Stone Cradle by Louise Doughty

Author:Louise Doughty [Doughty, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780571315833
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

The man who had spoken to Elijah when we arrived was a Cambridgeshire Smith, and I gathered some weeks later that he and Elijah had decided they were distant relations in some way. Bartley, his name was, or Bartle or something like that. Bartley Smith’s wife was called Morselina, although I was never invited to be on first-name terms with her. She was a thin, suspicious-looking woman, and I knew as soon as I set eyes on her that she had decided not to like me.

I went over to their caravan the very first morning, with Elijah. We had gone to bed for a couple of hours after we first arrived, in a tent which someone else had been sleeping in that night, for the blankets were all mussed and the ground warm. Me and the children were so tired we thought nothing of it.

At full light, Lijah nudged me awake and, whispering that we should leave the children to carry on sleeping, told me to brush myself down and come with him.

I didn’t want to leave the children. They had only that night left their home and all they knew behind. What if one of them woke and was afraid? Lijah told me not to be stupid. If the children woke up, they would be looked after by whoever was nearest to them; that was the way it worked in a camp.

It’s not the way I work, I thought to myself as I brushed myself down and tried to make myself presentable.

It was a chilly morning and my bones ached. I had a terrible thirst and was dying for a cup of tea. How will I ever get through this day? I thought to myself as we made our way across the damp grass to the Smiths’ wagon.

The whole family was up already and a fire lit. Bartley Smith and two other men were seated on upturned boxes. An elderly woman, older than Clementina, was squatting on the grass beside them. Morselina Smith was pouring tea into the row of tin mugs that sat on a tray on another upturned box.

Bartley Smith rose and greeted Elijah. He ignored me, and I should have taken the hint. Instead, I did what I would have done had we just arrived as guests at a house in Paradise Street. I sat myself down, and waited to be offered a cup of tea.

Morselina Smith straightened herself from pouring the tea and stared at me. I stared right back. She lifted the tray up and I half lifted a hand, expecting that I would be offered tea first, but she gave tea out to all the men, including Elijah, and then the old woman. There was no cup left for me, and I was left sitting like a fool with my empty hands in my lap, while they all drank noisily and nodded their appreciation.

I could have wept with disappointment. I had been up half the night and left my home with nothing but what I could carry.

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