Читать книгу Sarah Thornhill - Kate Grenville - Страница 16

NEXT MORNING Jack said he’d be off to Mrs Herring’s, cut her some backlogs for the winter. I was casting around for a reason to go with him but Ma made it easy.

Dolly, you go with Jack, she said. I got a nice smoked hock for Mrs Herring and one of the cheeses, poor old thing be glad of them.

All right, Ma, I said, some sly streak in me making out it was a burden.

Jack rowed, I sat in the stern. He’d taken his jacket off and I put it round my shoulders. Heavy, and the warmth of Jack still in it. His face with each stroke coming in close to mine, then away.

Mrs Herring was on the bench outside her door, pipe in her mouth, fowls round her feet where she’d sliced the kernels off some cobs. Watched us come up from the jetty, jostling each other as if the track was too narrow, for the secret pleasure of touching.

Well, she said. Jack Langland and Dolly Thornhill.

Her shrewd old eyes, hidden in a web of creases, they missed not a thing.

I thank you kindly for the victuals, Dolly, she said. Thank your ma for me. Now I wouldn’t be trusting Jack on his own, you best go up there along with him, make sure he does it right. Wouldn’t you say, Dolly?

Jack sawed the wood the way he did everything, strong and steady. Got the log up in the cradle and never took his eyes off the line of cut, never stopped till the length fell off. I stacked each one, watched him start on the next. He’d taken off his shirt to work and I could see his arms roped with sinew, browner where they got the sun, his back and shoulders with the muscles moving under the skin. I was sorry when he was done.

Going back down to the hut, we saw another skiff at the jetty.

That’s Dick Blackwood, Jack said. Tough old bird if she can take Blackwood’s liquor.

Dick Blackwood! I said.

Now I see what you’re thinking, he said. But leave it alone, I would.

We’ll see, I said, but I had my mind made up.

Dick Blackwood was sitting with his hand round a mug of tea. A tall strong-looking feller not much older than Jack. A shaggy head of hair could do with cutting, and a beard hiding half his face.

Dick, you’ll know Jack Langland, Mrs Herring said. And this is Dolly Thornhill.

Dolly Thornhill, Dick said.

Gave me a stare, the kind takes in a lot. But not much warmth in it.

Dick Blackwood, I said. Seen you up and down on the river.

Have you now, he said. Spying out from up there at the house.

Heard you could be kin to me, I said.

Something in his face made me stop short of saying brother.

You heard that, have you, he said. Well, Dolly, go back far enough, you could say every man and woman on this earth is kin to every other. That right, Iris?

Wished I could make him out better among the beard. Might of been smiling or might not.

Sent off, I said. Sent off, that’s what I heard.

Sent off ! he said. Listen to this, Iris! Says I was sent off!

Smiling all right now, but not a nice smile. I was wishing I’d listened to Jack, kept my mouth shut.

I never known for sure, I said. No one said, just I thought.

Listen, Dolly Thornhill, he said, and he wasn’t smiling any more. I never been sent off from nowhere. Anywhere I gone, I gone of my own free will. You hear different from that, by God you heard wrong.

Then he was standing up, pulling his blue cap on.

I’ll be off now, Iris, he said. You ready for another quart, send me word.

I stood at the door of the hut, watching him get into his boat and row away. He might of been watching me under his cap, pulling back on the oars, same way I was watching him. When he was out of sight I tried to catch Mrs Herring’s eye.

Is that Dick Thornhill? I said.

But she was making a to-do of getting the fire hot again. Bent down blowing at the coals.

Let it be! Jack said. Let it be, now!

Never said I was wrong, did he? I said. Never said he wasn’t Dick Thornhill.

But I was talking to Mrs Herring’s back. Getting those coals to flame was all she was going to do. When they flared up she stood and wiped her hands on her pinny.

Jack got the right idea, Dolly, she said. Some things best you let them be.

I took a breath, my blood was up.

Now that’s enough of that, Dolly, she said. What I want to know is, you two sweet on each other or what?

Jack looked at me, I looked at Jack.

No or what about it, Mrs Herring said and laughed so you could see the dark gaps in her mouth.

Never met a girl like Sarah Thornhill, Jack said. Never in all my life.

Put his arm round my shoulders.

Who in the world wouldn’t be sweet on Jack Langland? I said and put my arm around him. Could feel the skin behind the cloth of his shirt.

What a funny old world it is, Mrs Herring said. And tell me this, Dolly, what do they say about it at home? You and your good-looking sweetheart here?

Offhand, but I could feel her listening for the answer.

Oh, I said. That’ll be all right.

That’s good, she said. Glad to hear that, Dolly.

~

The tide was with us on the way home, running strong down the river. Jack sat in the stern, no need to row, just that lovely surge and bubble when he shifted the steering-oar and the water broke up round it. Our wake left a pale line with kinks along it where he’d pushed the oar.

So, Sarah Thornhill, he said. Sweet on me, are you?

Sweet as honey, Jack, I said.

Leaned forward and he leaned in to meet me, his hand along my cheek. My first proper kiss.

Come here alongside of me, he said after a while. Where I’ve got you close.

There was something in his voice as he said it, tender and a bit wavery, that told me what he felt.

We sat side by side, Jack’s arm around me and mine around him, watching the farms slide past. Doyle’s, with the skiff pulled up on the sand, then on the other bank, Fletcher’s corn, yellow straws scratching against each other in the breeze, and a kookaburra in a tree telling the world he’d got his lizard, and wasn’t it the funniest thing you ever heard. At Cobb’s, the children down at the river, Kathleen the big girl had a rod and line and the little one that wasn’t right in the head mooning around. Waved when they saw us and we waved back, but not letting go of each other.

It was the same old river I’d known all my life, the same mud on the banks, the same people. But coloured through with happiness because I loved Jack Langland and Jack Langland loved me.

When we come in sight of where the Branch went off to the left I craned past Jack to look up it. It rankled, the way Dick laughed at me.

Now listen, I see what you’re thinking, Jack said. But best leave well alone. You saw how he was.

He wouldn’t answer, I said. And did you see his eyes, Jack? Pa’s eyes!

Grabbed the steering-oar, pushed it hard over.

We find out once and for all, I said. Get an answer out of him. Do it for me, Jack.

He shook his head but did it, had us heading up the Branch in a stroke or two. Past Devine’s, past Matthew’s, past Maunder’s. Maunder’s was far as I’d ever gone, the last of the farms. The Branch narrowed after that, the hills closed in.

Way up the Branch. All I knew about where Dick lived. And there’d be a lagoon.

Beyond Maunder’s it was quiet. Just the bush falling down steep into the water, reeds and rocks along the bank, and the glossy mangroves pressing in dark over the stream.

Jack rested on the oars.

You sure, he said. Sure this is what you want?

I wasn’t. Not any more. The stillness of that tight valley, and the way the bush was holding its breath, watching us. If you’d been sent away, how would you feel about the ones allowed to stay?

We come this far, I said. Can’t be too much further.

Jack gave me a look but bent to the oars again. Then we come round one last bend and there was a jetty, half hidden in the mangroves, with Dick Blackwood’s boat. An open patch of ground and beyond that, water glinting. Back on some rising ground, a house.

And dogs racing towards the boat barking, big ugly brutes.

Someone come out of the house, hand up against the sun. A woman, you could see the dress blowing round her legs.

Thought the dogs would stop when they got to the water but not a bit of it, two of them jumped straight in off the bank and the other one raced along the jetty. Close enough you could see the slaver hanging off its mouth, and the sharp teeth bare. Judging the distance, could it jump into the boat. The two in the water swimming strong. One of them bit the oar, nearly pulled it out of Jack’s hand.

God save us! he said.

He swung the boat round so hard it nearly went over. Rowed like a mad thing, the dogs coming after, barking with their mouths full of water, the noise ringing back from the hills, echoing in that slit of a valley like a dozen dogs. Then we got past the bend, the barking faded.

By God Sarah Thornhill, Jack said. You do get a man in a pickle!

He laughed, but shakily.

I’d say Dick Blackwood likes his privacy, he said. He’d have his still there, see. Feller in that line of business won’t be wanting folk snooping round.

I was all a-tremble. Never been in fear of my life from an animal before.

You’re white as a sheet, he said. Dick Blackwood, Dick Thornhill, God almighty, what’s it matter?

Well, I said. A brother. You know.

Look, every family got something, he said. Not a family doesn’t have its secrets big or small. No business of anyone else. That’s my view, Sarah Thornhill.

Put his hand along my cheek, kissed me again.

Now this, he said. This is our business.