Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  Honey and Milk Are Under Thy Tongue

  (Song of Solomon 4:11)

  Tirzah’s tactic for getting her parents’ consent to the CYC trip is to maintain a dignified silence. Very cool, I’ll be, she decides. If they sniff out the idea she really wants to get away from home, they’ll be suspicious and think she’s pandering to the flesh. I’m pure as a babe in arms, she pronounces to her tiny bedroom mirror, forgetting about original sin. I can be as prim as the next one, if not primmer. She practises an innocent look, but it’s not that believable. She rubs her face smooth with both hands, the better to call up an expression that is above reproach, but the moment she looks at herself in the mirror again, up flashes a picture of Osian with his eyes closed. She can see the way his black eyelashes flare from his eyelids. Even more startling is the way, behind this image, a picture of Brân glows so powerfully that soon Osian is blotted out. She covers her eyes and shakes her hair out. She doesn’t want to visit either of them. The truth is, I just can’t keep my thoughts in order. They will keep escaping from the corners of my eyes. She finally manages a blank, contented face. There, she thinks, shaken. That’s it; butter wouldn’t melt. During the announcements in chapel, she’d kept her eyes fixed on her open Bible. When the deacon read out details of the proposed weekend, he made it sound so boring no one in their right mind would want to go anyway.

  Well, young lady, her father says at the dinner table. What’s all this I hear about you young people gallivanting off to the seaside? Tirzah chews her roast potato. Can I have some more gravy, please? she asks. He is trying to make a little joke, she knows, but it will not do to enter in and start a conversation. It would soon turn into the can-I-go-please-can-I-go game, and before you know it he’d turn nasty. So Tirzah smiles a distant sort of smile and assumes the face she’s been practising, while pouring more gravy on her meat. Now then, Gwyll, her mother says, neck starting to blotch up. It would be a lovely treat for Tirzah. She doesn’t ever go far. Tirzah’s father puts down his cutlery. Doesn’t go far? he repeats. Doesn’t go far? I’ve never heard such silliness. Why should she be going far?

  Tirzah’s heart starts a slow slide. She realises how powerful her yearning is to escape for a few days. Never before has she wanted to get out of the valley so much. She is sure her parents will never understand; they’ve lived here all their lives. Anything else is unthinkable to them. Her eyes fill with tears. But her mother, surprisingly, does not give in. Well, Gwyllim, she continues, pointing at him with her knife, I’m only saying it would be a nice thing for her to do. That’s all. She gestures with the knife towards Tirzah. That poor child has scarcely been outside this valley all her young life. I do not want her to be like us. Do you? Tirzah stops chewing her potato. This is so strange. Her father is blinking slowly, his mouth opening and closing as he looks at his wife. Tirzah can hear a dog barking in the street, knocking a hole in the silence: woof, woof, woof. Three hollow barks. And immediately after the third bark her father picks up his cutlery again and loads his fork. Indeed, he says, if you are that strong about it, then of course Tirzah must go. Let’s have an end to this conversation. He pops the food in his mouth and says around it: I have more important things to think about on the Lord’s Day.

  When her parents go upstairs for their lie-down, Tirzah slips out and walks idly through the streets. She wanders across the school playing fields until she is standing at Osian’s back garden gate. He’s mowing the lawn with a push-along mower. She tiptoes up behind him and puts her hands over his eyes. He doesn’t jump or make a fuss. Tirzah, he says and turns. What are you doing, mowing on the day of rest? she asks. My dad told me to, he says, making his way down the path towards the shed. She’s speechless for a moment when he says over his shoulder that his parents don’t mind gardening on a Sunday. Osian’s father is such a stickler usually. Guess what happened? she demands, recovering, when they are safely behind the tall trellis hung with sprays of rosebuds. What do you and me and Biddy want more than anything? To go on the weekend, he says slowly, reaching to hold her hands. Well, now I can go, Tirzah says, pulling her hands away and jumping up and down. I can go! It’s all so funny-peculiar. They just said yes. Mr Humphries is with my parents now, Osian says. Telling them all about it. Maybe he’ll persuade them to let me go too.

  Tirzah walks back towards the gate, constrained again by the way he is gazing at her. That’s nice, Osian, she says. Though you realise nothing is going to happen between us when we’re away, don’t you? On the weekend and for always. I am sorry about kissing you the way I did. She can hear her voice trailing off. She is ashamed to tell him it was a mistake. He’s still watching her, the sweet, uncertain smile that comes and goes across his mouth jabbing at her heart. Even as she acknowledges how much she loves him, she is also aware of a fleeting, still-obscure idea, small as a twig briskly moving on the surface of a broad river, about her own life and its possibilities. We have our different lives to lead, she says. He shakes his head, and moves quickly to embrace her. The sun is drawing a throaty perfume from the lavender hedge that flows over everything in a wave of spice. There is a taste to Osian’s kisses that Tirzah can’t help liking, a sweet, creamy taste she finds beguiling. They stand, swaying between the rosebuds and the cushions of purple-tipped stems. Who wouldn’t love Osian? she thinks. He is so calm and strong and kind. Then, slicing through the perfumes and sweet-flavoured kisses, comes the realisation she’s again saying one thing and doing another. No, she says, pulling away, stunned by how she’s let herself be hooked again. Osian, I want to stop. But holding him at arm’s length she becomes aware he is not paying attention to her anyway.

  Osian gazes over Tirzah’s head, and across the seagullstrewn school football pitch that backs on to the houses. He looks wretched. What’s wrong? she asks, distracted from her own thoughts. Tell me. Osian shakes his head, his lips set in a serious shape. Old Humphries will do the trick, she tells him. Don’t you worry. He’ll bang on about Bible study and prayer times, things that your parents will just lap up. Still Osian is silent, and she sees with a prickle of shock that his eyes are tear-filled. Oh no, she says, her own eyes blurring. It doesn’t matter really. Who cares about the stupid weekend? If you can’t go, then Biddy and I won’t. Osian shakes his head again, his arms dropping to his sides. It’s not that, he says in a muffled voice. It’s all this. And he gestures to include the garden and beyond. Tirzah understands. You mean our parents, and Horeb, and God, and the whole valley, don’t you? she asks. He nods. It’s everything, he says, and sniffs. Some days I am so squashed.

  Tirzah tries to think of the right words to say. But, Osian, she starts, shaking the tears from her eyes, I’ve been wanting to tell you something about that for so long, and I couldn’t. They sit on a couple of big old paint pots, and Tirzah tries to explain the way she saw the chapel schoolroom roof dissolve, and instead of the angry eye of God, there had been a peaceful sky lying like a sparkling blanket over them. She doesn’t have the words to express her growing realisation that the tiny world they live in is not the only one, or, indeed, may not even be how they think it is at all. We are each on our own path, she says, trying to express what she doesn’t even understand herself. No one else can decide the direction we walk in. Not our parents or Horeb or our friends. I think we are the bosses of ourselves.

  Osian listens quietly, without interrupting. It’s no good, she says finally. I can’t make you understand. I think I get it, he says. But I’m not sure it’s true for me. Now you are talking soft, Tirzah says. Not for you? Why not, may I ask? Too special, are we? Osian smiles at her. Calm yourself, girl, he says, stroking her arm. I only mean I’m not strong like you. And my father has big plans for me. I don’t think I will ever have the guts to stand up to him. I didn’t say it would be easy, Tirzah answers. It will be very hard. But I can’t believe you’re saying you’re not strong. Of course you are. She tries again to tell him all the new thoughts she’s been having, but they are still bobbing high above her, like a bunch of escap
ed balloons. Dear Osian, she says, squeezing his hands. All I know is that you don’t need to be squashed. She decides not to mention her ideas about wolf-headed folk just yet.

  Osian seems to perk up, and Tirzah is so relieved she pecks his cheek with her lips. Why is it that when I kiss someone, she thinks, her eyes closed, it’s as if every cloud that ever was, and every sky, and all the mountains and valleys, the trees and animals, the rain and sun, everything rushes into one single beautiful thing and becomes simple? She begins to feel floaty. Up I go, she thinks, holding so tight to Osian she can sense herself becoming both part of him and part of the wide world. See, Osian! she cries. We are together, and alone, all at the same time! That is what I was trying to tell you about humans. There is nothing to worry about! The taste of cream and honey drenches her mouth even though she is not kissing Osian now. Hold on! she calls, and Osian strengthens his grip. When she comes down to earth, she’s surprised to find they are still sitting on their paint pots behind the shed. Do you understand? she asks. I am getting stronger, and so are you. But Osian shakes his head. All I really want is for us to be a couple, he says. Why can’t we be?

  The Seed of the Wicked Shall Be Cut Off

  (Psalm 37:28)

  Tirzah is a new sort of person now, one enveloped in the perfume of lavender, who moves through the Sunday streets without touching the pavement, feet soaked with the verdant scent of fresh-mown grass, trailing leaves and flowers behind her. She has seen a new truth, and is changed. Each waking hour of Monday and Tuesday she dwells on how she spiralled into the sky with her friend Osian. The feeling that she had actually embraced the whole world and was an important part of it is a sort of rapture. It isn’t until Tuesday night, in the middle of prayer meeting, that she is yanked back to her ordinary, everyday, non-flowery self. Without warning, she is thrown out of that sun-warmed, bee-hung dream of life and hurled into howling darkness. Something unimaginable happens at prayer meeting and she runs out of the vestry, through the graveyard and up to the mountain without stopping or thinking or looking back. Her throat is raw and her breath rasping. Arriving on the broad shoulder just below the summit, she falls into the whinberry bushes that carpet the mountain, and welcomes the tough plants’ bristling support.

  Evening is already lowering itself to the grass and creeping up from the ferns. An invisible skylark pours out a song that seems to coax first one, and then another silver pinpoint from beneath the surface of the turquoise sky. Tirzah is blank with sadness. Pressing her hands to her chest, she senses the uncomfortable swelling of her heart, and doesn’t know if it will ever stop. But even so, eventually she becomes aware of the benign nothingness in every blade of grass and every squat, embattled tree around her. Through her thin clothes, the whinberry bushes pierce her skin. Beneath the whinberries, pebbles like small, unearthed potatoes rest together companionably, and a fresh, deep-blue breeze plays about her wet face. She is too tired to wonder at the mountain’s steady breath, or the way its smell of cooling stones and sheep-rich wool and newly hatched ferns rolls over her as if she were a boulder or a ditch.

  She rubs her eyes, repeatedly seeing Osian’s wan-lipped, stricken face, and the way he looked at her briefly before standing to face the fellowship at prayer meeting. Each time the tiny snippet of Osian dazedly rising from his chair reruns, she shakes her head. Gradually she calms herself, and deliberately brings to mind all that happened. Every word and action is waiting to be replayed: Pastor had asked, as he always did, if anyone was burdened with a special matter that needed to be brought before the altar, and as usual there was a brief silence. This time Tirzah was aware of a queasy dread growing inside her. Then Osian’s father announced he had another’s dark and grievous sin to bring into the light. It was almost funny how everyone’s eyes had flown open as if controlled by one central pulley. Tirzah could not look away from Osian, although he seemed to be in a private, dreamy world of his own.

  There was something in the manner in which Osian’s father stood, the set of his shoulders, the way the muscles of his jaw shifted as he clenched his teeth, that seemed to alert Pastor to the possibility of trouble. Now then, dear brother Evans, he said quietly, what are you burdened with this evening? And remember, with love is our watchword here. Tirzah began to pray silently, although she could not form any words. Osian’s father was barely able to contain himself, that much was obvious; she could see the sheen on his forehead, and the way his trouser hems trembled. When he began to speak, his voice over-filled the small room. Tirzah looked around and saw several people’s lips moving, their whispered prayers scurrying insects on a bare floor. Osian’s mother was already crying. I want you to pause, brother, Pastor said, nasally now, opening his palms and talking over the rumbling voice. Pause and examine your own heart in this. But Mr Evans went on, walking over Pastor’s mild words as if they were no more than weeds on the path he’d chosen to take.

  Tirzah slipped her hand into the crook of her mother’s shaking arm. I want to go, Mam, she’d said in an undertone. But her mother didn’t react. Mr Evans was pulling out a carrier bag from under his chair, and the crackling of the plastic sounded so out of place, Tirzah wanted to put her free hand over her ear. She watched, puzzled, as Mr Evans began to bring a bed sheet out, fist over fist, on and on, until it sat in a gleaming heap on the floor in front of him. Pastor rose, his glasses flashing, and for the first time raised his voice. Mr Evans, he shouted, what is the meaning of this? It is not seemly for you to behave in such a manner in the Lord’s house. Mr Evans looked almost gratified by Pastor’s words. If you will give me a minute, he said, unruffled, and began to sort the sheet out, billowing it up, straightening it so that it lay lengthways on the floor, lapping the feet of the waiting people like a white expanse of water. I am bringing this matter before you, he said, because I do not know what else to do. The whispered prayers grew silent. Tirzah saw that Osian was now aware of what was happening. Dada! he said, perched on the edge of his seat. What are you doing? I am exposing the filthy, vile sins of your flesh, Mr Evans stated. It is my duty as your father and a deacon of this chapel. Tirzah could not believe what was happening. Only a few days ago, everything had seemed so wonderful.

  Pastor’s face turned the colour of porridge, his cheekbones poking out sharply. I command you to put away this object, he cried, his voice high and thin. But Mr Evans lifted a hand to silence him. I have God on my side, he said. Behold! And he pointed to a barely visible stain on the sheet. This is a shameful emission, done secretly in the dead of night, in my own home, he went on. At pains to make them see, he traced the shape with his finger. And from my own offspring. Pastor peered short-sightedly, and then recoiled. These are private family matters, he said, and several people murmured in agreement. But Mr Evans was not satisfied. If this young man, he said, pointing now to his son, is so weak, so enslaved by his own lusts that he cannot control himself, then it is the fellowship’s place to do it for him.

  Tirzah dared not look at Osian. The boys in school made jokes about wet dreams, but she and Biddy had never taken any notice of them. In the stuffy room, everyone was frozen for a moment. She sensed them struggling to understand. The only sounds were the sobs of Osian’s mother. With everyone else, Tirzah stared at the silvery ghost of a stain on the bed sheet, her heart shuddering with pity. He has befouled our home with his unclean ways, Mr Evans shouted. I demand judgement from the people. It is my right. At pains to make the fellowship see, he traced the shape again with his finger. Tirzah could not turn her eyes away. Mr Evans was like a conjuror, making the invisible plain. Then he picked up his Bible from where it had been sitting in readiness for this moment, and read, Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil on their beds, his voice both harsh and thready. The passage was long, and Mr Evans did not stop.

  Tirzah couldn’t stand it any more. Osian, listen, she called urgently, underneath Mr Evans’s forceful reading. Come with me. You don’t have to stay here a minute longer. Osian threw her a bewildered glance. Osian, she
called again, this time more strongly, across the brilliant expanse of white fabric, knowing that he was powerless to come to her, even if he wanted to. He seemed to flicker on and off like a faulty light bulb before her eyes, and the sheet was a vast lake she could not cross. Still she tried one more time. Come, Osian, she urged, extending her hand. You don’t belong in this place. Come with me now. But Osian, his black hair startling against his paper-white face, looked away, distracted by his father. It was then Tirzah had felt herself being carried through the paisley drapes, out of the room.

  Now Tirzah becomes aware of strange music all around her. It is a continuous, lilting sigh, a thousand-stringed hum that she understands is the mountain’s voice. She is soothed by it, almost held inside it like a small creature would be held in a cocoon. A breeze laden with every living thing touches her temples, and when it moves away it seems to take with it the ragged feelings she has been holding. Cleansed now by the mossy darkness, she gets to her feet. Osian is the best person in the whole village, she knows. She sees again his face with its white bones shining through, and wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. Poor little Pastor too, she realises. Fair play; he had tried to sort things out in his own way. And most of the funny old brethren and sisters weren’t happy with Osian’s father: that was as plain as the nose on your face. She does up her cardigan buttons and smooths the wrinkles from her skirt. Something has happened to her; around her body she senses a glow like a force-field. The silly trailing flowers and leaves she’d thought were upholding her have blown away. Within this glow I am untouchable, she thinks, untouchable and strong, and shaking her hair out of her eyes, she runs lightly down to the twinkling lights below.

  Have Mercy upon Me, For I Am Desolate

  (Psalm 25:16)