Tirzah’s mother makes her way to Osian. She puts her small hand on his forehead. Now, you stay where you are, she tells him as he tries to get up. Let’s have a think. Cup of tea, Aunty Mair? Biddy asks, teapot poised. Yes, please, bach, she answers. That would be lovely. We’ll have a fresh pot, though, I think. She refills the kettle and sets it to boil. While they wait for the water, Tirzah and her mother look at each other. Oh, Mam, Tirzah finally whispers, glancing at Osian. The poor little dab. Look at him. Yes, but hush now, her mother says, pouring milk into the cups. I need a minute. She sips daintily at her tea and they join her. As Tirzah sticks her nose over the rim of her china cup, the steam plays around her lips and nostrils, and she begins to see there is something wonderfully calming about tea. Now I understand the grown-ups always putting the blimming kettle on, she thinks. The silence is warmly dotted with various small slurps and swallows as the four of them drink together. When they’ve finished, Osian stands. His colour is more normal, but there is a strained and hungry look to his eyes.
Tirzah helps him on with his coat and gives him his school bag. Where will you go now? she asks. He pushes his hair back from his forehead in a familiar gesture. I have something to say to you before I leave, he announces, and begins, in a clear voice, to name his sin. Tirzah’s mother makes a quietening movement with her hands. Now, dear Osian, she says. There is no need for this. I must, he answers. It is my duty as a fallen brother. Fallen brother? Tirzah blurts. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. If we all had to go round the houses every time we did something wrong, no one would ever be in. Me, for instance – I’m the selfishest person around, aren’t I, Mam? Shut up, please, her mother says. But Tirzah can’t stop. And your own father could do with knocking on some doors, let me tell you. She begins to cry, and is annoyed. I would like an apology from him myself. Osian says nothing. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? she demands. Well, I haven’t. I remember how he hit you, Osian, she says. I heard him. And you didn’t deserve that either.
Osian still waits quietly, and a smile, slight and wavering as a ripple in water, moves his lips while he waits for her to finish. Osian! she repeats. Aren’t you angry with him? Admit your father has a lot to answer for. Then she becomes silent for a moment. He has betrayed you, she says. But Osian is unmoved. You told me we are all on our own, walking our own path, didn’t you? he asks. Well, this is my sin, he says. And my responsibility. This is my path. No one else’s. Tirzah’s mother puts her cup carefully in its saucer. But you haven’t done anything wrong, dear, she tells him gently. We are only frail humans. You were fast asleep, and your God-given body was just doing what came naturally. Everyone knows that. Even your stiff-necked father.
But Osian continues where he left off. I am deeply convicted by my depraved and lustful actions, he says, as if reciting something he’s learnt. I have brought shame on my family and the fellowship. I am striving to be a more worthy disciple, and I’m glad to have the chance to see each one of my brothers and sisters. He walks to the door and gives them a little wave. Please don’t go, Tirzah says, wanting to shake him. Stay here with us where it’s safe. She would dearly love to build a huge wall around them all, even though that’s a stupid idea. I have to go, Osian says. I don’t deserve to be with you good people. Tirzah can’t bear the thought of him leaving them. I’ve told you I’m not that good, she says. Will you forgive me for not standing with you when I should have? Osian’s lips again make the faintest shape of his old half-smile, but it doesn’t last. I have one question to ask, and then I’ll leave, he says. Do you forgive me? Tirzah and her mother can only nod. And then he’s gone.
If We Confess Our Sins, He Is Faithful and Just to Forgive
(1 John 1:9)
Tirzah is walking to the manse. Tonight is Pastor’s wife’s monthly meeting for girls over the age of twelve. The incident with Osian and his father has sunk below the surface of chapel life like a weighted bundle lobbed in a lake, but Tirzah knows that everyone is mindful of it. No matter how heavy and tightly bound, they are aware of the way that sad bundle is wedged between rocks, waiting for a strong current to offer it back to them. We are all to blame, she thinks. We should have done something to protect Osian from his father. But I am the most to blame, first for saying we had to be friends, and then wickedly turning about and kissing him like mad. A new thought stabs her: maybe she got him all stirred up. Maybe the sheet thing is her fault? Worst of all, it seems to her, is the shameful way she abandoned him when he needed her most. She’s slowed down, preoccupied with her thoughts. Yesterday at chapel, Osian sat between Mr and Mrs Evans, his head bowed. When any of the brothers and sisters addressed him, he didn’t speak; she noticed his father spoke for him. Soon people stopped trying, it being too pitiful and serving to strengthen their feelings of guilt. Her own mother didn’t stop, though. She hugged his stiff body and kissed his cold cheek. Through his black hair he shot unfathomable looks. Tirzah, waiting beside her mother, squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.
She stops walking altogether. Ahead, at the bottom of the tall steps that lead up to the manse, she can hear Biddy and Ffion, a friend of Biddy’s from school, talking about the exams. But Tirzah hangs back, seared by the thought of Osian’s penitent journey. How did Pastor’s wife greet Osian? she wonders. His walk around the fellowship was probably her idea; she’s always keen on contrition, forever calling some poor soul out on account of a lapse. Tirzah’s mother had been on the sharp end with her a few times. In fact she came home from the Dorcas meeting not long ago looking blotchy and breathless. I told her, she’d said. Mrs Thomas, I said. You may be the wife of a minister, but just you remember the scripture tells us first to sort out the plank in our own eye before we start pointing to the tiny speck in someone else’s. Tirzah was impressed. If I did wrong, so be it, her mother had gone on, folding her headsquare into a tiny knot. She always was a judgemental piece, even as a child. Now Tirzah walks on, sure Osian wouldn’t have received a scrap of comfort from her. Everyone who goes to the girls’ meeting is mesmerised by Mrs Thomas. She is a thin, bow-legged woman who grasps her own throat with nervous fingers while she’s talking. Tirzah is amazed by the marks left on her skin when she addresses them each month. On the way home from the meeting they often break into groups and discuss how Mrs Thomas can stand it, throttling herself like that all the time.
Not that long ago, everyone had laughed when Biddy said Mrs Thomas was actually off her onion. Ffion laughed the loudest, her stiff pigtails jerking about. Yeah, she’d said, backing Biddy up, that woman makes everybody cry, just like onions do. Tirzah saw how Ffion would laugh at such a thing; her parents were not chapel-goers, and she only attends when she’s bored. Her parents buy her all the latest fashions. That night she was wearing tight denim bell-bottoms that showed off her slender legs, and a striped top that exposed her midriff when she moved. What do you mean? Tirzah had asked her, embarrassed that she didn’t understand what off her onion meant, starkly aware of her own old-lady skirt and blouse. Mad. Bonkers. Nuts, love, Ffion explained, chewing a fresh oblong of pink Bazooka Joe. Away with the fairies. That’s what she is. Tirzah was delighted by the onion idea. It is true, she’d thought. Mrs T is deranged. Some of the girls started to complain, saying it was wrong to talk about the pastor’s wife like that. If any of you have got a problem with what I said, Ffion had announced, chewing her gum in an exaggerated way and placing her hands on her hips, let’s have it out here and now. Me and Bid are ready. The girls had then drifted off in small clumps, heads together.
Mrs Thomas can’t even be kind to herself. Why would a person strangle themselves over and over again? wonders Tirzah as she walks on. Even though she wears high-necked blouses, you can still see the little plum-shaped bruises, some old, some fresh. It’s as if she hates herself. She is a scary person, so it’s difficult to feel sorry for her. Mrs Thomas has twin boys who hardly ever make a sound. Their coin-flat faces are impassive under two identical coverings of brown hair so thin and shinin
g that they look like child mannequins. Every Sunday they wear miniature tweed replicas of a grown man’s suit, with tie and pin, and kneel on the floor either side of their mother’s lap in a pew all to themselves. Tirzah sits behind with her parents and she knows the boys are always absorbed with drawing burning aircraft and bodies spurting with blood in their matching lined notebooks. More and more she believes that a sort of fervent, smothered insanity grips the whole congregation. Biddy smiles as Tirzah catches them up at the bottom of the steps. Let’s get this over with, she says.
In the crowded room, Tirzah, Biddy and Ffion manage to bag the sofa as usual. Now they are older it’s a tight fit, but they are always perfectly good and never fidget. Mrs Thomas would have them down the front in a trice, they know, if she could find a reason for doing so. As they settle, Ffion asks Tirzah how she’s done in the exams. Fine, Tirzah says. Come on, tell me, Ffion presses. I s’pect you got all A’s. Am I right? Tirzah nods. Ssshh, she adds. The oracle is about to utter. Mrs Thomas is speaking. Now, girls, she says from her place nearest the electric fire, remember, I am the shepherdess tonight, and you are the sheep. That means I lead, and you follow. The girls watch her fingers plucking the fabric of her skirt. You must ask for a prayerful, humble attitude and an open heart. Tirzah is straining to see Mrs Thomas’s hands, and nudges Biddy when Mrs Thomas suddenly lunges for her own frilly-collared neck. It’s as if the hand belongs to someone else.
Let us pray, Mrs Thomas says, closing her eyes against the terrible sinfulness of the world. And cultivate a blessed state of readiness. Tirzah sits, pinned between Ffion and Biddy, breathing in the smell of Ffion’s chewing gum. The three of them always pass a squeeze back and forth each week as Mrs Thomas asks the group to open their hearts. Squeeze, goes Ffion’s bony hand in hers. Is anything burdening you, dear ones? Mrs Thomas asks, sighing as she grips either side of her windpipe tightly. There is a long, pressurised sort of silence in the warm room. The electric fire creaks, its two bars glowing like red-hot pokers. Tirzah sends the squeeze on its way, aware of her own burdens. They are like hedgehoggy creatures: tightly curled balls of worry, eager to open out into unhandleable weights, both spiky and floppy. Sometimes even getting out of bed without wakening them is impossible. But one of these burdens is Osian, and truly, she is happy to carry him, if she must.
Behind her glasses, Mrs Thomas has the strangest eyelids, Tirzah realises, scrunching up her own eyes to have a look. Does anyone have such flat eyeballs? Or wet-looking lids? They are meant to be examining their hearts, as Mrs Thomas puts it, but the squeeze has returned, through Biddy, back to Ffion and now Tirzah feels it again and sends it on immediately. Off it goes, through Ffion, then briefly rests in the palm of Biddy’s hand, who always returns it in a heartbeat. Tirzah has another look, hoping Mrs T is examining her own heart too, and sees she is on the point of standing up, desperate for someone to crack. Dear girls, we are all fallen creatures, she says, her voice coaxing. But Tirzah can see how tight her hand is and hear her laboured breathing. Waiting makes Mrs Thomas seize up. Tirzah wishes someone would speak.
Soon the questioning will begin, and then the questioning will become a winkling. Eventually she won’t shirk her duty: Mrs Thomas will skewer someone. It’s a relief when she finally chooses a person; all the other girls can slump back and keep their heads bowed. But still, listening to Mrs Thomas’s remorseless questions makes Tirzah blush so thoroughly even her feet are hot. Biddy’s long hair completely obscures her face, and Tirzah notices how it quivers like a pair of gauzy nightdresses hanging above a radiator. The squeeze between the girls becomes an elaborate pattern: two short, one long and three quick pulses. Tirzah imagines it’s a series of thoughts passing between the three of them. Maybe Biddy or Ffion is trying to dredge up a sin, a trespass, a guilty lapse they can safely offer up to Mrs Thomas before she pounces. It doesn’t seem likely with those two, though. But someone should volunteer, Tirzah knows. It’s much the best way to do it.
Just as Tirzah begins to feel a bubble of laughter rising almost to her tonsils, she hears Mrs Thomas’s voice calling her name. With a thrum of panic between the shoulder blades she stands and puts her palms together, starting to spill words automatically. Mrs Thomas the shepherdess releases her throat and raises a hand for silence. You have many failings, dear child, she says sorrowfully. And one of them is haste. Tirzah looks at her and is confused by the on-off dazzle coming from her lenses when she nods her head. Beware of it, shun it, poor struggling one, Mrs Thomas urges, happy now to have a volunteer. Haste can lead you down some dangerous paths as a young woman. And while I’m on the subject, shun evil companions. You know who I’m referring to. Girls, she addresses the room. Dear, innocent girls, let Tirzah be a lesson to you.
Lesson? Shun? thinks Tirzah. Which paths? Why dangerous? The companion is Osian, of course. For a moment, Tirzah wants to whack Mrs Evans with something, knock her glasses off her accusing, stunted little nose. And that goes for Pastor too. Then she realises the horrible woman would have a turn if she knew about Brân. This gives her a brief glow before she dismisses it; that won’t help her now. In spite of herself, she becomes afraid about those dangerous paths and needs to go to the lav. Come, Mrs Thomas says, confess your sins, dear. You will be better for it. A whispering breaks out among the girls in the packed room. Tirzah is casting around for something to tell Mrs Thomas before she loses patience. There is so much she could spill out about so many things, but most of it is unsayable. I have had bad thoughts, she blurts out at last, and each word is like a bloodied tooth being wrenched from her jaw. Ah, yes? Mrs Thomas sits forward in her chair. And? No one will judge you, my child. Out with it. Tirzah suddenly remembers something. I have harboured wicked thoughts about you, she says, relieved to have something to say at last. Mrs Thomas sits back and grips her throat again, paralysing Tirzah with her flat eyes. Well? she asks. I have been thinking you’d gone off your onion, Tirzah says, louder now. And for that I am very sorry.
Mrs Thomas reluctantly lets go of her neck. Above the frill of her blouse, dark red fingermarks appear. A silence, murky as canal water, emanates from beneath the chair she sits in, and Tirzah draws back, reluctant to be touched by it. Thank you, Mrs Thomas says at last, swallowing with effort while she looks down at the Bible’s open pages. Her shoulders are more rounded and her hair thinner somehow. The crowded room waits, the silence teetering now on the edge of laughter. Tirzah is triumphant, watching Mrs Thomas diminish before the whole room. But almost immediately, her heart curls up like a prodded woodlouse, and she prays that no one will laugh. The red bars of the electric fire blacken at their edges, and the drawn curtains quiver in a breeze. Everyone is still, and yet the room feels full of movement. Tirzah is absolutely sure that if anyone giggles now, Mrs Thomas will be irreparably damaged in some way. She knows the wild, barely contained part of herself would love that. But suddenly, she doesn’t even want strange, cruel Mrs T to suffer. There are more than enough unhappy people in her life already.
Praise Him upon the Loud Cymbals
(Psalm 150:5)
The fellowship is assembled in the chapel schoolroom. This evening they are getting ready for the first open-air meeting of the season on the new estate. Pastor has finally received a word from the Lord that said, Go ye, my people! And so they are going. Pastor has chosen Osian as the pole holder on one side of the banner, and most of the fellowship beam and nod as they take in this kindness; in small ways most people are doing their best to show Osian love. He remotely dips his head Tirzah’s way when she waves, his face unreadable as a foreign book these days. She misses the old serene, slightly amused Osian on occasions like this. When she used to catch his eye he made her feel as if they were in on some hilarious, secret joke. But it wouldn’t make her feel any better even if he did wink now. There is no hilarious joke; around her, people are buttoning up coats, tucking Bibles under arms, the women tying headscarves firmly under their chins. And they all look as nutty as she knew they would.
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p; Biddy is not amongst the crowd. Tirzah wonders how she has the nerve to construct a believable illness and keep the pretence going, but she obviously does. Her mother always believes the best of her. Maybe that’s because she is too clever to do things like accuse Pastor’s wife of being off her onion, even though she was the one who thought it. Honestly, Tiz, she’d said on the way home from the girls’ meeting the night before, don’t show people your hand all the time. Tirzah looked puzzled. Tell ’em what they want to hear, and no more, Biddy explained, irritated by Tirzah’s innocence. Anyway, she doesn’t have to evangelise today, lucky thing. Pastor is calling the room to order, and Mr Pascoe, the funny man who plays the miniature squeezebox, hasn’t heard. The room falls silent, and they listen to him playing a tune, each button clicking when he presses it, until Pastor touches his shoulder and with a start he breaks off mid-note, his bulgy eyes winking rapidly. Brother Pascoe, Pastor says, rubbing his hands and smiling, your eagerness is a lesson to us all. Everyone murmurs an assent. The air escapes from Mr Pascoe’s instrument like a dying sigh, and he puts it down on the table so he can wipe his hands with a hankie.
The brethren are in a huddle, praying hard about the outreach they are going to do. Honestly, Tirzah thinks, anybody would expect we were venturing in through the gates of hell to fight Lucifer himself. She inclines her head and allows her hair to fall forward so she’s in a tiny cave with a doorway below her forehead. Slowly she puts her hand in her pocket and roots around. At last she finds what she’s groping for and pulls out an old, fuzzy cough sweet. Just as she places it between her lips, her mother leans across and shakes her. Give, she hisses, holding out her hand so that Tirzah has to spit the sweet into it. By the side of Tirzah’s chair is the tambourine she is going to play at the meeting. Its coloured ribbons are coiled inside as if asleep. She can hardly take in that she will soon be standing with everybody else on a patch of rough ground somewhere in the new estate, bashing her tambourine on to each hip and elbow as if she were some sort of demented puppet. She can picture the ribbons jerking around in the wind like startled snakes.
Tirzah and the Prince of Crows Page 9