Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

evidence while the others begin drumming on the table with their fists. The beat gains momentum, rings out like the tread of soldiers.

'Come, Sam.' James stands, smiles, apologises to the farmers with a slight bow. He takes the jugs, two in either hand, and goes through the door at the back of the kitchen into a chill, windowless room with a copper and mashing tubs and barrels where the Reverend, at each quarter-year, supervises the brewing of his table beer, and where Mrs Cole creates her country wines, the bottles stacked up against two of the walls. Despite the cold, Mary is sat there, very still on a straw-bottom chair, doing nothing discernible. A candle burns by her feet, which are tucked together, neat as cats. James draws the beer. When

he has finished he says: 'Come through. "Tis cold in here, even for you.'

She observes him, her eyes, two sucked black pebbles.

They are but small farmers,' he says. 'Sound and fury. It means nothing. Nothing but this.' He raises one of the jugs. 'Come sit vv^ith Sam and me by the fire.'

James carries the beer into the kitchen and sets it on the table. He wishes very much he could be sure she is happy; contented at least.

'Aah! Your 'Ibdr of life, Doctor. You saved us from a dry grave.'

'Long life to you, gentlemen. Health and happiness.'

'You won't bibe wi' us?'

'If it wiU please the company.'

'Well spoke, man!'

The jug is passed around, beer slopping on to the table at each pour.

'A toast, lads!'

'The King!'

'Farmer George and ol' Snuffy.'

'To the best cunt in Christendom!'

'Nay, boys.' It is Ween Tull speaking. 'To our own Dr Dyer. Not happy in 'is name, I'll grant you . . .' - cheers for this wit -'. . . but as he gives no patents to any man or wife, nor takes up a knife more than to cut his bread, he saves more lives than any in the kingdom!'

The toast is called. Says James: 'Generous of you, gentlemen Most.'

A voice cries: 'Where's Will Caggershot? Gi' us one of your verses. Will. Gi' us "Sally SaUsbury"!'

Caggershot wriggles up from the bench. '"The Epitar of poor Sally Salisbury".'

The company gazes at him Hke happy schoolboys. Caggershot clears his throat.

'Here flat on her back but inactive at last

Poor Sally lies under grim death;

Through the course of her vices she galloped so fast

No wonder she's now out of breath.

'To the goal of her pleasures she strove very hard

But tripped up ere halfway she ran

An' though everyone fancied her life was a yard . . .'

He stops, gawping over the others' heads towards the door of the brewing-room. The rest now twist in their seats to see. James stands from the hearth bench, his arms open as if hoping physically to bring the company together again. "Tis only Mary, gentlemen. No need to leave off your songs.'

We know who 'tis, Doctor.' Caggershot takes his seat. The farmers pool their gaze in the centre of the table. James shrugs and, going to Mary, hands her on to the bench next to Sam. Slowly the talk resumes, like an old pump, temporarily blocked. They drink; the drink is replenished. Mary is forgotten. Caggershot sings his songs, each more lewd than the last. Then Een Tull, brother of Ween, and the undoubted and piteous fool of the company, points his weebling finger at Mary, calling: "Ow 'bout the woman, Doctor, showin' off 'er teef an' that.'

The request is chorused by others, and so swiftly it is evident that Een has said only what others have been thinking. James has half feared such a turn, yet hoped they would refrain out of respect for him as 'the Doctor', as the Reverend's friend, as Mary's evident protector. It stings him, this apparent betrayal. And it is he who is to blame, he who has exposed her. He stands, loaded with breath.

'NO FREAK SHOWS, GENTLEMEN!'

There is no one in the room, not even Mary, who knew James Dyer as the immaculate young man setting out for Russia in the

autumn of 1767. None who have seen him in his finery, his coat of thunder and lightning, shaking the hand of the imperial ambassador as though it were the ambassador who should be honoured by the contact. None even who have imagined such a thing, save Sam perhaps, arranging gorgeous puppets in his mind as a kind of history. For the moment, the farmers are utterly routed.

The stillness is broken by a sound like the onset of rain. Mary moves to the head of the table, her hands neatly gathered at her waist as though about to sing for them. She waits - that sure theatricality of hers - then parts her Hps in a snarl, so that the front teeth, neatly filed into points, are bared to the gums. From the table comes a low moan of wonder. How much better this is than a double-headed sheep or a mathematical fish in a stinking booth at a country fair. Their expressions are so ludicrous, some of them unwontedly mimicking Mary's snarl, that James's anger translates itself to laughter, a loud, liberating laughter, which might have earned some angry words had the Reverend not then entered the kitchen, his face, despite the bleeding, dangerously ripe after five hours of food and drink and cards. He peers quizzically at James, then addresses himself to the farmers.

'Gentlemen, I fear I must detain you no longer. I am enough in the farming way myself to know you will be anxious to regain your homes.'

The appearance of a superior, even one so free from glamour as a parson, is unpleasantly sobering. Pipes are tapped out, the last of the beer swilled from the mugs. Their expressions seem already to anticipate the cold sensations the next dawn will bring; the renewed struggle with recalcitrant beasts, the tramping through still, dark fields like the first or last men on earth.

James brings out hats and greatcoats, scarves and gauntlets, sorry now that he has laughed.