The Incomers Page 8

  ‘Ah ken. They say they dinnae yaise bog roll. They yaise thir haun’s tae wipe thir bums.’

  ‘No! That cannae be right.’

  ‘Ah’m telling ye they yaise thir hauns.’

  ‘Goad’s truth whit next, eh?’

  Chapter Eleven

  She almost asks James to go to the shop for the replacement macaroni. Ellie wakes in the night with a dripping nose and her throat burning like a pepper pod. When she swings her legs out of bed and puts her feet on the cold linoleum floor, she sets off a round of sneezing violent enough to rattle the foundations of the house while her husband sleeps on. Ellie knows this cold is an excuse not to go to the shop, and she knows cold or no cold she will force herself to go.

  The chattering in the small room tells her the baby has woken with the birds. While Ellie prepares the breakfast for her men she rehearses what she will say to the skinny woman. Will she offer her hand in greeting? The box of macaroni might appear as an offering. Should she take another gift to the woman? Has Mary told her mother? Ellie will impress on the woman that her daughter is indeed kind to strangers in their land. All mothers love to hear praise of their children. The introduction to Nat should perhaps come first; everyone loves a baby. What if she sees the skinny woman on the way to the shops? Can she offer a greeting without explaining she will call back?

  There is no sign of the skinny woman at the road sign but Ellie can see that the wall has a fresh coat or two of white paint.

  She hears the racket before she comes to the small school. Children cavort in the yard. She looks at her watch, 10.30, must be morning recess. The children look so pink and fresh and alien to her. Ellie shivers. Clustered together in a pack they seem somehow threatening, but that is silly; they are children playing a children’s game. Two little girls play with small balls, bouncing two in succession against the walls singing ‘one, two, three ol-ee-ray, four, five, six ol-ee-ray, seven, eight, nine ol-ee-ray, ten ol-ee-ray, postman.’ This rhyme means nothing to Ellie, but she realises that she may not have picked it up as it should have been. The people in this village speak a fast, undistinguishable kind of English when they are not being watched.

  One girl, with long curls like tubing, tied up with a red ribbon, manages to keep her balls in constant play while another drops one ball after only two bounces and runs to retrieve it from amongst a group of girls skipping. Ellie searches the mass of bobbing heads for that one curly head she now knows. A tall boy with straw hair and dried snot caked to his nose stops wrestling a smaller boy in a grubby grey shirt and gapes across the expanse of the playing field to where Ellie stands. A grin spreads over his face and he begins to swing his arms and bow his legs in parody of a chimpanzee.

  ‘Hoo, hoo, hoo,’ he says as he waddles towards her. The grey shirt and others follow him, copying his walk: an army of comic chimpanzees. They are mocking her, she knows, but she cannot move. Even though she can feel her nose dripping and she wants to take the hankie out of her pocket and wipe it, the only movement Ellie makes is to place her hand on her baby who nestles behind her back. The comic army advancing towards her root her toes into the pavement. She sniffs up the drip as best she can and hopes these children do not think she is crying. Like a farmer with a bull, she knows she can show no fear. She spots the curly head standing with a tall, fat blonde girl who looks as though she should be working out in the fields, rather than playing in a children’s playground. It is the waving girl from the car. The blonde girl is holding Mary’s arm and jumping in front of her, preventing Mary from moving forward. Every time Mary tries to pass, the girl blocks her way. Mary points and when the girl turns, Mary skips round her and runs helter skelter past the boys to where Ellie stands. The little girl’s face is white, but her cheeks are flushed. She stares with bug eyes at Ellie but does not speak to her when she reaches the fence. She turns her back on the fence and says in a small voice,

  ‘Stop this.’

  The boys halt their approach but the big snot-nosed boy steps forward and says,

  ‘What’s this, you protecting a coon now?’

  ‘Don’t say that, Eric Creighton. It’s not nice.’

  Such bravery, Ellie thinks, as she blows into her hankie; a mouse against an elephant.

  ‘Who’s gonnae stop me, you? You’re just a toffy-nosed English bitch.’

  Ellie stuffs the hankie into her pocket and steps nearer the fence ready to defend that comment, but has no need.

  ‘I’ll stop you, Eric Creighton.’ A growl comes from behind the crowd.

  All the children, including Mary, drop their heads and cower back to create a path for the owner of the voice to walk through.

  She wears a mask so hideous that Ellie puts her hand to her mouth to stop her gasp escaping. The woman’s head is a mass of red hair the colour of the western sky, her face is cracked with sand and her cheeks and lips smeared with red ochre. How could anyone find this mask attractive?

  ‘Get back to the playground, children, and stop all this nonsense.’

  There is a shuffling of feet, but the children continue to hover around the woman.

  ‘Now!’ She roars. They scatter like birds from the trees after gunshot.

  Ellie notices the blonde girl take Mary’s hand and lead her away. Mary looks round and smiles to Ellie but the girl tugs her forward and begins to run, dragging her with her.

  The mask turns on Ellie. ‘I would appreciate it if you would not disrupt the children’s playtime by standing at the fence.’

  ‘How do I disrupt? I merely cycle to the shop.’

  The mask woman snorts. ‘Your presence is disruptive enough.’

  Ellie puffs her chest like an adder. ‘And I thought this was a free country, I will go where and when I please. Please take your attitude and teach your children to respect other races and other culture. Is that not what you should teach them from the Bible? “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.” Exodus chapter 12, verse 49.’

  ‘How dare you preach the Bible to me?’

  Ellie pushes her bike away, she has heard enough. ‘I dare because I understand it more than you. Good day, Miss.’

  She leaves her mark open-mouthed and speechless. When a rumble begins in her chest, Ellie enjoys the flow of the laughter coursing its way through her body. Behind her ear she can hear the small gurgles of a little boy who enjoys the sound of his mother’s laughter.

  ‘You are lucky you did not cast your eyes on that hideous mask, Nat. Do you think she will be a Miss? No man would want to wake up to that face in the morning.’

  Ellie chuckles to her baby before expelling a triumphant sneeze.

  Green-apron is the only one serving in the shop. Ellie watches her eyebrow raise a fraction when asked for macaroni, but no comment is made. Ellie snuffles while the lady pulls the box from the shelf and lays it on the counter.

  ‘Got a bad cold, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, it starts just this morning.’

  ‘Expect you won’t be used to this colder weather, that’ll be it. Need to wrap up warm, stay indoors’

  Ellie sighs, ‘I think colds come from germs, not weather.’

  Green-apron looks hard at Ellie. ‘Aye, well, that maybe so where you come from, hen, but here colds come from the rain and the damp.’ She reaches under the counter and places a white box in front of Ellie. ‘That’s what you need - Beecham’s Powders, that’ll sort you out.’

  ‘No thank you, I have my own remedy.’

  The woman laughs a tiny sweet laugh Ellie feels she keeps in a box for customers.

  ‘Aye, ah thought you might. Well, suit yourself.’

  The door is closed firm against Ellie’s knock but she knows the skinny one is inside; the net curtain covering one of the front windows does not hide the shadow moving behind. Ellie leaves the box of macaroni on the door step and calls through the letterbox,

  ‘I am returning what your daughter lends to me. Thank you, missus, you have a very kind
little girl.’

  She just hopes that she has not thrown Mary into a deep pool of trouble.

  ‘Is this the place a mother will have her son growing into a man? A place where children mock and adults treat her no better,’ Ellie coos to her son as she unties the binding. Nat smiles to her, understanding the tone of her words and not their true meaning. She knows by the glow in his cheeks that he enjoys these short bike rides to the shops. The air is good for him even if it is filled with unkind thoughts and coal smoke. She will take him again. These people will not turn them away forever, this she feels is truth.

  The day disappears in washing and cooking and playing with Nat. Soon the afternoon fades and the kitchen window becomes a mirror to reflect Ellie’s life. The stove dominates the room, lids rattle as pots simmer. The table is set for tea and a small jam jar holding a posy of foliage sits between the place mats, the baby yawns and slouches in his highchair.

  ‘An early night for you. I need to talk to Papa,’ Ellie tells him as she rubs his cheek with her thumb before lifting him and sitting him on the rag rug. She turns both taps and fills the stone sink with warm water. He screams, as always, when she pulls off his top but settles in the sink with a splash and a giggle. Black skin shines against the dull off-white enamel.

  Ellie washes his skin for the last time with the soap she made from wood ash, the soap her husband says is ridiculous and that she must stop making. She will hurry; the clock tells her James will be home soon.

  The door opens just as she pulls a warmed vest over her son’s head. This time he does not scream.

  Cobble-sized slabs of pastel pink, green and blue soap are thrown on the table, almost knocking over the posy jar. The fragrant smell surprises Ellie. The pit soap her husband had warned he would bring her is not black with a strong carbolic smell as she’d imagined. The perfume is sweet.

  ‘Will this sting eyes?’ She asks her husband who now looks to her for thanks.

  ‘There is only one way to find out. But if it does we will have to find something else. Forget the idea of making soap from wood ash. You’ll be locked up, woman.’

  His tone is hard but she can see that he has humour in his mouth. He picks up a curl of her hair and twists it round his finger.

  ‘We can try it out tonight. You can let me wash your back.’

  This suggestion would normally bring a laugh to her belly but she can only force a smile. A bubble of sadness stops her like a cork stuck fast in a bottle. James pulls a chair out and sits next to them.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Ellie hands her half-naked baby to his father and rests her eyes against the palms of her hands. Tears push against the cork in her chest but hold fast. Ellie feels a pressure in her belly is making her head ache.

  ‘The children make fun of me and Nat – monkey noises.’ She hears her voice quiver; there is a crack in her throat and the cork releases.

  ‘The teacher,’ she sobs, ‘she is as bad.’

  ‘Tell me what happened, from the beginning,’ James says while rubbing Nat’s back with the heel of his hand. He then tickles him until he giggles.

  ‘Is Mummy being silly, Nat, heh? Let’s hear mummy’s silly story.’

  ‘’S’not funny.’

  James frowns at her but keeps his voice soft when he says, ‘I know but there is no point getting Nat upset. He was with you, did they shout at him?’

  ‘No, ’s ok, he was asleep - I think.’

  James pulls the top of Nat’s pyjamas over his head and leaves his bottom free for Ellie to put on his nappy.

  He hands Nat his keys and waits until the boy is engrossed with them before turning his attention to Ellie again.

  ‘So, tell me.’

  Ellie blows her nose and begins. James is correct; she should not upset her son. She starts at the beginning with the painting on the wall. She tells of the boys. When she mentions Mary she watches him frown. When she tells him of the teacher and how she had quoted the scripture, he laughs.

  ‘Good for you, I bet she loved that!’

  ‘’S not funny.’

  ‘What would you like me to do, Ellie?’

  This she does not expect: some form of action offered from her husband. In her fatherland this could lead to serious trouble, but she is not in her country. She looks at him with her son on his knee. In Nat she can see his father and the same truculent expression. What does she want him to do? She sticks her tongue to the top of her mouth to stop the words ‘take me home’ escaping.

  She raises herself up from the seat and lifts a nappy from the laundry pile. Nat should be covered before he puddles on his father or the floor.

  ‘I want you to understand what it is like for me here,’ she says to the towelling material in her hand. ‘Yes, that is what I want from you. Just understand.’

  ‘Ellie, you knew before you came here it would be hard. It is never easy. You have to try to fit in.’ He waves his hand down her body. ‘I mean, look at you; look at the way you dress. When are you going to start wearing western clothes?’

  Ellie smoothes her hands down her skirt and unhooks the apron that hangs on the kitchen door. She ties it round her waist.

  ‘Just try to understand, James,’ she says as she takes the baby from him, prises the keys out of Nat’s tight fist and leaves the room before James can say more.

  Ellie knows there is something to help her cold in the forest; she just does not know what yet.

  She sniffs all through dinner.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ellie, take something for that cold.’

  James pushes the chair back with a teeth-rattling scrape on the linoleum and stomps through to the living room. Ellie hears the theme tune to Coronation Street and hears the metallic grind of the actors’ voices, and she wonders again why people spend so much time absorbed in the dull lives of others.

  She smears the fine covering of coal dust from the book with the flat of her hand and wipes it off against her pinny. She passes her clean hand over the shiny cover and presses down the sellotape covering the tear. Did Wilhelmina ever look through this book with a glimmer of hope to cure her ills? Mrs Watson had inferred the cancer ate her sister from the inside.

  Ellie had seen such a thing in her village before she went off to school. Five members of one family had been eaten alive with the cancer. Some of the older people had said it was the family’s mother who put a curse on them, put a curse on her own family because they would not look after her in her old age. Now she is alone and branded a sorcerer; she is lucky she is not killed herself.

  Ellie shakes her head at such nonsense. Superstitious havers, James would say.

  The book is well laid out, organised by the seasons of the year. She turns to the spring pages again which are filled with pictures of leaves and a few flowers.

  Raspberry leaf seems to be the thing for her sore throat, and sage, of course. She knows sage; there is something similar in her country. She finds nothing in this book for her runny nose, which is OK, the mucus should leave her body and her nose can drip it out.

  Next morning Ellie wakes with the dull ache and sore throat still raging in her head. The house is chilled. Still only March and James tells her last night it will be a few months before she will feel warm sunshine, but he warns her not to expect too much.

  James sleeps on his back with his arms stretched over his head. The blonde hairs under his armpits are fine like wisps of down, she notices small goose pimples on his arms, and she eases the blankets up and covers him to his neck.

  The kitchen holds the warmth of last night’s stove. Ellie rakes it with care and places a small bundle of kindling on the quiet embers to give the fire “a kick up the backside.” Soon it flares. She stands with the fire door open just for a few minutes and indulges in the roasting heat before she piles the coal on top and closes the door.

  She measures porridge oats in the pan and mixes them with water from the tap then throws in a handful of salt as she stirs it with a wooden spoon – clockwise, always
clockwise as James has taught her to do.

  It is still dark outside but Ellie can see rods of rain fall from the sky and splash against the window. She has a notion to go gather her herbs now. She examines the picture in the book, still lying open at the page, and thinks these raspberry plants are not far from the house, they are tangled in the hedge that lines the path from the house into the forest. The sage covers the nuns’ graves, too far to go in this weather. She stirs the pot to boiling. The raspberry leaves are almost at her door. The porridge pot spits at Ellie as she moves it onto the simmer plate to make room for the filled kettle on the hot plate.

  James’s heavy jacket hangs by the back door. Ellie grabs it off the hook and pulls it over her shoulders. She smells his sweet smell and thinks she should crawl back to bed, to curl up warm under those soft downy armpits, but she can feel another sneeze wriggle up her nose and the burning in her throat, and she decides she wants to try this potion. As she slips her feet into her wellies and steps out into the dark wet morning, a small space in Ellie’s head clears. She lifts her face and accepts the rain, sticks out her tongue and catches the cool drops. She closes her eyelids and washes the sleep from the corners of her eyes, snorts like a horse and cools her poor rasped nose.

  A flashlight has a home on the shelf by the back door; Ellie reaches back in and grabs this before leaving the house. The garden gate is open. James always leaves it open, and Ellie struggles to push down her anger. He knows how hard she works in her garden and yet he invites the forest animals in to feast off her labours. The flashlight shows her the way through the glistening crisscross of spider’s webs woven so carefully during the night only to be torn down in daylight. The spectacular show of beauty halts Ellie’s progress.

  To spoil the gossamer work is a sin, but she knows she must. She feels the delicate filaments kiss her face as she pads towards the forest, afraid of disturbing the tranquil peace. The heavy rain steps up a couple of paces to a torrent and she realises she should not linger as she picks a handful of leaves, careful not to bruise them. The comfy light of her kitchen entices her home to check in her book, she must not make a mistake. The kettle’s whistle welcomes her back and she gasps at the steamy heat as she steps through the door.