The Colour of Milk (8 page)

no idea.

don’t you care?

no.

that ain’t nice.

you haven’t lived with it for years, he said. all i’ve heard about all my life is her being ill.

that’s cos she is ill.

she wouldn’t know what to talk about if she was well.

she’s very pale.

she would be. she hasn’t been outside for a decade.

she’s short of breath.

you’re beginning to sound like a doctor.

i can tell she ain’t well.

how are you making your diagnosis?

i looked after animals all my life. i know when they ain’t well.

have you told her you care for her in the same way you cared for the cows? perhaps i should tell her. she’d be very amused.

no. don’t. you mustn’t.

he laughed. i shall.

don’t you dare. if you do that i’ll tell her you went down the farm to see violet.

will you?

yes.

i don’t care if you do. it really doesn’t worry me. in fact, i make it my aim not to worry about anything. life can either be a chore or a joy. i choose the latter.

do you?

yes. he pointed at the table. hadn’t you better polish it?

i threw the cloth at him and he caught it, his hand moving quick as an adder. why don’t you? i asked.

he threw the cloth back. i told you, he said. no chores. all joy.

mrs was asleep in the white room. i put a blanket on her legs and closed the window. i left the room and shut the door careful not to make a sound. ralph was up in his room and vicar was out. i looked in the kitchen but edna was asleep in her chair by the fire which she’d let go out on account of the heat outside. and i went up to the room under the eaves and took off my apron and dress and put back on my old dress from the farm what was in the drawer and i put on my old apron and i found my old boots and i put them on and i didn’t care for that they may leave crumbs of dry mud where i walked through the house. and i creeped down the stairs and out in to the lane. i went up the hill.

from the top i could see down over the farmhouse and yard and could see the fields and the hay laying in rows waiting to be gathered in to ricks.

the pig lay in the shade of the trees.

the cows stood on the grass.

i never planned what to do it was just when i saw it all i started walking down there.

i had to.

i walked right down the lane and in to the yard and they were milking there. and then i saw father. and then he saw me.

what you doing? he asked.

i come back, i said.

who says you could come back?

i say.

he shook his head. i don’t reckon you could.

i can’t stay there. i want to come home.

you can’t.

he took my arm and started pulling me out the yard. i cried out and all three of the sisters was on their stools and they looked up at me but no one did nothing. and mother came to the door of the scullery and she watched but she never done nothing.

father dragged me back up the lane and past the houses and the church. he dragged me to the vicarage house.

the back door was open and he saw edna in the kitchen lighting the fire.

where’s mr graham?

edna saw me. i’ll get him.

we waited out the back door in the sun and father’s hand held my arm and he gripped me and it hurt.

mr graham appeared. is there a problem?

she came home but i told her she ain’t staying there. i told her she’s staying put here.

mr graham nodded. mary? were you running away? i did let you go down this morning.

i said nothing. father nudged me.

aren’t you happy here? mr graham asked.

i said nothing.

she’s well looked after, aren’t you? she’s just a bit spirited. a bit strong-willed.

a bit? father said.

i’ll make sure, mr graham said, that she doesn’t do it again.

you do that or i’ll come and sort her out.

there won’t be a need for that. mr graham took my arm and pulled me away from father. come on, mary, he said, edna needs a hand.

he pushed me in to the kitchen and i listened to the two men talking at the back door about how there wasn’t no rain for the crops and how the milk yield was down then father left and i heard the door close and mr graham came in the kitchen.

mary? what on earth was all that about?

i shrugged.

bring me some tea through.

so i made him tea and took it in to the wooden room. and i put it on the table.

thank you. have a seat.

i perched on the edge of the chair like a hen on the nesting box when she’s about to fly off.

i wanted to say thank you, he said.

for me running away?

no. for being so good with my wife. i know you’re not quite settled here but you are doing very well and i promise you will have times when you can go home to visit, but you work here now. you understand? mary?

i understand what you’re saying.

good. then you agree not to run away again?

i spose. i ain’t got no choice, have i?

i don’t think we need to put it like that. i think the best is if you settle down and get in to a routine. then you’ll get used to it and before you know it, you’ll be calling this home.

this is my book and i am writing it by my own hand.

it is the year of lord eighteen hundred and thirty one.

outside my window the sun is pale and the birds have fallen silent.

writing takes a long time. each word has to be lettered and spelled on to the page and when i am done i have to look at it again to see if i have chosen right.

and some days i have to stop for i have to think about what it is i have to say. and what it is i want to say. and why it is i am saying it.

and it takes longer for me to write about something that happened than it took for it to happen.

but i must write quick for i do not have much time.

the grass got long and it yellowed. shadows got longer. hedges filled with berries and apples swelled on trees.

and when i went out the air was different for it was fresh and new and after the sun went down i could feel some cold.

and in the morning and evening the mist layered and made the hills soft and the air thick.

and edna filled the kitchen with jars and pans and we were busy with the fruit and getting it in to the jars. and harry dug up all the beetroot and carrots and onions and brought it to the back door and we laid it down in sand boxes and put it in the cold store and then we put the apples in the dark. and he sacked up the potatoes and we made sure the bags was tied and the light could not get in.

there was a lot to do only all the time i was working i was thinking of them on the farm what with the harvest in the field and they would have the apples to pick and the pears and this was the time when every light hour was spent bringing it in cos if you didn’t then you would be stuck over the winter and the animals would starve and then the people would starve.

it was time to start on the jam and edna told me to go outside and to collect some more fruit from the cage at the top of the garden.

harry was by the fire outside and he was smoking his pipe. he watched me walk up towards him and i was carrying the big pan.

you look happy, i said.

he stared at me.

i said you look happy. must be to see me.

what d’you want?

i smiled. i’d like some damsons and some raspberries.

i’m smoking.

i know, i said. i can see.

then you’ll have to wait.

and so i stood there while he smoked and the smoke mixed with the smell of the bonfire and the autumn air. and i listened to the wood on the fire and the licking of the flames. and the damp leaves sent up thick smoke and i heard him sucking his pipe and the clacking of the end of it between his teeth.

and then he was done and he walked off to the box he had on the ground and he picked it up and poured the damsons in to my pan and when it was full he stopped and some damsons fell on to the grass and i picked them up.

you know what, i said.

what?

you only live once, i said. you’ll be dead soon and when you look back you’ll realize you had a miserable life and you didn’t need to.

and i thought he was gonna say summat but he never. he just stared at me and he sucked on his pipe and i turned upon my tail and walked back to the kitchen. and i took the damsons in and they had a sheen on them and the purple was near black like a bruise.

that evening i went in to see mrs and i sat by her feet. and i was rubbing them with lanolin what comes from sheep and i was doing that for her skin got dry.

look at your hands, she said. look at the colour.

i held them up. the skin was light brown on the palms and the fingers.

it’s the walnuts, i said, for i had been peeling them and putting them to dry all afternoon. it’ll wear off, i said.

i suppose so.

i carried on rubbing and she sighed loudly.

what?

the nights are getting longer, she said.

i looked up at the window what was black like a mirror and i could see the room in it.

i stopped rubbing her foot.

don’t stop, she said.

i got to see to the fire, i said.

she watched me as i closed the curtains and then i poked the logs and they fell down and i brushed up the ash what fell out and i took a log from the basket.

i don’t know, she said, what we did before you came to us.

i spec you managed.

i don’t think we were as happy.

the flames got hold and i put on the log and then another. and i stayed kneeling and watching the fire.

mary, mrs said.

what?

my father was not a nice man, she said.

i turned round to look at her.

he had no kindness, you see. i think i was permanently scared of him. i think that’s why i was happy to get married.

maybe fathers think they have to be like that, i said.

maybe. yes. maybe.

i watched the flames touch the log and blacken the pale wood where it was split.

my father had a job in africa, she said, and i was born there. my mother and i came back when i was school age. my father said i didn’t need an education but my mother wanted me to. she said i was clever.

and did you go to school?

she laughed. not school, no, she said. i had a governess. and then my father came back soon after and joined us in the village. that is how i met my husband. his father was the vicar. my husband was kind to me when we were growing up. sometimes that is all we need, a small piece of human kindness.

i turned back to the fire and put two more logs on and i went back to sit by her and i took her foot and rubbed it.

that feels good, she said.

she watched me rubbing and didn’t say nothing for a bit then she spoke.

my father’s skin was cold when i touched him, she said, though i didn’t touch him many times. he wanted sons, you see.

like my father.

yes. she smiled. like yours. i was his only child, she said, and i was a girl. i don’t think he could have been more disappointed.

mine just wants people to work, i said. he needs extra hands to do the milking and bring the crops in and plough the fields.

and does he make you all work?

i laughed. you ain’t got no choice, mrs. that’s just the way it is.

is it harder work than here?

a lot harder. when i first come here i was looking for jobs for i ain’t been used to it like this.

have you got used to it now?

i spose. though i ain’t here through choice.

she smiled. i know that. you never let us forget.

i looked round the room. the rug on the floor was soft under me and the books were all colours in the candle light. the flames of the fire reached right up in to the chimney and i thought of the fire at the farm where father only lit it when the frost came and we shook with cold. and the flames never went so high for he never put too much wood on. he said that way the pig’s heart what was stuck with pins and put in the chimney to keep the devil out was safe from burning.

mary?

sorry, mrs.

i was saying we married quickly. my husband proposed and we were married soon after. i had a daughter after a year but she died not long after she was born.

she moved her foot out of my hand and rested it on the bed.

that is when, she said, my husband decided to follow his own father in to the church. and then one year after he was ordained i had ralph. he is a perfect son.

there was a knock at the door and it opened. edna stood there.

excuse me, mrs graham, she said, only mary’s sister is here and she would like a word with mary.

it’s late, said mrs. but you had better go.

i jumped up and went down the stone corridor fast for i thought summat had to happen for her to come up to the house and i thought of grandfather and so i ran to the back door and violet was there.

what’s happened? i asked.

violet looked past me in to the house and when i turned round to see what she was looking at i could see edna was standing there listening.

and violet asked if we could go off for she wanted to talk to me and edna said i could only it was dark and for that i was not to be long.

violet led me up the lane towards the hill. we stopped in a gateway and went through in to the long grass and the grass was damp and the air smelled of apples for that there were trees in the field and i tucked my shawl under me then we sat down.

how you been? she asked.

i don’t care how i been, i said. who’s ill? is it grandfather?

he’s all right. no one’s ill.

then why was you being as if someone was?

to get you out of there.

o, i said. well tell grandfather soon as i get a day off work i’m coming down. beatrice all right?

beatrice moved her bed in with us. she couldn’t sleep on her own.

and hope?

bad tempered like normal. i say normal. i should say like father.