McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'Now be happy,' I said, hearing with dismay my thin feigned voice. Ferris appeared not to notice it.

  'I'll stay with her, Jacob, until the physician comes. Suppose she should speak again, and no one there!'

  'Then I'll watch with you.'

  Ferris glanced at his aunt. Her eyes were now closed. I stepped forward and enfolded him in my arms. There was nothing carnal in that embrace. Putting my hand to the back of his head, I found with my fingertips hard little creases under his hair: the scars left by broken glass.

  The doctor was sweating in his furred gown and I guessed that Becs, that nimble girl, had dragged him along on foot under the summer sun. Muttering to himself, he thumbed up Aunt's eyelids and scraped her tongue. Next he laid a heavily veined hand under her breast to feel the heart.

  'Irregular,' he said and at this she moved a little. Finding her com­ing to consciousness he said he must now cast her water and Becs was given a glass flask and told to catch the patient's urine.

  'If you would be so kind as to leave the chamber, gentlemen,' he suggested to Ferris and myself.

  We waited outside, hearing grunts as they tried to raise her in the bed, and then the doctor to Becs. 'That will do, now hold it so.' There followed, 'Come, madam, just a little,' and 'Shall I press on her belly, sir?' at which last I wanted to laugh but, looking at Ferris, dared not.

  Becs came out of the chamber and ran downstairs, going directly back into the sickroom with two jugs. We listened as she sloshed wa­ter from one to the other in the hope of stimulating the invalid to piss, and this time even Ferris did smile. At last there was an ‘Ah!' from the maid and we caught the thin tinkle of liquid against the wall of the flask. Becs came out triumphant, bearing the jugs before her.

  Ferris peeped round the chamber door. 'We can go in,' he an­nounced.

  Doctor Whiteman was sniffing the contents of the flask with a judicious expression. He held the thing to the light, and I gasped to see the deep orange tint of the urine.

  'Is that blood in it?' asked Ferris.

  The physician shook his head. I wondered how he could know.

  'Is she truly better?' Ferris persisted.

  'Have patience.” The man's look showed his irritation at our igno­rance. He added, 'This is not a thing to be done as one might plant a turnip,' and I felt the gibe at my friend though Ferris himself was seemingly deaf to it. The doctor took a paper, and from it tapped some powder down the neck of the vessel; there followed a faint hiss. He continued slopping the urine about against the glass, holding it up to the window.

  'Well?' asked Ferris.

  'She will make a slow, very slow, recovery.'

  I saw my friend's entire body quicken with joy, like a lamb put to the teat. He overpaid the physician, and gave him the direction for writing to us at the inn at Page Common.

  'But you'll be here tomorrow, Ferris?' I cried.

  'Yes, yes.' He told the doctor to call in that evening and accompa­nied him downstairs. Left to myself, I swore silently and then cursed my wicked selfishness.

  Ferris rattled back up the stairs and flung his arms round me. 'Jacob, it cannot be long.' Not trusting my voice, I smiled and let my­self be hugged.

  We sat together in the sickroom, one each side of the bed. His eyes were dry now and they frighted me with that shine which I so dreaded. A curious weariness dragged on me and I found I wished very much to sleep despite its being so early in the day. Beginning to nod in the chair, I heard him ask was I ailing, did I wish to go back to bed, but I was already borne away on the dark and unable to reply. Towards noon (as I later discovered) the heaviness ebbed from me and I took a deep breath, feeling the air puff out my chest. I opened my

  eyes. Aunt was stirring; her nephew clasped her hand loosely, and she was tapping her fingers on his.

  'You see?'

  I said that she had indeed made progress, but that we should not be hasty, but wait until the extent of her recovery left no room for doubt.

  'The doctor has no doubt already. And are not doctors the most cautious of men?'

  'But men still, and fallible.'

  Ah, Jacob, I know.' He looked kindly at me. 'I know. But the longer we stay, the harder to leave.'

  'When, then?'

  'I thought, the day after tomorrow.'

  I cried out in protest. He bade me be quiet over the invalid's bed and we wrangled, that is to say, he reasoned and I pleaded, in whispers. He was, as so often, gently adamant, and I passed the rest of the after­noon in misery.

  Come the evening I had better fortune. The Bestes chose this time to call and Ferris was mighty glad to see them again. After the first salu­tations they mounted with us to the sickchamber, but Aunt was asleep. Set against her twisted white countenance they seemed emblems of health, Harry's handsome lazy face bright with sun and blood and Elizabeth pearl-like, already losing the coarseness which had dimmed her lustre at the Common.

  'Where are the children?' asked Ferris as we descended again.

  'With Elizabeth's sister.'

  There was venison roasting down in the kitchen, perfuming the stairwell, and Becs brought us tarts and wine. It took me back to the days when the colony was but a maggot in my friend's head, when guests came to drink and talk nonsense but went home again like sane folk.

  Ferris told them of Doctor Whiteman's opinion and they drank to Aunt's health, but were scandalised to hear of his plan for our depar­ture.

  'You cannot go yet,' Elizabeth told my friend. 'Though your aunt

  improves, yet she is still in a condition where she must wish her family near her, and you are all that family.'

  Ferris looked uncomfortable, and I saw that three might accom­plish what one could not. We hammered away at him, and by the time we sat down to the venison, had beaten him out to the length of a week. Elizabeth, with her woman's cunning, put in some of the most telling blows by citing mistakes that she had known physicians make. When Ferris at last yielded I could have kissed Harry and Elizabeth both.

  The talk turned to their own doings, and they claimed to be now in a fair way to set up their old style of life. The anvil was come safely home, though the mule had needed very frequent persuading with the whip, and Harry had found a yard to let where the fire would be safe. Elizabeth's sister was come to live with them and help with the little ones, and Elizabeth had only quarrelled with Margaret (the sister) once, and that on a washday.

  'Harry will soon be in a position to take a journeyman again,’ said Elizabeth as Becs stacked the empty dishes.

  'Would you ever take a prentice?' I asked.

  'Mayhap, one day.'

  'I could do prentice work,' I said.

  'But Jacob, you are too old,’ put in Ferris.

  I found him officious, and went on, 'So I have no wife and do what I am bidden, where is the difference? Show me the boy who can do as much work as I can.'

  'There are laws about these matters,' said Harry. 'Touching on age, and suchlike. But had I no journeyman - are we talking in earnest, now?' He grinned at me as he spiked a morsel of roast skin on the tip of his knife.

  'Surely you'd want a man who had served his time?' Ferris asked.

  'To help a friend, now — I could call him my servant. No need to ask could you handle a hammer, eh Jacob?'

  There was a pause. Ferris looked sulkily down his nose.

  'Wat might wish for his place back,' said Elizabeth. 'Should you not ask him first?'

  Harry considered. 'He'll have got in elsewhere by now.'

  'If the thing goes awry, perhaps I will come talk to you,' I said slowly. 'And Ferris, you would come back here, I guess?'

  Ferris ignored my question and said to Elizabeth, 'First it was printing. He would learn every trade if he could.'

  "That shows industry,' said she with a friendly look to me.

  Ferris smiled stiffly.

  Elizabeth, sensing some unease, began talking of Harry's brother Robert, who had worked as a manservant in a country house where he spe
edily discovered that the master was mad.

  'The man's freaks were most curious,’ she explained. 'He persecuted the servants — accused them of poisoning his bedclothes, and some­times of trying to cut the faces out of the portraits in the great hall. Robert was walking in the garden, with the steward, Mister Cattermole, being instructed—' here we had to wait as Elizabeth choked with laughter and Harry, with his hand clapped over his mouth, was in no better plight, 'being instructed as to what he should do when the master was found naked in the corridors. "By kind words, oft repeated," said the steward, "we can generally persuade him to bed, provided it is not a night when the bed is envenomed." Robert would have asked what happened on those nights when the master broke cover from behind a bush, crying, "Out, Nebuchadnezzar" and shot at Mister Cattermole—'

  Ferris and I gasped.

  'Robert and Cattermole ran screaming into an arbour. By which you will guess,' said Elizabeth, 'that the ball had missed. The old man was disarmed by the gardener's boy (who showed more valiant than the rest of them put together) and led back to the house very penitent and confused. But that was enough, and Robert is come home to live with his parents.'

  'And Mister Cattermole,' said I, shouting a little over the laughter, 'is he also departed?'

  'Not he,' answered Harry. 'The man picks up a deal of money in the course of his work - you understand - and that makes it worth his while.'

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes. ‘And welcome to it,' she said. 'But alas, poor gentleman, to be mad — no laughing matter—'

  We agreed with her, and then all burst forth in loud roars.

  'Excuse me,' said Ferris as the merriment died down. 'I believe that was the front door. Becs will have let him in.' He went out and we heard him descend the stairs.

  "The doctor,' I explained. Footsteps were heard again, continuing past our floor to the one above. As soon as the sound of the chamber door came to us Elizabeth bent forward over the table. 'Jacob, should he not stay here?'

  'O don't tell me, Elizabeth. I am hoarse with persuading him. It is only what you and Harry said that stops him running off tomorrow.'

  'I would have said he loved her more than that,' said Harry thoughtfully.

  'He does love her, most dearly. He's torn in two.'

  Elizabeth opened her mouth but we heard him directly, coming downstairs. I helped our guests to wine, filling their cups to the brim, and Ferris returned just in time for the fruit pie which Becs brought up.

  'She's a better colour, and the heart is stronger,' he announced. 'And there are two kind of draughts, Becs, for you to give her.'

  The Bestes offered thanks to God. I tried to look happy.

  I could do no more than the three of us had managed together. Fer­ris would stay only a week, do what I might. I urged that a week was nothing in the care of a dear aunt, nay, a mother. He replied that he was leaving her to a trusted nurse, and would be sure to receive news each day. I argued that 'twere good the colonists learn to direct their affairs without him, each playing a fuller part in their little common­wealth, and he looked at me strangely and asked did I think he had crushed their spirit up till then. I put it to him that we might profit by our time in London: he nodded, and wrote me a list as in the past, of the seeds and knives, etc., he would have me purchase for the com­munity's use, so that I found myself employed as errand boy while he watched at his aunt's side. Lastly I resorted to those arts which owe little to talk, but persuade a man more forcefully than eloquence. He

  came eagerly into my chamber, where he gave every token of a greedy and violent delight, then rose the next day ready to leave our bed forever. My powers were now bankrupt. Sometimes I would look up, catch his gentle eyes on me, and wonder what he was. I could, without much trouble, have broken his back, yet, for all the pain the colony brought to him, he would return to it, and I could not bend his spirit an inch.

  At the bottom of my pack I laid as many washballs as I had been able to beg from Becs. Ferris laughed aloud when he saw them.

  'Will you set up shop, Jacob? Or do you eat them, are you with child?' He tickled me round the waist.

  I slapped his hand off. 'It is no pleasure to me, to stink like a beast.'

  Ferris looked up into my face, more serious now. 'You don't stink.'

  "Then there's something uncommonly wrong with my nose. Here, give me those shirts.' I would not smile at him and after a while he went out of my room.

  He had purchased us places on the coach. He said this was to keep off the rain for he had a notion the weather would be wet, and besides we had much to carry. All of which might be true, yet I felt his unwillingness to walk with my sadness even half a day. For my heart was oppressed, and I made no show to hide it.

  We were to leave at eight the next morning. After the evening meal, when the packs were bound up and Ferris had checked the knives and other implements were all stowed, we had nothing to do but drink and sit with Aunt. I took cup after cup of wine, feeling my heart all frozen. Ferris watched me with some anxiety and I returned his stare, daring him to correct me. The wine did nothing to warm the ice inside, and in fact I found it ill tasting, sour, but that seemed only right and fitting with all my joys turned bitter on me.

  At last he said, 'I never knew you care so much for wine.'

  'What makes you think I care for it? I spend my life doing what I hate.'

  He sighed. 'Would you— would you sooner stay a while? I will go alone, if you wish. You can follow at your leisure.'

  'You are all goodness,’ I returned. 'But no, I continue to serve.'

  His grey eyes winced, glanced uneasily at the sleeping woman. 'Be not so savage, Jacob.'

  'When did you ever see me savage!'

  The word you struck out hard from a deep place where the Voice was testing the walls of its prison, giving tongue to something long chained up. I felt a surge of terror and pleasure, mixed, for the Voice had never before spoken through me to another person.

  Ferris made no sign that he had heard anything strange. He checked that Aunt still slept, then said mildly, 'Have you forgotten Roger Rowly? You—'

  "That! - that was play.' I felt the thing inside me swell and swell until I was only just keeping it down. 'If ever I turn savage, you'll know. Now sneck up.'

  'I meant only that—'

  'Sneck. Up.'

  I saw Ferris go rigid, and realised that I had locked eyes with him as I once had with Nathan. He had never caught that look full in the face before, and his cheeks grew pale.

  'So, you're warned.’ The pressure within slackened; my voice was my own again. I opened another bottle which I had carried up to the chamber with me. He held out his hand but I put the wine to my own lips and got down a good half of it without drawing breath. If he begrudged me drink, so much the worse for him. I was not under his authority.

  'Jacob, please—' He leant forward to take the bottle. I kept my hand on it and he sank back into his seat.

  'You called me savage. Don't you ever call me savage.'

  There was a silence. Ferris contemplated the embroidered linen sheet. I observed his lowered eyes and suddenly felt the want of him in my bed, but getting up, stumbled over the chair. He did not laugh as I expected, and remained sitting as if I had not moved.

  'Aren't you coming?' I demanded.

  'If you wish.'

  He rose at once and followed me out. We went directly to my chamber and there for the first time I held him silent and spiritless in my arms. I demanded caresses and he gave them without resistance and without desire, so that it was like bedding a corpse. Then I wanted him to lie under me and he would not, and I thought he took pleasure in the refusal. We struggled, and I punched him in the ribs and belly, then got on top of him and twisted his arm up his back. He tried to pull the arm free so I gave it a wrench and felt him jerk like a man who is branded.

  'No followers now,' I breathed into his ear. 'Just we two.'

  'Do it then,' he spat into the pillow. 'Make an end of us.'

&
nbsp; I forced his arm up further and heard him gasp. Any more and he would cry out. I had got him, the weasel, he belonged to me and I felt myself his master for once.

  'Let me on,’I said.

  Ferris shook his head.

  'Let me in.' I pressed with my knee, trying to get some purchase on him, and put more of my weight on the twisted arm. His muscles convulsed, then yielded, and I was between his thighs.

  'What, no orders for me?' I began pushing outwards, spread-ea­gling him. 'Go here, go there?'

  He would not answer. I heard quick breaths; he was trying to out­wit the pain, so I let him have more weight on the arm and forced him to groan aloud. His legs were limp now, all the fight gone out of him. I spat in the palm of my hand and greased my prick with it.

  His shoulder gave a faint crack.

  Then all at once - it was perhaps that noise - the blood began to go down in me. I was unable to fuck him. All I could do was release him and lie by his side on the mattress; as I did so I broke into angry weeping. He did not speak to me or touch me. My mouth was grown too thick to speak properly but I mumbled at him, 'Why, why did you come in to me?'

  'To get you away from her.' His voice quivered, not from soft­ness but like an arrow newly shot into my heart. Having inflicted that wound he rolled away, and I lay staring into my own confusion and shame. From time to time there was the old rushing in my head, and words began seething up to torment me.

  He does not love you.

  No wonder. I have dealt brutally.

  You already labour without pay. He will now make you beg for the privilege.

  It seemed that I lay there for hours, but must finally have slept for at some point I found he was crept out of bed in the darkness. I knew this when I heard him bolt his door.

  A jingling. The bed curtains were tugged apart. A weight slammed onto my chest and I gasped with shock.

  'Ferris?'

  He was astride me, on top of the bedcover so that my hands were trapped beneath it. I lifted my head to see what he was doing and something pierced my neck just under the chin.

  'I'm kneeling on your arms,' he said. 'Move, and I cut you.'