White Ravens

by Owen Sheers

  As he washed and dressed Matthew heard the woman’s voice again, rising from below. It was only when he was in the corridor, however, walking towards the stairs, that he properly heard her song. Halfway down the stairs he stopped to listen more closely. He could hear the words clearly now, but he couldn’t understand any of them. The song, like the titles of the books along the bookcase, was in Welsh. A slow, plaintive tune that doubled back and worked itself round to a particularly haunting refrain. It was lovely and, Matthew thought, as he listened to it through the closed door, all the more so because he couldn’t follow its meaning. The story of the song was lost on him, but that was all that was lost; just the tale. The music itself, and the woman’s voice, he understood these clearly. It was as if it was a song he’d always known, but only just discovered on hearing it sung through a door in a house he’d yet to see in daylight, by a woman he’d never met.

  Stirring himself, Matthew eventually carried on down the stairs and opened the door at the bottom. As soon as the latch clicked, the song stopped. Matthew stepped into the room, immediately sorry he’d disturbed the singer whose voice had so given the song life.

  ‘Well, someone slept well, didn’ they?’

  She was standing beside the table, a dishcloth draped over one shoulder, holding a knife in one hand, her other resting on the back of a chair. A small vase of primroses stood at the centre of the table where she was laying a single place before the same chair Matthew had sat in the previous night. Her dark hair was long enough to be bundled in a loose knot at the back of her head. She wore an off-white apron over a simple short-sleeved dress. Her features were supple and fine as if the edges of her face, the line of her nose, her cheekbones, her jaw, had been winnowed by the same millennia of winds and rains that had carved the rocks he’d seen from his window. Her skin was pale, and her eyes bluer than Matthew knew eyes could be. She was beautiful and on seeing her, the resonance of her song and her voice still hanging in the air, Matthew fell immediately and deeply in love. It was as if he’d opened that door into a different world, not a different room. With one step into it the colour and taste of his life had changed, shot through as it now was from this moment on, and as it always would be, so powerfully with her.

  ‘I made you some breakfast,’ she said, laying the knife in place. ‘Though lord knows, it’s more like yer lunch now.’ Bending down at the range she covered her hand with the dishcloth and took out a plate of bacon from the warming shelf. The smell of it spread through the kitchen. When was the last time he’d smelt bacon like that? Never since he’d left home, that was for sure. Placing the plate on the table she pulled back the chair and, raising her eyebrows, invited him to sit down.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, looking around the room for a clock. There wasn’t one and his own watch lay beside his bed upstairs. ‘What time is it?’

  She was at the counter, her back to him, slicing some eggs she’d boiled. ‘Around eleven I’d say,’ she said, peering out of the window. ‘Or half-past.’

  Was that really the best he could do? The first time he addresses her and he chooses a question you’d ask any stranger in the street. As she tipped the slices of egg onto his plate he tried again.

  ‘I’m Matthew.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said, turning back to the counter. ‘Ben told me.’

  He waited for her to introduce herself, but she carried on preparing some potatoes as if he wasn’t there. She’d begun to hum the song again.

  ‘I hope I didn’t wake you last night, coming in so late.’

  ‘Wake me? Duw, I wouldn’ worry about that bach,’ she said without turning round. ‘I wasn’ even here.’

  She was making him feel foolish, like a little boy.

  ‘Where were you?’

  The question sounded blunt and clumsy on his ear.

  ‘Down at the exchange.’

  ‘The exchange?’

  ‘’Mergency telephone exchange. Got t’ do yer bit haven’ you? Though since they stopped bombing there hasn’ been much emergency about it.’

  Turning around she leant back against the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. When he looked up she was smiling, as if she’d stopped playing with him now. ‘I do the late shift. Once a week.’

  ‘Right, I see. Yes.’

  For a moment neither of them spoke. The sun lit swirling motes of dust in a broad beam that fell through the kitchen. The bleats of lambs and birdsong filtered through to them. Matthew felt an urgent pressure to speak, to say something, anything.

  ‘Lovely flowers,’ he said at last, nodding at the primroses on the table.

  She smiled again, acknowledging his awkwardness. Pulling out a chair she sat down beside him ‘So,’ she said leaning forward and placing her elbows carefully on the table. ‘You’ve come for the birds?’

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew said, glad to be answering a question rather than asking one. ‘That’s right.’

  Suddenly, she was laughing. A bright, full laugh, and shaking her head as if in disbelief, loosening the dark knot of her hair, a few strands falling free. And then, because she was, he was laughing too, though at what or why he didn’t know.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, speaking through a deep breath. ‘Nothin’ really. It’s jus’ well, ridiculous isn’t it? I mean Ben used to get such a tellin’ off for going’ up there an’ stealin’ eggs an’ such. He even had a pet one once. A raven! You can imaging the trouble tha’ caused when Mam found out.’ She shook her head again. ‘An’ now he’s stealing them for bloody Churchill!’ she said, dissolving into another fit of laughter.

  This time Matthew didn’t join in and when she turned to him something in his expression must have betrayed the question burning in him. She stopped laughing. ‘Ben’s my brother,’ she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. ‘My older brother.’

  ‘Right,’ Matthew said. ‘Of course. I wasn’t sure...’

  Shaking her head at him again she cleared away his plate and brought the kettle from the range to pour him a mug of tea. ‘So, do you think there’s anything in it?’ she said, sitting again.

  ‘In what?’

  ‘The story. ’Bout the ravens an’ the Tower.’

  Matthew shifted in his chair. ‘Well,’ he said, cupping his hands around the tea. ‘These stories, they’re still with us for a reason aren’t they?’ She didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Are they?’ she said sitting back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘Churchill obviously thinks so,’ he said. ‘Public morale and all that.’

  ‘An’ tha’s what you do then is it? Fix up our morale?’

  ‘Something like that I suppose,’ he said. ‘I work in propaganda.’

  ‘Ah’ she said, nodding. ‘More stories.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘More stories.’

  This felt better; talking like equals. She no longer seemed to be merely tolerating him among her daily chores. ‘How long do you think it’ll be,’ he asked her. ‘Before I can take them?’

  ‘Well, let’s see,’ she said, leaning forward again. ‘They’ve jus’ hatched, so it’ll be three weeks before they leave the nest. You wouldn’ want to take them then though, they’d be too strong already. No, so say, ’bout two weeks? That should be ’bout right.’

  ‘Two weeks?’ he said nodding slowly. ‘I see.’

  A slow bloom of elation opened in his chest. He took a drink of the tea, pouring the liquid’s warmth over that rare flower and sat back in his chair, trying not to reveal the sudden lightness he felt inside.

  ‘Somethin’ like tha’ anyway,’ she continued, standing again. ‘Ben’ll know better.’ She looked out of the window again. ‘He’s on the hill. I should go an’ see if he wants help. You got everythin’ you need?’

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew said standing too. ‘Yes, I have. Thank you.’

  As she put on her coat, taking it off the same rack Ben had hung his on the night before, she spoke to hi
m again. ‘What happened to yer leg?’

  ‘My leg?’ Matthew said, caught unawares by the question.

  ‘You were limpin’ when you came down jus’ now. You hurt it?’

  Matthew instinctively reached for the scar on his thigh. ‘I was wounded,’ he said. ‘In Italy. A while ago now.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, glancing at the photograph of the young man in uniform on the dresser. ‘I’m sorry.’

  It was impossible for Matthew not to react to that glance. ‘Is he away?’ he asked, hoping to God the poor man was still alive.

  ‘Evan? Yes, he is. Been gone for over a year now.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Matthew surprised himself with the boldness of his question, but he had to know.

  ‘No,’ she said, giving him a gentle smile. ‘Evan’s my younger brother. Tha’s his room yer sleepin’ in. Farm wasn’ big enough to keep him out the fightin’.’ She went over to the dresser and picked up the photograph. ‘We haven’ heard a thing for months.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  She sighed heavily, putting the photograph back. ‘Last letter we got was from India. We think ’e’s in Burma now, far as we know.’

  Burma. None of the fronts were easy in this war Matthew knew but Burma... Matthew looked around the farmhouse, Evan’s home, and tried to imagine the boy from here out there in the jungle, the heat, the flies, caught up in all that silent terror and sudden killing. He hoped for her sake he’d come back one day and that, when he did, his sister would still know him as her brother.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ Matthew said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, trying another smile but failing this time. ‘I’m sure he is.’ She looked back at the photograph, and this time held the stare of the young man within its frame. When she finally broke away Matthew saw her eyes had filmed with tears.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Can’t stand ’ere talkin’ all day. I’ll be back to make up supper. If you want anythin’ ’fore then there’s bread an’ jam in the larder there.’ She pointed at a large walk-in cupboard at the end of the kitchen. ‘By the way,’ she added as she opened the door. ‘I’m Branwen.’ And with that she was gone.

  As soon as she’d closed the door behind her Matthew went straight to the window to catch a glimpse of her walking around the corner of the farmhouse. Realising she must be going up to the lower slopes behind the house, he went back across the kitchen to the spiral stairway and climbed it as fast as his leg would let him. He knew he was acting like the foolish boy she’d made him feel earlier, but he didn’t care. He had to see her again; it was as simple as that. Following the narrow corridor away from his bedroom he found a small window and, looking out of it, caught one more glimpse of her walking up and over the rise behind the house, her arms raised as she tied the knot of her loosened hair.

  Matthew had woken up that morning asking himself how long before he’d be leaving the farmhouse. Standing at that small window, just an hour later, watching Branwen walk away up the hill, he felt strong with resolve. Not because he’d found the answer to his question but, as with all the crucial hinges in our lives, because the question itself had changed. It was no longer about when he could leave, but how he could leave with her? When could he take her away with him? Away from this farm, this isolated mountain, and into a new life in which they’d share the future together?

  ‘Would you like a piece?’

  The old man held out the half-finished slab of chocolate he’d brought with him, unfolding the silver wrapping to reveal the scored dark squares inside.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A piece. Of chocolate. Would you like one? I know I shouldn’t, this early in the day. But, well, sweet tooth I suppose.’

  The girl didn’t reply, just looked at the offered chocolate like it was a trick. Eventually, with exaggerated caution, she took the slab from him and broke off a couple of squares. Tourists were beginning to trickle into the Tower now. The first air-conditioned coaches were lining up down from the bridge to disgorge their Germans, their Japanese and their value-weekend trippers from towns in the north, south and west. All come to gawp at the jewels, to hear about Anne Boleyn’s restless ghost wandering the grounds and, of course, to see the ravens.

  ‘Well?’ the girl said from beside him. He sucked luxuriously on the diminishing chocolate in his mouth. Thank God he still had his own teeth.

  ‘Well?’ he asked her back.

  ‘Are you goin’ carry on or what? With the story.’

  ‘Oh the story!’ he said arching his eyebrows. ‘Do you have time?’

  She looked past him at a crocodile line of tourists following their guide’s furled umbrella towards the main gate. He should be careful. He could still lose her and he couldn’t risk that, not now.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally said, still looking away. ‘I’ve got time.’

  ‘Oh, good. Well now, where was I?’

  She looked back at him, a hardness in her blue eyes. She knew he was playing with her now. ‘Your friend was gettin’ all worked up over this girl he’d just met,’ she said, handing him back the chocolate.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He wrapped the foil back around the remaining squares and put them in his pocket.

  Quite. Exactly. Well, I’m sure you think there can’t have been much in it. After all, as you say, he’d only just met her. But these were strange times. That war, it did strange things to all of us. Take me for example. Never had much of a taste for chocolate before. Wasn’t much around, of course, but then in the war, with rationing, it became like gold. It wasn’t just scarce, it was rare; it was being kept from us. So when you did get to have some, well, the taste of it was enriched a thousand times with all those days and months of not having it. I’ve been addicted ever since.

  It was like this for Matthew, I think, when he saw Branwen. There’d been a girl in Ireland but that had ended when he’d left to come here and volunteer. In fact, her letter got here before he did. It was waiting for him when he arrived at the hostel address he’d given her. Since then there’d been nobody really. The odd roll in the hay with a certain Sicilian farm girl, but nothing else.

  That piece of shrapnel damaged more than just Matthew’s leg you see, and it took away more than just a lump of flesh and the cleanness of his stride. It tore out a chunk of his confidence too; that part of a young man’s mind that blankets his fears and makes him bold in the face of the enemy, or of a beautiful woman. So yes, Matthew had been lonely in London, very lonely. And he’d seen so much death. In the last four years he’d been surrounded by so much death. In Africa, in Sicily, in Italy, in the hospital in Kent and even here in London once those V1s and V2s started raining down. That changes a man too, you know. Gives him a different outlook on life. For Matthew, it mostly made him assume it wouldn’t be going on much longer; that he simply might not be here next week, next month, next year. Quite a thing for a young man to feel, that, especially in his twenties when he should be feeling invincible, as if mortality is a disease to which everyone else is susceptible but to which he and he alone carries a secret immunity.

  Now this is where Branwen changed things for Matthew. Her face, her casual, confident manner, her voice, the way she moved, the way she poured that tea, the way her eyes shone under her withheld tears; all of it made him think of death again, but in a different way. She made him want to cheat it for as long as possible, to grab every second of life that was available to him, to take every experience, every change in light on a hillside, every precious breath he breathed in and she breathed out, and hoard and treasure all of it, every day, against that inevitable darkness waiting for them both, just over the horizon.

  So, you’re right, yes it was quick. And perhaps it was just a young man’s lust for a beautiful girl after all. But under the conditions of that war I don’t think it would have mattered even if it was. Whatever lit the spark for Matthew isn’t important, it was what he wanted to do with that flame, that heat, that’s what mattered, an
d that’s where you should judge him. And as for Branwen, well it was quick for her too you know. For all her sassiness, for all her briskness with Matthew that morning, for all her mocking eyebrows and mouth, it hit her just as fast as it hit him. When she left the farmhouse to walk up the hill that morning, her heart was palpitating against her ribs too. Beating and fluttering in there like a panicked bird in a cage; that’s how she described it to Matthew, just three days later.

  They were watching a magpie at the time, caught in Ben’s trap. The birds had been getting at his hens’ eggs, and at the eyes of the weaker lambs too, so Ben had set up a trap. First he caught a female as she was feeding on some seed he’d thrown down. Then he put her in one side of a crude wire cage. The other side of this cage was entered through a funnel constructed as to allow a bird in, but not out. Male birds, attracted by the female, would trap themselves inside the second half of the cage, where they’d remain until Ben came to break their necks with one practised twist, like he was unscrewing two halves of a pipe, or wringing out a dishcloth.

  For the last three days Matthew had seen hardly anything of Ben. He’d heard his heavy footsteps in the corridor in the morning, heard him leave the house and then seen him at lunch and supper but never in between. Although he always claimed he was working on a fence, or going over to another farm for some piece of equipment, Matthew couldn’t help thinking it was more as if he was keeping out of the way on purpose.