McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  A silence followed. The doctor and I stood awkwardly each in a corner of the room. At last he jerked his head to indicate we should speak outside. I padded out after him.

  'What can your skill do for her?' I asked as soon as we got outside. He replied as physicians always do, that the case was a difficult one, very difficult, and that such fits were highly unpredictable in their out­comes; in short, that should she recover it was all to his glory, but none of his fault if she did not.

  'Will her nephew's coming help her at all?'

  'It will undoubtedly give her heart,' he replied, 'but she must not

  be allowed to overexcite herself. She is of a sanguine complexion and I have already bled her and given the maid instructions for a cooling diet. In my opinion the superflux of blood has mounted to her head and caused some obstruction there.'

  'Do you find her better for the bleeding?' I asked.

  'She is no worse. I have not seen your companion Mister Ferris since he was a child. Is he also, as appears, of a passionate disposi­tion?'

  'In some respects. He is much taken with projects and schemes.'

  The doctor frowned. 'You might make it your business to see that he does not act adversely upon her. This lying upon her bed—'

  'You won't stop him doing that,' I said at once.

  He frowned again and began to pucker up his lips.

  'Though the nephew be impetuous, you will find him most ten­derly disposed towards her,' I soothed. 'He freely acknowledges that he owes her all the duty of a son.'

  But the physician was already exercising his intellect upon other matters. 'You have perhaps been travelling in - distant parts?' His eyes went over the full length of me. I must have stunk most unpleasantly in his nostrils, though to his credit he concealed it and went on, 'You have had a long journey, it seems?'

  I smiled to myself picturing the fine play he had written us: myself and Ferris come from farthest India, robbed and left for dead once or twice. 'Not so very far. But we have been living and working as farm­ers. Virgin land, one of these schemes which so occupy Mister Ferris.'

  He inclined his head and spread his hands as if he understood it all.

  'How soon will she mend?'

  'It will be slow. I must see her again, and more than once, before I can give an idea.'

  So there was to be no end to Ferris's dilemma as yet. 'You have told the nephew this?'

  'He has given me little opportunity.'

  Evidently he hoped to disburden himself of his evil news onto me. If it came easier to Ferris that way, I was willing enough.

  'Jacob,' said Becs. I jumped, not having heard her come upstairs. She went on, 'There is hot water and everything needful in your cham­ber. If you wish for anything else, call me.'

  "Thank you,' I returned and bowing to the doctor, said, 'pray excuse me. A cleanly visitor must surely be more fitted to a sickroom.'

  He returned my bow and went back into the chamber to coax Fer­ris away from his aunt.

  The sheets of my own bed were turned down, no matter who Becs thought might he between them, and the window had been opened. I closed the shutters, bolted the door — a precaution I would never for­get, now — and for a second time stripped off filthy rags in that room. Last came the key he had given me, the ribbon stiff and grimed but the metal still bright.

  It was as good as the first wash there, perhaps better. I took some time about it, scrubbing and rinsing every inch of me from the scalp downwards. My hair, free of dust and combed out while wet, showed blue-black again, and the tiny scars on my chest stood out pale against the darkening caused by the sun. I remembered the doctor's question about travelling in distant parts and laughed as it came to me that he had not taken me, at first, for English. What, then, I wondered, would he say to Zeb, whose eyes were jet.

  Sitting on the bed, wrapped in the cloth she had left me to dry myself, I let my feet dangle in the bowl of cooling water a while before drying them off. A large shirt was laid across the bedcover, and over a chairback a pair of breeches, some stockings and a coat, with a pair of latchet shoes on the floor beneath: at first I thought they were more of Joseph Snapman's estate, but then saw they were my own, packed up as being too good to ruin in the colony. The linen shirt, sliding over my skin, made me gasp as if from some amorous touch. I tucked the key inside it. The bedcover, being turned back, revealed a snowy embroidered bolster. Gladly would I have consigned every colonist to the bottom pit of Hell to keep this bed, and Ferris in it. I ran my hand between the sheets, picturing us, until my flesh began to stiffen. Then I put on my breeches and stockings and shoes to go up to Aunt's chamber.

  The physician was departed, leaving Ferris sitting upright, his eyes

  dry. He turned to me as soon as I came into the room, glanced down my body and gave a pale smile. 'Jacob cleansed of his sins.'

  'Only the outer man. How is she?'

  'As you see.’ Aunt looked no different except that she had closed her eyes. Her tears, like his, had dried. 'I think she sleeps,' said Ferris.

  'Becs will bring you some hot water for a wash,' I suggested.

  He smiled again, acknowledging my wish for his comfort. 'I should like some wine.'

  'You shall have it.' I made my way downstairs and pushed into the kitchen to find Becs heating water for a second grand cleansing. She turned from the cauldron and stared at me; I felt my drying hair spring up around my face, and remembered what Ferris had said about the army boys cutting it for jealousy.

  'Let me have some canary for him.'

  'Here.' She unfastened the key from a bunch round her waist. 'But lock up and bring it back after.'

  'Don't you trust me?'

  Becs rolled her eyes. 'Don't you remember anything?'

  'I will keep him from sottishness,' I promised.

  'He's in for a sad time.' She poured steaming water into a bowl and scented it with lavender.

  'You're a good girl.' I meant it. 'Let me carry that for you.'

  We mounted the stairs together, I bearing the hot water and Becs following with washballs and cloths. In Ferris's chamber she dug into the chest and laid out linen and clothing as she had done for me.

  'Time to wash,' I told Ferris when I went up to the sickroom. 'You can have the wine later.'

  'I'll take some now.'

  I saw that Becs's warning had been wise, but said only, 'Come on, then.'

  He kissed Aunt's cheek and went off calmly enough while I de­scended to the wine cellar and found him a bottle of canary, which I carried up with two goblets on a tray.

  When I joined him in his chamber Ferris was just taking off his shirt. He stopped when he caught my eye on him, knowing that the

  sight of him raising the shirt over his head always whetted me, and then pulled it off quickly. I should have liked to stay and wait on him, wash him, hold the wine to his mouth. Instead I poured out a large goblet for myself and withdrew, bidding him scrub himself well.

  Aunt still did not move when I entered. Her face was not hers without the sudden dart of knowing eyes, and her mouth, pulled to one side, put me in mind of a flatfish. I bent down to the pillow and felt her breath on my cheek, then took Ferris's seat by the side of the bed. If she dies, I was thinking, he gets everything. I wondered would that make him more or less willing to come back to the city, and tried not to wish that her recovery would take weeks, for I knew that while I would be every night in Paradise, lying between his legs, fear for his colonists would have Ferris in Hell.

  Save for a flask of reddish liquid by the bed, the room looked much as it had the day she offered me my fortune, and that other day when I learnt to stitch. There was, however, an unfamiliar odour. After a time I knew it for the smell of sick flesh, lain too long abed. Someone had been burning rosemary to cleanse the air, and behind all this lingered the usual lady's chamber smell of orris.

  I took her hand and thought she pressed my fingers a little. Putting my lips to her ear, I whispered, ‘Aunt. I am here. Jacob.'


  Yes, there had been a faint touch. I went on, 'I will look after him.'

  I was unsure whether she had touched me that time. I folded her hand in both of mine. After a while my back began to ache so I straightened up — it was not for me to lie on the bed as Ferris did — and took some of the canary. It glowed on my tongue like warm rubies and I felt the beginning of hunger.

  Aunt shifted very slightly on the pillow. I was at once on my feet, but she settled again in the same posture. In her unmoving features I recognised her nephew's long nose and full lips.

  It came to me that Ferris would look thus on his deathbed, and that what I saw was his dying. I made myself think of comforts, of my friend splashing himself downstairs, of the kisses I would lay on his neck that night. Then, going from cold to somewhat too warm, I had to leave these thoughts also, but by now the journey, the clean linen,

  the watching and the wine had begun to act upon me, fading the room from my eyes. I woke with a start; the goblet had just started to tip its contents onto my breeches. Aunt was exactly as before. I downed the remaining wine and dozed off again.

  Ferris was shaking me. I looked up into yellow hair, and his narrow face above mine.

  'Water,' I murmured.

  'What!'

  I struggled to make sense of it. 'Like—' I felt myself blush. 'You found me.'

  He said, 'You're still in your dream.’ And then I breathed the scent of him and it was not the mouldy stink of army clothes, or the animal reek of linen sweated stiff, but warm clean flesh. I put up my hand to feel his breast through the shirt; he backed away and I realised we were in the sickroom.

  Ferris took the empty goblet from my other hand. 'We are to go and eat,' he told me. 'Orders from Becs.'

  And Aunt—?'

  'She's lying peaceful.'

  Still drowsy, I shambled downstairs after him. I could smell the food from the top of the stairs, and though it was something I had tasted before there was a difference in it. Coming into the room I found that it was meat prepared after the foreign way called fricassée. Becs brought in the bread and having placed it on the table, held out her hand to me. I gazed stupidly at her.

  "The key,' she prompted.

  I groped in my clothing and then remembered. 'In the cellar door.'

  Becs sighed.

  'What was that?' asked Ferris when she was gone.

  'I left the key when I took out the canary.'

  'Well, there's none but us after all.'

  He tasted the food. I did likewise and found it to be liver; I closed my eyes the better to savour it after the beans and cheese of the colony. Our diggers' food had brought about in me a great weariness, one might say disgust. Even rabbit had begun to sicken me; only the constant field labour kept me eating at all. Becs had cooked our repast very tender, with a spiced gravy, and there was more than enough for us both.

  She brought in another bottle of wine and a goblet for Ferris. 'Have you need of anything else? If not, I'll be upstairs and take a look at her.'

  'She sleeps soundly,’ said Ferris. 'You could rest.'

  'I can rest by her bedside. Stewed dried plums and cheese on the sideboard.' She left the room.

  My friend gazed into the air as he ate. His hair was growing again. Soon it would tickle me when we embraced. I went to sit next to him, nuzzling his neck and relishing that scent which breathed from him and no one else. I felt him swallow.

  'Jacob—' He took a pull at the canary, put his fingers on my jaw and kissed me; the kiss had wine in it. Looking into his eyes, I drank it off as if it were himself, then showed him the inside of my mouth warmed and reddened.

  'No more down here,' he said, 'that's just a taste,' and laughed, but I saw he was stirred. I pulled him onto my lap, my thighs between his, took him in my arms and crushed him to me until he cried out.

  "There's a taste for you too,' I said, 'since you play with fire.'

  We kissed again and he darted his tongue in and out of my mouth. I began sliding his shirt up over his chest.

  Ferris pulled away. 'Wait. I must sit with her before we retire.' He rose and fetched the fruit and cheese. 'What did the physician say to you?'

  'Not much.’ I struggled to suppress the ache he had started.

  Fishing for plums with a spoon, Ferris said, 'He is not open with me.'

  'He says he can promise nothing. Yet.'

  'We may be here days, then.'

  'Methought, weeks. Ask him yourself tomorrow.'

  Ferris groaned and offered me the fruit. 'These are good, will you—?'

  Shaking my head, I poured myself more wine.

  He added, 'Becs looks all overwatched. What with the nursing and the house, she has too much to do.'

  'We could relieve her as nurses,' I said, 'except that she wishes to do it all herself.'

  He nodded. "Then we must get another girl in to cook.'

  'On,’I said.

  He looked at me in surprise. 'Don't you see how weary she is?'

  'Don't you see we don't want a stranger here?'

  Ferris spat a plum stone into his dish and held out his hand for the wine.

  'Am I a help in trouble?' The question was out before I had con­sidered it.

  'In the worst, you will be. Should it come.'

  'Sir George?'

  'That too. But I meant, should Aunt die.' He paused, picking his words. I waited, and he went on, 'I couldn't bear her dying had I no other love.'

  A better man might have recalled to him the Divine Love, but I was none such, and besides, I knew him too well by that time to at­tempt it. Instead, I took his hand.

  Becs looked as done for as her mistress when we went back upstairs. The purple marks beneath her eyes had smeared deeper and darker into the sockets since she opened the door to us.

  'Get you to bed, girl,' urged Ferris.

  'She may need me.'

  'Does she have pain in the night?'

  Becs shook her head. 'Only I hate to think of none being there.'

  'Go to bed,' he repeated. 'Tomorrow we will each take a watch, if you like. She won't wake tonight, Doctor Whiteman gave her a draught.'

  The maid rose. I heard the click of her stiff knees.

  'There's a bottle of canary not all drunk,' he added as she left the room. 'Take some.'

  But she did not go down to find the canary. We heard her stumble to her own chamber and slam the door.

  'She'll drop onto the bed in her clothes,’ I said.

  'I'd not be surprised.' He was kneading Aunt's fingers. We both watched her face for any hint of sensibility.

  'Nothing.' Ferris loosed her hand.

  "The doctor will know more tomorrow,' I said.

  He looked at me. 'You wish to go to bed.' He eased her arm under the sheet and we closed the door on her and walked along the corridor in silence.

  When we reached my room I paused, hand on the latch. 'Will you come in?'

  He shook his head, stepped to his own door. 'In here. I want it like the first time.'

  'Why?'

  He repeated, 'I want it like the first time.'

  His room was not yet dark. He pulled the shutters across on one side to shield us from spying eyes.

  'Now.' His hand was on the bolt. 'Remember?'

  I remembered. I caught hold of him and kissed him as I had that night, with the hunger of months; we stumbled across the room and fell onto the bed. He called me My delight, my honey, my Samson and such talk being extremely rare with him, I knew by it that he was sweating for me.

  'Take me in your mouth.'

  I did so. He cried out and was gone almost at once, as if that time were really the first.

  When he was quiet I said, 'There was another night after that.' Kissing, slipping against one another, we eased together, until I lost the knowledge of myself and became nothing but flesh.

  'And if she were the same?' Ferris asked.

  We sat at breakfast. He was eating eggs and white manchet, just as he had through the months before
we left for the Common, spooning the yolk onto his bread and pressing salt into the yolk in precisely the same way. It amused me to see him as exact as ever. This was now the fourth day since our arrival and we were still try­ing to find our right course. The doctor had presented himself half

  an hour earlier and had again pronounced Aunt not better and not worse.

  'If she were the same in two days we could write to Susannah,' I suggested. 'We could do it now.'

  'Why Susannah?'

  'She has excellent good sense. But for her I'd not have stayed for Beste's letter.'

  He swilled down the bread with some beer. 'And because she is soft on you?'

  'Wrong, there.' I recalled Susannah shaking her head at me as I shouted and threatened. 'She has measured my folly. But if you think me partial, write to Hathersage.'

  He ignored this dart, saying simply, 'I'd sooner go back.'

  'Had they been dispersed,' I reasoned, 'wouldn't they come here?'

  'They might be unable.'

  We could get no further forward. If Aunt got well, got worse, stayed the same, round and round we went. I tried to impress upon him that his being at the Common could do nothing to stave off an attack, but he answered that this would not excuse him in his own conscience, if the moment came and he were elsewhere.

  'Masters!' Becs came running in. 'Masters, she can move her face. Come see!'

  We followed her upstairs. I will never forget Aunt's mouth as first I saw it, the one side frozen while the other made grotesque moues and snarls. But her eyes presented a more hopeful aspect, for they ap­peared to fix on us as we approached the bed. Ferris craned his body awkwardly over it, seized her hand, and watched her face as if about to pounce.

  'She's trying to say "Christopher".' His voice was thick. Becs stood to one side, hands joined and head bowed. After a short while Aunt seemed to lose strength and lay more loosely against the pillow, but her eyes still rested on us.

  "The doctor must come again,' Becs cried.

  I stood silent, ill at ease, as she hurried past me. Ferris kissed the patient's cheek. A drop fell from his face onto hers, though by his frequent swallowing I guessed he was trying to act the man. At last

  he stood upright with a great sigh and pressed his fists to the small of his back.