You two, clear the undergrowth and smaller branches. Keep your eye on Pepe. I don’t want you killed by a falling tree,’ he warned.

  Cutting down trees seemed to be Pepe’s forte, although none proved much of a challenge, Yöst marvelling at the speed with which he reduced them to logs. After a while Ramon joined him, the two men using a two-handled saw on the more robust specimens, toppling them to the ground, and making swift work of them too.

  They worked in silence, Rico explaining that Ramon didn’t encourage talking, not when sharp tools were involved. ‘Says he’s seen no end of men walking about on a peg leg because they forgot to watch what they were doing.’ Yöst enjoyed the silence except, for him, even the great outdoors was rarely silent. Apart from the rhythmic rasp of the saw, its note changing whenever the steel bit encountered virgin bark, he also picked up on more mundane sounds: the soft calling of a wood pigeon, the scratching of an animal underground, the steady drip of water from twigs and leaves. From the bottom of the wooded slope, the river called out to him. Without warning a bird exploded from the trees in a rustle of wings, rebuking them sharply for invading its territory
.

  It was warm work and after a couple of hours, they stopped to drink water. Already they had cleared a good stretch, the river now clearly visible at the bottom of the ravine, the strongest saplings left intact and well-spaced out.

  ‘Use Barone to haul a load to the winery,’ Ramon instructed, pushing the stopper back in his canteen. ‘That’ll show Benoit we’re working.’ he growled out. ‘I expect he’s curled up by the fire, sipping a glass of the new vintage.’

  ‘I didn’t much like his wine when Adelita gave me some to try,’ Yöst spoke without thinking. He waited for the withering rebuke the Black would have offered, had a cygnet dared speak without an invitation.

  To his astonishment Ramon gave a bark of amusement. Unhitching the cart from the solid leather tugs, that attached its handles to the animal’s harness, he clipped a heavy length of chain to the breast strap of the horse. ‘Don’t overload him. You’re cheaper to replace than Barone and useless for carrying boxes.’

  Looping his arm around Pepe’s shoulders, the two men vanished round a bend in the track and, a few minutes later, Yöst heard the sound of the saw again.

  Looking back, Yöst was never quite sure why his senses betrayed him, and he failed to hear the creature. Perhaps because he was listening to some story Rico was relating, captivated by the mobility of his face which, as descriptive as any word, told its own tale; with brooding frowns to accompany the darker passages, his will-o-the-wisp smiles reminding Yöst of sunshine piercing thunder clouds. His gaze dropped, resting on the long, tapered fingers as they skilfully attached a chain around the log pile, his nails as always clean and unbroken.

  Without warning, the air was filled with a snarling hiss and a large animal leapt out, its claws grazing the heavy halter around Barone’s neck. Startled, the horse reared and plunged backwards. The earth under its hoofs, loosened by the rain, broke away from the path, toppling Rico to the ground and taking the load of logs with it.