Off I went, into the bustle of Friday market, which on this particular Friday was all squashed with oilcloth tents: A storm was blowing in from the north.
Tiddy Rex detached himself from the horseshoe-tossing boys and trotted toward me. He passed a group of girls skipping rope, grubby pinafores flapping, voices rising thin and high.
Tie the baby to the track.
Look! The one oh one!
The train goes click, the train goes clack,
Look, the baby’s done,
For,
Five,
Six,
Seven . . .
Tiddy Rex touched my hand. “Mister Eldric, he brung that rhyme all the way from London.”
All about us, life carried on in its disordered way. A donkey passing, carrying spices and flies. Mad Tom, poking his umbrella into rubbish bins and rabbit holes, looking for his lost wits. Petey Todd, pinching an apple from the greengrocer’s bin.
Petey has a spacious view of what belongs to him.
“Mister Eldric!” called one of the skip-rope girls. “I maked ninety-four, I did.”
“Ninety-four!” Eldric pounced to her side. “You should get a blue ribbon or a gold medal! But I haven’t either.”
He paused, as though considering. “Could you make do with a blue-ribbon bit of fish?”
How the girls laughed!
“Or a fish fried like a medal?”
“I found milady at last!” said Cecil’s voice from behind. He turned me about by my shoulders and looked me up and down—at my skirt (four pleats, checkered in two tones of white), at my shirtwaist (dusted with glinting beads), at the netting (placed strategically across the chest).
“Staring is rude.” I suddenly wished the netting hadn’t so many holes.
“You don’t mind when he stares at you.” Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric.
“He doesn’t stare,” I said. “He looks.”
“I’m desperate to talk to you,” said Cecil. “We’ve never even mentioned it.”
“It?” I said.
“You know,” said Cecil. “It.”
But I didn’t know.
“What are you playing at, Briony?” Cecil stared with his flat, fishy eyes. “I don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”
I stared back. I’m not jolly enough to play at anything.
“You want to pretend it didn’t happen?” said Cecil. “That’s what you always wanted; I see it all now. You putting me off after she died. First, Oh, but there’s the inquest! And then, Oh, but there’s the burial! And then, Oh, but we’re in mourning! I never thought you’d betray me.”
Tiddy Rex squeezed my hand. “What be the betrayment you done, Miss Briony?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said, although I hated to admit it. Even if Cecil doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I usually do.
“That’s the worst of all,” said Cecil. “If you’re going to betray me, at least be honest about it.”
“Let’s talk about this another time, shall we?” I said.
“Oh, but there’s the inquest!” said Cecil, in a squeaky female voice. “Oh, but we’re in mourning.”
“Is that the way I sound, Tiddy Rex?”
Tiddy Rex shook his head. “No, miss.”
I never thought I’d be glad to see Petey Todd. A person like Petey can only have so much fun stealing apples and must perforce increase his enjoyment by clipping Tiddy Rex on the shoulder and circling round to see the tears in Tiddy Rex’s eyes.
“Cry, baby, cry!” said Petey.
Yer mam is going to die.
Hitch yer sister to the plough,
She don’t matter anyhow . . .
“Never mind.” I put my arm around Tiddy Rex’s shoulder. “Petey can’t help himself. Poor thing. You know what they say about him?”
“They doesn’t say nothing!” said Petey.
“They say he’s soft in the head. They say he eats worms for breakfast.”
“Doesn’t!”
“Did you know, he can’t learn his letters?”
“I got me my letters,” said Petey.
“You do?” I made a clown face of amazement, big eyes, dropped jaw. “Can you make the first letter of your name?”
“Sure can! I can make a P.”
“You can make a pee?” Another clown face of amazement. “How lovely! But don’t do it in front of the young ladies.”
“It don’t be like that!” Petey stumbled into an explanation of his code of honor as it appertained to girls. But I turned away. I was done with Cecil, I was done with Petey.
But there are always more people one has to deal with, and on this particular unlucky Friday, it was Leanne. She’d sprung, seemingly, from nowhere, although she was rather robust to be an apparition. The skip-rope girls surrounded her, reaching for her green lace overskirt, which floated over some silvery, satiny stuff. The effect was very pretty and watery, although water doesn’t wear huge ropes of pearls.
“I’m glad you like it,” said Leanne. “But no hands, please.”
Eldric must have seen her since the trial; of course he had. Just look at the way he came prowling over, crunching his tie into genial disorder.
“What a pleasant surprise.” He shook Leanne’s hand. “Come and play!”
“Your frock, miss, it be ever so fine,” said one of the skip-rope girls.
“Them flowers in your hat,” said another. “They doesn’t be real, does they?”
The flowers weren’t real, but what lay beneath the netting at Leanne’s breast was. It was real. She was, in short, like a gland.
Swollen.
Leanne feminina regularitatis est.
But she didn’t breakfast with Eldric every morning, as I did. She didn’t laugh with him as they expanded their bad-boy Latin vocabulary. She didn’t have boxing lessons with him, and surely, he never admired her fist. Did he?
The sky turned to ashes. It snapped and growled.
“To the Alehouse!” Eldric promised fish and chips all round, and a blue-ribbon fish for the ninety-four-times rail-jumping girl.
The children stuck to him. They clung to his arms, they snatched at his jacket.
I hate children.
Cecil took my arm. “I made a botch of it before. Let me try again, talking to you, that is.”
“Talk away,” I said, following the group to the Alehouse. It was a kind of test. Can Cecil Trumpington walk and talk at the same time?
“You’re not as kind as you could be.”
How true, lamentably true. I’m sorry, Father. I do not love my neighbor as myself.
The bloated sky opened up. Rain fell in ark-loads. Cecil and I ran for the Alehouse. The children were already seated at the bar, in fits of laughter because Eldric had ordered a plate of gold-medal fish and chips.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Eldric.
I’d have liked a plate of gold-medal fish and chips myself, but the rules were clear. Fisher-brats at the bar, gentry at the tables.
Leanne, Cecil, and I gazed at one another. The three of us, together, were thin as gruel. We needed Eldric as thickening agent.
The longer I looked at Leanne, the more I saw her as a bundle of clichés. Raven’s-wing hair, laughing eyes. Ruby lips, shell-like ears. You could probably mix them up and it would make no difference.
Ruby ears and shell-like lips?
Heaving cheeks and scarlet bosom?
I was rather surprised to find Cecil gazing not at the scarlet bosom but at my face. He’d spoken to me. He was waiting for my response.
Leanne helped me out, gazing at me with her curling eyes. “That frock does suit you wonderfully. Pity, it’s the sort of thing I can’t wear. It wouldn’t suit me at all.”
What did Leanne mean beneath her talcum-powder words? Was this one of those compliments that turns around to bite?
Then a marvelous piece of conversational good fortune came our way: The Hangman rose and walked past us. He was an enormous fellow. Heads turned, following him. Conversations faltered, leaving dribbles of silence, until he pushed out the door.