by Will Dean
A blackbird beats its wings and flies away towards the sea.
I hobble back to the house and see a glint of bright green in the crack between the stones. He’s far enough away, I think. There’s time. I get to the wall and chisel out the hard-boiled sweet I deposited a few months back. I say deposited because this is my bank account, my savings, my safety deposit box of stored happiness, the only tiny joys that I am really in control of, that I can mete out and ration and use up as I see fit.
He gives them to me from time to time. A carrot as opposed to a stick. He gives me one from the window of his Land Rover like I’m a beggar or a small child. Sometimes I eat it immediately if I can’t see past the end of that day. Sometimes I secrete it into a wall or into the nook of a tree. They get damaged, sure they do. The ones on the south side of the house melt in the summer sun so that they become as misshapen as my right foot. The edges change and fill the gaps like the smallest stained-glass windows ever imagined. The ones in the trees sometimes get nibbled at by squirrels and insects. But on the days when I have nothing, the days when the skies are pitiless and dour, then at least I have my hard-boiled sweets and I draw down from those deposits and I savour them.
I put the green sweet on my tongue. A miniature rebellion.
I hobble around the outside of the cottage, small as it is, my arm skirting the dusty yellow stones, and take in the full terror of my existence. Sweet green in my mouth – some approximation of a remembered apple – and flatlands all around. With my back to the bathroom the view is almost empty. Towards the sea. I can’t see the water from here, I can’t smell the salt today, but I can sense it’s there just like humans have been able to sense since the beginning of time. The land is flat but it also slopes at some undetectable angle. It gently slips away.
I stare out at his pig barn. Damn pigs. I seldom hear them but when I do they sound deranged. When the wind blows in off the sea and the air is right then I can hear their desperate hungry squeals as he feeds them. Distant, very faint, but I can hear those pigs as he cares for them.
I skirt around the chimney breast, warm from the Rayburn on the other side of the wall, and I see the ash pile: burnt willow and burnt possessions. Past it I see the wind turbines. I’m careful not to bite down on this green sweet, it must melt slowly, its sugars pooling with my saliva, me prolonging this earnt pleasure.
He’s coming back.
I swallow the sweet and go inside and start scrubbing the floors with hot water and soap.
‘Now then,’ he says.
I look up from the floor, my right leg splayed behind me like it doesn’t belong.
‘Be back for me lunch in a bit.’
That’s the thing with farmers, or some farmers at least – they’re always dropping in. For keys, for a coffee, to fetch a hat, to eat lunch. They’re always on the farm, and if they’re not then you never know when they’ll return. I have no control over my doors or my food or my body or my clothes or my anything.
I watch him from the kitchen-sink window as he drives off towards the pigs with his plough high in the air behind his decrepit old tractor. He tells me the farm barely wipes its face by which he means it only just breaks even each year. No money to upgrade equipment, so he has to fix and make do. Lunch today will be cheese, pre-sliced, on Mighty White bread, also pre-sliced, with brown pickle. He makes me take out all the bits so it’s the consistency of thin gravy. I eat the bits. Then he’ll have an apple and a glass of lime squash. I have offered to grow food, to save him money, but he refuses. Sell it down shop, he says.
The camera watches me as I scrub down the bathroom, the toilet with its cracked cistern, and the cold iron bathtub. I bleach it, but the stains remain. Brownish red near the plughole. The mould spores bloom every now and then and need to be scoured off the ceiling with Brillo pads and painted over with special sealant paint. The camera follows me.
It’s starting to rain.
Fresh air and the cool scent of water on earth.
I get to the front door, need to bring the cloths in off the line, but there’s someone there. On his track. In my day-old footprints. She’s already past the locked halfway gate and I can see her car parked up by the barns and the old combine and she’s walking towards me. He’ll intercept her of course. There’s no way she’ll make it all the way here. I’ve had a grain delivery man almost reach this cottage twice, Jehovah’s Witnesses once, and what looked like a school group almost made it to the front door, but he always intercepts, he’s good at it. He almost always has perfect visibility on his land. I wait on the doorstep, my heart hard at the back of my chest. If she comes closer maybe I’ll scuttle up the stairs and get my ID card and show it to her. Try to explain this horror. But I know I won’t do it. I can’t. Kim-Ly has almost paid off her debt and soon she’ll be free to live a proper life in Manchester. A genuine life. She’ll be free to make friends and have a family of her own. She’ll control her things. Have the key to her own door and the option to do whatever she wants on her days off. She can watch the television programmes she enjoys, and maybe one day she’ll come back and find me here in this open prison.
The woman smiles as she approaches. A broad, easy smile. Her red hair is dark from the rain. She’s wearing a fleece and cream-coloured jodhpur trousers, the kind horse-riders wear. He’ll intercept her soon, he’ll swoop by on his quad and escort her away.
But he doesn’t.
He’s not here.
‘Glad you’re in,’ she says.
Chapter 4
I nod and turn slightly so my bad foot is hidden behind the door.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ she says, smiling and frowning. ‘I couldn’t drive all the way up so I parked my Beetle in your yard up there, by the gate, I hope that’s all right.’
Help me.
‘Damp day, isn’t it?’ She pauses. Focusses her eyes. ‘Is everything OK?’
Help me.
‘It’s just that, sorry,’ she holds out her hand, ‘how rude, my name’s Cynthia, Cynthia Townsend, nice to meet you.’
I shake her hand.
‘My name is Jane.’
My name is not Jane. My name is Thanh Dao.
‘Nice to meet you, Jane, lovely spot you’ve got here. I just moved into one of the old council houses in the next village, you know the ones, with the triangular windows above the doors?’
I nod.
I do not know the ones.
I have never been to the next village. The one with ex-council houses with triangular windows above the doors.
‘Anyway, I just moved up here and I’m thinking of getting a horse, just for hacks, you know, a tired old thing, nothing too frisky, just to walk around, and for company, really.’
I nod.
‘I just wondered if you might know anyone who’d rent me a paddock with water and a stable, nothing fancy, only I’d rather it wasn’t too far from the village.’
Help me.
The voice screams fiercely inside me. Deep inside. But on the surface I’m composed. For Kim-Ly. I must stay strong for her.
‘Or if you might have some land, just a small field. I’d be no bother.’
He’ll be back any second, taking her away and smiling and walking her back to her car at the locked halfway gate and suggesting that maybe Frank Trussock’s farm up near the bridge might have a paddock and they’ve got some decent stables up there, they used to have a livery yard back in the day.
But he doesn’t come.
I start to sweat.
‘Have a think about it if you would,’ she says.
I think I want her to take me away from this flatland hell but then Kim-Ly will be sent back, disgraced, with the full debt to repay, with threats made to my family, threats that would be made real. We each had eighteen thousand pounds to pay back to the men that brought us over. Kim-Ly’s almost paid hers off, almost. Another two years and one month. She has to pay the flat owner and the car driver and interest and other living fees, but she’ll be away from it all
soon. Free. Two more years.
I shake my head.
‘No you don’t know anyone?’ she says. ‘Or no you don’t have a paddock?’
I almost want him to come back now, to end this charade, this failed rescue, this lifeline dangled right in front of my face that I’m forced to ignore; this woman, this kind-faced red-haired woman called Cynthia who I need to tell nothing to for the sake of my baby sister, for her life.
‘You’ll have to ask my husband, Lenn.’ He’s not my husband. He’s nothing. ‘Lenn will know.’
‘Is he around? Can I speak with him today?’
I shake my head.
She peers past me into the one downstairs room with its Rayburn stove and table for two and locked TV cabinet and old desktop PC.
‘Are you sure everything’s OK?’ she asks.
I am torn inside. I crave to tell her but I bite down on my tongue.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Everything’s fine. Come back when Lenn’s around and he’ll help you.’
She smiles with her face and her eyes and her cheeks, all lines and freckles, and I think she’s beautiful in a gentle, slightly messy way.
‘OK then. Thanks, Jane, have a nice weekend, won’t you? See you around the area I expect.’
And with that she turns and smiles and her red hair shines in the shallow fen light and she walks away, normal pace, nothing like me yesterday, no scrapes on the right-hand side of the track. And she’s gone.
My heart’s punching out at my ribcage from within.
The sensation of tears but none come.
I close the door.
But what more could I have done?
I want more pills to dull my life, but then I’ll never get out of this place and he’ll do whatever he wants. Whenever he wants. It’s a horrific balance. Numb enough to carry on but not too numb that I lose all control. I have to tell her, this Cynthia. I can’t let this opportunity pass. I bite my lip and open the front door.
Cold air.
She’s there. Her back. Her red hair.
I open my mouth.
I scream, but it’s just a whine, an empty silent whine. My leg aches, my hip aches, my right side, all the bones completely misaligned, it all aches. But also my heart and my mind and my guts. My soul. I sense my shoulders droop as I close the door and look up at the camera on the wall. Lenn’ll be happy with how I handled this, how I got her away from his farm so fast. My sister will be OK because I did the right thing. She’ll be one fraction closer to living a normal life. Today I obeyed his rules and now she will be safe.
In the past five nights, all except for last night, because of the horse pill, the whole horse pill, I’ve reread her letters. My sister writes the most wonderful letters. They’re always two sides of A4, folded into three. Lenn insists we write in English. She asks me questions even though I never answer, it’s against the rules, and I love her for that. She cares. It’s the closest thing I get to a proper conversation. She asks me if I talk to our parents much and if I’d heard that our brother won a prize at school. She asks me if I’m seeing anyone. If I’m in love. She tells me about the work she does at the nail bar, the repeat customers, the unkind women who ignore her completely, the kind women who remember her name, her English name, the name given to her by her boss. My sister’s name is not Sue.
And I’ll reread the letters in three weeks’ time when I get to sleep in my own room again, not mine, his, but my air, at least when he’s not barging in to watch me undress for bed or watch me sleep or watch me brush my hair with his mother’s brush.
Cynthia.
I think her name is perfect for her. She has Cynthia freckles and Cynthia horsey jodhpur trousers and Cynthia wellies and Cynthia lipstick and a Cynthia fleece. She could never be called anything else. The way her name rolls around on my tongue. The image I have of the word, and of her. To say her name suits her is an understatement. Her name fits like a key in a lock. I need to think about what to say if she does come back, what to do. I need to plan. Can I ask her to get a message to Kim-Ly somehow? Without him finding out? Without Cynthia trying to be a hero and ruining everything for my little sister?
‘Plough’s all mucked up,’ says Lenn as he opens the door, breaking the spell. ‘Muck gets everywhere, don’t it?’
He hangs up his jacket and pulls off his boots. I can see tiny flecks of winter wheat seed speckling the mud stuck to the rubber treads. Each seed shines. The hard outer shell of each grain reflects what little dull light exists in this room and I see each one of them.
‘Make me sandwich, I know it’s early but make it anyhow.’
He’ll see the tapes before dinner like he has every day for the last seven years. Should I tell him about Cynthia now or let him wait?
I take his Mighty White from his mother’s enamel bread bin. I untie the see-through bag and make his sandwiches. Six. Margarine and pre-sliced mild cheddar cheese and pre-sliced cooked ham. I hold the margarine knife in my hand and look at it and imagine his neck like I’ve imagined it a hundred times before. I place it down. He likes his sandwiches cut on the diagonal into little triangles that look like the kites we flew as children on the hills above our town. I prepare a bag of ready salted crisps, never opened, never on the plate. Lime squash the colour of piss. I place it all down on the table.
‘Bitter out there, ain’t it? Never a good wind from east, never a goodun.’
‘A woman came.’
‘You what?’
I sit down opposite him.
‘A woman came by to rent a field for a horse.’
‘For a what?’
He stares at me.
‘Horse,’ I say.
‘An ’orse?’
I nod.
‘What did you tell her then? Every word. What did you say to this lass?’
‘That she would need to speak to you about it.’
He looks at my eyes one at a time, back and forth, and then he picks up a triangle of sandwich, tiny in his filthy hand, and takes a bite.
‘Who is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘She comes back,’ he swallows his mouthful, ‘and I’m not round, you keep door locked and get yourself up them stairs, you hear me?’
I nod.
‘No more chattin’ with nobody, you hear me?’
I nod.
‘Keep front door locked or I’ll keep you upstairs ’til spring.’
‘OK.’
He eats the rest of his lunch as I wash up and then I bleach the sink and clean the surfaces. He puts his boots back on and puts his jacket back on.
‘I can see everywhere from anywhere on me farm, Jane,’ he says. ‘Every corner. It’s as flat as dinner plate and I’m always here. Don’t forget it.’
I spend three hours sewing and repairing his shirts and his socks and some of his mother’s cloths now they’re dry. With every puncture of steel needle through fabric I imagine it’s his skin. Rough. Punctured all over. Dying. I drink beige tea, I’m used to it now, and I think some more about Cynthia. Maybe she has a boyfriend. A man who listens to her, really listens. Someone to remember her birthday and hug her when she’s tired. A man to lean on and who’s man enough to lean on her. Maybe she has someone like that in her life. I know she has a car, a VW Beetle, and maybe she has a job she enjoys, something she finds interesting. My mother was a teacher in Vietnam and she adored it. She still passes men and women in the street and they say can you remember me and she says of course I can and they say you were my favourite teacher. That’s a beautiful everyday thing. It’s a legacy.
He comes back in when it’s dark and tells me I’ll get a bath tonight. He reviews the tapes as I’m cooking his, our, cod in parsley sauce with boiled potatoes and frozen Birds Eye peas. The pans are on the Rayburn stove and the fire box is full of thin logs. He lingers over Cynthia, or rather, as he can’t see her on the tape, the camera doesn’t pick up anything from outside, he lingers on me talking to her. Back bent over. His massive hand covering the mouse in
its entirety. He’s replaying the tapes and watching me as I wait for his boil-in-the-bag fish to heat up. Why do people here boil their food in plastic bags?
We eat. He mushes his overcooked cod pieces into the sauce and the potatoes and peas so it’s one big gloop and then he shovels it all into his mouth with his fork.
The phone rings.
We both look at it, or rather, the heavy metal box covering it that he’s bolted to the floor joists. The wires go down through the floorboards into the half-cellar. The desktop PC is connected to the outside world through this telephone line. It rings and the box shakes and we both stare at it. Who’d ring this man?
The phone stops.
‘Get that bath run while you wash these up.’
I do as he says.
Instead of me sitting by his feet while he watches TV, I wash up and then I undress and then I climb into the steaming hot bath. He’s there watching my every move but I do not acknowledge him. He’s invisible to me. Irrelevant. I have to be careful not to slip. I let my arms support me as I climb in and settle down, my eyes focussed on the water and not on him. My deformed ankle slips under the surface and out of sight and the pain changes. It doesn’t go away but it’s underwater now.
He comes into the room as I’m scrubbing my skin. The soft floor compresses under his weight. He’s holding a mug of tea and he’s watching me, taking sips, his eyes darting to my face, then to my body, then back to my face. Then he leaves and I can hear the news programme begin.
The bath is good. Piping hot. Clean. I let my mind wander to whatever Kim-Ly is doing right now in Manchester. In her last letter she told me the nail bar is open later these days, open until eight on Fridays to take advantage of women, some men but mainly women, who want a manicure before heading out for a fun evening with friends. I like to think of her going out on a Friday as well. She tells me there’s a Chinatown in Manchester and she can find some of the fruits and herbs of home, not the same, but similar. She can buy quýt and long nhãn and buởi. She can buy ngò and húng cây and húng quế. Maybe she can make something wonderful out of it all. A recipe from our mother’s mother. Something to take her back home for a few moments.
