The Flame of Life

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Dean would follow Enid anywhere, beat down thistles even with his hands in order to be alone and out of the house with her at the same time.

But he wasn’t making a trail, as in the picture painted by his self-esteem. He was walking behind, and letting her scythe the high thistles with a piece of stick, and tread them flat with her shoes. His own first version was still agreeable, as he watched her straight back, strong confident hips, and long hair only a few feet in front. He was never at ease in the house, even at meal-times. The family either did not like him, or thought him worthless because he was young and had no money.

Being among enemies he hated the house, and detested anyone who thought he did not matter. It was impossible to brush off such insults. By showing he didn’t matter they were trying to get at him. He regarded himself as the most important person in the world, so they were wrong to think him insignificant, and insulting to let him know that they felt it.

The person who didn’t treat him like a maggot was the one who mattered most in the community. Enid led him deeper into the paddock, wading through thistles, beyond the iris of any roving eye, trying to find the football that Paul had kicked this way — the second lost in a month. She wanted a stroll, and used it as an excuse. She’d seen Dean already wandering, and when he spied her, he followed. It was like having a dog, especially since he didn’t say much. It was strange to be with someone so silent, a young man younger than her eldest son. What did he want to follow her for? The question led her to wonder why she allowed him to. She supposed he needed to be near someone, even if only a few paces behind like a dog. He was so young he had the harmlessness of another woman.

‘You wain’t find anything,’ he said. ‘I expect the birds eat the footballs in half an hour. They love rubber.’

‘It was leather.’

The hot sun’s warmth was pleasant on top of her head and against her bare arms. She sat on the tree trunk felled across the corner, Dean a few feet away looked at her. She wondered sadly what he saw, while quite clear what she saw herself. The open weather of summer released the vitality of her soul. It was her time of well-being, so she was pleased when Dean said: ‘You look good in the sun. It suits you.’

‘How can you tell?’ He had thought about her, anyway, though it was impossible not to tease him, he was so much a little dog. Even his face was like one, his low forehead, earnest eyes, small mouth, curly hair.

‘I can tell.’

‘But why?’ Her further question put a shade of irritation over his features. Then they cleared as he said with a smile: ‘Blonde women allus like the sun.’

It was amazing how, no matter what she saw, he saw himself as her equal, as one man to her woman. His remark warned her to take him seriously, but it was difficult because he took himself so seriously.

‘Come and sit down here.’

He hesitated. When she tried to accept him as a grownup, he distrusted her, because he had been fervently hoping she would do so. But he sat down, her offer being too good to miss, since you never knew what it might lead to. ‘I’d like to live where there’s sun all the time,’ she said. ‘But I don’t suppose I ever shall.’

He pulled a piece of dusty bark from the tree. ‘You ought to go on holiday.’

‘I’ve got too much to do. Albert’d never want to.’

‘On your own.’

He reached into his shirt pocket, and took out a loose cigarette that looked as if it had been through the last wash. ‘Want a drag?’

‘It’d knock me into a three-cornered stupor.’

He had a relaxed smile — which became a laugh, showing teeth discoloured but still whole. Lighting up, he blew smoke towards her.

‘It smells nice,’ she said. ‘But don’t waste it on me.’

He had been sober and nervous with her, and now wanted to relax by inhaling his lousy weed. Instead of fighting his way through such a mood he was taking a short cut. His stiff shyness had seemed slightly menacing, so in a way she was glad. A few minutes ago he’d seen her as someone she’d imagined she couldn’t be any more to such a young man — which was more worrying than disturbing — though not much of either. She didn’t known whether it was these thoughts or the pleasure of the warm sun that made her smile.

He caught the movement of her lips. ‘Now you’re laughin’ at me’ — the hard sullenness going as he puffed on the cigarette. ‘You’re the only one I like, in this place.’

‘You’re sharp,’ she said, knowing she’d always been easy with people who had nothing to lose, and needed pulling up from the bottom — maybe like Albert in the early days.

‘If it worn’t for you they’d chuck me out.’

‘They might not. We aren’t that bad.’ There was a quite fundamental shyness about him, she noticed, which made her wonder what he was getting at. He was like a child still, wheedling at her — as if wanting everything because he didn’t yet know what exactly it was that he wanted. He would deliberately continue to want everything so that when he did decide what it was there’d at least be a chance of getting it. The groundwork would have been done. But she thought all young people were like that. It wouldn’t be fair to give him too black a mark for it.

‘Have a puff o’ this,’ he offered, as if the smoke were making him generous. ‘You’ve got to have it sooner or later.’

She pushed his hand away. ‘I don’t like it.’ Yet she was tempted, and he saw that she was, which satisfied him for the moment. ‘You’re turning everybody on with it. Why is that?’

‘I just offer it ’cause I’m friendly. Anyway, they ask for it. I like to be friendly with everybody.’

He was sad, so undiscriminating and unprotected that she wondered how long it would last, whether he would grow up and become wary before it did him permanent harm. ‘What if they don’t like you?’

‘I step aside.’ He almost sang it, as if he’d used the phrase many times. But he wasn’t so unconscious of his desires, for he made a clumsy movement to get hold of her wrist. ‘I like you more than anybody. I’ve liked you ever since I saw you at the market trying to lift them baskets.’

She was frozen, so he drew his hand away without having to be told — which she hadn’t meant him to, because there was obviously no harm in it. It was a gesture anybody could make, especially Dean, with his all-embracing friendliness which was difficult to be offended by. She wanted to reassure him by taking his hand, but didn’t, suddenly knowing why she had stiffened in the first place.

‘It’s just that I love you,’ he said, decisive now that she appeared uncertain. ‘You’re a real woman.’

She laughed at his earnestness, especially since his words could have no meaning. ‘I’m married. I’ve got seven kids.’

He pressed the cigarette between his finger-ends, and threw it towards the corner of the paddock. ‘You’re beautiful.’

‘You’re a kid.’

‘I’m not. I had a woman when I was fourteen.’ It wasn’t hard to believe. He had that furtiveness and persistence, and an underlying ineradicable self-confidence that stopped at nothing — a forceful attraction that few women might want to resist. He wasn’t ugly, either, when a look came into his eyes that told him he might be getting somewhere. ‘You want to get the most out of life while it lasts,’ he said.

‘What makes you think I’m not?’

He knocked his heels rhythmically against wood. ‘I don’t reckon anybody could enjoy life in this set-up.’

She never questioned it. Enjoyment hadn’t been much of a problem. She liked life now and again. Who didn’t? Hard times couldn’t crush everything out of you. Albert had always been as good as he was able, and no doubt the same went for her. There were times when she wished she hadn’t had so many kids, and moments when she could have done with none at all, but now she wouldn’t want to be without them. And then this kid of eighteen comes along and makes her think she might not be enjoying life! What a cheek!

Yet he was right. She was forty-three, and the fact that the many years of life still to be lived would go on in the same old bickering way made her so depressed that often in bed at night the tears poured down her face. If her life didn’t change it would come to an end — an unbearable thought.

‘I can read it in your face,’ he said, a renewal of charm on seeing that he had made her think.

It was amazing how the tricks with which people fought each other in marriage were there almost from the cradle. No girl would be lucky who married Dean. ‘I’ll get back and see how things are at the house. Mandy’s cooking lunch — assisted by Frank. I keep an eye on them just in case.’

‘I thought you liked being in the sun?’

‘I do,’ she smiled, feeling so much older and superior, ‘I only enjoy it because I know it’s got to stop.’

‘You ought to travel south.’

‘I’m not going anywhere. Come on.’ She wanted him to lead a way through the thistles, because her legs were sore from them, but he was suddenly holding her, his lips on her cheeks. She was amazed at the strength of his arms when they went around her. He was as demanding as a baby in its primal urges, and his confidence foolishly led him to believe that she needed him with similar intensity, though for some reason he was afraid or unable to say so.

He was trying to force a knee between her thighs, and at the same time get at her lips. The fact that she wanted to hold him, but couldn’t because his grip was too firm, gave her the strength to unravel him. He lost balance, and she pushed him so that his whole body went sprawling among the thistles.