Sarah Thornhill Read Free Page A

four brothers.
    Took a gulp of his rum-and-water so I could hear it go down his gullet as if it was having to find its way round something in there.
    No, Pa, look, I got three, I said.
    Showed him on my fingers.
    Will, Bub, Johnny, I said. See?
    You got four brothers, Dolly, he said. Only Dick’s gone away for a time.
    How come, I said. How come he went away? Where’d he go?
    His face hardened down. I knew that meant trouble, told myself let it go!
    When’s he coming back, Pa? I said. When’s Dick coming back?
    Then he was on his feet, the glass knocked over, the bench clattering on the boards so the dust flew up and he was above me, his big face shouting down into mine. A dizzy ringing when his hand caught me across the side of the head, my ear making a high thin noise like something screaming a long way off.
    That’s enough, he said. Get away out of my sight, damn your eyes.
    Pushed me, hard, so I stumbled through the doorway into the hall. Crept upstairs to the bedroom, Mary still dead asleep. Got in the bed, coiled myself up small as I could go, pulled the blanket over my head. In the stuffy dark I folded my fingers over one by one. Johnny, Bub, Will. One, two, three.
    The rest of the day I kept out of Pa’s way but after lunch I went looking for Will. He was in the old blue skiff, spokeshave in his hand and a bit of wood on his knees, making a new oar-blade.
    Pa told me I got four brothers, I said. But I only got three.
    Ready to show him on my fingers, but the spokeshave never paused, Will not looking up. All I could see was the top of his old cabbage-tree hat and his shoulders moving with each draw of the spokeshave, the white curls falling away around his feet.
    Oh, well, he said. There was Dick. Between me and Bub. That’d be what Pa had in mind.
    He dead? I said. Did he die?
    Will lifted up the oar-blade, ran his finger over the edge, blew at it.
    Not dead, he said. Went off.
    Went off, I said. How’s that, went off? Went off how?
    Dick was always a funny one, Will said. Had some funny ideas. Never knew which way he’d jump.
    Didn’t you like him, I said.
    That made him look up. His eyes like Pa’s, cold blue in his sunburnt face.
    Not a matter of not like, he said. Dick and me never had too much to say to each other, all there is to it. Him and Pa, they didn’t get on.
    How’s that, I said. Not get on?
    Will put down the spokeshave, laid the oar-blade aside. Stood up in the boat so it rocked on the water.
    Come down in here, he said.
    Lifted me into the boat, sat me on the seat at the stern, his knees nearly touching mine. It was still and hot, a thick smell of pitch coming out from the planks. Like the two of us gone into a room on our own.
    Now Dolly, he said. Listen to me. I never known what went on or what didn’t go on. I asked Pa one time. Keep your damned nose out of it, he told me. Belted me. Matter of fact near broke my arm.
    For once I sat quiet.
    Never asked again, he said. Never thought it was worth another belting. My guess is, Pa had a bust-up with Dick, sent him packing. You know the way Pa is.
    Put his hand on my shoulders.
    Dolly, we got a brother, he said. Lives somewhere up the Branch so I’ve heard. But I put him out of my mind and tell you what, Dolly, if I was you I’d do the same. Honest to God I would.
    All right, Will, I said, because I was a bit frightened, never seen Will so grave.
    But I was thinking who could I ask.

    Iris Herring lived up the river at Cat-Eye Creek, fowls pecking round outside her hut and a few goats watching you sideways. A patch of potatoes and a bed of the same blood-red geraniums we had at home. A plain woman like a boulder, getting on in years, always with an old pipe in her mouth. But if a baby was on the way or you cut your leg open and needed stitching up, she was the person you got.
    Mrs Herring knew everything that went on along the river. Didn’t always tell, but she always knew.
    Next time