Jim Crace - Signals of Distress

She was fascinated by the man’s timidity. He was as nervous as a child. He didn’t even dare to push his plate aside. He’d rather make a penance of the beef. If she let him finish every scrap and then put a second helping on his plate, would he eat that as well? She’d rap his knuckles if he didn’t eat it up. She’d box his ears. She smiled her first smile of the day. At last she couldn’t watch him any more. ‘You’ve had enough,’ she said.

‘No, no.’

She took the plate away and put it outside for the dogs. ‘They’re glad of it.’

‘A dog that dines on beef is king,’ said Aymer.

Rosie laughed out loud at that. ‘And what’s a king that dines on beef?’ she asked. ‘Is he a dog?’

‘That is not logical,’ said Aymer, glad to have this gristle for his intellect, and be free of gristle in his mouth. ‘A king that dines on bones might well be called a dog, I think you will agree. But the vice versa is not true. A dog that dines on bones is still a dog. You would not say he was a king …’

‘If they was beef bones, though?’

‘Then what?’

‘Then dogs and kings might share a plate, and that would be a day worth living for, in’t that the truth?’ Aymer thought it was the wittiest of truths, and told her so. Again she narrowed her mouth and eyes, and seemed both unamused and unflattered by his laughter and approval.

He tried to find some common ground with her. He’d see how sharp and witty she could be on other topics. But she didn’t want to talk about the beauty of the kelp, or the bizarre case of blindfolded Lotty Kyte, or hear the great debate between Wind and Steam. She hadn’t any views to share on Blind Superstition. Nor did the tumbling of the Cradle Rock much interest her. The fishermen were idiots if they thought one man had pushed it down. ‘It must’ve been those Americans,’ she said eventually. ‘I saw them on the headland yesterday. There’s nothing to be feared of them. Not now. They’ve gone. And Miggy, too.’ At this her eyes were narrowed even more. She screwed them up. She hid them with her hand.

‘Your daughter, Mrs Bowe, will be well under way by now. I am happy that the sea is placid for her,’ said Aymer. ‘She will be sorely missed, of course. But Ralph Parkiss is a decent young man. I had the pleasure to be acquainted with his character. And he with mine. He would regard me as a friend. And — you will believe me, I am sure — he will regard your daughter with affection. Do not alarm yourself on his account. There are few better sons-in-law, though he be only young and poor. It may be that there are men of better standing and more generously provisioned … ah, that is …’ Aymer, too, put his hand across his face, to hide his embarrassment. ‘I do not mean myself, of course. Though I am neither young nor poor. I would not make a son-in-law for anyone. I am not the husband kind. I was foolish to have ever entertained the thought of it …’

Again, Rosie Bowe was imitating seals. She tried to trap their calls inside her mouth. She tried to swallow them. Aymer thought, at first, that she was trying to suppress a sneeze. But he had wept enough himself to recognize a stifled sob. What had he said? Why should she care that he would not make a son-in-law for anyone? Was that so sad for her?

He almost asked her not to waste a tear for him. He wasn’t worthy of her sympathy. But there was something in the way she cried that kept him quiet and gave him time to realize the shaming truth, that no one cried for Aymer Smith. Her tears were for her daughter and herself. They were unstoppable. She’d drawn her legs up to her chest and had her hands laced round her wrists. Her head was on her knees. She had halved in size. She was like a woman out of Bedlam, hot, white-knuckled, volatile. Why should she care if Aymer Smith was there and watching her? She didn’t know the protocol of grief. Her cheeks were wet, and then her lips. Her chin was leaking on her dress. Her nose began to run, and she was sniffing back the tears and swallowing them. Her breathing next: her lungs were working overtime. Her throat was wet and windy, and the noises that she made now belonged to gulls, not seals. Her shoulders shook. Her body lost its bones. Her hands were knotted wood. Her hair was weed. She said, ‘This is bitter …’

Aymer Smith was too ashamed to move at first. ‘Can I do anything?’ he said. She didn’t hear. She banged her fists against her head. She threw her head back on the wall. His three sovereigns rattled on the shelf.

‘I beg you, Mrs Bowe …’ He took one step across the room and put his right hand on her shoulder. ‘Come, come, you will upset yourself …’

Her head came up from off the wall; her forehead rested for a second on his hip, and then her head went back again and bounced against the wall.

‘I beg you, Mrs Bowe,’ he said again. ‘You are damaging yourself.’ Perhaps he ought to throw some water over her. He couldn’t see a bucket or a bowl. There was only beef stew in a pot. That wouldn’t help. He put both hands behind her head and tried to steady it. She was surprisingly strong, and Aymer was too gentle. He should have held her by the ears or hair. Instead he clasped her head tightly to his body, and called for help. He didn’t have a name to call. The nearest neighbour was a quarter-mile away. His sister-in-law, Fidia, would have quietened Rosie straight away, with a glass of water and a slap, both in the face. He’d seen her do it with their kitchen girl. But calling ‘Fidia!’ would be no use. And simply calling ‘Help’ seemed too theatrical. So he called out, ‘Anybody! Anybody!’ And it worked. Nobody came. But it had startled Rosie. She stopped trying to break away from Aymer. Had that been his intention? He wasn’t sure of anything, except that dreams and nightmares were the same.

So the oddest thing had come about. Steam and Wind were reconciled. This pair of awkward, independent Contraries were pressed together like two pigeons in a storm — though they weren’t as plump as pigeons. Rosie could feel his rib cage on her face and, now that she was quiet, she heard his stomach dealing comically with stew to the quickening percussion of his heart. She’d always liked a man’s hands on her head, his fingers hard on her skull and hidden in her hair. Her tears had made Aymer’s shirt-front damp. He smelled of good soap, and dog. She didn’t want to pull her head away and face him. What could they say to save their blushes? Besides, his hands around her head were calming her. Miggy had not hugged her Ma for years. So any hugging at that time would help.

What did she want? She didn’t know, except that she was in no hurry to begin the last part of her life alone, a piece of salted granite on the coast. She might as well … She might as well, she told herself, have someone hold her in his arms, even if that someone was this creaking, timid stick. When he had shouted, ‘Anybody! Anybody!’ he had expressed her feelings too. Will anybody ever hold me to their heart again? Will anybody try? He’d had his chance to take his hands away. But he’d left them in her hair. She put her own hands on his waist and then on to the lower part of his back. He could be anyone she chose. She only had to keep her eyes shut tight.

She chose to look at him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You can.’ She pushed aside the sacking curtain that divided the room and tiptoed across the cold bare earth to the box-bed. He didn’t follow her. She had to go back to the fire and pull him by his wrist. She ought to feel ashamed, she thought, pressing him like this. Any man she’d known before had pulled her wrist. This one was reluctant even to be pulled. Did she disgust him? Was he just shy? Was he one of those men, like Skimmer or George at the inn, who only liked to be with other men? She put her arms around his waist again. ‘It in’t important, Mr Smith,’ she said. ‘Just put your hand back where it was, so that I can get the crying out of me.’ Aymer put one hand onto the nape of her neck and pushed her hair up on to her crown. He put the other hand behind her back and pulled her to him so that his lips were on her forehead. His lips were dry. She did cry for a minute or two, though Miggy was confused with Aymer in her mind. She couldn’t prise the two apart. Who was she hugging? Why? That dry-lipped kiss drew out her final sobs. She took deep breaths. She wouldn’t grieve any more for Miggy. She had to settle to her life.