Poor Tom Is Cold (17 page)

“Forgive me,
baba
, but obviously this was not the case. I too saw the woman who was walking with the constable and they were not at all alike. This first one was tall as any man. Would it not have been better to tell the truth?”

His father repeated his ritual of drawing in the smoke, then he said, “Why should I give them something they do not want? If I had said no, it is not she, that is not the one I saw, they would have continued to question me, implying I am a stupid foreigner who does not know what he is talking about. It was much simpler to agree.”

“Do you think then that the young constable had two concubines?”

Sam smiled slyly. “No, I do not think so. This one we saw today is a liar.”

“How do you know that, with respect, my father?”

“Chinese intuition.”

Foon smiled also. “Of course. But why do you think she was prepared to risk damnation by lying with God’s book in her hand?”

“I do not have an answer. Frankly, I do not wish to know. It is no concern of ours. Let them kill each other for all I care. As far as they are concerned, we are ignorant savages with squirrel brains. Let them continue to believe so.”

He passed over the pipe to Foon. “Here, my son, there is one draw left at least.”

Foon hesitated. His missionary upbringing was at odds with his culture. His father was being generous and it was disrespectful to refuse, but he knew how the pastor had disapproved of opium smoking. He took the pipe while Sam watched him.

“All that nonsense about breaking a saucer.
My soul will be cracked like this vessel if I lie
. They treat us like foolish children.”

Foon drew in a small amount of the smoke, retained it briefly, and returned the pipe to his father. Lee smoked in silence for about twenty minutes more, then he turned onto his side and stretched out his legs. Foon picked up the pipe, scraped out the bowl, and returned it to the stand. The
yangqiang
he placed back in the leather sack. Sam seemed to have drifted off into sleep and he looked peaceful. Sometimes the opium brought
with it fearful visions that caused him to cry out in fear, but tonight the sensations were obviously pleasurable. Foon bent over him and gently lifted up the thick queue, untied the black silk cord that was braided into it, and loosened the hair completely. He drew his fingers like a comb from the base of Sam’s skull, up to the crown, and out to the ends of the hair. His father sighed with sleepy pleasure.

“With respect to Chinese intuition,
baba
, would there be another reason you are so certain the young woman was lying?”

Sam grunted; his words were almost unintelligible with sleep. “I have seen her before. At her place of employment, a brothel on King Street.”

Foon’s soothing actions stopped.

Sam rolled onto his back and looked at his son. “Every man has needs of the flesh,
laoerh
. Except you, who have the mind and will of a monk. I have discovered a place where a man can find comfort. They accept a Chinaman’s money with quite a good grace.” He chuckled. “The whores were intrigued by me. They said they had never seen a Chinese before and they insisted I display my member to the entire band of them. I think they were a little disappointed it was not so very different from the
fangui
. The girl, Mary Ann, was one of the whores. Today I gave her thanks.”

He rolled back to his side and waved at Foon to continue his stroking. “Your mother would understand.
I am a man.” Within a few minutes he had fallen asleep. Foon rebraided his hair and tied the ribbon.

He covered Sam with another padded quilt and went to extinguish the lamps. Then, quietly, he slipped in beside him. The opium had made him sleepy too, but he did not fall into dreams immediately. His thoughts were agitating to him. Lee was wrong about his son. Foon dreamed constantly of mating with a young woman and despaired of the possibility. The missionary teaching had gone deep into his soul and he was determined to remain chaste until he could find a wife and marry in the eyes of God. As this meant returning to China, he knew it would be a long time before they had enough money. He could feel a little bubble of resentment floating to the surface of his mind. His father had committed adultery and dishonoured his mother. That was sinful.

A
FTER
N
ATHANIEL HAD GONE TO BED
, Frank had come over to the stable, taken out a bottle of gin that he kept hidden in a box under his bed, and slowly and steadily drunk himself into unconsciousness. He had paid the price today.

“What time’s the green arse coming?” he called over to his brother-in-law, who was in the adjoining stall working on the mare they intended to sell.

“I told you, he said he’d be here by four.”

Frank took the jar of ginger, a tin of aniseed, and a bottle of turpentine from the shelf in the tack room. He carried them over to the bench where he’d already placed the measuring cup and an enamel bowl. Without thinking, he brushed his hand across his mouth and winced as he touched his lip. But he shrugged it off. He’d had worse.

He could remember the first whipping but not the reason for it and not the actual pain, although it had
hurt him so badly he lost his breath. He must have been four years old, although that was hazy too. He may have been younger.

Jarius had brought him into the stable. It was winter time, he knew, because he had been outside in the yard making snowballs with Augusta. Had he thrown one at Jarius? Was that his misdemeanour? He still puzzled over it, as if knowing the transgression would make sense of the punishment. There had been many more after that, many of them severe, but it was the first one that had left the deepest scars, both physical and emotional. He had two long white marks on his right buttock where the skin had broken down.

Jarius, his stepbrother, was nineteen years his elder and Frank had always been afraid of him – his seriousness, his dark hair and skin, unlike his fairness and Augusta’s, who followed after their father in looks. He didn’t understand why Jarius was so different but his mother finally answered his questions.

“Your father was married before to a widow lady. She already had a son of her own – Jarius. Not too long after the marriage, the poor woman died, but Jarius was raised like his own by your father. He was thirteen years of age when I married Mr. Eakin. A sombre boy even then.”

Frank remembered she had sighed when she said that.

The second Mrs. Eakin always spoke in a soft, anxious voice, as if she were perpetually afraid of being
overheard. Her name was Harmony and she said many times how she loved to think that she lived up to her name. Much later, with some bitterness, Frank realised what this really meant: she strove to say nothing that would offend and avoided conflict at all costs. She never interceded when Jarius took him over to the stable and even when she was forced to put ointment on his bleeding buttocks, she only whispered to him to try to be a good boy in future and not cause trouble.

Nathaniel also beat him, but not as frequently and never in such a sustained way. He said Jarius was his lieutenant and ignored any protests. Not that Frank tried for very long. He soon learned that to cry to his father was to make matters worse with Jarius when they were alone. He also learned to read his stepbrother’s mood the way a dog will immediately assess a potential threat. Woe betide Frank if Jarius was in a temper about something else. He would always find some excuse to vent that anger on the boy. The hardest thing was that Frank never knew how to react. Sometimes if he screamed, Jarius would stop sooner. At other times, the crying only seemed to incense him more. Similarly, if Frank bit his lip and choked back his pain, Jarius sometimes gave up in disgust; at others times, he went on until Frank begged for mercy.

He measured out a dram of ginger and sifted out two drams of the aniseed into the bowl. He added the turpentine to the mixture and stirred it with his fingers until it formed a ball.

When he was twelve years of age, the punishments stopped. One afternoon, Jarius came home earlier than usual. It was a stiflingly hot summer day and Frank was in the stable. He was so uncomfortable with the heat he had stripped off his clothes and was standing naked, pouring a bucket of water over himself. He suddenly became aware that Jarius had come in and was watching him.

“My little brother is growing up, I see,” he said, but his voice was so full of repulsion that Frank there and then began to think of himself as ugly; he knew it had to do with the hair that had grown in his crotch and the changes in his private parts.

Frank hadn’t been paying much attention to what he was doing but suddenly the odour of the turpentine made him retch, his stomach was already so queasy from last night’s binge. Then he realised he’d forgotten the other part of the recipe. Irritated, he went back to the shelf.

“Where is the frigging stuff?” he said out loud.

“What frigging stuff?” Peter Curran was in one of the stalls, working on the horse.

“The antimony. It’s supposed to be here on the shelf.”

“Don’t blame me, I wouldn’t touch it.”

“Damnation.”

They were interrupted by his nephew’s voice.

“Uncle Frank? Shall I feed Brownie?”

Lewis was standing in the doorway. He could have been Frank’s own child in appearance, with the same light brown hair and round face, but this similarity didn’t endear him to his uncle. He was too quiet, inclined to be sly, and although he would never have admitted it, Frank saw himself mirrored in that cautious, wary expression with which Lewis regarded the world.

“Of course feed him. He was purged this morning. Have you been messing with the medicines?”

“No, Uncle Frank.”

“This will have to do then. Put it in the mash.” He held out the ball of aniseed, dropping the sticky mass into the boy’s palm. “Stir it in well.”

He followed the youngster to the stall and watched while he ladled mash from a pail into the horse’s pan. Brownie stepped forward and Lewis leaped away, almost knocking over the pail.

Frank yelled at him and gave him a sharp rap on the side of the head.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle. I thought he was going to bite me.”

“What a yellow-bellied little runt you are. He wanted his mash, not you. Get out of here. Go see if your father’s finished.”

Lewis scuttled away. Frank waited until he was sure the roan had swallowed the medicine, then followed him. Curran was in the process of blacking the mare’s
hooves. Earlier he had filed away the ridges in her front hooves to hide the fact she had foundered, and the blacking was to cover the signs.

“Done? Let’s bring her out then. Our friend should be here soon.”

Curran took the mare’s halter and led her out of the stall.

Frank beckoned to Lewis. “Now, Mister Titty Suck, I want you to show the horse when the customer comes. Do you think you can do that without a big cock-up?”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“This man is a stupid sod, fancies himself a bit of a buck but he’s a green arse. Just the kind we like. He says he wants a lively carriage horse for his new bride. ’Course he doesn’t want to pay a top price but never mind. We have the perfect mare for him. Good thing it’s raining, you’ll have to walk her in here. Doesn’t matter if you’re nervous, that’ll look good, like she’s spirited.”

“Oh, I’m not scared of Duchess. She’s quiet.”

“Any more quiet and she’d be dead,” put in Curran. “I’m surprised you haven’t sent her to Lamb’s factory. She’ll make better glue than she will a ‘lively carriage horse.’”

Frank laughed. “Well, we have the remedy for that, don’t we? Hold on to her, Lewis, don’t let her run off.”

The boy stood holding the lead rein. The mare showed signs of a hard life and was slightly swaybacked. Her head drooped almost to the ground.

Frank came back with a piece of clean linen and the tin of powdered ginger. He took off the lid, twisted the cloth into a tight spindle, and dipped it into the ginger. Then, clicking his tongue softly, he approached the mare, lifted her tail, and quickly pushed the twist of cloth into her anus. She jumped, but almost immediately the ginger began to sting. She pawed at the ground.

“Walk her, Lew.”

The boy tugged on the halter and she needed no urging, stepping forward in a prance, her tail held high as she tried to get away from the irritation in her backside.

Frank whistled in delight. “She’s moving like a filly. We’ll give her another little boost just before he gets here. He’ll be totally satisfied. And he’ll think he’s bilking me into the bargain. ’Course in two days she’ll be near death again but that won’t be my fault, will it?”

“What if he brings her back, Uncle?”

“He won’t. Our agreement will be final sale. Besides, he’s going away on his wedding trip. When he gets back, he can blame his own groom for overriding the horse. He’s not going to admit I duped him. All right, let her walk it off a bit, then put her back in the stall.”

He went over to the lantern that was hanging on a hook by the door and turned down the wick. “We can see quite well enough, thank you.”

Curran waited until Lewis had stabled the mare again, then he turned to Frank.

“By the way, Jarius said that Pa has made up his mind.”

Eakin stared at him. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You was busy.”

“Well, what’s he going to do?”

Curran grinned. “I guess you persuaded him. She’ll get the operation.”

A
S SOON AS HE OPENED THE FRONT DOOR
, Murdoch could hear Arthur coughing and immediately, almost subconsciously, he assessed the sound. No worse, maybe slightly better than usual. He was hanging up his coat and hat when the kitchen door opened and Enid Jones came out.

“Mr. Murdoch, I was hoping you wouldn’t be too late. Your supper is almost ready.”

He couldn’t resist imitating her lilt.

“Is it now?”

She smiled. “Is it mocking me you are?”

“Not at all. I could listen to you all day long.”

“I’d say that was a dreadful waste of time then.” But her tone belied the words.