The River Sings

by Sandra Leigh Price

  “But Amberline …”

  “He’ll be finding other kin to stay with as soon as I can see fit,” she said, and I felt Amberline’s kiss flare on my lips and wondered if my mother could see it, for it had left its mark on me.

  That night my father and Amberline didn’t return until late. We heard them carousing like cockerels a few hours before dawn, their voices full of song. Jupiter was at their feet howling. My father stumbled up the vardo stairs and swore as he tripped in the darkness. I heard my mother sigh and roll over in her sleep and my father stumble in beside her, bringing with him the smell of spirits.

  I listened as Amberline continued to sing, his voice as rich as honey. I heard him crawl beneath the vardo. I heard him hit his head, but he didn’t curse, he just lay down and laughed.

  In the morning Amberline was up before the rest of us, the water already boiling on the fire, waiting expectantly for us all. My mother said nothing but set to mixing the flour and water to make the bread that we ate, cooked in the coals.

  “Good morning, thought you’d be in the land of nod from here until eternity,” my father said to Amberline as Jupiter took leave of his place at the footstep of the vardo and danced around my father’s feet.

  “Thought that might be the case, so I tipped the ale out most of the time and filled with water,” Amberline said, and my father paused before he roared with laughter.

  “Aunt,” Amberline said, and my mother’s hands became stuck in the dough then she looked at him as if he was snow and her glare could melt him. “I have a gift for you.”

  My mother nodded and folded the dough into itself, pounded it with her fist, Amberline waited for her reply. She placed the bread in a tin and raked the coals with a shovel over it. Amberline took out the gift and held it out to her, her hands still covered in sticky flour, and she glanced at it and then glowered at him. My father sat down by the fire and filled his pipe, Jupiter’s head resting on his thigh, his canine eyebrows almost human in their expressiveness as he watched my father’s face and then my mother’s. My mother tipped a little water from the bucket over her hands and dried them on her apron.

  “I’ve no need of gifts from you,” she said, filling the tin pot and hanging it over the fire. Amberline tried to catch my eye.

  “It is in thanks for your hospitality,” he said, and my father struck a match on his boot sole and lit his pipe.

  “Sarah,” my father said, and my mother stopped. Amberline stepped towards her and he placed the gift in her hands. It unwound as soon as she touched it, a woollen blue shawl with paisleys swimming around the border as plentiful as a school of fish. She fingered the fine weave and tried to disguise her admiration of it.

  “Thank you, Amberline, but I can’t accept such a fine gift,” she said and folded it back up and handed it to him. He was crestfallen. He took the shawl and placed it on the vardo step.

  “For you, Josiah, with my sincere thanks,” Amberline said and he handed my father a knife, the blade engraved with swirls and curlicues. My father held it in his palm and let the light dance around the pattern.

  “Thank you, Amberline,” he said, standing up and slapping him in an embrace. He sat down and tested its blade on a branch, the bark separating like cream from butter.

  “And for you, cousin,” he said, stepping towards me and curling a pin into my hair, his fingers tangling as he tried to extract them. I found his fingers with my own and helped release them from the waves of my hair, and would not have let them go if not for my parents watching. I felt the top of the pin surrounded by a fanning crown of metal. I wanted to rush and look into the nearest shard of mirror to see my reflection, but I knew my mother wouldn’t let me keep it.

  “Thank you,” I said, the colour flooding into my cheeks.

  “Yes, very fine gifts, Amberline,” my mother said. “One wonders how you found the money to pay for them.”

  Amberline’s face went white and he turned to her. My father stood up and I was suddenly aware of the pin’s point grazing against my scalp. I heard Amberline breathe.

  “No money passed hands,” he said.

  “So you’ve a taste for your father’s art then.”

  “Sarah,” my father chided but she would have none of him.

  “You’re a thief,” my mother said, goading him.

  Amberline straightened his jacket collar and stood higher. “What my father did was no reflection on me,” he said, “and I resent your implication.”

  “Implication?” my mother shouted back. “It’s no implication, I called you a thief because I believe you to be one.” The rest of the camp around us grew quiet, some peered out the nearby vardo windows to watch.

  “Come now, Sarah,” my father commanded, “let him explain. How did you come by such generous gifts, Amberline?”

  “I traded the last of my handiwork, that is what I did. Though now I wonder whether that was wise,” Amberline said quietly, looking steadily at my mother until she broke his gaze and stared at the shawl. Jupiter’s nose was already at it, lifting the scent of it with his nostrils.

  My father picked up the shawl and put it around my mother’s shoulders, carefully smoothing out the creases with the palm of his hand. My mother kept her eyes lowered, her fingers brushing the soft fringe, and I knew that it was the finest shawl she would ever own.

  “Well then, I give you my thanks,” she said and I thought that was to be the end of it.

  SEVEN

  Patrin, 1818

  As summer turned to autumn we travelled to the farm we worked on each year to harvest the hops alongside gypsies from across England. Still Amberline remained with us. Every time he looked at me I felt my lips burn, every time I saw my reflection I thought his kiss visible on my face, but there’d not been another. He kept a respectful distance, wanting to be accepted as one of us, as he learned how to be a good Rom.

  The day after our arrival at the farm we rose at dawn and took a quick sup before we headed to the hops crib. Amberline looked up at the hops nodding on their bines, a moving cathedral of green blooms, and asked me where the ladders were to reach them in the heights above us. I laughed and pulled the wire that the bines had grown upon and showed Amberline how to pluck the hops’ flowers, not their leaves, before letting them fall into the bin below. My mother and father worked alongside us as we cleared the avenue of hops, all hands to the task. Amberline’s beautiful fingers grew stained, his clothes too, but he didn’t care. He was all smiles and caught glances, his voice catching along with the picking songs hop-o.

  The sun at the end of the day turned the whole world copper, even the water in the large buckets for washing was skimmed with lapping gold. Amberline waited his turn for the water, the sun burnishing him while my father washed first. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the outline of him gilded. The sun turned him into an idol. Jupiter’s hairy feet danced in the splashes, the white hair on his underbelly turning dark with mud, sending a trail of mud up Amberline’s trousers, but he didn’t brush it away. His eyes were burning into mine. My mother was down at the river bathing and I was left to prepare a stew, slicing the rabbit meat from the sinew. Amberline stripped to the waist and dipped his whole head into the bucket. When he stood upright, a rainbow of droplets arced through the air, some hitting the flames and hissing, the water ran down his limbs, and I tried to avert my eyes. My father was towelling himself dry and shrugged on a clean shirt. Amberline flicked a palm full of water at me and I tried to conceal my smile as I bent my head to my task, the blade nicking my finger. I tossed a piece of rabbit into the pot and chanced to return his smile. My mother returned from the river, her skin all flushed, her newly washed hair covered with a damp scarf, Amberline’s gift wrapped finely around her shoulders.

  Amberline finished washing, the smell of soap filled the air. With the plentiful rivulets of mud, Jupiter rolled around, his feet in the air, his tongue lolling between his teeth, and we all laughed.

  “Take that dog down to the river, Patrin, and
give it a wash before you wash yourself, and before he turns the whole camp to muck,” my mother said and I was glad to leave the rabbit to her hands.

  I whistled and Jupiter came at my call. I gathered up my clean clothes and a piece of linen to dry myself, rescuing the soap from Jupiter’s salivating tongue.

  The sky had turned pink as blossom and the air still held its warmth as I walked down to the river, though I knew the water would make me gasp. The leaves of the poplars whispered, their undersides flicking silver and gold, a few trailing already on the ground as a rooko-mengro darted across my path. The squirrel was up and into the canopy of the nearest tree, the skittering of feet following close behind, the black and white blur of Jupiter at its heels. His bark echoed over the river and sent the ducks complaining into the reeds, though a heron wouldn’t be moved, just stood on its yellow stalk legs and let the silver tail of a fish slide down its gullet.

  “Down, boy,” I commanded and Jupiter obliged, still looking at the tree and following all the whispering movements of the leaves with a ridiculous hope. He could catch a rat and a rabbit, but the squirrel was an animal beyond him. At catching a rat, he had no equal and neither did my father.

  I removed my skirt and blouse and placed them on the top of the nearest bush, my clean blouse and linen to dry myself with also. My boots had grown so loose I just slipped my feet out.

  In my shift I walked down to the shallowest part of the river and stepped in. I walked into the middle and sunk my head below the water and the cool seeped through my hair and into my scalp. Below the surface I saw the riverbed all made of smoothed pebbles, each as oval as an egg. I heard Jupiter’s yap, but I ignored him, letting the water circle the space in my ears, enjoying the silence, until the pressure for another breath, but I was in no rush to leave the water. I rolled onto my back and let my hair open like a parasol around me in the water, my chemise following suit, and I felt as weightless as one of the silvery poplar leaves that crowded my vision. Jupiter barked again and I heard him splash into the shallows of the water.

  “Stay, boy,” I called out, not wanting to play, but that didn’t silence him. “Jupiter,” I scolded and then I heard the chirr of a magpie raising a complaint. I stood then and soaped myself, leaving my hair till last, and then I held my breath and dipped my head beneath the water several times until I saw that the foam of the soap no longer gathered on the surface. The river was like a cool dream. I would have spent the whole evening just floating, my muscles surrendered to the gentle current, the cool breeze skimming across the water. A dragonfly stopped the beating of its rainbowed wings and rested on my chest and I barely dared to breathe, its body as blue as the heart of flame.

  Jupiter growled and I looked up and saw Amberline. He was standing a respectful distance from Jupiter’s bared teeth.

  “Patrin,” he called out to me, the dragonfly abandoning its rest, and I was exposed and clutched my hands to my chest.

  “What do you want?” I said, angry that he would take such a liberty with me.

  He turned his back to me and called out over his shoulder, “I’m sorry, I’ll let you finish and come back later. I just wanted to speak with you alone. I never get the chance with your mother and father watching my every movement.”

  “You’ll be sorry if they catch you here,” I said, striding out of the water and making for the piece of linen to dry myself hurriedly. I didn’t want Amberline to see me looking like a drowned kitten, all matted hair, all pooling puddles. I pulled my skirt over my head and tied it around my waist, followed by my blouse that stuck to the damp of my arms; the stitching gave as I tugged at it.

  “Patrin, are you still there?” he said, but didn’t turn around and I could have picked up my boots and bolted like a deer back to camp before he even noticed, though I didn’t.

  “I’m here,” I said, “you can turn around.”

  He stepped towards me and Jupiter started growling again. The magpie in the tree fell to the ground and started hopping territorially, a feathered adversary which only sent Jupiter into a frenzy.

  “Jupiter,” I commanded, “in the water.” I didn’t need to repeat it, he bounded into the depths, chasing the current and the eddy, his nose glistening.

  Amberline laughed and it echoed all around us as he stepped closer towards me. “Patrin,” he said, his voice choked in his throat, a redness coming into his cheeks, “I …”

  I stood and waited for him to speak, to clear the imaginary chicken bone from his throat, all the time my wet hair trickled all over me, rivulets down my back.

  “Patrin,” he tried again but grew exasperated with his words. He took the linen from my hands and I remembered his drunken kiss, but did he? Up close he smelled of sweat and sunshine; the heat came off him in waves as he turned me around and scooped up my hair with the cloth, carefully drying my hair for me in hanks, slowly pressing and squeezing until it released its water, his body pressed close to mine. This time it was my lips who sought his, his arms twining around me, we were pressed together like the leaves of a book.

  Until Jupiter bounded out of the water and shook like the devil, sending hundreds of raindrops all over us and breaking whatever was gathering between us. I felt the laughter swell in me but Amberline’s expression grew cold. Violently he kicked Jupiter in the ribs, the impact of his fine boot making a dull thud, leather on fur. With a high-pitched whine, Jupiter took to the undergrowth, a blur through the bracken. I stepped back, unsure of myself and of him. How did anyone change so quickly unless quicksilver ran in his veins instead of blood?

  Amberline walked off to the camp ahead of me, gathering the kindling he had been sent to collect as he went. By the time I arrived back he was sitting next to my father, drinking from a mug of cider, his eyes to the flame, and Jupiter was nowhere to be seen. My father stood up and whistled for the dog, but he didn’t come.

  “Did he have his bath then, Patrin?” my father said and Amberline looked up at me.

  “Yes, Father,” I said, “but he seemed more intent on trying to catch a fish and roll around in the dirt than to come when I bid.” As I said it, I was glad that the night sky was growing dark so only the evening star saw my shame burn from lying to my father. I put the soap back in the vardo and passed my mother lying down on the bed, her boots beside her, a cold cloth on her eyes, but I didn’t want to disturb her and neither did she register my presence. The stew began to smell delicious, all the flavours merging together, but still she didn’t move.

  My father and Amberline helped themselves and I joined them, listening to the sound of the flames crackle. A cuckoo’s two notes sounded from the nearest tree and my father’s grey eyes raised up to look at it. Amberline continued eating undisturbed, his eyes seeking mine.

  “Is Mother poorly?” I asked and my father nodded his head in the direction of the tree, the cuckoo sounding again.

  “She’s been lying down since that bird started singing, ’tis bad luck after midsummer,” he said.

  I put down my bowl, found the largest stone I could and pitched it into the nearby tree, all the leaves parting for it like a flaming comet across the night sky, until it hit the trunk. The bird shut up. I returned to my place by the fire, my father shaking his head at me and smiling.

  “If only it was that easy,” he said then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a swig of ale. Amberline still sought my eye, but I wasn’t going to willingly give it, not with my father present, not with Jupiter’s whine still in my ears. We ate on in silence, but I felt the air growing colder, my hair still damp though Amberline had tried to dry it.

  “Patrin,” my father said, “Amberline has asked for your hand in marriage, would you accept him?” I dropped my eyes right to the heart of the flame, exposed. My mother’s turn had more to do with this than a late-singing cuckoo.

  Amberline stood, his shadow falling behind him. He reached his hand towards me and I knew what he had been trying to say back at the riverside, why his words had choked in his throat
, his frustration at Jupiter.

  “Patrin, I know I haven’t much, not even a vardo or family to offer you, but we could start our own, if you consent to being my bride.” In his palm I saw something shining, winking, silver as the moon. He unfurled it by the fire and I saw that it was a necklace of coins. My father blinked at Amberline, no doubt thinking the same thought as me, where had he got them from – but he said nothing, only uncorked a bottle of brandy and offered us each a swig. The liquor burned down my throat and made me want to retch, but Amberline drank his down as if it was water. This was my pliasha, my betrothal, the necklace of coins was to have been wrapped in a red silk handkerchief, brought by the groom’s father, but Amberline’s father was a mystery to me.

  I lifted my still-damp hair and he placed the weight of the coin necklace on my chest. The necklace sat just below the putsi, the pouch that held the things that protected me, talismans of flower, rock, bone. The coins looked for all the world like something a queen should wear. Amberline offered me his hand and I took it.

  “But Mother …” I said.

  “She’ll come round,” my father said.

  Amberline closed my question with a kiss, his breath full of brandy fire.

  The following morning the smell of bread woke me; my mother was at the fire blowing the cinders from the crust, the sky already a-blush.

  “Mama?” I said and she turned around, her eyes full of tears.

  “What does he have to offer you, Patrin? He has no family, no honour. His mother saw to that by marrying a gadjo. We took him in but at our peril.” My mother wiped her tears away.

  I stepped down from the vardo, the coins jingling on my chest, I was still not used to the weight of them. All night as I had turned trying to pursue sleep I had been woken by the tinkle of them. Some time in the early morning I had heard Amberline sigh loudly in his sleep and all I had thought of was that soon there would be no wooden floor between our bodies, there would be nothing between them but skin.