The Incomers Page 3

  A shadow crosses her and in the window she sees the reflection of a man, head bent against the day. She turns to see Mr Winski disappear from her vision, behind the shed, and along the track that skirts the side of the house. Her first instinct is to call out a greeting, but the noise of a bump from the room behind sends her rushing back in to the house to find Nat sitting by the sink cupboard, a tin of Vim powder scattered all around him. His hands pat the dust, he grins up at her to show how clever he is. He moves a hand to his mouth.

  ‘Stop!’ Ellie screams.

  The baby’s eyes blink and his plump face screws up; he bubbles and shakes his head, muttering despair in his own language.

  Ellie grabs him and pins his hands to his side. She sets the tap running and stuffs his hand under it, hooking her arm round his tubby belly to control his struggling. Even though he is small he screams and wriggles so much she thinks she might drop him.

  The basin in the sink is filling but his hand is still covered with the powder so she dumps him in the water, clothes and all, only just managing to stop herself laughing at his shocked face. She squeezes a globule of Fairy Liquid and with the tips of her fingers she rubs the tiny hand clean.

  A huge sob escapes Nat as he tries to nestle into Ellie’s breast. When she is satisfied he is safe, she lifts him up and hugs him so tight she realises she might hurt him.

  ‘Mama’s sorry,’ she says as she nibbles his ear and coos. ‘You are so yummy I could eat you.’

  Now she is soaked too. The floor will have to wait. There are too many cupboards in this house; there are too many things to harm him. She had forgotten the tin was under there, but she shouldn’t have left Nat alone, even for a minute. Tonight she will throw them in the bin. In her home village her mother used only natural cleansers. From now on she will save the wood ash from the living room stove and she will make her own soap, not the strong perfumed muck that stings and dries her skin.

  When they are both dry and changed and Nat’s sobs have reduced to whimpering sighs, Ellie decides she is finished with this kitchen for today. She wraps the baby in his sling, tucking his feet in to keep them warm and pulls him round to her back. She can feel his sweet baby breath on her neck and knows that with all the fuss he will be sleeping soon.

  Before she leaves the house Ellie pulls the plant book from the shelf and turns to the section for spring, she knows this month is the beginning of the growing season here. She absorbs the pictures and reads the unusual names aloud; alexanders, bisort, borage. When she comes to one she knows; bulrush, she thinks of her church classes and slams the book shut. The mission is behind her now. This is her new life. She is the wife of the factor of the estate, no longer the poor mission girl.

  She considers tearing the glossy coloured page of illustrations to take with her, but that would be sinful. Even though she was only a girl her father taught her to respect books, always. Books were scarce and sacred. Learning was important to him, for that she should be grateful. She throws a couple of shovelfuls of coal in the stove and puts the soup on to simmer for James’ lunch. The back door she leaves unlocked and creeps past the red breast swelling his belly on her oats.

  The garden has a rotten wooden gate which opens onto the track. In one direction, after a few yards, the track widens into a country road that leads to the village. In the other, it works its way between the estate perimeter and the Co-operative Woods. Ellie looks for signs of Mr Winski, but there are none. James must fix the gate before Nat is old enough to play in the garden – this he always says, but the job is not done. Men must be reminded of jobs that do not sit on their noses. Not far from her gate, on the opposite side of the track, is an ancient metal farm gate with tall posts, each embossed with flowers. Ellie runs her finger over the ridges and wonders what the flowers signified to the craftsman who made this gate which now hangs off its hinges; the bottom half consumed by the ground through years of disuse. It is open just wide enough for Ellie to squeeze through with her baby.

  As she ducks her head to clear a thicket of overgrown briar, she can smell the damp moss and clean water of another world. She hears a faint trickle but sees no stream, or burn, as they call them here. James has given her a pair of Wellington boots. Not green like his. Somehow he managed to find, in the big hoose, a child’s red pair that fit Ellie. He was so excited when he came in, his felt hat pulled over his brow, hiding his eyes. She could see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth; he had something behind his back. She grabbed for it and he backed off into the stove and swore when his hand touched the side. He threw the wellies onto the middle of the floor as he ran for the sink and the cold tap.

  The soles squelch into the faint path and Ellie tries to ignore the rub of the boots, tight on her stout calves. She should nick the tops to give her more room but does not want to upset her husband who now nurses a scorched hand for these wellies.

  Ellie follows a broken stone wall which leads further into the woods and finds a ramshackle hut about five feet square, cowering behind a fallen tree trunk. It has no door and Ellie can see inside to the remnants of someone’s life. Coal sacks are ripped open and coarsely sewn back together to form bedding, heaped on one corner of a torn, single mattress. A rusty tin kettle is cobweb covered, and leaves have gathered where they have blown in over the autumn. The slight breeze that sighs outside is funnelled through cracks in the walls, giving them voice. Like a migrating bird, the occupant has flown for the winter.

  Ellie steps into a glade and counts the varieties of plants she believes she can use. New shoots brave enough to raise a head before the cold season has breathed its last breath. Flattened orange grass is rotting, oozing its goodness into the soil for its next generation. Ellie pats round her back to feel the warm hump that hugs her so close. She pulls a few young shoots and puts them in her pocket, remembering the spot from where she took them. She would identify them tonight and mark up a list of all their uses.

  As she stretches forward and plucks out a white fragrant flower, she notices a stone semi-submerged in the earth. She squats down and begins to tug vegetation off the stone but is careful not to tear out its roots. She finds what looks like a gravestone. She kneels back, bottom on heels and looks around; there are more stones to the left, lying in a line. She shuffles her knees across to the other side of the glade and pulls back thorny branches to find free-standing stones.

  This is a graveyard, but where is the church? She knows Christian burials must be on blessed ground. Is that what this is or some Scottish ritual she does not yet know of? One stone is in better condition than the others. She can make out the form of embossed letters under the moss and rubs her hand across it. The moss is soft and damp and comes off the stone easily. Some of the etching is chipped and not so easy to read. It is a name, Sister Agnes; there is a date but she cannot make it out. This is a nun’s grave, she is sure.

  A rustle from the woods towards the village alerts Ellie to the fact she is not alone. She lifts a stick and stands up, watching the space where she first heard the sound, but when it comes again it is further to her left.

  ‘Mr Winski?’ she says in a voice not loud enough to wake the baby.

  She raises the stick and grabs her skirt ready for flight when a brown and white dog carrying its own stick in its mouth, crashes through a bush and bounds in Ellie’s direction. There are many dogs in her village at home, many fierce dogs that she has stood her ground with. This dog will know she is not afraid. Its stubby two-inch tail works its back end into a shekere shake. When it sees Ellie it stops and looks at her, then it looks back to the wood, then at Ellie, then back to the wood again before racing to her feet, dropping the stick on the ground and looking up with lolling tongue.

  With one finger and thumb Ellie picks up the slime covered present and throws it into the bushes.

  ‘Wow!’ A voice sounds, before a dark head appears from the thick brush.

  It is a priest dressed in black raincoat and black wellies.

  He laughs, �
�You almost got me there, young lady.’

  Ellie suppresses the urge to turn and run. The priest seems to have been expecting her to be there. He steps forward and holds out his hand.

  ‘Father Grattan,’ he says in a crumbling voice. ‘You must be Mrs Mason, James’s wife; I’ve been meaning to visit but thought I would give you time to settle in.’

  ‘Ellie, my name is Ellie. How do you know I am Mrs Mason?’ Ellie asks.

  The priest laughs again. ‘Oh yes, very good, I imagine you will need that sense of humour if you want to fit in to Hollyburn.’

  He brushes his coat sleeve and takes a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He offers the packet to Ellie, but she waves him away, then he pops a cigarette in his mouth straight from the packet. When he lights the end Ellie is surprised at her feeling of pollution in this clear air.

  His cheeks hollow as he drags deeply, holding the smoke in his mouth before blowing it out of one corner. It is as if he wants to keep it inside him for ever, Ellie thinks.

  ‘I hear you’ve already been to the shops.’

  Ellie nods.

  ‘And on a bike? Good for you.’

  Ellie becomes aware that the dog is back and nudging her leg with its head, staring at the stick. She looks down and the Father chuckles. He has an easy laugh for a priest. The priests Ellie knows from home are serious pious men; hard men, removed from the people; white men who train black boys to be superior and teach them to steal and use fear against their own people. She feels Father Grattan could be a friend but then he spoils it by saying

  ‘I haven’t seen James at church since he came back.’

  Ellie’s body straightens. ‘I did not know James went to church.’

  The priest drags in more smoke; he racks a cough and wipes his mouth with a white handkerchief.

  ‘It would be good to see you both there sometime,’ he says, then picks up the stick and throws it, sending the little dog bouncing into the forest.

  ‘Well, Ellie, it was nice meeting you.’ He walks behind her back. ‘And the little fellow too.’

  Under her coat Ellie feels goose pimples explode up her arm and grasp her neck. She does not understand this feeling. Despite its failings the Church had been good to her, filled her full of education but in the process somehow left her empty. The Church had been telling her people for decades that they know best, but like an animal who chews its paw off to escape a trap, sometimes instinct tells you what is best.

  The Pairty Line

  ‘Did ye ken that the new pit manager wis a Catholic? Ah’ll tell ye, they Tims ur takin’ owre.’

  ‘Now dinnae stert, ye ken my man’s a Catholic.’

  ‘Oh aye, sorry, ah forgot. But he jist seems so normal, eh? – Kin ye hear that?’

  ‘Whit?’

  ‘That effin’ pairty line. – Git aff the line, nosey. – Sometimes ah wonder if thon pairty line is a Catholic, they ayeweys seem to hing aboot when am oan aboot thum.’

  ‘Well, ye shouldnae go oan aboot thum should ye? It’s no nice.’

  ‘No, ah suppose no.’

  ‘Onyweys, the Catholics irnae as bad as thon Orange Men, nor the Masons fur that matter. It’s thaim an’ thir Ludges ah cannae be daein’ wi’.’

  ‘And whit’s that suppose tae mean? Ma Da’s a Mason.’

  ‘Well, ye’ve heard whit it’s like doon the pit, it’s aw men thegither until it comes tae votin’ fur a shop steward, then they aw break ranks and vote fur thir ain.’

  ‘Noo dinnae you be spoutin’ yer politics shite tae me.’

  ‘Ah’m no, aw ah’m sayin’ is ma man wis best man fur the job and the Masons and Orangemen ganged up and votit against him – jist cause he’s a Catholic.’

  ‘Ah think yer jist bein’ owre sensitive.’

  ‘Mebbes aye, mebbes naw, but that’s whit happened, eh? The Catholics pay thir dues the same as a’b’dy else, ye ken?’

  ‘Ah niver says they didnae.’

  ‘Aye well, let’s leave it at that then.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘I did not know you went to church.’

  James raises his head from his newspaper and stares at Ellie.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I met a priest in the forest and he asked why you had not been to church. I did not know you went to church.’

  ‘Ellie, for God’s sake what are you talking about? We were married in the Catholic Church, your nuns insisted on it, remember?’

  ‘Why did you marry me, James?’ Ellie’s mouth is dry as she speaks the words and places a red leather prayer book on the table.

  ‘Is it because of this?’

  James stares at the book but doesn’t touch it or pick it up.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘I found this when I was putting away your washing. There is an interesting card inside.’ The breath is held inside her body. She has said too much and must not now breathe until her husband has spoken. She knows she should not be talking to her husband in this way. If he were one of her own she would be beaten for such insolence.

  They had met on the road close to her village. Ellie remembers the look of her world, bold and brash like its people. That day her mother lifted her head from over the bubbling cooking pot, balanced on its three legs in the fire pit outside her hut, and as she watched her daughter approach her mouth grinned but her eyes wept.

  ‘Daughter, it is the way of things,’ she said, handing Ellie a bowl of steaming pepper soup. ‘You have made a life for yourself. Your brother’s family need a home. To make room for you here would be too difficult.’

  Ellie had known before her visit this would be the outcome but she had not anticipated that her mother’s acceptance of old customs would tear the fibres of her heart. Her time as a pupil at the mission school and her training to be a nurse at the clinic had shown Ellie her home with new eyes. Before she left she had thought nothing of walking miles through the bush, collecting firewood. Each day, without complaint, she would rise from her bed at dawn to help her mother pound rice for the men’s breakfast, before going with the other women to the vegetable field to tend her crops. In the town she had grown used to water from a tap, not from a well. Her new life was of comfort, and yet she did not want to walk away from her home.

  She ate with her mother in silence as she watched village children in the next compound play with their makeshift toys: four tin lids wired together with coat hangers, a wooden box on top to fashion a vehicle similar to the trucks which trundled past the village on the President’s new road, to the President’s new gold mine. This road, the Jewel of Independence, had displaced Ellie’s brother’s family and now denied her the home she had been taken from ten years earlier. Her brother’s plight had made Ellie’s decision easier.

  A chicken sat in a wheelbarrow and cackled at its luck, saved from the pot for one more day. When Ellie rose, her mother pressed a bag of prepared manioc into her hand and pushed her to leave. In return Ellie handed over the few grubby notes she had earned that month in the clinic. The children in the yard laughed and chattered, oblivious to their hard life. As Ellie turned they tugged at her skirt, hoping for a treat from the town. Although she pretended not to have anything, they persisted until she handed over the small amount of sweets she had brought for them; it was not much but it was all they asked for. For them, maybe, it was not so hard: it was the life they knew.

  Ellie heard the rumble of the bus, checked her watch and realised it was on time – impossible. She picked up her skirt and dashed past the remaining shacks. Her city sandals flapped and threw up the thirsty red earth,

  A puff of black smoke belched from the bus that sagged at the back axle. Ellie widened her stride as she saw it lurch over a rut in the roadside and bump back onto the hardcore. Many pairs of eyes stared at her from the back seats and Ellie heard a chorus of ‘Stop!’ One red brake light blinked and the bus slowed enough to allow Ellie to catch up. The tight grip on her lungs eased as she heaved herself onto the step. She
clung to a handhold by the door as her face pressed close to a woman with an obvious sugar cane habit. A gummy grin welcomed her. The bus hopped forward once and then rumbled along at a speed slower than walking.

  The smell of fresh oranges could not hide the earthy odour of bodies nor the smell from two goats tied to the roof. Ellie was so used to washing every day in a deodorized haze, she had forgotten her native essence, but on this crowded transport she remembered she was the daughter of this land no matter what the mission had taught her.

  The bus was filled mainly with women returning from the market with their unsold goods. They would return in five days with more goods to sell. The hypnotic sway of the bright beads and crucifix hanging from the driving mirrors lulled Ellie into her own thoughts.

  She had nowhere to go but back to the clinic to continue with her nurse’s training. There was enough work for her and her colleagues; there was enough work in this disease-ridden country for armies of nurses. She should not be so sad to be denied her home. After she left the mission school she had wanted nothing but to return home. In all her years there she never stopped missing her mother and the wide open sky. She thought she wanted nothing more than a simple life of cooking and preparing food; of collecting water and hoeing and planting and living. It was a hard life for a woman but in the town she had witnessed a life no better. She had planned to go home after her schooling until the nuns had persuaded her to try a month at the medical clinic up river. They scolded her and scratched her conscience, reminding her that even if she persisted in her refusal to take her orders she could still pay the church for her education and serve God by helping to save these poor Africans.

  Ellie held her head up high with pride the first day she wore her uniform, the fact it had been worn by other nurses before her did not matter. The cleaning and scrubbing were easy chores but the actual task of nursing was proving too great for Ellie. Each time she witnessed the flow of another person’s blood she felt weak and her mouth filled with saliva. Many times during small operations she would faint onto the floor of the clinic and the doctor and nurses would push her to the side with their feet to avoid infecting their scrubbed hands. This was not the only reason Ellie longed to return to her fatherland; she missed the crops, the work in the women’s field; she missed the feel of the red earth on her hands and the thrill of watching plants grow and mature until they were ready for the pot. She missed the gentle people of her village. The town was dirty and its people greedy and mean.