Loving - Henry Green [53]
replied cautious and as if he was shy. There she sits up at me...' Edith ran on, eyes sparkling. And he had to listen to the whole thing again, and with embellishments that he had never heard, that even he must have doubted. Raunce's Albert, Edith, Kate, the little girls and Mrs Welch's lad chose for their picnic a place just off the beach. While those children ran screaming down to where great rollers diminished to fans of milk new from the udder upon pressed sand, Albert laid himself under a hedge all over which red fuchsia bells swung without a note in the wind the sure travelling sea brought with its low heavy swell. He could watch the light blue heave between their donkey Peter's legs and his ears were crowded with the thunder of the ocean. 'Fat lot of use you are,' Kate shouted to him as she began to unstow the panniers on Peter's back. 'Ain't there a glare,' he called. 'For land's sake you're not goin' sick on me surely like Charley did when I brought him out?' 'Don't he look pale?' Kate echoed Edith. 'Never mind let him be,' Edith went on, 'and we'll allow he may light the Primus.' She laughed, probably because it would never start up without a deal of coaxing. 'Did you remember your matches?' Kate yelled. On which he got to his feet to bring out a packet of cigarettes. 'Lawks we've took a man along,' Kate mocked. He offered them round. As he cupped his hands to shield the flame and Edith bent her lovely head he lowered his yellow one over hers. She giggled which blew the match out. 'One thing at a time thank you,' she remarked looking him in the eye from close. He blushed painfully. Then the wind sent her hair over her vast double-surfaced eyes with their two depths. As she watched him thus, he might have felt this was how she could wear herself in bed for him, screened but open, open terribly. 'Come on,' she said, 'snap out of it.' Then all three huddled round as if over a live bird sat between his palms till their fags were lit. He collapsed back onto the ground. 'You wouldn't be looking up our legs by any chance now would you?' Kate enquired in an educated voice. For answer he rolled over onto his stomach and faced inland, all Ireland flat on a level with his clouded eyes. 'Let him be,' Edith said again. The wind blew a sickle of black hair down the opening of her dress. 'It tickles,' she said giggling, and swung her head back to let that breeze carry the curls off. 'Oh this wind,' she added. And it drove the girls' dresses onto them like statues as they lifted rectangles of white cartridge paper tied in string out of the panniers to lay these where sand joined that moss short grass. Then Edith stopped to gently pull Peter's ears. 'Aw come on,' Kate called to Albert, 'you don't want to go sulking away there. Why I daresay she'd never've minded if you had of 'ad a peep.' 'Now Kate,' Edith repeated, 'why can't you let him alone.' 'I never,' the lad cried turning over to face them, 'honest I never.' 'Well then don't act like you wished you did.' 'Katie,' Edith said and bent down to kiss the donkey's nose. She seemed altogether indifferent. At this moment little Albert interrupted. 'Can I take the shrimpin' net'm. There's 'undreds down there in that pool we're at.' And so the long afternoon started. Then when they had had cup after cup of tea Albert in lighting Kate another cigarette set fire to a thin curl of her fair hair. She took this in good part, did no more than exclaim at the smell. 'Er peacock didn't half cause a stink,' he told them. The wind had dropped. They no longer had to shout. But the roar of that Atlantic swell was heavy. 'What peacock?' she asked. 'Why the one old Charley put back in the outside larder. Mrs Welch must've bided her time when there was nobody in the pantry so as to slip down and stuff 'im in my boiler.' 'In your boiler?' Edith shrieked. 'Whoever's heard?' 'Didn't you smell it at that?' the lad enquired. 'It's the first I've known,' Kate said. 'He created something alarming Charley did,' his lad continued. 'He said there was enough to give us asthma and 'e went about coughin' for