The Stone Book Quartet (4 page)

Joseph had to throw the clods high over his head to clear the quickthorn hedge.

‘Get your knee aback of your shovel,’ said Grandfather. ‘There’s no sense in mauling yourself half to death. Come on, youth. Shape!’

Joseph chopped, shovelled and threw. Grandfather worked the stone.

‘I don’t know why I bother,’ he said. I’d as lief let it lie. The rubbish they send! I doubt there’s not above a hundred years in it. Watch your line!’

Joseph was sweating. Grandfather took the spade from him and looked along the bank. He walked down the raw cut edge and shaved the earth with light swings of the blade. ‘You’ve got it like a fiddler’s elbow,’ he said.

Damper Latham came with his cart up the road under the wood from Chorley. The cart was heavy and pulled by two Shires. Their brasses glinted. Suns, moons and clovers chimed on their leathers. Damper Latham kept his horses smart as a show.

‘Now then, Robert,’ he said.

Grandfather looked over the side of the cart. ‘What’s all this?’ he said. ‘It’s never stone.’

Damper Latham winked at Joseph. ‘Eh, dear, dear! Robert?’ he said. ‘Has the Missis been sitting on your shirt tail?’

‘Take it away,’ said Grandfather. ‘I’ll not put me name to it.’

Damper Latham let down the boards and the sides of the cart and climbed onto the load. He began to walk the stones to the edge and slide them down two planks to Grandfather.

‘You’ll take what you’re given, Robert,’ he said. ‘Else go without. I’ve had a job for to get these.’

Grandfather grunted, and swung the blocks to he as he wanted. They seemed to move without more than his hand on them.

Joseph tried to help, but he couldn’t even pull the weight from the slope of the plank. He pulled and shoved, and the block shifted its balance and came at him. He couldn’t stop it and he couldn’t put it down and it was fighting him. He twisted away, but he still couldn’t let go. The living dead weight of it all gripped his hands and wrenched his shoulders. Then it fell clear and smashed on the road.

‘You great nowt!’ shouted Grandfather. ‘See at what you’ve done!’

Joseph ran up the plank to the cart.

‘See at it!’ shouted Grandfather. ‘I can’t use that! I’m not a man with string round his britches!’

The chapel clock struck eight.

‘There’s not better to be got, Robert,’ said Damper Latham.

‘Well, I’ll not abide it,’ said Grandfather.

‘Must I go fetch you a load from Leah’s Bank?’ said Damper Latham.

‘No!’

‘Where’s stone on Leah’s Bank?’ said Joseph.

‘It’s eight o’clock,’ said Grandfather. ‘Time you were off.’

‘Stay and give us a tune,’ said Damper Latham. ‘I’m going down the village. You can have a ride.’

‘He’ll be late,’ said Grandfather.

‘He’ll not,’ said Damper Latham. ‘The E-Flat’s under me coat there.’

Joseph picked up the bright cornet from beneath the seat and set his tongue to the mouthpiece and loosened the valves with his fingers.

‘What must I play?’ he said.

‘Give us a Methody hymn for to fetch this load off,’ said Damper Latham. ‘One with a swing.’

Joseph played ‘Man Frail and God Eternal’ twice. Grandfather and Damper Latham worked together, as they had always done. The stone moved lightly for them.

‘The busy tribes of flesh and blood, with all their lives and cares,’
sang Damper Latham,
‘are carried downwards by the flood, and lost in following years.’

‘Couldn’t wait,’ said Grandfather. ‘One week to flit. Out.’

‘Where’ve they gone?’ said Damper Latham.

‘The Moss,’ said Grandfather.

‘Give us a swing, youth!’ Damper Latham nudged Joseph. Joseph had stopped playing.

‘Let’s have some Temperance,’ said Grandfather.

So Joseph played ‘Dip your Roll in your own Pot at Home’.

‘How’s Elijah? said Damper Latham.

‘Badly,’ said Grandfather. ‘Them as can’t bend, like as not they break.’

‘Eh,’ said Damper Latham, and he looked both ways on the road before he spoke. ‘Is it true what it’s for? A kitchen garden?’

‘True? It’s true!’ said Grandfather. ‘Kitchen garden! Rector’s wife must grow herself a vine and a twothree figs, seemingly. She caught a dose of religion, that one; and there’s Allmans out. Hey!’

Joseph was looking at his own stretched face in the swell of the cornet. Someone must have taken the brass and shaped it and turned it, with valves for every note, tapping, drawing it to soprano E-Flat.

‘Hey! Let’s hear “Ode to Drink”. This lot wants some raunging.’ The cart shook as Grandfather pulled at the base of the stack.

Joseph sucked for spit, but his mouth had dried.

Grandfather and Damper Latham began without him, and he had to catch up when his lips were wet.

‘Let thy devotee extol thee,

And thy wondrous virtues sum;

But the worst of names I’ll call thee,

O thou hydra monster Rum!’

The stones thumped off.

‘Pimple-maker, visage-bloater,

Health-corrupter, idler’s mate;

Mischief-breeder, vice-promoter,

Credit-spoiler, devil’s bait!’

Damper Latham swept the cart with his broom, and danced and marched to Joseph’s music. Grandfather had his chisels out and was hitting the notes on them with his hammer, like a xylophone.

‘Utterance-boggler, stench-emitter,

Strong-man sprawler, fatal drop;

Tumult-raiser, venom-spitter,

Wrap-inspirer, coward’s prop!’

Joseph had stopped playing. His neck hurt for thought of the Allmans. He couldn’t swallow. But Grandfather and Damper Latham went on, singing louder and louder, tenor and bass, by turns.

Joseph shut his eyes.

‘Virtue-blaster, base deceiver!

Spite-displayer, sot’s delight!

Noise—exciter, stomach-heaver!

Falsehood-spreader! Scorpion’s bite!’

Grandfather and Damper Latham were laughing too much to work.

Joseph opened his eyes. He was looking straight into Grandfather’s, and they were hard, fierce, kind and blue.

‘That’s it, youth,’ said Grandfather. ‘Strike or laugh. You’ll learn.’

Damper Latham backed the cart round for the village. ‘Shall you be wanting anything, Robert?’ he said.

‘If you’re going by the smithy, tell Jump I need a four-pounder. And tell him I’ll see him.’

‘Right, you are, Robert,’ said Damper Latham. ‘Coom-agen, coom-agen,’ he called to the horses, and the two Shires scraped sparks with their shoes, and pulled. Damper Latham nodded towards the brass cornet in Joseph’s hands and went on singing, his head and shoulders going back and to like a big clock.

‘Quarrel-plotter, rage-discharger,

Giant-conqueror, wasteful sway
…
’

Joseph picked up the tune again.

‘Chin-carbuncler, tongue-enlarger!

Malice-venter, Death’s broad way!’

Grandfather was singing, too, and striking the chisels. His voice and their ringing faded. Joseph played and played.

‘Tempest-scatterer, window-smasher,

Death-forerunner, hell’s dire brink!

Ravenous murderer, windpipe-slasher,

Drunkard’s lodging, meat and drink!’

Damper Latham and Joseph rode in silence. After the music, the horses and the cart were a quietness.

Your Grandfather: he was a bit upset, that’s all,’ said Damper Latham. ‘It’s hard, at his time of day.’

‘I know,’ said Joseph.

‘After all the tremendous work he’s done. And now I can’t hardly get him enough red rubbish for a length of wall — him as has cut only the best dimension stone all these years. It comes very hard.’

‘He wants me to follow him,’ said Joseph.

Damper Latham looked sideways quickly.

‘And shall you?’

‘No.’

‘What shall you do, then? Go for a brick-setter?’

‘No. I don’t know.’

‘When do you finish your schooling?’

‘Today,’ said Joseph.

‘And you’re not prenticed?’

‘Me Grandfather thinks I’ll be with him. But I’ll never,’ said Joseph.

‘I’ve been getting for Robert thirty years,’ said Damper Latham. ‘And there isn’t the call on it now. Everywhere’s brick. They want setters, not getters.’

Joseph looked at the brass cornet. ‘Is it correct about Allmans?’

‘Ay.’

‘They’ve been put out?’

‘Ay.’

‘For a garden wall?’

‘Ay.’

‘What’s wrong with bricks for a garden?’ said Joseph.

‘Wouldn’t suit,’ said Damper Latham. ‘And that house is the last dimension in the Hough. They had to flit.’

The Shires stopped without telling when they came to the smithy. Damper Latham hitched their reins and went into the farrier’s yard and down the wide steps to the cellar where the forge stood. Joseph put the cornet back under the seat and followed, quietly.

The smith and all his gang were working in a red and black light, hammermen every one of them, and making things. The noise was tremendous.

‘Now then, Jump!’ shouted Damper Latham.

‘Now then, Damper!’ shouted the smith, and all the hammering and the noise stopped. Horseshoes quenched in the trough.

Joseph stayed back from the men, watching, near the bellows of the forge. The long handle of the bellows was above him in the shadow.

The gang sat down and drew their beer from a keg under the bench and gave Damper Latham his mug.

Joseph reached up and put his fingers round the bellows handle. The ashwood was like silk to touch. He gripped hold to feel, and the handle moved before he could stop it. It moved just once, down and up, and the bellows breathed, and the coals glowed.

The smith looked, and saw Joseph. Joseph kept hold of the handle.

‘That’ll do, youth,’ said the smith gently, but he meant it.

Joseph let go.

‘Best be off,’ said Damper Latham.

Joseph turned away from the warmth and the busy men together, up the steps into the farrier’s yard and daylight, and he went excited.

The chapel clock struck nine.

Joseph was late for school. He could hear its bell ringing the scholars in. He looked up at the chapel spire. At opposite ends of the village stood the two great pieces of Grandfather’s life: church and chapel. They marked the village for him. Saint Philip’s had a bigger steeple, and the chapel had the clock.

Joseph walked down the village towards the school and Saint Philip’s, over the station bridge. Everything he saw was clear. He knew something he didn’t know. It was the bell. It was the clock. It was the spires!

Grandfather had worked the chapel, but he had not given it the time. He had helped on the school, but he couldn’t ring them in. He had topped Saint Philip’s steeple, but it wasn’t the top. The top was a golden vane, a weather cock. Cock, clock, bell and at the chapel a spike to draw lightning. Wind, time, voice and fire — they were all the smith!

Joseph’s palm sweated on the cold iron latch of the big school door. Inside the hall he heard the end of prayers.

The carpenter couldn’t lock the door. The carpenter could never open it or close. Latch, lock, hinges were the smith.

Joseph looked down. The step was stone, and he would not cross it for his last day. Still holding, he faced about. The school porch showed the view, a stone arch around the world, and Grandfather had made that. It framed Saint Philip’s steeple and the weathercock.

And then Joseph knew.

That great steeple, that great work. It was a pattern left on sand and air. The glint of the sun from the weathercock shimmered his gaze, and the gleam was about the stone right to the earth. He saw golden brushes, the track of combing chisels, every mark. The stone was only the finish of the blow. The church was the print of chisels in the sky.

Joseph let go of the latch handle. Behind him was the step into the hall. In front of him was the step through the arch. Not even for his last day could he go to school. There was no time. He stood between stone and stone.

‘No back bargains!’ shouted Joseph, and did a standing leap through the arch. He fell over and rolled on the ground.

Joseph breathed in. The weathercock raced the clouds.

He walked away from the school, past the church, over the station bridge, towards the chapel clock. Nothing he saw or could think of went beyond the smith. Shoes on the horses, their bridles and brasses, the iron of the coach wheels, the planes, blades, adzes, axes, bradawls and bits led to the forge. Even the hands on the clock. Without that fire there was no time.

Joseph went into the farrier’s yard and down to the cellar. The apprentice was working the bellows handle: up and down, and up and down. The cellar breathed.

Joseph stood quietly, just looking.

‘What are you after, youth?’

The smith was behind him, at the top of the steps in the yard.

‘Will you set me on?’ said Joseph. ‘I’ll be prenticed to you.’

‘Shall you?’ said the smith. ‘Come up, then.’

He was a big man, in his shirt sleeves; a leather brat, tied round his waist, reached below his knees. He bent and put his arms under the farrier’s anvil, lifted it from its bed, carried it across the yard and set it down.

‘Now take it back,’ he said to Joseph.

Joseph put his arms around the anvil and lifted. His chin jarred on the top. He tried again, firming his chin against the steel. Nothing moved. But it was not like stone; not like the rough dead weight that tore on Damper Latham’s planks.

‘I can’t shift it,’ said Joseph.