Chapter Eleven Cider #2
‘Your father was never happy,’ said Derwa.
‘Not a fortnight would go by before Alex grew restless. God, he hated me for needing him, especially when I fell with child. I never knew if he’d return or I’d hear he was shot or hurt or dead.
I never knew where he was or the people he dealt with or what he’d done.
’ Across the field, another song ended and another was begun.
‘In truth, I didn’t want to know, for the work he did was not Christian.
I feared for him every day he was gone and every night he didn’t come home.
’ Down came the flower crown to fall into her lap, dislodged from her head with how fiercely she shook it.
‘That’s why I wanted Peter. He’s a predictable man and I always know where he is, what he’s up to and how he thinks.
’ Derwa eased a slim pink flower, sea thrift, from the crown’s arrangement and tucked it behind Kensa’s ear.
‘Accept it or no, but there will come a time when that’s appealing to you, too. ’
‘A wise woman can’t marry,’ Kensa reminded her, deflated.
Derwa raised her eyebrows. ‘One need not marry to take a man.’
‘Ma!’
It was then Kensa realised her mother had imbibed far more than her usual fare. Worse, Mr Skewes was approaching with a swaying gait, as he wound his way back towards Derwa. A hasty retreat was taken: Kensa fled them both, as well as her own embarrassment.
By now, the golden afternoon was ripe and aged, with the entertainment falling into happy disarray, propelled by drink and disorder.
Portscatho’s community worked hard and toiled long.
Whenever there was an excuse to release binds, responsibilities and shackles, it was liberally taken.
The miners were the most enthusiastic participants.
Their crackling coughs, cultivated in below-ground spaces, were wet with French sherry.
Their merriment was contagious to everyone bar Kensa, whose thoughts were claggy in her skull.
In one corner, safely removed from the dancing, were stalls.
The neatest one was manned by the church warden, Ephraim, whose thin jacket was as long as his face.
He worked for Mr Aldridge and was tasked with selling his honey.
It was collected in miscellaneous jars and sealed with tight cloth.
Bees were the clergyman’s pride. His hives sat within the grounds of St Gerrans Church and the worshippers could hear their hum from the pews.
A little sweetness would fix Kensa’s sour mood.
Or, perhaps not. For as she reached him, Ephraim shook his head.
‘Mr Aldridge is precious about his bees and who he sells his honey to.’
Kensa blinked back her surprise. ‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’ Ephraim hooked his bony arm around the produce, guarding it from her. ‘I shan’t be giving you nothin’ and the same goes for that old crotch-rubbed dog who suckles you.’ He sniffed. ‘Especially not when Mr Aldridge is in his moods; no, I know a damn sight better than that.’
A horn-hand gesture was pressed into Kensa’s face: a guard against the Devil and a firm dismissal. In her bewilderment, she turned and collided with another. A heavy frame, solid, which reached out to steady her: Sir George.
A single silver coat button, marked with his family crest, caught Kensa’s lip as she pulled back.
Pain came, as vibrant as the season. His fingers, unyielding against the bone of her forearm, were encased in kid-leather gloves.
How soft they were, despite the pressure.
And his face, unreadable, when Kensa thought she would see – something.
He might have been handsome in his youth, yet age had pulled at his jowls and his brown eyes were set small beside heavy lines.
Kensa could not speak. Mute, she thought on her father, on his loss, on the hagstone in her pocket, which she had taken from his swinging soul on the scaffold.
‘Sorry, I—’ came the apology. An unfamiliar utterance. One that tripped treacherously from her own mouth. She thought on the noose, unable to choke out a word around it, as though she bore the rope herself. ‘I—’
Sir George, in comparison, was unruffled.
Irritated, perhaps. He brushed his free hand down his front, as though to wipe her from it.
Shame, like that she’d never known, found her.
Although Kensa washed her face daily and scrubbed her nails, her ways were wild and her appearance matched it.
Why should she care what he thought of her, after what he had done? And yet she did.
Sir George released her. Took a measured step back.
Bowed low. By the time he straightened up, Kensa had fled.
Her boot soles were loud against the ground and her feet pulsed.
Behind her came a shout. She did not heed it.
Only when she was far enough away, a stitch in her side, did she slow.
Kensa’s hand went to her mouth. There was danger crouched inside it.
Her mind spun back to the Bad Books and what she’d read within them.
She pictured Sir George on his knees, gasping, dying, begging for his life – begging her to spare him.
And would she?
No, she thought, Never.
Across the field, awash with late moth-light, Kensa saw the wise woman watching her, lips moving. Although the distance was too great to permit talk, Isolde’s words came to Kensa as though poured directly into her ear.
We do not take lives, came the warning. We must not take lives.
Kensa swore in reply and hoped the old hag heard it.
Her hand ached to find a cup. Although she was young, she’d learned early what drink could do and willed it done now.
Again, scrumpy was an easy find, though it took her close to the music-makers.
Their songs were far too cheerful, which she told anyone who neared her, until no one would.
Mean thoughts manifested further as she saw her mother and Mr Skewes get up to dance, especially when his fingers curled onto Derwa’s rear.
It was while Kensa nursed her bleak and splintered thoughts that Elowen chose to speak with her sister. She flopped down on her stomach with an, ‘Oof,’ and stretched onto the grass which Kensa herself sat upon.
Elowen wore a simple pink dress, hair left loose and flowing.
At fifteen, her face was bright and open and happy.
She was the perfect May Queen. Girlish, yet leaning towards womanhood; a glass tipped for filling, empty and expectant.
Yet, there was a gauntness to her cheeks.
As bright as she was today, her face bore signs of sickly shadow.
‘Can I have some?’
Kensa drained her cup and belched. ‘No.’
The younger of the siblings threaded her fingers through the grass until a dandelion rested on her hand like a giant petalled ring. Silence filled the space between them as the band paused their playing to eat. Eventually, the younger girl asked, ‘What’s it like being a wise woman?’
‘I get a bed to myself and I don’t have to share with you.’
Elowen clicked her tongue in a way that mirrored Derwa, in a way that made Kensa’s heart sore in every chamber. Again, a quiet threw its weight upon them, wrinkling their sentences until, at last, Kensa lay one flat. ‘Where have you been going when you’ve told our mother you’re seeing me?’
Elowen snapped the dandelion stem, the flower tumbling into the grass. Her demeanour changed, shoulders stiffening. ‘Why should I tell you?’
‘Because I’m your sister.’
‘You don’t want to be.’
Kensa released a sound from her throat, unbidden. ‘I never said that.’
‘You don’t need to,’ said Elowen, her cheeks, ears and neck flushing red. ‘I’ve kept your secrets, haven’t I? You’ll keep mine.’
A twinned second tied their blood and drummed their earnest hearts, where Kensa could have apologised or explained or made it better.
She almost did, opening her mouth to speak, to undo the harm inflicted.
She was not quick enough. Elowen rose to her feet.
Kensa did not watch to see where she went, for her own eyes prickled hotly.
Not a breath after her sister left, did Jack make his presence known. He was wearing a new shirt – well, his father’s shirt, yet new to him. Its cream was bright against his faded blue waistcoat. How smart he looked. Pretty, even, though his chastisement was not.
‘Do you have to be so cruel to her?’
‘Leave me be,’ said Kensa. ‘No, wait, fetch me more cider.’
On the horizon, the sun was lowering itself to its end and the light was barley soup.
Jack extended a palm to her. She squinted up at him and hissed.
‘You’ve cut your hair,’ she said. ‘I hate you.’
‘Come on now, up you get.’
His hand hovered between them. Rough digits, calloused with hard labour. She thought on him working in the mines. Feared it, suddenly. Jack was so warm and solid. For him to be buried beneath the ground for hours on end, without the sun to meet him, sent a cold premonition through her.
‘I won’t have you embarrassing my aunt,’ he continued. ‘Or yourself, for that matter.’
‘Stop telling me what to do.’
‘I will when you behave yourself.’
He would not move. She liked that about him.
That she could push and push and he would remain, steadfast. Begrudgingly, or seeming to begrudge him, Kensa accepted Jack’s hand and got unsteadily to her feet.
His palm was a brand and she gasped at the contact, letting its heat settle elsewhere inside her.
A squeeze – Jack to Kensa – and her fingers were dropped, his eyes meeting hers a moment too long to be friendly. But when had they ever been friends?
Jack inclined his head to the right. ‘I need you to help me fish Mr Aldridge out the stream afore anyone sees him.’
‘And you tell me I’ve had enough!’
‘We need to get him home.’
The tense pull to Jack’s voice was a grounding force to Kensa. ‘Where’s Isolde?’
‘Last I saw, she was heading down to the harbour with that sailor she passes time with.’
‘Uck.’