Galore - Michael Crummey [39]
The boy was three years her junior, an orphan indentured to the fishery by his parish church in Cork. He had nothing to his name, much as herself. And there was something in that arrangement she found to her liking. She said, You knows how to fish do you, Paddy Devine?
He looked at her as if she’d spoken some bushborn nonsense.
—Would you have a woman in the boat with you?
—I got neither boat, he said.
—One bloody thing at a time, she told him.
They walked together into the Gut and he kipped down in her one-room tilt, crouched in a corner like a stray dog. There was only the one bunk along the back wall and that night she undressed there while he watched what he could in the gloom. She stood before him naked. —We got nothing now, she said, but what we can make together. She could hear him breathing in the dark and he stood up from his seat finally. She said, You don’t come over to me unless you plan on staying, Paddy Devine.
There was a long moment’s hesitation as he worked through the implications. He said, Are you really a witch then?
—That’s no way to ask for a woman’s hand, she said.
He felt his way across the room to lay with her, led by his lack of options or led by his cock, she still didn’t know which. The time would come soon enough when he could make her wet with a word in her ear, lift her hips from the bed with the lightest brush of a finger, but that first night was brevity and discomfort and doubt, to have the youngster on her and rutting like a dog humping a leg, followed by an awful stretch of silence, both of them sleepless and terrified.
—So we’re married then? the boy said finally.
Devine’s Widow already working through the obstacles ahead, getting wood cut and dried for their boat, convincing King-me to front them credit for the summer fishery. The opportunity to ruin them completely if they had a poor season was the only angle she could imagine might work. —I expect we are married, she said distractedly. —You and me.
And he must have felt obligated to make an offering of some sort. —I love you, Missus, he whispered.
—Shut up Paddy, she said.
——
Callum was first out of the bed before light the next morning and he and the old woman walked back over the Tolt before the stars disappeared. They rowed across the harbor where Mary Tryphena waited for them at the offal hole and Callum dropped both women on the stretch of shoreline where Judah’s whale had surrendered itself, the bones of the creature bleaching white among the beach grass. Devine’s Widow walked with the girl to Selina’s House then, Absalom answering the door when they knocked at the servant’s entrance. He nodded to them both. —Hello Mary Tryphena, he said.
—We need to speak with your mother, Devine’s Widow said, and they waited there while Absalom went to fetch her. Selina holding the door only halfways open to watch them, her ancient child’s face apprehensive, resigned. —This here is your grandchild, Devine’s Widow said.
—I know it.
—You ought also to know she is married to Judah Devine.
Selina stared at Mary Tryphena while she processed the information and the girl looked away at the outbuildings. —Is this true, Mary?
She nodded. —Yes ma’am.
—Are you? Selina cleared her throat. —Are you?
—She is, Devine’s Widow said with more certainty than she felt. —And Master Sellers will have them haul the father of her child off to some foreign country and hang him. Leave her a widow before she gives birth.
Selina slammed the door shut before another word was spoken and Mary Tryphena looked at her grandmother. She was thinking of Absalom hearing the news of her marriage inside, of the odd fact he hadn’t stuttered over her name when he said hello. —Am I pregnant then? she asked.
—It doesn’t matter, child, Devine’s Widow said. —We’ll just hope for the best.
{ 3 }
KING-ME SELLERS REMAINED A BACHELOR years after proposing