by Lloyd Jones
Within a year they were married.
Often afterwards, in the first flush of love, he’d made a mental map of the tea rooms and tried to correlate all the planes and parabolas. Mankind so loved patterns, he thought. Circles and cones, checks and diamonds. In the tea rooms their bodies seemed to sit in harmony, as if they were celestial bodies reaching a perfect Pythagorean pitch. Perhaps that’s all love was, really – a geometric formula based on the distance between two bodies at any given time, a day when patterns met and matched, melding a marriage of shapes which pleased all around.
Mags was in the doorway again, almost completely in shadow now. Was there anything he wanted?
He sat for a while, watching the building’s shapes fade into dusk. There was nothing he wanted. Only his youth again, a big soft bed and an hour or two for dalliance. For astonishingly, unexpectedly perhaps, their physical union had been an unqualified success, on both sides of the bed. Nights of tumultuous, unending sex. Years of consummation, shared orgasms, relaxing cigarettes passed from hand to hand; he could remember the taste of her lipstick on the filters. Yes, their sex life had been top drawer. The stuff of dreams. It had saved their marriage on more than one occasion.
As she left him he opened a book but put it down quickly; almost all his concentration had gone, dissipated with the years, along with all his energy. Drifting off to sleep again, he thought of their life together – their homes, their children, their fading hopes. Because their mental patterns had never really matched. That day in the tea rooms he had sought to impose a pattern, to connect the lines and intersect the radii, but he’d had to admit it later, at first to himself and later to others, their marriage had never been more, really, than a physical palliative to both of them. He’d shuffled the Morgan shape and the Mags shape all around like a pattern-maker, but they had never truly matched, except between the sheets – and that was good and certainly important but it wasn’t quite enough, not over a lifetime. He was tired of thinking these thoughts over and over to himself. Should he tell her? But she already knew, surely. What was the point of an autopsy?
As he drifted off again, Morgan thought about the chapel and its neat little cemetery, yews and graves in tidy rows. Because there was one decision outstanding: when he’d suggested – as was natural – a joint grave she’d gone strangely quiet.
Let’s talk about that another day, Morgan, she’d said.
Whoever lived longest, it seemed, would decide on the final pattern.
In the conservatory all shapes and lines faded into darkness as he snoozed in the company of an old but tumultuous aspidistra plant. The smell of chocolate pervaded the whole building. And his final thought as he drifted away was that his very first map of their relationship, drawn on graph paper, had put that plant in a perfect isosceles triangle between him and Mags as they sat in an old newspaper office at the top of the stairs, the only room in the world for him then, when he was young and ready for love… so many years ago.
purple
MY Great Aunt Mary died recently.
She was a mountain dweller – and a sizeable mound in her own right, a formidable matriarch who wore a hefty Paisley-patterned apron and Wellington boots for six days of the week (we thought she slept standing in them, at the kitchen sink) and a black coat plus floral hat on the seventh. The hat was a statement, never to be understood by mortal man.
Like most farmers’ wives of old she had never been seen eating, but spent almost all her life preparing food for an extended family of bipeds and quadrupeds: she didn’t seem to care much who got what; I wouldn’t have been greatly surprised to see a lamb at the dinner table and a greedy child nuzzling a bottleful of milk in the yard.
I can see her now, waddling towards me across the farmyard, carrying two large pails of pigswill, making one of those ancient noises used on farms to call the animals; experts say these chucka-chucka-yaaa noises are probably the oldest in the human repertoire. On workdays she wore a headscarf which accentuated her chubby red cheeks, and the plentiful hairs on her chin seemed as natural as her husband’s. Standing in the kitchen with an industrial-sized rolling pin at the ready, her heavy apron held together with a broad leather belt, she had the air of a tired and greying Bedivere or Gawain girt ready for the Battle of Camlan. She smelt chaotically of bacon, soap, beef, custard, suet, manure, flour, iron, blood, hay, toffee, udders, mothballs, bibles, babies, hen-huts and butterchurns. To be frank, the apron was a large rustic corset which – like an African dictator – tyrannised a small country of flesh and held in thrall a continent of smells. It was hardly surprising that she was surrounded almost always by a ring of open mouths, as if she were a bird with her chicks at the nest. Out in the yard she was immediately surrounded by concentric rings of animals: pet lambs, calves, hens and children, all waiting to be fed with soft brown eyes full of love and gastronomic expectation.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that Great Aunt Mary – who’d sown, weeded, reaped, washed, prepared, cooked and served up more food than all our celebrity chefs put together – had a dark secret. My first intimation of it came at the wake, when my Uncle Dafydd, himself a spindle of a man (bachelor, raconteur, expert wielder of crook and billhook) made a comment about the size of the coffin in relation to the size of the little girl who had very nearly starved herself to death in the distant past. I barely registered his words, but they returned to me when I received a dusty, battered case – a Victorian portmanteau – containing Mary’s personal documents. The job of sorting them was allocated to me partly because no-one else wanted to do it, partly because I had just finished my A-levels and had a whole week in which to kick my heels, between the final exam and shearing day. Since we lived in the hills there was no town to paint red, nor did I have any tiles to spend the night on, except in the dairy, so I knuckled down to the task every evening, after the daily chores. As I did so a year in the late adolescence of a young girl came sketchily to life, but only after I’d sorted the paperwork into piles: letters, newspaper cuttings, certificates, postcards, and so on.
The most striking clue to her story was a newspaper cutting about Sarah Jacob, known as ‘the Welsh fasting girl’. I’d never heard of her. There were many similar tales, apparently, about young girls who survived miraculously for long periods without eating. There were magical or religious connotations. Some of them developed stigmata, but the medical profession dismissed them as frauds or hysterics. Their symptoms included paralysis and staring fits. In Mary’s childhood, women were encouraged to nibble daintily on the rare occasions they ate in public, said the article. And to have a ‘clean’ body (inside and out) the fasting girls controlled their food intake rigorously to increase their ‘spirituality’.
Sarah Jacob, who died on December 17, 1869, aged twelve years and seven months, convinced a vicar she was authentic. Her story became widely known and she was sent gifts and donations. But doctors were sceptical and she was sent to Guy’s Hospital to be monitored by nurses, who were told to give her food if she asked for it. Poor Sarah went into a steep decline, but her parents – convinced she was genuine – refused to halt the test, even when told their daughter was dying, as she duly did.
When I started to excavate Mary’s past I tried to be methodical, but the piles of paper had an antic life of their own; finding a linear story seemed impossible. So I changed tack: I sifted though all the papers again, putting aside anything touching on the Sarah Jacob story, or on Mary’s illness. Eventually I was left with nine documents, not including her birth and death certificates. After fiddling about with them well into the depths of the night I seemed to have a plot, but I still couldn’t be sure. This is the sequence, as I established it:
Document A: Mono postcard showing a view of Carno in Breconshire, date unintelligible, addressed to Margaret Jones (Mary’s mother).
Sorry to hear about Mary, we are praying for you. Try a little bread and milk with sugar but no butter. See Mrs Henry Williams Hengae, her angelica works well with the s
tomach. Weather up and down, lost a field of hay last week. Gwynfor bad with his rheumatics.
Yours, Ceridwen.
Document B: Sheet of sun-yellowed paper, much-folded, many dirty fingerprints, with an embossed letterhead – Capel Hebron. Message (translated):
The Deacons met on Sunday evening to consider your request. We cannot supplicate to the Lord on your daughter’s behalf, it is His will that she lies in bed afflicted, for she has been meeting William Evans the cobbler’s son at the mountain gate while pretending to go collecting bilberries. We are also informed, regrettably, that you have consulted Vicar Pritchard, and it is therefore our wish that neither you nor your family attend this chapel until the issue of your daughter’s passion and sickness is resolved.
Yours truly, Edwin Williams, Deacon.
Document C: Small card, in good condition though foxed, showing a mono etching of a church on its cover. Message:
Further to our conversation, the Bishop informs me that Bell, Book and Candle is inappropriate in this case. I will intercede with the Lord on M’s behalf every day in my prayers, for I truly believe she has seen the Lord’s Shining Path. I beg of you not to rely on the ministrations of the woman they call Morfudd He^n, and to trust in God, for He is Good. M’s exultation has uplifted my heart. I shall visit you again on Sunday pm to see how she is. Do not press food upon her, our Lord will nourish her Spirit. I will look into the possibility of lustration.
Yours etc, Vicar Pritchard.
(I looked up lustration in the dictionary and it was defined as ‘to make somebody or something spiritually pure by means of a special religious ceremony’.)
Document D: Note on plain paper, with traces of pearly candle wax:
Further to my diagnosis – infantile hysteria – I confirm there is nothing more I can do. Encourage her to eat small mouthfuls of dry bread or biscuits often. Insist on her drinking clean drinking water from the well, frequently.
Yours, Dr Jones.
Document E: Dilapidated letter, almost falling apart, bearing evidence of frequent reading, again headed Hebron Chapel. Translated:
The Deacons met on Sunday evening to discuss your daughter Mary, and our great disquiet over her visits to the mountain with her people. We are told by Deacon Robert Morris that Mary has seen a wondrous sight, and many go with her, a large crowd wishing to see the object of her jubilation, though no-one but she has witnessed it yet. Deacon Robert Morris informs us that the multitude grows daily, and a light shines in their eyes. He says they sing hosannas and rejoice, waiting to witness Mary’s wonderful vision. We warn you it is sinful to worship false idols.
‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves’ – Matthew 7:15
‘Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain’ – Proverbs 25:13
‘Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you.’ – Apostles 17:22.
Tell your daughter to cease her false witness with immediate effect, or the Lord will fall upon her.
Yours truly, Edwin Williams, Deacon.
Document F: A summons issued by the Caernarvonshire Judiciary ordering Mary and her parents to appear before Caernarvon Magistrates following an incident on the mountaintop known as Mynydd y Gweledydd during which the Riot Act was read; they were charged with failing to disperse after the reading of the aforementioned Riot Act by the Chief Inspector of Police.
Document G: Letter on lined paper, blue feint, stamped in the top right corner with a franking machine: Holloway Prison. Translated:
Dear Mother and Father, they are treating me well here and I have a cell of my own, the doctor and chaplain come to see me every day and I want for nothing except to see your dear faces again, and old Shep I miss very much too. How is Abel, are the hens laying? Have you finished with the hay? I am sorry I am not there to help. I cannot see the mountain from here, but I am allowed to pray as much as I like, and I read my Bible all through the day. I am excused duties. I can see the sky and it is blue today, with clouds in it, and I think of what I saw on the mountain that day, and when I think of the Miracle I saw I am allowed by God’s Grace to walk again under the clouds on Mynydd y Gweledydd. They leave food for me every evening at bedtime, bread and cheese mostly, but by morning it has gone, the mice I think.
Please write to me soon, I am your obedient and loving daughter Mary.
Document H: Letter on plain A5 paper, yellow with age. Carno written in the top right corner and underlined stylishly. No date:
Mary arrived yesterday evening under the escort of the local constable. She was dusty from the journey and looked weary, but not particularly undernourished, though lean about the face. I believe she will make a full recovery, with the help of our ‘mice’.
I agree, a year spent with us in Carno as a servant will do her no end of good, and allow the past to recede. She says she still reads her Bible daily, but she has ceased to speak in tongues and is passive in company. She went to bed without a murmur, and is still asleep as I write. Will let you know as soon as something happens. Gwynfor’s rheumatics worse, almost unable to walk some days. Lost a hen to the fox last week but the cattle are doing well on the new ffridd and the drovers took twenty with them to England last month. Things are looking up!
Yours as ever, Ceridwen.
Document I: Grey exercise book, lined blue feint, with many pages removed or torn out; rusty staple marks on the paper. Some pressed flowers, secured by stamp hinges in the opening pages, together with a sketch of a planned sampler. A dozen pages of verses from the Bible (probably learnt by rote for Sunday School) and Welsh proverbs, all written childishly in pencil. After a few blank pages, the following passage, also in pencil, entitled My Own Testimony. Translation:
This is my Witness, may God punish me if I lie. In the presence of my father and mother I have sworn on the Bible that what I say is True.
There is a place I go to collect bilberries with a quart pot, every Saturday afternoon in summer if the weather allows. This place is about a mile above and to the left of Y Gors Ddu (the black bog). It is on the northern flank of Mynydd y Gweledydd, the mountain I see from my bedroom window. It is not true what they say, that I go there to meet William Evans the cobbler’s son, I met him there by chance once when he was crossing the mountain to visit his Uncle Huw Gorseinion. One day I was on the mountain picking berries, alone, when I heard a sound which was not the sound of the lark or the curlew, it was a great and wonderful sound, as if a great bird or an angel was arriving from the sky. I did not collect any more berries, I listened to the angel flying through the sky and its wings beat the air around me, blowing my hair and caressing my ears. I was not afraid, though the noise was strange and unearthly. I left my bilberry can by the sheepfold and walked along the sheep path to the top of the hill which is next to Mynydd y Gweledydd, and I sat on the white rock known as Maen Efengyl (Gospel Rock), overcome with amazement. The sound of the angel roared in my ears and I covered my head in shame, for I knew the Second Coming was upon us. After a while I lifted my eyes to Mynydd y Gweledydd and there were three tall angels standing there, shining brightly in the sun, I was speechless with emotion. And when I looked again the angels had changed into the three crosses at Calvary, and our Lord was crying Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? in a sorrowful voice, and the purple of the heather was His blood upon the ground. I ran from that place with all the strength I had left, because I thought the Lord had come to judge me, and to send me among the damned in Hell for consorting with William Evans the cobbler’s son, when I had only met him by accident. I cried to the Lord as I went, ‘I do not love William Evans because he is spoken for and I will put aside all desire for him’. Then I fell in a dead faint. When I awoke I was in my bed, and the mountain was still there in my window. From that day all d
esire for food left me for three years. I was sustained by God’s love.
This is my sworn testimony. Mary Jones.
And so ended the strange story of another Welsh fasting girl, as I had pieced it together in the attic of my home. Mary had evidently turned some sort of corner at Carno, living as a maid with her aunt, and had then returned to a relatively normal life in north Wales. But my amateur detective work wasn’t over yet, because I decided to visit the site of her vision, Mynydd y Gweledydd. So one fine summer’s morning I took a plastic container – to hold bilberries – and walked up from Mary’s old home, an old Welsh farmhouse, squat and small-windowed, along the exposed granite road which leads to the mountains.
It is steep and windy, tufted in the middle with grass and clover and wild flowers.
Eventually I arrived at the mountain gate, where I enjoyed a sandwich while I imagined Mary’s meeting there with the cobbler’s son, so long ago. Presumably she’d made the journey in clogs and a long dress, which must have been hot and exhausting work. Then I followed the map route I had worked out beforehand, and found a sheep path – perhaps the same as Mary had taken – to the top of the hill next to Mynydd y Gweledydd. Strangely, I too began to hear a whooshing sound as I progressed, and I began to feel quite peculiar because Mary’s experience was being duplicated, seemingly – the noise was getting louder with every step, and indeed it did sound like the wings of a huge angel. When I arrived at the white rock, Maen Efengyl, I immediately saw the cause of the noise – three massive wind turbines churning the air on top of Mynydd y Gweledydd, all chopping the breeze like crazed kung fu fighters. I sat on the rock and looked at them in wonder. In a way they could be likened to three white angels, but they certainly hadn’t been there nearly eighty years ago, when Mary was a young girl. Had her vision been a presentiment? Or was it pure coincidence?