Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  Then another thought darts into her mind. What about Brân? For some reason she imagines that Brân’s would be more muscular, more alive, for want of a better word, than anybody else’s. She can almost feel the wind rushing past her ears as she runs down the Broad Road That Leads to Destruction; this is heaps worse than thinking about bulges, for goodness’ sake. I have changed, she thinks, with a judder. Then her mind fills with another picture; this time she is sitting on the stony lip of a well and willingly swinging her legs over the edge. If you’re not careful, Tirzah, any minute now you’ll jump in and be swallowed up by all this sinful wondering, she thinks. But just as quickly another thought occurs to her: So what if I fell in this well of mine? Maybe it’s not even a bottomless well after all. Maybe it’s a beautiful pool of clear water. Swimming there would be wonderful, and I’d like it. Maybe, instead of legs and a nose, I actually have a tail and fins, and they are waiting for a dousing in deep water to appear.

  Everyone sits, and Tirzah is left standing for a long moment before she realises the hymn has ended. Pastor shoots her a cool look from the pulpit and she blushes, sinking into the pew. Her mother’s elbow jabs her side. Whatever’s the matter? she hisses. Pull yourself together, for all our sakes. I’m unwell, Tirzah whispers back. I have to get out. Rubbish, her mother answers. There’s nothing wrong with you. Sit still and ask the Lord to help you concentrate. She is shredding a tissue into her lap and Tirzah can see her neck beginning to mottle. Her father leans across and places a large hand on Tirzah’s leg. Be still, he says over-loudly, and know that I am God. Listen to Pastor’s words, you poor, restless one.

  Tirzah goes rigid with fear; maybe her father knows what she’s been thinking. When her mind clears, she realises that Pastor is preaching about the sins of the flesh. No one, he shouts, no one in this room is immune to the frailties of these wicked bodies of ours. And when I say frailties, I mean the sins of lust and lasciviousness. Let’s call this particular set of spades by their odious name. He pulls out a snow-white handkerchief and wipes his forehead. Everyone is rapt. Everyone is uncomfortable;Tirzah can sense a collective examining of souls. The air positively vibrates with the power of all the examining going on. I’m doubtful anyone even understands what the word lasciviousness means, she thinks, trying to get comfortable in the pew. How can you be a slave to something you don’t even know about? It doesn’t seem logical. Obviously, it’s very sinful, and that’s enough for most folk here.

  But anyway, can this be true? Tirzah wonders, watching Pastor fold his hankie carefully and slide it back into his trouser pocket. Surely only young people have lusts. Could old, wheelchair-bound Mr Trimble really be a slave to his body? Or Miss Payne the organist, with her snagged hairnet and Parma Violet sweeties? Tirzah has a quick look around. What about old, smelly Mrs Beynon? Tirzah thinks about Mrs Beynon’s deformed feet and the little cut-out holes she makes in her Sunday shoes so that her knotted toe joints can poke through unhindered. The little crocheted flowers Mrs Beynon sews to cover things up have always repelled Tirzah. And what about the elders? What about Pastor’s wife, with her death-like hands and tight perm? And Mr Porter, the deacon who roots around in his trouser pockets for Murray Mints to hand out and looks after the chapel boiler? I’m probably the one person here who is having lascivious thoughts, she realises. Suddenly she is pleased to be almost a grown-up. The back of Osian’s head is visible three rows in front. He is half-turned, his elbow resting on the ledge of the pew beside him. Despite everything, the way Osian’s lovely fingers twine through his dense hair gives Tirzah the oddest sensation in the pit of her stomach.

  The sermon is a long one. Some of the congregation break down and wail. Tirzah’s mother is fidgeting. All this talk of the flesh makes her embarrassed, Tirzah knows. It’s as if the bodies of the fellowship have heated up, thinking about the sins of the flesh, and the whole room is about to ignite. Her mother’s neck is now a solid red column. Pastor has whipped himself into such a righteous frenzy he has blobs of foam in the corners of his mouth. People are moaning, calling on the Lord for forgiveness. Mr Jones, a quiet man who Tirzah doesn’t know, stands, visibly trembling, and confesses to having lascivious thoughts about somebody else’s wife. Smite me, Lord, he shouts. I am a filthy rag in your presence. This is a signal for people to let everything go. Tirzah sits, cool and collected amidst the sobbing and confessing. She is content to gaze at Osian’s head and shoulders, willing him to look round.

  Just as her father makes preliminary moves to stand and confess something, Osian turns and darts a look at her. She makes a gesture towards the door, and they both fight their way through the bowed and crying members of the fellowship to the aisle. Osian turns the ornate doorknob and they squeeze through the smallest gap. Out in the churchyard, calm, worldly-looking crows sit on gravestones, and the yew trees squat, keeping guard. What do you want? Osian says. I shouldn’t be out here with you. I have to go back. My father will notice I’ve gone. Behind them, the sounds of shouting and singing seep under the door. What do you mean, what do I want? Tirzah asks. You looked at me first. Anyway, why shouldn’t you be out here? Osian kicks the heads off a bunch of dandelion clocks, his head down. You might as well stay with me now, she says, and pulls him away from the path before he can speak. They climb the churchyard wall. There was a time not long ago when you would have been laughing at them with me, she says over her shoulder.

  Tirzah and Osian walk in silence all the way up the narrow lane that leads to the deserted pub. Which way? Tirzah asks at the ridge. Shall we go to the top or into the forestry? He doesn’t seem to care much. You choose, he says. Tirzah thinks about her dream, and the fir-tree walls of the sort-of chapel she sat in, with its high roofless sky-ceiling. She remembers the examining eye that pinned her to the seat. Forestry, she says, and runs ahead, wondering if there is any point in bringing Osian here. But she still wants to try to find herself and Osian as they used to be. Once they are in through the first thinner ranks of trees, the woody quiet and scented gloom slows them down. Osian hangs back and lets Tirzah pull him along. Soon she finds what she’s looking for. Do you remember this place? she asks, tugging him down beside her on to a flat clearing between the roots of a huge tree. If you just rest here and breathe, you might feel better, she tells him. It always worked for us when we were younger.

  They lie and look up at the dusty, sparse branches above them. Tirzah can see the way the trees grow; where the branches start to sprout they are small and ragged, and then, higher up, they spring out straight and sinewy, festooned with masses of dark green, needly fingers. It is utterly silent in the forest, and warm. This is my chapel, Tirzah realises, gazing up to the living rafters overhead. Everything worth worshipping is probably here. She wants to tell Osian so much but suddenly is too tired. It’s all mixed up: Derry’s penis, the friendly snake climbing her leg, the feeling she’d had about the mountain and the forest. The horrible, shameful, drowned bundle of Osian’s guilt. Mostly she doesn’t think the new, sad Osian would want to listen. We’re almost grown-up, you know, she says. Soon we will finish school, and then who knows? You are clever, Osian, and you will be able to do anything you want. She studies his face, but he seems like a stranger.

  Tirzah is gripped by a need to make Osian take notice. She thinks hard, her mind darting about, picking up ideas and discarding them; Osian is unreachable. So she empties her mind and waits to see what will happen next. Almost it is as if she were sitting on a branch way above their prone bodies. She sees herself place her hand on the zip of Osian’s trousers and rub. Then she is beside him, feeling him change shape and grow firm. Osian grabs her hand and lifts it, pressing her fingers painfully inside his fist. Control yourself, Tirzah, he says, his voice flat. This is a sin. No, Osian, she says, her eyes filling, I only wanted to wake you up. But then she realises she doesn’t know what she wanted. Finally she explains it was something to do with trying to make them both into a normal, carefree boy and girl. After a pause she tries again. Won’t you
talk to me about what happened? I know you have not got over that terrible thing with the bed sheet. He sits up and allows his head to drop between his bent knees. I can’t speak about it, he tells her, his voice thickened. Since then my relationship with God has changed. I see what I should do now. Yes, but you don’t need to change towards your friends, Tirzah says. He glances at her and seems to soften. For now let’s have a cwtch, he says. There’s nothing wrong with that. As you keep saying, we are butties. So Tirzah lays her head carefully on his shoulder. Go to sleep, she hears him whisper. I’ll keep watch and make sure nothing happens to you. But Tirzah isn’t sleepy. No thanks, she says. I think I’m perfectly capable of making sure nothing happens to me myself.

  The Love of Money Is the Root of All Evil

  (1 Timothy 6:10)

  It’s difficult to earn any money, Tirzah thinks, gazing at an old, banana-shaped stain on the ceiling, especially when you don’t have a job. Her father is perplexed by even the notion of pocket money. But, Dada, she’d screwed herself up to tell him the day after her last birthday, Biddy earns a bit from her newspapers and gets pocket money. Even Osian is paid for working in the shop on Saturdays. Everybody in school gets a little something every week. I don’t see why I can’t. He ignored the mention of a job. Pocket money? he’d said, eyes big with astonishment. It was as if she’d asked for a pet dragon. What would a good girl want with money, I’d like to know? There is nothing a good girl needs, surely? He was working himself up. And what is this everybody in school business? If all your school friends chopped off a hand and fed it to their guinea pigs, would you do the same? He looked at her sharply. What are you doing being friends with these lost souls, may I ask? Tirzah tried to turn him from this last question and soothe him. I might want to get a gift for someone, she’d explained, twisting her fingers behind her back. Or buy a nice book. Nonsense, he said, folding the newspaper with a series of emphatic movements before getting up to go out. Money indeed. I’ve never heard of such avarice and weakness. And that had been that.

  She drapes herself across the bed and tries to imagine ways to save for the CYC weekend deposit, but nothing comes to mind. Does she even want to go now? Biddy isn’t madly keen and probably Osian will not be allowed. Still, her mother is squirrelling away little amounts from her grocery shopping allowance, so Tirzah knows she will have to attend. Her mother is very keen on Tirzah’s behalf. And no complaining from you, madam, she’d told Tirzah after showing her the old purse the money will go in and where she will hide it. I don’t want to hear any of your moaning about sausages for three days on the trot, or any other bits of wisdom, mind, she’d said, smiling. You know your father never notices what he’s putting in his mouth, as long as it’s hot and on time.

  I can do the same with my money for chapel collections, Tirzah decides, feeling a pang at her mother’s excitement and jumping up to get her notebook and pencil. Soon she has a little grid drawn out, with all the Sundays and how much she can save. But is this actually stealing from the Lord? she wonders. Her father has decreed that as far as he’s concerned, the subject of the holiday is closed. So it’s his fault. This is between the two of you women, he’d told them over his plate of liver and onions when Tirzah asked him about the deposit. Her mother had pulled her towards the kitchen, exasperated because Tirzah never knew when to choose her moment. Let me deal with this, please, she’d whispered. I will sort it out. Studying her grid now, Tirzah decides Sunday collection money saving is a start. She must get her schoolbooks out and start to revise. It’s no use thinking about anything until the O-levels are over.

  Anybody’d think this weekend away was as secret as, say, sanitary towels, Tirzah thinks, hiding her notebook under the mattress and rearranging the bedspread, and opening a geography text book. She recalls her mother’s tirade when she’d discovered Tirzah lining all her strange new Dr White’s towels in a row on her desk. What in the name of old Roley are you doing? she’d said, glancing over her shoulder towards the landing and the closed study door. The back of the airing cupboard is the place for these. Her cheeks were flushed as she knelt to gather up the scattered towels by their loops. No one wants such things waved under their nose, she’d explained. Tirzah had been infected with her sense of urgency, and rushed around, doing very little, but feeling the need for action. Lying back down now on her bed the wrong way round, her bottom resting on the pillow and her legs against the wall behind the headboard, she remembers how impossible it had been to force those towels back into the bag; they’d mysteriously doubled in size the moment they’d been let out.

  Tirzah is on her way home from school when Derry comes alongside her. Hiya, he says, out of puff. You’re a fast one. Like a bloody whippet, you are. A stone-deaf whippet. I’ve been calling you f ’rages. Tirzah is surprised; usually no one sees Derry in the daytime. She realises he is a mystery. Where does he go all day? What does he do with himself? Hello, she answers, looking away, not wanting to encourage him to hang around. Let’s have a whiff by here, he says, indicating a wall. I could do with a fag. They stop, and Tirzah watches him roll a cigarette and light it. He coughs and spits a blob of ropey-looking mucus not far from her shoes. Tirzah moves away. So, he says, settling his buttocks on the wall and sending a little landslide of shale down, what are you up to? She is so surprised by the question she lets out a tiny laugh. Oh, funny, am I? he asks, taking a deep drag. No, not really, it’s just that I’m never up to anything, she says. I’m sorry to seem rude. Then she blushes, realising she is always up to something. He directs a stream of smoke sideways with his lips. Don’t get your knickers in a knot, he tells her. Tha’ wouldn’t do at all.

  The idea of her underwear seems to hang in the air, expanding almost, and Tirzah tries to think of something different to say. Where do you work? she asks. Fact’ry, he answers, clearly not interested in talking about his job. So, what type of knickers do a good Christian girl wear? he continues, giving her the once-over. All done up in chains an’ locks, I s’pect. Before Tirzah can move, he has slipped a hand under her skirt and slid it around to touch the inside of her bare thigh. Get off! she shouts, a ripple of something like electricity shooting up her leg. She jumps away and drops her school bag. Jesus Jones the First! he exclaims, laughing and coughing. You’re a touchy one. Bein’ friendly, I was. Tha’s all. She stands uncertainly before him. That is blasphemy, she tells him. He spits again. Derry has a job in a factory, she realises. And so he must have money. Her mother had said he was only with them till he got back on his feet. He’s contemplating her, and takes another long drag on his cigarette. A scorching, wicked arrow of an idea thwacks Tirzah between the shoulder blades. She takes a step back, distancing herself from Derry’s knees, scandalised. How can I even begin to imagine something so wicked? she wonders, looking at the black buttons on his donkey jacket. You’re a bit of a stunner, he says quietly, reaching to touch her wind-blown hair. And a real little lady. How do you make them pretty things? Tirzah allows him to twine a springy curl around his index finger. She is looking inward at her own black heart as it smokes and wrinkles, barely registering the almost reverential way he examines the shining ringlet.

  Now what’s happening? she wonders. I was walking home from school, minding my own business, and look: I’m thinking of charging Derry for a feel. The place on her thigh where he touched her earlier is behaving as if it has just had an extra-sticky plaster ripped off it. This is all wrong, she knows. Derry is one of the lost, and she should shun him. I don’t even like him, she tells herself. He’s disgusting. She remembers his underfed body. The Lord gave me my hair, she says, pulling herself away again. Get off me. Derry looks crestfallen. Oh, the Lord, is it? he says, grinding his stub out on a stone. Will the Lord mind if you just come and sit by me? And he pats the wall. I promise to be good. So she sits, ready to run if need be. The breeze is cold, and she’s hungry, but she doesn’t move. Her brain won’t stop thinking its thoughts. Really, I could make some money from Derry, she thinks, appalled. It is a bit wron
g, but this would be for a good cause. And no one else needs to know.

  She is late getting home. And where may I ask have you been? her mother demands cheerfully, tasting from a ladle. I’ve been waiting ages for you. Look, I’ve made a steak and kidney pie. With lots of nice gravy. She is dishing out dripping slices. Tirzah throws her cardigan and school bag on the table and runs upstairs, suddenly too ashamed to stay in the kitchen. What on earth is going on? her mother calls, banging down the ladle and quickly following. In the bathroom, Tirzah leans over the toilet. Cariad, her mother calls through the door. Are you poorly? Tirzah is hiccupping now. Oh, Mam, she gulps, between times, I don’t know what’s wrong, honest I don’t. Then she starts to cry at the sight of her mother’s rosy, concerned face. Her heart is about to break free from her old gym top. I am such a wicked girl, she sobs. You would hate me if you knew. Now then. Wicked indeed! her mother says, finally coming in. Silly sometimes, maybe. Unwise and all over the place. But this is one of your funny five minutes, that’s all. Tirzah goes on hiccupping and sobbing. Nothing happened with Derry, and anyway, she was only going to let him have one touch, she tells herself, but thoughts are as bad as deeds. She leans her head on her mother’s bosom, picturing that horrible wall and Derry with his finger in her ringlet, and the root of all evil describing a series of devious shapes energetically around them both.