by Robert Power
Finally, she collects up all the knives, rinses them under the hot tap and returns them to their place in the drawer by the counter. One is missing. She looks again. Counts them out on the draining board. ‘Four, five,’ she says aloud. She lines them up. It is the small filleting knife. She looks around the shop, under tables, on top of cupboards. No sign. She puts the remaining knives away and then closes the door, making a mental note to ask her husband if he has taken the knife.
Directly above her head, Carp and Perch rehearse for the rehearsal. Not lines or positions, entrances or exits. They go through their moves with a length of rope they found amidst the nets and lobster pots on the quayside. They practise knots. Knots to tie and bind, to have and to hold.
Carp lies on the bed, Perch by her side.
‘Tighter,’ commands Carp, the skin on her wrists burning from the friction.
‘Enough yet?’ asks her sister, pulling for all she’s worth, her toes pressed firmly against the foot of the bed. The packer’s knot she learned from her mother tightening on itself with every tug. The cat stays under the dressing table where she will watch and wait until the Twins have finished for the night. Until they have slipped between the sheets and fallen to sleep. Only then will she leave the safety of her hidey-hole and make a dash for the hallway, squeezing soundlessly through the narrowest of kinks in the door.
It is not word or movement being rehearsed by the Twins, but action and intent.
The ancient Book of Beasts from the 12th Century says the latin for monkey is ‘simia’, because people recognise a similarity to human reason in them. Monkeys are happy at the coming of the new moon. When the moon is half or full, monkeys become depressed. The book says when a female gives birth to twins she loves one greatly and hates the other. If the mother is chased she holds the twin she likes in her arms and the one she hates has to make do with jumping on her back with its arms around her neck. When she gets tired of running on her back legs, she throws away the one she loves so as to run on all fours. She is left carrying to safety the twin she hates.
Is this a clue? Something to do with Perch and Carp (and me?).
Blue Monkey: do you know?
The telephone is black and heavy. Mrs April sometimes shines the silvery chrome of its dial. She always runs the cloth over it when she dusts and polishes the small oak table on which it stands. She always notices the small scratch marks on one of the table legs. They remind her of the day she took in the stray cat. It stayed one afternoon, played with a ball of bottle-green knitting wool, drank the cream from the top of the milk, then used its powerful claws to scrape through the varnish and make its mark on the oak beneath. Having claimed its territory, it disappeared into the garden, never to return. Passing on her way to lock the front door against the rain and the night she bends down and runs her fingers along the scratch marks. The sudden ring from the phone catches her unawares. She jolts up, just missing banging her head on the lip of the table.
‘Hello,’ she says, pressing the cold handset to her ear, her heart still racing.
‘It’s me,’ says the familiar voice.
‘Where are you?’ asks Mrs April.
‘In a phonebox down by the docks,’ replies Mr Fishcutter. ‘I need to see you.’
‘It’s late. I’m just about to go to bed.’
‘No, not tonight,’ he says. ‘I can’t see you tonight. My head is spinning. Tomorrow, can I see you tomorrow? I have some things I must say to you. I can’t speak now.’ His voice is flat and distant. No hint of love talk. The familiar suddenly unfamiliar.
‘Things?’ she says, expecting the worst. ‘You have some things to say?’
She tightens her grip on the phone. She hardens. Bracing and protecting herself. He says nothing. She can hear the faint resonance of rain. And the faintness of his breath.
‘Not on the phone,’ he says. ‘Not now. I have to go. I’ll come to your house tomorrow. At lunchtime. About one o’clock. Is that okay?’
‘Is that okay?’ she answers with a sigh. ‘Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow and you can tell me your things.’
She lets the receiver hang limp in her hand for a second. She can hear some sounds. He might be saying something, suspended, but then again maybe not. Maybe it’s just the rain, or static on the line. She places the phone back on its cradle. It sits again on its solid oak table. Mrs April stands still. Alone again. She fancies something brushes by her leg. It makes her shiver. A draught under the door from outside. She goes to the front door, turns the key and locks up for the night. Walking back along the corridor towards the stairs and her bedroom, she passes by the phone and the table, but has no urge to bend down and caress the scars in the wood.
EIGHTEEN
OSCAR ACTS OUT
‘We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.’ Goethe
Yesterday at school, just before the end of playtime, Carp and Perch came over to the railings where I was scratching my initials with a sharp stone and told me where and when to meet them.
‘This is our secret rehearsal,’ said Perch.
‘No one else is to know,’ added Carp.
‘It will be our secret place.’
‘Just we.’
This is another story of how the animal people got fire. In the beginning of the world, there was no fire, so the animal people were very often cold. It was only the Thunders, living in the world beyond the sky arch, who had fire. At last they sent Lightning down to an island and Lightning put fire into the bottom of a hollow sycamore tree. The animals could not get to the fire because of the water surrounding the island. So they called a council to make a plan.
‘Let me go. I am large and strong,’ said Raven.
At that time Raven was white. He flew high and far across the water and landed on top of the sycamore tree. He sat there looking down into the tree, wondering what to do next. The heat scorched his feathers black and the frightened Raven flew home without the fire. His feathers have been black ever since.
Next it was the turn of Screech Owl. He easily got to the island, but as he looked down into the hollow tree a blast of hot air nearly blinded him. He flew back home and to this very day, Screech Owl’s eyes are red.
All the other birds and animals tried to reach the fire, but to no avail.
Finally, Water Spider, the smallest and weakest of them all, was given a chance. She could run on top of water and dive to the bottom of the sycamore tree.
‘But you are too little and weak, how will you carry enough fire?’ the others asked.
‘I’ll be okay,’ answered Water Spider. ‘I can spin a web.’
So Water Spider spun a thread from her body. She wove this single thread into a little bowl that she fastened on her back. Then she crossed over to the island and through the grass. She put one little coal of fire into her bowl. Triumphantly, she brought it back across to the water to the animal people.
Every since that day the animal people have had fire, and the Water Spider still has her little bowl on her back.
Ahead is the old village hall where our play rehearsal is to take place. This is our secret.
It is early in the morning; the frost is brittle underfoot as I walk up the grassy verge at the far end of town. Stigir stalks close behind me. His breath curls up in front of his face. He looks like a small purple steam train. In the distance the hills rise and fall, reaching up and then missing the hems of the clouds. A squirrel spins around the trunk of a birch tree, a pair of crows cut a black line across the sky. The gate is cold to the touch and squeaks an objection to being opened. The gravel of the pathway crunches and scrapes as we make our way to the double wooden door of the hall. Ever since the new hall was built down by the village green this old hall has hardly been used.
Inside it is dark and unloved. A broken tennis racquet lies in the middle of the parquet floor. Old gymnasium mats are piled high in one corner. Curtains hang forlorn and musty around the skirt of the woode
n stage. Stigir is quiet, sitting on the mat in the doorway. There are spirits here of the past or future who do not appeal to his sensitivities.
Outside footsteps approach. It is the Twins and their father.
‘Hello, young man,’ he says.
The girls say nothing. Perch holds a folder in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. Carp has a large coil of rope slung over one shoulder. Under her arm she carries a bundle of twigs. Each wears a dark green smock, navy blue woollen tights and identical tartan berets.
‘I’m the stand-in Isaac,’ jokes Mr Fishcutter. ‘I see you’ve brought your dog. More like a wolf than a ram, eh?’ he says poking me in the ribs.
I don’t understand what he means. Neither does Stigir.
‘Anyway, be easy on me, Pops,’ he says to me, then adds in a whispered aside, ‘Has the dog read the script? Does he know the ending?’
His face is big and open and smiling. He’s expecting me to react. To laugh. To joke. To be his friend. I don’t know how to do this, Mr Fishcutter. I only know you from a distance. From across the street, behind a closed door. As the fishmonger cutting eels on a chopping board. Adults wielding knives. That’s how I know you. Kissing Mrs April under a streetlamp. A speckled scarf hanging from a hook on the back of a door. Setting the trap under the cover of night. A silent howl to the moon. You don’t fool me with this smile and hello, this daytime disguise. Demon and were-wolf, that is how I know you.
There is a clatter behind us, pulling us away from each other. Perch and Carp are setting up the props. Centre stage they have placed a small bench to be the sacrificial altar. The pile of twigs is arranged underneath; the coil of rope rests on top. An overgrown plant, in an even bigger pot, has been hauled upstage from where it was abandoned in the wings. In its new incarnation it will represent the bush.
‘Perch will have the oil lamp to show she is the light and word of Jehovah God,’ announces Carp.
Perch holds up the lit lamp, casting their identical faces in a swathe of bright light. She waves the lamp from side to side, the smuggler luring the unsuspecting ship onto the treacherous, rocky terrain.
Mr Fishcutter has taken on a serious, sombre look.
‘But,’ he says in a reverential tone. ‘I hope Jehovah’s words come direct from the Bible. There can be no substitute, absolutely none.’
‘Of course not, Father, what Jehovah has said stands for all time,’ replies Perch, momentarily stepping out of character.
We three – the father, the boy and the dog – are beckoned to the stage. Carp hands us our scripts. Not Stigir. His is a silent part. I’ve already explained to him his role. When I show him the plant he realises he is to wait there until I give him his cue. I’m not sure he understands the bit about being a ram, but he does nibble at the leaves of the plant in a most undog-like way.
So this is the play. The play we rehearse in the derelict old village hall. A guillemot cries overhead, reminding us this is not the Middle East. We take up our positions, as directed by Carp. There is no light, but Perch’s lamp. For atmosphere, says Carp. We can just about see our scripts; all the better when the sweep of God’s light illuminates the pages.
JEHOVAH GOD stands behind the altar to give commands. ABRAHAM is sitting on the ground to begin with, tending sheep or something of that sort. The RAM must stay still and out of sight behind the bush. The RAM must not move.
CURTAINS OPEN.
JEHOVAH GOD: Abraham. Behold, here I am.
ABRAHAM looks up to the skies.
JEHOVAH GOD: Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
ABRAHAM lies down on the ground and sleeps. In a little while he wakes up and stretches.
ABRAHAM goes to the wood and picks up the twigs and finds the coil of rope.
ISAAC comes on to the stage.
ABRAHAM: Listen, my only son. I have to go to Moriah and I need you to come along to help.
ISAAC: Of course, Father, whatever you say, I will do.
ABRAHAM and ISAAC walk across the stage three times.
ABRAHAM: Now we are in Moriah. We must go and worship Jehovah God. Isaac, you carry the wood. I will bring the fire.
ABRAHAM must light a candle from GOD’S flame (the oil lamp) and carry the fire before him.
From my pocket I take the candle Carp has given me. Perch-God opens the little window from her oil lamp, tilts it and offers me the flame. I touch its flickering blue-orange centre with the wick, which fizzes alight. Perch looks approvingly down at me.
ISAAC: Father. Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
ABRAHAM: My son, Jehovah God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
ABRAHAM and ISAAC walk twice across the stage.
ABRAHAM: This is the place of offering to Jehovah God.
ABRAHAM and ISAAC lay the twigs under the altar.
ABRAHAM: My son, Jehovah God commands you be the burnt offering.
ISAAC: Father, we must obey the word of Jehovah God.
ISAAC is to be bound by the hands as he lies on the altar; the rope is coiled around his body to prevent his escape.
I loop the rope around Mr Fishcutter’s hands while he stands and tie a loose knot.
‘No,’ says Carp, coming on from the wings, clipboard in hand. ‘It must be realistic. Isaac must lie on the bench, ready for sacrifice, and then be tied up.’
‘Please, Father,’ she adds.
With a little shuffling and awkwardness, Mr Fishcutter takes his place on the bench, his long legs dangling over the edge.
Carp takes one end of the rope and winds it back and forth between his wrists, binding them tightly together. The wax from the candle has been dripping onto the back of my hand. Slowly it changes from hot and watery to cool and firm, constricting and tantalising my skin. I look up at Perch. She is holding the flame of God to help lighten her sister’s task. The rope is now being wound around Mr Fishcutter’s torso and under the bench. When the ends meet, Perch ties the packer’s knot with a twist and tug, sending a short gasp from her trapped father. Satisfied and restored to her directorial role, she picks up her clipboard and walks offstage.
Stigir the ram is peering around the broad, copious leaves of the plant. His ears are upright. He senses something is amiss.
I feel the warmth and power of the flame in my hand. I hold it under my chin like a buttercup, to feel its glow. I blow across the flame and watch it flicker. I blow again and the flame whistles a note. I am the Pied Piper. I take a step forward. Gathering around me are the ghosts and hordes of all the children that ever were sacrificed, summoned from their resting places, each dressed in a fresh white smock. A choir and cast of souls. Stigir sees them, for he pokes his head through the foliage and pants a hello.
There in front of me, the man, the father, the were-wolf in human clothing, lies tied and bound on the sacrificial altar. The demon in him breathes heavily, dangerously.
For the first time ever, Perch and Carp are really looking at me. Directly at me. I see their eyes glittering, reflecting in the light of God’s flame, which Perch holds up high. They don’t need to tell me. They don’t need to say anything. Either Jehovah God, or Perch, or Carp. They think I don’t know what is expected of me. They believe it is they who have made this scene, set these events in trail. But I know what I know. I am who I am, as I walk towards the altar. In my mind’s eye I see Great Aunt Margaret and her baby. All in cinders. The Cinderella Baby. And all those children, sacrificed and laid in the arms of a golden statue, then tossed into the fire. I think of Mother lying in a crumpled heap in a wardrobe, splinters of wood all around her: a bloodied marionette cast into a corner. And Mrs April. Mrs April flying a kite. Mrs April under the street lamp, looking furtively up and down a street, held tight in the arms of a man with jet-black hair and a speckled scarf. A snake around his own neck. I will save her from
the wolf.
Carp and Perch are standing together, their eyes alight.
‘Do it,’ says one.
‘Do it now,’ says the other.
But I need no encouragement. Mr Fishcutter looks alarmed as I walk towards him, the candlewax dripping down my forearm, the flame leaping and quivering with each step. He struggles with the ropes, which only tighten against his efforts. He shouts ‘No’ and ‘Don’t’. His face contorts as he realises what is about to befall him. There is desperation in his face. I see it. I see this is not his choice. Not like Jesus. Not like the bishop and the pawn. Like all the sheep and fattened children lost in the woods, he does not choose this. Like Mr April on the deck of the sinking ship, this is not how Mr Fishcutter expected his day to end. The ghost-world of children draw close. A chorus of cherubs. They gather around this father in his distress. They understand his sadness. One wipes the tears from his eyes. Others stroke his hair and whisper happiness to him.
‘Now,’ hisses Perch.
‘Make the sacrifice,’ spits Carp.
I let the lighted candle drop from my hand to fall onto the pile of dry twigs.
‘Forgive us father, Jehovah God,’ implores Carp.
‘In the sure hope of the resurrection,’ says Perch, as the wood crackles and sparks, the flames licking at the base of the altar.
‘Your sins will be cleansed.’
‘And we will meet you in the heaven of Jesus’ thousand-year reign.’
‘A family reunited. Our father and our mother. When the graves open and you and mother can join us to walk in the Truth. When the beast will be destroyed.’