The Tallow Image

by J. T. Brindle

  ‘My freedom. Will they grant me that?’

  This time it was he who smiled. ‘No, but you can have anything within reason.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I want you… heart and soul.’

  ‘This is a time to be serious,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh, but I am serious.’ She laughed, and it was music to his ears. ‘I will have you, you know.’ Her voice was like silk. ‘That’s all I want.’

  Excitement coursed through him. Their gazes mingled. ‘Nothing else?’ he asked with amusement. It gave him pleasure to tease her. He could not know how he had increased her loathing of him tenfold.

  The moment seemed for ever, and her dark gaze never left his face. When her sinuous fingers crept up to the panel and stroked his skin, he was shocked to the core. Stepping back, he told her, ‘If there really is something, I can ask on your behalf. I’ll do my best, that’s all I can promise.’

  Going to the far wall, she spoke to him in an arrogant voice. ‘When I was a child, my grandmother taught me her skill. She was a candlemaker.’ Her eyes shone with tears. ‘It’s been so very long. It’s time now. Time for me to resurrect her skill, time to use the talents she taught me.’ She watched him, enjoying his curiosity, heightening his confusion. ‘My request is not excessive, I think,’ she said softly, ‘some wick, and a quantity of tallow.’

  ‘You want to make a candle?’ He could not hide his astonishment. ‘That’s what you’re asking… that you be given materials to make a candle?’

  ‘You may call it a “candle”,’ she said with a devious smile, ‘but you’ll see. You’ll see.’

  Ralph thought it little to ask. He nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’ He began to close the panel, pausing when she addressed him with a question.

  ‘Are you a good man, Ralph Ryan?’ He was momentarily stunned. She knew him by his first name!

  Panic first, then realisation, and with it came a surge of relief. Of course! Names, first or otherwise, were no secret in this place. Minders addressed each other all the time within earshot of the inmates. At the prison also, the officers did the same. There was nothing unusual in that.

  More importantly, he told himself, there was nothing unusual in Rebecca Norman. He must keep reminding himself of that. Of course, she was different from most other women – in her beauty, in the reputed evil make-up of her character, and in the very fact of her being here in the first place. There could be no denying that she was ‘unusual’ in these ways. In the back of his mind a small voice murmured persistently – ‘In other ways too… in other ways you would rather not think about.’

  Looking her directly in the eye, he replied, ‘I hope I am a good man, yes.’

  ‘ “A good man, a family man, a man like all other men, yet not like all other men?” Only like one man, long ago.’

  Her words stirred a fear in him. The intensity of her gaze unnerved him. The smile had gone from her eyes, and there was a deeper mood on her. A feeling rippled through him, a sensation of what was running through her mind. Hatred. A deep crippling sensation of loneliness, and dark wicked loathing. It touched him, as real as though she herself had laid a cold hand on his heart.

  ‘You remind me of my father,’ she whispered. In the hidden crevices of her tortured mind all the memories lurked – long-ago memories, hidden away, quietly festering. One by one she drew them out. She was a child again, happy with the old woman who doted on her, who taught her the moods of the sun, the moon, of all nature with its dark and glorious secrets. Her grandmother, who had been everything to her – her saviour, her mentor – she was not of this world now. Burned by suspicion and fear, burned by those who were not possessed of the true spirit, nor of that unique gift which shaped her grandmother’s soul, and which that old woman had passed on to the child.

  These memories were agony to that child, who was now a woman and who, like the grandmother, was sentenced to hang by the neck until the last breath was drawn. The thought did not strike terror in her. It made her smile. What did these fools know? How could they realise that far from ending her miserable life here, they were instead releasing a captive soul to greater heights? Could they not see how they were giving her the very freedom she had so long been denied? But no, how could they? These unfortunate creatures would never understand. Nor would they ever know why. Only she knew. Only her grandmother knew the awful loneliness, the cries that echoed through the long endless nights, heartfelt, anguished cries that might bring a father home to his own child, a child cruelly robbed of its mother. Cries that went on for ever, that went on even now in those dark, painful corners of the mind. But they went unheeded then – and now. The pain never stopped. It only grew, until there was nothing else.

  From the depths of one particular memory, the dark eyes looked out, looked at the father, looked at Ralph Ryan. The image was the same. The loathing, the love, the longing, the desperate need of a child. It mingled in the heart. It was all still there, a deep and terrible craving. It had long ago transcended all things normal, possessing the mind, the heart, the soul. Now, it was focused on Ralph Ryan. And there was no escape.

  In those wonderful eyes he saw it, and was strangely troubled, elated beyond belief, yet filled with a premonition of something awful, something… hideous.

  ‘I’m not asking too much, am I?’ she coaxed.

  He shook his head. ‘No. Like you say, a quantity of tallow and some wick, no, it isn’t much to ask… considering.’ He raised the panel to shut those eyes from his sight. The panel felt like a lead weight, resisting. ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised.

  She gave no reply. As he slid the metal pin through the boltholes, he heard her laughter. It was true. At first he had doubted it. Not any more though, because he knew now that she was mad. Knowing that, and being aware of the fearful manner in which she had scared that old hag to her death, he was shocked. Shocked, too, by his own emotions. Against his every instinct, there still lingered in him a certain sympathy. A certain fascination. It was inexplicable. Beyond his experience.

  ‘What the ’ell does she want wick an’ tallow for?’ The duty officer’s sour mood had not improved with the passing of the hours. He glared at Ralph, waiting for an explanation, and mentally preparing himself to refuse the request anyway.

  ‘She says she wants it to make a candle.’

  ‘A what?’ He wasn’t sure he had heard right.

  ‘A candle,’ Ralph repeated in a firm voice. He had no particular liking for this fellow, nor did he himself understand the reasoning behind the prisoner’s unusual request. All the same, he defended her right to ask for the materials. ‘Apparently, it was her grandmother’s trade… the old woman taught the child. I suppose it will bring back happier memories, make her feel less afraid of the gallows.’ To his mind, it was a reasonable enough request.

  ‘Strange, that. She could have any number of creature comforts on her last day on earth… a priest, a tub of hot water, even a hearty meal, but you say all she wants is “wick and tallow”?’ The duty officer stroked his chin, deep in thought. ‘All right,’ he said at length, at once reaching into the top drawer of his desk and drawing from it a slip of paper which he hastily scribbled on. ‘Send Morgan to the stores with this chit.’ He stretched out his hand and gave the slip of paper to Ralph. ‘I’d rather you remained on duty at the cell.’ He made a snorting noise; Ralph wasn’t sure whether he was sneezing or laughing. ‘If the Norman woman took a mind to throw a fit in there, that fool Morgan would like as not take to his heels and be half-way home before anybody else knew about it!’ This time he chuckled and leaned back in his chair. ‘Sometimes I reckon Morgan’s dafter than a lot o’ the bloody inmates! Still, it’s difficult enough to get staff who’ll work in this place. We’ve to make the best use of what we can get.’

  Suddenly impatient and embarrassed by his own uncharacteristic good humour, he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Don’t forget, Ryan… send Morgan
to the stores. You keep a close watch on her. Although, o’ course, she won’t be going nowhere till they come to fetch her away.’ Surprisingly, he actually smiled, but it was more malicious than friendly. ‘Wants to make a candle, eh? Tell Morgan to get a bloody move on or they’ll be taking her away before she gets a chance to start it. Happen she’ll put a curse on him then, eh?’ His smile became a grin. ‘You tell him that, Ryan. Tell him to get off his arse and hurry back with that there stuff, or she’ll put a curse on him!’ The grin broke into a hearty chortle.

  The chortle became a loud unpleasant guffawing when the duty officer saw that even Ralph was amused by the thought of Morgan having to cope with his charge ‘throwing a fit’. Though he was reluctant to agree, he had to secretly admit that at times Morgan really did seem dafter than the inmates. When the duty officer began laughing aloud, though, Ralph took the opportunity to be on his way. Already, it was seeming an unusually long day, fraught with all manner of unexpected things. He would not be sorry when this particular day was over and done. No, not sorry at all.

  As he strode down the narrow gloomy corridor which led to the padded cells, it was merciful that Ralph Ryan’s uneasy thoughts took him no further than the end of this day. For when this day ended, morning would never break.

  It was four thirty p.m. when they came for Rebecca Norman. Morgan had been nervously watching the clock all day. Ralph lost count of the number of times his colleague went out yet again to see how many minutes had ticked by on the clock which hung high on the wall at the end of the corridor. He had been to the ablutions at least a dozen times, each time staying for no longer than a minute, and returning in highly nervous state, redder in the face and wringing his hands as though to wear away an invisible and nasty affliction from his leathery skin. ‘Ain’t they been yet?’ he asked on each occasion. ‘Ain’t they fetched her?’

  Whether it was because he was highly nervous, or insatiably greedy, he had spent the hours stuffing himself with whatever food he could lay his hands on. He paced the floor, noisily expelling gases, and making no apology for it. ‘Christ almighty, I wish it were over!’ His wide frightened eyes plucked at Ralph’s face. ‘How can you be so bloody calm? They ain’t fetched her, have they? Have they, eh?’

  Ralph refrained from answering, if only because the sounds of the prisoner could be heard emanating from the padded cell next door. Since the quantity of wick and tallow had been passed through the panel earlier that morning, Rebecca Norman had stripped herself naked and hidden herself in the darkest corner, swaying back and forth like a soul in a trance, chanting out a low rhythmic and strangely intoxicating drone, while feverishly kneading and fashioning the now pliable tallow in the blood-warm palms of her hands. Completely engrossed in her labours, she had ignored all offers of refreshment.

  The stone floor struck cold to her legs, charging her whole body with a chill. Yet her soul was on fire, burning with the grandmother long gone. In her fevered mind she imagined that old lady. She felt herself being dragged through the streets to the blackness of the woods. In her imagination the woods came alive with the awful flames that engulfed the wizened old figure. She heard the old one’s cries, and her heart was broken. ‘Wait for me,’ she murmured. ‘One day soon, we’ll be together, you and I.’ The tallow moulded softly in her deft fingers. ‘One for you, and one for me,’ she whispered, pressing her lips to the tallow dolls. ‘They should have burned me with you. But they will. One day they will, I promise you. Until then, let them suffer. Let them know my anger, and my loathing.’ Holding the two dolls face to face, she chanted softly,

  Through the flames

  Eye to eye

  Only then

  The curse will die.

  ‘God almighty! If she don’t stop that awful wailing, I think I’ll go out o’ my mind!’ Morgan cried while pacing the floor with his two hands pressed tight over his ears. ‘I can’t stand it no longer!’ he screamed at one point, and if Ralph had not barred his way, the poor haunted fellow might have fled the building there and then.

  Even the duty officer was haunted by the unearthly, nerve-splitting chanting, rushing down the corridor to hammer on the door of her cell, threatening its inmate with all manner of punishment, ‘if the caterwauling don’t stop this bloody minute!’ His punishment, though, could not be more exacting than the one already conferred on her.

  Rebecca Norman paid no heed to his threats. Maybe, in the throes of her evil work, she did not hear them. Eventually, she was left alone, her captors uneasy, frustrated and reluctantly resigned to their unenviable task. And so they waited.

  The hands of the clock moved round, relentlessly ticking away the seconds, the minutes and the hours. Until, when it seemed as though the shift would change before the condemned woman was taken, the four burly men came down the corridor, making a formidable sight in their dark stiff uniforms, thick wooden cudgels swinging from their belts, and every man with his features set in grim expression. Like participants in a funeral procession they advanced, one man leading, two centre and the fourth officer bringing up the rear; the formation was precise, it had a purpose and, as they came, so they would leave, but with the woman at the heart.

  Ralph and Morgan stood ready to receive them, Morgan visibly relieved at the prospect, and Ralph less so, but purposely deliberating his thoughts on to his beloved family. As though to comfort himself and, almost in unison with the continuous chanting which even now throbbed into the air, he murmured his woman’s name over and over. ‘Maria… Maria… Maria.’ It had a soothing effect on him.

  Silently, he perused the letter of authorisation that was handed to him. With a brisk nod, he delivered the keys and went to stand by the door of Rebecca Norman’s cell; the four men followed. Morgan remained a distance away, his piggy eyes wide and alert, and, for the first time that day, he boasted the look of a man in charge.

  ‘Do you really need that?’ Ralph saw one of the other officers had pushed his way forward. In his hands was a grubby hessian garment, shapeless in appearance, but with many long tabs hanging from it. Ralph knew instantly what it was; he knew its purpose. He also knew that strait-jackets of this kind were sometimes necessary in order to restrain vicious and destructive offenders. He had always considered such measures to be offensive and dehumanising, although, by the same token, he knew there were times when the proper use of the strait-jacket could prevent serious injury.

  ‘There’s no other way we’re taking that hell-cat outta here!’ the officer told Ralph, with an accusing, hard stare. The moment he spoke, the chanting from within abruptly ceased.

  The ensuing silence was ominous. Ralph’s watchful gaze went from one man to the other. He saw the look of fear in their eyes, and the look of arrogance. He felt the awful tension, and the hatred born out of terror. He saw the strait-jacket made ready, the cat-o’-nine-tails gripped tightly in another’s fist. He read the grim stone-like expressions on each face. While he accepted the situation, he could not really come to terms with it, feeling, as he did, oddly distanced from it all, as though he played no part in it, as though he was on the outside looking in. In spite of himself, his thoughts were with the woman on the other side of that door; in his mind’s eye he could see her so vividly it was unnatural, and yet the most natural thing in the world. He imagined her fear, her defiance, her innermost thoughts. For a shocking moment it was almost as though he was one with her.

  Inside the cell, she had heard the gaolers at the door, and she knew her time was close. Soon, too soon, it would be over. Her dark eyes were not without fear as they looked once more on the tallow images which she had fashioned through the long telling hours. As the key fumbled in the lock, she hurriedly rose from the kneeling position. Her legs were sore from pressing into the cold hard ground, but not for one moment did she relax her straight, proud stance.

  Quickly now, before they burst in and dragged her away, she furtively glanced about. Where to hide it? Where to hide it? Ah! The dark eyes gleamed. Softly she went to the wall-p
anel, her deft fingers lightly groping there. Yes. The padding was not too resistant, yielding to the touch. Tentatively the long sinuous fingers probed into the seam between the padding and the narrow wooden batten that secured it to the wall. Swiftly she eased the smallest area into a deeper slit; further probing told her that it was just as she suspected… inside it was cavernous, safe. Withdrawing her fingers, she glanced down to the two tallow images clutched in her other hand. It took but a second to separate them, one being thrust deep into the wall-padding, which was then cleverly made to seem as though it had never been tampered with, and the other laid reverently on the ground, nestling into the discarded convict garment that had earlier clothed her nakedness. One more furtive whisper, one more knowing glance at the effigy, and then she was ready.

  When the door was flung open, the intruders were not prepared for the stunning sight that awaited them. Before their shocked and avaricious stares, Rebecca Norman was a proud, challenging figure, her trim gently rounded lines making a rich and rewarding contrast to that grey mundane place. With her head held high and the dark hair already grown to small attractive curls which coiled to her head like sleeping vipers, she met their unbelieving stares with smiling eyes, her lips slightly parted and the perfect teeth glinting white in the half-light from the corridor. As they gazed on her, there was not one man there whose heart didn’t beat that much faster, and who would not have eagerly bedded her there and then.

  ‘Blatant hussy!’ The one in charge was the first to speak; he too had been taken aback. Now, though, he quickly realised the situation and promptly defused it by flinging the strait-jacket over her nakedness. At once the others rushed forward. Within minutes the strait-jacket was in place. It was a stiff, abrasive thing, reaching to the prisoner’s knees, its long winding tapes tied round her body and securing her folded arms tight across her breast. While they made rough with her, pulling and pushing her this way then that, and callously bruising her, she made no cry, nor did she resist. Her reticence surprised and confused them. They were not unaware of the manner in which she was reputed to have murdered her cell-mate, and so they hurried all the more, deliberately averting their eyes, lest they too should suffer the same fate.