A BIT OF HISTORY

I remember this picture being taken. The photographer was just passing by on the road, on his way to the Islands. That’s my mum behind us kids, and dad’s off to my right. The man with the pipe and the stiff wide chaps is Godwin, and he supervised the building of the house. Horrible man. Regularly, mum would call us in from the orchard behind the house and the kitchen would smell richly of Godwin’s apple tobacco. The man himself would make like he was testing the fresh boards in the living room, those long planks being nailed down just a month back and still bending whenever the fire burned. Watching him it was like he was walking a pine tightrope, performing some modern dance. Mum always looked part petrified and part as angry as she did when the startled horse clattered over one of the barn cats mid-summer, killing it outright, its brain like jam on the flagstones. Dad always knew when Godwin had been through the house too. When he arrived home he’d sniff at the air like a hunting dog. But he was a timid man, always weighing good against bad, conclusion against consequence (mostly as a way of stalling any action, I think) and he worked at figuring out that balance until his arms were so tired he was no good for anything, not bringing in eggs, not even strangling one of the too many ducks.