The Giver of Stars(21)

She didn’t blame him: her own feet were heavy as she made her way up the steps. She reached for the door, then stopped. The latch was off. She stared at it for a moment, thinking, then walked quietly to the empty barrel at the side of the barn where she kept her spare rifle under a piece of sacking. Alert now, she lifted the safety catch and raised it to her shoulder. Then she tiptoed back up the steps, took a breath, and quietly hooked the door open with the toe of her boot.

‘Who’s there?’

Directly across the room, Sven Gustavsson sat on her rocker, his feet up on the low table and a copy of Robinson Crusoe in his hands. He didn’t flinch, but waited a moment for her to lower the gun. He put the book carefully on the table, and rose to his feet slowly, placing his hands with almost exaggerated courtesy behind his back. She stared at him for a moment, then propped her gun against the table. ‘I wondered why the dog didn’t bark.’

‘Yeah, well. Me and him. You know how it is.’

Bluey, that squirming traitor, was nestling under Sven’s arm now, pushing at him with his long nose, begging to be petted.

Margery took off her hat and hung it on the hook, then pushed the sweaty hair from her forehead. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you.’

‘You weren’t looking.’

Without meeting his eye, she moved past him to the table, where she pulled the lace cover from a jug of water and poured herself a cup.

‘You not going to offer me some?’

‘Never knew you to drink water before.’

‘And you won’t offer me anything stronger?’

She put the cup down. ‘What are you doing here, Sven?’

He looked at her steadily. He was wearing a clean checked shirt and he gave off a smell of coal-tar soap and something uniquely his, something that spoke of the sulphurous smell of the mine and smoke and maleness. ‘I missed you.’

She felt something give a little in her, and brought the cup to her lips to hide it. She swallowed. ‘Seems to me you’re doing just fine without me.’

‘You and I both know I can do just fine without you. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to.’

‘We’ve been through this.’

‘And I still don’t get it. I told you if we marry I won’t try to pin you down. I won’t control you. I’ll let you live exactly as you live now except you and I –’

‘You’ll let me, will you?’

‘Goddamn it, Marge, you know what I mean.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I’ll let you be. We can be exactly as we are now.’

‘Then what’s the point in us going through with a wedding?’

‘The point is that we’ll be married in the eyes of God, not sneaking around like a pair of goddamn kids. You think I like this? You think I want to hide from my own brother, from the rest of the town, the fact that I love the bones of you?’

‘I won’t marry you, Sven. I always told you I wouldn’t marry anybody. And every time you go on about it I swear my head feels like it’s going to explode just like the dynamite in one of your tunnels. I won’t talk to you if you’re just going to keep coming here and going over the same thing again and again.’

‘You won’t talk to me anyways. So what in hell am I supposed to do?’

‘Leave me alone. Like we decided.’

‘Like you decided.’

She turned away from him and walked to the bowl in the corner, where she had covered some beans she had picked early that morning. She began stringing them, one by one, snapping off the ends and throwing them into a pan, waiting for the blood to stop thumping in her ears.

She felt him before she saw him. He walked quietly across the room and stood directly behind her so that she could feel his breath on her bare neck. She knew without looking that her skin flushed where it touched her.

‘I’m not like your father, Margery,’ he murmured. ‘If you don’t know that about me by now then there’s no telling you.’

She kept her hands busy. Snap. Snap. Snap. Keep the beans. Discard the string. The floorboards creaked under her feet.

‘Tell me you don’t miss me.’

Ten gone. Strip off that leaf. Snap. And another. He was so close now that she could feel his chest against her as he spoke.

His voice lowered. ‘Tell me you don’t miss me and I’ll head out of here right now. I won’t bother you again. I promise.’

She closed her eyes. She let the knife fall, and put her hands on the work surface, palms down, her head dipping. He waited a moment, then placed his own over them gently, so that hers were entirely covered. She opened her eyes and regarded them: strong hands, knuckles covered with raised burn scars. Hands she had loved for the best part of a decade.

‘Tell me,’ he said quietly, into her ear.

She turned then, swiftly taking his face between her hands and kissing him, hard. Oh, but she had missed the feel of his lips on hers, his skin against hers. Heat rose between them, her breath quickened, and everything she had told herself, the logic, the arguments she had rehearsed in her head in the long dark hours, melted away as his arm slid around her, pulling her into him. She kissed him and she kissed him and she kissed him, his body familiar and newly unfamiliar to her, reason leaching away with the aches and pains and frustrations of the day. She heard a clatter as the bowl fell to the floor, then it was only his breath, his lips, his skin upon hers and Margery O’Hare, who would be owned by nobody, and told by nobody, let herself soften and give, her body lowering inch by inch until it was pinned against the wooden sideboard by the weight of his own.