Turf or Stone by Margiad Evans Page A

You’re a drunkard.’
    ‘Easter’s not.’
    Matt leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. Dorothy rejoined:
    ‘Oh, isn’t he? That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve watched him… I’ve seen him in the harness room drinking out of a flask. He keeps it hidden behind the stove.’
    ‘Good luck to him,’ Matt exclaimed, but his face was serious. He immediately got up, left the house and went to search in the harness room. He found nothing. Returning he said: ‘You see you’re wrong. Why do you want to make a scene?’
    She had lighted a cigarette, and sprawled across thetable on her elbows, blowing out angry jets of smoke. Even at breakfast her cheeks were rouged, high up under the eyes. Anger flushed her deeper.
    ‘I tell you I’ve seen him when he could hardly stagger across the yard…’
    ‘Will you be quiet?’
    ‘Get rid of Easter and that woman. With my own eyes…’
    ‘Oh, damn your eyes, and hold your tongue!’ But she would not. She railed at Matt until he too began to show signs of temper. A rumour of foot-and-mouth had put a stop to hunting; after all, it was something to do. The altercation waxed into a bitter dispute, and waned into a final sulky silence, which might take days to break.
    The inner door opened and through the narrowest possible aperture a little boy, with a white subtle face and black eyes, set very close together, slipped into the room. He was absolutely naked except for a pair of plaid bedroom shoes, and he carried some clothes in each hand.
    Dorothy gave him a long tender smile, holding out her arms. She took him up on her knee and he buried his face in her neck. After he had slightly relaxed a throttling embrace, she leant forward to the fire, still clasping the child with one arm, and held his garments to warm. Meanwhile he was helping himself to sugar and lighting another cigarette for his mother.
    ‘What have you been doing, my darling?’
    ‘In bed,’ he drawled.
    ‘Lazy little boy!’
    ‘Phib told me something funny about Cal-pur-nia.’
    ‘Well, who was Calpurnia?’ demanded Matt, inwardly contemptuous of Phoebe’s choice. Philip answered: ‘Afrog. She has a house in the hedge with Mr Caesar. This is how they talk: “Good morning Miss Cleo-pat-ra, is it going to be a fine day?”’
    He drew in his breath, talking in a grating backwards voice. His eyes goggled: ‘Cleo-pat-ra is a snail.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Matt. He looked at the mother and child – a pretty, self-indulgent couple. Dorothy was thin, slender, and very small. Her face interested him no longer. The smoothness and lack of shadows or lines, the little nose and mouth, the dull pink flush beneath the light changeless eyes, might have held great appeal for a younger man. She wore her fair hair in profuse curls on her neck, and when she bent her head it fell over her cheeks and forehead, so that sometimes she singed the ends while she was smoking. Wherever she went she carried with her an odd, rather pleasant, smell of cigarette smoke, expensive perfume, and slightly burnt hair. She loved bright, unconventional colours, and rich fabrics. Her clothes were usually heavy, clinging, and gaudy, even in the mornings. She was wearing a sea-green silk robe, with huge fanlike sleeves, a pearl necklace, and high-heeled brocade shoes. She was a costly person.
    She dressed the child slowly. He jumped off her knee and squatted in front of the fire, sipping cold coffee. She rose, smoothed his straight, black hair with a caress, and holding her own curls back from her high forehead, stared at herself with bent head, in the low-hanging mirror. She had two inseparable companions: her son, and her own mirrored face. She could not rest long away from either.
    Presently she turned away, taking a few lumps of sugar for her canaries. Matt went after her. She broke into awhistle. There were several cages hanging from bars, and to reach them she had to stand on her toes. She poked the sugar between the bars;