Galore - Michael Crummey [140]
Early in the new year, Bride came to the Gut to speak with Eli and Hannah. Esther had left the hospital for Selina’s House to be clear of Newman’s meddling, Bride said. She’d been living in a home for indigent women in London much of the previous year and there was nothing to go back to in Europe. She asked Eli to write a letter to Tryphie.
Eli wanted no part of it, embarrassed still to have talked Coaker into paying Esther’s way home from Europe. —Perhaps you should be the one to do that, he said.
—I don’t have the heart to tell him myself, Eli.
—Maybe Dr. Newman, Eli said and Bride shook her head. Her husband was useless in the face of any affliction that couldn’t be stitched or splinted or removed with a scalpel. He refused to talk about his granddaughter except to rail and curse and throw whatever came to hand against the wall. —Tryphie will take it better coming from you, Bride said. —Tell him we’ll send her down to Hartford in the spring.
—If she don’t burn the house down lighting a lamp in the meantime, Hannah said.
Eli nodded. —She shouldn’t be left alone over there.
—She won’t hear of coming back to the hospital with us, Bride said.
Abel was on the green chesterfield, pretending to read while the conversation went on. He’d seen Esther Newman riding through the streets of Paradise Deep with an alder whip in her hand, caught glimpses of her behind the windows of Selina’s House, standing in that unnatural stage posture and singing drunkenly to her goat. He’d snuck to the back of the house once, inching the door open to listen. Nursery rhymes mostly, children’s songs and nonsense syllables when the words failed her. He could smell the stink of the goat stabled down the hall. The only thing Esther managed all the way through was a ballad he’d never heard before, a woeful profession of love for a dark-haired girl that was so tortured and graceful it made him wish he hadn’t stood there to listen. There was a long pause when she finished and he could hear his own breath in the quiet. —Who’s there? she shouted and Abel battered the hell out of it, running up to Tryphie’s workshop to hide behind the rusting remains of the Sculpin while Esther cursed from the doorway.
He hadn’t worked up the courage to go near the place since, though some bit of Esther Newman was what he woke to and what he carried to bed at night. The thought of her filled him with panic and dread and childish awe. He could feel the people at the table staring and he glanced up from his book.
—We could move Patrick Devine’s library back into your room over there, Eli said.
—Just until we can make arrangements, Bride told him. —In the spring.
He could feel the vein in his neck jumping as the blood roared through. He was nearly fifteen and still sharing a bedroom with his mother. —I don’t mind, he said.
Eli walked him over the Tolt three days later and they knocked at the door, letting themselves in when they got no answer. The goat wandered out of the parlor to greet them. —Who’s the youngster? Esther asked from the top of the stairs.
—He’s mine, Eli said.
Esther came down two steps and leaned against the wall. —I didn’t think you had it in you, Eli.
He nudged Abel. —Go and put the kettle on, he said.
They sat together in the kitchen, Abel staring at his knees while the conversation between his father and the drunken woman juddered and jackknifed along. Much of their talk made no sense to him. Esther wept occasionally though Abel was at a loss to pinpoint the cause. —You love the music so much, she said, wiping away snot with her sleeve. —You love it and you think it must love you back somehow, she said.
Eli nodded.
—But the music could care less if you live or die, Esther said. She laughed