by Jojo Moyes
“Yup. And no place on earth better than the cool of the mountains.” Margery strode down to the creek and refilled her bottle, screwing the lid back on tightly. “Give me and Patch two weeks, Miss Brady, and I promise you, legs or no, you won’t want to be anywhere else in Kentucky.”
Isabelle looked unconvinced. The women ate their apples in silence, fed the horses and Charley the cores, then mounted again. This time, Alice noted, Isabelle scrambled up by herself without complaint. She rode behind her for a while, watching.
“You liked the children.” Alice rode up next to her as they started on the track to the side of a long green field. Margery was some distance ahead, singing to herself, or perhaps to the mule—it was often hard to tell.
“I’m sorry?”
“You looked happier. At the school.” Alice smiled tentatively. “I thought you might have enjoyed that part of today.”
Isabelle’s face clouded. She gathered up her reins and half turned away.
“I’m sorry, Miss Brady,” said Alice, after a moment. “My husband tells me I speak without thinking. I’ve obviously done it again. I didn’t mean to be . . . intrusive or rude. Forgive me.”
She pulled her horse back so that she was once again behind Isabelle Brady. She cursed herself silently, wondering whether she would ever be able to find the right balance with these people. Isabelle plainly didn’t want to communicate at all. She thought of Peggy’s clique of young women, most of whom she only recognized in town because they scowled at her. She thought of Annie, who, half the time, looked at her as if she’d stolen something. Margery was the only one who didn’t make her feel like an alien. And she, to be fair, was a little odd herself.
They had gone another half-mile when Isabelle turned her head so that she was looking over her shoulder. “It’s Izzy,” she said.
“Izzy?”
“My name. People I like call me Izzy.”
Alice barely had time to digest this when the girl spoke again. “And I smiled because . . . it was the first time.”
Alice leaned forward, trying to make out the words. The girl spoke so quietly.
“First time for what? Riding in the mountains?”
“No.” Izzy straightened up a little. “The first time I’ve been in a school and nobody was laughing at me for my leg.”
* * *
• • •
You think she’ll come back?”
Margery and Alice sat on the top step of the stoop, batting away flies and watching heat rise off the shimmering road. The horses had been washed and set loose in the pasture and the two women were drinking coffee, stretching creaking limbs and trying to summon the energy to check and enter the days’ books in the ledger.
“Hard to say. She don’t seem to like it much.”
Alice had to admit she was probably right. She watched as a panting dog walked along the road, then lowered itself wearily into the shade of a nearby log store.
“Not like you.”
Alice looked up at her. “Me?”
“You’re like a prisoner sprung from jail most mornings.” Margery sipped her coffee and gazed out at the road. “I sometimes think you love these mountains as much as I do.”
Alice kicked at a pebble with her heel. “I think I might like them better than anywhere on earth. I just feel . . . more myself up here.”
Margery glanced at her and smiled conspiratorially. “This is what people don’t see, wrapped up in their cities, with the noise and the smoke, and their tiny boxes for houses. Up there you can breathe. You can’t hear the town talking and talking. No eyes on you, ’cept God’s. It’s just you and the trees and the birds and the river and the sky and freedom . . . Out there, it’s good for the soul.”
A prisoner sprung from jail. Sometimes Alice wondered if Margery knew more about her life with the Van Cleves than she let on. She was dragged from her thoughts by a blaring horn. Bennett was driving his father’s motor-car toward the library. He shuddered to an abrupt halt, so that the dog leaped up, its tail between its legs. He was waving at her, his smile wide and uncomplicated. She couldn’t help but smile back: he was as handsome as a movie star on a cigarette card.
“Alice! . . . Miss O’Hare,” he said, catching sight of her.
“Mr. Van Cleve,” Margery answered.
“Came to fetch you home. Thought we might take that picnic you were talking about.”
Alice blinked. “Really?”
“Got a couple of problems with the coal tipple that won’t be fixed until tomorrow and Pa’s in the office trying to sort it out. So I flew home and got Annie to do us a picnic. Thought I’d race you back in the car and you can get changed and we’ll head straight out while it’s still light. Pa says we can have this old girl all evening.”
Alice stood up, delighted. Then her face fell. “Oh, Bennett, I can’t. We haven’t entered the books or sorted them and we’re so behind. We’ve only just finished the horses.”
“You go,” said Margery.
“But that’s not fair on you. Not with Beth gone and Izzy disappearing as soon as we got back.”
Margery waved a hand.
“But—”
“Go on now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Alice glanced at her to check that she meant it, then gathered up her things and whooped as she raced down the steps. “I probably smell like a cowboy again,” she warned, as she climbed into the passenger side and kissed her husband’s cheek.
He grinned. “Why do you think I’ve got the top open?” He reversed into a speedy three-point turn, causing the dust to fly up in the road, and Alice squealed as they roared toward home.
* * *
• • •
He was not a mule prone to exaggerated shows of temper or high emotion, but Margery rode Charley home at a slow walk. He had worked hard and she was in no hurry. She sighed, thinking of the day. A flighty Englishwoman who knew nothing of the area, whom the mountain people might not trust, and would probably be pulled away by that braying blowhard Mr. Van Cleve, and a girl who could barely walk, couldn’t ride and didn’t want to be there. Beth worked when she could but her family would need her for the harvest during much of September. Hardly the most auspicious start to a traveling library. She wasn’t sure how long any of them would last.
They reached the broken-down barn where the trail split and she dropped her reins onto his narrow neck, knowing the mule would find his own way home. As she did, her dog, a young blue-eyed speckled hound, bolted toward her, his tail clamped between his legs and his tongue lolling in his delight to see her. “What in heck are you doing out here, Bluey boy? Huh? Why aren’t you in the yard?”
She reached the small paddock gate and dismounted, noting that the ache in her lower back and shoulders probably owed more to hoisting Izzy Brady on and off a horse than any real distance she had traveled. The dog bounded around her, only settling when she ruffled his neck between her hands and confirmed that yes, he was a good boy, yes, he was, at which point he raced back into the house. She released the mule, watching as Charley dropped to the ground, folding his knees under him, then rocking backward and forward in the dirt with a satisfied groan.
She didn’t blame him: her own feet were heavy as she made her way up the steps. She reached for the door, then stopped. The latch was off. She stared at it for a moment, thinking, then walked quietly to the empty barrel at the side of the barn where she kept her spare rifle under a piece of sacking. Alert now, she lifted the safety catch and raised it to her shoulder. Then she tiptoed back up the steps, took a breath, and quietly hooked the door open with the toe of her boot.
“Who’s there?”
Directly across the room, Sven Gustavsson sat on her rocker, his feet up on the low table and a copy of Robinson Crusoe in his hands. He didn’t flinch, but waited a moment for her to lower the gun. He put the book carefully on the table, a
nd rose to his feet slowly, placing his hands with almost exaggerated courtesy behind his back. She stared at him for a moment, then propped her gun against the table. “I wondered why the dog didn’t bark.”
“Yeah, well. Me and him. You know how it is.”
Bluey, that squirming traitor, was nestling under Sven’s arm now, pushing at him with his long nose, begging to be petted.
Margery took off her hat and hung it on the hook, then pushed the sweaty hair from her forehead. “Wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“You weren’t looking.”
Without meeting his eye, she moved past him to the table, where she pulled the lace cover from a jug of water and poured herself a cup.
“You not going to offer me some?”
“Never knew you to drink water before.”
“And you won’t offer me anything stronger?”
She put the cup down. “What are you doing here, Sven?”
He looked at her steadily. He was wearing a clean checked shirt and he gave off a smell of coal-tar soap and something uniquely his, something that spoke of the sulfurous smell of the mine and smoke and maleness. “I missed you.”
She felt something give a little in her, and brought the cup to her lips to hide it. She swallowed. “Seems to me you’re doing just fine without me.”
“You and I both know I can do just fine without you. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to.”
“We’ve been through this.”
“And I still don’t get it. I told you if we marry I won’t try to pin you down. I won’t control you. I’ll let you live exactly as you live now except you and I—”
“You’ll let me, will you?”
“Goddamn it, Marge, you know what I mean.” His jaw tightened. “I’ll let you be. We can be exactly as we are now.”
“Then what’s the point in us going through with a wedding?”
“The point is that we’ll be married in the eyes of God, not sneaking around like a pair of goddamn kids. You think I like this? You think I want to hide from my own brother, from the rest of the town, the fact that I love the bones of you?”
“I won’t marry you, Sven. I always told you I wouldn’t marry anybody. And every time you go on about it I swear my head feels like it’s going to explode just like the dynamite in one of your tunnels. I won’t talk to you if you’re just going to keep coming here and going over the same thing again and again.”
“You won’t talk to me anyways. So what in hell am I supposed to do?”
“Leave me alone. Like we decided.”
“Like you decided.”
She turned away from him and walked to the bowl in the corner, where she had covered some beans she had picked early that morning. She began stringing them, one by one, snapping off the ends and throwing them into a pan, waiting for the blood to stop thumping in her ears.
She felt him before she saw him. He walked quietly across the room and stood directly behind her so that she could feel his breath on her bare neck. She knew without looking that her skin flushed where it touched her.
“I’m not like your father, Margery,” he murmured. “If you don’t know that about me by now then there’s no telling you.”
She kept her hands busy. Snap. Snap. Snap. Keep the beans. Discard the string. The floorboards creaked under her feet.
“Tell me you don’t miss me.”
Ten gone. Strip off that leaf. Snap. And another. He was so close now that she could feel his chest against her as he spoke.
His voice lowered. “Tell me you don’t miss me and I’ll head out of here right now. I won’t bother you again. I promise.”
She closed her eyes. She let the knife fall, and put her hands on the work surface, palms down, her head dipping. He waited a moment, then placed his own over them gently, so that hers were entirely covered. She opened her eyes and regarded them: strong hands, knuckles covered with raised burn scars. Hands she had loved for the best part of a decade.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, into her ear.
She turned then, swiftly taking his face between her hands and kissing him, hard. Oh, but she had missed the feel of his lips on hers, his skin against hers. Heat rose between them, her breath quickened, and everything she had told herself, the logic, the arguments she had rehearsed in her head in the long dark hours, melted away as his arm slid around her, pulling her into him. She kissed him and she kissed him and she kissed him, his body familiar and newly unfamiliar to her, reason leaching away with the aches and pains and frustrations of the day. She heard a clatter as the bowl fell to the floor, then it was only his breath, his lips, his skin upon hers and Margery O’Hare, who would be owned by nobody, and told by nobody, let herself soften and give, her body lowering inch by inch until it was pinned against the wooden sideboard by the weight of his own.
* * *
• • •
What kind of bird is that? Look at the color of it. It’s so beautiful.”
Bennett lay on his back on the rug as Alice pointed above them to the branches of the tree. Around them sat the remains of their picnic.
“Darling? Do you know what bird that is? I’ve never seen anything as red as that. Look! Even its beak is red.”
“I’m not much for reading up on birds and such, sweetheart.” She saw that Bennett’s eyes were closed. He slapped at a bug on the side of his cheek, and held out his hand for another ginger beer.
Margery knew all the different birds, Alice thought, as she reached across to the hamper. She resolved to ask her the following morning. As they rode, Margery talked to Alice of milkweed and goldenrod, pointing out Jack-in-the-pulpit and the tiny fragile flowers of touch-me-nots, so that once where Alice had just seen a sea of green, she had pulled back a veil to reveal a whole new dimension.
Below them the creek trickled peacefully; the same creek, Margery had warned her, that would become a destructive torrent during the spring. It seemed so unlikely. For now the earth was dry, the grass a soft thatch under their heads, the crickets a steady hum across the meadow. Alice handed her husband the bottle and waited as he lifted himself on one elbow to take a swig from it, half hoping that he would just lean over her and scoop her up. When he lowered himself down she tucked herself into his arm and placed her hand on his shirt.
“Well, I could just stay like this all day,” he said peaceably.
She reached her arm across him. Her husband smelled better than any man she’d ever met. It was as if he carried the sweetness of the Kentucky grass with him. Other men sweated and grew sour and grubby. Bennett always returned from the mine settlement as if he had just walked out of a magazine advertisement. She gazed at his face, at the strong contours of his chin, the way his honey-colored hair was clipped short just around his ears.
“Do you think I’m pretty, Bennett?”
“You know I think you’re pretty.” His voice was sleepy.
“Are you happy we got married?”
“Of course I am.”
Alice trailed a finger around his shirt button. “Then why—”
“Let’s not get all serious, Alice, huh? No need to go on about things, is there? Can’t we just have a nice time?”
Alice lifted her hand from his shirt. She twisted and lowered herself down onto the rug so that only their shoulders were touching. “Sure.”
They lay in the grass, side by side, looking up at the sky, in silence. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “Alice?”
She glanced at him. She swallowed, her heart thumping against her ribcage. She placed her hand on his, trying to convey to him her tacit encouragement, to tell him without words that she would be a support, that it would be okay, whatever he said. She was his wife, after all.
She waited a moment. “Yes?”
“It’s a cardinal,” he said. “The red one. I’m pretty sure it’s a cardinal.”
. . . marriage, they say, halves one’s rights and doubles one’s duties.
• LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Little Women
The first memory Margery O’Hare had was of sitting under her mother’s kitchen table and watching through her fingers as her father slugged her fourteen-year-old brother Jack across the room, knocking two teeth clean out of his jaw when he tried to stop him beating her mother. Her mother, who took a fair number of beatings but would not tolerate that fate for her children, promptly threw a kitchen chair at her husband’s head, leaving him with a jagged scar on his forehead that remained until he died. He hit her back with its smashed leg, of course, once he was able to stand straight, and the fight had only stopped when Papaw O’Hare had staggered round from next door with his rifle at his shoulder and murder in his eyes and threatened to blow Frank O’Hare’s damn head clean off his damn shoulders if he didn’t stop. It wasn’t that Grandpa believed his son beating his wife was inherently wrong, Margery discovered some time later, but Memaw had been trying to listen to the wireless and half the holler couldn’t hear past the screaming. There was a hole in the pinewood wall that Margery could put her whole fist into for the rest of her childhood.
Jack left for good that day, a wad of bloodied cotton in his mouth and his one good shirt in his kit bag, and the next time Margery heard his name (leaving was considered such an act of family disloyalty he was effectively disappeared from family history) was eight years later when they received a wire to say that Jack had died after being hit by a railroad car in Missouri. Her mother had cried salty, heartbroken tears into her apron, but her father had hurled a book at her and told her to pull her damn self together before he really gave her something to cry about and disappeared to his stills. The book was Black Beauty and Margery never forgave him for having ripped off the back cover while doing so and somehow her love for her lost brother and her desire to escape into the world of books became melded together into something fierce and obstinate in that one broken-backed copy.
