Stone Cradle (7 page)

‘Dei,’ he said to me one afternoon, thoughtful like. We was sitting next to each other on upturned boxes, by the fire. It was one of those times when there was no money for tea, so he was burning some old bread on a spike, then I was going to scrape the burnt off, into the water I was cooking. I laugh to think we had to do that, now, but it wasn’t bad if you got it right.

He didn’t normally talk to me thoughtful like, so I knew there was a question coming. I looked at him. There was light shining on his hair, which was soft and shiny, and I thought how hard it must be for a boy his age: a boy no longer, nor not yet a man. What a strange, in-between creature that is. What was he? He must’ve
wondered that, and I couldn’t help him, of course, having been a girl at that age myself.

Not for the first time, I felt a small ache inside, seeing him sitting there. It was his shoulders. He had bony shoulders that made him look fragile, like a bird, and I wanted to just hold him when I looked at his shoulders and keep the whole small, tough-little body of him wrapped up inside myself, all safe.

‘Yes, Chicken …’ I said.

‘Dei …’ He scratched his head, then held the toast up, turning the spike round to see it was done enough both sides. ‘Was my Dadus a
gorjer
?’

Looking back, it was something amazing he’d not asked before.

‘Why are you asking that, Chicken?’

He decided the bread was blackened right enough and went to pull it off the spike, but it was too hot and burned his fingers. He gasped with annoyance, shook his hand in the air, then put the fingers in his mouth.

That kept him quiet for a moment or two. Long enough.

‘I had a fight with Zephyrus and his brothers …’ he said.

‘I know, I heard about it.’ There isn’t a thing can be done in a group of Travellers but the whole camp doesn’t get to hear about it.

‘Well it was ’cause they were a-calling me a half ’n’ half.’

I knew’d that too, but it saddened me to hear him say it, for I could not bear he was getting into fights on my account.

I leaned forward to him, so’s he knew I was serious. ‘You listen to me, Lijah Smith,’ I said. ‘You are going to be as much a
Romani
chal
as any
chavo
in this camp, in the whole district, in fact. Don’t you let nobody ever tell you you’re a half ’n’ half. No one in the world has the right to call you that, for it ain’t true.’

He paid attention to the toast, but I could tell he was pleased. I thought perhaps that was the end of our little talk but then he caught me out by saying, ‘So who was my Dadus, then?’

‘Your Dadus …’ I said, as I took the cooled-off toast from him
and picked up a blunt knife to scrape it into the saucepan, ‘Well, you might ask …’ I could see from the corner of my eye that he was watching me carefully.

Tshk,
tshk,
tshk
went the knife against the toast and the tiny black crumbs fell into the water. ‘Your Dadus was a Romany King, that’s why we had to keep the love between us a big secret, as the whole of his kingdom would have fall’d apart if word of it had ever got out.’

I glanced at him. His eyes were big as teacups and dark as down-a-well. ‘He had a
kingdom
…’ he said.

‘Aye, Chicken, he did. He came from the Kingdom of Russia, where the Russians live. He was just King of the Romany bit of it, mind, and as well as being a King he owned a thousand horses, and it was part of his job to bring the horses to this country and sell them, and that’s how come he passed through Werrington one day, with the horses, and that’s how come you were got. And he made me promise on my life never to tell a soul, for he was bound to go back to the Kingdom of Russia and marry some cold princess that he did not love, but he said he would remember me for ever.’

‘And did he know you had a babby by him?’

I thought I could detect a note of not-quite-believing in his voice.
Tshk,
tshk,
tshk
went the knife against the toast.

‘He did not, my poor child,’ I said sombrely, ‘for I had no way of getting word to him, nor will we ever have, for he is on the other side of the world being the King of Russia, but I know he thinks on us from time to time, when it’s all snowy there, as we talked of the fine son we might have together one day. And I think in his heart he knows that son is out there somewhere and longs for him, for the cold princess will have got him nothing but girls.’

I had taken the crumbs from the toast and it was enough. There was only a crust left but I handed it to Lijah and said, ‘Chew on’t, if you like.’

He took the toast. ‘So, are we rich than?’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Aye,’ I said, stirring the tea we had made together. ‘In our
hearts,
amoro
chavo,
you and me is richer than this whole camp put together.’

It was that very next day that I first set eyes on Adolphus Lee. I was with a group of the older women, and we had been out dukkering, which was mostly older women’s business but as I am small and dark they let me along. I was what the
gorjers
expected, I suppose. I didn’t like it much as it was a daft business and I wouldn’t do it if there was anything else going. I’m not saying I couldn’t see things when I looked at a person. Especially the young women. It was the young married women who wanted their fortunes told most as they were the ones most hungry to know if there was still something to look forward to. I looked at some of them and saw their whole lives before them. But I never told them what I saw. That would be demeaning to what I was able to do. I told them what they wanted to hear, which was quite a different thing altogether.

So me and the old ’uns was walking back through the camp when we passed a new group just joined up, and there was a big fella standing by a tin tub atop a tree stump. He was washing himself, passing the cloth up his forearms, and splashing water over himself. He was big in a not-handsome sort of way, to my eye, as if he had grow’d a bit wrong, clumsy-like. But a big fella is a useful thing in our sort of life and so we all gave him the eye as we passed, which is a thing none of us would have dared on our own, but as we were all together and the others were all old and well past the age of meaning it, it was sort of jesting with him.

And he seemed to take it in good part, for he looked up at us, a little bit smiling but only a bit, and straightened himself, flexing his arms as if to show off, and we all obliged him by giggling like girls. And then his gaze fell upon me.

He was not to know, at the time, that I already had a child who was a strapping lad, for I always looked younger than I was at that time, and I suppose I wasn’t quite worn’d out with it yet.

And I stared right back at him, a thing I would never have done were I not with the old ’uns.

The way it went in those days, you saw someone you liked the look of and you did a bit of asking round. But it was up to the boy to go a-asking – wasn’t seemly for the girl to do it. Anyway, I wasn’t a girl no more and Adolphus wasn’t hardly a boy, neither. I found out later that his family had been on at him to find a girl for years.

Anyroad, for all I thought my life was sorted at that time, I couldn’t help myself from wondering about the big fella I see’d washing himself, and each evening when Dadus came back we would sit together and I would wait for him to broach the subject with me, for it would be my Dadus anyone spoke to first. But nothing happened, so I thought no more on’t, and I didn’t see the big fella again for a while, although I happened to walk past the spot where the new lot were pulled up perhaps one or two times more than was strictly necessary.

I found out, though, as you can always find out eventually as long as you are sly about it. His name was Adolphus Lee, of the Derbyshire Lees, who were well thought of as wagon makers. And they had settled for a bit so’s Adolphus could finish his own
vardo
for he was right set on that before he took a wife. It was not really usual for a man from a family like that to make his own, but rumour had it he was so proud he would not accept help from even his own cousins. And proud he must have been, for it was something of a mystery as to why he was not wed yet. No one good enough for him, they said, which made him something of a challenge. As a result, every marriageable girl in the camp was finding an excuse to wander past and take a look at the fine catch who insisted on doing his own sawing and planing.

It takes a long time to build a
vardo
on your own, I thought, and most girls round here don’t have the patience to hang around that long, for they’re too scared of losing a chance elsewhere. Young
people nowadays like things settled quick, to allow themselves more time for repenting, I s’pose.

But the other part of me knew it was foolish to even think on Adolphus Lee. They were quite a grand family, those Derbyshire Lees, and we may have been a grand family once too but now we were shrunken and what were we but a broke old man and a small boy and soiled goods between?

It was because I had no hopes in that direction made me bold. I was interested in Adolphus Lee and his
vardo
and felt I could show an interest without anyone thinking on’t too much. And so it was, one spring morning, I found myself going past the edge of the camp where he was a-building.

The frame was already in place – he’d had help with that of course – but now he was on the smaller jobs and working alone. I had taken my Dadus along with me, although he was under the impression that he had taken me along with him. Lijah was off somewhere, being hectic.

Adolphus Lee looked up as we approached, nodded to Dadus, then bent his head back to his work. We stood and watched and it seemed he understood that we didn’t want him to stop. But after a while, he did, pushed his hat up from his forehead and said to my Dadus, ‘I’ll be starting on the porch floor tomorrow, I reckon.’

My Dadus says, ‘It’s the sealing of it is the thing. Folk forget how a porch floor gets the rain when it slants in and they go rotten something easy.’

Adolphus nodded.

They carried on a bit more like this, then Dadus said, ‘Well, we’ll not keep you from your work, young man.’

‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘Good day to you.’

We turned, but not before he took the trouble to look at me and give me my own nod, separate from my Dadus’s. And that was when I first got the idea I could have him if I wanted him.

This thought threw me somewhat, for up until then I thought I
knew’d the whole shape and colour of my life to come. I wanted no husband, nor any more children, and had seen myself getting old and Dadus dying and it being just me and Lijah and him grow’d and taking care of us. But Dadus was slowing down fast now, and it was coming to me that we might be losing him sooner rather than later, and I had to start thinking on what would happen to me and Lijah then. And here was Adolphus Lee, in front of me, and I still didn’t want no husband or children but I found myself a-thinking as we walked back to the camp,
I hope he’s planning rails for the shelving.
It’s the kind of thing a man forgets until a woman points it out to him, for ornaments and china need a rail to keep them in place, in case you ever have to move off sharpish and don’t have time to stow them all.

And so it was that me and Dadus and sometimes Lijah got in the habit of visiting Adolphus Lee as he worked, once in a while, to see how the
vardo
was taking shape. And sometimes, when we got there, there would be young girls there with their brothers or fathers a-giggling and offering him tea, but I never saw him nod to one of them the way he nodded to me that first time we went.

And the fact that I had no hope of him helped me be cool, and not a-giggling like the other girls, and often I had Lijah round my feet anyhow. Adolphus was right good with Lijah. It was Lijah helped him plane the roof ribs out of ash. I was standing by them and heard him tell Lijah how the best flooring you could get was sailcloth like they used in sailing ships, and how you could paint it your own way with oil paints but that it was right expensive and a lot of work. Then, without looking up at me, he added, ‘But then anything worth the having of is a lot of work, Lijah, I ‘spect you know that now. I wouldn’t value anything that came easy.’

That night, I could not sleep for thinking of Adolphus Lee.

Then, I did not go there for a while, because of the unfortunate thing that happened.

I was on an errand to find dandelion roots. There was a long hedgerow ran along the camp that was thick with them, but they had mostly been picked, so one day, early evening, I found myself walking a long way along it and thinking how it was nice to be a bit away from the camp for a while. So I decided to go a bit further. And then I came across them.

I saw her face but not his, as he was atop her and had his back to me. I recognised them as a man and wife from our camp. I don’t think she saw me as she had her eyes closed and was holding his hair in her two fists. Her head was thrown back, her bare knees raised either side of him.
The mud, the dirt of it
… Horrible noises, they were making, both of them, like animals. And I turned and fled back to the camp full of disgust trying to shake the sight and sound of it from my head. And that night I could not sleep again for thinking,
that is what he will expect of you, you fool. That’s what being married is.

The next day, Lijah comes a-running up and says, ‘Shall we go and see Mr Lee’s wagon, Dei?’ and I replied, ‘You go if you like. I’m going to be too busy for a while.’

I knew this would be repeated, and I knew he’d get the message right enough.

I thought I would see no more of Adolphus Lee, and was getting used to the idea, when he turned up at our
vardo
about a fortnight later to speak to my father. He was walking into the village, he said, and was going to buy some pitch for the porch floor, which was finished, and which sort did he think he should get?

Well, he was making himself pretty obvious, but I was resolved by then.

It didn’t help when Dadus said. ‘Go to the blacksmith at the end of the village, not the first one, he’s a
bafedo
mush.
I’ve done business with the other and he’s
kushti.
Take our Lemmy, he’ll remember her.’