Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

Well, he wouldn’t go ahead

And he wouldn’t stand still

So he went up and down

Like an old saw mill.

Turkey in the straw

Turkey in the hay

Turkey in the straw

Turkey in the hay

Roll ’em up and twist ’em up

A high tuck a-haw

And hit ’em up a tune called

Turkey in the Straw!

The old man accompanied her by whistling the tune. Because of the singing and the whistling, she didn’t hear the first time Robert called her. “Molly!” he cried again. This time she rolled herself up and squinted towards him as the wagon came to a halt.

“Robert Goodenough, here you are again!” she cried, waving the parasol at him. “You come out to find me?” Then she caught sight of the baby and went silent. Perhaps because hers was one of the few female voices around, Jimmy roused himself from his semiconscious state in Robert’s arm and let out a thin, piercing wail.

“Good Lord.” Molly clutched her substantial breasts and laughed. “Don’t that hit me right here. Makes ’em feel tingly. Watch out, little baby, you’ll get me started too soon! That your nephew? What’d you bring him up with you for?”

“Martha…” Robert couldn’t finish, but one look at his red eyes and crumpled face told Molly all she needed to know. Getting to her knees on the wagon bed, she held out her arms. “Come down here, both of you.”

Robert handed her the baby, and by the time he’d dismounted she’d already pressed Jimmy to her chest. She reached out and put her arm around Robert and hugged him hard, the baby squashed between them. For a moment Robert tensed, fearing for Jimmy. But he was fast discovering the resilience of newborns, and after a moment he relaxed, even allowing himself to rest his head on Molly’s shoulder. For the first time since Nancy put Jimmy into his arms, Robert did not feel like the only one responsible for him.

When they pulled apart, Molly gazed down at Jimmy, who was now nuzzling at her bosom, his mouth seeking something he sensed was close by.

“What are you feeding him?”

“Sugar water is all. He won’t take cow’s milk and there’s no women back at Murphys could feed him. I thought…” Robert trailed off, for Molly was unbuttoning the top of her dress to reveal a huge, dark nipple. Cupping her breast in one hand, she lifted and held out the nipple to the baby, who lunged at it like a drowning man come up for air. Latching on, he began to suck as hard as his weak mouth could.

Molly chuckled. “Tickles. Ow!” Desperation was making him suck harder, for he seemed to know he was where he was meant to be, doing what he was meant to do.

“Is that gonna work?” Robert asked.

“Dunno. I’ve heard of it happening, but never seen it myself.” Molly winced. “He’ll jest have to keep sucking, see if that brings on the milk.”

Half an hour later Molly’s milk came in.

Robert could not get used to living in a hotel. He shared a big bed with Molly that gave him a backache because it was softer than he was used to. Sometimes when she was asleep he moved to the floor. But that didn’t really help, for he also sensed others close by, hearing murmurs and laughter and moans from adjacent rooms, and music and shouts from downstairs, and people walking up and down the street outside. Jimmy lay in the drawer near the bed, waking every two hours to feed since his tiny stomach held little and emptied quickly. Robert was woken by plenty of sounds when he was sleeping in the woods-bears crashing through the bushes, wolves howling, other animals snuffling nearby. Yet somehow these noises disturbed him less than Jimmy’s insistent cry-for it was demanding something of him in a way the animals never did.

Molly loved Murphys. She settled into her preferred room, with its mahogany bed and its balconies overlooking the street, like a miner laying claim to a choice piece of river. Within an hour her dresses and petticoats hung from the bedposts, her bonnets dangled by their ribbons from hooks by the door, her shoes were piled in a corner and her hairbrush and hand mirror and powder and tin of rouge and hairpins littered the top of the bureau. The room smelled distantly of cooking from the restaurant below, and up close of warm flesh and talcum powder and souring milk and baby shit. Robert did not complain. He was grateful just to see Jimmy sleeping in Molly’s arms, cheeks fat and rosy after two days of being wan and gray. Grateful too that she patted the bed next to her and made it easy for him to join them.

Molly asked the hotel owner to find a cradle for Jimmy, or have one made right away. “A baby needs to rock,” she said when Robert pointed out that his newfound trick of the bottom drawer bed seemed to work. Soon a rough cradle made of elm appeared in the room, and that was when Robert began to understand that she was settling in. He had assumed they would stay at Murphys a day or two and then… but what would they do? He had cones and seedlings to bring back to William Lobb in San Francisco, but it was hard to imagine Molly and Jimmy living at Mrs. Bienenstock’s. He was pretty sure no woman had ever entered the boardinghouse apart from Mrs. B. herself, and a baby there would be like a yellow dress at a funeral. San Francisco itself was too rough and dirty for a child. On the other hand, he needed to go there more regularly than anywhere else, and Molly and Jimmy couldn’t follow him around while he was collecting plants and seeds. It would slow him down, and anyway a baby was better off in one place.

What Robert did not question was that he and Molly were now linked-by his nephew more than the child he had fathered, admittedly, but Jimmy was a real, demanding baby whereas his own was still just a mound under Molly’s dress.

Molly quickly got to know the hotel staff-the owner, the cook, the barman, the maid. Being pregnant seemed to give her even more of an appetite for food and company. She would often take Jimmy down to the saloon and nurse him while she sat with the customers, laughing and singing. Her size did not stop her in bed either, and she was loud with it, crying out whenever they coupled so that passersby on the street could hear.

She did not become friends with Nancy Lapham, however, the way you might think two women would who were surrounded by men. Robert kept expecting them to seek the other out, but apart from courteous nods and Nancy’s inquiries after Jimmy, they kept out of each other’s way. Robert mentioned this first to Billie Lapham while they were checking on their horses in the hotel stables one evening. Lapham was dazzled by Molly, her sensual solidity combined with her matter-of-fact manner. “Well, now,” he said, wiping his forehead with his palm-he seemed to be missing his handkerchief-“Nance is funny that way. She likes women her own size-like your sister. She knows where she is with a woman like Martha. Whereas Molly-she’s so-well, so full of life, she makes Nance feel even sicker. Course she didn’t say that,” he hastily added. “And she admires how Molly’s taken up Jimmy so natural. We both do. She’s really somethin’ else, your woman.” Billie Lapham spoke the last two words in an incredulous tone, as if he couldn’t believe Robert’s luck at landing such a catch.

Molly was blunter about Nancy. “She’s sickly,” she said when Robert asked her. “I don’t need to get friendly with someone who’s dyin’. Maybe that’s heartless, but I’d jest lose her, and who wants to get set up to be sad?”

After two weeks at Murphys, Robert began to feel as if he were wallowing in mud, unable to escape. His daily life had slowed down. He slept later and later, sunk deep in the feather bed and Molly’s flesh. He no longer hunted for his own food, but ate greasy steaks at the restaurant. Someone else looked after the gray and washed his clothes and lit his fires with wood they had chopped. He had never had such an easy life, and he hated it. Only Jimmy’s cheeks filling out, his eyes beginning to focus, his clear contentedness made Robert feel it was worthwhile.