Stone Cradle (33 page)

While I waited, the three young ’uns sat in a row on the ground, staring at me. They know, I thought. Perhaps everyone will know when they look at me. I am different, now.

Melinda came back with a bundle of their underthings. Me and their two eldest girls and my cousin always took it in turns with the things the men and boys shouldn’t see. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Orlanda has been on, so you’ll have to scrub hers with a rock.’

There was something satisfied in her tone. I saw how it was, how now I would be washing underthings with a purpose and knowing it to be more than just another chore, like they’d been doing. I was one of them now.

‘Go on,’ Melinda said, ‘and fix your hair while you’re about it.’

It was only when I was down by the stream, on all fours, that I unfolded my dirty apron and found the sixpence. I looked at it. It was an old one, with the Queen a young woman with her hair up. I turned it over, staring at it, as if I’d never seen a sixpence before. On the other side was a coronet of leaves and the crown nestling atop of them, as if it was waiting there to be put on her head so’s she would know she’d lost her youngness now and had to be Queen, whether she liked it or not.

I could have thrown the sixpence into the stream there and then I suppose, but there wasn’t any point. It was far too late for that.

When a man doesn’t want to leave you alone, there’s nothing you can do about it. Too late, I realised that the only way out of my predicament would have been to have told Dei or Dadus straightaway, not have cleaned myself up. For once I had cleaned myself up, then I had been a party to the hiding of it, and then I was more afraid of being found out than I was afraid of Redeemus Grey. I wanted it to stop happening, but even more I wanted it to never have happened in the first place, and if my mother or father found out, then that would be impossible.

It was only a matter of time, and sure enough, that summer, I realised something was wrong. I started to feel peculiar. I got dugs, for a start, what I had never had before, being as flat as a pancake, like my Dei. And I felt exhausted all the time – not tired, normal tired, but completely done in, as if even walking to the end of the road was like crossing the whole of Cambridgeshire. I felt like that all day long. And then, as autumn came along, there was the unmistakeable swelling of my belly, low down, not soft like when you go to fat, but hard. I couldn’t argue with that.

I was terrified. I didn’t know what to say to Dei and Dadus. Luckily for me, my Dei was no fool. Nothing like that was going to get past her. She’d had her suspicions for a while before she took me up on it.

It was the only time she ever hit me. She said to me, ‘Whose is it? Is it that baker’s boy that you’ve been seen with?’ I had not spoken to Thomas Freeman since what had happened with Redeemus Grey. I had avoided Walton Lane, and on the two occasions I had seen him in the village, I had run in the opposite direction.

I didn’t know what to say to her, so I stayed mute. She took my silence for a yes, I suppose, and her small hand came swinging from nowhere and slapped me full across the face. It stung like
anything, but I didn’t move. I knew by then that I was going have to live with my mistakes.

She stared at me for a moment, then all at once, we both burst into tears. She took me in her arms and I sobbed like a baby and so did she, holding me so tight I thought she’d squeeze the life from me.

One of the best moments of my life was the moment we watched the others pull off Werrington Green. We had already moved into the cottage in the graveyard by then. We were not on speaking terms but happened to be walking along Church Road, all three of us, the morning they set off. They stayed stony faced, the lot of them, as they passed. Even my cousins who I had always got on well with. As their two
vardos
rattled by, I felt a huge weight lifting off and away from me at the thought that, with any luck, I would never set eyes on Redeemus Grey again.

The three of us stood in the street for a minute or two, then Dadus put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Smiths should stick with other Smiths, I’ve always thought as much. When we want to move off, we’ll go and join the Whittlesey lot.’

It was winter by then. Dei said, ‘I thought I’ve told you to keep that shawl over your head. You’ve got to keep warm now, you know.’

One day, Dei said to me, ‘If I go off to the marketstede tomorrow, I’ll be gone all day. Can you manage?’

‘Course I can, Dei,’ I replied.

‘Look after your Dadus, then.’

Dadus was out tending to the horse in the morning. I stayed in the cottage and did some knitting. He came back to get some water and talk about how it was time that horse had something more than chaff and mangold and he would have to go over to Gunthorpe the next day for linseed cake. Then he went out again.
As he left, I said, ‘I’ll do fried bread for tea when you get back, Dadus.’ He nodded. He knew I always did it nice and crispy. We both liked it that way.

The trouble with the way I fry bread is, I like to shake it around a bit, and then you get fat spots all over the range. You have to give the range a good clean after I’ve been frying bread.

So the next thing I knew, I was outside in the cold and dark and the wind was howling fit to burst, as though there were ghosts in the trees a-shrieking for my child. It was the kind of evening that might have frightened me, under other circumstances, but I had something else on my mind.

I crawled a few yards, then the pain came again, and I had to stop and bend double. Behind our cottage was a large gravestone that had fallen over. I was heading for it. I don’t know why. It was like the gravestone was a door floating down a wild river and I had to get to it or drown.

I made it to the gravestone. I grasped the sides. Beneath me would be the name of the person who was buried there, if I could read it. Above me, the wind was tossing the tops of the trees back and forth, back and forth – I could just see in the pitch dark, when I looked up. I think I was howling by then. There was no moon. The pain came again and I stopped thinking about anything else.

I was still on my knees, but as soon as I felt my baby slip from me, I rolled on one side quickly, to reach down for it and pull it up. I don’t remember thinking I needed to do it – I don’t recall saying to myself,
you
must
get
that
bobby
on
your
warm
chest
as
soon
as
possi
ble.
It was like my arms made their own decision, for there was a rawness about me, a hunger that dulled all pain. I scarcely noticed the strange slipperiness of this little thing what I was lifting to me.

The only light was the yellow glimmer from the cottage window, where we had tacked up an old blanket. The blanket had holes in it, and it was like there were small gold stars, gleaming but distant,
shining down on me and my child. I could only just make out his face, screwed up and dark and furious – heavy browed, even then, annoyed at having been pushed into the world.
A
baby
…
it’s
a
baby
… I said to myself, over and over, as I held him. I could not have stopped myself from gazing at him for the world.

I huddled down on the rough gravestone, parted my blouse, and put him on me straightaway. He had not uttered a sound, but I knew he was all right as soon as his mouth fixed on me – the strangeness and discomfort of that tugging – and the feeling, too, that there was nothing more right than this. Whatever else might be wrong with the world was made right by just this.

I was still getting after-pains – my Dei explained later about how you had to get rid of all the stuff that came with him.
I
hope
she
’
s
back
from
market
soon,
I thought, as I fed my newborn son.
There’s no way I will be able to stand up until she comes to help me
.
My legs were numb and shuddery. At that moment, I couldn’t imagine ever walking again.

So I lay in the cold and dark and waited for my Dei. And I stroked Lijah’s slimy little head and thought to myself.
This is it, now. It has happened. He is all I need, now, and all I will ever ask of him is one thing – that he outlives me.

I saw then, how simple and straightforward the rest of my life would be. It would not matter what befell me and my baby. As long as he lived, that would be enough.

The storm died after a while and the wind dropped right down. The night became calm. When the carrier-cart eventually came up Church Street, I could hear the turning of its wheels. ‘Dei!’ I called out, long before she would have been able to hear me.

‘
Dei
!’

I was surprised to hear how tiny my voice sounded, for I was as proud as a lion. I could not wait for her to come and discover me – us. ‘
Dei
!’

It would be a minute or two before she came. The cart would
have to pull up by the church. Then the driver would have to help her unload the things she had bought. Then she would have to pay him and open the cemetery gate and make her way down the path with her bundles. How sweet that little space of time was, when I could enjoy the thought of how much I was going to surprise her.

Even if Dei went into the cottage, the first thing she would say to Dadus would be, ‘Where’s our Lem?’

‘You’re going to meet my mother in a minute,
biti
boy,’ I whispered to Lijah. The sweetness of that moment: the scattered handful of golden stars on the ragged blanket across our cottage window; the roughness of the gravestone beneath me; the small pains and the bitter cold; the knowledge that my Dei was coming; and the whispered bargain I was making with my son.
Live for ever, Lijah Smith. Tiny boy of mine, and mine alone. Never die.

T
he colours of a wet spring day are green and grey. Mehitable Thompson thinks this as the hearse pulls into Eastfield Cemetery.

It is a mid-week morning, April. It has been raining for a month. The air is heavy with moisture and the ground pliant underfoot – easy work for the gravedigger. Mehitable thinks of earth as she steps down from the car and stands waiting as her father’s coffin is pulled from the hearse; earth made heavy with rain, thick and dark, easy to break apart in great clods. She likes to plant her daffs on wet days like this one – but autumn has a different feel, of course.

Today, despite the drizzle and the cloudy skies, there is no doubting it is spring. The daffodils are dying off but a few tulip stems are splayed apart in bunches either side of the cemetery gates, their wide leaves whitening. It is damp but not that cold. None of them need their dark, heavy coats.

Scarlet steps down from the car behind Mehitable. She pauses to remove her woollen hat and smooth her hair back over her wide brow. She catches Mehitable watching her and smiles her broad,
beautiful smile. Mehitable thinks, Scarlet, the baby of our family, in her fifties already. How old does that make me? That’s the way it is with funerals. We all move up a step, one step closer to our turn. They’ll start taking them out my pen pretty soon.

My father, Elijah Smith, is dead
,
Mehitable thinks to herself as they gather round the grave,
and the wet, dark earth is waiting
.
He died in the spring.

The vicar says his piece. They gather round to bow their heads and drop handfuls of soil down onto Lijah’s coffin. At a respectful distance, two young men wait to fill the rest of the hole after their departure. Nobody cries, although Dan’s expression has an unnatural stiffness to it. Mehitable feels comforted by the rituals, glad of them.
Dad is where he should be. Maybe this time, for once, he will stay put.

Her father has been living with them these last few years, ever since his own mother died – she sometimes feels he went from child to invalid in one fell swoop. It will be strange to have her house back, after all these years. They have got so used to Lijah’s presence; his silences, his smell. At least I won’t have to cook any more of those dreadful suet rolls, she thinks. He loved his suet, did her Dad.

His room won’t take much clearing out. She has already looked: a few shirts, they can go to Barnados; a few bits of junk in the top drawer of the chest of drawers, one or two photos, his pipe, three handkerchiefs, two pairs of braces and a silk neckerchief. Under his bed were two pairs of shoes, a large stone from the garden and some yellowing newspapers.

She glances round the graveside group. Her husband stands slight apart, still shy even though he has known everyone for years. She sometimes feels he has never quite got over being her second husband. He has got to go to a meeting over at Ailsworth afterwards and she can feel his gentle impatience with proceedings. He catches her looking at him and smiles. She smiles back. Jim Thompson. Sometimes, she still cannot believe her luck. Jim winks.
She winks back. He was fond of Lijah, she knows, but, like her, is not inclined to be sentimental about his passing.

Her son Harry has come in his own car and he has brought Dan’s wife Ida, their daughter Sally, and Sally’s husband. Scarlet’s two girls came in a car behind them, and they have brought poor Fenella’s two with them. Tom, Fenella’s widower, is poorly and couldn’t make it. There are also a few of Lijah’s old drinking pals from The Ghost Pig. It’s a respectable turnout. They are all going back to Scarlet’s house afterwards, although Mehitable suspects the drinking pals will melt away to toast Lijah’s health in their own fashion.

Dan, herself and Scarlet; three children out of five. You should have the whole set at your funeral. But no one has heard of Bartholomew in decades and Fenella, poor old Nellie, lies beneath the earth a few yards away, eleven years dead. A car struck her as she crossed Cowgate one evening with her husband Tom. They never caught the driver.

No one should have to outlive a child, Mehitable thinks, no matter what they’ve done, Lijah lost a daughter within months of losing his mother – small wonder he got old soon after that.

Looking around the group, Mehitable feels warmly towards them all. For all their histories, they are all there, together, and there seems something fine about that. Everyone looks philosophical, rather than miserable. It is a
had-a-good-innings
sort of funeral, after all; a spring funeral, grey and green – hopeful.

After the internment, they stand around, talking quietly. Then, with no one in particular suggesting it is time to leave, they turn and walk down the path towards the cars. Scarlet comes up to Mehitable, reaches out and slips an arm through hers, drawing her in close. Then, as if a little embarrassed by the gesture, she says, ‘Still cold, in’t it? For April. I’m glad he went in the spring. I think he would have liked that. He liked things green and new.’

Mehitable sighs. Then she stops, slips her arm from Scarlet’s and says without looking at her. ‘I think I want to go and see Mum.’

Scarlet looks at her older sister. ‘You sure?’

Mehitable shrugs. ‘Well I don’t think I’ll be coming back here much so it’s now or never.’

‘Shall I come with you?’

‘If you like.’

Dan is walking ahead with Ida and Sally. Scarlet calls after them. ‘Dan, we’re going to see Mum. We’ll catch you up.’

Dan raises the flat of his hand in acknowledgement.

The two sisters turn and link arms again, more firmly this time, a mutual gesture. They stride briskly back down the path. Mehitable thinks, nice to have Scarlet to myself for a bit.

The path reaches a crossroad. They both stop and look around. It is a large cemetery. The graves stretch in all directions.

‘I found Gran’s conch shell in our garden shed last week,’ Scarlet says. ‘I didn’t even know we’d got it. Do you remember that conch shell?’

‘I remember the canary.’

‘What happened to the canary?’

‘It’s this way, isn’t it?’ Mehitable points to the right.

Scarlet shakes her head, ‘Don’t think so. She’ll be in the old bit.’

Mehitable frowns.

Scarlet adds, gently, ‘We’re talking over thirty years, Billy. It’s a long time ago.’

A long time ago
: the worlds held captured in that phrase. Mehitable closes her eyes briefly, clutching Scarlet’s arm for support.

She can feel Scarlet’s concerned gaze upon her. She opens her eyes and straightens herself.

‘Come on, then,’ she says.

They find it quickly: a large headstone, facing the path. They stand staring at it for some time. Mehitable looks up and sees that
they are being watched by a pair of pigeons sitting on the branch of a nearby tree. The pigeons look down at her. One of them cocks its head on one side.

‘Do you know something,’ says Scarlet, in a well-blow-me kind of voice. ‘I’d completely forgotten that Gran was in there with her.’

‘Yes, well …’ Mehitable says, a small laugh in her voice.

Their father had turned up on her doorstep one day, and when she had opened the door, he had looked up at her and said, ‘I buried your Gran last week.’ That was the first they knew about it. Scarlet had refused to talk to him for six months.
This time he’s gone too far
,
she’d said. She had a point.

Then came Fenella’s death, the awfulness of it, and for a while after that, nothing else had mattered.

‘Is it quite right, do you think?’ Scarlet says. ‘Them being in together. I mean, shouldn’t Mum be in with Dad?’

‘I don’t know, really.’

‘Well, either way, it’s a bit late now,’ Scarlet adds.

They stare at the gravestone. In its inscription, Clementina and Rose’s positions are reversed. Rose is on top.
In Loving Memory
the curved lettering reads, then in impressive capitals,
ROSIE SMITH.

Scarlet nudges Mehitable. ‘Her name was Rose, not
Rosie.
Now that definitely isn’t right. You should have your proper name on your gravestone, shouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know when he had the gravestone put up,’ says Mehitable. Then she reads the rest of the inscription out loud. As she does, she is unable to keep her voice from sounding dry. ‘
A loving wife, a mother dear, a faithful friend lies resting here.
’

Scarlet ignores the sarcasm. ‘That’s nice,’ she says firmly.

Underneath, in smaller letters, is inscribed,
also of CLEMENTINA LEE.

‘Well, Mum’s on top of her at last,’ murmurs Mehitable.

‘I should think the two of them are pretty much mixed up together by now,’ says Scarlet. ‘Have we time to go and see Nellie?’

‘We should catch up with Dan, really. Nellie’s all right.’ I want to feel more, thinks Mehitable. All these years, I’ve made such a big deal about not coming here; you’d think I’d feel something more than this.

She draws her coat tighter around her, even though she isn’t cold.
It doesn’t feel like anything to do with us
,
she thinks, staring down at the grave.
It feels like it’s more to do with Mum and Gran together. It doesn’t matter whether we’re here or not.

Scarlet glances over her shoulder. Mehitable follows her gaze and sees that the others have nearly reached the gate.

And there’s Dad all on his own over there, and Fenella waiting for her Tom, and none of us above ground matter to them – I’m glad I don’t believe in ghosts
,
she thinks.
If our lot could climb out of these graves at night there would be some good old family rows going on in Eastfield Cemetery while the rest of them were trying to sleep.

Scarlet says, ‘I’ll leave you here for a bit, shall I?’

Mehitable replies quickly, ‘No, I’m coming,’ but Scarlet has stepped away. Still, Mehitable cannot move.

A picture of herself comes into her head. She was walking home from school one day, alone. It was lunchtime and she should have been going back into her class. A girl two years older than herself had pushed her over in the playground. Daniel wasn’t there that day or he would have dealt with it. She was alone, with the jeering, and she had got right up and walked out of school.

She remembered walking home, through Sutton, crying all the way, with mud on her dress, feeling nothing but a raw need to be at home.

How old was I? Not small, surely, if it was Sutton. Old enough.

She had walked back to the cottage, but when she got there, she had known how angry her mother would be and was too frightened to go inside. She had stopped crying by then and knew she would be in trouble for having walked out of school in the middle of the day. She didn’ t know what to do, so she sat on the front step
and waited. She had left her cardigan behind at school and was cold. After a while, she began to shiver.

Eventually, her mother had opened the front door, on her way out on some errand. She had started at the sight of Mehitable, shivering and muddy, on the step. Then she had sighed, wearily, stared down at her and said, ‘What do
you
want?’

Mehitable stares at her mother’s grave. I never have to come here again, she thinks to herself. This is the last time I will dwell on it. She turns away.

As she and Scarlet walk briskly down the path, she thinks, funny how there is this huge wall between the living and the dead – and funny that I should think it funny. I could have stood at the side of Mum’s grave and cursed her for all eternity, or wept and forgiven her everything, and none of it would have made any difference. She can’t hear me, and the words just echo back. When you look at a grave it’s about as significant as looking down into a puddle. All you see is yourself, peering back up.

Maybe, one day, someone will come and look at my grave, maybe somebody I don’t even know, and all they will see is themselves peering back, but they won’t know that. They will think it’s me. She finds the idea heartening. I will be thought about. Someone will wonder what it felt like to be me. And that is how we live on, in other people’s heads, in their thinking things about us, even if they get it wrong.

It’s a nice thought, she thinks, that nobody can know us, that we are thought about but safe, secret. She pulls Scarlet in close and smiles at her. Scarlet smiles back. As they approach the gate, she sees that Dan, their brother, is waiting for them. He holds out his arms.