‘Just deal with the difficulty, will you?’
‘I’m not paid to run the business. In fact I’m not paid at all.’
‘You’re an apprentice! You will be until you’re twenty-one. It’s the usual way.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Amos, getting angry. ‘Most apprentices get a wage, even if it’s small. I get nothing.’
Obadiah was panting just from the effort of arguing. ‘You don’t have to pay for your food or clothing or accommodation – what do you need money for?’
He wanted money so that he could ask a girl to walk out with him, but he did not tell his father that. ‘So that I don’t feel like a child.’
‘Is that the only reason you can think of?’
‘I’m nineteen years old and I do most of the work. I’m entitled to a wage.’
‘You’re not a man yet, so I’ll make the decisions.’
‘Yes, you make the decisions. And that’s why there’s no yarn.’ Amos stomped out of the room.
He was bewildered as well as angry. His father would not listen to reason. Was he just becoming bad-tempered and tight-fisted as he got older? But he was only fifty. Was there something else going on, some other reason for this behaviour?
Amos did feel like a child, having no money. A girl might get thirsty and ask him to get her a pot of ale in a tavern. He might want to buy her an orange from a market stall. Walking out was the first step in a courtship, for respectable Kingsbridge girls. Amos was not much interested in the other kind of girl. He knew about Bella Lovegood, real name Betty Larchwood, who was not respectable. Several boys of his age said they had been with her, and one or twomight even have been telling the truth. Amos would not have been tempted even if he had the money. He felt sorry for Bella, but not attracted to her.
And what if he became serious about a girl and wanted to take her to a play at the Kingsbridge Theatre, or a ball at the Assembly Rooms? How would he pay for the tickets?
He returned to the warehouse and quickly finished his packing. It bothered him that his father had so carelessly run out of yarn. Was the old man losing his grip?
He was hungry, but did not have time to sit down to eat with his parents. He went to the kitchen. His mother was there, sitting by the fire in a blue dress made of a soft lambswool cloth that had been made by one of the Badford weavers. She was chatting to the cook, Ellen, who was leaning against the kitchen table. Mother patted his shoulder affectionately and Ellen smiled fondly: both women had indulged him for most of his life.
He cut a few slices off a ham and began to eat them standing up, with a piece of bread and a cup of weak ale from the barrel. While he was eating he asked his mother: ‘Before you were married, did you walk out with Father?’
She smiled shyly, like a girl, and for a moment it seemed that the grey hair turned dark and lustrous, and the wrinkles disappeared, and she was a beautiful young woman. ‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Where did you go? What did you do?’
‘Not much. We put on our church clothes and just strolled around the town, looking at the shops, chatting to friends of our own age. It sounds quite boring, doesn’t it? But I was excited because I really liked your father.’
‘Did he buy you things?’
‘Not often. One day at Kingsbridge market he bought me a blue ribbon for my hair. I’ve still got it, in my jewellery box.’
‘He had money, then.’
‘Certainly. He was twenty-eight, and doing well.’
‘Were you the first girl he walked out with?’
Ellen said: ‘Amos! What a question to ask your mother!’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Forgive me, Mother.’
‘Never mind.’
‘I must hurry.’
‘Are you going to the Methodist meeting?’
‘Yes.’
