Cold Shoulder Road

by Joan Aiken

  But, already, the spirit that had so suddenly taken hold of him seemed to be ebbing out as fast as it had come; he shrugged, kicked a pebble, and turned away from the door, which was shut quickly but softly behind him.

  Then Is noticed that the girl in the red dress was running towards them. All the blue-shirted boys from the class had begun dispersing in different directions, walking very quietly, looking at the ground, clasping their piles of school-books. Lessons were done for the morning, it seemed. Only the girl skipped along cheerfully, kicking up her heels, staring curiously at Is and Arun.

  “Hey, was that you singin’, you boy?” she asked Arun. “It was a real spanger, that tune! Sing it again! Who are you? Are you staying here? What’s your names? Why are you so dirty? I’m Jen Braeburn. I’m the worst girl in the town. Everybody’ll tell you that!”

  “Why are you the only girl in the school?” Is asked.

  “Cos the Silent girls ain’t allowed to go to school. They gotta stay home and do the dishes. But my Dad runs the King’s Head, he ain’t Silent, and he won’t have me about the pub in opening hours. So I goes to school. My little sister Fenny, she useta go, too, but she got took by the Gentry for a Handsel. It’s a precious shame. I’m the only one that—”

  Somebody tapped Is on the shoulder.

  She turned, to see a small, brown-faced woman regarding her searchingly.

  The woman wore the regular clothes of the Silent Sect – blue pinafore, white shirt – but her soft, curly white hair escaped here and there from under the tight blue headscarf. Her face was weathered, and very much lined, with deep grooves from nose to mouth, but its expression was friendly. Her eyes were a dark brown.

  She tapped herself on the breast, then gestured along the street, then beckoned Is and Arun to follow.

  “That’s Mrs Swannett,” said Jen Braeburn helpfully. “Reckon she wants you to go along to hers. I’ll see you later. On the beach, maybe? Or . . . I’ll tell you what—” she suddenly leaned close and whispered, “I’ll see you at the Talkfest! At Birketland! We has rare times there! We play word-games! It’s prime! You come along to Birketland; then you can sing that song again.” She put her finger to her lips with a mocking grin, hissed “Lomak!” then scudded away towards the King’s Head.

  They followed Mrs Swannett, who led them along the main street, still beckoning them to follow. Her house was the last, at the northern end of the town. Beyond lay the beach, littered with driftwood. The house was white-painted, trim, and had a small yard in front which contained nothing but cobblestones.

  Mrs Swannett opened the front door and stepped inside, beckoning them to follow.

  The front room, neat and clean, was furnished as plainly as possible. There were four chairs, a table, shelves with some china, and a few pots. No pictures, no ornaments. Their hostess beckoned them through this room into a back kitchen, which had in it a curved copper washtub perched on brick pillars above a fire of driftwood and sea coal. The water in the tub steamed enticingly.

  “Reckon the lady thinks we’d like a wash-up,” suggested Is.

  Mrs Swannett nodded. Her eyes rested calmly on their bruises and scrapes and general state of filth.

  “Well . . . I reckon we are a bit mucky,” Arun conceded.

  But, wondered Is, if we take our duds off, how’ll we ever get them back on again? Mine are just about in shreds. If we had anything else to put on—

  To her surprise, Mrs Swannett seemed to catch her thought; she pointed at the ceiling, then again, decisively, at the hot water. She appeared to measure Is with her eye, then left the room and could be heard going upstairs.

  “I’ll wash first, Arun, you go after,” suggested Is. “Why don’t you pick up bit o’ driftwood for the lady while I’m a-splashing; shan’t be long.”

  Arun nodded and walked out of the back door on to the shingle bank, which lay just beyond.

  Is helped herself to a bowlful of hot water, a jugful of cold from a pail that stood on the floor, and had an enjoyable wash. Her cuts and grazes stung, but felt better for being cleaned up. And, as she was finishing, Mrs Swannett reappeared with a pot of ointment, which smelt strongly of feverfew, and a bundle of clothes. The ointment, applied to her wounds, greatly eased their soreness. The clothes – black trousers and wool jacket, blue shirt – she held against Is, then nodded. She tapped her chest, then made gestures of two different heights from the ground.

  “Two children?” guessed Is. “Boys? Yours?” She pulled on the trousers.

  A nod. Then the woman covered her face with her hands. Is suddenly received a strong picture of the sea: great black and green waves, white-crested, tossing and curving.

  “Drowned?” guessed Is. “In the flood?”

  Another nod. But then she shook her head. No . . . not in the flood.

  Is picked up the necklace of pale-brown clear stones, which she had taken from her pocket as she undressed, and, on an impulse, offered them to Mrs Swannett. But the woman, as if horrified, made pushing-away gestures, and shook her head violently. Quick, put them away, put them in your pocket, her signs indicated. No, no, they are no use to me. None at all. None.

  Now Is was dressed and Arun came back with a large bundle of firewood. Mrs Swannett beamed at him gratefully and showed him where to put it. Then she and Is went into the front room, where Is was given a bowlful of peppermint tea and offered a hunk of fresh brown bread, which she politely declined, explaining that they had eaten breakfast at the King’s Head.

  As she drank the tea, Is asked Mrs Swannett, “How long have you lived here?”

  Mrs Swannett fetched a slate and wrote on it, 6 months.

  “Did you know Arun’s mother? Ruth Twite?”

  A nod. Of course.

  “But she’s not here?”

  No.

  Now Arun came in. (He had been much more speedy over his wash than Is.) He, too, had been kitted out with black trousers and blue shirt. He looked neat, clean, and subdued.

  “Can you tell me where my Mum might have gone to?” he asked Mrs Swannett, sipping his peppermint tea.

  But she shook her head.

  “Have you any notion why she went?” asked Is.

  Mrs Swannett looked troubled. She frowned, clasping her hands together, twisting them.

  Now Is had an inspiration. She broke into thought-speech.

  “Mrs Swannett? Can you hear what I’m saying? Can you hear this? Arun and I can talk to each other this way. It is ever so much faster than using tongue and voice and words and language. Can you hear me? Do you think that you could learn to do it, too?”

  She stared intently across the kitchen table into the woman’s dark-brown eyes. Mrs Swannett frowned, as if a midge or a mosquito were insistently buzzing round and round her head; she rubbed her brows, ran her fingers through her hair, shook her head in a puzzled way as if to clear it.

  “Mrs Swannett!” repeated Is in thought language. “Listen! Can you hear me? . . . Arun, you say something to her, too.”

  Arun came in, quiet and steady. “Mrs Swannett? Can you hear us? If you can, try to answer in the same way. Tell us your name. Your own, your first name.”

  The woman stared at them, first one, then the other. Her brown, lined face was creased with concentration, then distressed. She looked as if she might burst out crying.

  Oh drabbit it, thought Is, maybe all we’ve done is upset her, poor thing. And I reckon she’s got trouble enough already. But it did seem, before, as if she caught what I was thinking. And I caught what she was thinking. But it’s a shame if she’s upset for nothing, and when she was so kind, giving us her boys’ things—

  But, gradually, Mrs Swannett’s face was clearing. She gave them a small, tense, frowning smile.

  “Again? Say something more?”

  Her thought came to them slow and hesitant, but plain.

  “Tell us your name. That you were given when you were born.”

  “My first name is Window. Window Wyatt, before I married. Now Window Sw
annett.”

  “Window! What a grand name!”

  Suddenly Mrs Swannett was swept by a gust of overwhelming joy and excitement. She laughed and trembled and gripped her hands together.

  “But this is so wonderful! So wonderful!” A pair of tears ran easily down her cheeks. She did not bother to wipe them away. “That people can talk to each other like this! I never dreamed of such a thing. How did you ever learn, ever find out that you had such a marvellous gift?”

  “Up north we learned it, in the coal-mines,” Is told her. “You see, there we were all working in the dark, and cut off from each other, so thought-speech was the only way we could keep in touch.”

  “And now . . . now, I can talk whenever I like. I can talk to you—” Mrs Swannett could hardly believe her good luck. “Nobody can forbid this!”

  “Tell us about your children?” Is asked her.

  Tears swam in her eyes. “My boys – Enoch and Hiram. They were such good, good boys. Hard-working. Sweet-tempered. The Elder – Dominic – he gave orders for all the men and boys to go fishing. On a day when the weather was very threatening. Micah told him the wind was too high, that it would strengthen to a gale. But the Leader said No. He said Go. And so they went, and ten never came back. Both my boys. Micah was a-bed, with a broken arm. He did not go. Our boat floated back, four days later. But the boys did not come back. Oh!” She covered her face with her hands. “They lived a life of silence. And then they died a silent death. After that, Micah – who is a strong man, in his own way – when it is too late, he sold the boat and bought a cart. He told the Elder he will not go fishing again. Instead he drives the cart . . . He makes some money, enough, not much. The Elder was angry. But Micah is a strong man, too; in his own way,” she repeated. “But he obeys the Law of Silence.”

  “Mrs Swannett, what is a Talkfest?” Is asked.

  Mrs Swannett glanced about cautiously, then her face broke into a radiant smile as she realised that she could not be heard.

  “Some of the children . . . are disobedient. (Once Hiram had a fever, and in his feverish ramblings he talked about it.) They meet secretly, at High Birket, in the forest, and talk together. Their sin! They play rhyme-games and riddles. They would be punished terribly if the Elders found out. The Leader is very strict – especially strict – about young people talking.”

  “The Leader . . . that’s this Twite feller?”

  “Dominic de la Twite. He came to us from the Low Countries to take the place of Amos Furze who sailed to Connecticut.”

  Arun said, “I remember Amos Furze. He wasn’t a bad fellow. What sort of person is this Twite?”

  Mrs Swannett thought.

  “Do you like him?” asked Is.

  She thought some more.

  “You are not meant to like the Leader. He is the voice of Duty. Duty is seldom pleasant. Duty orders us to save every penny we can until we have enough to sail to Connecticut, where Amos Furze plans to buy a plot of land.”

  Arun asked, “Did my Mum like Dominic de la Twite? She and Dad liked Amos Furze well enough. They used to drink tansy tea with him, now and then.”

  Mrs Swannett said, “Your Mother had strong views about Dominic de la Twite. She said he was the servant of the Demiurge.”

  “Servant of what?”

  “The Demiurge,” repeated Mrs Swannett. “The origin of all evil.”

  “Croopus!”

  “Your Mother said,” went on Mrs Swannett, who now seemed almost delirious with the pleasure of being able to make contact with other people in this way – and she was a remarkably quick learner; Is could not remember any of the workers in the mines catching on so speedily – “your Mother said that it was a wicked thing, the way that Twite and that sister of his treated that poor Handsel Child, who lodged with them. That was when we all lived in Folkestone still, when the Elder lived in the house next to your parents in Cold Shoulder Road. She—”

  The front gate squeaked. There was a step on the pebblepath. Then the house door opened.

  Is flashed a rapid question to Mrs Swannett.

  “Shall you tell your husband that you are able to talk in this way?”

  Mrs Swannett frowned for a moment, thinking. Then: “No. At least, not just yet. He . . . I am not sure if he would approve. I think – for him – it might seem that, even talking to one another in this speechless way, we are breaking into the Holy Silence. Which ought to wrap each one of us in a thick, thick quilt of solitary wonder and mystery.”

  While Arun and Is were slowly pondering this statement, Micah Swannett came into the room, and gave them a kindly nod. He did not pause, but strode straight through to the back kitchen and, in his turn, washed off the tang of the hop-manure, then returned and sat down to a bowl of lentil stew.

  He glanced in a friendly way at Is and Arun, and nodded approval of their changed appearance. His long, gloomy face was not adapted for smiling, but it was plain that he was glad the boys’ clothes fitted them. They could feel him deciding, slowly and solidly, that it was better the clothes should be put to use, rather than lie upstairs in a chest, filling his wife with sad thoughts. He was a simple, direct man, and the movements of his mind came to them in clear shapes, as if he were talking aloud to himself . . . Whereas Window’s thoughts lay at a much deeper level, and, except when aimed at Is and Arun, could not be heard at all.

  After he had eaten, Micah wrote on a slate The Leader told me to bring you to him, and handed the slate to Arun.

  “What about me?” said Is. “Don’t he wish to speak to me?”

  Mr Swannett shook his head. He took back the slate and added the words, I will take you to him now, then stood up and walked to the door.

  Arun stood too, casting a doubtful glance at Is. His catlook had come back. He said to Is., “What d’you think? Hadn’t you better come – see what he wants?”

  Is considered.

  “I dunno. Maybe not. We don’t want to start by putting him in bad skin. Let’s wait and see what he has to say to you. He might cut up rusty if I barge in.”

  Just the same, she thought, I’m not going to be far away from that palaver, not if I can help it.

  Arun went out with Micah, and Is followed to see which way they turned.

  To her surprise, Micah did not go back into the town, but walked along the crest of the shingle bank, going north towards a group of sheds and sail lofts that stood inland on a thistly patch of sand.

  Window Swannett’s thought came to Is. She too had come into the little pebbly garden.

  “The Elder has made himself a room for study and hearkening, in one of the sail lofts. He lives there with his sister Merlwyn. He chooses not to be close to other members of the Sect . . . Look, there he is now.”

  A massive man, dressed all in black, stood sombrely, with arms folded, on the shingle ridge, staring out to sea. The wind lifted his thick grey hair off his brow. He was a little taller than Micah Swannett, who now approached him, and much more solidly built, with a huge head like that of a lion. At this distance Is could not see his face clearly, but from the way he stood and held himself she caught a feeling of great power and strong will.

  He sure looks like a Leader. I hope he don’t come the old bag over Arun, she thought uneasily. Arun – specially just now, when he’s worried about his Ma – can be uncommonly easy to overset. And I guess that feller – De la Twite, as he calls hisself, though I bet he’s as much de la as my cat Figgin – I guess he’s real sore at Arun’s Mum, and real keen to get that Handsel kid back. So he’s liable to lay into Arun, one way and another.

  I dunno – maybe I should have gone along with Arun.

  She watched the meeting intently. She saw the Leader lay what looked like a benevolent, fatherly hand on Arun’s head, and she saw Arun flinch back; then Micah Swannett, obeying a sharp jerk of the Leader’s head, walked away from the pair and left them alone on the shingle ridge.

  “He has very great power, that man,” said Window Swannett’s voice in her mind.
r />   “You’re not just whistling Annie Laurie,” Is flashed back. “What’s he a-going to do to my cousin?”

  “Is your cousin a strong character?”

  “I dunno,” thought Is doubtfully. “In some ways, yes; some, no.”

  “Then I think you should go along, get as close as you can, out of sight, and try to help him.”

  This seemed like excellent advice.

  Is ran like a sandpiper along the middle road, out of sight, behind hulls of ships, and sheds, until she was within a short distance of where Arun and Dominic de la Twite were standing.

  The pair had now moved down the shingle bank on to the sandy lower beach. They began walking to and fro. Is squatted down behind an upturned fishing smack and listened keenly.

  “I miss your dear, dear Mother so much!” the Leader was saying. “A truly original soul! A maker! An inventor! How very rare that is! Her pictures are so startling – so brilliant. I hope very much that, wherever she has retired to, she is still creating such beautiful offerings to the Great Spirit . . . And do you, dear boy, follow in her footsteps? Do you paint pictures?”

  “No I don’t,” said Arun. His voice was low and mumbling compared with de la Twite’s loud, confident, ringing tones; he sounded hostile and ill-at-ease.

  “Ah, but now, I do recall . . . you wrote songs, was that not so?” de la Twite said distastefully. “And this was a sad cause of contention between you and your good father. (Or so I have heard, at least.) For song, of course, is a terrible infringement of the Holy Quiet. But could this activity not be transposed – could you not, like your dear Mamma, turn to painting pictures? A delightfully silent occupation?”

  This de la Twite can’t really be such a clodpole, thought Is, as to believe a body could just change over from songs to pictures. He’s gotta be after something. But what?

  Arun remained silent. He had not replied to de la Twite’s suggestion. Is sent him a thought-message. “This cove is a real Captain Sharp. You want to watch his fambles all the time, or your dinner ‘ull be in his pudding-box.”

  She received no answer from Arun.

  “And your dear Mamma’s pictures – what has become of them?” De la Twite was inquiring solicitously. “I do trust they are in safe keeping? I do trust they are not still reposing in that sad little empty house, at the mercy of hostile neighbours?”