Hamnet(84)

Eliza is talking now and Agnes glances towards her for a moment, then back at her husband. He is listening to whatever Eliza is saying. His fingers, shining with goose fat, toy with a crust on his plate. How the goose complained and then shrieked, Agnes thinks, and then ran for a moment, headless, as if sure it could get away, could change its fate. Her husband’s face is eager as he listens to his sister; he is leaning forward slightly. He has one arm around Judith’s chair.

It’s a whole year, almost, that he’s been away. Summer has come again and it is almost the anniversary of their son’s death. She does not know how this can be, but it is so.

She stares at him, stares and stares. He has come back among them, embracing them all, shouting for them, pulling gifts from his bag: hair combs, pipes, handkerchiefs, a hank of bright wool, a bracelet for her, in hammered silver, a ruby at the clasp.

The bracelet is finer than anything she has ever owned. It has intricate circling etchings in its slippery surface and a raised setting for the stone. She cannot imagine what it must have cost him. Or why he would spend money on it, he who never wastes a penny, who has been so careful with his purse ever since his father lost his fortune. She fiddles with it, spinning it round and round, as she sits at the table, across from her husband.

The bracelet, she realises, has something bad coming off it, like steam. It was too cold, at first, gripping her skin with an icy, indifferent embrace. Now, though, it is too hot, too tight. Its single red eye glowers up at her with baleful intent. Someone unhappy, she knows, has worn it, someone who dislikes or resents her. It is steeped in bad luck, bad feeling, polished with it to a dull lustre. Whoever it used to belong to wishes her harm.

Eliza sits, smiling now, as she finishes speaking. The dog has settled itself beside the open window. John is seizing the ale and refilling his cup.

Agnes looks at her husband and suddenly she sees it, feels it, scents it. All over his body, all over his skin, his hair, his face, his hands, as if an animal has run over him, again and again, leaving tiny pawmarks. He is, Agnes realises, covered in the touches of other women.

She looks down at her plate, at her own hands, her own fingers, at their roughened tips, at the whorls and loops of her fingerprints, at the knuckles and scars and veins of them, at the nails she cannot stop herself gnawing the minute they emerge. For a moment, she believes she may vomit.

Grasping the bracelet, she draws it off her wrist. She looks at the ruby, holds it close to her face, wondering what it has seen, where it has come from, how it came into her husband’s possession. It is a deep interior red, a drop of frozen blood. She raises her eyes and her husband is looking straight at her.

She puts the bracelet down on the table, holding his gaze. For a moment, he seems confused. He glances at the bracelet, then at her, then back; he half rises, as if he might speak. Then the blood rushes to his face, his neck. He lifts a hand, as if to reach out for her, then lets it drop.

She stands, without speaking, and leaves the room.

He comes to find her that evening, just before sunset. She is out at Hewlands, tending her bees, pulling up weeds, cutting the blooms off chamomile flowers.

She sees him approach along the path. He has taken off his fine shirt, his braided hat, and is wearing an old jerkin that he keeps hanging on the back of their door.

She doesn’t watch him as he walks towards her; she keeps her head averted. Her fingers continue to pluck at the yellow-faced flowers, picking them, then dropping them into a woven basket at her feet.

He stands at the end of the row of bee skeps.

‘I brought you this,’ he says. He holds out a shawl in his hands.

She turns her head to look at it for a moment, but doesn’t say anything.

‘In case you were cold.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Well,’ he says, and he places it carefully on top of the nearest skep. ‘It’s here if you need it.’

She turns back to her flowers. Picks one bloom, two blooms, three blooms, four.

His feet come nearer, scuffing through the grass, until he stands over her, looking down. She can see his boots out of the corner of her eye. She finds herself seized by a passing urge to pierce their toes. Over and over, with the tip of her knife, until the skin beneath is nicked and sore. How he would howl and leap about.

‘Comfrey?’ he says.

She cannot think what he means, what he is talking about. How dare he come here and speak to her of flowers? Take your ignorance, she wants to say to him, and your bracelets and your shining, fancy boots back to London and stay there. Never come back.

He is gesturing, now, at the flowers in her basket, asking are they comfrey, are they violas, are they—

‘Chamomile,’ she manages to say, and her voice, to her ears, sounds dull and heavy.

‘Ah. Of course. Those are comfrey, are they not?’ He points at a clump of feverfew.

She shakes her head and she is struck by how dizzy it makes her feel, as if the slight movement might topple her over into the grass.

‘No,’ she gestures with fingers stained a greenish-yellow, ‘those.’

He nods vigorously, seizes a spear of lavender in his fingers, rubs it, then lifts his hand to his nose, making exaggerated appreciation noises.

‘The bees are thriving?’

She gives a single, downward nod.

‘Yielding much honey?’

‘We’ve yet to find out.’