As Meat Loves Salt (44 page)

I determined to finish the last line before wiping my hands.

'Jacob?'

'Mmm?'

'You're not worried—?' His voice was gentle, as if I were ill.

'About what?' I wanted to hear the words in his mouth, a confession; I hoped he would blush like a girl.

About the Devil,' he answered.

I almost dropped the case. 'What!'

'You think much on him. Don't you?'

'No more than others do.'

'Is it him you talk to in your sleep?'

'I slept in my own—'

'In the army. We heard you.'

Bad Angel.
Now I understood it. 'Well! Something has made
you
forward,' I returned, not sure that I liked this care of my soul. ‘Are you saying we've let in the Devil?'

'I don't believe in the Devil.'

'That's terrible!' I cried out before I could stop myself. 'If you don't fear the Devil - well, it means you're—'

'Look at me, Jacob. Am I one of the damned?'

I did look at him. He was gentle as always, and I remembered all his kindnesses to his fellow men. I shook my head, but went on, 'We see good striving with evil all around us. How can there be God without Satan?'

'I'm not persuaded there, neither. That there's a God.' He faced me calmly, waiting to see what I would do.

'You're building the New Jerusalem, and you don't believe in God?'

'That is but a name, a name people can understand. The place will be made of sweat. So are all dwellings, and everything.'

I saw that he was out-and-out Godless, and had only said 'I'm not persuaded' to spare me. 'Have you always thought this?'

'No. It took time. Basing-House finished God and me.'

'But you pray — you give thanks at meals.'

'I do it for Aunt. If there be no God, what does it matter?'

I gaped at him.

'But to the purpose,' he continued. 'I feared you would be miserable this morning, and I see you happy. Long may it continue! That's all my meaning.'

'Perhaps I am hardened! Sin is our condition,' I said.

'Say rather love is our rightful condition.'

'You talk like - you
are
a good man! But how can you be good without God?'

He grinned. 'Not so good, neither. But what virtue I do have is in me and of me. Men deny the good that comes from themselves, calling it God. So they do with their own evil, calling it the Devil.'

I tried to see how this might be.

'There is no Hell, Jacob.'

'And the Bible?'

'Was written by men like ourselves.'

He was frightening. At the idea of there being no Hell I had felt a breath of something like freedom, but it was illusion. I marvelled at his foolhardiness, feared it, and loved it.

'Ferris, why tell me this now?'

He mocked, 'Perhaps you may have remarked some changes between us since yesterday?'

A scuffle followed, and I again pushed him up against the wall.

'Here,' he panted, 'bend your head down.' On my doing so, he licked my mouth and said, 'If you like that, don't give it up for a sermon.'

Despite my fear, I was amused at the idea of being able to give up, when only the nearness of Becs stopped me from rolling him on the ground. He saw this, and teased, 'Or be like Augustine, who prayed, "Lord make me chaste, but not yet"!'

'Aren't you afraid of dying, Ferris?'

'I'm afraid of not living.'

There was a
clang
from the kitchen: Becs was about to take up the food. Ferris clapped his hands together, as if to say, an end to all this. 'You like salt beef, don't you? Let us eat.'

I followed him up the stairs. I was a fornicator, of unnatural appetite, in thrall to an Atheist. I repeated the words in my head and tried to feel the shock of them, but they remained strange and cruel, far removed from Ferris and me. It was simpler to say I was in love.

'Perhaps he's with child!' cried Aunt. 'What do you think, Christopher?'

'Stranger things have happened,' he agreed. 'He took nothing at breakfast: that might have been the sickness.'

Beef. One mouthful and I could have cleared the whole dish by myself. I had never suffered such a craving since the night of our arrival, when after months of rations I had fallen on the cold mutton. Ferris and Aunt watched, my friend looking amused, as I worked my way through two large plates of salt meat.

'It'll give you a thirst,' Aunt warned. 'Don't blame me when you can't stop drinking.'

Ferris said slyly, 'He'll be up all night,' but I held back the laugh he wanted.

'You're both of you strange today,' Aunt said, her voice grown thoughtful. Ferris had not yet made report of how I had received her proposition, and to her anxious eyes our foolishness might signify that I was to marry, and Ferris stay, or that we had joined forces against it. I drank freely to wash down the beef, and felt the wine lift my spirits. Not that they needed it — I was hilarious as a lunatic. My friend looked on, happiness lighting his face like sunlight thrown up from water.

'Will you be in the house tonight?' Aunt asked. We gave assurance that we would, and she went on, 'I should like to talk with you when Becs is not there.'

So that was to be the time. We nodded our assent, and I think she

knew then that disappointment would follow, for she seemed to grow older and more tired, so that for a moment I felt pity.

But I could not think on her long. Down in the printroom I felt the impossibility of working with him all afternoon, and begged that as a good prentice I might have a half-day holiday. He said that in that case the master must have one too.

'Let us go out,' I implored.

The weather was hard and windy. Warmed by wine, we wrapped ourselves in cloaks and set out in a cold bright sunlight. He led me north, and it was not long before we came to the edge of the city. Looking about me to know if we were alone, I saw tiny green knots on the bushes. Birds hopped about with straws and scraps of wool, carrying them home, and I thought of the fields around Beaurepair in summer. The clouds were fine and white like old men's hair. We wandered, as full of foolery as boys, pushing and jostling one another (a game at which Ferris was beaten every time) and he consented to sing. This performance had me in tears of laughter, for he sang out of tune without knowing it.

'My aunt has always praised me for a sweet voice,' said he indignantly.

'Does deafness run in the family?' I mocked.

'You sing better, then!'

I gave him
Barbary Ellen,
and he found all manner of fault with my voice, but I sang on, happier I think than ever before, my legs aching from the unaccustomed exercise. Breaking off after a while to bend and rub my calves, I said, 'I am grown soft since we left the army.'

'Digging will cure that.'

Joy lapped me in sparkling waves and I cared nothing for digging. We leapt small ditches and hunched over ponds looking for fish; I saw a toad stumble away from us and wondered if it truly had a precious stone in its head.

'We had better turn back,' he said at last, tilting his face up to the sky. In place of the white wisps I saw black chains of cloud coming in from the east, and there was a chill dampness in the wind. I wondered what o'clock it was.

We set out in earnest and were just arrived within the outskirts of the city when the rain began clapping on the house walls. Shutters were heard slamming above. We made good progress by clinging to the shelter of the dwellings on one side, and mostly kept our cloaks dry. A woman dressed in brave pink silk stood in a doorway unwilling to move, confounded I guess by her own vanity, or else duped by the shortlived sunlight into coming out to be soaked. Some children herded past, splashing my shoes and hose.

At the corner of Cheapside I bought a slice of plumcake from a sutler. It tasted sour, and on turning it over I found a green fur growing on the underneath. We went back, but the man was gone. Ferris grinned at my vexation.

'Here,' I said, 'don't waste it!’ We tussled back and forth as I tried to push the horrible stuff into his mouth. Choking with laughter, he spat it out, but I kept a mouldy handful at the ready, and threatened him with it all the way home.

Happiness makes the heartless man, someone told me when I was a child. We arrived home happy and heartless. Becs opened to us and by evil chance she caught from me an amorous look. It meant only that I was returning home with Ferris, counting the hours until bed, but when she took the cloaks from us I could tell from the way she held mine that she expected, very shortly, to hear something to her advantage.

It was too dark for setting more type but we went into the print-room to clean off the equipment before the evening meal.

'We were slack,' said Ferris cheerfully. 'We should have finished up before going out.'He ranged the little boxes of letters and looked over the dry pages. 'You can do the inkballs.'

I took the things out to piss on them while he wiped over the press. The sky was patched, black and stringy grey, with a bright blue piece, the size of a loaf, above the chimneys. I was careless and at first pissed on my hand, which made me jump, but soon the leather was shiny and clean.

The printroom when I took them back in was grown darker, and there were no candles. I found my friend rubbing the hinge of the platen with the greasy cloth.

'We can get it all done tomorrow,' he said as I approached. 'Then comes our meeting.'

'We may not want to stay in tomorrow,' I replied. 'Did you see the way Becs looked at me?'

'I can picture it.'

'Then don't you think we may want to go out?'

Ferris shrugged. 'The weather's changeable. Let's see.'

'Will you wash that stuff off your hands?’ I asked.

'Why?'

'I hate the smell of it.'

He continued greasing the metal, while I wrinkled my nose at the stench. 'Best not come in tonight, then.'

'Don't tease me.’ The slightest hint and I felt the blood, the ache of my body drawing itself together.

Ferris laughed. 'Why, what will you do?' He began sliding his shirt up over his belly.

'Don't.' I went out of the printroom before desire vanquished my common sense, and sought refuge with Aunt beside the upstairs fire.

He did wash off the grease in the scullery, but he did not stop teasing me, even during the meal. We sat opposite one another, under Aunt's nose; when I looked up from the fish he was eyeing my mouth and licking his lips.

'Still hungry?' he asked.

I said there was a draught on my neck and moved to the same side of the table as himself, where I could fix my eyes on Aunt.

'You're right,' he said and moved his chair closer to mine. 'It is warmer here.'

'The fish is - is very good done like this,' I said desperately, seeing his left hand slide below the board while his right innocently mopped up sauce on a bit of bread.

'Excuse me,' said Aunt. 'We lack a knife.' She got up and left the room.

'Did she see?' I breathed.

'No, no. Calm yourself.’ He was laughing.

'Calm
myself! That's your wish, is it?'

'O come on, it's all part of the sport!'

'I don't like your sport.'

'What, never played before?' He smiled and twisted in the chair to kiss me. My lips opened to him although I would gladly have given him a slap. Then we heard the downstairs door and he drew back, leaving me thwarted.

Aunt returned with a large knife, and shortly afterwards Becs brought up a dish of venison. I avoided looking at her, and she went back downstairs.

'You don't eat as heartily as you did,' Aunt remarked, seeing me take a small portion.

'Jacob bought a mouldy plumcake,' explained Ferris. 'I wonder he's not poisoned.'

'But why did you eat it?' exclaimed Aunt.

'I - er - only a little,' I replied, unable to talk about cake while Ferris sat decorously beside me, awaiting his chance. Thirsting to pay him out, I fidgeted in my chair. There were hours before bed time. I hoped at least that he, too, was suffering since the kiss.

'You're
eating more, Christopher,’ Aunt remarked approvingly.

Am I, Aunt?' He set down his knife with a clink.

And right glad I am to see it! You'll need to put on flesh before you go off digging.'

'I'm well enough. You'd be surprised what weight I can carry.'

I closed my eyes, then opened them again to beat back the images. Aunt was watching me, and did not look away when she saw herself observed. Confused, I dropped my own gaze.

'Well, Jacob, you have had much to think about, today,' she began.

I said that I certainly had.

'You said we'd talk when Becs was gone,’ protested Ferris. 'She will be back directly.'

'She was told to serve the meat, then keep her room.' Aunt drew up her chair. I was not ready, and neither I think was he, but begin we must.