Above me, the moon hid behind sleeves of dark cloud. Rain fell softly on my head. I looked up and the rain fell on my eyes. I put out my tongue and tasted.
The hands of the clock had turned many circles since I walked down Cott Road; closer and closer to number one where I had grown big and dripped blood flowers and threw Boot at the wall. I pulled the blanket close around me and it turned me from Hester to shadow. I was a walking secret that had no sound.
There was only one street lamp and everywhere was quiet but for my friends calling from One Cott Road. ‘I’m coming,’ I told them. ‘I’m coming.’ The dark branches of trees pointed the way home, with so many twisted stick fingers. ‘I know the way,’ I told them, my voice muffled under the blanket. I walked down a hill. At the bottom of the hill, apart from the other houses, with bush and grass on both sides, One Cott Road waited.
‘Here I am! I came back to you, my friends!’ I wanted to shout and run to the house but I stayed quiet because I was a secret that had to be kept. Step step step closer and closer.
‘Hester, is that you? Is it you? Could it really be you?’ cried One Cott Road.
Grey tears from her blinking window eyes dripped down the walls. Her front door mouth was down at the sides. ‘Where have you been?’ she moaned.
‘Renton,’ I answered. I was stinging and aching and itching in every part as I passed my hand along the wooden fence outside the house and angry fence splintered my skin.
One Cott Road snapped with her teeth of fence. ‘Why did you leave us?’ I didn’t know what the answer was. What is why? Is why when Boot and Sack take you to Renton? Is why the thing you were looking for? Is it the reason you came back? ‘Why did you leave us? Why did you have to go?’
‘I am back now, I am home, shhhhh.’ I got to the high gate at the end of the fence and I opened her up wide. The high gate squeaked surprise when I walked through. I took the blanket from my shoulders and hung it over the fence; I was in the garden and there was tree. I ran to her and put my cheek to her trunk and the pictures that were drawn there – a feather and a leaf and a nest touched my face. ‘Pretty … beautiful … Hester,’ said tree. I cried and shook against the body of tree. I wanted to climb up her branches until I was at the very top and then I wanted to sail away to where she reached, to eternity and God the Bird. ‘Pretty … beautiful … Hester,’ tree said again. ‘Go inside.’
‘I want to stay with you.’ I pushed those words out past the tears that tried to stand in the way.
‘Go inside.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘But you have to.’
‘But I don’t want to.’
‘Hester—’ tree stroked my cheek, ‘you can do it, your friends are in there.’
‘But I don’t want to.’
‘Go inside, Hester.’
‘But I …’
‘Go inside.’
‘Alright.’
‘Good girl.’ I held tree tight for one more tick of the clock then I let her go and I walked across the grass to back door.
‘Hester,’ said back door, ‘you came back!’
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I told you I was coming.’
‘You kept your promise.’
‘Yes.’
‘The key is on the ledge. Stand on your toes and you can reach her.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Hester?’
‘Yes?’
‘I am happy you came back.’
‘Thank you.’ I stood on my toes and felt with my fingers along the ledge. I touched something hard. It was the key. She shook in my fingers because she was frightened. She sang a scared key song in my fingers – scared to go in scared to go in scared to go in must go in must go in must go in. At night she always slept and never had a job to do until now that I was home. I pushed her, shaking, into the hole, and I turned her. Back door clicked and opened. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.
I stood in the kitchen of One Cott Road breathing the air. I breathed in dust, Sack, smoke, floor-water, the years before, the years after, soup on the stove, the hands of the clock, time ticking, stew in the pot, and the breath of Boot. Cat came and wound her black self around my legs. I picked her up and rubbed my face against her black-grey back. ‘Cat.’ I held her close and I put my ear to where her purr was. You came back, Hester, purrrrrrrr.
‘Yes, I came back.’ I looked into her green cat-eyes. I saw every mouse, bowl of milk and bird dream that we shared. I saw our years under the table. I saw us running from Sack, our longing for the forbidden outside from the arm of the couch and our nights back to back under the blankets. All my secrets were in Cat’s eyes. I kissed her black head. ‘Out you go.’ I put her through the open back door into the garden. She ran away into the darkness.
I turned on the small shelf light and I moved to the warm of the wood stove. I opened the heavy red door. I knew how, it was my duty. Inside the fire, only hot coals burned at the bottom. I had not been here to make the flames, but I was here now. I opened the wood box beside the fire. Chopped woods lay there in a lonely pile. ‘Hester! Hester!’ They spoke together in happy voices. ‘You came back!’ I took one wood out and held him to my cold ear. He whispered, ‘We needed you.’
‘Need is coming back,’ I told him. I pushed the wood into the burning coals and new flames danced. My face grew warm. I looked around the kitchen of One Cott Road; at the walls I washed, the floor I mopped, the stove I scrubbed, the ceiling I swept with the long broom to gather up the webs. I looked until I could close my eyes and still see what I had been looking at; so that the things I saw went deep inside to where they couldn’t be found and taken away.
It was time to go to the hanging room and see the company I kept. I lit a prayer-for-the-dead candle with a match from beside the stove. The hanging room was a dark room; you needed light if you wanted to see the company you kept. I pulled open the door in the floor. She made a slow sleeping creak because nobody had opened her since Hester went to Renton. When I walked down the steps my arms hurt and I had to try hard to stop them flying upwards. On my way down table called to me from the bottom, ‘You came back!’ Jesus beat the drum from the feasts harder. My arms hurt more and more as I went down. When I got to the bottom I held up the candle and looked. They were all there; bars for hanging, rope for tying, table for standing on before I was hung and the company I kept pasted to the walls. The drum beat hard enough inside me to break through me and play its own tune on the other side of my skin. Something else was inside me too – what was that thing that wanted to come out? What was it getting bigger and pushing up from the bottom? Was it eggs and porridge? Was it chops and peas? Was it the fish eye? It was a scream; it was coming, coming up through the tunnel that Jesus made his home in The Abridged Picture Bible. If it came it would scare the company I kept and it would wake the devil and he would come for Norma who was waiting in the chariot singing softly to herself, ‘Come back for me, Hester, and I will lead you in the dance.’ He would come for her and I would not be there to be the only one who could save her. I couldn’t let that scream come out my mouth. I pushed it down and it came out my eyes instead, in hot salty water down my face as I looked around the hanging room at the company I kept. I was going to hang the way they were. I climbed on to the table and tied one of the ropes from the bar around my neck, the same as the ladies in the pictures on the walls. There was no Boot here now; I could kick away the table myself and hang. The rope was my necklace of thorns. I was about to do it when somebody spoke my name.
‘Hester?’
Who was that?
‘Hester?’ The voice came again. Who was it? ‘Hester! You know me, Hester.’ It was a voice with a laugh hidden inside. It was axe. He was calling from outside the house where he leaned. ‘Come back upstairs,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ I could hang in the hanging room forever, still as Lot’s wife. ‘Hester, get out of there!’ If I hung I could have a small sleep. I could wait for the bird dream … ‘Come upstairs now!’ Axe meant business. ‘Get o
ut of there now!’ I wiped my wet face, took off the rope, climbed down off the table and walked back up the stairs.
When I got to the door in the floor she wouldn’t open. She was stiff and sleeping again. I put down the prayer-for-the-dead candle and it blew out. It was black as Cat’s back; I couldn’t see my hands. I felt for the door and pushed but she wouldn’t open. I pushed and I pushed, the scream was coming again. ‘No, no,’ I said to that scream. Again it sprang from my eyes. The dark curled around my cold sleepy shoulders like a blanket and made a warm bed for me. I rested against the wall. I wanted to stop and sleep like Cat on the back step.
‘Hester, push the door open.’ Axe’s voice came through the dark, brighter then a flame from a hot hungry fire, and woke me. ‘Come upstairs,’ he said.
‘The door is stuck,’ I told him.
‘Try again.’
I tried again. Still the door didn’t move. ‘It’s stuck.’
‘Hester, if you push it hard it will open.’
‘It’s stuck!’
‘It will open if you push it hard, Hester.’
‘I did push hard. It won’t open. I am going to sleep.’
‘No, you cannot go to sleep now. You can sleep later. Open the door.’
‘I tried. It’s stuck. It won’t open and I want to go to sleep.’
‘Stop your crying. Stop your crying right now and open that door.’
‘No.’
‘Open it!’
‘No!’
‘Open it open it open it open it open it open it open it open it open it!’ Axe’s voice split my ears and made cracks in my head. I pushed and pushed as hard as I could and the hanging room door opened. ‘Good,’ said axe. ‘Now come and get me.’
I walked softly down the hall to back door. Handle smiled, the question was gone from his eye. He had no question anymore. He knew already. I turned him, opened back door and went to the forbidden outside. The cold covered my face and crept in under my suit. Axe was leaning against the white wooden wall of One Cott Road, taking his night-rest. ‘Good,’ he said, when he saw me. ‘You came.’
‘Yes.’
‘Take me in your hands.’ I took him in my hands and turned him. He was heavy and his shiny head sparkled. Axe was a boaster. I smiled at him and his tricks and his voice with the laugh hidden inside.
‘Take me into the house,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘You want to go inside?’
‘That’s right, I do. Take me.’
‘Why do you want to go inside?’
‘Because I want to.’
‘Why do you want to?’
‘It is my wish.’
‘But why?’
‘I told you, because it is my wish.’
‘But what for?’
‘Because.’
‘But why?’
‘Hester, I am your good friend. I can give you pictures you’re never seen before Take me into the house. It is my wish.’
‘Something you want very much?’
‘Yes, something I want very much. Let’s go inside, Hester, you and me together.’
I took him inside. We stood at the bottom of the stairs where I could see because of the shelf light in the kitchen. Up at the top of the stairs it was dark. I put my foot on the first step. It was the same shape as my foot from so much up down up down for the mop and the broom and warm tea with sugar bread for Sack with a bad back. I climbed onto the second step then the third and the fourth. The smell of Boot and Sack’s dreams got up my nose. Boot’s dream was the smell of hair and trousers, Sack’s was the smell of wet sponge. In Boot’s dream he lived in a bottle; the bottle went down into the deep water, the glass of the bottle broke and the water came in. Boot kicked his legs but he kept going under. Water filled his mouth and bubbled out his nose. It filled his body so that he grew so heavy that he sank to the bottom. In Sack’s dream wings grew from her bad back. She flew to the forbidden outside where her wings hung her to the line by her nightdress with the faded flowers with only Boot’s empty wet shirts for company.
When I got to the top of the stairs, all in darkness, I walked on mouse feet to my room. I opened the door and turned on the Christ light. The lamb and the lion were gone. The bed was there but no coloured blanket. There was nothing of Hester left in the room. The scream pushed out my eyes.
‘Hester.’ It was axe.
‘What?’
‘Stop crying. Let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Into their room.’
‘Their room?’
‘Yes. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘You want to go into their room?’
‘Come on.’
‘Why?’ I asked axe.
‘Come on.’
‘But why?’
‘What is why? Come on, let’s go.’
‘But—’
‘Let’s go!’
‘Alright.’ At their door I heard them breathing. Sack’s was a whistle, Boot’s was a train caught in his throat. Axe and me made no sound. Axe was good at quiet, all that time leaning and sleeping and waiting for me to come home. I pushed open the door and I walked to their bed, creeping quiet as Cat when she sees the mouse with his head out the hole. As I walked I counted. It was Boot who taught me the lesson of counting, one for this, and he held up a finger, two for this, and he held up another, and three for this, and he held up the thumb. I counted on my own now. I got to seven and I saw them there by the light of the moon, Boot his mouth open so the tired air could drag in, and Sack on her side so I couldn’t see her face.
‘Lift me high,’ said axe, so I lifted. Jesus was in the corner on his chair. The lamb was at his feet, and the lion walked in a circle around him. Jesus smiled at me and I smiled back. He played the drum from the feasts and watched. ‘Higher,’ said that boasting axe. I lifted him higher over the sleeping Sack who taught me the lessons of prayer and cleaning, and over the sleeping Boot, who taught me the lesson of trousers and tree. I had found what I was looking for. I had found the why. It was here in front of me. I could smell it, see it and taste it. I was filled with the why. Time stopped ticking. The hands of the clock stopped turning. ‘Now,’ said Axe. ‘Now now now now now now now now now now now now!’
I brought the axe hard down into the head of Boot. I followed the cuts like he showed me. Boot rolled like a worm with a stick in his middle. He rolled and wriggled, one eye open, axe took the other eye for his dinner. There! for your night visits, there! for your hanging, there! for your secret, there! for Mary without a friend but me, there! for your feet running whenever Sack called, there there there! I cut and I cut and I cut. Rivers broke their banks, Noah rose up in his boat, drowning men tried to climb on, but the blood rose in waves and the sides were too slippery. ‘Cut, cut, cut!’ axe shouted. ‘More more more! Cut cut cut!’ Jesus cried out to God the Father in heaven as Boot’s blood covered the world. ‘Cut, cut, cut! More, more, more!’
Sack sat up holding her hands out in front of her. Boot’s blood was in her eyes so she couldn’t see properly. She tried to pull air into her body but it wouldn’t go. She made the sound of a train pulling up at the station. Her eyes were open, the light behind the blood in them lit up the room in pink. Jesus stopped playing the drum and put his hands over his face. The lamb jumped onto his lap and hid in his robe. The lion stopped circling and watched.
I took axe to the side for Sack because her cuts went a different way. I swung axe hard through the neck of Sack. There! for your prayer, there! for burnt paintings, there! for fish eye, there! for the frog I never saw, there! for blood flowers on the sheets there! for my grandmother at last, there there there! I cut and I cut and I cut.
‘More more more!’ axe sparkled and shouted. His laugh was out, it bounced off the walls. ‘Cut, cut, cut! More, more, more! Cut, cut, cut!’ The clouds parted in the sky, God the Father looked down at Sack in pieces, and watched as her blood joined with
the blood of Boot and the world went under. The river of blood sprayed out through the holes that Boot’s tree made in my head when it broke me open and my blood joined the blood of Boot and Sack. I made a red painting on the wall; I used my own hand. It was God the Bird with his crown of stones and me riding on his wing. We shouted Alleluia! Dance for joy!
A new song sang itself in me. It had bells, a harp and the Angel Gabriel. Boot and Sack joined in. All the things you couldn’t put a finger on that my skin held inside moved to the music of the new song. I stood sticky and wet, air going in out in out while Jesus played the drums and axe sang along.
I walked to the window and looked out at eternity made of moon, clouds and stars. Dark smoky cloud crossed slowly, showing moon. Nothing ended; it went on and on. I climbed up onto the window ledge. If you jumped from the ledge you would fly up and into eternity, you would be a part of it, you would join with the lasting things, your eyes would be in the stars, your toes in the clouds, your hair would stream out over the world, you would never end, you would be eternal. I wanted to, it was a strong wish that pounded its way through my wet shaking self. I was about to jump out and sail through the neck of the bottle to where God the Bird lived when a picture came down the rope to me from Norma. It was Norma in the chariot waiting. Then there was another picture of Norma and me and her brother. We sat by the river and though we couldn’t see the frog we could hear him and his sound was a bubble that floated over the trees. I turned back to Boot and Sack.
I left axe beside Boot so they could talk and laugh because that axe was a funny, tricky boaster, then I took Sack’s hair in my hand; I had never touched it before. It was a new thing in my hand. I closed my fingers around it; more blood than hair. I took her thin arm and I pulled Sack down the stairs; with each stair her body made a thump sound as if she were potatoes. I pulled her across the hall and into the kitchen, the same way Sack used to pull me down into the hanging room. I picked her up and held her close like she was Cat. Her body was hard as a chair. I held her to me so tight that some of her might go through our two skins and into me. She didn’t say not to. I put my ear to where her sticky mouth was, so I could hear her whispers. I waited for her to tell me not to, but she stayed quiet. I lifted her onto the table.
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