Snake Ropes (28 page)

Kelmar’s footsteps walk across the floor above me.

Shadow Mary’s voice cries in my ear, ‘You dun see, even on all that white snow, you dun have a shadow. I’m going to give you back all your murdered memories. Every. Single. One.’

I say, ‘Please, we got to get him back. You love him, dun you? You want him back too, though you’re angered with me?’

The sound of the sea.

I say, ‘Let him talk if him is there. It might be too late, if hims shadow’s not there with you, it means him could be dying – or dead. Please Mary, him could be—’

A small sigh breaks through the sound of the waves.

‘Barney?’

Hims voice says, ‘Mary, this Mary not let me talk.’

Kelmar knocks on the trapdoor, rattles it.

‘Be up soon, just leave me!’ I shout.

Kelmar knocks again.

‘Not long!’ I holler up at the trapdoor.

‘Barney—’

Shadow Mary says, ‘So you heard him.’

Kelmar shouts, ‘Mary, come out. This dun feel right – what’re you locking yourself down there for? Unbolt it!’

I push the moppet back in the bag, climb the ladder and undo the bolt. I blow out the candle as Kelmar wrenches the trapdoor open.

‘What’re you up to?’ Her voice is sharp.

I climb out and wrap my arms around myself. ‘Barney fell out of the tall man’s boat. Him is here somewhere.’

She shakes her head. ‘You can’t know—’

‘I do. Langward told me.’

Kelmar’s put two bowls of thick chicken soup on the table. I sit down as she clatters in the kitchen. Annie’s dogs are asleep by the fire – a breathing pile of furry heads and legs.

Kelmar comes back in and hands me a spoon. ‘You decided what you want said?’

‘You’re asking me like I’m to choose a colour of thread.’

‘Snow did you good then.’

‘Maybe.’

She looks at the spoon in my hand. ‘The punishment—’

‘You decide it.’

‘But after what him did …’ mutters Kelmar, her eyes shine with tears. ‘And you’re thinking Barney’s still here somewhere. Look Mary—’

‘You loved Valmarie, dun you.’

‘Right. Food.’ She goes into the kitchen.

When she comes back in, her eyes are shining and she’s got a basket of bread in her hand. She slides out the chair and sits down opposite me. She says, ‘Getting upset for what’s gone and not set to come back dun make it easier.’

I swallow a spoonful of the chicken soup, my throat clenches. ‘You’re sure the women have the tall man? If him got out of the Thrashing House, how do you know him won’t—’

‘Course we’d be careful of that. Now stop asking me questions. You’re just talking me all over the place, but I’ve got questions for you. What’s got you thinking Barney’s still here, and who’s this Langward? I’m not talking of anything else till
you
get to talking.’

‘Dun want to.’ I put down the spoon.

‘Well, you got to tell someone, and I’m the only one you got to listen to you. Not like you bothered much with folks once your Mam died. You’ve had no one there in her place, little use that she were.’

‘She were my Mam, no matter what she did. I loved her, even if—’

Kelmar’s voice is sharp. ‘She only let me help you after I swore on my own life I’d not tell anyone. If she’d let you die giving birth, I’d have—’

‘You dun care for me that much.’

‘I always cared for you, and just because you dun know it,’ she takes my hand, ‘it dun mean I stopped. You’ve gone and done it again, we’re talking of something else. Come on. Who’s Langward?’

I mutter, ‘You need the name of the tall man, dun you?’

‘That’s
hims
name?’

I nod. She squeezes my hand and lets go. ‘Mary, that’s it. We’ll get him out of hims silence. Oh Mary, that’s the best thing you’ve done, telling me—’

‘You want me to talk, so stop up yours!’

There’s a smile hiding in her mouth. ‘Him
can
speak, then, just won’t. Sorry.’

‘You’re sure him is held firm?’

‘Him’ll not get out.’

There’s a shadow in the corner of the room, but when I look at it, it’s gone. I swallow hard and say, ‘Think I need to show you something.’ I unbutton the waist on the black dress. Hold it open so she can just see my belly.

Kelmar gasps, and comes round to get a closer look. ‘Oh Mary. Did him—’

‘No. Just this. It’s nothing.’ I button it up.

‘That’s not nothing. Can you not feel it? I’ll get a poultice.’

‘Dun need anything, it’s fine.’ I eat some more chicken soup.

Kelmar sits down. ‘You’re not feeling anything, are you?’ She puts her hand on my arm. ‘Might be that you’re right, maybe you
do
need to shut it away, for a while at least.’

She asks me what I’ll let her say tonight at the Weaving Rooms.

I say, ‘I want them to know Barney’s my son and that I’ll get him back off any one of them what’s found him. Tell them if anyone’s seen him or thinks someone them know might have him, them have to tell me. So, say whatever else you want, as long as you say that.’

‘Look Mary …’ Her voice is soft.

‘Dun say—’

‘It’s been a long time. Dun fix your hope too high.’ She pats her chest.

I dun pat mine. ‘I have to.’

She takes my hand. ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’

‘Him said Mam let him have me in her place.’ I frown at her. ‘A trade. Do you think she’d have done that?’

Her eyes have tears in them. ‘I know she weren’t always right in what she did, but even so, I can’t see her doing that. Him is trying to hurt you even more, blaming her. Harm even your memories of her. You’ve got to hang on to what you know.’

‘But I dun remember
enough
of her …’

Kelmar smudges a tear off her cheek. ‘What him did to you, him did for himself, even if it were to spite her. She couldn’t have made him do anything him dun want to.’

I stroke the rough weave in the fabric of the dress. ‘Tell the women never to talk to me of him. Not ever.’ One of Annie’s dogs comes over and leans against my leg. I stroke the dog’s head. ‘I’m so tired.’

There’s a drawing of shells on Kelmar’s bedroom wall. A patchwork quilt is spread over her bed. I kick off my boots. The smell of lavender makes me heavier. She lifts the quilt and I lie down.

She says, ‘You’ll need clean clothes for when you’re up. Ones what fit you, not like that piece you got on. You’ll fit better Jake’s clothes than mine.’

She goes and gets some folded black clothes, strokes them and lays them on a chair. She presses the quilt around me with solid sure hands.

I tell her I’ve never been in a bed this big. She smiles at me so warm, I say, ‘Can you tell me a story?’

She sits on the bed next to me and the mattress sags as she shifts her weight back. My eyelids close. Her pillow is so soft it sinks under my face.

Kelmar says:

This is the Story of the Stone Crow
.

The crows stood along the rocks, talking and gossiping to one another, thems voices like croaks. This were many many years ago, when the sky were so low, if them flew upwards them bashed right into it. It were never thems intention, although them did fly and get bashed often enough, for birds are made to fly
.

To the crows, it were a hard life, with the sky so low. Thems beaks got dented, thems feathers ruffled, sometimes them’d get pure knocked out by the sky, depending on how hard and sudden them took off into it. Some got killed, others got broken beaks and had to learn to eat in a whole different way, and the rest just felt giddy a while, till them recovered
.

Crows are clever birds. Them watch and learn all kinds of things from one another. One crow never took off at all, but watched all the others bashing and buffeting against the sky. For weeks it sat on the edge of a rock, for months, for years, some say. This crow knew that if it stayed still, right where it were, it would never get hurt by flying. It sat
and thought all the time about the sky and how it were so close, just hanging there above its head, waiting to damage it
.

Over the years it turned to stone, this crow. A solid rock shaped like a crow, so you’d never have known it had ever been all feathers and made for flight. You’d have thought, if you saw it, that it were the stone carving of a bird
.

The other crows knew though. Them pushed and tapped and rolled it off the rock with thems dented beaks, and used thems claws and wing tips to push it all the way across the hills to the edge of a cliff what looks out over the sea
.

You can still see that stone crow to this day, though the weather has worn it so it looks like a rock with a sharp beak shape that points out at the sky over the sea. The other crows laid it there so it could always see the horizon, and all the clouds above it. Them wanted it to see how far the sky has risen to now
.

So the stone crow can always imagine, even if it can’t feel it in its stone heart, what it could feel like to fly and not be afraid
.

The bedroom is almost dark when I wake, the light from the window is strange – the night sky twists with blue-grey clouds. I get up, quiet, and put on Jake’s jumper and hims thick warm trousers. Never have worn trousers before, but my legs are so warm in them. I walk round the room, smiling at how I can sit down and stand up and lie on the floor and I’m all covered up from head to foot. I watch the door and loosen my bindings under Jake’s jumper, just a little.

Kelmar clatters in the kitchen.

The moppet crawls out from under the quilt. I pick it up, quick, and get back in bed.

‘Barney?’ I whisper. ‘Why’s the moppet out of my bag? Did Kelmar—’

Barney’s voice says, ‘Dun go to Weaver …’

‘I’m going to follow her so I can—’

‘This Mary say Weaverroom bad bad.’

‘I need to see the women all together, see who might’ve found you and got you hid somewhere it’s dark.’

‘She says keep away tall man.’

‘I could leave you both here. Hide the moppet somewhere.’

‘She say no no bad man. She make for cry.’

‘She makes you cry?’

‘Not Barney cry. Mary cry.’

A loud crash outside in the kitchen. I push the moppet under the pillow.

The dogs’ claws clatter behind the door.

I pull the moppet out again. ‘Barney …’

The sound of the sea. Him has gone.

In the kitchen I listen at the curtain to the women’s voices in the other room.

Nell’s voice says, ‘Can’t put him back in without the key.’

There’s muttering and Camery says, ‘Poor girl.’

I hear Chanty’s voice saying, ‘Him can’t stay here and, well … like Nell said …’ One of the dogs growls.

The voices speak again, them’re talking about Langward and how them each dun want to choose, and if them kill him, whose hands would do it and still be able to keep working on the cloths and weavings when them’d deaded someone. Camery’s saying she couldn’t step up for it.

Kelmar interrupts her and says, ‘We’ve got to decide on levels.’

‘Levels?’

‘Of punishment.’

Nell says, ‘Him deserves worse than anything.’

‘Well, that’s death with no truth left behind, ‘ent it?’ says Camery.

Kelmar says, ‘I guess him’d be pretty much considered punished if him is dead.’

Nell mutters, ‘Nothing from before and nothing to come—’

‘Shall I take the dogs back down to Annie after?’

‘No. Let her sit with herself for a bit. See what comes.’

Chanty pitches in. ‘So is it death we’re decided on? We could row him out to the island of the Glimmeras, let thems poison hair kill him. No, we could put him in a boat, tow him out to sea, far as we can get him. Then tell him to go back to hims home … if him can find it.’

Camery shrieks, ‘Him
raped
her!’

I back away from the curtain, cold all over, I crash against a cupboard and thems voices keep talking, but so far away …

Kelmar comes into the kitchen, closes the curtain behind her, puts her arm around me and says, quiet, ‘We’re off soon, but you dun want to be hearing any of this, you said—’

‘I’ve changed my mind. I do want a say in this. Punish him with what him
is
. That’s worse than being punished for anything him has done. If you’re looking for hims truth, like what the Thrashing House should’ve done, I can tell you of that. Him is a trader through and through. Him dun give anything unless him takes something away. So trade him.’

‘Trade him for what?’

‘The three boys them took to the main land. Make the tall men bring them home. Make the tall men agree that Langward
is never to come back here. If the tall men refuse … keep him away from me. But do what you want with him.’

She hugs me and says, ‘I’ll speak well for you. You’ll be all right here?’

‘Aye.’

Her big hand squeezes my shoulder. ‘You sure?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not, but we’ll talk of that later. We’re heading off now. Keep the dogs in, or them’ll head straight back to Annie. I’ll leave my door unlocked, but I’ll be taking my key with me. Just so you know.’ She smiles at me. ‘You’ll be … all right, given time.’

The fire crackles in the grate. There’s paper and charcoal sticks on Kelmar’s table. I stare at the blank paper, my hand clasps the charcoal like it wants to write something down, but it dun know what.

So I get the moppet and whisper, ‘Mary, write what you want.’

I put the moppet on the table next to the blank paper.

In the kitchen I give Annie’s dogs some water. In Kelmar’s bedroom I make her bed and sit down. I stare out of her window at the night sky and bright snow. Think how still and quiet it is.

And I think of the word Camery said. The women will speak that word to each other tonight, when them talk of what Langward did to me. The women will always think of that word now, whenever them see me. Whenever them speak my name.

I warm my hands by the fire, stroke the dogs so them lie down quiet and I walk over to the table. Shadow Mary has written on the paper.