Wrecker. Noel O’Reilly

start, that Aunt Madgie was among them. But none gave me a reproving look, so I took my place at the other end between Cissie Olds and the Widow Chegwidden. The first sip of rum burnt my gullet, but soon my blood slowed and a soothing feeling came over me. Cissie piled my plate with fried swine offal chopped up with onion. But I had no stomach for meat, and the sight of stargazy pie made me queasy, with the pilchards poking their noses through the pastry. It seemed that no word of my misdeeds had reached Cissie Olds or the others who sat around me. I downed one rum and then another and before long lost all count. The world swam about me, and I grew reckless.

      The children had grown boisterous and little lads kept sneaking over to the table for a nip of rum when their parents’ backs were turned. It was time for their big sisters and brothers to take them to bed. Soon after there was banging at the far end of the table and a hush came over the company. Aunt Madgie stood up to raise the toast ‘One and all’ and everyone but me roared in hearty accord. ‘Now, neighbours, if you’ll excuse me, I shall take to my bed,’ she said, and they all cheered. The old dame knew the dancing would start soon and didn’t want to witness any improper goings-on. Once she’d gone, a weight lifted from me.

      Ephraim Lavin, the blind fiddler, was called on to scrape out a few jigs and hornpipes. His son, the little scarper, sat alongside him, thumping out a rhythm on a tub. The dancing began soberly enough. The men took their places in the left file and the women in the right and the shouter numbered us into couples. I had to start with Lean Jack Bodilley, but I took it in good part. When the tune was counted in, Jack took my hand and raised it and we got through the steps without tripping one another up. At each verse we changed partners, and soon my turn with Johnenry Roscorla came about. I remembered the days when Johnenry and me had walked out together and I had a sudden, fierce longing to have him back. I knew he felt the same about me because when we came face to face he was rooted to the spot, gazing into my eyes. He swayed before me and the harbour swayed along with him. He was the most handsome man on earth in the fairy light of the lanterns. I gave him a look to make his knees buckle. Then the other dancers bashed into us and we reeled in a circle with the rest, elbows locking and the men sending their partners spinning into the next man. We women held up our skirts so as not to trip on them as we stamped up and down the line, while the older folk and the lame clapped their hands to urge us on from the benches. It hardly seemed to matter what would happen tomorrow with the smears of light wheeling round my head and Johnenry’s face forever looming up at me and growing more handsome as the night wore on. The men grew rough and hurled us about, some taking liberties, grabbing our waists or clutching at our behinds.

      Time passed too quickly. The music petered out and the left-overs of the feast lay spoiling, fit only for flies. Men lay with their heads on the table, snoring amongst the upturned rum pots. Others were laid out on the quay. My feet were sore and my toes crushed after stomping about in those ill-fitting boots. Johnenry and I fell against a harbour post and I was glad of something to prop me up. But the post soon seemed to leave its moorings and began swaying about too. Loveday Skewes stood against another post further along with a face like a whipped dog. She had a habit of nibbling at her fingernails, and she was doing it that moment. Somewhere in my muzzy head I remembered that Johnenry was courting Loveday, and had been a long while since. I shut my eyes to think clearer, but it made my head spin even more. Down along the quay, one or two scolding wives were trying to drag their husbands home, but most people had already taken to their beds. I saw the lily from my hair lying on the stone slabs of the quay, crushed underfoot. I didn’t want to go to my bed. I didn’t want the night to be over and to wake up the next day with that dark and fretful feeling that haunted me, and a pounding headache to boot.

      The bettermost women were gathered on the quay. Millie Hicks piped up in her pious wheedling voice. ‘It’s time for we ladies to bestir ourselves, I seem. It don’t belong to women to be abroad at such an hour.’ I always thought of her as a tall bird, a heron perhaps, with her long, thin neck and pointed beak poking forever into places where it had no business.

      Millie linked arms with Grace Skewes, Loveday’s mother and the topmost woman in the village, unless you counted Aunt Madgie. ‘It don’t belong to women to drink strong liquor, neither,’ said Grace. Her little group of followers clucked in agreement, as they picked up their baskets, ready for the off. ‘One cup alone do fairly maze a body,’ said Grace, and I thought her eyes swept over me as she said it. It was all because she was sore about Johnenry preferring me to her Loveday.

      Nancy Spargo, a big plain woman from the tinners’ cottages on Uplong Row, wandered over from the table where she’d been larking about with some of her mates. ‘Well, it might belong to the bettermost to take to they beds but I be thirsty as a gull and plan on staying out a while longer,’ she said. She bent forward, her breasts almost spilling out of her bodice, screwed up her face and passed wind like a trumpet major. ‘Begging your pardon, ladies, I been fartin’ like a steer all night,’ she said, in a mock lady-like way. ‘Better out nor in, eh?’ She grinned, showing the gaps between her teeth.

      I staggered up the steps to the quay. Seeing how linking arms was all the fashion that night, I went over to Nancy and went arm in arm with her. ‘We work as hard as the men, so why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves along with they?’ I said, stumbling. I would have fallen if Nancy hadn’t held me up.

      ‘I be only thinking of what is seemly,’ said Millie Hicks, rubbing her long neck the way she did when she was about to bad-mouth a neighbour. ‘Others may look to their own reputations. Come along, Zenobia.’ She pulled her daughter away with her. The girl was her match in piety.

      Loveday came over from where she’d been sulking by a harbour post. She was being mollified by her friend, Betsy Stoddern, who had stuck by Loveday and fought all her battles for her since they were little. ‘Some of we still care what folks think of we,’ Loveday muttered, glancing at me.

      I wasn’t going to let this pass. I let go of Nancy and walked towards her. ‘What’s she saying of? Say it to my face if you got something to say, Loveday,’ I said. But someone had taken a grip of my arm and was leading me away. I tried to fight them off, but then I saw it was Johnenry, so I went along with him. He had a cup of brandy in his hand. He pulled me down from the slipway and led me out onto the beach.

      ‘Look, you’ve given me the hiccups,’ I said, slapping him. He pulled me deeper into the night. ‘Wait! Let me take off these boots. They’re fair killing me.’ Johnenry took the boots out of my hand and slipped his arm around my waist. I wondered if anybody was spying on us from the dark windows in Fore Street.

      ‘You’re all hot and greasy, let go o’ me,’ I said.

      ‘I worked up a power of sweat jigging with you, that’s why.’

      We moved further out to where the tide could be heard lazily washing in, some ways off. We leant against the damp hull of one of the boats, out of the breeze. The cold sand soothed my aching feet. Johnenry put the brandy to my lips, but I turned my head away. The storm that had brought the ship onto the rocks the day before had swept every cloud away, and untold numbers of stars were scattered across the night sky.

      ‘Some pretty, ain’t it, the sky?’ I said. I spoke softly, but my voice was loud out there on so still a night. Johnenry took off his jacket and threw it on the ground so I could lie on it, then he lay down by me. We lay on our backs looking up at the heavens a while without speaking. A white streak bled across the sky.

      ‘A shooting star!’ he said. ‘I made a wish. Did you?’

      I sighed. I knew full well what his wish was, but I didn’t want to hear it right then. ‘Funny to think there were dead people lying all over the strand yesterday,’ I said, shivering. ‘When you see them lying there in their fine clothes, do you ever wonder how they must have lived before they were drowned? Don’t you wish you could see inside their houses? And wardrobes? Don’t you want a life like that?’

      ‘No use hankering after what you can’t have. It don’t belong to us.’

      ‘Well, I’m tired of the same old life every day, even if you ain’t. You be happy with too little, I seem.’

      ‘I have a dream.’

      ‘And