15

MOTHER BREAKS HER SILENCE

By midday I had blood on my nether garments, coming from I knew not where precisely, only that it was shameful and frightening and that I had a gnawing pain deep in my belly as if a rat was chewing on my entrails.

What if I bled to death? What if the Lord was punishing me for saying I was a scientist? What if I had made a pact, not with God, but with the Devil? I took one of the napkins Mother used for the babies and tried to staunch the bleeding. I also tried to wash out my nightdress and drawers without Mother seeing, but she caught me in the yard, scrubbing with all my might at the stain.

She pulled me away from the pail and into her arms. She kissed the top of my head and said softly: ‘Oh, Mary. My little Mary. Are you all so growed up now? I must welcome you to the blessings and the woes of womankind, poor child... or woman, as I must call you now.’

I pulled away from her and went back to my scrubbing. ‘Am I to die?’ I muttered. ‘Or have a baby?’

‘Lord, no! Tis just nature. You have become a woman is all!’

‘Why did you not warn me?’ I asked through gritted teeth, as all the Marys in my head started to run about, squawking like headless chickens.

‘I had not thought t’would be so soon, you being more like to a boy than a girl in your ways, but it seems that will not spare you a woman’s burden. God grant you a woman’s joy one day. You will see tis a price worth paying.’ She ran her hand tenderly over the growing curve of her stomach.

I felt a fury in me then. I scrubbed and scrubbed as hot tears ran down my cheeks and joined the reddened water in the pail.

‘Come!’ said Mother, gently pulling at me. ‘Leave those clothes to soak. You’ll wear a hole with your scrubbing. Come and sit with me and let me tell you how it will be for you.’

I shook her off. ‘I have but one question. Will it stop? Or shall I bleed to death?’

‘It will stop. But it will come again every month just the same, unless you are with child, until ye be too old to bear children and then it will stop entirely.’

‘Then I wish to be old now. I wish it to stop now!’

‘I know, Mary. I know. Tis hard when first it comes but it is nature’s way and we must accept it for there is nothing we can do to stop it save for being with child. One day, Mary, one day you may wish to have babbies of your own.’

I turned on her. ‘Why? Why must it always be about babbies and husbands and doing the will of men! Why? Is there never to be talk of anything else? Is that all the life I have before me? Is that all I will ever be? Why? Why was I spared death by the lightning strike if it was just for this? It is unjust! And what of men? Do they bleed? I see by your face that they do not! Why is it women suffer so?’

She stroked my head. ‘Tis all creatures of our sex, Mary. Tis nature, as I told you. Men pay their dues in other ways. Lord knows, your poor father is paying a heavy price.’

‘He brought it on himself, you said. His accident? He brought it on himself! Did I bring this upon myself? Did I ask to be a woman? I did not. I hate it! I hate these!’ I banged my chest. ‘I hate babies and husbands and men and being poor and the sickness and the toil and the injustice! What have we done? Why are we to be punished so? Why? And what about Father? I tried to make a pact with God but he did not listen. He just sent me blood and sent Father blood too. Much the Lord cares about the likes of we! It is unjust! It is unfair!’

Mother looked at me sorrowfully. ‘Whoever told you that life was fair, Mary? Not I. It is what it is. We must make of it what we will and be thankful for such kindness and mercy as is bestowed upon us.’

‘And should we be thankful if God takes Father from us? And that we shall be left alone, with yet another mouth to feed? Are we to be grateful for that?’

‘We must accept what we may not change, Mary. You must be content with your lot on this Earth, or you will be unhappy, for it is not going to change no matter how hard you wish it. Come! I’ll make you a special drink that will ease your cramps.’

‘I don’t want a special drink! I just want this to all go away!’ I cried, and I pushed past Mother and ran out of the square and up the road to the church. As I ran through the graveyard I stamped on the ground as hard as I could and shouted to the gravestones: ‘You are free. More free than I shall ever be until I be in the ground with you!’

I was crying. My hair was in my eyes. The pain was worse and I felt that, whatever Mother said, I would surely die. Where better to end my days than on this shore and by this sea that had wanted to take me into its depths for so long?

Just as I reached the little gate to the path, I suddenly remembered Henry’s sketchbook. The memory of it hit me as hard as any blow. I wiped the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose with my sleeve and took the book from its hiding place in the wall. It was just as it had been all those months ago, a little curled from damp perhaps, but in the main unspoiled.

I clutched it to me and slid down to my haunches with my back to the wall and there I stayed for an hour or more, my head full of pain and sorrow and anger.

When my passion had subsided and my headache eased, I began to leaf through the pages and recall to mind each day of that summer. There were his little maps, his intricate drawings of serpents and scuttles and then another picture. One I had not seen before and the sight of which seemed to stop my heart for a second. A dark scene, dusk maybe. The cliff shapes were black against the deep gloom of the sky. In the centre, a figure striking a rock with a hammer, again black against the sky. Splitting that sky in two jagged halves, a bolt of lightning with its point touching the head of the figure.

Beneath the drawing, Henry had written: Lightning Mary. Scientist and Friend.

Lightning Mary. The secret, private name that only my father used. Henry must have heard my story and thought of the name himself, for I had never told him in case he thought my brains only came because of the storm, as so many did. I did not want him to think that. My mind was my mind.

I traced the letters with my finger and felt a swell of pride. ‘Scientist and Friend.’ Better than wife and mother any day.

 

Mother was making bread when I returned home. A cup of pinkish water stood waiting for me.

‘It’s gone cold,’ she said, not looking up from her kneading, ‘but I daresay it will work almost as well. Raspberry leaf.’

I drank it down. It was bitter and had not much taste of raspberry.

‘And here, take these.’ She gestured to the deep pocket in her apron for me to help myself as her hands were grey with flour. ‘You’ll have worked out what to do with them, I’m sure. No different from the nappies, I am afraid, and the same boiling to get them clean. You’ll need to change them more than once a day and don’t run about or they may fall out of your drawers.’

I took out the napkins and shuddered, before stuffing them in my own pockets.

‘Father will die, won’t he?’ This fact seemed now as clear as day in my head.

Mother slammed the dough down onto the table, sending up a cloud of flour. ‘He will.’

‘When?’ I asked. Mother seemed so calm.

‘I fear he’ll not see the year out. Your blood came today. His many weeks since.’

‘You didn’t tell me. Why?’

She turned to look me straight in the eye. Her own were filled with tears. ‘Because you were a child. Because you have long enough to be sorrowful. Because you cannot change it, and because he is precious to you and you are precious to him, and because he bade me keep silence. Now you ask me straight and I cannot hide the truth from you. We must be brave, you and I and Joseph. Braver than we have ever been. Now. Take him his dinner, Mary, and mind you say nothing of this to him. It would break his heart.’

She drew a deep breath, sighed and turned her attention back to the dough.

The route to Father’s workshop took me right along the seafront and up a narrow alleyway. The town was full of visitors, promenading up and down Marine Parade, enjoying the sunshine despite the gusts of wind which came off the sea. I weaved in and out of them, ignoring their stares at my dress, which billowed like a sail.

Up at the workshop, the doors were open and a half-made cabinet stood in a shaft of sunlight, surrounded by the curls of wood that had fallen from the plane. Of Father, there was no sign.

I went round the back of the workshop to the timber store. There he was, sawing away at a large piece of oak held in a vice.

He smiled when he saw me and wiped his sweaty hands on his apron before taking his dinner from my outstretched arms. ‘What has Mother got for me today, then?’ he said, unwrapping the cloth.

‘Food that is wasted,’ I replied, before I could stop myself.

‘Wasted? What do you mean, child?’ He sat down on a log and bade me sit next to him. ‘What has Mother been saying?’

‘The truth. That you are mortal sick and will die. And soon.’

I refused to look at him. I just stared down at the shavings and started pushing them around with the toe of my boot to make a spiral, like a serpent curled up.

‘Ah. I see.’ He fell silent and we sat there for some moments. His dinner lay uneaten in his lap. A lump of bread, a hunk of cheese and a deep purple plum. He picked it up and started rolling it about in his hands. ‘Everything dies, Mary. You of all people do know that.’

He tried to take my hand but I shook him off.

He continued, his voice soft, ‘What use would it have been to tell you? T’would spoil your summer. Make you anxious.’

I was not anxious now that I knew. I was angry. But why was I so angry? Because I do not like lies? No one had lied. I had not asked Mother or Father for the truth before that day. Was it because it had taken me so long to notice, to spot the telltale signs when Mother must have seen them weeks before?

‘Mother told me to say nothing to you, for it would upset you, but then it would be more lies between us,’ I said. ‘Besides, Henry said it is better to be able to say goodbye before a person dies. I have to know when you are going to die so that I can say goodbye to you.’

Father began sobbing. He tried again to take my hand and this time I buried my rough hand in his rougher one. We sat for what seemed like an hour or more, our heads resting against each other. The sun moved slowly above us, until our shadows lengthened towards home.

I felt quite calm. My head was silent, peaceful.

‘Best eat your dinner, Father. It will be worse wasted by you not eating it than you having it in the first place.’

Father laughed. ‘My little Lightning Mary, you are quick as a flash to the nub of the matter, as ever! What a creature you are!’ He broke off a lump of cheese and gave it to me, while he gnawed on the bread, which had gone even harder in the sun.

‘Did you tell Henry your special name for me, my Lightning Mary name?’ I asked, remembering the sketch.

He looked puzzled. ‘Not I. Never spoke to the boy. Seemed a good-enough sort. Good friend to you, was he?’

‘He was. He is.’

Father smiled and squeezed my hand. ‘That’s good. But be careful, mind. When you are growed up, things change. People stick to their own kind.’

‘We are the same kind. We are both scientists. We made a pact. I know he will keep it, when he can stop being a soldier.’

‘Well, Mary. All I say is, be careful. People change. They do not always keep their promises. Folks like us aren’t always treated fair. Don’t hope too much, there’s my girl. I don’t want to be looking down on you, seeing you unhappy. It never does any good to depend on another body for your happiness. You must find that in yourself. Do you understand? I see you pull a face when I say happiness. Well, you may be right. Maybe happiness is not for the likes of us, but we can find contentment, can’t we? I have seen contentment in your face when you are finding treasures. Isn’t that right?’

I nodded. ‘It is my métier,’ I said, recalling Henry’s word.

Father laughed uproariously and then he started to cough.

And cough.

He bent over double, pushing me away from him as he did so. ‘Don’t come close, Mary,’ he gasped between coughs. ‘Don’t come close.’

Blood flew from his mouth and struck the dirt. He seemed to be fighting to get air in his lungs. His face turned waxen and then grey and he collapsed onto the ground and was silent save for the harsh rasp of his breath.

I tried with all my might to rouse him, but he had gone where neither my voice nor my shaking could reach him.

Help. I needed to get help.

I ran down to the seafront. Visitors everywhere. No one I knew. I needed someone strong. Someone who looked as if they would not mind getting bloody or dirty.

A broad-shouldered man caught my eye and I ran up to him.

At first he looked at me in horror and his wife almost hid behind him. I suppose she thought I might want to rob them, but why she would think I’d choose the biggest man in Lyme Regis that day, I do not know.

I begged him to come with me.

‘It’s my father. He’s fallen senseless. He’s ill. Dying! Dead by now, maybe.’

The man looked confused. ‘And what do you want from me?’

His wife was still shrinking beside him, clinging on to his arm.

‘What do you think!’ How stupid some people are! ‘I need you to help carry him home!’

‘It may be a ruse!’ twittered the wife, in her silly high-pitched squeak of a voice.

But the man disentangled her grip, handed her his hat and looked me in the eye. ‘Come on then. Where is he?’ He turned to another gentleman close by. ‘Here, you; yes, you sir. Come and help this child and her sick father.’

 

Between us we got Father home and into his bed. He was deathly pale and his breathing was harsh, bubbling with the blood that still issued from his mouth.

Mother thanked the men and joined me at the bedside, grim-faced. We exchanged glances. I drew myself up tall beside her. I could stay a child no more.

There we were. Two women together, facing death.