(1 John 1:9)
Tirzah is walking to the manse. Tonight is Pastor’s wife’s monthly meeting for girls over the age of twelve. The incident with Osian and his father has sunk below the surface of chapel life like a weighted bundle lobbed in a lake, but Tirzah knows that everyone is mindful of it. No matter how heavy and tightly bound, they are aware of the way that sad bundle is wedged between rocks, waiting for a strong current to offer it back to them. We are all to blame, she thinks. We should have done something to protect Osian from his father. But I am the most to blame, first for saying we had to be friends, and then wickedly turning about and kissing him like mad. A new thought stabs her: maybe she got him all stirred up. Maybe the sheet thing is her fault? Worst of all, it seems to her, is the shameful way she abandoned him when he needed her most. She’s slowed down, preoccupied with her thoughts. Yesterday at chapel, Osian sat between Mr and Mrs Evans, his head bowed. When any of the brothers and sisters addressed him, he didn’t speak; she noticed his father spoke for him. Soon people stopped trying, it being too pitiful and serving to strengthen their feelings of guilt. Her own mother didn’t stop, though. She hugged his stiff body and kissed his cold cheek. Through his black hair he shot unfathomable looks. Tirzah, waiting beside her mother, squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.
She stops walking altogether. Ahead, at the bottom of the tall steps that lead up to the manse, she can hear Biddy and Ffion, a friend of Biddy’s from school, talking about the exams. But Tirzah hangs back, seared by the thought of Osian’s penitent journey. How did Pastor’s wife greet Osian? she wonders. His walk around the fellowship was probably her idea; she’s always keen on contrition, forever calling some poor soul out on account of a lapse. Tirzah’s mother had been on the sharp end with her a few times. In fact she came home from the Dorcas meeting not long ago looking blotchy and breathless. I told her, she’d said. Mrs Thomas, I said. You may be the wife of a minister, but just you remember the scripture tells us first to sort out the plank in our own eye before we start pointing to the tiny speck in someone else’s. Tirzah was impressed. If I did wrong, so be it, her mother had gone on, folding her headsquare into a tiny knot. She always was a judgemental piece, even as a child. Now Tirzah walks on, sure Osian wouldn’t have received a scrap of comfort from her. Everyone who goes to the girls’ meeting is mesmerised by Mrs Thomas. She is a thin, bow-legged woman who grasps her own throat with nervous fingers while she’s talking. Tirzah is amazed by the marks left on her skin when she addresses them each month. On the way home from the meeting they often break into groups and discuss how Mrs Thomas can stand it, throttling herself like that all the time.
Not that long ago, everyone had laughed when Biddy said Mrs Thomas was actually off her onion. Ffion laughed the loudest, her stiff pigtails jerking about. Yeah, she’d said, backing Biddy up, that woman makes everybody cry, just like onions do. Tirzah saw how Ffion would laugh at such a thing; her parents were not chapel-goers, and she only attends when she’s bored. Her parents buy her all the latest fashions. That night she was wearing tight denim bell-bottoms that showed off her slender legs, and a striped top that exposed her midriff when she moved. What do you mean? Tirzah had asked her, embarrassed that she didn’t understand what off her onion meant, starkly aware of her own old-lady skirt and blouse. Mad. Bonkers. Nuts, love, Ffion explained, chewing a fresh oblong of pink Bazooka Joe. Away with the fairies. That’s what she is. Tirzah was delighted by the onion idea. It is true, she’d thought. Mrs T is deranged. Some of the girls started to complain, saying it was wrong to talk about the pastor’s wife like that. If any of you have got a problem with what I said, Ffion had announced, chewing her gum in an exaggerated way and placing her hands on her hips, let’s have it out here and now. Me and Bid are ready. The girls had then drifted off in small clumps, heads together.
Mrs Thomas can’t even be kind to herself. Why would a person strangle themselves over and over again? wonders Tirzah as she walks on. Even though she wears high-necked blouses, you can still see the little plum-shaped bruises, some old, some fresh. It’s as if she hates herself. She is a scary person, so it’s difficult to feel sorry for her. Mrs Thomas has twin boys who hardly ever make a sound. Their coin-flat faces are impassive under two identical coverings of brown hair so thin and shining that they look like child mannequins. Every Sunday they wear miniature tweed replicas of a grown man’s suit, with tie and pin, and kneel on the floor either side of their mother’s lap in a pew all to themselves. Tirzah sits behind with her parents and she knows the boys are always absorbed with drawing burning aircraft and bodies spurting with blood in their matching lined notebooks. More and more she believes that a sort of fervent, smothered insanity grips the whole congregation. Biddy smiles as Tirzah catches them up at the bottom of the steps. Let’s get this over with, she says.
In the crowded room, Tirzah, Biddy and Ffion manage to bag the sofa as usual. Now they are older it’s a tight fit, but they are always perfectly good and never fidget. Mrs Thomas would have them down the front in a trice, they know, if she could find a reason for doing so. As they settle, Ffion asks Tirzah how she’s done in the exams. Fine, Tirzah says. Come on, tell me, Ffion presses. I s’pect you got all A’s. Am I right? Tirzah nods. Ssshh, she adds. The oracle is about to utter. Mrs Thomas is speaking. Now, girls, she says from her place nearest the electric fire, remember, I am the shepherdess tonight, and you are the sheep. That means I lead, and you follow. The girls watch her fingers plucking the fabric of her skirt. You must ask for a prayerful, humble attitude and an open heart. Tirzah is straining to see Mrs Thomas’s hands, and nudges Biddy when Mrs Thomas suddenly lunges for her own frilly-collared neck. It’s as if the hand belongs to someone else.
Let us pray, Mrs Thomas says, closing her eyes against the terrible sinfulness of the world. And cultivate a blessed state of readiness. Tirzah sits, pinned between Ffion and Biddy, breathing in the smell of Ffion’s chewing gum. The three of them always pass a squeeze back and forth each week as Mrs Thomas asks the group to open their hearts. Squeeze, goes Ffion’s bony hand in hers. Is anything burdening you, dear ones? Mrs Thomas asks, sighing as she grips either side of her windpipe tightly. There is a long, pressurised sort of silence in the warm room. The electric fire creaks, its two bars glowing like red-hot pokers. Tirzah sends the squeeze on its way, aware of her own burdens. They are like hedgehoggy creatures: tightly curled balls of worry, eager to open out into unhandleable weights, both spiky and floppy. Sometimes even getting out of bed without wakening them is impossible. But one of these burdens is Osian, and truly, she is happy to carry him, if she must.
Behind her glasses, Mrs Thomas has the strangest eyelids, Tirzah realises, scrunching up her own eyes to have a look. Does anyone have such flat eyeballs? Or wet-looking lids? They are meant to be examining their hearts, as Mrs Thomas puts it, but the squeeze has returned, through Biddy, back to Ffion and now Tirzah feels it again and sends it on immediately. Off it goes, through Ffion, then briefly rests in the palm of Biddy’s hand, who always returns it in a heartbeat. Tirzah has another look, hoping Mrs T is examining her own heart too, and sees she is on the point of standing up, desperate for someone to crack. Dear girls, we are all fallen creatures, she says, her voice coaxing. But Tirzah can see how tight her hand is and hear her laboured breathing. Waiting makes Mrs Thomas seize up. Tirzah wishes someone would speak.
Soon the questioning will begin, and then the questioning will become a winkling. Eventually she won’t shirk her duty: Mrs Thomas will skewer someone. It’s a relief when she finally chooses a person; all the other girls can slump back and keep their heads bowed. But still, listening to Mrs Thomas’s remorseless questions makes Tirzah blush so thoroughly even her feet are hot. Biddy’s long hair completely obscures her face, and Tirzah notices how it quivers like a pair of gauzy nightdresses hanging above a radiator. The squeeze between the girls becomes an elaborate pattern: two short, one long and three quick pulses. Tirzah imagines it’s a series of thoughts passing between the three of them. Maybe Biddy or Ffion is trying to dredge up a sin, a trespass, a guilty lapse they can safely offer up to Mrs Thomas before she pounces. It doesn’t seem likely with those two, though. But someone should volunteer, Tirzah knows. It’s much the best way to do it.
Just as Tirzah begins to feel a bubble of laughter rising almost to her tonsils, she hears Mrs Thomas’s voice calling her name. With a thrum of panic between the shoulder blades she stands and puts her palms together, starting to spill words automatically. Mrs Thomas the shepherdess releases her throat and raises a hand for silence. You have many failings, dear child, she says sorrowfully. And one of them is haste. Tirzah looks at her and is confused by the on-off dazzle coming from her lenses when she nods her head. Beware of it, shun it, poor struggling one, Mrs Thomas urges, happy now to have a volunteer. Haste can lead you down some dangerous paths as a young woman. And while I’m on the subject, shun evil companions. You know who I’m referring to. Girls, she addresses the room. Dear, innocent girls, let Tirzah be a lesson to you.
Lesson? Shun? thinks Tirzah. Which paths? Why dangerous? The companion is Osian, of course. For a moment, Tirzah wants to whack Mrs Evans with something, knock her glasses off her accusing, stunted little nose. And that goes for Pastor too. Then she realises the horrible woman would have a turn if she knew about Brân. This gives her a brief glow before she dismisses it; that won’t help her now. In spite of herself, she becomes afraid about those dangerous paths and needs to go to the lav. Come, Mrs Thomas says, confess your sins, dear. You will be better for it. A whispering breaks out among the girls in the packed room. Tirzah is casting around for something to tell Mrs Thomas before she loses patience. There is so much she could spill out about so many things, but most of it is unsayable. I have had bad thoughts, she blurts out at last, and each word is like a bloodied tooth being wrenched from her jaw. Ah, yes? Mrs Thomas sits forward in her chair. And? No one will judge you, my child. Out with it. Tirzah suddenly remembers something. I have harboured wicked thoughts about you, she says, relieved to have something to say at last. Mrs Thomas sits back and grips her throat again, paralysing Tirzah with her flat eyes. Well? she asks. I have been thinking you’d gone off your onion, Tirzah says, louder now. And for that I am very sorry.
Mrs Thomas reluctantly lets go of her neck. Above the frill of her blouse, dark red fingermarks appear. A silence, murky as canal water, emanates from beneath the chair she sits in, and Tirzah draws back, reluctant to be touched by it. Thank you, Mrs Thomas says at last, swallowing with effort while she looks down at the Bible’s open pages. Her shoulders are more rounded and her hair thinner somehow. The crowded room waits, the silence teetering now on the edge of laughter. Tirzah is triumphant, watching Mrs Thomas diminish before the whole room. But almost immediately, her heart curls up like a prodded woodlouse, and she prays that no one will laugh. The red bars of the electric fire blacken at their edges, and the drawn curtains quiver in a breeze. Everyone is still, and yet the room feels full of movement. Tirzah is absolutely sure that if anyone giggles now, Mrs Thomas will be irreparably damaged in some way. She knows the wild, barely contained part of herself would love that. But suddenly, she doesn’t even want strange, cruel Mrs T to suffer. There are more than enough unhappy people in her life already.