(Luke 9:58)
After school the next day, Tirzah has the house to herself. She is tidying her room, trying to be a good girl, and thinking about how strange things are now. The only glimpse she’s had of Osian, apart from chapel, is of him slowly cycling through the streets, delivering groceries for his father. She tried a wave at first, but he seemed to ignore her, so she gave up. And there has been no sign of Brân for weeks. Tirzah’s mind has been snagged on so many spiky, uncomfortable things she has not even thought of him. The musings about his private parts don’t count, she tells herself. And it’s strange, there was a time when she couldn’t help bumping into him; he’d be hanging around outside the Co-op, his followers kicking a half-deflated football, or she’d see them running behind him round the streets, playing some complicated game that usually involved dares of some sort. If a window was smashed, sure enough, Brân would be the one everyone blamed. He was banned from most of the shops on the main street because he’d always nick stuff, passing it to his followers, who’d dart, quick as minnows, out of the shop door and away, stuffing their pockets with sweets or bread rolls or apples, whatever was easy to filch. Maybe they’ve disbanded, she thinks.
But then how would Brân manage? His little boys are the only thing between him and complete loneliness, she realises, remembering how he’d been, lassoing the boys’ attention with the promise of sweets outside the Co-op when she first met him. The little children are still in school, but she hasn’t bumped into them outside the shops on the weekend like she used to. Suddenly she recalls seeing him when he was much younger, squatting on the kerb outside a house at the far end of the village. He was with a shabby girl who had a pickled onion in one hand and an Oxo cube in the other. The messy-mouthed girl sat huddled over her snack, wincing happily as she alternately licked the onion and nibbled the brown cube. Just below her knees she had the maroon, angry-looking bands of skin you get from wearing nothing but wellies every day. Brân had been chewing on a piece of bread covered with what looked like dripping. The memory shocks her so much she has to stop folding clothes and close her eyes for a moment. So that was Brân. Never allowed in the house. And that was his little sister.
It seems to Tirzah that Brân is the loneliest of all the people she knows. I should find him, she decides. Maybe I can help him in some way. It’s difficult to know how, though. Brân needs a whole new life with a new set of parents and a fresh, pink heart, because she fears his is already beginning to shrivel like a bitter walnut. At chapel they are always being told that Jesus is powerful enough for anything. Certainly He should be able to give some of these things to Brân, but somehow she can’t see Brân wanting Jesus to sort him out. Jesus, with his shimmering blue and white robes, his loose waves of strawberry blond hair and outspread, ladylike hands, would be a bit useless trying to befriend Brân. I believe in Him, she thinks, and even I have trouble imagining Jesus would be all that interested in the stupid things I do. I suspect that if Jesus didn’t know me from chapel, He’d never give me a second glance. Still, after she’s made herself some toast with butter and a smear of Bovril, and is back in her room, she sends an arrow prayer up for Brân, just in case.
The silent house settles around Tirzah. Her mother is leading the afternoon Dorcas meeting and Dada is still at work. Does her father do sums all day? Once, when she was little, she and her mother had popped into the foundry where he was the book-keeper to give him his sandwiches. She recalls the heat and overwhelming, nose-singeing fumes. Her chest had reverberated with the brutal noise of machines. For ages afterwards she’d pictured the foundry as a sort of hell, gobs of molten metal spraying around and tongues of flame lapping the doors of the furnaces. And under it all a deep, persistent, earth-shaking boom that terrified her. Poor Dada, she’d thought. How can he stand it every day? Now, eating her toast she thinks about Derry. He must be at his mysterious factory job too. Lying on her bed, she has to admit something to herself: she would like to see Brân. In her thoughts he is swirled around by tall trees and roaring flames. Each time she pictures him on the mountain, with his hair blown into savage tufts and his rain-hued eyes looking down at her, she’s filled with strange thoughts. But honestly, she tells herself, I think Brân is horrible. She remembers him bashing Osian with a burning stick, and how he smelt when she was close to him that day. He needs a good bath. She doesn’t even want to think about the state of his underwear.
She gets up, scattering crumbs, and goes down to the kitchen to make herself a drink, glad that Jesus isn’t sitting at the table watching her. She tops an inch of orange squash with tap water, aware that He is able to read her innermost thoughts anyway. For the first time in her life she actually wishes that the Son of God would get lost. Brân is a very handsome boy, and that’s the truth, she thinks, climbing the stairs again. Am I supposed to pretend he isn’t? She picks up her old biology book and thumbs through, but can’t stop the brown, lean face of Brân swimming between her eyes and the illustrated pages on asexual reproduction. I’m glad I’m not an amoeba, she thinks, imagining herself touching Brân’s narrow waist, and how it would be to rest her cheek against his chest. She hears someone calling her name. For one scared moment she thinks it is Jesus, but then realises her mother’s at the foot of the stairs telling her to come down.
At the kitchen table, Tirzah’s father rolls out an extra-long prayer as the food gets cold. Tirzah peers through her laced fingers and can tell, even though her eyes are tightly closed, that her mother is impatient for the prayer to end. But her father is carried away. He’s finished with thanking the Lord for the blessings laid out before them and is pleading with Him to step in and sort Derry out. Bring him low, Father, he shouts. Crush him. Show him Thy terrible wrath. Turn him from his heathen ways. Tirzah’s mother stays quiet. She doesn’t want to prolong the prayer by responding in any way. Tirzah looks down at her cooling lamb chop and chips. She would hate to see Derry crushed; he’s certainly no saint, but he’s not that bad either. And somehow she likes that someone from the normal world is around. Finally, it’s over, and they can eat. Now then, her father says, vigorously shaking the bottle of HP sauce, what have you two been up to? Tirzah keeps silent. She’s thinking about how her father always seems to be shaking something.
Her mother starts telling him about the knitted squares the ladies are making, and how they will be sewn together and turned into little blankets for the children in Africa. That is good work, Mair, he states, his fork jabbing in her direction. I am moved to prayer again just thinking about you dear women toiling away. Not now, Gwyll, she says, patting the table. Eat up, please. And you? he asks, looking at Tirzah. I was reading, she answers, looking at her chips and stiff little chop. Nothing wrong with a bit of reading, he says. Depending on whether it’s edifying or not, of course. Now eat up. She takes hold of her cutlery, but gets no further. I’m not hungry, she says. Can I leave the table? You may be a big girl these days, her father tells her, chewing a large mouthful of his chip butty, but you will sit there until all that plate of good victuals is eaten. He dips a last corner of bread into the HP sauce spread around his plate rim. Think about how blessed you are. They leave Tirzah at the table with her untouched food, and take their cups of tea into the living room.
Tirzah spends time looking for Brân around the village. She does not have so much as a sighting. It’s another mystery; where does Brân go all day? Has he really left home to live rough? On Saturday she decides to search the woods where she and Biddy saw him worshipping at his altar. Before she leaves she scans the pantry shelves and snatches a jar of Bovril to take him, pushing it into her pocket. She’s pleased with herself; he can always boil stream water and make himself a tasty drink with it. Under a sullen sky the sounds of the village fade quickly as Tirzah crosses the fields. The sheep barely raise their heads when she passes. They look so bored, she thinks. And I don’t blame them. Grass all the day long, and maybe a thistle if they’re lucky.
Soon the woods rear up and Tirzah picks her way through the brambles, tearing her skirt even though she’d bunched it up in one hand. Inside, the trees drip on to the undergrowth, making small, musical tinkling sounds. Now and then a heavy wet plonk lands on Tirzah’s head, making her start as if someone’s pinched her bottom. She stops to look up through the treetops; it is important she should locate the sky. The light is strange, and the torn scraps she can make out above the trees each time she strains to see are turning from a grubby pink to something more like glowing orange as the afternoon wears on. This isn’t a normal sky, she thinks. It’s like sunset would be on the last evening of the world. Somehow, this makes her more serious about her search.
Down the broad, steep incline she climbs, trying not to slip, trampling the glossy, sword-like leaves and frilled blossoms of the bluebell carpets. The bulbous jar of Bovril bangs her leg rhythmically. Silence lies on every damp, green surface. Tirzah was planning to call out for Brân, but now it would be unthinkable to make a sound. She is suddenly so nervous her tongue is wedged between her teeth. Invisible threads touch her eyelids as she walks. With each step forward she feels a growing sense that this is a bad idea. Below, near the stream, she sees a dense wigwam of branches and a thin drift of smoke rising. Her heart judders painfully. Is this where Brân is living? she wonders, suddenly struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Tirzah stands, waiting for Brân to appear. She knows the silent minutes are sliding forward all around the world, but in this wood there is the feeling of one immense intake of breath, where nothing moves, nothing happens. Then she hears a prolonged sound of coughing. A pair of crows are disturbed by the noise. Squawking and flapping their tattered wings, they make off, rising through the upper beech canopy. Tirzah stirs, watching them, and when she looks back towards the wigwam, there is Brân, knee deep in the undergrowth, a tall crown of iridescent feathers and ferns on his head, and daubs of something dark on his face. Tirzah begins to walk shakily forward; he is beckoning to her.