The Pull of the North

Rona Laycock

Amelia hated the sound of the wind in the trees. The way it howled and buffeted its way through the copse at the back of their house. She would hear voices mingled with the clashing of branches; voices as old as the mountains that surrounded the town. At night in particular, she could make out the cries of ghosts and the deep rumbling bass notes of demons and she would shudder in her bed unable to sleep. No one else in the house was worried; Siôn would laugh at what he called her fantasy life and the twins just looked bewildered for a while if she mentioned it and then they would go back to their toys.

She loved the girls with every atom in her body but she couldn’t understand them. To look at them you would think the only DNA they had inherited was from her but in their heads they were Siôn’s. They only thought in concrete facts. Even from a young age they had had immense concentration when they played with building blocks and toy animals, but when she had tried to tell them tales from her homeland their attention would wander and she could see them staring longingly at their toys. Perhaps it was too much to ask; they couldn’t imagine the golden shine of gelid water at sunset; the vivid blues found in calving glaciers or the white mountains of ice that sailed past brightly coloured settlements. She would tell them the stories her mother and grandmother had told her, about the souls that lived in everything: rocks, animals and plants. About how the human soul could move from animal to animal. And she would explain the morals of stories that showed how people should live their lives. They never questioned her about these tales, never asked for them to be told, they were happy to go to bed tired out after running around outside and she realised she was reciting the stories because of the fear that if she didn’t keep telling them she would forget who she was.

When she had confided in Siôn’s mother about the way the twins seemed not to be interested in stories, she had laughed. ‘Just like Siôn,’ she said. ‘Never happier than when he could build up his bricks and knock them down or knock his brother’s toys over.’

The first time Siôn hit her she wondered if she had imagined it. The blow was so sudden, so unexpected and his face so impassive as he lashed out. The twins had cried and rushed to her side and later she understood that that was why he had not hit her a second time that day. He lost his job at the boatyard because of a fight. She heard so many different stories; Siôn had started it, someone else had hit Siôn first, it had been a free for all, with fists and feet flying and Siôn just hit the wrong person – the foreman. Whatever the cause, Siôn had been fired on the spot and instead of coming home straightaway he had been in the Skull and Crossbones until the barman threw him out.

She was no stranger to alcohol, it was the scourge of her community back home; since the coming of the Danes and industry, many young Inuit men no longer learned the ways of their elders and they felt they had no role to play. They existed on handouts and occasional jobs in the tanneries and fish packing factories. Drink had become a solace and a curse; she had lost her youngest brother to alcohol. She remembered the night he didn’t come home and the days spent searching for him, praying he would be found crashed out at a friend’s place or in a boat. A week later he had been found, washed up amongst the debris on the fishing island. His body was tangled up in nylon netting and the verdict had been that he had stumbled into the harbour while he was drunk. It was not an uncommon story.

Siôn drank more and in his befuddled stupor he would blame her for being a millstone round his neck; there was nothing she could do as night after night he would sit in front of the television drinking whatever he could get his hands on. The twins were spared most of it as she made sure they were in bed long before he became abusive, although she knew he would never hurt them; even at his most drunken she could see he loved them and would be tender towards them. She just didn’t want them to see what he did to her.

One night she had a dream that was so vivid it spilled over into her waking life. She was in the small church where they had got married. A tiny corrugated iron building that was dull green on the outside, but on the inside was painted a pure, beautiful white. Colour came from the abundance of wild flowers covering the altar, a gold cross that gleamed in the weak sunlight and the model ship that hung above the aisle. She was dressed in beaded skins, the traditional costume she had worn for the wedding and she could hear her mother singing – not hymns but an Inuit song of celebration. She opened her eyes but could still hear the music; as she prepared breakfast for the girls her head filled with visions and sounds from her village to the south of Qaqortoq. There was a letter from home on the doormat, she tucked it unopened into her pocket; she needed somewhere quiet to read it.

After walking the girls to school, she went to the tiny church of St Philip that was perched halfway up the mountain. Unlike the big parish church in town, this church was intimate in scale and she felt safe within its granite walls.

Winter was coming, she could feel it in the whispers borne on the north wind; soon it would snow and the mountains would sparkle in bright cold sunlight and she would feel the tug of home. It happened every year.

She pulled the letter out of her coat pocket and looked at the writing on the envelope. Not her mother’s; she ripped it open and saw that it was from her uncle. Everything she had dreaded was in the letter; her mother had died. Suddenly and without warning. She tried to make sense of the words – aneurysm, very fast, didn’t suffer. What did any of that matter?

She walked back to her house in despair. The day passed and the children came home; she made their tea and helped them with their homework. Their voices were strange, the language was wrong, their laughter was wrong; she watched them as they built bridges and houses with brightly coloured bricks. Left to their own devices they would build for hours. They built towns and cities that were completely alien to her. Siôn came in in high spirits; he had found a job on the ferries – good pay. He threw himself down beside the girls and they built and built; the living room filled with a miniature city of hard edged shopping centres, office blocks and flats. Here and there the girls placed plastic trees but nothing interrupted the regimented streets and blocks. There was nothing organic in their project, nothing Amelia could identify with.

The girls went happily to bed; no time for stories, they were too tired. Amelia kept her hand on the letter as she listened to Siôn talk about the good times that were coming. They went to bed and for the first time in ages they made love.

At midnight Amelia felt her mother call; she got up and went to the window. The sky was clear and the stars shone with a brittle light. She went into the girls’ room, bent over them and whispered their Inuit names in their ears so that they would never forget who they were, then she pulled sealskin mukluks on over thick socks and dressed in her fur anorak. She had not worn it since arriving in Wales. She listened; all was silent in the house as she let herself out of the front door.

In darkness she walked to the path that led to the little church on the mountain and climbed up the steep incline. It was silent and very cold; her breath came in sobs as she passed the church and pushed on up the mountainside. Clouds were gathering above her and the stars were fading and being covered. When she reached the summit she stopped and looked down over the town; streetlights shone yellow and she could just make out some of the houses, but not her own. She climbed over the summit and found a small cwm in the lee of some rocks where she sat down. She watched the last of the stars being smothered by the clouds and then snowflakes started to fall. She took off her anorak, folded it and placed it under her head as she lay down. The cold was welcome and the snow did its best to envelop her as she fell asleep to the sounds of her mother singing.