The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales

by Imogen Rhia Herrad

  My hands were shaking, and I’m not at all sure how much of that was rage and how much fright.

  All I could think was No, no, no.

  But I couldn’t do a thing.

  Then from somewhere sprang a frightened rabbit, white tail bobbing madly as it tried to run for safety.

  Somebody raised a gun, and laughed.

  ‘No!’ I roared. The bullet stopped in mid-flight.

  Nobody moved.

  Nothing moved.

  Nothing at all.

  I scooped up the rabbit and held it for a moment, feeling its rapid heartbeat.

  When I set it down, I caught a movement at the edge of the trees. It was somebody walking. Coming towards us.

  A woman, older than me, quite a bit older, plump and sunburnt; walking with long, easy strides.

  She took in the scene in front of her, stopped at one of the hunters and snapped her fingers in his face. He made no move.

  She laughed.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  I swear the trees rustled and whispered although the wind never stirred, and everything around me sang, blackbirds and skylarks and nightingales and wrens and banshees, and the vixens in the hills shrieked and howled with joy.

  I knew who she was.

  I had spent half my life waiting for her. I had never entirely stopped dreaming about her.

  D

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was a blazing fire. Sparks flew from her hair and her finger tips. Her eyes shone brighter than the sunlight.

  I leapt into the flames.

  We left the hunters where they were. The horses and dogs had woken up soon enough and wandered away, bemused but unharmed. The hunters had been turned to stone.

  Learned people are even now travelling to the remote spot and writing about the discovery of a hitherto unknown stone circle in the hills of North Wales. Some of the more enlightened ones ask the women in what they call the New Age community nearby whether the stones hold any religious significance for them, and the women speak of a miracle.

  Then they laugh at the scientists who try to explain to them about rope pulleys and slides and wooden rollers.

  She’s teasing me for my old-fashioned language. But darling, I say. What do you expect? I have been living alone for so long. I was born back in the Dark Ages. I am an old woman.

  Not that old, she replies, laughing, and kisses me. Not that old.

  Arganhell

  Sixth century

  Arganhell, or Arianell, was the daughter of a man of royal family in the early sixth century, in Gwent. She was said to have been possessed by an evil spirit and was kept in bonds by her family for fear she would throw herself into the river or into the fire; and to keep her from biting and tearing her clothes and the people about her. Her illness was cured by St Dyfrig (St Dubricius) who cast out the evil spirit. After her miraculous recovery Arganhell devoted herself to God for the rest of her life.

  There is a stream in Monmouthshire that was once called Arganhell.

  You are Arganhell.

  I know that because you answer when I call you, although I cannot understand what you are saying. You talk to me. They take the body out here every day and tie it down so that it does not move, and then they go away and I don’t see them again until evening.

  You are Arganhell. You talk to me and sometimes you throw glinting lights into the body’s eyes that dazzle them so that they can’t see. Your waters mumble and sigh and rush over the stones, they tinkle and they laugh; but their laughter does not hurt. People’s laughter hurts and I want to hurt them back. I want to cut their throats to stop the laughter getting into their mouths; once I almost cut the laughter out of a man’s belly because that’s where it starts; there is a place in the belly where laughter is made and then it rises up inside the body, through the throat and out of the mouth and you can hear it and see it and it causes pain. I wanted to cut his belly open so I could see where the laughter started, to stop him laughing at me ever again but they stopped me instead; they crushed the hand that held the knife and twisted the arms and bound them and they dragged the body out to sit beside you, Arganhell, day after day. Your waters giggle and laugh but the laughter does not hurt.

  Sometimes I think you listen and then fear rises like a great noise; when I think you are listening and you know all my thoughts in your cold clear water. Then my thoughts fly away and I look at the stones under the water, grey and black and silver, others a dull red like the dried blood on my clothes once a month. When the bleeding started I didn’t know what it was; long ago when I was still living in the body, I remember I used to say my body as if it was mine, I must have thought it was mine then. That was before I died. I didn’t know how to die properly, that’s why nobody has noticed yet. Or perhaps they have and they only pretend.

  They have noticed something, they’re afraid of the body now; they tie it up so that it can’t move.

  Isn’t that funny Arganhell, they’re afraid of the body that’s afraid of them.

  When the bleeding in the body that I then thought was mine started, I didn’t know what it was; I remember I thought I was dying and I was afraid; there must have been a time when I was afraid of being dead, Arganhell, isn’t that strange. I went on bleeding, one day two days three days and still the blood, and then I told my mother and her mouth twisted and she said it’s because you’re old enough, that’s what it’s going to be like from now on.

  And when her brother, my uncle, started coming into my corner of the hall at night she said the same thing. You’re old enough now. And her mouth twisted and she looked as though she was remembering something and she looked pleased.

  That’s when I knew it was just a body, Arganhell, not mine, not me, just a body.

  Your water is mumbling to itself and the stones make clinking sounds like music. There is a piece of slate with sharp edges lying near one of the hands.

  I watch the fingers twist and strain against the ropes and the hand free itself, I watch as the arm slips out of the rope and the hand grips the piece of slate with the sharp edges and puts the pointed end against the white inner skin of the other arm and presses down hard, and I watch as it slides the sharp edge against the skin and there is a thin red line where the slate has passed. Red, not grey like the slate. You’d think a grey stone would leave a grey line not red, wouldn’t you Arganhell, but the line is red; and as the slate slides along the skin again and again there are red droplets forming and then there is a thin line of pain like a wail, and for a short while the body can feel something; even I feel something for a moment as I sit perched inside the head looking out through the eyes that are sometimes dazzled by the glinting of your waters, Arganhell. That’s how I know I’m not quite dead yet, because sometimes I can still feel something and the dead feel nothing. Not even when you cut their bodies; I tried that once when I first knew that I was dead but nobody took any notice. I knew that when somebody is dead people will take notice, and lay the body out and wash it and paint it and burn it and put the ashes in an urn and bury that. Nobody had done anything like that with my body although I knew I was dead; I knew I was dead even though I could still feel something when I pushed the point of a knife into my skin and saw red blood come out. But I was old enough for bleeding so I thought, perhaps I will still bleed even though I am dead now. I wasn’t sure so I tried it out when one of the slave women had died, I pushed a knife through her skin and into her flesh but she didn’t bleed and her face didn’t move and her eyes stayed open and wouldn’t look at me. She was dead and I wanted to be like her, but she wouldn’t tell me how; I sat beside her all night and talked to her and asked her and asked her and then I became angry with her and shouted at her, and I pushed the knife into her because she couldn’t feel anything and I wanted to be like that and she wouldn’t tell me how.

  In the morning my mother’s brother who is my uncle found me and he laughed at what I had done and said, you have come too late, I killed her first. And he kicked the d
ead body and he laughed again and took me away with him. And all the time while he lay on top of the body that I knew then wasn’t mine I thought, I have become like him, he killed a woman with cruelty and then I killed her again; he has killed me and he feels nothing of what he does and soon I will feel nothing at all but I will still not be dead.

  The piece of slate has fallen to the ground, and I watch the hand snake towards it and pick it up again, and I watch as the pointed end is pressed into the skin of the arm, of the thigh, I watch as the hand scrapes the ragged edge over the shinbone and the back of the other hand; but this time I feel nothing at all, and I hear nothing at all as they come to fetch me in for the night when it’s dark. I see their mouths opening and closing and see them point at the piece of slate and while one of them tightens the ropes so the fingers won’t be able to find their way out again, another bends down and picks up the slate and flings it into the water, your water Arganhell; will you look after it for me because I will need it again tomorrow.

  * * *

  This day is cold, there is no light glinting on the water but there is water in the air, falling in droplets out of the sky; they have no colour, like blood does, they are cold not warm and they taste of nothing. There are large grey shapes in the clouds moving slowly like ghosts and the trees on the hill shiver because they are cold.

  I can hear something moving in you Arganhell, thumping and splashing and metal clinking against your stones and many footsteps.

  All day long the body sits and waits and the fingers pinch the legs that are white and blue with the cold in the air, and watch how long it takes the tired blood to flow back into the white pinch marks. When you pinch a dead body there are no pinch marks because the dead don’t feel anything.

  One day I will be dead and the body will be dead and everything will be over.

  * * *

  I can hear the clinking again Arganhell, and the splashing and the thumping in your waters. There is a long line of horses and they dip their hooves into you one after the other and walk through your waters and clink against your stones and walk out on the other side, the side where the body is sitting and where I am watching them through its eyes.

  But they never arrive here, as soon as they touch dry land they dissolve like the ghosts in the clouds, and there is nothing left here, not even a mist.

  I watch the stones in the water, grey and black and silver like smoke, others a dull red like dried blood. There is the sound of crying in my head, and I watch the body start to sway, and beat itself and its head against a tree; the bark is rough and damp and smells dark green, and there is a thump, thump, thump that drowns out the crying and after a while there is nothing at all except the thump, thump and the swaying and there is a patch of pain that spreads through the head and the arm and the shoulder of the body, nothing much but I can almost feel it and after a while I forget the crying and I’m dead again.

  * * *

  I cannot hear the clinking this time, or the splashing in your water, Arganhell, but I can see the line of horses and men coming just like before. They stop at the other bank and look for the ford and then one of the men shrugs his shoulders and his mouth opens so I know he is saying something although I can’t hear his voice. Then the first horse puts its feet in your water, Arganhell. It snorts and it is afraid of the rushing waters because it was nearly drowned once in a cold mountain stream. It paws the water and makes the stones clink and goes backwards, and I wonder do the hooves hurt you, Arganhell, do you feel it when something walks through you, because you are alive.

  I leave the body and then I am on the other bank with the horse, and I can see the body still sitting under the tree, eyes staring like dead but they’re not dead yet, not yet. Do not be afraid of Arganhell, I say to the horse. I can see the fear in its belly and I breathe into its nostrils, Do not be afraid of Arganhell, and then the horse puts its feet into the water and walks forward, and I am sitting under the tree again with the body, watching the line of horses and men cross your waters, Arganhell.

  There is a man in the long line of horsemen. He looks different from the others. All the other men take one quick look at the body and then they look away again; there is fear in their eyes and in their bodies, they look away and then they walk away and pretend they have not seen. They will forget that they have seen the body, and then it will be as if it had never been, as if I had never been. That is almost as good as being dead.

  But the man who is not like the others has seen the body, and he looks at it and he looks at me and he knows that I am inside it. He looks straight through its eyes and looks at me. He knows that I am there.

  He says, do not be afraid, just like I said to the horse. Do not be afraid. And he stoops and takes out a knife and I think he is going to help me and kill me and then I will be dead. He sees the look in the body’s eyes and puts the knife away, and squats down and undoes the ropes with his fingers. There are a lot of knots and they are tied fast, it takes him a long time and all the while I can hear his breathing and smell his sweat and I am afraid, afraid.

  It takes him a long time as he undoes one knot after the other, while the line of horses and men goes past. One of the horses stops and the man sitting on its back opens and closes his mouth and talks to the man who is untying the ropes, and the man answers him and shakes his head, and then the man on the horse’s back shakes his head too and kicks the horse’s sides and the horse walks on.

  The ropes slide away like snakes, down the body and off the body’s arms and legs and I can see the hands opening and closing but nothing else moves.

  The man gets up from his crouch and opens his mouth and speaks but I don’t hear him. He goes to the edge of the water, and he scoops up some of your water, Arganhell, in his hands and brings it to where the body is sitting, and holds the hands to the body’s lips. They are cracked and dry, the mouth is dry with thirst; and then they part and dip in the water, your water, Arganhell, and drink, and cold silver runs into the mouth and down the throat and into the stomach. He helps the body get up and stagger to the water’s edge, and he says... name?

  I point one of the body’s hands at the water and say your name, Arganhell, because that is the only name I know. He nods and gets into the water, and takes some in his hands again and pours it over my head; there is cold silver water running down the long tangled hair of the head, dripping down from the neck onto the back and the chest of the body, down, down all the length of the body.

  Arganhell, he says. And In the name of the Holy Ghost.

  He pours more water onto my head and combs the matted hair out with his fingers very gently, as though the body wasn’t almost dead, as though it mattered whether or not there was pain. He combs out all the tangles and the knots in the same way he undid all the knots in the ropes, and he makes a fire and burns the ropes.

  And then he walks away and I am still sitting under the tree beside your waters, Arganhell, but now some of your water is inside the body and some of it is on the outside of the body, dripping down from the long wet hair on its head; and the taste of your water is still on the tongue in its mouth. The ropes are gone from the body, it can move now and it dips its hands into your waters, Arganhell, to find the slate with the sharp edges.

  But as they dip into the water there is a tingling in them, and they move and there is a feeling of silver and of swiftness as the water moves between the fingers, and the current tugs at them, this way and that. As they pull out of the water there is a flash as drops of water fall from the fingers back into the stream, and a coldness as the air touches the wet hands; and then they’re in the stream again, feeling cool and silvery and playing with the currents. The sun comes out of the clouds and there is warmth on the face and on the body and, as I take the hands out of the water and hold them up into the light, there is warmth on them too, all mixed together with the wetness and the drops falling from them back into the stream; back into your waters Arganhell, that gleam and glint like sunlight.

  I open the
mouth and I say your name again, Arganhell, and cup the hands and scoop up water and lift it to the mouth and I drink; I am so thirsty, Arganhell. And I cup them again and bring up more water and lift up the hands and pour the water over my head so that it drips down from the hair all over the body and I can feel it, drip-dripping down, wet like silver, wet like water.

  I sit and listen and there is a thumping somewhere inside the body; I stop breathing so that I can hear it more clearly and the thumping gets louder and louder; it comes up the body into the throat, and then it is roaring in my ears and I let out the breath in a long whoosh and put a hand on the throat where the thumping was loudest, and there it still is, throbbing through the skin of the neck. I sit there for a long time with a hand on the throat feeling and listening to the thump and throb.

  Then I take the hand away and sit just watching it as it opens and closes; I watch the knuckles come up white through the skin as the hand clenches and disappear again as it unclenches; I see red crescent moons where the fingernails have pressed into the skin of the palm. I lift the other hand and put its fingers into the palm, on to the red crescent moons and I stroke them slowly, like I remember the man passing his fingers through my hair. The skin of the palm is warm and soft and moist with sweat. The back of the hand is smoother and cooler; I can feel the bones and the veins through the skin and as I press a finger down on the vein the blood stops flowing and after a while there is a bump and a throbbing, until I take the finger away again and the blood can go on flowing. I follow the line of the vein until it disappears into the crook of the elbow. There is a thin red line on the inside of the arm that is covered by a scab, it makes a rasping sound as I pass a finger over it; and there are thin needles of pain as I pick it off.

  The inside of the other arm is very soft and on the outside there are hairs, but very soft and dark, not hard and yellow like the hairs on the arm of my mother’s brother who is my uncle. I stroke the hairs, down and down and down like I once remember stroking a cat on the threshold of the great hall in the sunshine.