‘Mr Stringer, I wish to ask your advice on a private and delicate matter.’
Henry takes his pipe from his mouth, leans forward to tap ash into the dish provided. ‘Private I can manage without trying, Mrs C, but I am not famous for delicate matters, as you surely know.’
‘This concerns Rose.’
‘Nor is Rose an area of expertise.’
‘You are not usually so reticent when advice is sought.’
Henry sighs. He digs into the bowl of his pipe with a small pocket-knife. ‘Delicate matters concerning Rose are surely best dealt with between yourself and Rose. Do you not trust your own judgement?’
Bella twitches at the rug over her knees. Henry Stringer is being deliberately irritating. ‘Mr Stringer,’ she says sharply, ‘what has got into you? Once you would be ready with an opinion on every pupil you have ever taught, past and present, and would defend your opinion with sensible reason.’ She frowns at a new thought. ‘Has Rose created trouble at school recently? You understand my meaning?’
Henry looks even more deeply into his pipe. ‘Rose, as we both know, is a kleptomaniac, Mrs C. It is a disease, and though it causes embarrassment, we manage. We manage.’
‘Have you asked yourself why she steals?’
Henry pauses in his inspection of the pipe. His interest is caught despite himself. ‘Her childhood was not … ideal, let us say. Until you took over, of course.’
‘Could what happened to her, the … mistreatment … cause such behaviour?’
‘I am no expert, but yes, I have always thought perhaps the cause lies there.’
Bella takes a breath. Even this forthright lady finds it awkward to approach this matter. ‘Mr Stringer, I believe Rose has no remembrance, none at all, of the treatment she received …’
Bella’s voice tails away. In the silence Henry can hear the rasp of her breath, shallow and agitated. The woman is not at all well.
‘The treatment she received,’ continues Bella at last, ‘from that sinner Billy Genesis. You were the one, Mr Stringer, who called us to our duty on that matter, if I remember rightly.’
‘Well.’
The image of the child Rose, bruised — and worse — at the hands of Billy Genesis, is one neither Bella nor Henry likes to recall.
‘My question to you is,’ Bella now gets it out in a rush, ‘should she be told? Or helped to remember? Could it help her? With the stealing, and with … other matters … matters of love, shall we say?’
Henry jams his pipe between his teeth. Looks away out the window, where nothing but lowering clouds can be seen.
‘I don’t know,’ he mutters. ‘How could I know?’
Bella is weeping quietly now, the tears sliding down her soft old cheeks. ‘I would so like her to be happy, Mr Stringer. On the outside she seems to be. Inside, though, do you see it? A knot — a blank spot. Her heart is not free. Sometimes such a lost, anxious person looks out through her eyes, my heart aches to see it. And then she is off, laughing, organising, and I think I have imagined it all.’
Bella wipes her eyes with a fine lace handkerchief. Even this is black. ‘Her marriage to Michael had some … difficulty, Mr Stringer. Please, no!’ as Henry moves to rise. ‘No, hear me out, please! You know her so well, Mr Stringer. No one else in this town can I ask, who would not die of outrage or shock. People think she somehow drove Michael to his death. I cannot believe so. Do not. The road to suicide did not begin with their marriage. Problems there were, yes. In the marriage bed she was willing, I believe, but entirely without desire.’
Henry is wringing his hands in anguish but Bella is lost in her tale and does not notice. ‘Rose knows women’s matters with her head only. To her it is a thing to be learned like another subject in the school curriculum. No emotion attaches. But Michael’s own … difficulties … did not help. Oh, forgive me for raising such matters, but if Rose is to lead a full life in the future, what is to be done? Tell me, do, please!’
What Bella thinks she hears is a deep groan. But perhaps it is the chair scraping as Henry jumps up to pace the floor. His hands flail the air as if he is pushing away circling demons. ‘No!’ he cries. ‘No more, no more! I am no oracle, but a foolish man. A young and foolish fellow. I have no answers. Please, no more!’
Bella is so astonished, she forgets her own emotional state and stares. Opinions are usually meat and drink to this man. Has he lost his reason?
Henry seizes his coat and blunders towards the door. With the door open and escape ensured, he regains a little composure. ‘Forgive me, I am not quite well. You will know best about Rose.’ And out he rushes.
Picking his way over the railway lines and snaking wires of the Bins, mist swirling low around his ears, Henry allows his own tears to fall. He realises he has failed Bella, as he failed Michael and perhaps Rose too, but all he feels is the aching absence of Michael; the sun-lit smile, the golden head of his dear, lost beloved.
A Window Opens
SINCE THEIR TIME together on the beach Brennan and Maisie have been awkward together. Maisie is careful never to mention her passion, Brennan’s need, but there is gentle hope in every look.
I must either give in or leave, thinks Brennan.
Maisie hands him his box of sandwiches, pats his arm as he wheels his bicycle down off the porch. Like a fond and anxious wife already. Brennan smiles at her. As he mounts and peers into the half-light to find the gritty road, he tells himself that giving in is not good enough. But oh, Rose, in the name of heaven, what else is possible? Maisie will bring him property and the prospect of a solid inheritance. His mother would no doubt applaud such a suitable marriage. Christchurch is a bustling town where he will soon rise to a respectable position. Already he is a champion player in the Christchurch Civic Brass. Brennan pedals grimly over the rough surface of the Square, his jacket and trousers misted with silver by the damp air. He groans out loud. Perhaps Maisie’s eagerness, her warm, floury body would help him forget Rose? There is no sense to this wild love of his. No future to it. Why, then, does it drive him this way and that, buck and twist like an unmanageable mount? Somehow he cannot be thrown clear.
A light rain begins to fall. Brennan arrives cold and gloomy at his office near the railway station.
A letter from Denniston is on his desk.
THAT evening Maisie is standing at the range stirring a cheese sauce when she hears Brennan wheel his bicycle down the gravel path and around to the back of the house. She frowns. Something is different. What? The time is right: quarter past six. He has leaned his bicycle in the same place, banged his boots in the same way on the edge of the porch to dislodge any mud. He is whistling, but then that is nothing new. Tunes escape out of Brennan like steam out of a kettle. Maisie shakes her head and goes back to her creamed carrots. Under the table in the corner little Jackie bangs pot lids with a wooden spoon.
‘Ease off, Jackie, I can’t hear myself think,’ shouts Maisie. Jackie stops mid-stroke and looks at her. His mother rarely raises her voice. He tries a marginally quieter tattoo.
Brennan pushes open the door and Maisie, turning to welcome him in out of the cold, gasps in shock. This is a different man. Brennan sheds his coat and cap and as usual hangs them on the hook on the door. His scarf follows, as usual. But every movement is utterly new. The coat hangs crooked. The cap is flicked to the hook. The scarf loops through the air, misses its mark and falls to the ground unnoticed. Brennan’s shoulders seem to have grown wider; his feet are planted more solidly. His chest rises and falls quickly as if he has been running, though she has heard his slow tread outside.
Only the smile is less certain. ‘Evening,’ says Brennan, and after a pause, ‘Maisie.’
Maisie faces him, her spoon dripping sauce onto the floor. ‘What is it? Oh, what has happened?’ But she doesn’t want to hear.
‘Is it so obvious?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Maisie …’ Brennan takes her by the shoulders, looks into her wide face, but says no more.
The sour words seem to calm him. ‘Let me wash up and find my slippers. We’ll have our meal and talk afterwards.’ He bends to peer under the table. ‘How is Jackie, then? How’s the little drummer?’ He drums his own fingers rat-a-ta-tat on the tabletop and Jackie laughs.
God help us, thinks Maisie. When has he ever talked to the boy like that? She knows Brennan’s mood is not for her.
After the meal, which is all but silent, Maisie puts Jackie down in his cot and comes back to the kitchen. Brennan is pacing the floor. He has filled the kettle and now the steam puffs out, clogging the air and silvering the windows, but Brennan doesn’t seem to notice. He turns to her as she enters and the words pour out of him. He talks of a hanging; of news withheld from him; of an invitation of work — and of Rose. He follows her as she makes tea, talking all the time, and when her legs buckle and she sits silent at the table he paces on, the wild words roaring around the little room.
Finally he draws breath. He sits opposite her at the table, as he has most nights this past year, and takes her two hands in his, which is new.
‘Oh, Maisie, it is so strange! I am so torn. Michael was a good friend — my best friend — and now he is dead. I should be desperate to think of him hanging there in the stable, should be shedding tears for him, but it is like a window opening. I cannot tell you what I feel! There is hope in the world again. All today the air has seemed clearer, my vision sharper. I solved a problem at my work that has puzzled me for days.’
Maisie looks down at her small, work-roughened hands lying inside his. She could leave them there all night. ‘You don’t feel torn over me at all?’
Brennan can hardly hear the words. He leans towards her. ‘Maisie, you have been so good to me. You are such a good friend. That is why I can speak to you so easily —’
‘Friendship is more precious than you think, perhaps.’
‘I do not underestimate it. I would like to think we will remain friends —’
‘Oh!’ cries Maisie. She turns her hands to grip his and holds him there against the wood of the table. ‘You have no idea! Friendship is not enough for what I feel! I want to be your wife. Every night I want you in my bed. I want a child of yours in my belly. Brennan Scobie, you are turning a knife round and round in my heart and you talk of friendship!’
She beats his knuckles against the table, bruising them. Brennan is startled by her strength and for a moment fears she will break a finger. He pulls out of her grasp and holds his precious hands between his thighs. ‘You know I have tried not to encourage those hopes.’
‘You have used me. My home, my goodwill. Oh …’ The tears are falling now. ‘The puddings I have made for you; your favourite cakes. Will she do the same?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will she iron your shirts? Does she own a fine house?’
Brennan is hardly listening. He inhabits a different world. ‘I expect not, on either count.’
‘You have led me on.’
‘No. Not really. But Maisie, I thought there was no hope. Now there is. Everything is changed.’
Their voices have woken little Jackie but Maisie ignores his cries.
‘She may not want you back. After this time.’
Brennan nods, but nothing seems to dent his shining mood. ‘She may not. True. I can win her back, though, Maisie, I’m sure of it. We are made for each other.’
Maisie is the one now to lose hope. She leaves the room without a word and goes to her son. Brennan sits on his own in the warm kitchen. He sips a little of his cold tea and plans his new life.
When Maisie returns she is quieter and her words cut more deeply into Brennan’s euphoria.
‘This is what I think: that you are bewitched in some unreal way by this Rose. What about your prospects here in Christchurch? Your mother’s hopes for you? You sit there glowing and planning without a thought for your dead friend or my dead heart. Why did your friend kill himself? Will the same befall you? Perhaps this woman contains some evil …’
Brennan is on his feet now. His black brows are lowered. ‘No more, Maisie. I am sorry. Truly. I am fond of you —’
‘Fond!’
‘But do not speak badly of Rose in front of me.’
Maisie tries one last appeal. ‘If it does not go as you hope …’
Brennan smiles at her at last. ‘Maisie, understand that I will move heaven and earth to win Rose. If, after all, she will not have me,’ (clearly he does not take this possibility seriously) ‘I will come back to you, Maisie. I promise.’
Maisie jumps to her feet and faces Brennan. She swings with open palms, slap, slap! snapping his head this way and that. ‘I am to be the poor choice, am I? Oh, you arrogant toad! Do not be so sure I will wait to see you running back, Brennan Scobie. Wake up and use that brain of yours. Think! Think for a moment, you addlepate! Everything is here for you! Where is all that good sense you take such pride in? You are throwing away a whole life! Will that woman come to Christchurch with you?’
Brennan takes his time to think and then shakes his head. ‘I think not.’
‘We could have such a good life here!’ cries Maisie. ‘This — here —’ she stamps her feet on the floorboards ‘is where you should be. But Denniston!’ She spits the word out.
Brennan turns away to look out at the black night. He speaks slowly now, his back to her. ‘You may be right, Maisie. I am not a complete fool. Yours is the sensible voice. But I don’t want to think that! If this is a romantic dream I want to dream it! I must go. Perhaps going will wake me up.’ His smile is apologetic. Maisie has not shown such spirit in all this long year. He looks at the sweet, round face, flushed now, the brown curls damp with steam. She is pretty — more than pretty. His hopeless longing for Rose has made him blind, and now he is seeing the world clearly again.
Maisie’s tears are falling silently. She busies herself with a mop, though the floor is spotless. ‘I expect I will wait,’ she says, her voice choking. ‘More fool me. I will hope you come down to earth, as you surely must.’
A Scrimshaw Tooth
THE WORD IS that Brennan Scobie has agreed to survey the new rope-road. Already he is making his way back to the Hill.
Nolly Hanratty has brought the news back from Burnett’s Face and told his sister. Neither has been able to tell their parents. Now Willie Winkie hears this bit of gossip from Liza. He sits at the Hanrattys’ kitchen table, head slumped onto his hands, coat dripping onto the floor. He is just back from a disastrous day at the races in Westport and the news does nothing to cheer him up.
‘Well, so feckin’ what?’ he says, without looking up.
‘Language!’ says Liza, but gets no response. She places dates into the pudding mix one by one, as if she were adding precious pearls to a piece of jewellery. ‘So we might win the championship again,’ she says at last.
‘And you will be off like a shot, making moon-eyes at our musical prodigy.’
Liza flushes. She watches the drooping little fellow closely, then smiles. Any sad thing goes straight to Liza Hanratty’s tender heart. ‘Willie Winkie, what’s bitten you? Didn’t I hear that Black Knight did well on his first race of the season?’
Willie looks up then. ‘Aye, so he did. Third. That boncey lad will beat his dam one day.’
‘And Miss Demeanour came second?’
‘Well, and second is not first. All the same, I’d give quids to own her.’
‘Isn’t one enough for a wee lad like you?’
Willie Winkie droops again. ‘Ah, what’s the feckin’ use?’ he mutters. He watches in silence as Liza stirs the mix and then rattles two dishes of cinnamon pudding into the range. For once she is quick at her work. She sits down and takes one of Wee Willie’s cold little hands in her warm floury ones. Willie is startled to see there are tears in her eyes. Mind you, Liza cries at the drop of a hat, but why now?
‘Wee Willie,’ says Liza earnestly, ‘I want you to know that I will not be chasing after Brennan Scobie. That was an infatuation of the past. To me he is simply a champion cornet, no more.’
‘So you say.’
Liza sighs grandly. ‘My heart flies free.’
Willie cocks an eye to the ceiling. ‘But would it be fluttering in any particular direction, maybe?’
‘Ah well, at present …’ Liza pauses for effect. She gazes out the little window. ‘At present it might be fluttering a little south, I’d say.’
Willie Winkie laughs out loud. He reaches up to pull Liza’s head down and plants a smacking kiss on her lips. There is something practised about the move. This is not a first kiss. ‘Liza Hanratty, you’re a lovely feckin’ marvel and any other day I would say I am the luckiest jumping jockey on the Coast. Except,’ he adds with a despairing shrug, ‘not today when my damned luck has gone riding out the back door.’ He beats his hand on the table. ‘Oy oy oy! We could’ve been made! We could have been home and stabled, my lovely!’
Liza looks at him severely. ‘You bet on the horses?’
Willie spreads his hands. ‘When do I not? Ah, but this time I am ruined!’
Even a story as disastrous as this Willie tells with relish, Liza adding the spice of her sighs and tears and little fluttering cries. Clearly this is a point of attraction between the two — Willie’s talent as a storyteller and hers as a deeply involved audience.
On the Hill Willie Winkie acts as an unofficial agent for punters, placing bets for them down at the racetrack at Sergeant’s Hill, a mile or two out of Westport. He is trusted. Everything is written in his little notebook and every penny accounted for when he returns. He charges threepence per transaction, win or lose, thus always covering his own bets with a small income. Willie Winkie is a canny punter himself and will often win a tidy sum on top.
Heart of Coal Page 12
