Mary
In the blank dark, blue eyes open with a sound like the scrape of metal.
A tunnel of eyes, watching me. Each eye leads to another, the lids joined like fish scales, stretching further than the sky and deeper than the earth.
I’ve been here before. In a fever place. These eyes belong to someone. These eyes are from some other time, long before now. Pain right through me, ice all around me, and through the dark, blue eyes stare. I’m floating in this tunnel of eyes, my shin stings, two marks on it, red raised lumps. No light apart from the glints in the eyes.
Eyes filled with sky
sky filled with eyes
only the night sky.
I’m lying in a hollow, in thick grass. I’m hid in the graveyard, ivy tangled over a blackthorn bush what keeps me from view. Headstones I can’t see must be all around me. Names and names and names. My shin stings like it’s aflame.
A rope lies coiled in the grass like a sleeping snake.
The deadtaker said to Da when Mam died, ‘If she’d been able to get the venom out she might have survived.’ I cut one of the handles off my bag, tie it round my leg just above the bite.
I grip my knife. My hand shakes. I make a cut. Only a scratch, islands of blood. I clench my teeth and plunge the blade in deep, cut right through the two raised tooth marks. The venom seeps out, runs thick pale yellow down my leg, streaked through with blood. I press down around the cut, squeeze as much poison out as I can. My legs shake like them’ll never stop. Pain shoots all through me, my heart thuds my ribs, the thud spreads all over me, thudding my head, my hands, my legs, my back. The strength goes out of my hands. The blackthorn bushes and ivy move in the wind, the dark sky spins and blurs. The ground wallops against my back.
I open my eyes. Clouds scrunch up in the dark sky, like a giant hand has pinched and squeezed them into shapes.
My blood feels solid. Pins and needles jangle over the skin of my face. The only part of my body I can move is my eyes, and the night sky is thick with thorns.
A sound. Someone breathing. In and out, low and heavy, the breathing of a man.
Movement of grass behind my head, hims hand swishes the grass. Him is hid here with me, letting me lie here. I clench my throat and try to make a sound. It dun work. A smell of dust. The moon is lost in clouds.
‘You’re awake,’ says hims low voice.
Hims hand appears.
A pale white hand, long and thin.
Him puts it over my mouth.
Can’t get my mouth wide enough to bite.
Him leans in close to my ear.
My brother’s eyes in a tall man’s face.
Langward.
Him hisses in my ear, ‘You look so like your mother.’
Hims hand over my mouth. A scream, trapped in my throat, a pincushion with pins sticking outwards. Hims eyes crawl down my body and back to my face.
I strain as hard as I can, nothing moves.
Him slides hims cheek against mine, breathes in my ear, ‘They’ve been searching for you. But you’re not found. So here we are. In a hiding place, as if we’re children. And you … can’t speak, can you?’ Him takes hims hand off my mouth.
I open my eyes wide, think get away get away get away, but hims cheek presses against mine and him hisses in my ear, ‘Beatrice should never have ended the brief, I have to say, unsatisfying, us. Dying is so selfish.’ Him sits up and stares at my chest.
‘You’ve forgotten. Should I remind you, or would it be cruel? Should I remind you that … for her, it was always about trade. We agreed that I’d leave her alone, but, she said I could have you. And aren’t you … grown-up.’
Hims face blurs like him is above the surface of the sea and I’m looking up from the seabed. Freezing cold, white cracks in my blood where it should be warm. This is a lie to break me open, so him can smash me up.
Him taps a finger along my eyebrow. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ him says.
I’m thinking: Dun say Mam traded me, for I’ve got a head full of blanks in my memory and I might believe you.
Him says, ‘You’re thinking, how did I escape from your Thrashing House, when the others couldn’t?’ Him waits. Hims pale face shines like polished stone. ‘A door opened. They didn’t believe they could get out. So they couldn’t. Panic renders people dumb. A bit like you are now, if you think about it.’ Him strokes my cheek with one finger. Him strokes, strokes, mutters, ‘Belief is a powerful thing. Seeing what you believe, rather than what’s there … believing there are no doors, when a door is open.’ Him leans hims face over mine.
Him puts the palms of hims hands on both sides of my face. Hims eyes look at my hair, my lips, my cheeks, like him is hunting for something in my face. Him says, ‘Beatrice. Of course I would meet you again, in a graveyard.’ Him presses my cheeks together, makes my lips pucker.
Him shakes hims head, lets go of my cheeks and snarls in my ear, ‘What shall we trade?’
I want the blank dark. Anywhere that isn’t here, anywhere that isn’t now.
Langward leans over my lips full of pins and needles. I think of the broideries I make. How sharp the needle is. How I jab it through the linen when I’m doing a picture I dun like. Broiderie needles coming out of my lips. Bloody hims face up with scratches …
I’m too young to be here, under hims hands. Too young for whatever this is.
Him moves down so him is kneeling next to my thighs. I can just see hims head and shoulders. Hims shoulders move. Him unbuttons my coat. The fabric of my dress rips. Him leans forwards, frowns at my bandaged breasts.
My head jerks.
I smash it back as hard as I can on the ground.
I’m back in the blank dark, blue eyes all around me and I’m not even scared.
Langward kneels next to me. Him puts hims finger on my cheek.
‘You’re awake. Stop crying,’ him says, sharp.
My face is wet.
‘You’re a mess.’ Him leans over me and lifts my shoulders.
A red flash. I’m sat up. The scream in my throat shrinks and hides.
I’ve room in there to speak.
‘I’m fine,’ my voice is hoarse.
Him takes hims hands off me and says, ‘Tell me you’re fine again.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Tell me nothing happened. I’m not here.’
‘Never saw you. Let me alone now.’
‘And …’
‘Nothing happened.’ Him feels further away.
‘Again,’ him says, sharp.
The sky shifts, and shifts back.
Him nods. ‘If you don’t tell anyone I’ve ever touched you, and say “nothing happened” if asked about me, I’ll trade with you.’
‘For what?’ I ask.
‘For saying “nothing happened”, I’ll tell you all I know about Barney. But this trade can’t be broken.’
I stare at the grass. Him knows something about Barney when everyone else just thinks him is part of a trade. Lost to the main land. If I agree to this, there’s no Thrashing House for Langward. No justice for me. This night is forgotten.
I say, ‘Agreed. Now tell me about Barney.’
I gaze at a strand of ivy hanging from a clutter of thorns and twigs, and wait for him to speak.
‘Your father told me Barney was my son.’
‘Why would him—’
‘I didn’t know, till the trade of the boys was first discussed. You’ve forgotten.’
‘I know you’re Barney’s real Da. What else?’
‘No. I don’t think it would be right to remind you.’ Hims head tilts. ‘It would make you … more attached. Though it may be pointless, if it is as it seems. It was planned the same as the others. Your father knocked Barney out, and took him out of the back door while you were selling his fish.’
‘Da knocked him out? Barney must’ve been so hurt!’
Langward frowns. ‘Be quieter, or I won’t speak.’
I swallow, hard. ‘You can’t not speak. It’s a trade. I remember the back door slamming.’
‘Your father tangled him in a fishing net. When you went back in, I carried him down to the boats. Your father hid in the cold room.’
‘I looked in your boats—’
‘You didn’t check the fishing nets.’
Him could be right about this. I dun see nets in the boats. I’m so familiar with the sight of them. Always helping Da repair them. All Da’s silences, him must’ve been thinking that Barney dun belong with us, not with Mam gone. Da got me to work so hard to keep him, but all the while, him were planning how to get rid of Barney.
Langward growls, ‘Don’t cry.’
‘So where …’ I whisper.
‘I don’t have him any more.’
‘You last saw him on your boat?’
‘Unconscious, when we were about to leave. But just out to sea, the fishing net he’d been tangled in was empty. He couldn’t swim?’
Unconscious. ‘No, him couldn’t swim.’ I stare up at the sky so my tears dun come out. ‘That’s why you stayed here so willing. Flashed the light to tell the other tall men to go.’
‘I wanted to know if he’d been washed up here. Living, or dead. I’ve found nothing.’
My throat sends needle sharpness through my neck. I ask, ‘What did you want him for?’
‘I wanted a constant reminder. The others said he was too young, but I told them I’d find a use for him.’
‘So the other tall men dun know him is your son.’
‘I decided, best not.’ Him flexes hims fingertips. There’s blood on one of hims fingers. ‘I thought it would be interesting to have a son. Make the world more … tolerable. He looks so like her, despite—’
‘No. Him dun look like her. Him looks like himself.’ I glare at my shin. ‘You know nothing of what it’s like to live with Barney. You never will. No matter how bad a father Da were for Barney – you’d be far worse. I can’t see you ever knowing how to love a small boy what’s sick or afraid – you couldn’t even pretend to.’
Him grasps hims hand round my neck. ‘I’ve kept my trade – told you all I know.’ Him twists my face towards him. ‘So, say it.’ Hims eyes are full of anger and want, all mixed up together.
‘Nothing happened,’ I choke.
Him lets go, climbs up out of the hollow and walks away.
Now I can breathe.
If him believes my lie, that Barney can’t swim, him might go away to the main land when the other tall men come back. If him dun believe me, him will go on searching, while I can’t, for I’ve got pins and needles all through my legs.
What has him done to me when I put myself in the blank dark?
I look down at my torn dress.
My belly covered in blood and dirt.
I dun know what parts of me him touched.
With what parts of him.
But if nothing happened I can forget this.
If nothing happened I can dig a grave for it.
Throw earth all over it.
Say nothing is nothing.
Like peeling off a shadow.