THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN DEATH
Quinn
Nothing is clearer to this man than he must keep going, moving on so that nothing catches up with him and his sin.
He trudged through the medieval town of Conwy, a numbing coldness creeping up through his thin boots and into his bones, he exited by the upper gate, and at Town Ditch he left the ancient walls behind and walked upwards. At his back the Castle, Telford’s suspension bridge, the Smallest House on the harbour; boats, fishermen, trawlers and mussel-men who sometimes found pearls: and the population known by their birthright, as Jackdaws. The last of the pale winter sun was starting to set and the evening frost was quick on its heels; he tightened his jacket collar and prised a fat safety pin off a card of six, standing with his rucksack wedged between his knees trying to work fast against the cold. He went on towards the bluey hills, passed through a hamlet of twelve or so homesteads and on to a good track towards the small village of Rowen. Two miles beyond that and he reached the steep lane, grass-cobbled and inhospitable, and between tall dry-stone walls up he trekked until he came to an iron barred gate tethered to its stone pillar with curls of wire. His hand burnt and stuck fast to the bar as he heaved; he shoved it into his mouth and cursed, tasting frost iron and welts rising. He closed the gate with his foot and shoulder; a derelict cottage stood melancholy and black against the sky-lit land, it floated in a lake of minute stars as Jack o’ Lantern twinkled above ground like some fantastic fairyland blooming, and the utter beauty of it was not lost on him. He turned again and moon-blanched hills lay ahead and to his right and to his left. Something red-warm in that cold white slunk away finding a shadow and then disappeared into it. As if he were at one with the place and of its core he stayed taking in the quiet and melting into it. He bent his head and lifted up his frozen foot to walk on.
Up and up colder as he went. Dirty looking sheep huddled in their pens chewing and staring and as if wondering about this man thinly dressed. Two more miles and he wanted further.
The man had seen over thirty five winters, none colder he felt, and he’d faced more than five of these with neither kith nor kin. Over on his left he saw a small church nestling like a squatting frog in the dip, its glistening roof floating in a grey-white shroud of icy hillside mist. He fancied he heard the bell toll and stopped to listen. Head inclined toward the motionless bell he appeared to be intent on what he heard. He found he could not stop walking, the moon filling the sky with its hugeness and painting the land clear and the path ahead white as with salt. Mountain ponies still and watchful as he strode. A muffled shr-shrump, a stamp, a whistle of mane being shaken in the night. He went on. Two more miles and the night as light as day when he came upon a tiny house set in a poor looking place, a lamp shining in an upstairs window. Black trees, tall and dwarfing it. He circled the place and saw little sign of life. He made for the far outhouse with bales of hay stacked in blocks and slept and dreamt of a screaming banshee who wrapped him in her arms and would not let go of him. Then she did and he drifted off again. A monstrous pink-footed rodent dragged its swollen hindquarters across the floor; already warfarined with its belly in liquid knots, the rat moved without purpose along the littered flags. A soft and whispering warmth blew evenly and sourly, the rat turned from the man’s breath and in its own helpless wretchedness, poured fluidly away into the darkness. The man fended off the banshee with a small sound and a wave of his hand; shifting himself he made little alteration to his bedding so slender was he. In a mantle of feed sacking, his face, etched noble and easy in repose, rested on hands fast as if in prayer. He slept on. In the night that was light as day a fox barked and his vixen came to him. Not long afterwards the rooks started to claim their territory, cawing, kroncking and making a lazy disturbance above the trees in the icy dawn.
Now he must be in a Turkish palace, an exotic house of wealth, of brightness, picking out jewels of the richest colours, shafts cutting through ruby red and amber and emerald green, through facets of diamonds glinting and shimmering and sliding slowly down the frosted window pane to gather in a rainbow stream. Mote ridden light beamed earthward and touched jars of captured summer: of seed riddled raspberry, redcurrant, blackcurrant, of luscious Victoria plum and Denbigh plum, goosegogs and quince; the light played on Kilners of ginger chutney, pickled cabbage magenta and purple, and on the detached eyes of pickled onions, all these stood in row upon glorious row next to raised sacks of potatoes and turnip and swede for winter plateful’s of steaming buttered stwnch rwdan. He opened his eyes fully; salivating and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up. He made himself decent, ready to set out into the early morning frost. Knotholes in the old wood told him that it was no warmer today. Before he left he opened a jar of pickled eggs and ate two then ate two more and packed away some potatoes to bake the next time he had a fire. He placed some coppers on top of the jar and walked into the yard to consider his next move. Suddenly a light showed up a red and white curtain at the kitchen window. He must knock and make himself known.
A woman of about forty cracked open the door, peering at him and over his shoulder as if to find answers there. What do you want? Anxious and twisting a cloth into a teacup. What do you want this hour of the day?
I… I just knocked to thank you. For my bed. Y’see I slept in your outhouse last night and was grateful to get out of the temperature indeed I was.
Last night.
Yes. Yes I did.
You been here before?
No. First time up here.
Not a few months ago. A year?
No. No. Look I’ve bothered you and I’m sorry, so I am. Can I do anything in return? I’d be pleased really. Feel much better about things.
She said, looking bewildered, No, you’re welcome.
Nothing moved, not her eyes, nor her hands, and her breathing seemed suspended. An icy gust whirled and shifted crisp leaves in the porch; weightless they danced and lilted and settled. Then: I need to go, and she made to close the door on him. A sound stopped her. Her face contorted, I… He saw her clutch her cardigan and hug it to her throat strangling the words. Beneath the cardigan she wore a once bright wrap-around pinafore over a frock of grey flannelette, her hair in pins. Bare legs and bedroom slippers with cream fur pom-poms.
Yes, I should be off too. But he didn’t move. Keep out the cold now. Looks like it might snow.
Oh, no, she murmured.
Looks like it. You’re sure I can’t stack wood. Chop it.
No.
He turned to leave.
A screech rang out from inside, upstairs. Maa-a-aam!
I have to go. O God help us! And then all hell broke out into the tableaux: Come in’n please try to help... and she stumbled ahead of him.
The child was only about fifteen. She’d used the last of her strength to call. Her head lay back as if twisted and she already appeared dead so blue-white was her face, and wet. A girl baby was stuck fast between her bloodied legs, a marbled bottom and one leg out.
It’s here, O God, she having it and it’s breached! I thought it would never come... Two days she’s been at it one way or the other and O, Iesu Grist I can’t get it out! Tugging and pulling this slimy thing to no avail and, Help me girl, push, pu-ush for Christ’s sake. But the girl could not oblige.
For all his years he knew nothing of childbirth but knew he could not allow the woman to know it. See to the girl, he said evenly, Keep her alive. A drink, water or something. I’ll see to… With infinite gentleness he eased his fingers into her and as if his touch triggered it, she involuntarily shuddered as if it had nothing to do with her, and shoved and spewed out something that would not have gone amiss in a freak show at a country fair. Having made a noise of sorts it was lying in the mess, motionless save for a tiny clawing of her right hand that was joined firmly to her elbow. It was difficult to look at, to see this mistake. To see an eye where a nose should be and no mouth to speak of. Dear Lord.
Check on her, he said jutting his chin in the new mother’s direction, shock rendering him quiet spoken. See she’s all right at least.
The woman’s horrified stare. She backed away.
A knife. A knife too, for God’s sake get a blade of some sort.
Now he saw the blood. Try to stem that flow, he said more urgently. Cloths and things, towels. You have plenty?
I’ll get them. But she did not move.
Move, he said into her face. Quickly.
He sliced through the cord and left it and covered up the girl’s legs. There was a wooden box, an orange box and in it a blanket and sheets cut to size. He carefully enveloped the baby’s tiny body, folding and tightening the sheet until only the head showed, hair a bloody honey colour. A blind and no doubt deaf infant; he was surprised to see the lips, misshapen and fish-like trying to make suckling motions. He watched it. This precious God-given life attempting to take what it knew was hers. By the time the woman came to look at her granddaughter, the child was dead and the Lord had not had a say in it.
You’d better concentrate on your daughter…
She’ll be all right, now? A whisper.
I think you need a doctor for her.
No! God, No.
You must. She’s draining away. I can go back into the town with a truck…
She put a hand out. No. She’ll be all right…
Well into the next night the girl lay still as death, only her hoarse breathing and florid rings on her cheeks like half-crowns, showed she was alive. He and the woman tended her and he tended the woman with hot tea and soft words. She’ll be all right. She’s young. And healthy; she was healthy, wasn’t she? And the woman nodding and nodding and saying little of any sense.
He spoke carefully again. What about the doctor? Just to check her. You can’t lose her as well.
She didn’t answer him but shook her head firmly and slowly and pursed her mouth. He had no right to interfere further.
If you’re certain.
I am certain. Certain of that. Anyway, she’s improving, look. The girl’s face had not altered and her breathing was no easier. Look. She’s better I tell you! A sob from the woman holding her throat as if to strangle herself,
All right… But you must keep strong then. For her. Sleep, if you can.
I couldn’t.
You might.
No. I’ll be all right.
You’ve had no rest. None for days by the look of things.
I can manage.
Early dusk fell and gauze-like lavender settled on the room downstairs. By now, the woman in her chair and studying the fire.
You sleep now, she said to him. You’ve done enough for us. Her chin lowered into her knuckled hand and she listening to the gas pop and splutter from the coal.
I still have something to do.
She looked at him tilting her face.
I’ll see to it just now.
What?
You have a spade… in one of the sheds? He stood, his arms loose by his sides.
Back to the coals. Dear Lord! Yes, softly.
I’ll manage… He stood a while looking with her into the fire, then made to go outside. I’ll find things.
The woman spoke as if to the flames in the grate. Seren, she said. She has to have a name. Seren. It means Star.
Yes.
The man carried the bundle now shrouded in the sheet and newspaper, a spade over his shoulder slipping and sliding over the yard on crystal sheets of ice to stumble and rearrange the bundle under his arm, and open a side gate, quietly though there was no one to hear it creak, no one to see him, head down going along the narrow pathway brushing aside frost covered fantasies of hedgerow, to hear the crunch underfoot and the owl hoot inquiringly. A clear sky again. He came out into a white field, clumps of grass forming fairyland castles, the heap of dung a strange white-capped hill. He tapped the spade on the hill and even the dung had frosted hard. He walked round inspecting every place and found an old hen house staved in and shoved half under the hedge. The wire netting cage now home to feral cats that wailed and spat at him as he kicked the coop over and tested the ground. He cursed for not having a fork. He removed the paper carefully, wadded it and slipped it into his pocket, and laid the baby bundle in the winter wonderland, stiff now and watched over by yellow slits huddled beneath the hedge, the cats making strange growling noises and baring their teeth and yowling through them. He struck the ground that had been kept from freezing by the warm pulse of a wild animal. He dug through the acrid stench of cat pee until he reached an appropriate depth and hoped that the soft and pliable bones would not stay too long and that they would melt and nourish the spring celandine and the wood sorrel. And that her being would have some purpose. Before he picked up the swaddled baby now glistening with frozen dew specks, he shook out a cloth he’d had a mind to bring, placed it over the face now quite beautiful in his eyes, and cushioned it behind the head and stood with it a while. He bent and lowered her gently into the earth, her cold cradle now powdered and silvery. He looked up at the vastness and marvelled at the perfect placing of each star. He mouthed Pater Nostra qui es in coelis… Our Father who art in heaven… Could he ever be forgiven?
Almost twenty-four hours since he’d first knocked, he tapped on the back door again and eased himself in quietly, wiping snowflakes off his sleeves. It was as if this was that first time. The woman, standing there, cloth and teacup.
It did snow then?
A flurry. It won’t last. Too cold I think.
I’m just making a pot.
The dawn was just unlocking the room and cast a cold light over it. I’ll stoke the fire, he said.
There’s paper-sticks, cinders, it’ll catch again.
He knelt down and took the poker and levelled the dying embers. He took three plaited sticks and arranged them then he fetched from his pocket the wadded newspaper and placed that on top. Large cinder shells on top of that. A handful of black nubs. We’ll soon get the place warmed up. How is the girl…your daughter?
Sleeping. A good sleep now it seems. She waved the cup limply. Have you…Where have…?
Somewhere quiet. Out of the way of things...
She nodded. Best.
I said something, you know, when I laid her in.
She nodded again and brought up her face to find his eyes. He did not let her find them.
They drank the tea. She sliced and buttered bread and spread it with honey, passed it to him and took up her place in the fireside chair. He finished eating.
You rest now, she said.
I think I will. You’re all right?
I will be. Will you be warm enough with the straw? Take a blanket. Anything you want. A quilt. There’s only her and me. She did not move from her chair.
Thank you. May I take more bread?
Anything. She sat still, her arms invisible in a shawl. An age-old posture. Her hair now loosed from their pins fell in slender caramel coloured fingers about her face and on the nape of her neck. Her hopelessness touched Quinn and he wanted to reach out and gently push the hair from her face and stroke that neck until she might weep against him.
There’s just the two of you, here, looking after this?
Yes, since eighteen months now. I’m widowed.
I’m sorry.
She looked as if that sorrow was a long way away, as if it had been overtaken.
Will you need help? Just till she’s stronger?
I will. I will, dear God. I don’t know what we’re going to do.
I can stay. For a while.
Yes. Yes, please.
He stood with an eiderdown draped over his arm. Will you go up and rest too?
Yes, I’d best be near her. ’Case she calls... And you can wash in the back scullery whenever you need. Anything you want, take it. She waved him gone, wearily.
Thank you, Mrs…
Mostyn. Alys Mostyn.
I’m known as Quinn, Mrs Mostyn. Shout out if you need me.
The following days weather mirrored the silent house. The sky plain and dull holding back the snow. The frost lost its prettiness and little moved about the place: yard cats, the dog, hens, all lethargic. The dunnocks’ ‘tseep’ less shrill; the ‘pink, pink,’ of the chaffinch quieter. The shriek of the barn owl less piercing. As if all the small life in that bleak place knew of the sadness there; as if they too, knew of the hurt. A wind chime fashioned from all kinds of childish things hung motionless from the limb of a stunted fruit tree, itself bent the way of many winter winds: tin-foil bells made from milk bottle tops, broken crockery and glass, green, blue, tied and fastened with little pieces of plaited string; midnight blue mussel shells and creamy pink cockle shells threaded with cotton. Silent now to match the mood. An enamel pan, shallow and half sunk into the earth, a bucket half full of feed swollen and grotesque. Dereliction had come rapidly to this farmstead.
Christmas 1959 came quietly and uncelebrated; none of the three people in that place wanted to dwell upon the birth of a baby, Christ-child or not. New Year’s Eve saw little difference from any of those awful days. Alys twiddled the knobs on the wireless: A bit of music might help raise our spirits for a while, she said sighing. They sat with glasses of port and some beers. The child who’d had to grow up so violently sat reading the Girl; she nibbled at cheese straws she’d learned to make at school, and sipped lemonade. In between the wailing bagpipes, riotous stamping and singing from somewhere in Scotland and humour from Wee Winnie and Wee Jock McCree, one of Harold Macmillan’s government ministers kept interrupting with talk of the new decade about to hit Britain: After the dark days and aftermath of war, we are catching up with and overtaking those dark days. He shouted as if he were in direct competition with the Hogmanay Night revellers: Nineteen-Sixty will herald a new era! An era the likes of which has never been anticipated before in the history of our Country… Wee Winnie told a joke in a thick accent, which rendered it unintelligible; she and Wee Jock screamed with raucous laughter and the sound of a huge drum banged and the band played a lively reel – a strange muffled sound with a background crackling as the waves travelled the air and somehow found this little farmstead. Again, the minister: We will instigate policies of peace, liberty and law; we will capitalise on the noble National Health Service, the Education Act and expand the roads and highways programme. We will raise living standards and encourage the enjoyment of more leisure time – even as I speak, one in three families today has a car or motor-cycle, two out of three is able to rent a television set, and twice as many are now taking holidays away from home… The band’s noise grew into fervour and the Scots Master of Ceremonies marked time: One Hour to Go, he announced above the din, One hour before we say Giud-by Tae the Fifties…One hour before we welcome in 1960! Alys Mostyn turned the knob low and said; It’s time I went to bed.
Quinn said he’d turn in too. The mother helped her daughter up off the chair: the child still could not move well: You too my girl, she said wearily. Tomorrow’s another day.
***