Loving - Green Henry - Страница 29

'Lawks we've took a man along,' Kate mocked. He offered them round. As he cupped his hands to shield the flame and Edith bent her lovely head he lowered his yellow one over hers. She giggled which blew the match out. 'One thing at a time thank you,' she remarked looking him in the eye from close. He blushed painfully. Then the wind sent her hair over her vast double-surfaced eyes with their two depths. As she watched him thus, he might have felt this was how she could wear herself in bed for him, screened but open, open terribly.

'Come on,' she said, 'snap out of it.'

Then all three huddled round as if over a live bird sat between his palms till their fags were lit. He collapsed back onto the ground.

'You wouldn't be looking up our legs by any chance now would you?' Kate enquired in an educated voice. For answer he rolled over onto his stomach and faced inland, all Ireland flat on a level with his clouded eyes.

'Let him be,' Edith said again. The wind blew a sickle of black hair down the opening of her dress.

'It tickles,' she said giggling, and swung her head back to let that breeze carry the curls off. 'Oh this wind,' she added. And it drove the girls' dresses onto them like statues as they lifted rectangles of white cartridge paper tied in string out of the panniers to lay these where sand joined that moss short grass. Then Edith stopped to gently pull Peter's ears.

'Aw come on,' Kate called to Albert, 'you don't want to go sulking away there. Why I daresay she'd never've minded if you had of 'ad a peep.'

'Now Kate,' Edith repeated, 'why can't you let him alone.'

'I never,' the lad cried turning over to face them, 'honest I never.'

'Well then don't act like you wished you did.'

'Katie,' Edith said and bent down to kiss the donkey's nose. She seemed altogether indifferent. At this moment little Albert interrupted.

'Can I take the shrimpin' net'm. There's 'undreds down there in that pool we're at.'

And so the long afternoon started. Then when they had had cup after cup of tea Albert in lighting Kate another cigarette set fire to a thin curl of her fair hair. She took this in good part, did no more than exclaim at the smell.

'Er peacock didn't half cause a stink,' he told them. The wind had dropped. They no longer had to shout. But the roar of that Atlantic swell was heavy.

'What peacock?' she asked.

'Why the one old Charley put back in the outside larder. Mrs Welch must've bided her time when there was nobody in the pantry so as to slip down and stuff 'im in my boiler.'

'In your boiler?' Edith shrieked. 'Whoever's heard?'

'Didn't you smell it at that?' the lad enquired.

'It's the first I've known,' Kate said.

'He created something alarming Charley did,' his lad continued. 'He said there was enough to give us asthma and 'e went about coughin' for two days.'

'She's up to a lark then,' Edith said seemingly delighted. 'Bless us,' she added, 'look what he's after now,' she exclaimed. All three saw little Albert hopping round and round with a fair-sized crab fastened onto a toe of his sandshoes. The excited shrieks that came back from the children blanketed a screaming from gulls fighting over the waste food which they had thrown away although Raunce's Albert still had some scraps in a paper bag.

'Let 'em,' Kate said and closed her eyes again. 'I've got what I've had to digest yet,' she added. Then just as Edith was about to get up to help that crab fell off. The children began to stone it, driving it blow upon blow into a grave its own shape in the sand. At which Peter put his ears back and snatched the scraps out of Albert's hand, swallowed them bag and all.

'Why you ugly bastard,' Albert said scrambling out of the way.

'Now Albert,' Edith remarked indifferent.

'I thought 'e was asleep,' the boy explained.

'Which is what I would be if you'd only shut down,' Kate said from behind closed eyes. Her eyelids were pink. The sun warm.

As he was about to settle again Edith invited him to use part of the mackintosh on which she was seated adding that he would only spoil his indoor suit. He was dressed in the blue serge double-breasted outfit a livery tailor had made him on Mrs Tennant's instructions.

'You do look a sight,' was her comment, 'got up as you are like you were goin' in Hyde Park.'

He lay down at her side while she sat bolt upright to keep an eye on the children.

'I got a sister over at home,' he said low.

'What's that?' she asked careless. 'I can't hear you with the sea.'

'I got a sister works in an airplane factory,' he began. If she heard him she gave no indication. 'Madge we call her. They's terrible the hours she puts in.'

He lay on his stomach facing inland while Edith watched the ocean.

'I've only her and mum left now,' he went on. 'Dad, 'e died a month or two afore I came here. He worked in a fruiterer's in Albany Place. It was a cancer took 'im.'

When he broke off the heavy Atlantic reverberated in their ears.

'Now Mr Raunce writes to his,' he continued, 'and can't never get a reply. And there's me writes to mine, every week I do since this terrible bombing started but I don't ever seem to receive no answers though every time 'e comes over I'm afeared mum an' sis must've got theirs. To read the papers you wouldn't think there was anything left of the old town.'

'That young Albert,' Edith yelled against the sea, 'I regret we took him along.'

Raunce's Albert looked over his shoulder on the side away from Edith but could not see how his namesake was misbehaving.

'You see with dad gone I feel responsible,' he tried again loud. 'I know I'm only young but I'm earnin' and there's times I consider I ought to be back to look after them. Not that I don't send the best part of me wages each week. I do that of course.'

A silence fell.

'What did you say your sister's name was?' Edith asked.

'Mum had her christened Madge,' the lad replied. He tried a glance at Edith but she was not regarding him. To tell you the truth,' he continued, 'I did wonder what's the right thing? I thought maybe you could advise me?' He looked at her again. This time she was indeed contemplating him though he could not make out the expression in her enormous eyes behind the black yew branch of windblown hair.

He turned away once more. He spoke in what seemed to be bitterness.

'Of course I'm only young I know,' he said.

'Well it's not as if they'd written for you is it?' she announced, on which he turned over and lay on his side to face her. She was looking out to sea again.

'No but then they're like that. Mum always reckoned she'd rather scrub the house out than take a pen. Madge's the same. It's 'ard to know what's for the best,' he ended.

'I should stay put,' she said, speaking impartially. 'You're learnin' a trade after all. If they should ever come for you into the Army you could be an officer's servant. We're all right here.'

'Then you don't reckon there's much in what they say about this invasion? If there's one thing I don't aim at it's being interned by the Jerries.'

'Oh that's all a lot of talk in my opinion,' she answered. 'You don't want to pay no attention. Oh me oh my,' she said, 'but isn't it slow for a picnic. Here,' and at this she leant over him, 'let's see if we can't set old Kate goin'.'

She picked up a stray bit of spent straw which was lying on his other side then lowered all the upper part of her body down onto his, resting her elbow between him and the sleeping girl. Her mouth was open in a soundless laugh so that he could see the wet scarlet roof as she reached over to tickle Kate's sand-coloured eyebrows.

Kate's face twitched. Her arm that was stretched white palm upwards along deep green moss struggled to lift itself as though caught on the surface of a morass. Then still asleep she turned away abrupt till the other cheek showed dented with what she was lain on. She muttered once out loud 'Paddy.'