Chapater four
Chapter Three: Essentials and Inessentials.
4 A)
After we left James, Andy and I started for home- that is, the two bedroom-rented in a house the other end of town. Of course, what the rest of the town didn’t know was how redundant one of the rooms was.
Or at least, how redundant it had been. In recent times, Andy’s room, the spare room, had been getting rather more use.
Usually. Usually, it’s my fault. Usually, I’ve gone out, and got drunk, and there was someone. Or several someones. And I never thought he’d find out, and he always did, and I never stopped doing it and he never stopped being hurt by it.
This though, had started with a letter from mum. The heavy hinting that she and my father were getting on and oughtn’t I get married and maybe come home, soon?
Now, my parents own a farm, and when they die, it will be mine. We have always been farmers, my great-grandparents, and their parents before them etc. rented the land from the local lord, and my grandfather, whose shadow my father perpetually lives in, despite his being dead for several decades now, raised the money to buy it, through what means God only knows. We are what I believe is known as gentlemen farmers- but more farmer than gentleman; not poor, or I could not have afforded to go to the Academy, but we are not so well off that it wasn’t considered, after a few years where we lost money, a good idea for me to have a career with a steady wage while my father could still manage the affairs at home. But my career in the Navy was supposed to be a….a temporary thing.
So, the agreement is at some point I will go home. Back to the sheep, and the dairy and the hills.
And, had these summonses come perhaps two years ago, I would have been more than happy to comply. I had no desire to go “Into” Society. I was not grubbing my way up the ranks to make me eligible to society chits. If I’d wanted a wife, I’d have wanted a wife like Molly. Tough and sensible, and capable of hauling around a couple of hay bales when needed. I never really liked the Caribbean, where the seasons made no sense….
How can I put this? I loved England. It was my home, which I cared for with the sort of passion that means you can stamp your way through feet of January snow to rescue early lambs and their mothers.
And then there was Andy. Andy who was funny and French; who fenced like he was dancing, who was Catholic and would never have fitted in at home, who made my heart skip to look at him, who could no more leave than Navy than he could stop breathing.
I loved England, but I loved Andy.
Of course, I could not tell my mother this.
When we got home that night, I, still sullen and furious, pushed past Andy with out speaking. He grabbed out drunkenly and caught sleeve. Drunkenly, he clasped my wrist tight and tugged me back and drunkenly I complied. Drunkenly, he pulled me into him and kissed me, drunk-rough. I shivered and marvelled at how hot his skin was. He seemed to absorb the Caribbean whereas I just deflected it.
Aggressive, possessive, that was Andy, and I knew what this was about; he said it through clenched teeth and kisses,
“Mine. You’re mine.” And I could sense the jealousy there; jealousy of my family, of the wife I didn’t have, of the sheep that I seemed to care about more than him, of the hills that he knew were calling me, of the chalk singing in my bones.
4T)
“Bless me father, for I have sinned, it has been one week since my last confession.”
The shadow behind the grill chuckled.
“Plenty of time for sinning then, when one lives in the same house and sleeps in the same bed as the temptation.”
I coughed and fiddled with the rosary, “Er. Yes. But. Well…”
The small Catholic church here catered to the Irish community and with my red hair and fair skin it was generally assumed that that was what I was.
Father O’Brien sighed, “My son, both of us know that you are no more likely to stop committing this particular sin, and that is entirely your choice, and our eternal father himself can judge you for it if he wants, because believe me, at my age, doing so myself is beyond me. But, if it makes you feel better, say ten Hail Marys. How are you in yourself?”
I thought about it; about the weeks of arguments and sleeping in the back bedroom that was too hot and too cold at the same time; sheets sticky with lonely sweat and no one to hold late at night.
“Oh….fine, father.”
“Lying to me’s just lying to God, boy.”
Curtly, “Indeed, father? Then I shall make up for it next confession. Good day.”
I stood glaring at the water from the dock, half furious, half ashamed.
Teddy had no right to reel me in then drop me for a few mangy sheep and his blasted hills. What sort of a man loves his land more than his friends, hey?
I know, I am selfish; but here, in Port Royal, we had it so good, I didn’t take kindly to the idea of anything getting in the way of that, tu comprend?
And how could I live in England, heh? More than that, how could we live in England? In little villages, they see everything. We’d be found out and strung up like that.
And, although I hate to say it or even think it, I was a little annoyed Ted had been promoted before me. Why should he, who wanted nothing more than to go home be made a Captain, where I fully intend to make the Navy my life, and am easily as good as him and…. Zut.
What am I? Some pastime until real life starts? A pleasing distraction? I can’t believe that- not when we have been living in the same house for nearly two years.
I am not French. Not really. But I’m not English. This does not make me secure. This makes me safe no where. In France I am too English. In England, I am too French. But in the Caribbean, everyone is foreign, oui? Nobody really comes from here anymore. So, this is where I fit.
Chapter Five: Innocent Stuff
4 A)
After we left James, Andy and I started for home- that is, the two bedroom-rented in a house the other end of town. Of course, what the rest of the town didn’t know was how redundant one of the rooms was.
Or at least, how redundant it had been. In recent times, Andy’s room, the spare room, had been getting rather more use.
Usually. Usually, it’s my fault. Usually, I’ve gone out, and got drunk, and there was someone. Or several someones. And I never thought he’d find out, and he always did, and I never stopped doing it and he never stopped being hurt by it.
This though, had started with a letter from mum. The heavy hinting that she and my father were getting on and oughtn’t I get married and maybe come home, soon?
Now, my parents own a farm, and when they die, it will be mine. We have always been farmers, my great-grandparents, and their parents before them etc. rented the land from the local lord, and my grandfather, whose shadow my father perpetually lives in, despite his being dead for several decades now, raised the money to buy it, through what means God only knows. We are what I believe is known as gentlemen farmers- but more farmer than gentleman; not poor, or I could not have afforded to go to the Academy, but we are not so well off that it wasn’t considered, after a few years where we lost money, a good idea for me to have a career with a steady wage while my father could still manage the affairs at home. But my career in the Navy was supposed to be a….a temporary thing.
So, the agreement is at some point I will go home. Back to the sheep, and the dairy and the hills.
And, had these summonses come perhaps two years ago, I would have been more than happy to comply. I had no desire to go “Into” Society. I was not grubbing my way up the ranks to make me eligible to society chits. If I’d wanted a wife, I’d have wanted a wife like Molly. Tough and sensible, and capable of hauling around a couple of hay bales when needed. I never really liked the Caribbean, where the seasons made no sense….
How can I put this? I loved England. It was my home, which I cared for with the sort of passion that means you can stamp your way through feet of January snow to rescue early lambs and their mothers.
And then there was Andy. Andy who was funny and French; who fenced like he was dancing, who was Catholic and would never have fitted in at home, who made my heart skip to look at him, who could no more leave than Navy than he could stop breathing.
I loved England, but I loved Andy.
Of course, I could not tell my mother this.
When we got home that night, I, still sullen and furious, pushed past Andy with out speaking. He grabbed out drunkenly and caught sleeve. Drunkenly, he clasped my wrist tight and tugged me back and drunkenly I complied. Drunkenly, he pulled me into him and kissed me, drunk-rough. I shivered and marvelled at how hot his skin was. He seemed to absorb the Caribbean whereas I just deflected it.
Aggressive, possessive, that was Andy, and I knew what this was about; he said it through clenched teeth and kisses,
“Mine. You’re mine.” And I could sense the jealousy there; jealousy of my family, of the wife I didn’t have, of the sheep that I seemed to care about more than him, of the hills that he knew were calling me, of the chalk singing in my bones.
4T)
“Bless me father, for I have sinned, it has been one week since my last confession.”
The shadow behind the grill chuckled.
“Plenty of time for sinning then, when one lives in the same house and sleeps in the same bed as the temptation.”
I coughed and fiddled with the rosary, “Er. Yes. But. Well…”
The small Catholic church here catered to the Irish community and with my red hair and fair skin it was generally assumed that that was what I was.
Father O’Brien sighed, “My son, both of us know that you are no more likely to stop committing this particular sin, and that is entirely your choice, and our eternal father himself can judge you for it if he wants, because believe me, at my age, doing so myself is beyond me. But, if it makes you feel better, say ten Hail Marys. How are you in yourself?”
I thought about it; about the weeks of arguments and sleeping in the back bedroom that was too hot and too cold at the same time; sheets sticky with lonely sweat and no one to hold late at night.
“Oh….fine, father.”
“Lying to me’s just lying to God, boy.”
Curtly, “Indeed, father? Then I shall make up for it next confession. Good day.”
I stood glaring at the water from the dock, half furious, half ashamed.
Teddy had no right to reel me in then drop me for a few mangy sheep and his blasted hills. What sort of a man loves his land more than his friends, hey?
I know, I am selfish; but here, in Port Royal, we had it so good, I didn’t take kindly to the idea of anything getting in the way of that, tu comprend?
And how could I live in England, heh? More than that, how could we live in England? In little villages, they see everything. We’d be found out and strung up like that.
And, although I hate to say it or even think it, I was a little annoyed Ted had been promoted before me. Why should he, who wanted nothing more than to go home be made a Captain, where I fully intend to make the Navy my life, and am easily as good as him and…. Zut.
What am I? Some pastime until real life starts? A pleasing distraction? I can’t believe that- not when we have been living in the same house for nearly two years.
I am not French. Not really. But I’m not English. This does not make me secure. This makes me safe no where. In France I am too English. In England, I am too French. But in the Caribbean, everyone is foreign, oui? Nobody really comes from here anymore. So, this is where I fit.
Chapter Five: Innocent Stuff