‘Hello?’
The door to his left opened, just a foot wide. A plump blonde with rosy cheeks and small suspicious eyes peered through the crack with her hand shielding a candle.
‘I just saw someone stomp around the garden, shouting at himself,’ she said cautiously. ‘Was that you?’
‘I wasn’t shouting. I was thinking aloud.’ He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
‘I suppose you’re the new conchie.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘And what a little ray of sunshine you are. Come on in. The kitchen’s over there, if you want to get changed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No need. And do feel free to go on shouting at yourself if you feel the urge. The walls are thick and we’re very tolerant here.’
In the chilly kitchen Charlie ripped off his wet clothes and tossed them on the black iron range. The flagstones were cold and he hopped from foot to foot.
‘Lovely summer,’ he shouted. ‘Picnic weather.’
The door opened and the girl came in, stared at his full frontal nakedness, clapped her hands over her eyes. She showed no inclination to move but simply stood there with her eyes covered and asked: ‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t mean to make you come in!’
‘Then why did you call me?’
‘I didn’t!’
‘Were you thinking aloud again?’
‘Can you please leave the kitchen so I can put on some dry clothes?’
‘No need to be shy.’ She giggled. ‘It’s not as if there’s much to see.’
‘Out!’
And he slammed the door shut behind her.
He took his time, dried himself slowly with a tea towel, put on the winter clothes he’d brought in wise foresight. The door opened again.
‘I’m not looking! I’m only going to make tea.’
She made a great show of keeping her back to him while she filled the rusty kettle with water, and chatted easily over his sullen silence. Her name was Georgina; a land girl, not generally fond of conchies but the ones at Swarthmoor were all right, she was glad of the company. The farmer had put her up in an abandoned cottage next to the Hall but it was cold there, and she preferred to sleep in the room above the cow.
She revived the dying fire in the kitchen with a couple of logs and brought him a blanket. He felt a bit bad about having been rude to her; it was not her fault that this place made the Highgate troglodytes look futuristic.
Her voice rippled on pleasantly. Like a gurgling stream. Charlie abandoned himself to the warmth of the fire and drifted into the toasty comfort of sleep.
*
He was woken by shouting. The door swung open. Three men stumbled in and left a trail of puddles on the flagstones. One of them pulled off his jacket, sweater and undershirt in one single violent tug, grabbed a towel from a chair and began vigorously to rub his thick neck and torso. He bowed his head to towel his hair and the swell of his broad back.
‘Lamb, I suppose,’ he said without looking up. ‘Good to have you here. One more hand at the udder.’
His name was Jack and he was a political objector, not a God-botherer. Just to be clear.
‘Same here,’ Charlie said, and crossed his arms. Who was going to check his papers here, anyway?
‘Good.’
Jack grabbed five bottles of stout from a roughly built shelf, carried them effortlessly between the fingers of his massive hands and set them down on the kitchen table. He drank straight from the bottle and Charlie copied him.
Georgina began to ladle out bowls of soup. It was only now that Charlie took a good look at the other two men. Short, wiry, and fizzing with nervous energy, they were twins, and had previously worked as printers in London. Camden Plumbers & Roofers brochures by day, Workers’ Revolt by night: they too were political conchies. In London they had been known as Marx and Engels, nicknames that made it over to Swarthmoor.
‘So there aren’t actually any Quakers here?’ Charlie had been prepared for a group of meek half-wits he could impress with impersonations of the Elder of Snotsborough.
‘Feeling lonely?’ Jack licked his beer-moistened lips. The twins snorted with derision. Charlie noticed a lino print on the wall, probably the work of one of the twins. It showed a grinning man in a cloak and hood, and underneath the caption: ‘Guy Fawkes – the only man to enter parliament with honest intentions.’
Charlie pointed at the poster with his beer bottle. ‘Not bad.’
‘Thanks. I made it,’ said Marx, or perhaps it was Engels.
‘My brother’s a printer,’ Charlie said. ‘Well, an artist, but he occasionally makes prints.’
‘Fascinating.’ Jack pulled a chunk of wood and a knife from his pocket and began to whittle away at the wood. The shavings fell in his empty bowl, on the table, on the freshly washed flagstones. Georgina groaned.
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that over some newspaper, could I?’
‘You could.’
‘Here. Newspaper. Take it.’
‘I’m not in the habit of taking orders from anyone.’
Georgina turned to Charlie and widened her small blue eyes.
‘You see what they’re like?’
‘I only said I wasn’t taking orders from anyone.’ Jack stood up, grabbed a broom and swept the wood shavings towards the middle of the kitchen, where he brushed them neatly into a metal dustpan. ‘And I’m not.’
‘Unless they’re from Moscow.’
Jack kicked the dustpan, scattering the shavings he had so carefully swept up.
‘He’s in a mood,’ Georgina stage-whispered. ‘Moscow hasn’t called in a while.’
‘Bit rich coming from someone who thinks Moscow is a type of coffee,’ Jack replied.
She blushed and said to Charlie: ‘It was only because the twins printed a poster that said “Moscow” in Cyrillic, and in Cyrillic it looks like “mocha”, which reminded me of the little blue mocha cups we had at home. So I thought the poster might be a Russian advertisement for coffee.’
‘And when we tried to explain that it was Cyrillic . . .’ Jack grinned at the twins.
‘. . . she said . . .’ Marx nodded at Engels, who shrieked in a high-pitched whine: ‘. . . “Cyrillic? But I thought they all spoke Russian!”’
‘Hilarious.’ Georgina stood up and lifted a big enamel pot off the counter. ‘I hear that in Russia conscientious objectors are imprisoned as enemies of the people and sent to shovel snow in Siberia.’
‘And who told you that? Father Duffy after choir practice? Yes, he’s a particularly reliable source.’ Jack’s grim mood had evaporated, and he even picked up the broom again and whistled as he swept the flagstones.
Marx, on the other hand, twitched with anger. He kneaded his sinewy hands as if to stop himself lashing out. Eventually, he said: ‘One ought to be very careful about spreading those sorts of lies. It might seem like jolly good fun now, but . . . just think about what you said. Conchies in the Soviet Union. Well, we all know there are no conchies in the Soviet Union. And here’s why. Let me spell it out for you, Georgina, dear. What does “Soviet” mean?’
‘Coffee.’ Georgina appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself, and even winked at Charlie as if to say, isn’t this tremendously entertaining? The strings of her apron had been pulled tight to emphasize her waist, and her hips were wide enough to support the pot, which she steadied with her strong arms.
‘No, Georgina dear,’ said Marx, and his tight little mouth twisted itself into an awful smile. ‘Soviet does not mean coffee. It means council. As in workers’ council. Now who do you think would oppose the army of a workers’ council?’
‘A group of girly chaps who enjoy milking cows?’
His hands squeezed and pulled each other ever more furiously.
‘Father Duffy,’ Georgina added, with the recklessness of a child testing how far she could go, ‘has asked us especially to pray for the poor frozen
Soviet conchies, but you’ll be pleased to hear he also suggested we pray for the generals in the Red Army, because their souls are not only stained by atheism but also by the horrific treatment of—’
‘Father Duffy can go to hell!’ The hands flew apart, knocking bowls and bottles to the floor. ‘Here I am, a proud urban proletarian, having to listen to the verbal farts of a peasant priest! If you must go to Mass, if you must have your virgin birth celebrations with Father Duffy, then at least spare us the details, and in fact spare us the overview, too. Poor Soviet conchies, you say? I say Tsarist lackeys! Imperialist retrogrades! Bourgeois vampires feeding on the cracked bone marrow of the people!’ Marx climbed onto his chair. ‘I say cannibals! Cannibals bent on sucking every last drop of blood from the revolution until the red flag pales to white! Pedlars of perversity who’ve made it their sorry lives’ mission to drive a dagger through the heart of the Red Army, to feast on the smouldering ashes of the workers’ state and pick through its charred ruins for gold.’ With his last words he jumped on the table and shook his fist. ‘Saboteurs are like rot. Now don’t you ever describe this rampant fungus, this blood-sucking plague, this . . . this . . . necrotizing fasciitis on the body of humanity, as a sentient being with an objection, let alone a conscientious one.’
Georgina balanced the pot on the counter and applauded the raging, stomping creature on the table with genuine delight.
‘You did it again, Marxy! Hooray, you did it again! One day you’ll break that table, by God you will. Pedlars of perversity and necrotizing something, well, I’ve certainly learned new words today.’ She smiled at Charlie. ‘I’ve told you this bunch is priceless. I’m having much more fun than I ever did at home. And now I’m going to take the soup over to little Mrs Pye.’
Charlie, dizzied by the mad exchange, clung to the familiar name like a nauseous boy stepping off a carousel. ‘Mrs Pye?’
‘A cranky Quaker lady we’ve got to feed along with the cow. She lives just across—’
A deafening cacophony exploded in the kitchen. Marx was still ranting on the kitchen table. Jack decided to use the dustpan as a hammer, the table as an anvil, and with much banging and noise accused Marx of having an urban superiority complex: let it not be forgotten that the Russian revolution started in the countryside. Engels tried to make a point quietly, but no one listened.
Charlie fled the din, and did not mind one bit that it was still raining outside.
‘Until the red flag pales to white!’ Georgina sang under the rain, and swung the pot from side to side with such vigour that he feared she might drop it.
2
The cottage consisted of a sunken thatched roof and concave walls yielding to the wind. Weeds devoured the front porch and crept over cracked dull windows. The door opened straight onto a squalid parlour.
Mary Pye sat by the fire, wrapped in a ratty grey plaid, her head bowed as it had always been in Silent Meeting. In the few months since he had last seen her, her hair had thinned and there was a bare patch of skin on her crown.
‘Well, hello!’
‘Charles!’ She raised her thin arms. ‘Darling boy!’
He was uncomfortably aware of Georgina watching him, and greeted Mary Pye with a little more distance than he would have liked. Only when Georgina left did he give her his best smile. ‘The chaps at Swarthmoor Hall are a rather frightening bunch, aren’t they? There was one who jumped on the table – I thought he was going to grab a knife and murder us all. Another attacked him with a dustpan, and the girl, well, she looked as if she was going to pour boiling soup over us. It rather made me look forward to a bit of quiet Bible study with you.’
She waved him away with her hand. ‘Serve me some soup, will you?’
There was something rather odd about her, but he could not decide what it was.
‘I suppose they’re all right once you get used to them,’ he mumbled uncertainly.
‘Who?’
‘The chaps at Swarthmoor.’
‘Oh, them. They mended my roof the other day.’
‘Well, when I said they were frightening, of course I didn’t mean frightening. I only meant . . .’ But he wasn’t sure what he had meant.
She said her usual prayers before beginning to eat, and that comforted him a little. Then she asked him to serve another bowl.
‘Thank you, I’ve already eaten.’
She insisted. He filled another bowl and sat down in a musty armchair next to her. But as soon as he began to eat, she rapped the wooden arm of her chair and said: ‘Then serve one more, will you, and put it on the table. Just leave it there on the table.’
He did as he was told, looked up and cried: ‘That’s what it is! You’ve dropped your plain speech!’
‘Well, I haven’t really, but the girl finds it so very queer . . . and also, you know, Charles, in London it felt somehow right to preserve the old ways, but when I came back here I looked at all the people in Silent Meeting thee-ing and thou-ing, and going on about our Friend Mary Pye, and everything was first-day and seventh-month, and it rather got on my nerves.’
She pointed at the bowl. ‘Just put it there, dear, by the fire.’
They slurped their soup.
‘Are you expecting someone?’
She didn’t reply and he decided to ignore the third bowl.
‘And how is Paul?’ She speared some bread on a toasting fork.
‘Not too well, unfortunately. You remember he failed his tribunal.’
She let go of the fork and upset her bowl. Soup spilled into her lap.
‘Oh, oh dear – oh dear.’ He brought her a dishrag and she dabbed at herself with mounting distress and confusion. ‘He’s going to join the army, is he?’
‘No, he—’
‘It’s evil of them to force him. But that’s how it is, the maws of war must be fed.’ She wrung the soup-stained dishrag and her breath quickened. ‘There was nothing he could do, was there? They wanted my Seth, and they got him.’
It surprised him that she muddled the names. Her mind was sharp one moment, fuzzy the next. He picked up the toasting fork and pushed the now-burning bread away from the fire.
The blanket had slipped from her shoulders, freeing an unpleasant smell of decay. She rocked back and forth.
‘I did copy out the peace testimony for him,’ she mumbled. ‘I said, here it is, our testimony that has held true since 1660, a testimony against all strife and wars! We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love and unity.’
She stopped rocking and stared at Charlie. ‘Seth, dear, we are commanded to bear our testimony. Out there in the slaughter, thee shall remember thy mother’s words.’
Charlie glanced at the third bowl of soup.
‘I’m not going to join up,’ he said in a soothing voice, hoping he could bring her back to the present. ‘And neither will Paul. They told him to go and join the army, but he refused, so they arrested him and sent him to gaol, and that’s where he’s going to be for a few months.’
‘Gaol!’
‘Oh, it’s not as bad as it sounds. There is a special wing for Friends, and . . .’ He thought of something else he could invent to cheer her up. ‘. . . There are Silent Meetings every morning. And very good cells with stoves.’
‘Oh, that is good.’ She frowned with nervous confusion. ‘Still, it is never pleasant to be in hospital.’ Then she took his hands and held them in her own. The smell of decay became overpowering.
The third bowl sat there, all the more prominent for being untouched. The chunks of chicken and potato had sunk to the bottom and clear broth remained at the top. There was a thin line of liquid and herbs smeared around the inside of the bowl just above the soup, like a water line after the tide has gone out. Like the mark left in a soup bowl after someone has drunk from it. Charlie told himself not to be daft. The third bowl had been placed close to the fire; some of the liquid had merely evaporated.
Mary Py
e appeared to have dozed off. Charlie was about pick up the tray and to tiptoe to the door when she grabbed his arm.
‘It is good for us to be here,’ she whispered. ‘I am as comfortable, and well in my spirit, as ever I was.’
She pulled the blanket around her and turned towards the fire.
The next morning, Charlie went to see her again. The fire was cold and she was in the same armchair, huddled in the same blanket, asleep. He felt bad then for not having helped her into her bedroom despite her obvious frailty. He boiled some water for tea in the kitchen, trying not to wake her. The cottage was very quiet. Now and then he turned to see if she moved, or shivered, or stirred. The third time he turned round, he looked at her, looked at the stiff fingers, the parchment skin, the closed eyes, the still face, and realized that she was dead.
3
The Quakers’ founding mother, Margaret Fell, was buried at Sunbrick burial ground, not far from Swarthmoor Hall, in 1702. Mary Pye, who had always believed herself to be Fell’s direct descendant, was laid to rest there on a July morning in 1940.
The funeral was as plain as her life: half an hour of silence; a handful of Friends from Ulverston. On the insistence of a Pye cousin, a local vicar, an additional Anglican service was held in the parish church. It was a sunny day and Charlie lingered in the cemetery for a few moments. There he found Mary Pye’s late husband and her son.
Charlie would not have made the connection had the vicar’s wife not sidled up to him and pointed out an inconspicuous grey slab: ‘That’s him.’
‘But Mary Pye never married.’
‘Did she not! You never saw such a loving wife. Only her husband wasn’t a Quaker. They almost threw her out of the Society for that, you know; they used to be rather strict around here. If you ask me, she would have liked to be buried next to him, even if it is an Anglican graveyard.’
Of Love and Other Wars Page 13
