by Robert Power
Next morning is Middle School Assembly. It is the one they call ‘pastoral’, not the one they call ‘religious’. If it were religious assembly (RA), then Perch and Carp would not be standing in the back row as they are now. For they are Jehovah’s Witnesses; prohibited by their faith from attending RA. Once in a Social Education lesson they explained their religion to us.
I remember the day well, because I had been off sick with the mumps and it was my first morning back at school. Everything seemed so bright and busy after my days of lying in a fever. My Great Aunt had been kind to me, mopping my brow, feeding me cold drinks and trying to tempt me with soups. Even in my fever, I remember being amazed at how contrary adults can be. So, second lesson after break and there were Perch and Carp Fishcutter telling us God’s name was Jehovah and we were living in the last days before the mighty battle of Armageddon. After that everyone would live in peace and happiness, people and animals side by side. They said Adam was the first Jehovah’s Witness, explained how every single word of the Bible was inspired by God and should be followed. That’s why they called from house to house, telling people about the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom. The Bible told them to do it. It was their duty to spread the Truth.
I’ve read my grandfather’s Bible from beginning to end twice already. Concentrating on who begets who and what the Jews shouldn’t eat is a great way to block out the noise from the House of the Doomed and Damned. But I don’t remember God telling us to knock on people’s doors on Sundays.
The Twins had stood in front of our class, their identical clothes and hair and eyes matched them and no one else. They talked at us, but not to us, not with us. Millie Harness asked why they didn’t celebrate Christmas and birthdays. Carp looked past her, past us all, and said Christmas was all about pagan tree worship. She said the ancient Christians never celebrated birthdays. The only celebration they had was something called the Memorial, which was the same as the last supper. Barney Butcherhook, perhaps because his dad chops up animals, asked why Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t have blood transfusions.
‘It’s decreed,’ said Perch. ‘We follow all the commandments in the Bible. In the Old Testament we are told the lifeforce is in the blood and we should refrain from using any blood products. In our modern times this means we cannot have blood transfusions.’
That’s the question that stuck in my mind. The one about the blood. What were the ‘blood products’? That’s what I wanted to know most of all.
The Twins explained they didn’t come to the Religious Assemblies because they were the only ones in the school who followed the Truth of Jehovah’s word in the Bible. This caused a bit of a titter, not least from the teacher, who was Head of Middle School. I remember she spent the next RA lecturing us on blasphemy. Still, the Twins never got to hear about it because they skipped RA. Instead, they had to stay behind in the classroom to wipe down the blackboards and arrange the chairs.
I once heard Mother talking about the Fishcutters, telling Great Aunt how it was the stepmother who brainwashed the family with the Jehovah Witness ‘mumbo-jumbo’.
But the Twins are here at this morning’s Pastoral Assembly. They get to hear all about the state of the boy’s toilets, the summer trip to Cliftonville and the under-fifteen’s fifth place in the handball competition.
Then Miss Cat-Eyes, the drama teacher, takes her place behind the lectern on the podium. She wears a knitted calf-length skirt and matching cardigan. Her cat-eyes glasses are speckled with silver glitter. Around her neck drapes a long flowing purple scarf. She is telling us all about the school drama competition. She twitters on about the tradition of drama in the school and the value of teamwork. But my attention is drawn to the Twins. I am sitting cross-legged with the rest of my class on the floor at the side of the hall. They are standing at the back with the bigger children. Every time I look up they are staring at me in a way I have never seen them look at anyone else. I am the object of their attention. I concentrate on the scab on my knee, but I can feel their twin eyes burning into me.
‘Each drama,’ I hear Miss Cat-Eyes announce, ‘must be made up of children from both years of the middle school. You can choose any topic you like. But I want each group of children to work together as writers, directors and actors. That way you will experience the whole process of creating a piece of theatre.’
She is so enthusiastic her scarf quivers.
When I look up the Twins are still staring at me, trapping me in their gaze.
It is claimed sorcerers can turn into other were-animals (man-animals) such as serpents, leopards, panthers, jackals, bears, coyotes, owls, foxes and other feared creatures. As were-animals, they travel at great speeds. They meet in caves at night to initiate new members and to plan killings. Werewolves, like witches, are thought to be servants of the Devil, who make pacts with Satan and sell their souls to him for his help.
After school I take my usual route home. I jump over the fence by the football pitch and head down the lane past Palmer’s Dairy Farm. Sometimes I take a drink of milk out of one of the metal urns left at the pick-up point by the roadside. This afternoon I decide against it. An electric blue dragonfly hovers and skirts alongside me as I kick a pebble into the brook. The ripples crease the surface of the water and I follow their progress towards the bridge. Then, as if by magic, the Fishcutter Twins appear on the bridge. A pair of highwaymen barring my way: waiting for me to deliver myself. They wave at me, beckoning me towards them. I casually kick another stone into the water and pretend to look at something very fascinating on the far bank as I walk up towards them.
As I walk on to the bridge I imagine they change into trolls, licking their lips in anticipation of an unsuspecting traveller, a tasty morsel. I think of a password – ‘blue tiger’ – in case I’m asked.
‘We’ve been thinking about you,’ says Carp on the right.
‘For sometime now,’ says Perch on the left.
‘We’ve seen you in the library, with the librarian.’
‘In the park, with the dog.’
‘At her house, playing chess.’
‘Playing chess.’
‘So, we’ve chosen you,’ says Carp.
‘For our play,’ says Perch.
‘The school competition,’ says Carp.
‘We will tell you more later,’ Perch says. And she and her sister turn on their heels and walk back over the bridge and off along the lane. Their long black hair doesn’t move as they walk.
Once more I am alone. I peer over the wall of the bridge to the stream below. There is the dragonfly, skimming the surface, darting back and forth as if writing a message, its electric blue body dipping like a pen into the water. What is it telling me? I try to make out the words as it skits to and fro. A poem, a parable, a warning? Then it bursts off under the arch of the bridge, an emissary on an aerial mission.
I am standing in the garden, teaching my plum-coloured dog to sing in tune. Mother and Father are talking in the kitchen. The window is open to let some smoke out.
‘Unnatural…’ says one.
‘Frigid librarian …’ says the other.
‘Friends of his own age …’
‘Well, do something …’
‘What …?’
‘You do something …’
A door slams. Off to the pub.
I think that’s how me and Dilip came together. And how I find myself being collected from school by Dilip’s granny a few days later.
That morning Mother told me I was to go to Dilip’s house for an hour after school, and she would collect me at Dilip’s house after she finished whatever it was she needed to do.
‘It will be good,’ she said, ‘to spend time with a boy from school.’
Everyone in Tidetown knew about Dilip’s family. They were the only one of its kind in the county. The story was told of the ship that was wrecked off the Peebles a hundred years ago. It was carrying spices and silks from the East. Among the bedraggled survivors, pulled off the reef at low t
ide, was a group of Indians from Goa, dark-skinned and exotic. With little hope of returning home, they wandered here and there, some going on to be merchants, others to become shopkeepers. These were the ancestors of Dilip’s parents, who met at the wedding of a cousin and fell head over heels in love before anything could be arranged. Both were Catholic and, despite their alien customs and ways, were accepted into the congregation in Tidetown.
‘Good, God-fearing people,’ Mother said once, ‘even though they come from who knows where. Never forget, Oscar,’ she said, as if good advice flowed freely in the House of the Doomed and Damned, ‘we’re all the same under the skin in the eyes of God.’
I kind of knew what she meant, but wondered why God couldn’t be happy with us, skin and all? Still, I was pleased with any guidance I could get.
And so there I was, walking along the alleyway between the rows of terraced houses, one step behind Dilip and the lady in the long sari. I am trying my best to pretend I have nothing to do with them. That we are strangers and I just happen to be walking in the same direction. Occasionally, Dilip’s grandmother turns and smiles at me. She holds Dilip by the hand. Her other hand I had declined in the playground, eyes down, tracing the yellow lines of the football pitch beneath my feet. They are linked as they walk along the cobbled lane. But not me. I stay alone. I growl and snap in a tiger sort of way and stalk them from afar.
Their house is on the corner. I follow them through the gate. Inside, the smells are strange, the colours and shimmer of the materials are foreign to me. There are cushions with little mirrors sewn into them; statues with elephant heads and octopus arms. There are bright-coloured paper flowers. The pictures on the wall are of old men in headscarves. Of course, I always guessed that other boys’ houses were not like the House of the Doomed and the Damned, but now I knew. Peace and quiet, a nice smell, and colourful pictures everywhere. Dilip is standing at the bottom of the stairs. He beckons me and I follow. He has a thin line of black hair above his lip and thick milk-bottle-bottom glasses. Some boys in the playground shout after him, ‘Dilip the Dyed lip’, but he never takes any notice.
We sit on his bed, a large wooden crucifix above our heads. Dilip hands me a book. He watches me as I flick through the pages. He holds back a page, pointing to a picture of a knight in shining armour sitting atop a huge white stallion. Then he leans back on his pillow and opens up his own book. The knight has a crested shield in one hand and a lance in the other. He is clearly heading to battle, to right wrongs and ensure justice is done. Over the page is a huge giant. In his left hand is a club the size of a redwood tree; in his right, a struggling child. The giant has a beard, like a caveman, or Rasputin – the Mad Monk, but not like Jesus.
Dilip gives me a nudge and smiles, the baby moustache curling with the line of his mouth. I can barely see his eyes behind the thickened glass, but I smile back, just to be on the safe side.
TEN
MRS FISHCUTTER COMES TO TOWN
‘Caring little for what we may do, we are on fire for what is forbidden.’ Ovid
‘It is more shameful to be distrustful of our friends than to be deceived by them.’ La Rochefoucauld
Welcoming is not a word that springs to mind when you think of Tidetown. Its buildings are carved from dark grey stone, more often than not darkened further by drizzle and sea spray. There is a wind from the coast that forces even the hardiest of townsfolk to pull down the brim of their hat and bow their head so that any stranger arriving in the market square, down by the courthouse or at the Grand Hotel, would be met by a figure bent over and faceless. Even if it were not for the inclement weather, those new to town receive a frosty reception. There are ways and whyfors held dear by the people of Tidetown. Customs and rituals; shared histories of family triumphs and devastating shipwrecks. These are the very fabric, the cobblestones and roof-tiles of the town, never to be owned by an Outsider.
The Twins have a stepmother. Mrs Fishcutter (the second) lived up to her name. Or so the women of the town all said, normally behind her back in the market square or while collecting water from the town pump.
‘A cut above the rest of us, that’s how she sees herself,’ scowled Mrs Butcherhook to the assembled crowd of women, scarves tied tightly under their chins, heads bowed close together like so many vultures at the kill.
‘With her airs,’ spat Mrs Butcherhook.
‘And graces,’ added another of the women, the water spurting from the pump, clattering against the shiny steel of the empty bucket.
‘She comes here like lady muck herself, with her Outsider ways,’ conspired Mrs Ironspark. ‘With her sickly smile and upturned nose. Her fancy coats and hats.’
‘And her pagan views. No blood. No sex.’
‘And no Christmas or birthdays for those poor girls. Foisting heresy on that lovely husband of hers.’
‘The poor suffering man.’
‘Job himself.’
‘Such a lovely family.’
‘Old-man Fishcutter must be turning in his watery grave.’
‘Not to mention the first Mrs Fishcutter.’
‘God bless the Christian woman that she was.’
‘Nigh on a saint, if ever there was one.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Wouldn’t go near the fish shop if it wasn’t in memory of her.’
‘And of the old grandfather.’
‘Salt of the earth.’
Then there would be a hush as Mrs Fishcutter (the second) appeared around the corner, the tell-tale clanking of an empty pail heralding her arrival. Standing aside, waiting her turn at the pump, all backs turned to her.
There had been a time when she had tried to be sociable, to strike up a conversation, to make friends in her new home. But the Methodist Minister was on a personal spiritual pilgrimage against all things Pagan and word had spread of the infidel about to enter their midst. The simple fact was that the Very Reverend Mumblesuch belonged to a Masonic lodge where lists were kept of the whereabouts and movements of undesirables. So after Mr Fishcutter had fallen head-over-heels in love (at Appleby Fair, looking for grain and a new horse), news that the widower’s new bride was a Jehovah’s Witness soon made stop-press in the unofficial parish magazine.
But love, and good-quality wet fish, conquered all in those days. Mr and Mrs Fishcutter carved a way of life for themselves. The new bride learned to gut sea-trout like the best of them. In spite of the Very Reverend’s vitriol from the pulpit, the womenfolk still patronised the shop, though any socialising or fraternising was out of the question. The only other fish shop round and abouts was run by the town drunk, who sold sorry-looking dried-out fish as wet, and seafood which had sent one too many townsfolk scurrying to the infirmary.
Even though it was never said, for fear of heresy, most visitors to the Fishcutter’s shop secretly noted how a woman’s touch had made an impact. Standards had certainly slipped since the long illness and untimely death of the first Mrs Fishcutter. Now the displays looked fresher, the white aprons brighter. For a Pagan, she had a welcoming smile, and the fish, if anything, were under-weighed. But none of this was enough. An Outsider she was and an Outsider she would stay. And things only got worse when it became apparent she had converted her husband and stepdaughters to the so-called Truth of Jehovah.
‘Did you know,’ spat Mrs Hoopshaper to Miss Spinster one day, as they stood in the queue for the Friday night beetle-drive, ‘that Fishcutter woman has turned them all against God. Old Mr Greenhouse saw them up the lane, heading for the Kingdom Hall.’
‘The which Hall?’ asked Miss Spinster.
‘Well, you might ask,’ replied her friend. ‘Heaven only knows what goes on up there. The Kingdom Hall they call it. Of Jehovah’s Witnesses.’
Miss Spinster looked none the wiser, but she was famously slow on the uptake. Mrs Hoopshaper sighed and continued, more in need of an audience than conversation.
‘And then, you’ll hardly believe this,’ she said, surprising the other woman, frail as she wa
s, with a dig in the ribs with her elbow. ‘One Saturday morning, bold as brass, there was a knock on my door and there they were. The whole family. Mr and Mrs. And the Twins standing back at the gate. They were calling on neighbours, they said, to witness the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom.’
Her wide-eyed expression seemed to shock Miss Spinster more than her words.
‘I knew your father, I said to him. Old Mr Fishcutter would turn in his grave, he’d spin if he could see you now, I said. A good Methodist spouting witchcraft. He just smiled back at me and so did she. As if I’d missed something. And he asked me if I wanted a copy of the Watchtower magazine.’
That’s how things were for the Fishcutters in those early days. Mr Fishcutter found the love he was looking for, the faith he was seeking. He had long tired of the mundane Methodist way and warmed to the directness, the freshness of the Jehovah’s Witness brand of Christian fundamentalism. His daughters were still stunned by the death of their mother, but did what was expected of them, retreating even further into their own secret world. They embraced the quirkiness of the new family religion, happy to be set even further apart from the children at school.
At the meetings at the Kingdom Hall, Perch and Carp would sing along to the jaunty tunes and answer the quiz questions from the articles on the Bible in the Watchtower and Awake magazines. But they did not mingle with the other children in the congregation. They needed none other than their own company, though this caused disquiet. When picnics were held on sunny Sundays after the service, the Twins would wander away from the children and their games. They would sit under the branches of a huge weeping willow as it stroked and calmed the surface of the river with its soft slender fingertips.
It was not only other children who looked on at them from a distance. The new Mrs Fishcutter, who was so eager to love, would sigh into the space between her and her stepdaughters. But her husband told her not to fret, that that was the way the Twins were and they were happy enough. And so was the Fishcutter family: happy. The love of the congregation and the certainty of the coming thousand-year reign of Jesus far outweighed the hostility of the townspeople. At night-time, when Mrs Fishcutter confided to her husband her sadness at not being accepted in his hometown, he held her close. He said the two of them, the children, the brothers and sisters of the congregation, the Truth and Jehovah’s love, that was all they needed. He would press his body close to hers, and sometimes, for this was an activity she could never quite get used to, prise open her barely parted legs.