Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  Tirzah thinks back to Derry in the hall and the way he had fumbled the hug he’d given her. She’d thought it was because he was rushing and didn’t want her mother to see him, but now she realises he was putting this money in her pocket. She can almost hear a pinging sound in her chest as a bulb of joy bursts alight. The thought of Derry in his donkey jacket going off to work every day and secretly giving her some of his hard-earned wage is sweet. In the middle of the roll she notices a scrap of paper. Her fingers are trembling as she smooths it out, still scarcely believing so much money is for her, but on the note Derry has written her name. She looks out of the window at the roofs of the houses opposite. Now she will be able to go on the CYC weekend if she wants to. Or maybe she should save the money, keep it somewhere safe until she knows what to do with it. Just as she’s looking around for a good hiding place, a picture of Mrs Rowland’s battered old bag in the hall swims before her eyes. Swiftly she runs down and slips ten pounds into the side pocket, then pulls the hoover out of the cupboard and drags it up to her room.

  The Angel of the Lord Descended from Heaven

  (Matthew 28:2)

  The exams pass Tirzah in a haze: up and out to school, a few hours sitting in the stuffy hall in her row, writing, writing. Then home, then back. On and on, until, suddenly they are over. Tirzah has been on automatic. It’s just as well I did so much preparation, she realises. I almost didn’t have to think. Now that the summer holidays are well under way, Tirzah is fed up with having the freedom to do whatever she likes. Even last year, she and Biddy and Osian would meet every day, after chores, and play. What were we doing? she wonders, puzzled by how busy they’d been. The lovely sun-filled days slid by unconsciously, full of now-mysterious pastimes. This summer, the serious, heat-darkened trees stand expectantly at the edges of fields; cows raise their heavy heads to scan each other with wet, fly-pocked eyes; the ice-cream van dribbles its tune uninterrupted around the streets. In Biddy’s garden, the ruffled cheeks of the sprawling, flesh-coloured roses deepen and give off a ghostly smell of woodsmoke when she presses her nose and lips into them, but Biddy is caught up with Ffion, and Tirzah can’t summon the energy to talk to her anyway. Everything is waiting, waiting. All Tirzah can do is lie like an old pancake on her cool bed, with the bedroom curtains closed and billowing, and wait too.

  She wonders why Derry has not written when he said he would, how Brân is surviving and especially where the real Osian has gone. The new Osian does not have any free time; his father is keeping his nose to the grindstone in the shop. She even thinks about Mrs Rowland and Muriel, and whether they found the money she gave them. She wasn’t surprised that Pastor said nothing on the subject of those two when he shook hands in the chapel porch the Sunday after her mother had plonked them on his doorstep. As far as she knows, he hasn’t mentioned her meeting with the elders since her father went to see him at the manse. Life is so very strange these days; familiar things are showing secret sides of themselves to her. The street is full of dust and the boredom of small children shooed outside to play, and inside her home the air is thick with questions that unravel like dropped stitches from a knitting needle when she tries to make sense of them.

  Her mother came to the room earlier, put a hand to Tirzah’s forehead and asked what she was doing sinfully hiding in the darkness on such a beautiful day. Tirzah stared at her brisk mother in the gloom. I don’t know, Mama, she’d said. If it’s those old exam results you’re worried about, her mother went on, put your mind at rest. You’re a pretty one; only have to snap your fingers, you will, and a perfect husband will appear. Tirzah pressed her lips together. A nice little shop job will do until you get married, her mother went on. Don’t worry about silly old A-levels. But I like studying, Tirzah muttered. The idea of a shop and getting married made her even more burdened. Why are you looking as if you’ve gone soft in the brain? her mother had asked, shaking her head. What is wrong with you these days? When Tirzah said nothing more, she’d whispered that she was going to make them a treat and bent to kiss the tip of Tirzah’s nose. Some nice lemonade will buck you up. Now Tirzah listens to the busy sounds from below. Dear Mama, she thinks. I can’t see how a piece of cake will help. She is drifting towards sleep when her mother calls. Waking up, she feels snakelike for a bewildered moment, without bones or the power to walk. When she finally stands, she sways and clutches the desk to steady herself.

  In the kitchen, the back door is open and a gusty breeze messes with the pages of the missionary calendar pinned to the side of the dresser. This wind is getting on my nerves, her mother says, pushing a floppy clump of hair back from her hot forehead with a bent wrist. She seems transfixed by the Chinese faces on each month of the calendar. Why do Orientals all look the same? And all have such funny names? she asks, trying to decipher the foreign words beneath each picture. Mam, honestly, Tirzah says, sinking down on to the doorstep. You must stop saying things like that. Oh, go on with you. It’s not that I’m judging, her mother explains. We’re all going to be treated the same come the Last Trump. Doesn’t matter to the Lord which way your eyes slant. In reply, the pages lift and fall. What we need is a good humdinger of a storm to wash all this sticky air away, she goes on. Like walking through treacle, it is. She wafts her skirt hem around. Even my knees are perspiring, she adds, and takes off her wrap-around apron. I’ve had enough of you, for starters, she says, throwing it on a chair. Maybe that’s what all this waiting is about, Tirzah thinks, her jaw relaxing as she rests her head against the doorframe. Maybe it’s just a weather thing, nothing else. Suddenly she wishes it would rain for days and days. I’m going twp, she thinks. Wishing for rain now, of all things.

  Her mother brings a cut-glass jug from the pantry. Lemonade, she announces, looking pleased. Tirzah turns round and her mother indicates the table with a sideways nod. I thought I’d push the boat out a bit. This is our secret, mind. A cloth embroidered around its edges with ladies in crinolines and baskets of pink and purple flowers has been laid over the scrubbed wooden surface. In the middle sits a plate of plump scones, and on either side, two bowls. One is full of scarlet jam and the other, lumpy, luscious-looking cream. A single rose from Biddy’s garden droops over the lip of a fat-bellied vase. Ooh, says Tirzah, sitting. Her mother pours the cloudy lemonade. Tirzah can see translucent moons of fruit falling into the glasses. The scones are weightless, and she lifts one to her nose, breaking it open. This is heavenly, she says, taking a deep breath. Then she darts a look at her mother, but there is no reprimand for her flippancy; her mother only nods, kicking off her indoor shoes and slicing her own scone in half. May the Lord preserve me from the sin of pride, but these are not bad, she says. Even if I say so myself as shouldn’t.

  Tirzah piles her scone with jam, and then balances a clot of thick cream on top. Her mother is already eating. Mama, Tirzah says. How did you get to be so good at cakes and things? Her mother laughs softly. Practice, love, she says. Many years of it. I can’t cook a thing, Tirzah says, eyeing her scone. Almost it’s too perfect to eat. When did you start cooking? Her mother sits back in her chair. Let me see, she murmurs, thinking. It would have been when I was about twelve. Tirzah is surprised. Of course, I did a bit before that. Just for the fun of it. But I had to learn quick at twelve. Why? Tirzah asks. Wasn’t your mother doing the cooking? My mam died, cariad, her mother says. Haven’t you wondered why you only have one granny? Tirzah’s eyes blur, and her beautiful scone wavers on its plate. Oh no, she says. There’s sad for you. Yes, it was, is all her mother will say. What about your dad? Tirzah adds, struck by how much she has never asked about her mother. Good question, her mother says, chewing. He turned to drink, if the truth be told, and an early grave. Now eat up your nice treat. Tirzah is looking at her neat, dark-haired mother with fresh eyes. To have no parents, she cannot imagine it. I love you to bits, she says. And I love you, her mother answers, sniffing. Tirzah has difficulty swallowing when she thinks for the first time about her mother as a motherless little girl.

&
nbsp; She can only just bring herself to drink the tart lemonade, her tongue puckering each time she sips. What do you say to me packing this up and taking it out with me? she asks. I would like to walk up the lane to the mountain. You do that, her mother says, and goes to the pantry for a plastic box. Or I might go to the woods, Tirzah adds, though as soon as she’s said it she knows she doesn’t want to go there. You love the woods and that old mountain, don’t you? her mother says, smiling. Just the way I used to. She hands Tirzah the box. Be careful out there, though. Anything can happen, I always say. Tirzah nods. Her mother unties the ribbon holding Tirzah’s hair and regathers it. But I think you already know that, don’t you, cariad? Tirzah is reluctant to meet her mother’s eyes. Let me plait this for you, her mother suggests, already splitting Tirzah’s hair into three thick sections. That way your neck will be a bit cooler. She quickly weaves the strands together and ties the end with the ribbon. Anyway, she adds. Aunty Ceinwen is coming round for a chat, and you would be bored. So off you go.

  Tirzah pictures the narrow, yew-flanked lane nosing its way up the mountain. It will be deep amongst the foxglove spears now, the banks smothered with red campion and meadowsweet; she can almost smell the vanilla-scented breath of the flowers. She remembers how small birds twitter invisibly in the still tunnel of the lane as you toil up. It’s too much like hard work, that climb, she decides. But then she thinks about the thistly fields lying open to the hot sky, and the crumbling stone walls she will have to scramble over if she goes towards the woods. There will be no shelter in the fields. Maybe I’ll walk out past chapel, where there’s farmland, and find a cool place to lie down, she thinks. It’s an area she hasn’t explored. She and Biddy and Osian never went that way. She sets off through the streets; it’s funny, walking to chapel but not going to a meeting.

  The chapel looks comfortable when she first glimpses it through the graveyard. There it rests, nearly part of the earth it sits on; up the walls creepers spread, inching their way to the roof. Birds have made their home in the eaves. Who would guess the things that have gone on inside? All the countless hours of repentance and crying, pleading and confessing. She skirts around to the back, past the crooked, mossy headstones, through the drone of insects, swishing her legs against the pollen-laden early summer grasses. In the shade of the chapel wall she rests a moment but is soon driven on by the coolness of the air. There is an overgrown door in the high hedge, and she pushes its flaking green wood. No one has been this way for a long time. It’s like a door in a story she half-remembers. Stepping through, Tirzah feels as if she is entering another country.

  She crunches over dried-out snail shells and empty hazelnut casings and follows the lane until she finds a stile. The countryside stretches out like a promised land, washed with sunlight, dotted with small boundary trees, all new to her. This is just what I wanted, she realises, sitting on the top bar of the stile. Here is somewhere strange and yet welcoming. Somewhere beautiful and different from the high places she knows and the dark, wooded places she has come to dread. She climbs down from the stile to the gently sloping field and runs into the sunshine. The smell of baking earth and sap-filled plants rising makes her giddy. She falls back into the springy meadow, just the way she always did on the mountainside amongst the whinberry bushes. When she reaches the ground, there is a sigh as the grasses flatten, and out into the gold-and-blue breeze fly crimson butterflies no bigger than her smallest fingernail. A skylark is labouring musically high above.

  Tirzah makes a nest for herself and opens the plastic box her mother gave her. The scone tastes better here than it ever could have in a kitchen. After she has eaten and wiped her fingers in the grass, she lies back. Soon the warm lick of the sun and the soft shoves of the breeze send her to sleep. The long afternoon rolls over her. When she wakes it is evening and cooler. Her clothes are damp from the grass and her hand is numb. She sits up and shakes it awake. It’s as if she has been sleeping for weeks, she is so alive and buzzing. The quiet, dewy fields are changing colour. The trees look lilac and the sky is lined with bronze just where it meets the horizon. She can see a farm and outbuildings in a fold she hadn’t noticed before. Tirzah is content to go on waiting now she senses that soon something will happen. I just have to be patient for a little longer, she thinks, pulling her dress down to cover her bare legs. And whatever it is will show itself to me.

  Even though she has been looking intently, she is surprised when she sees winking stars; the summer sky is still light, though the sun has gone down. She can’t remember, as soon as she’s noticed them, just when they first appeared. Scanning the luminous, untroubled sky, it seems that each time she looks away another star has switched on. Then, as the first chilly breaths of evening creep around her ankles, Tirzah sees something white emerging from the far trees. Silently and speedily it glides towards her, long wings stretched wide and scarcely moving. In its peaceful wake the evening deepens. She watches as its heart-shaped white face becomes clearer. With a weightless rush and the sound of wind-blown blossom falling, it lands on a heap of stones not far from where she sits. There is nothing for Tirzah to say. The thing she has been waiting for has happened, and she is enfolded for a few moments in the hushed embrace of feathers. At last she dares to look, and as she does, the creature’s huge black eyes turn to contemplate her for a hundred heartbeats. Then off it launches, pure and silent, and merges with the shining dusk.

  Thy Visitation Cometh; Now Shall Be Their Perplexity

  (Micah 7:4)

  When Tirzah gets home, her parents are out, thankfully. She pulls herself up the stairs, using the banister like a rope. In her room, she shrugs off her summer dress and lets her pants drop around her ankles. Her bra is constricting, and under her breasts there is an inflamed-looking line. She rubs it with her fingers. It must be this heat making me come over all funny, she thinks, looking at her reflection in the semi-dark. The air of the bedroom is muffled. Struggling to breathe, she throws the window open, panicking slightly. She splashes water from a glass on the bedside table on to her body and tries to calm down by thinking of her time in the countryside. She remembers the huge white bird moving towards her like an unfurling flower, and how it gazed at her in the twilight. I am discovering more about the world all the time, she realises, unplaiting her hair. And I believe there is nothing to be afraid of. Her long hair is cool as milk against her naked back. Without washing or cleaning her teeth she falls asleep.

  In the morning she lies on her bed trying to remember a dream. All she can picture are shining wings and the perfume of sun-baked leaves. Through the slit in the curtains a hard slice of sunlight comes and goes. In the bottom drawer of her chest she finds half-familiar things to put on. The hot weather has come so suddenly there has been little chance to prepare. She climbs into last year’s shorts and struggles to do them up. Over the top she wears a roomy but too-short shirt. By the desk her mother has left a battered suitcase for her to fill. Today, she remembers, with a little jolt of joy, she and Biddy are going for a two-week holiday to their grandparents. And the grown-ups are going away too. Quickly she stuffs things in her case and rushes downstairs. In the kitchen her mother has left a glass of orange juice and half a grapefruit. She gulps down the juice and runs out.

  When she comes round the corner into Biddy’s garden, there she is, lying on a lounger. Well, well, at last, Biddy says calmly, without opening her eyes. The Queen of blinking Sheba has arrived. It’s almost dinner time. Tirzah sits on the end of the lounger and it tips them both off. Biddy lies on the grass with her legs hooked over the chair and doesn’t move. Already the day is hot. Tirzah struggles to get up. Are you packed? she asks. Dunno, Biddy says. Let’s ask my mam. Tirzah remembers her own unfinished case and dashes home. Her mother is checking its contents. And where, may I enquire, are your undies? she asks. Are you planning to run around with no knickers? And where is your nightdress? Tirzah shrugs. Honestly, her mother says. You haven’t got a clue, have you? No, I haven’t, Tirzah agrees. That’s
why I need my little mam to sort me out, see? Look at this case, her mother orders, and tell me what is missing. Tirzah looks and looks. Something to read? she suggests at last. Something to wash with, you soft girl, her mother says. Go and get your sponge bag. I have enough to do, getting myself and his nibs ready.

  While the girls stay at their grandparents’, Tirzah and Biddy’s parents are going on their yearly fortnight to a Bible conference at the seaside with members of the fellowship. They will be staying in empty university suites, and like to go without the girls. That way they can sit through as many meetings and after-meetings as they like, without being distracted. Hundreds of Christians will be there. Uncle Maldwyn and Aunty Ceinwen go away much more often than her own parents, to hotels and bed-and-breakfast places. My brother Maldwyn has always been a bit lax – over-indulgent, really, her father likes to say when Aunty Ceinwen has a new dress or hat for chapel. Tirzah is intrigued by the look that comes over her mother’s face when he talks about Aunty Ceinwen having new things. It’s a constricted smile, battling with itself. Tirzah knows this is because her mother would love to have a new dress, or a husband who allowed her a new hat when she fancied one, and is wrestling with jealousy. Leave her alone, she’d say. Nothing wrong with a treat now and again. Not that I would know, of course. When Tirzah comes down to the kitchen, boxes of food and tins of cake are waiting to be packed in Dada’s big car. He does not see why anyone would want to eat in a restaurant, throwing their good money at strangers.