WANTIN’ A HAND

WANTIN’ A HAND

The moisture from the tub curled her hair into babyish ringlets that hung about her flushed face. Despite her form made broad with the daily travail of washing clothes, and her face pouchy with drink, suggestions of beauty still lingered about her as perfume might cling to a garment after it was soiled and torn.

There was no hint of age or decay in the square tower of her body, no thought of handicap in her actions as she squeezed and rubbed the clothes upon the board with her one powerful hand. The small stump of her missing arm jerked vigorously from the shoulder in time to the hand upon the board. She would stop at times to pin the empty sleeve more snugly to her side and then resume the crawling, gripping motion of her one hand in the tub. It was a great-jointed hand, corded along the back, and broad, and when it had squeezed the water from a garment she could defy any woman with two hands to wring one drop more from it. The clothes washed by Jean Sclessor were truly washed, and clear and fragrant when she took them from the line.

And so, although she tried them sorely by her frequent drinking spells, the good wives of Drumorty would rather wait for Jean than have some feckless two-handed woman wash in her stead. And the greatest church-goers among them would ignore the smell of whisky on her breath and would even comment sympathetically upon her bunions when her steps began to waver.

But Jean was long past caring what Drumorty thought about her drinking, long past the time when she turned her head away so that they wouldn’t catch her breath. She cared only for evening to come, and she worked through the day with a driving force which became a frenzy of haste as night-fall drew near, for she was going home to the kist under the stairs, home to dreams, home to love and revenge and despair, home to forgetfulness, home to the flat-sided bottle of whisky wrapped in a gray petticoat.

And when at evening she groped her way toward the kist in the musty hole beneath the stairs filled with the odor of sprouting potatoes, she was already tearful with welling memories, melting with the vision of the lass that once was Jean Sclessor and the lad that had been Sandy Morrison. They came to her as always, bright with the sunlight of a harvest day and fragrant with the breath of reaping time. He stood by the reaper bareheaded in the high noon sun. Lesser lads had sought the shade panting and weary, but he, foreman of them all and master of them all by height and strength, stood stretching in the glare. And she came laden with the scones fresh from the griddle and the mulled ale cool in its great earthen bottle. There was a power in him that brought her eyes to his, and whether she would or no’ she looked at him, and he looked back at her.

And then at milking time he came. She knew it was his shadow in the door as she sat milking there. But never a move made she, and never a turn of her head, although her heart was singing louder than the milk that struck the pail. And never a word she said about the singing of her heart, and never a word said he. But every night he came and watched, and every night he waited while she strained the milk.

Lightsome days they were, and work was easy in the doing. And she would sing and scrub the yard for Mary Tate the second lass, and often she would do the work for both when Mary’s cough confined her to her bed. Nor did she care about the extra tasks, but rather she welcomed them, knowing that Sandy loved her all the more that she was strong. And though at times he looked on Mary with admiring eyes, seeing her hair that lay like silken wheat against her head, Jean did not care; she knew the kindling of his heart was but for her, and the strength that lay in her round arms. And nearing thrashing time he said:

“Come, Martinmas, I’ll go a cotterin’.”

And Jean replied with hurrying heart, tossing her head to give the words a careless lilt:

“’Deed? An’ wha will cotter wi’ ye?”

“Yersel’, I’m thinkin’,” he made answer. And lingering by the stooked grain that stood like little tents beneath the moon, he told her of the fine bay mare he had his mind upon; and of the farm, come time, they’d rent together; and of the butter she would make for marketing, and of the long, long hours that they would work, he, with his back that had the strength of two, and she, with arms that had the strength of any man’s. And by and by they’d own a farm, and she would go to kirk in taffetas, and he would wear a tall gray hat on market days.

Down on her knees she fumbled for the bottle, pulling it with avid hand from its wrapper in the kist. Seizing the cork with yellowed teeth, she spat it out, and drank, gulping dryly in her haste. She settled back upon the piled potatoes in the fusty murk, her heavy throat racked with bitter sobbing. The thrashing machine sounded in her ears again. She stood in its sucking wind, feeding the yellow sheaves to its hungry mouth. Sandy swung by calling her above the roar, love glimmering in his face. She stopped to wave at him—to watch his glinting head go by—the crunching mouth reached for her fingers—drew them onward with the wheat—seized them, pulled them in,—the hand, the arm, up, up the arm:—Oh, God, stop it!—stop—

She jerked from side to side with the pain of sharp remembering, thumping the potatoes with the splashing bottle. And then she licked the whisky from her hand, and drank, whimpering as the glow stole round her heart.

Sandy came to the hospital, silent and down-looking, and every time he came his stay was shorter. The smell of medicine made him fit to spew, or the second man was away gallivanting with a lass, and he must hurry back to do his work. And then he got to bringing Mary Tate along, and she would sit and look at him and giggle when he looked at her as if they had a joke between the two of them. And Jean could never speak to him alone or ask a word about the cottering.

Long after thrashing she came back from hospital, and Martinmas was drawing near. Lads were speaking of feeing time and whether they would stay, or seek a better place. But Sandy never spoke a word, but had some business in the byre, or other work to do when she would question him. And Mary Tate would make his brose with extra butter, and mealy-mouth about him in the evening, and make as if she knew what she would never tell. When Jean could bear no more of that she asked:

“Is Sandy biding here or goin’ cotterin’?”

And Mary laughed and said:

“If he’s yer man ye’ve little need to ask.”

And Jean could barely keep from riving her. “What mean ye by that taunt?” she cried.

But Mary laughed, smirked and simpered while she stepped about as if the kitchen were a dancing hall, and all the lads had come to look at her.

So she cornered Sandy in the stubble field at loosing-time. He bore the harness on his arms and round his neck, for he would sooner break his back than tire a horse for no good end. He saw her, and he tried to pass, making as if the horses needed him, but Jean put out her hand.

“A word wi’ ye. What’s come o’ a’ yer talk o’ cotterin’?”

“Oh, nathin’,” he replied. And cried: “Whoa, Bess, whoa!” as if the horses were astray.

“Nathin’?”

“No.” And looked ahead, straining as if to see the horses reach the watering trough.

“Look at me, Sandy Morrison: Why will ye no’ go cotterin’?” she cried, shaking his harness-laden arm with her one hand.

“I’ll cotter come time, nae doot,” he said, with more ease in his voice than in his face.

“Wi’ me?” Her voice was shrill and cut him like a lash. The red rose up his throat. “Wi’ me? Will ye go cotterin’ wi’ me. Answer me that, Sandy Morrison.”

He could not look at her, and tried to turn away.

“Answer me!” She screamed and beat his breast, and as she struck her dangling stump jerked to the motion of the beating. Sandy’s eyes were on it.

“I canna, Jean,” he said. “I’ve nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand.”

And so he married Mary Tate and took her cottering, her that could never wet her feet, her with arms like matches, and legs like clay-pipe stems. He took her cottering for a year, and then the baby came, and Mary couldn’t leave her bed for many a month, and when she did they said she’d creep about more like a ghost than anything that drew the breath of life.

Sandy left the cottering and hired out again. Soon there was another wean⁠[10] to feed and tend; and every year or two another wean, another mouth for Sandy Morrison to feed, and Mary always lying in the bed. And he that had so proud a head left the farming to do what work he could about the town by nights, and tend the weans and make their porridge by day. He that spoke of fine bay mares, and cottering, and rented farms, and tall gray hats, was doing work that none would do,—emptying garbage in the night. She lived again that first night of his shame, when he crept up the lane at dawn, his head hung low, hoping none would see. But she was there and screamed her scorn, as many a dawn since then she’d screamed her scorn:

“Nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand, eh? Fine for ye emptying garbage, fine for ye.” He never looked toward her, crying in the window there, nor raised his head. And all the years he never looked nor spoke, but moved about as if her jeering fell on ears that could not hear.

Why did he not cry back at her or lift his head? Oh, to make him give a sign, to get her hand upon his shrunken flesh and rive it with her nails. To tear him open that her eyes could see his bleeding. To make him scream his pain as she must scream—to make him cry her name—to know that he was suffering. She rocked tortured on the shifting pile of potatoes, breaking their white sprouts as her hand grabbed anguished for the bottle.

Oh, what was he to her? He was a dour down-looking chiel⁠[11]⁠, thin he was, thin and withered, withered like a turnip at the winter’s end. And his hair, his bonnie hair that shone like a Michaelmas penny, was grizzled and sparse and dry like dusty moss. And the shoulders of him that had filled the door from side to side as he stood watching her at the milking, were shrunk and bent, and bent and shrunken was his neck that had been straight and pink and moist with the sweat of the fields. And the eyes of him were bleared and wavering, and his gait was like a weary dog’s.

Oh, what cared she? Why wait to shame a bleary dog—a bleary dog—a weary dog? Why sit and rock, and wait, and cry at dawn? She’d stop her rocking and her crying. She’d stop her drinking and her wailing. She’d buy a dolman trimmed with bugle beads and go to kirk on Sunday. She’d cry in by to her that lay a coughing in the bed, and him that pottered about wiping noses. She’d stop a while and sweep the floor, and wash the faces of the glowering weans. And all the time that image in the bed would hate her for her strength. And Sandy would be shamed and he would see what he had cast aside. She’d stop and bake and throw her dolman on the chair so that its beads would shine. She’d feed the weans and tend the image in the bed, and it would choke with rage and cough, and cough, and cough.

She’d stop her drinking, this would be the last. She’d be looked up to and respected, she’d go to kirk, she’d make red petticoats for naked heathens, she’d stop her drinking. The higher she was held the more would be his shame. She’d stop her drinking, break the bottle—break it on the wall—but first she’d drink—no use to waste good whisky—this would be the last—the very last—the last.

She started to sway pendulum-wise, settling deeper in the pile, rolling her head as if in time to some well-remembered chant. Her vacant eyes were bleared with tears that fell on this shoulder, and on that, with the rolling of her head. Her purple lips forming the silent words twisted in a half-forgotten pain, and then her voice meaningless as a wind in a hollow place took up the dirge: “Nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand, wantin’ a hand....”