McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'Is what?'

  'The wall. Whose is it?'

  He cried, 'A wall?' and I learnt again the excellence of my own sight, for Ferris was unable to distinguish even the towers. His eyes glistened as he said to me, 'That is the city defences.'A look of pride came into his face and he watched me, to see was I as impressed as I ought to be, when he added, 'You know someone who helped make them.'

  I was very much minded to humour him, and so cried out, 'Brave Ferris,'upon which he tried to appear as if it were nothing.

  'So when was this?' I asked.

  'It started three years back, after Turnham Green. It was thought the King would move on the city. First came ditches, and chains against cavalry. We were digging directly, men, women and children - all in a terror - and the fool never came!'

  And was the wall put up then?'

  He shook his head. 'It took a year more. First the forts, and then the lines of communication between. It goes all round the city.'

  I gasped. ‘All round? Every part?'

  'Every part. We will go through, and you can see how it is.'

  I had remarked in the army how some of the London men would speak of saints, by which they meant the Precisian, or Puritan, citi­zens, and it struck me how much might be brought about by a people assured of God's favour.

  It took us some time to come up to the wall, and this afforded opportunity for as much amazement on my part as he could ever have wished. As we drew nearer, and Ferris saw better, he clutched at my elbow, pointing out a great fort.

  'That one is at Hide-Park Corner, Jacob.'

  Bradmore here putting in that we would enter near Hide-Park, I thought Ferris would burst from anticipation. We went over a wooden bridge and my friend told me we were crossing the defence ditch. I leant out to see this famous thing, which might be some five yards wide, and one-and-a-half deep, and thought how women pioneers helped dig it. Shortly after, we passed through a gate in the wall.

  I could now see the inner part, London itself, and my heart leapt at it. We moved steadily forward, the houses thickening and crowding around the waggon as we went, and Ferris pointed out all the spires against the darkening sky.

  'This is Fleet Bridge,' he told me, some time after the houses, to­gether with a certain foulness in the air, had closed all about us.

  I saw some pale thing struggle on the black waters of the Fleet.

  He went on, "This place is Ludgate - and there—'

  'Paul's Cathedral,' I put in to show my knowledge, which came out of a picture at Beaurepair. To tell the truth, my spirits were oppressed by the vast bulk of this sacred edifice, which reared up to shut off the end of the street. It was hedged about with a scum of other build­ings and with petty shacks that had seemingly grown against its sides. Though our picture had shown it standing proud to the eyes of every man in the city, here only a part of it could be seen. I was much struck by the fact that, owing to the narrow ways and penthouses leaning over us, nothing could be seen of the city except what lay nearest to hand; we were forever passing through a tunnel, one where the air was unwholesome.

  'We will go to Paul's churchyard for books — see there—' and he pointed out the house of some famous man. Never, not even when he talked once of the great work to be brought about in England, had I seen him so animated.

  'I thought you disliked London,' I ventured. 'At least, I am sure you once called it a Sodom of cheating. Did you not?'

  'And so it is, yet that's not all - O, Jacob, look—' and he was off again, until Bradmore at last set us down in Cheapside.

  Thus we entered in to the City of Saints, or to Sodom, what you will.

  PART III

  TWELVE

  At Liberty

  I was now to see the house where Ferris had lived, the shop (since boarded up) where he had traded in his linen stuffs, and all the things which had made up his life before I knew him. It was also the place, and this I did not forget, where he joined his life with that of Joanna Cooper, and took her into his home and his bed, and watched her die.

  I knew this dead wife was with us as soon as he got out of the cart, for he broke off in the middle of a laugh. We trudged along, sore and stiff in the chill darkness, until Ferris stopped, saying simply, 'This is our house,' but he turned straightway to the one opposite, and I saw another face, boiling with some inner hatred, bubble up through his own. My friend stood silent, fixed, as I hopped from foot to foot in the cold.

  'Don't offer yourself as a spectacle.' I plucked at his shirtsleeve to get him away. He gasped and I realised he had been holding his breath.

  'Aye.' That was all he said. He permitted me to lead him to his aunt's door.

  She came to answer the knock herself, tall and thin and upright, leaning forward in the dark to see who we might be. She held a taper, and I saw her mouth twist as the rays fell on his torn cheek; then, wasting no words but gathering him to her breast like a mother, she half dragged, half carried him inside.

  I followed them up the stairs and saw my friend pushed into a chair. His aunt bent forward and fingered the scar, moaning; when

  he flinched she snatched her hand back as if burnt. As for Ferris, he seemed struck dumb; but I saw that he was trying not to weep.

  The aunt at last noticed me, pressed my hands and bade me make myself at home. I was unwilling to sit, being all bloody and stinking, but she would have me do it nonetheless. The warmth of the fire was so grateful that I shed a few tears of my own, even without an aunt to bring them on.

  'Blue with cold, not so much as a coat, where's your coat?' she wailed, chafing his arms.

  'I lost it,' said Ferris.

  The maid was shouted for and ordered to boil water, bring vict­uals, lay fires, open some wine, make the beds and prepare simples for mending the skin, all at once; she shrugged and said she would do what she could with one body, and would first bring something for washing hands, and after, food and drink. She seemed not to know Ferris, nor he her.

  Warm water arrived, and a cloth. The aunt said nothing when, wiping our hands and faces, we turned the linen from white to black. Soon after, the girl brought up food: some mutton, pickles, wine, and for bread a fine white manchet. I saw her look at me sideways in going out.

  We swallowed down the meat as fast as our knives could cut it. Ferris said, 'Aunt, you have brought me back to life. Jacob too, see how he eats.'

  The aunt scolded him for teasing a guest. I tried to chew more daintily and take smaller draughts of wine, but my belly cried out so loud that politeness was deafened. Besides, I had remarked that Ferris ate as greedily as I.

  'We are a brutish, filthy pair,' he said.

  She replied, 'I kept all your clothes, Christopher.'

  I started to hear his given name.

  'They'll be too small for your friend, but Joseph's coats may do for him. We must get you washed and something clean on your backs.'

  'Before we make the whole place lousy,' said Ferris. He spoke through a mouthful of mutton, and smiled on her with wet shining eyes.

  'Rebecca is heating the water,' said the aunt. 'I'll have it put in your chamber, and a fire lit, and one for — I beg pardon, sir.'

  'Jacob Cullen,' I told her, glad to lay Rupert in his grave.

  'I'll have a room warmed for you, Mr Cullen, and some water tak­en up.' She eyed my empty plate and pushed the dish of meat towards me.

  'You are too kind, Madam.' Though somewhat ashamed, I could not stop eating. It was more than I could do to rein it in.

  When we had finished she led us in a prayer thanking God for our safe homecoming. I bowed my head and wondered if God might indeed look lovingly on me.

  Ferris was first to go up and wash. His aunt sat gazing at me with her hands perched in her lap, her eyes eager as a young girl's.

  'How did you get here?'

  'On a carpet.'

  She laughed, shaking her head. 'But come, tell me! Have you walked?'

  'A carter brought us privily away.'

  He
r face fell. 'Privily—? You're not in disgrace?'

  I shook my head. 'He was sick of it.'That 'in disgrace' of hers, after the brutal victory we had won, touched me by its innocence.

  'They say it's almost over,' she went on. 'One time all the men and boys were crazy to go out, now folk are thinking more of the peace.'

  'Mmm.'That would be the folk who had had a taste.

  'Were you at Naseby-Fight, Mister Cullen?'

  'Ferris was there.'

  'And was that where he got his wound?'

  'No, Winchester. Mine was at Basing-House.'

  'Yours?' She got up and came over to me; I lifted the hair from my brow and saw her stiffen.

  'You must suffer greatly!'she cried.

  'Not so very much. There are cuts in the thigh pain me worse.' I saw her eyes travel down my body until she came to the blackish blood congealing on my breeches. Her hand went to her mouth. 'Lord have mercy on us! The surgeon shall come tomorrow.'

  'I think,' I said, remembering the army surgeons, 'that if the wounds were but washed, and cleanly dressed, they would do very well.'

  She promised to give me an excellent healing ointment she had.

  'And were the battles so savage as they say?' she asked.

  'Christopher will have much to tell you,' I said. 'I would not spoil anything he wished to relate by saying it before he has the chance.'

  She nodded and said she would leave me in order to look me out some clothing.

  After she went I must have dozed, for I jumped as Ferris came back into the room, translated from soldier to merchant. The gar­ments hung loose from his bones, but he was otherwise the picture of a citizen, right to the deep white collar. A sobersides. I stared at this man who like me had lived a life before the two of us had met up in the army. His hair shone; only the slashed face and coarsened hands suggested he had ever done aught but fold cloth and count gold. The hands would soften again, the scar fade. I could see him calling at Beaurepair to pay his respects to My Lady. She would have despised him - and perhaps ordered me to wait on him.

  He smiled uncertainly, gathering up the loose folds of his cloth­ing. 'Look here. The army has eaten me.'

  'You'll put on flesh,' I said.

  I went up next. The aunt showed me to a room where the girl had already laid a fire and made up the bed. She was, I thought, worth her wages, but then London people were said to be very yare and sharp, able to draw and roast a fowl before a countryman could catch it.

  There were towels by the tub of hot water, and a lavender wash-ball. When I stripped off, the clothes were stuck to me in places, and crusted with other people's pain as well as my own. I laid them in a heap and once off my body they looked like beggar's rags. I scraped the washball over me and rubbed at the blood and sweat as best I could. The water ran red as it came out of my hair, and my feet were in a sorry condition, blistered thick. I went on scrubbing till my skin was sore, taking off the army along with the filth, except for those tender wounded places where I dreaded skinning myself yet again. The

  knuckles itched as I put my hands in and out of the hot water. When I had soaked and dabbed away the crust on my thigh, I saw that the cuts were as I had thought, not green or stinking but in a fair way to heal if only my blood-stiffened breeches were no longer pressing on them. That was great good fortune, and I again gave thanks to God. It might be that in His mercy He still valued my filthy soul, and would not cast me off just yet.

  I ran my hands over my body, wanting to know what I was be­come. Like Ferris, I was thinner, but dense and tough like hardened wood. There were small cuts and bruises everywhere, but these hardly counted beside the real trophies of the assault. My forehead was ridged under my fingers: I would let my hair grow now. Standing up to dry myself, I felt the wounds sting.

  The aunt had laid me out some clothes belonging to her dead Joseph, and with a little dragging at the buttons I was able to make them go on, though I feared they might give at the seams. Especially welcome were the hose. Though I had to put my feet back into the same old boots, they seemed less cruel now they no longer pinched my bare flesh.

  I had often remarked that new attire renders the wearer uncom­monly happy, foolishly happy, for the gloss soon wears off and the man knows that it must be so. Despite my moralising, this was also the case with me. When I came down both Ferris and the aunt admired me in the husband's garments, she saying that it was good to see them being worn and not eaten by the moths, Ferris that all I needed now was shoes. His face glistened with something oily which the aunt had spread on the injured cheek. She came to me and daubed some of it on my forehead also. It hurt, and smelt bitter, but her hand was gentle on me and felt like love.

  'He has thigh wounds,' said Ferris.

  The aunt said that she knew it, and offered to dress them, but I did not like to give her that work and said I could very well do it myself.

  'Then you must take some of this unguent to your chamber,' she told me. 'Becs shall tear you some linen strips.'

  Ferris was not as happy in his own clothes as I was in another's. I

  observed that he drooped his head, that he fiddled with the cold mut­ton bone and looked into the fire. His aunt watched him gravely and bade him go to bed if he wished, there would be time aplenty to give her his news.

  'Do you have my packet still?' he asked.

  'Of course. I'll fetch it.' She hurried out.

  I asked Ferris what packet that might be.

  He answered, "Things I asked her to keep.'

  The aunt returned with some objects tied up in cloth. Ferris put the bundle on the table and began tearing at the ribbon. The first thing he revealed was a heap of white linen, which I supposed to be padding: however, he laid it aside with great care, and I saw it was a woman's nightgown, richly embroidered. Next came a gold case on a chain: he opened this up and stared into it as a man might gaze into a necromancer's mirror. I strained to see it.

  'Here,' he said abruptly and tossed it across the table. It struck against the wood, and I wondered he was not more careful, for it was very prettily enamelled.

  'Take care, Christopher!' said his aunt, sounding as if she were more afraid for him than at any hurt which should come to the jewel.

  It was a pair of miniatures. On the left, a joyous Ferris I had rarely seen, full of defiance too: I would have wagered my life it was painted on the occasion of the marriage. The lips were parted as if to speak, the eyes full open and very straight at the onlooker: a man saying what he liked, to whom he liked.

  On the right, his Joanna. She took me unawares. For one thing, she was beautiful, with brown eyes and fine golden hair not unlike Caro's, where I had pictured her sallow and plain. But while Caro's glance was sometimes mocking, Joanna's were the eyes of a saint. I had seen just such a look at Basing, on the face of Christ's mother as her portrait blackened and shrivelled on the bonfire. As I closed the case, folding their miniatures together, she turned her pure gaze on her husband before her lips were pressed to his. I pictured their images forever kissing within.

  'Aunt painted them,' said Ferris. I glanced up in surprise.

  She nodded and smiled. 'My mother was a limner before me.

  There was a man-limner in our district too, a very handsome one; he ruined a silly lass whose parents left the two alone. That brought us a deal of trade.'

  'Not from the married women, however,' Ferris put in. 'They found him a master of his art—' he caught and kissed his aunt's hand as she made to slap him, 'practised and cunning in his technique.'

  'A very loving gift,' I said, turning the case about. 'And skilled.'

  'So I think.' Ferris got up and put his arms round her neck. 'She's my mother and my father too,' he said. His aunt closed her eyes, rest­ing her cheek on his arm.

  I said, 'You're lucky to have her.'

  He started. 'Jacob! Forgive me! You said once you would tell me your story after the siege, and we have never talked.'

  Any time for that,' I said.

/>   Ferris turned to his aunt. 'Jacob lost his wife too.'

  'Well, you're both of you fine young men,' she said. ‘And if a body may say so — without seeming hard — you'll marry again.'

  'You didn't, Aunt.' Ferris kneaded her hands. 'Did you grieve for him a long time?'

  She laughed. 'Well, we weren't like you. Your grandfather chose for me — though yes, I was sorry when Joseph died. Yes.'

  They regarded one another an instant.

  'But I've no call for a new husband. Besides, he'd cut you out of my money.' She wrapped her arms round him, and squeezed. Ferris remained solemn. The aunt went on,'I had never such grief as you, and provided you outlive me, I never will.' She turned to me. 'He didn't eat for a week or sleep for a month. The minister could do nothing. But I wouldn't let go of his soul. I hung on to him.'

  'The minister upbraided her, for being soft with me when I should be learning Christian resignation,' Ferris said.

  'He thought it right, child.'

  They swayed back and forth, rocking in love. I remembered how Izzy and I would press our faces together, reconciled. Did we learn it from Mother? I could not recall.

  'Never was a better husband than you,' said the aunt softly to my friend. ‘And be assured she knew it. Knows it still, in Heaven.' She

  kissed his hair. 'And now mayhap you should go to bed, that's enough for your poor friend to listen to for one night.'

  I knew what was wanted and said I would go to my chamber. The aunt pressed the bottle of oily medicine into my hand and called to the maid, bidding her take up some linen strips torn large enough to bind a leg.

  I found my room pleasantly warmed by the coal fire and an em­broidered nightshirt of Joseph's laid ready. The maid knocked and en­tered with the strips, bidding me a good night as she went out. The nightshirt just fitted. I smeared the stuff over my cut thigh, feeling the wounds burn, and tied the bandage round it. Then I got between the sheets and stretched myself out in the shape of an X, arching with pleasure to feel the fresh lavender-scented linen on clean skin. My flesh felt heavy and supple as if dropping off my bones, and I fell asleep straightway without hearing the other two come upstairs.