McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  Over the date of their setting off, the company were much less forthcoming, and here methought I smelt duplicity. Our best chances were the Tunstalls, the Domremys, Hathersage and Keats. Hathersage thought he could come in a month, that is, in mid-March; the man and wife said perhaps six weeks. The young women and Keats, being masterless, thought they could manage it soonest. Some of the others, like Fleming and Botts, were so vague that I felt they did not mean to come at all, and I rejoiced at it.

  Ferris, quick to learn, anticipated Keats by saying Grace before we had our pasties and cabbage. Afterwards we drank toasts to fraternity, and to the future under God's guidance. I was bored with the food, the company, and the whole idea of the colony, and grew increasingly silent as they chattered on. Ferris glanced at me from time to time. The cabbage was oversalted, and I left it on my plate.

  When they were all gone I took up the list from the table. 'What's it worth, think you?' my friend asked. 'Nothing, most of it.' He nodded wearily. 'Some few are honest and able, the rest—'

  'You need not go,' I risked.

  Ferris stared away from me out of the window.

  'Have you thought,' I pursued, 'what will happen to us - to us -among so many? Are we going to lie in the fields?'

  'Men did in the army.'

  I bit back the question that at once rose on my lips, and instead replied, 'We'll live side by side with them for months, years.’ Bitterness rose in me. "That was the army, never alone with you.'

  'You were too jealous,' Ferris said. 'Too harsh with the men.'

  I put my hands on his shoulders and turned him about so I could look him in the eye. 'You knew what ailed me.'

  Ferris returned my look. 'Aye, but did you?'

  'You let me suffer.'

  'Unjust,' he said. 'Had I offered myself, you would have despised—

  'You didn't want me — you had Nathan—'

  'But now we understand—'

  'Ferris,’I was exasperated; I forced myself to lower my voice. 'We've had three nights and you want to throw it away.'

  'No, Jacob! I—'

  'It will never be as you hope! You saw what came of such things in the army - you see these people, how they are - will you not give the thing up?'

  'Call it pride if you like.' His face was grown noble. He terrified me, for I perceived that, thought being painful, he had ceased think­ing.

  'Isn't pride a sin?' I urged.

  "There's pride and pride. You and I are different kinds of men.'

  I was offended and left him.

  During the next two weeks he began putting in order his lists of things needed for working the soil, lists made long before and often looked over, but never finished. I was sent on errands to bring home various tools, and to bespeak an ox-cart and plough to be collected nearer the time. All this time I was utterly sick of soul. He called me

  into his chamber one morning and showed me a small box full of gold.

  "This is a part of my savings,' he said. "The rest will stay home with Aunt.'

  'If Hathersage is putting in all he has, should you not do like wise?' I asked unkindly.

  'We don't know it is all he has,' responded Ferris. 'This is still more than anyone else is putting in, and is not just for me but for all of us. To be buried and kept secret in case of dire need.'

  'What need?'

  'O, supposing you were hurt,' and he looked at me so lovingly that I was ashamed. What right had I, eating his bread and living like a lord, to say anything at all?

  Ferris said, 'I had a key made for you. Here, take it.' He held out a ribbon and I ducked my head; Ferris pushed the key inside the neck of my shirt where I felt it slip down my breast like a drop of cold water.

  'I'll be out this evening,' he announced. 'Dan and his wife have invited me to dine and rest there the night.'

  'I'm not invited, then?'

  'The house is tiny and the babe fractious. They entertain none but old friends.'

  I felt that if invited, I would hardly enjoy it. Yet the prospect of dining with Aunt brought no pleasure neither. The more Ferris sent me out for boxes, vessels, skins or seeds, the more she seemed to blame me for the whole affair.

  In the afternoon, Ferris poring over his lists again, I took a walk down by the river to kill time. The wind was bitter, and so strong as to almost push me over.

  'I have told you already.' Ferris stood up and rubbed the small of his back. 'Let's not quarrel. I leave in half an hour for Daniel's.'

  'Where's Aunt?' I suddenly realised I had not seen her since the day before, and then only briefly.

  'She keeps her room.'

  'That makes two of us miserable on account of your colony.'

  He went back to scribbling his latest list. I paced up and down, unable to settle.

  'Now you are jealous of Dan,' said Ferris. 'I knew this was com­ing.'

  I snorted. 'What's it to me if you drink yourself sick?'

  'Peace! I won't be sick. You shall see.' He folded up the list. 'Do you think you could learn to sew tents, if I got you a pattern?'

  I considered. The idea interested me, but I was not to be so easily won over. 'Let me practise on some cheap stuff,' I said at last.

  'That's the way!' He rose, spat in his hand and clapped it to mine to seal the bargain. 'I may get a pattern tonight. There's a man coming who put up tents in the army.'

  'Pity we never got under any,' I said. 'You won't stay longer than tomorrow?'

  'For shame, Jacob. What did I say to you last night?' He cocked his head to one side, smiling, teasing me. 'Does a man who says that want to stay away?'

  The memory of his praises and pleadings made me flush up. Look­ing at him, I thought how much more beautiful is a man's smile than a woman's: more force and fire. He left the room unopposed, my kisses drying on his mouth.

  Sitting alone, I took comfort against jealousy in going over every­thing he had told me as we lay together the night before: all about our first meeting, how I had at once wounded him, how when I stripped by the fire he could scarce breathe for delight, and for fear of my no­ticing - recalling it, I could scarce breathe myself. After a night and a day I would have him safely back, privileged now not only to gaze his fill but also to lay hold of me and possess me entirely.

  And then it came to me that fiercely as he might fling about in my arms, yet he wanted to go to a place where we would have to keep off from one another. It seemed that, like wine and tobacco, I was deli­cious, but still not reckoned a necessity of life.

  Becs brought in salt beef and mustard; I ate it reading over what he had left behind, a pamphlet on ploughing and setting. Using the setting board looked to be weary work. The house was dismal. I retired

  early, and lay abed wondering what he was doing just then, and if he thought of me at all, and what it must be like to be him, and not be­lieve in God nor the Devil.

  The next day was bright. Aunt was downstairs before me and had evidently determined to be civil for all our sakes. She greeted me cor­dially and I readily returned her good will. Even the farming pamphlet seemed less disagreeable when spread under the sunny window and I further sweetened its lessons with spiced cake and some cider. The lit­tle key lay against my heart like a jewel.

  'You'd be more comfortable at the table here,’ said Aunt. 'Becs will clear it directly.'

  'No, no, Aunt. I'm very well where I am.' My window seat showed the street leading to Dan's house. I knew myself laughable, but what did it matter? After half an hour the front door slammed; I jumped, but at once saw Aunt herself step out with a basket, picking through the idlers on her way to market.

  It was another hour before I had my wish, but I was lucky: Fer­ris had only just turned the corner when I glanced up and saw him ambling along, boyish next to a burly man who crossed his path. I was able to watch him the whole length of the street. He was smil­ing, eyes slitted against the white spring light and his arms full of papers and bags. I saw how he remarked everyone who passed and from time to t
ime turned his face up to the sun. Evidently he was happy, and with a pang I wondered if he was often so happy without me. Though I willed him to look up at my window, he passed below, face hidden under his hat-brim, and I heard a key in the downstairs door.

  When I descended he was setting out his treasures on the table, while Becs gaped at the bags.

  'Seed samples,' he announced as I went in. 'Look: carrot, onion. We can grow beans and grey peas too.'

  I prodded the seeds and pulses, put my nose in the pouches of coarse sacking and sniffed. 'So, can you tell good from bad?'

  'Dan came with me to the seed merchant's and told me what to

  look for.' He gloated over the tiny heaps of seed as another might over sacks of gold. 'And there's grain, too. Here.'

  I reached into the bag he had pushed towards me and examined what lay in my palm.

  'Dredge,' I said. 'Oats and rye.'

  Ferris stared in surprise. 'You know it?'

  'Too well.' Again I stood, filthy, among the furrows, heartsick to see my work stretching to the edge of the sky. ‘And this,' I went on, casting another grain upon the table, 'is the pure rye, and this, bullimong.'

  'What's that last?' Ferris pounced upon the bag. 'The man told me buckwheat, has he cozened me?'

  I shook my head. 'They are the same.'

  Another time you shall come with us,' he said, excited. 'There was much to see, we had not time even though we were there before the rest.'

  'You rose early then?'

  'No sottishness, I told you! And look here!' Like a child thrilled by some newfangled thing, say a furred caterpillar, he implored my attention. The marvel turned out to be a thin book, entitled On the Cutting and Stitching of Tents, With Diverse Plans and Examples Tak­en From Antiquity. The frontispiece was of the Apostle Paul, cutting cloth.

  'Examples from antiquity! A lucky find indeed,' said I.

  'What's that?' Becs asked.

  'No find, but a gift. Dan asked his friend for something a man could learn from, and this is the one James - that's the friend - learnt from himself. Take it.' He folded my fingers over the book. ‘And now I think on, there are bales of stuff still in store that might do. They were too marked to sell. You can cut out in the courtyard.’ He looked ready to hug me to him in the ecstasy of sudden good fortune, but the girl's presence kept him orderly. All this time she had held her face neutral as a mask. Ferris whirled towards her.

  'Becs! Do you think you could show Jacob how to hold a needle?'

  'Like this.' She pinched finger and thumb together in mockery. 'But if he's going to make tents he'll need to know a sight more than that.'

  'But will you teach him? Ah, Becs — please? Please, for me?'

  I was glad he did not say, 'For Jacob.'Becs hesitated, and it came to me that she might not want to hasten our departure.

  'I will ask the Mistress,' she said at last.

  "There's my best girl,' said Ferris. I did not quite like the way he spoke to her, so coaxing and all the while her secret and successful rival. He must know what it cost her to be constantly with me. It seemed that like his Bad Angel, where he was jealous, he too could be unkind.

  Ferris produced maps. 'See here, the very latest and best. This one shows common and enclosed lands, dry and marshy, look—'

  We all three of us bent over the table as he unscrolled them. A chill crept into my belly at the sight of these alien fields. Some carried ominous names: Marsh End, Breakback, Starveacre. I pointed these out to Ferris.

  'You want a good black loam if you can get it,' he replied. 'Or clay.'

  'Clay is cruel to work,' I told him. ‘All round Beaurepair was clay. It gets hard as—'

  'Jacob!’ Ferris screamed.

  'What, man!’ I cried. Becs clapped a hand to her jolted heart.

  'Beaurepair - I had almost forgot - Jacob, there was a man in the tavern called Zebedee Cullen!'

  I sat down on the nearest chair, feeling as if I had been shot in the chest. 'How do you know? Did you speak to him?'

  'We drank in that place you know of, where we went with Dan, and I heard someone call out "Cullen" but thought little of it. Until I saw him.'

  'He's like me?'

  'Not so big, but — yes. Same skin, same black hair.'

  'Oh God.' I rocked back and forth. ‘And did they also call him Zebedee?'

  "That name was used too—'

  'Was he proper? Pleasing? Much more so than me?'

  Ferris hesitated.

  I banged on the table. 'Come on! I've heard it all my life.'

  He nodded. "The best-looking man I ever saw.'

  'Zeb.' My eyes were filling and even brimming over, why I could not say; I was not sad, nor was I joyful. Across from me I could see Becs's hands tumbling one over the other, never ceasing, like a mad­woman's.

  Zeb. The more I knew it the less I could think. Ferris observed me, waiting for some other speech. At last he said, 'He had no woman with him.'

  So he had guessed that part.

  'Did you speak?'

  Aye.' He coughed towards Becs, who at once left the room. 'Now Jacob, be wise for once and hear me out. He was in the company of gypsies—'

  'But did you talk with him?'

  'I had to wait my chance. They drank to freedom, so I let him see me raise my glass with the rest, and then I asked him had he been in the wars, and so fell into talk.'

  'Yes, but to the purpose—!'

  'Well.' He turned on me the gentle eyes which had pitied my thirst. 'Don't grieve at it, Jacob. He said that he had one brother. Isaiah.'

  I measured the hatred that would deny me even in tavern talk with a stranger.

  'He has a gold ring in one ear,' Ferris went on. 'I asked him was that to show himself a gypsy, and he said it was his wedding ring.'

  'His what!'

  'Those were his words.'

  I tried to make sense of what I was being told. 'Did he seem well, and happy?'

  As happy as a man usually is in his cups.' Ferris stroked my hand, saying, 'For what my advice is worth — and in speaking of a brother, perhaps that's not much — Zeb is best left alone.'

  'I would know what is become of my wife.' I laid my head on my arms, pushing away a bag of seeds.

  'Will he tell you if you ask?'

  'I don't know,' I moaned. I was horribly afraid of meeting unpre­pared and of what he might say to Ferris. My face flushed with self-pitying tears.

  'The old sorrow,' Ferris said. He laid his hand on the back of my neck. 'The one you never tell me.'

  I lifted my head. 'Shame.'

  'Can there be shame between us two?'

  'Easy for you to say.'

  His look showed hurt and disappointment. He doesn't believe in Hell, I thought, because he has never put himself there. He thinks he can love me better than I deserve.

  We stayed silent awhile. I wondered should I go to the tavern alone. Zeb had every reason to seek revenge. Suppose Caro were sit­ting there with him?

  'Very well, we go tonight,' said Ferris, breaking in on my thoughts. 'And start cutting out tomorrow, eh?' He began rolling up the maps and tying up the mouths of the seed bags. I rose and picked up the book on tents.

  'I am sorry,' I said.

  He looked at me enquiringly.

  'You were happy when you came in.’ Again I saw him almost dance along the street.

  'I am happy. And I chose. I could have kept it from you. Anyway, where shall I put all this? The printroom is too damp for seeds.'

  'Not the cellar,’ I said. 'Put it upstairs.'

  Aunt is out,' Ferris said.

  We looked at one another.

  He was stretched on his back, eyes closed, shirt up and breeches open; I lay further down the bed, playing the whore. I was come to un­derstand him pretty well by now. I knew how to break his defences, when to draw back and make him beg, and it fired me up to hear my high-minded friend reduced by me to the words any man might use. I was planting kisses on his belly, not letting him have what
he wanted, while he, lacking the strength to force me, twisted his hands in my hair.

  A draught cooled the skin of my face and neck.

  'Say you love me,' I ordered.

  As meat loves salt.'

  I took him inside my mouth until I felt him quiver, then pulled

  away. Looking up to see how he liked that, I thought, not for the first time, how pleasure and pain resemble one another. I licked the sweat from the inside of his thigh and my fringe fell into my eyes.

  'I'm going,' he panted. 'Jacob - please—'

  I let him in then, and held tight as a hound who pulls down the stag.

  Downstairs the clock chimed. Presently I raised myself and took off my shirt; Ferris ran his hands over me and kissed my chest. At that moment I felt the draught of air again, stronger than before. Looking up, I saw the door ajar, and in the opening Becs, a statue in servant's dress.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Discoveries

  We lay confounded. Ferris was pale as the bedsheets which I kept crumpling in my hands, then smoothing out again, until he shouted at me in Christ's name to stop.

  'I could kill myself for not bolting the door,’ I said.

  'Why you?'

  "This is my chamber.'

  'O what does it matter!' He rolled away from me.

  'Will she tell your aunt?'

  He shrugged. 'How should I know? Bad enough that she saw.'

  'I think Aunt knows.'

  'Not like this. O God, God.'

  So he too could scald with shame, and even forget that he denied God. His garments were still undone, and I pulled the coverlet over his nakedness, then sat on the edge of the bed watching clouds through the window. It would soon be time for the midday meal. Was Aunt already come in? Were the two women even now in the kitchen, Becs savage in disgust, Aunt trembling at her revelations of our foulness? My fault, my fault. How could I have forgotten the door? Every night I had checked, only to betray us at this much more dangerous time.