Stone Cradle (32 page)

‘Thank you, sir, but my mother is waiting for me.’ I bobbed a little curtsey. I could think of no other way to be rid of him.

He leaned forward and laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘Well, young lady, don’t forget what I have said. Should you ever choose to live
a different sort of life, then ways and means are open to you so to do.’

His hand was large, his grip firm. I knew nothing about men, but I knew this man felt he had the right to put his hand on my shoulder, and that I would be wise to keep my distance from him, however kindly he might seem.

I was troubled as I walked back to the camp, for my head was full of the encounters I had had that afternoon. I could not entirely distinguish between them: Thomas Freeman’s smile and gentle voice, the vicar’s hand upon my shoulder – the way my body felt warm and strange at night sometimes, a different body from the one I was used to. I wanted to be different, and was terrified of it. I could not name the feelings I had. But I felt as though I was on the verge of seeing the whole world in a new way, and although it was a frightening feeling, it was joyful as well.

My father was outside our
vardo,
whittling a stick. I looked at him warily as I approached. Redeemus Grey would surely have spoken to him straightaway. But Dadus looked at me and nodded in his normal, half-distracted manner, and I thought, maybe Redeemus Grey is not quite as hard a man as I have always thought him to be. Maybe he’s decided to let me off – or maybe he just had other things on his mind.

That night, I lay on the grass between my Dei and Dadus – the weather was so fine, we were all sleeping outside, which was a thing that pleased me greatly at the time in my life when I was young, and safe. I loved stirring in the night, wakening a little, in that half-dreamy way. I loved lying on my back and looking up at the night sky, whether cloudy or star-lit, the whole of the eternity up there, opened up to me by the darkness, and me open to it too but safe between my parents. That night, I lay awake for ages with my arms flung above my head, as if to stretch out and show
the all-of-me to the night sky, as if the very moon could swoop down and carry me high, high, high …

By the end of the week, a summer rain set in. It drizzled steadily through the next few days and the world went back to being damp and difficult, as it always does when it rains. The men and boys in our group started a good solid job on that Monday, up at Lowlands Farm. They were to build a new cow shed for the farmer, and clear some of his yards, and he wanted it done quickly so even the small boys were at it. Us girls were taking it in turns to go across the fields to the farm to take the men their victuals. They were out there from dawn ’til dusk, so it took several trips each day.

Come the Wednesday, it was my turn to do the to-ing and fro-ing, and what with helping with the preparation, that was most of my day occupied. Mid-morning, my mother prepared a basket of bread and cheese and sent me across the fields with it weighing heavily on my arm and my feet slipping on the wet grass. Before I left, she said that when I got back I was to put potatoes on the embers as she and Lena Grey were going out for eggs and she wanted the potatoes started.

A fine, warm drizzle fell as I crossed the fields. I was not really thinking about Thomas or the vicar that day. There is something about a change in weather that can make a week seem like a long time ago.

As I was approaching Lowlands Farm, I saw Redeemus Grey walking out of the yard. He saw me, and changed course to meet me on my way.

We met, and faced each other. There was a look on his face I didn’t at all like, an angry look. I thought how he had spotted me talking with Thomas the previous week and wished that, if he was going to tell on me to my Dadus, he would do it quick and get it over with. Perhaps he was resenting me because he hadn’t told yet, and would feel better when he had got me in trouble.

He held out one of his hands to take the basket. He was a large man, Redeemus Grey, with a huge round stomach and those fat lips that always look like they’re inside out. ‘That’s for us, then.’ He nodded at the basket.

I held it out reluctantly. I would have liked to have seen my Dadus and give it to him, not that there was any reason why I shouldn’t give it to Redeemus Grey.

‘I was on my way back to get something,’ he said, ‘Maybe I should give this to your father and walk back with you, eh?’

‘I could fetch it for you, if you like,’ I said hastily.

‘All right, then,’ he said, nodding. ‘We need the trowel from my toolbox. Your father’s got one but it’s not as big as mine. We need mine.’

‘I’ll get it for you and be right back,’ I said, and turned.

As I crossed the field, on the way back to the village, I congratulated myself on having avoided walking back with him, without ever asking myself why the thought of it made me so uncomfortable – or why, if he needed a trowel, he hadn’t just sent one of the boys back to get it. Even if I had thought about it, I suppose I would have just assumed that he was disapproving of my friendship with Thomas Freeman and holding it against me. I don’t think I would have put two and two together.

Between the fields and the village was a wide copse. The farmer used it for breeding game, I think. You didn’t have to go through it to get back to Werrington, you could skirt round the edge. There was a narrow path between it and the hedgerow what bordered the field. It was as I passed down this path, skirting the corner of the copse that he stepped out, blocking my path.

He must have run like a hare to cut me off, as it would have taken him a few minutes longer to enter the copse at the top and cut through it to the edge of the field. He didn’t have the basket with him, so must have stowed it somewhere.

I came to a halt, right in front of him. I felt sick and frightened inside of myself right away, even though I told myself it was just fat old Redeemus Grey and what was there to worry about, as he was nothing more than a man I didn’t like much on account of his unpleasant appearance and manner with me.

There was a look on his face, a hateful look. I was beginning to realise I had seen that look on several occasions before.

Neither of us spoke for a while. I didn’t speak because as long as we didn’t say anything to each other then I could fool myself that there was nothing to worry about, that this was just one of those meaningless things that happens from time to time, instead of a disaster. I don’t know why he remained silent. Enjoying himself, I suppose.

Eventually, I went to step round him. He moved to one side, blocking my path. I stopped, and tried the other way. I stopped again, took a deep breath, then turned on my heel to sprint back to the field, back to my father. That was a mistake, for it galvanised him into action, and later I was to wonder if maybe I could have talked my way out of it with promises. He caught me by the hair and pulled me backwards. The other hand came round my face to cover my mouth and pull me in close to him while he growled, ‘You bite me and it’ll be the worse for you.’ I was trying to call out but could hardly make a sound and my heart was thumping loud in my ribcage as he dragged me into the copse, behind the bushes, and threw me down. He stood over me for a minute and I knew I had to talk fast. ‘My mother’ll be expecting me back, Mr Grey, she’ll come looking for me in a minute, I’ll be in trouble …’ I got no further, for he was unbuttoning himself, and then he bent and pulled me into a sitting position. What he did then was a thing so awful I am ashamed to name it, for I did not even know it could be done. And while he did it, I began to choke and weep and he was talking to me saying, ‘You’ll not get the pleasure of them thin little boys that you’ll get from me …’
and his voice was full of hatred, hatred spilling from him, salty like pig fat but thick as tar.

At first, when he made that strange sound, I though maybe he was dying and I’d be able to get away and he’d be found in the woods a few days later and nobody would ever know that it was me that killed him. He released my hair and stepped back a step or two, and that was when I turned on all fours and gagged into the wet leaves, spittle dropping down, my insides heaving.

I should have jumped up and run then – I could have got away if I’d run at that point. But I was so sick and frightened and shaking from head to foot, and I thought that was it. I even thought he might say sorry.

He was still standing over me and looking down at me. Maybe someone will come by, I thought. He’ll have to move sharpish, then. Then I can hide in the bushes and sort myself out a bit before I go home. If I brushed the leaves off my skirts maybe I could make myself presentable. No one need know.

‘I’ve seen you,’ he said again, and his voice was just as vicious as before. ‘I’ve seen you walking down the lane. Like it, do you? Walking past me like that, thinking all I can do is stare at it? Enjoyed yourself, have you, flaunting yourself to the
gorjer
boys ’cause you know they’re too feeble to do anything about it? Didn’t reckon on me, though, did you? I’ve heard you laughing, I’ve crept up on you when you’ve been behind the hedge, laughing to each other. I know what goes on in your filthy heads. My girls are just the same.’ My head was swimming. What was he on about? His girls? He had been spying on us when we went to do our business, behind the hedge? Then I became more and more afraid, for I could tell that it wasn’t over, that it had been going on for ages and I hadn’t even known it I didn’t even like his girls. They were strange and sullen and I hardly even spoke to them if I could help it. And I thought of his wife and how quiet and bent she always seemed and how he had always been like just an ordinary
man that we didn’t like much and not this fat lump of hatred.

I glanced up at him. His breeches were still unfastened, and he was touching himself between his thumb and fingers. I looked away. I was sick with fear.

‘Let’s show you how it’s really done then, shall we?’ he said. And he knelt behind me and rested the flat of one thick, fat hand on my back to keep me bended. The other hand flung up my skirts, and then there was pain, just pain, and my face was in the dirt, and I was crying again and counting the seconds until it stopped and praying that no one came by to see me in such a low position, being done to as if I was nothing, and knowing I would always be nothing from now on because he was showing me how nothing I was.

When it was over, he lay on top of me. I was collapsed on the ground. His chest was over my face and I could hardly breath. There was a buckle or something sticking in my cheek. My other cheek was in the mud. He began to stroke my hair. ‘So now you know, my little love,’ he said, and his voice wasn’t hateful any more. ‘Now you know what all the fuss is about. You’ll get to like it soon enough.’ He rolled off me. I couldn’t move. He did up his breeches, then stuck one of his hands in his pocket. ‘Open your mouth,’ he said.

All the fight had gone out of me then. I just remember thinking, please let him go away soon, then I can go back to the
vardo.
More than anything, I wanted to be in the
vardo
under a blanket like when I had the scarlet fever and Dei came and put wet rags on my forehead and sang to me.

‘Here.’

I raised myself carefully on one elbow. My hair stuck to the mud on the ground and I had to free it with the other hand. He was holding a sixpence. He popped it onto my tongue, then closed my mouth by pushing at my chin. ‘That’s for keeping your mouth shut. You can buy yourself a bit of lace with that. I like lace on a girl.’

I gagged again and spat the coin into my hand. I sat looking at it on my palm.

He must have taken this for defiance, as he bent down and grabbed a handful of my hair and brought his face close to mine. His voice was low and filled with hate again. ‘And if you speak a word of this out loud, I’ll tell them all how you walked the length of Walton Lane with the baker’s boy, laughing and talking with him, and went behind the hedge with him, and maybe I’ll tell them how you sold yourself to me for the price of sixpence and they’ll all know you for what you are then, won’t they?’

Then he was gone.

I stood, unsteadily, and tried to brush some of the mud from my apron.

Going down to the stream was no good. I knew there wasn’t enough water in the whole of the Great Ouse to wash away what had happened to me. And then I did something for which I have never forgiven myself. I put the coin in my apron pocket.

It might have all been different if my Dei had been at the
vardo
when I got back. Threats or no threats I could never have kept it from her if she had seen me in the state I was in. But she’d gone out for eggs. I was met on the green by Melinda Grey, Redeemus Grey’s eldest, who took a long, hard look at me and pulled me into their
vardo.
Three of the young ’uns were in there and she tossed her head at them to go. ‘What happened to her?’ one of them said on the way out and Melinda snapped, ‘She fell down in the spinney, now go and fix that fire unless you want a smack on the head.’

She tried to pull my things off me but my apron bow was too neat for her. I had to do it myself. When she saw the mud on my knees she stared for a moment before saying in a low, disgusted voice, ‘Look at the state of you. Bundle it all up, for God’s sake. You’ll have to launder it straight off, all of it. I’ll give you ours to mix in with it. It’s your turn anyhow.’ As I pulled my skirt down, I
saw there was blood on the inside of it, and it was then I gave way.
He
stabbed
me,
I thought in terror.
I’ll
bleed
to
death.
I gave a low sob.

Melinda Grey took hold of my shoulders. ‘Shut it, okay? Your Mam and mine will be back soon so you’ve got to pull yourself together.’ She threw some of her sister’s clothes at me. ‘Put those on, then come down. If your Dei asks, say you came on early so I gave you some of my things to wear, helped you out.’ She left the
vardo.

I got dressed as quick as possible. I hated the idea that I was in
his
vardo,
the place where he slept. My legs were still unsteady but I made it down the steps and Melinda was waiting with the tin bucket and a slab of grey soap. She handed them to me, then said, ‘Wait here.’