McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  The next day I woke early. I had none of the pain in my hips that had plagued me in the army and the warm bed was unspeakably comfort­ing after lying out, cold and wet, under the sky: I rolled and wallowed, the very picture of sloth. Despite this appearance I was full of vigour, so that when I heard people stirring in the house, I dressed and went downstairs. There I found Ferris's aunt inspecting some wine bottles. Her eyes gleamed as she looked up at me, and I saw that any friend of 'Christopher' must be a favourite.

  'We will celebrate all the time you are here,' she said excitedly. She was dressed in a plain dark robe, but her face shone with anticipation. It seemed not all citizens were gloomy.

  'I'll bring you some breakfast,' she went on.

  'After bad rations or none,' I said, 'good things to eat. A Paradise.'

  'Then be happy in it.' She bustled off, and as she opened the door onto the stairs there came a clattering noise: the girl already cooking, down below. I had suddenly a great longing to see Ferris and talk to him, get used to his new ways, old ways. I climbed the stairs to his chamber, the one at the front where he had slept with Joanna, and tapped at the door.

  'Ferris?'

  Silence. I opened the chamber door and put in my head.

  'Ferris, we're all dressed, I would talk with you. Will you come down?' On his not replying I walked over to the bed, parted the hangings and reached with my fingers towards his face in the dark. I touched nothing but linen. Jolted, I ran my hand over the coverlet: it was entirely flat. A thought came to me. I felt between the sheets: they were warm, and on sniffing the pillow, I found the scent of his hair. Then he must have got downstairs without my knowing it, and be at this moment talking to Aunt (for I was already permitted that famili­arity, to call her by that name). But when I got down again I found a bowl of caudle on the table, Aunt sitting by the fire, and no Ferris.

  'Christopher's not in his bed,' I said to her.

  'Ah.' She looked down at the tiled floor. 'He'll be gone to the grave.'

  'What, before daybreak?'

  But she was right. He came in, damp and cold, while I was finish­ing up the caudle. His aunt bade him sit by the fire, but he came and sat opposite me.

  'I'll get you some food,' she said, 'and if you don't want to see me in a passion, you'll eat it. It's too cold to go trailing around in the dew.' She laid her hand on his head and went out; I waited, hoping he would speak. He stared through me as he had done the night I woke him with Nathan. A bird called outside, over and over.

  'Ferris,'I said.

  The bird continued to call as he slowly raised his hands and cov­ered his face from me. Then he got up from the table and went back upstairs. I heard the slam of his chamber door.

  He was gentle with me that autumn, and on some days cheerful, but mostly there was a melancholy in him replaced the satire I had seen in Ferris the soldier. I came by degrees to see how, fleeing the solitary bed he had once shared with Joanna, he was run into the New Mod­el — and how, the army having beaten him back at last, he was come home only to find himself still raw. Not even I could look on him and

  be jealous. Jacob Cullen was patient! — and I think I loved him during those months as I never loved friend before or since.

  He would walk each day, saying it helped him sleep, and I more often than not went with him. I took great pleasure in learning the names of the buildings, which were the most noted and so on. The tailor who came to measure us had told me that if I cared to call at his establishment I might see there a rare piece of work, a suit worked in slashed and perfumed leather, ornamented in gold. I did call to see it, and it was precisely as he had said, nay, more wonderful. Like all tailors, goldsmiths and suchlike he had a sharp eye for who held the purse, and had understood that Ferris paid for my garments. He could not have judged me likely to bespeak such a thing as a suit in leather; I could only think he was so proud of the craftsmanship, he must needs show it everybody. I told Ferris of this marvel, ask­ing him what else was to be seen, and he showed me the fashion­able streets: not only his own Cheapside, where the costly gloves and hose astonished me, but the Strand, Paternoster Row and Cordwainer Street.

  Ferris made faces, gasping and gaping in imitation of my lumpkin ways. 'I never thought you would be so taken with these vanities,' he said. 'Are you pining after ribbons and feathers?'

  I laughed and said it was only that everything was new to me. He took me another time to London Bridge, and when I was several times gone up and down, jostling in the crowd and half drunk on the fascination of the place, he told me there were dead men's heads there, stuck on poles.

  The weather was notably foul that year and we often talked of the men still fighting, their trials and victories. Ferris fretted at times about Nathan, whom he now wished he had brought away, and I bore with that too. By mid-November he had long since told his aunt eve­rything of his own campaign days that he thought fit for her to hear, and delighted in bringing back news from others. Any little thing about the Parliament or the latest fortunes of the army he picked up for her instruction or amusement, and with his natural courtesy got a great deal from the most unlikely men. In this way, he found near the end of November that Colonel Robert Blake had the Royalist Francis Wyndham under siege in Dunster Castle.

  'I had it from a fishmonger,' he told Aunt as soon as we got home. 'A letter came from his brother but yesterday.'

  'I never heard tell of Dunster. Would that be Devonshire?' she asked.

  'Somersetshire. The West is all but fallen.'

  Aunt offered up thanks, and in the same breath a plea that the war might soon be over.

  However, I discovered he did not tell her of all his encounters. One day as we were turning out of Cheapside at the very start of our stroll, I saw an erect, dignified old man coming towards us, wearing a dark blue coat and red plumes in his hat. He saw Ferris in the very instant that Ferris saw him, and at once turned down an alleyway. My friend immediately walked faster and turned down the alleyway likewise.

  'Who is that? What are you doing?' I asked. Ferris marched at such a pace as to make my legs ache though they were longer than his. The greybeard knew we were following him, for though he did not run, yet he walked so fast that his back rocked from side to side. My friend loped along, relishing the chase.

  'Ferris, for the love of Christ!' I cried. Our quarry must have heard me, for he stepped out even faster and I saw Ferris's face set like a dog's just before it fights. I thought to catch him by the sleeve, but he must have sensed it in me, for he straightway broke into a run. I was not going to do the same, but instead stayed behind to see what would follow. What did follow staggered me. My friend ran past the old man — who flinched as he went by — and whipped round to stand in front of him, barring the way. At this the fellow turned, and saw me still bringing up the rear. He stopped dead. Then Ferris ran up to him and spat hard in his face. Not a word was spoken. My friend backed away, still glowering at the enemy, and circled round to me. The man made no protest. Wiping his mouth and lurching a little to one side, he scuttled through an archway and was gone.

  Ferris glared up into my eyes as he rejoined me. I had seen that look before, when he dared me to break him of having friends, and the questions died on my tongue. We continued in silence until we were almost at London Wall, when I halted and put out my hand so that he stopped also. Both of us were hot and breathing fast.

  'I know not what to think,' I said. 'Who—?'

  'Mister Cooper.'He spat again, on the ground this time, and slowly walked on. I followed, beginning to understand the speed with which the elder had taken to his heels upon seeing us.

  'You go for him whenever you meet?'

  He said nothing but the set of his shoulders told me I had guessed right.

  'He is old, Ferris. Death will level him soon. Why should—'

  'It pleases me,' he said stonily.

  'But how did you marry his daughter if—'

  'Not then, you fool! Then I had to be meek, so I could
get her away.'

  I remembered the bold stare of his portrait. Perhaps Aunt had painted him not as he was, but as he longed to be.

  'Her death freed me from that,' he added.

  'Should you not try to practise forgiveness? For your own sake,' I added hastily, for his eyes sharpened as if I were Cooper himself.

  Ferris snorted. 'You weary me, Jacob, and you are the last man on earth who should preach forgiveness. When did you ever stop at spit­ting!'

  I was afraid to go on. Yet when we got back to Cheapside, he squeezed my hand and entered the house without even a scowl at the windows opposite, his humour seemingly purged. Aunt, who was cut­ting up some cabbages within, remarked on our glowing cheeks and said our walk had surely been healthful. Ferris said it had been most enjoyable, and Jacob's conversation as good as a sermon.

  'Farming's like the army,' I said. Ferris and I were sitting at the table, face to face in unalterable opposition. 'Graft every day, the ground muddy except when it is hard, sweat, shit and injury'The idea of field labour filled me with dread, for besides knowing what suffering it brought, I was now enamoured of London.

  'Under a taskmaster, yes,' Ferris said. 'But there will be none such in the colony. We will be our own men.'

  'The earth's your taskmaster,'I retorted. 'The cruellest.'

  It was our constant quarrel. This friend of mine, so gently raised and so utterly ignorant, was wild to get away the following spring and dig the commons, an idea he had long debated even before his army days. In vain did I endeavour to impress upon him what had been ground into my bones while I was still a child: the stubbing up, burning, ploughing, harrowing, planting, hoeing and dunging; the war against crows, snails, blight and whatnot which brought such weari­ness that no bed could be too hard; and then the back-breaking Har­vest when the workers went on until there was no more light. I told him how I had seen men drop to the stubble and sleep without food or covering. My breath was entirely thrown away, for Ferris saw only the means of a glorious triumph. Smiling, he assured me that he took good care to school himself. Did he not study his Gervase Markham and his other writers?

  'Let Markham persuade you if I cannot!' I cried exasperated. 'If there be any truth in the man, read only what he puts as to digging, setting aside the rest. It is slavery! I wager you anything that on that point your author chimes with me.'

  Ferris said that a man of my size had surely endurance enough.

  He had friends of a like mind, most of them as unskilled as him­self and as full of these madcap notions. They would come and drink wine and scribble on little papers. To Jeremiah Andrews, a gardener wizened as one of his own apples, who like me had some conception of men's daily fight with the land, I could listen without too great a trespass on my patience. But then there was that great fool Roger Rowly, a journeyman tailor whose own breeches were wearing out at the arse from a lifetime's sitting. He deemed it no hardship to plough, scatter, build, harvest, do everything ourselves, and the women, for all I could tell, to give birth in the open fields.

  One day he talked of digging turf.

  'That takes more strength than any of you reckon on,'I said.

  'We can't all be pikemen,' Ferris put in, so that the others laughed.

  Recalling how often my temper had shamed me, I calmed myself and went on, 'Men can only endure such toil if they know nought else.'

  'We can learn to labour if we have to,' insisted Rowly, who looked about strong enough to lift needle and thread.

  'Our people put us to better trades,' I urged.

  They were completely deaf to me, and for the rest of that after­noon I held my tongue.

  Another time, when we were joined by Harry and Elizabeth Beste, I gained more support. These two had three small children, one still at suck. Like Ferris, they had read and been fired by writings that claimed men might work the common land, and so live free; unlike Ferris, they could see shadow as well as sun.

  'While we are building, the babes may fall ill,' said Elizabeth. 'They need warmth.' Her husband nodded. Rowly was there also, and he raised his eyes to Heaven but to no avail, for these two were re­spected. Elizabeth was comely, with a skin so white the veins showed blue on her forehead, and thick hair like dull gold. She had a deep soft voice which soothed quarrels and gave hope, and her husband, who was a blacksmith, also spoke softly but was so big about the arms that not even I would willingly have fought him. Harry's eye­lids drooped, giving him a lazy look, but he was more wide awake than most.

  Now Rowly was talking of strolling women and their children, the living proof (he said) that babes could lie out in the cold provided only they kept close to the mother. I said that grown men had found it hard enough in the army and challenged Ferris to deny this, which he could not.

  'It blights the little ones,' said Elizabeth. 'Vagabond women have thin and ugly children.'

  'I hope—' I said, and broke off. The rest stared at me.

  'Go on, where are you now?' asked Ferris.

  I saw Caro trudging forward, over mud, through snow. By now, if my seed had rooted in her, she would be heavy with child. 'I consider that a woman - a woman without shelter—' I stopped, for to my sur­prise and horror my voice was thickening. There was silence. Ferris seemed eating me up with his eyes.

  'Pray excuse me.' I walked out and up to my chamber, tears already slipping onto the boards as I climbed the stairs.

  Like Ferris, I had a ghost-wife. Our talk, so like the meetings at Beaurepair, had called this ghost to table with us, and the mention of vagabond women had finally given her flesh. During those weeks of lying in the rain I had more than once wondered if Caro lay cold and wet likewise, and each time I had hardened my heart. Now was the reckoning. I wept with the abandon of one who can make no restitution, and after sprawled on the mattress watching the sky grow dark.

  At last I heard their farewell calls and laughs far below. He came upstairs at once and tapped at the door.

  'Come in.'

  Ferris entered with a candlestick which he placed on the mantel­piece before seating himself on the edge of my bed. 'So. Who is she?'

  'You know.'

  'Do you fear she is dead, Jacob?' Ferris took my hand between his; I let it lie in his grasp.

  My voice sounded cold as I answered, 'She was half naked, travel­ling the roads.'

  'And you must not be found,' he squeezed my fingers, 'else you would write and enquire?'

  'We are wanted for theft.' As soon as the words were out I re­membered Fat Tommy's big mouth. ‘And I killed a— a man. In self-defence. He went for me in the dark.'

  Ferris's eyes held mine. 'It seems scarce justice to be hunted for that when the whole country's at it.'

  'She's most likely dead.'

  'I fear you are right.' Sighing, he again pressed my hand. 'Will I ever hear the whole of this tale?'

  I shook my head.

  'Come down.' He loosed my fingers and felt in his sleeve for a handkerchief, which he held out to me. 'My aunt is back and it's much warmer than up here.'

  I blew my nose with an ugly farting sound. 'What was decided after I left?'

  'O, the usual, to put by money until we could agree what to do with it.'He smiled ruefully. 'We need more people.'

  'More women,' I suggested.

  Ferris raised his eyebrows. 'Aye, why not! Are you looking to re­marry, Jacob?'

  'I meant, bring in men with wives. It's not to be the army again, is it?'

  'But do you want to remarry?'

  'Not yet. And how can I?'

  "These are strange times,' said Ferris. "There'll be thousands disap­peared, not known for dead. Folk must live.'

  We went downstairs.

  Ferris was not the only one musing over my right to marry. Sometime in early December I noticed that the maidservant, Rebecca, had a lik­ing for my company. She was eager to bring in the breakfast to me, and would stand watching me eat, asking me was it good, and so forth. At these times she looked keenly into my face, her voi
ce taking on a curve that flattened out entirely when she spoke to Ferris or his aunt. I was flattered and amused by this humble courtship but hoped for her sake she would soon cool, for though she was not an ill-looking girl, black hair and clear pale flesh, she stirred me not a whit. She could have come to my bed - well, perhaps not. At any rate, I was courteous with her, but never more, and she neither took offence nor grew bolder. My hair was growing back, and Aunt said I was handsome in a gypsy sort of way, and all this puffed up my vanity. Thus all of us went on peace­ably enough until we came to the Eve of Our Lord's birth.

  THIRTEEN

  Eve of Nativity

  What, Jacob, up early again?' Sitting alone, I shrugged and smiled as Aunt came in. The windowpanes, entirely black, reflected my candle flame in their magi­cian's mirror. Aunt put down her candle next to mine, and the window caught that flame too, and doubled it, so that there were four. She sat down beside me in the kindness of their yellow glow. A silence fol­lowed. We needed few words, being easy with one another. Looking at her, I thought she must have been comely once, with her nephew's light hair and clear eyes, but time had creased and dried her blonde-ness into sand.

  'Rebecca shall bring some candle.' She knew I could not get enough of this broth, which I had never tasted before coming to town. Leaving the light for me, she went to tell the girl; I stayed, watch­ing the flames jiggle and then draw themselves up into white-gold angels.

  The room where I sat so idle and somewhat melancholy was com­fortable, with that solid plainness which is commonly called 'Dutch' and breathing the cleanliness of that people also. Black and white tiles on the floor, dark cases full of godly books. I had searched in vain for those pamphlets of which Ferris had boasted.

  Over the fire was a painting of the late Joseph Snapman, whose sober dress, like that of a minister, could not disguise his sharp, busy face. Aunt, as his widow, owned the house outright. Her sister Kate Tuke had married Mister Henry Ferris, but they both died of the

  plague when their boy was but two years old, so little Christopher came to live with the childless Sarah and Joseph. In their house he grew to manhood and took a wife; from their house he left for the wars.