Vixen

Home > Other > Vixen > Page 27
Vixen Page 27

by Rosie Garland


  He hops around like an excited boy, fetching the knife, the bowl, the oil. As usual, I grumble a little. As usual, he chides me and counsels obedience. Anyone observing would think our household the same as ever. Only the Maid might notice the rigor of my fingers about the handle of the razor, the forced gaiety of my humming as I sharpen the blade on the whetstone. I have learned more from her than I think.

  He drags the bench from the wall and seats himself expectantly. Once I would have found this an intimate act, and marvelled at the closeness of his body to mine. Now he is as arousing as a broken cartwheel. I swipe oil on to his chin and throat to soften the coarse hair and thereby hasten my task as much as possible.

  ‘By the Saint, sir,’ I remark. ‘Your beard grows in quickly. My brother could go four days before he had as much to show.’

  At the mention of Adam my thoughts fly straightaway to Cat. I should tell Thomas that she is dead. But I do not, and am not entirely sure why.

  ‘You do not often speak of your brother.’

  I close the door to that part of my soul and lock it tight. ‘No, I do not, sir.’

  ‘He was a fine man?’

  ‘He was. The finest.’

  I test the blade against my thumb until I am satisfied it is sharp enough. I press the heel of my hand upon his right temple, pull the skin taut and lay the razor on the topmost part of his cheek, beneath the eye. Of a sudden, I am in no hurry. He holds his breath, waiting for me to commence. I draw the blade downwards, biting my lower lip with concentration. I look everywhere but into his eyes. I am close enough to feel the fur of his breath on my face.

  ‘You are indeed tough-bristled,’ I say, for lack of anything better. I turn aside to wipe the blade against the napkin laid over my shoulder. ‘I mean no disrespect, sir.’

  ‘I take none, mistress.’

  I mumble thanks. ‘Turn your head,’ I command, and he obeys. I scrape his other cheek. ‘Thomas, you should shave more often,’ I chide. ‘It is like trimming a gorse bush.’

  He laughs. It is such an unexpected sound.

  ‘Are you well, Thomas?’

  ‘Am I merry so rarely?’ he asks.

  My eyes must show the answer. ‘You have more important matters to attend to,’ I mutter. ‘You are a man of God.’

  ‘I was amused at the thought of you trying to prune gorse with a shaving-razor,’ he answers.

  ‘Indeed,’ I murmur. ‘That would be a fine mess.’

  I place two fingers beneath the tip of his chin, push it high enough to get at the straggling hairs beneath and place the knife against the knob of his Adam’s apple. Once more, I pause. I am aware of his breath coming and going in time to my own, the peppery smell of it, how my fingers are clenched around the bone handle. I have a sharp knife in my hand.

  ‘Is there something amiss?’ His voice strangles due to his odd position. I feel the nervous thump of his heart against metal.

  ‘Not at all, sir. I was merely wondering where to shave next.’

  I place my hand across his mouth and hold him still; drag the blade down his throat with the rasp of a wood-chisel. It is a cold day: the doors of the house are closed and the room is quiet save for the scratch of the blade and my breathing, full of concentration. I draw the knife across his skin. The moist warmth of his lips swells against my fingers.

  Outside I can hear passers-by; too far and too faint to make out their words, but women, chattering as they pass on their way to the well and back again. Louder, quieter, louder again they go back and forth. It is only when he mumbles, ‘Mistress?’ through my fingers that I fly back into my body and realise how far I have strayed. I let him lower his chin and he peers at me.

  ‘I am such a sleepy-head,’ I say, and smile.

  He smiles back, and it is as though he has struck me across the face.

  ‘I will shave your head now, sir,’ I say with firm efficiency.

  ‘Anne.’ He grabs my wrist.

  ‘No!’ I cry, in answer to a question he did not speak and I do not wish to hear.

  ‘What has happened to us?’

  ‘Us? There is no us. There never has been,’ I growl.

  ‘Once you wished it so.’

  ‘No,’ I moan. I will not let him cozen me, not now.

  ‘Will you not smile at me, Anne?’

  I blink at the sound of my name on his tongue. I would have taken delight in it, but long ago. I tremble as though the air is venomous, writhe to free myself from his grasp. He hangs on.

  ‘Let me go,’ I say as calmly as I can manage. ‘I must shave the spot on your head.’

  ‘The tonsure,’ he corrects me.

  ‘Yes, yes. The tonsure,’ I snap. ‘Whatever it’s called, I must shave it.’

  ‘Anne,’ he says again. ‘It can wait a moment.’

  ‘It can’t.’ I struggle so mightily that my kerchief slips to my shoulders, uncovering my braids. ‘You are staring at me,’ I gasp.

  ‘Your hair is beautiful.’

  ‘What? Why are you speaking so strangely, Thomas?’

  ‘I remark upon the truth, simply.’

  ‘Thomas, what is the matter with you?’

  ‘Anne—’

  With my free hand I brandish the razor under his nose. ‘Stop it. Will you let me finish shaving you or won’t you?’

  ‘Anne, wait.’

  I let out a cry of frustration and hurl the blade to the floor. It skims through the reeds and strikes the wall.

  ‘It is too late,’ I declare.

  ‘It is not.’

  ‘It is! For everything!’ I shout. ‘Why will you not see what is before you, Thomas?’

  ‘There is nothing before me, save your troublesome self,’ he mutters.

  ‘Oh, be quiet for once, Thomas. People are dying. Surely you are not blind to that.’

  ‘Not in this village.’

  ‘Yes; in this village.’

  ‘No.’

  I throw up my hands. ‘Are we going to say yes no yes no like children? We are past games.’

  ‘The pestilence will pass over us. We are protected by the Maid. And the Saint.’ His voice wobbles and I seize the uncertainty.

  ‘Are we? You do not believe it any longer.’

  ‘I do!’ he quavers. ‘So should you, if you wish to live!’

  ‘I am a long way past belief.’

  He looks so stunned I swear I could tip him over like a ninepin.

  ‘How dare you speak such blasphemy!’ he splutters. ‘I am a man of God!’

  ‘Oh, hold your tongue. That tired old saw is as threadbare as a beggar’s blanket. You are not this man of God you claim to be, Thomas. You are a fool.’

  I wait for him to strike me. He blinks; his jaw works back and forth, lips pursed as though ready to spit out a refutation. He says nothing. His hands stay clamped to his sides. I watch a while, waiting for him to stalk off in the direction of the church, but he does not stir. His eyes squeeze shut, spring open. I wonder if he can see me any more, he is so taken out of himself.

  Far away, very far indeed it seems, the church bell begins to chime its tuneless melody. I gasp my relief and do not care if he notices.

  ‘You must go. It is the hour for the Divine Office.’

  A shadow sweeps across the floor. I turn to see the Maid standing in the doorway. Such a thin creature, yet she blocks the light. My head jerks towards her and my heart soars to the sky.

  ‘Maid!’ I shout. She gives me a curious look, counselling caution. ‘I must go,’ I say, far too loudly for this cramped room. ‘The Maid has need of me.’

  ‘Can she not wait?’ Thomas whimpers, clutching my sleeve-ties.

  ‘She is hungry.’ I dash from the room, leaving him with a fistful of torn ribbons.

  ‘My tonsure!’ he shouts, but I am gone far beyond the reach of his commands.

  I leap into her arms, heaping her face with kisses, caring not one whit if the whole world and the Bishop are spying upon us. Thomas is forgotten, the half-swept room is fo
rgotten and I do not remark upon it until much later, when neither Thomas nor myself care overmuch for diligent housekeeping.

  She helps me drag the basket to the orchard and we set about filling it with fruit. Or rather I pick, for she bores swiftly and wanders about between the trees, sniffing the air. The first apple comes away with a neat twist of my hand, and the second. Each one I touch drops and I think myself very lucky to have such a faultless crop, all ready on the same day.

  Maybe this perfection is what prompts me to pause. I examine the next apple more closely before dropping it into the basket to join its fellows. It seems firm enough when I squeeze. I hold it to my ear and shake: I ought to hear a faint rattle of seeds, but there is no sound. The skin is unblemished, with no sign of burrowing insects, but around the stem is a dark spot the size of a thumbprint.

  I give the stalk a tug and it comes away with a wet pop, followed by the slight but unmistakable odour of rot. I take the paring knife from my bodice and slice the apple in half. The core drools with sloppy mulch. I take another from the pile and cut it open, revealing the same mess. I take a third: it is so far gone that corruption has infected the flesh to within a hair’s-breadth of the skin.

  I test every fruit in the basket, tugging the stems. Almost all come away with the same telltale softness. Out of the twenty-four I have picked, seventeen are fit only for swine. The whole tree delivers sixteen apples I consider sound. The remainder tumble around me in a deceitful carpet of red and green, beautiful to the eye and poisonous at the heart. Even the pigs will turn up their snouts.

  I move to the next tree. It is a different variety, tart even when ripe. The first two apples are unmarked and I am much cheered. Perhaps only the other tree was blighted. I chide myself for being cast down so quickly. The shadow of the pestilence makes us fear the worst at every turn.

  I pluck with a good heart, shaking each and hearing the loose seeds rattle. After five, I reach one that is quiet. Perhaps it is simply not ready, I counsel myself and hear the emptiness of my hope. I cut it open grudgingly, for I do not wish to see what I know I will find.

  It is the same tale. Its heart is mud. As I watch, a maggot lifts its head out of the sludge, disturbed in its gluttony. I drop the vile thing with a squeal as if it has stung me. I am skittish as a child who jumps at every little thing. At this rate, I will be lucky to collect two baskets of sound fruit from the entire orchard.

  ‘Anne?’

  The voice is so close that I think a demon has crawled into my ear. I shriek again. When I turn, it is the Maid. She gives a half-smile.

  ‘You’re afraid of your own shadow,’ she remarks.

  ‘You crept up on me,’ I pout.

  ‘You’re jumping about like a cat on a fire.’ She jerks her head at the tree. ‘What’s afoot?’

  ‘The apples are rotten. Near enough the whole crop,’ I say. ‘If this orchard is a model for the county, there’ll be no fruit left by Christmas-tide.’

  ‘And no one left to eat them,’ she says carelessly, picking up one of the blemished fruits and hurling it at the nearest tree. It explodes wetly.

  ‘We could take the sound ones,’ I say, hoping to divert the conversation in a more pleasant direction. ‘When we go.’

  ‘There’s no point. They’re too heavy. Best stick with salt pork, cheese and bread. As much as we can carry. I don’t know why you’re bothering picking them.’

  ‘Because there are still bellies to fill in this village. If we do not want them, there are plenty who do.’ She shrugs, but helps to haul the basket to the stable all the same. ‘We can distribute them to the people when they come for fresh rags.’

  ‘You are ever generous,’ she says.

  I bed the apples upon straw for safekeeping while she fetches armfuls of the driest stalks from the back of the byre. I observe the easy way she moves, how her hair has grown over her ears and makes her look far more like a woman and less like a girl.

  ‘How old are you?’ I ask.

  Her face slams down its shutters. ‘I don’t know,’ she snaps and spins around so that I cannot see her expression. ‘Old enough to know what I want. And that’s an end to questions.’

  ‘You are angry that I ask?’

  ‘If a pole of beans gets no water and no light, it grows stunted. If it grows at all,’ she grunts.

  ‘That is not an answer.’

  She takes an apple, holds it to the light and, satisfied that it is whole, polishes it against her thigh.

  ‘Why do you need to know?’ she mumbles, rubbing.

  ‘Because I know nothing about you. And I wish to. Is that so terrible?’

  ‘You know all I can give.’ She digs her teeth into the skin and munches, slowly.

  ‘Rubbish. You promised an end to games. I know you can play a hundred different parts. I want to see you.’

  Bite by bite, she gulps down the fruit, pips, stalk and all. When she has done so, she licks her fingers. Only then does she look me in the eye.

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If I speak, I cannot take back the words. They will be out, and no power on this earth will be able to fold them away again.’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘And what if you feel disgust? If you hate me?’

  ‘I shall not.’

  ‘What if you do not believe me? There is a lot to swallow.’

  One hard winter when I was young, Adam snapped an icicle off the eaves and dropped it down the back of my shift. I remember how loudly I squealed. I do not make a sound now, but feel the same chill.

  ‘Tell me.’

  She takes a breath and begins. It is the breath that divides our time before and our time after. She reveals such things as I did not think could exist in this world, her voice matter-of-fact, as though she is describing a pot of peas, each as dull and unremarkable as the last.

  ‘First, there was my mother,’ she says. ‘Was she my mother? She was the woman who was there as I grew, the only one I remember. I used to comfort myself with stories that I could not be her daughter: no mother would permit the acts wrought upon me. It was bad enough that my lullaby from the cradle was how much she did not want me. Far worse was her other song of “Daddy’s come a-hunting”.

  ‘I had many fathers, and each as bad as the last. When they tired of her sagging delights and left her snoring, they would start on me. Until she found out. It was the only time she ever surprised me: I thought I’d earn a beating, but her eyes lit up like beacons. It was time for me to put bread into our bellies, she said. She was tired of filling the mouth of a greedy bitch like me who did nothing from morning to night but eat, shit, and sleep.

  ‘I told myself I had been stolen from my true dam, who was scouring the earth for me, weeping for the theft of her own babe. One day the door would fly open, she would gather me into her arms and the hell in which I burned would be forgotten. But these were children’s tales and melted like butter on a gridiron.

  ‘Every moment I could, I sat at the door and peered into the faces of passers-by, for one of them might be her. It was never for very long: the one who called herself Ma hauled me back inside, announcing, “Girl. You are needed.” And it would begin again.

  ‘Vile acts are rarely new. Cruel folk are not inventive and the acts inflicted upon me were no different to those inflicted on girls since Eve crawled out of Adam’s side. Girls are taught from the womb that they are filthy, sinful, disgusting, worthless meat. So was I treated.

  ‘When I bled, and cried, she beat the tears out of me. Threatened me with death if I dared to cry again. I believed her because mothers do not lie. She told me to smile and simper and do what I was told. So I smiled and I simpered, and the men came and the men went: black-toothed, black-hearted, drunken, vicious, sticky-mouthed, herring-breathed. I earned us bread and beer besides. I was small for my age and there are men who like it so.

  ‘I grew clever. I learned how to send myself away from my body. First, I hovered near the
door, watching the child in the straw and what was being done. It was too close, too much to bear. So I learned how to leave the house and sit in the gutter, continue my vigil for my true mother.

  ‘It was not far enough. I learned to fly above the houses, up and up until I could see our huddle of hovels, the river that bent round the town like a long wet arm, cradling the folk within. Higher still I soared, until all I could hear was the rushing of air in my ears.

  ‘I looked down upon the land, far below. Around the city crouched the forest. The houses looked so helpless against the dark surge of trees, like a tide poised to crash and swallow the whole lot of them, every last man and woman, good or bad. I rejoiced, as much as my broken soul could rejoice, and prayed for the trees to lift up their roots and crush every single one.’

  The Maid breathes heavily, and pauses. I breathe also. I do not touch her, however much I wish to clasp her to my breast. I know it would neither help, nor be welcome. I have watched people kiss away tears, not out of any desire to comfort but rather to make the noise cease. I do not want her to think I am one of those people. Then she begins again.

  ‘More childish dreams. I always fell back into my body. The cottage still stood, the straw still reeked and my mother was counting the coins she had been given for the use of me. When I was alone at last, I wept. I don’t know if it was from the pain, for I never managed to shut that out, or because I had to return to my body, or because there was never going to be any rescue.’

  At last she stops talking. Not, I think, because her story is finished, but because she has said all she can for today. I lay my hand upon the straw between us where she can see it and know I am with her.

  She shrugs. ‘So there you have it. I was born, I suffered, I ran, I grew hard and cold, I came here.’

  There is nothing I can say. But I cannot leave this silence between us: it could be taken for the silence of disbelief, of fear, of revulsion. I look at her small face, so full of defiance.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘Thank you?’ she repeats.

 

‹ Prev