The Colour of Milk (11 page)

i shrugged again. and then i left the room and went down the stone corridor and up the stairs and then up the other stairs and i went in to my room.

edna wasn’t up there and i was alone. i opened the window for some air and lay down on my bed and closed my eyes.

the autumn is a time when leaves come brown and curl and die. and you can not find the very first leaf which is turning. for summer and autumn move slowly in to one another. there is not one day when all the leaves are brown.

and the autumn is a time when i find the mushrooms under the leaves and moss and i take them home to cook and there is the one which if i split it open it bleeds and milk comes out.

and seven days after mrs was in the ground mr graham asked me to make up a tray of tea and so i laid it with a pot and a cup and saucer and strainer and a jug of milk. and i took it to his room and placed it on his desk.

sit down, mary.

i always know, i said, that you’re gonna say summat when you ask me to sit down.

he smiled. then perhaps you should go and get yourself a cup and have one with me and make yourself comfortable.

i’m all right, sir.

but i would like it if you would go and get a cup and join me.

and so i did and went and brought it from the kitchen and put it on the tray and mr graham went to pour the tea and i tried to do it but he told me to sit.

i ain’t used to someone pouring it for me, i said.

he passed me my cup. do you want anything else?

i’ll have a puff on your pipe.

he laughed. i don’t think so.

so what do you want to talk about? i asked. you ain’t asked me here to sip tea and pass time in idle chat.

you are very sharp, aren’t you? he said. i can’t say intelligent for you are entirely uneducated, but you do bring something.

and what would that be?

i suppose a native cunning or wit.

is that different from an educated brain?

yes, i suppose it is. it’s unformed, more animal, primitive.

animal?

i don’t mean that as an insult. animals are survivors. they know what to do without having to be told. look, don’t let it worry you.

there ain’t a lot i let worry me. if i can’t do nothing about summat then i don’t let it worry me. if i can do summat about it then i put it right and then there’s no need to worry anyway.

mr graham put his hands together, pressing finger tips on finger tips and making a steeple. you, he said, could teach the rest of the world a lot.

i laughed. i don’t reckon i got nothing to teach no one.

you have. mary. i want to thank you.

you ain’t got nothing to thank me for.

i have. for helping with my wife. she liked you.

good. but, sir, now she’s gone, is my job over?

i would prefer it if you stayed here. i asked your father and he said he was perfectly happy with the arrangement.

but if you asked him and he knows you want me here and you’ll pay him money, then he won’t let me go home. that means you ain’t left me with no choice.

but we need you here. mary?

i said nothing. i stood up and walked to the window. looked out at the grass which was covered in dead leaves and dew. the seed heads were drying out on the flower stems.

mary?

i turned to him. i don’t have no choice, do i?

and so that is how i didn’t go home like i always thought i would.

and that is how i came to stay.

and it was the next afternoon and mr graham was out seeing a woman what had a husband who died and edna was cooking and i was tidying the white room again. and i found a pile of books what was on the floor behind the table and i started to put them away with the others and i don’t know what made me do it but as i was putting one of them away i held it. and the pages fell open. and i looked at them and turned them this way and that. but i knew nothing. no matter how hard i looked at it i could understand nothing of what it said.

mary?

i jumped and held the book close to me. i was looking so hard i didn’t hear the door go and didn’t hear him come in.

what are you doing? mr graham asked.

i ain’t doing nothing, sir. i was on my way back to the kitchen.

let me see.

we stood there in the afternoon sunlight and he took the book off me. he held it in his hand and turned it over.

why did you take this one?

i shrugged.

go on.

the colour.

he smiled. as good a reason as any.

there’s gold on it, i said.

as i said the words he moved the book and the sunlight glanced off the gold letters.

can you read any of it? he asked.

no. all looks a mess to me. don’t understand how anyone can make nothing of it. just a lot of black lines.

not when you can read it. tell me, can any of your family read?

no.

no one ever tried to teach you?

i laughed. no. too much work to do.

i see. he pointed at the gold on the front of the book. see this, he said, see the letters. t. h. e. they make up the word
the
. you see?
the
.

and i looked down at the book and at the gold letters and he passed me it. and then he left the room and i stayed there and the book was in my hand and i was still there as the light left the room.

i told you i wrote this with my own hand.

i told you my sister beatrice would hold the bible and would read out. but she didn’t know what the shapes were on the paper. and she could not read.

i told you.

and then next day the job i hated. i had to wax the banisters from the top floor down to the stone floor. i put on the wax and let it sink in to the wood and then rubbed till it shone and my arms ached.

mary. mary.

i could hear his voice from where i stood at the top of the stairs. i didn’t do nothing but stayed doing what i was told.

i heard him go through the rooms then he come up the stairs.

ah, there you are, he said. what are you doing?

i think, i said, that with your educated brain you could see what it is i’m doing.

be careful you don’t cross the line, he said, or you will become impudent.

can you be something, i asked, when you don’t know what it is?

i think so, he said. the fox can be a fox without knowing it is one.

i’m not a fox.

i wasn’t implying you were. look, i wonder if you would like to come with me.

you want me to stop this?

you can continue it later.

if that’s what you want.

i do.

so i put the cloth and the wax on the floor and i followed him down the stairs and in to the study.

he pointed at the chair opposite his, on the other side of the table. and he told me to sit down.

and so i sat in my chair and he sat in his.

all right, he said. where to begin?

he took a sheet of paper and dipped his pen in the well. he wrote on the paper two lines. one along and the other coming down from the middle of it.

T

that is a t, he said, and it begins the word
the
.

he drew again on the paper.

t

this is also a t, he said. and that also begins the word
the
. each letter has two ways of being. one upper case, one lower case. T. t.

i don’t understand, i said.

you will.

i can’t do it.

you can, mary. here. try and letter it out. draw it with your finger so you remember it. T. that’s it.

as i drew with my finger on the desk he spoke.

a line across, he said. another line down. good, do it again.

and i did it three times.

that’s it, he said. now try the other t. a line down with a curve at the bottom. a line across.

i traced it with my finger on the desk. a line down with a curve. a line across.

you see? he said.

i nodded.

i did see.

i did.

that night i went out after all the jobs were done. i walked up the lane towards the hill and the ground was damp and the long grass wetted my skirt. i stopped in the gateway and the field was full of the heifers and they were chewing and the noise was loud and the crows was calling and flying round above the trees and the moon was rising up and the stars was starting to show their selves.

i leaned on the gate and felt it with my fingers and the lichen covered the wood and i could smell the damp in the air and then my finger started to trace out the letter on the gate.

a line along. a line down.

T

and then although i took his shaving water in each day i noticed he stopped using it for the water was still clean and there were not small hairs floating in it. and his beard started to grow through and it was ginger and white like a fox tail.

and i took his tea in one morning and he was sat at his desk and he held his head in both hands.

i put the tray down but he didn’t move.

are you all right, sir? i asked.

he dropped his hands and looked up at me. his eyes were watered and red.

can i get you summat?

no.

i didn’t know what to do so i stood there.

mary, he said. take a seat.

i sat down on the chair by the door.

he looked over at the window where the wind blew the leaves up in to the air. and the leaves fell from the trees like rain.

pour the tea, will you?

so i did.

i sat and waited and he drank from the cup and it looked tiny in his hand. then he looked up at me. i didn’t ask if you wanted a cup, he said.

i know.

i’m sorry. he half stood up.

i don’t want one anyway, i said.

he nodded and sat back down. he looked out of the window again.

i’ve been so busy, he said, running around doing everything after the funeral. and it seems that it has come home to me that i am alone here now. and my son has gone as well. he turned to look at me. i’m sorry, he said. i don’t know why i think it’s appropriate to confide in you.

you ain’t got no one else, i said, cos you’re the one what everyone talks to.

he nodded. of course you’re right.

it ain’t the same without her, i said.

no.

we sat there a bit and he passed me his cup and i poured some more tea for him.

i’ve been out for a walk this morning, he said. i saw your father on the hill.

did you talk to him?

we stopped for a moment, he said.

shall i guess what you talked about? i asked. the harvest, the weather, what birds you’d seen, how good the apple crop was.

very good. but you missed one topic of conversation. he said he’s got the thresher coming in this year. i didn’t have him as a man of new technology.

he’s a man of money making.

farmers usually are.

then he fell silent again.

am i done? i asked. can i go?

not quite yet, he said. he opened the drawer which was his side of the desk and lifted out a book. which was the letter we did? he asked.

i can’t stay here now and do this, i said. i got jobs and edna’ll clip me one if i shirk.

i will tell her i asked for you to be in here. now come on, which letter?

t

good. and do you remember how you draw it?

i ain’t thick, sir, i said.

i am not insinuating that you are. i merely ask.

i remember everything.

good. then you will be my star pupil. right. this word. what does it say?

that one’s a t.

good. now when it’s next to this one, h, it becomes soft. th. th.
the
. so let us practise that.

and he showed me how to draw h, and then how to draw e.

and now, he said, we can put them together. we have t. h. e. and that makes up the word
the
. you see.
the
.

we drew the letters with our fingers. t. h. e.

good, he said. you know a word now. your first word.

so i can read a word?

you can, yes.

o.

and then he explained the letter b. b as in boat and bottle. only there was b and B. and i had to learn the both of them. and we wrote them with our fingers and then he made me write them with the pen what i dipped in the inkwell.

and then when we had done the letter what has a dot on the top and the one what is a straight line he said it was time to see how i could read.

and he took out a book and he said look. see if you can read this.

and the letters were in gold on the black leather and i looked at all of them and made them out and said each letter and then he made me join them in to words for that is what you do.

and there were two words and i knew there was two for he showed me how there is a space between words.

and i read the words.

the

bible

the bible
, he said. well done. those are your first two words. now look at this.

and he took out three different books from his drawers and he showed me all of them was the same.
the bible
. and i read them all.

i read them.

my first two words.

i placed my finger on the letters on the small black book and made their shapes. and as i felt the letters what were carved down in to the leather i read them aloud.
the. bible
, i said.
the
bible
.

he clapped his hands together. excellent. you are going to learn fast, he said. he pointed at the book what was in my hands. that, he said, is for you to take away and whenever you want you can look at it and remind yourself what you have learned.

this is mine?

indeed. you can keep it.

i held the black leather book in my hand. i held it tightly to me.

don’t lose it.

if you think i’m gonna lose this then you’re a soft bugger.

mary!

i’m sorry. i am sorry, sir. i didn’t mean to say that. it come out cos i’m so passioned.

passionate, he said.

passionate, yes. i stood up. thank you, i said. thank you. i started to go out the room.

mary. the tray.