Galore - Michael Crummey [81]
She tweezed hold of another stitch and pulled. —You can’t have that youngster go unbaptized, she told Bride.
—He’ll be baptized.
—And which preacher is it you think will christen him before you and Henley are wed?
Bride felt it was an unfair time to broach the subject, she on her back with her skirts around her waist and Mary Tryphena rooting at her down there. It seemed to give the woman an unfair advantage. —He’ll be baptized, never you mind, she insisted.
The baby came down with thrush, his mouth cankered white, and the infection made breastfeeding a torture. It felt as if a hundred tiny blades were slicing at Bride’s nipples as the youngster nursed. The sweet head of black hair, the innocent appetite. There was no helping the pain and Bride never shed a tear. —You little fucker, she whispered as the baby fed, her hand cradling the soft spot at the back of his head. She knew as she’d known nothing in all her life that she was his, that she would do anything for him. Mary Tryphena came through the kitchen with a basket of laundry and Bride said, All right Missus, we’ll get married.
—It’s the proper thing.
But Bride wasn’t ready to surrender all say in the matter and she added, We’ll join the Methodist crowd.
—Jesus Bride.
—You tell Henley if he wants to marry the mother of his son.
The wedding took place in the plain board Methodist chapel and after the marriage Harold Callum Devine was baptized into the Methodist faith. Bride nursed the child under a receiving blanket while the service went on with hymns and scripture readings, the latch of his mouth like razors at her flesh, the pain so intense it was blinding, all her thoughts wiped clean of thought. Reverend Violet delivered a forty-five-minute sermon, the hypnotic peak-and-vale rhythm of his voice lulling Henley and the baby to sleep. But Bride took it all in. The physical relief when the infant was done nursing was like a heightened state of awareness, her mind clarified and focused. Parishioners began witnessing from their seats after the sermon and old Clar Bozan stood with his hands raised to the rafters. Bride had seen Clar get the glory while he worked on the flakes or walked along the waterfront and she’d always thought him a fool, his head thrown back, his clothes so untidy they looked to have been dropped on him from a height. —Praise the Lard, praise the Lard, he shouted. —Gonna meet me dear old mudder over there.
She felt only compassion watching him now, a pity that felt biblical and maternal both. She knew as she hadn’t known anything in her life. She raised her free hand in the air and startled Henley awake when she wailed Amen over the noise of the congregation.
Henley stared at his new wife, leaning away from her in the pew. On the night Harold Callum Devine was born he’d been forced to watch the girl cut from stem to stern by the doctor, blood and shit on the table, the baby hauled clear like a tree stump uprooted with axes and rope. Seeing her so helpless and fouled spoiled the girl in his mind and he felt only revulsion at the thought of lying with Bride as a husband was meant. And he was terrified now, watching her overcome by some foreign spirit.
That night she placed the sleeping child between them as if she were drawing a line and Henley made no attempt to cross it. Bride intended the child as a temporary restraint, too raw still to allow anyone between her legs, her mind too full of the Lord’s light to think of more carnal pleasures. But Henley seemed to consider himself released for good. They spent years together in the same bed but the marriage between Bride and Henley Devine was never consummated.
Bride’s sudden conversion was as complete