Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  That shivery, uncovered feeling she gets when walking up a darkened stairwell is with her, that sense of threatening things keeping pace on tiptoe. The joy she was flooded with earlier has evaporated, and something hollow takes its place. I am a lost girl in a forgotten forest, she tells herself. No one would mind if I disappeared for good. If I fell and couldn’t get up, who would care? What would Osian think if he could see her, filthy and wild, scrabbling about in the woods? He would be disgusted and hate her. What about her parents? And Biddy? But she instantly puts aside such thoughts. Again she forces herself to stand and think sensibly: these shady, crouching shapes are only the brambles and ferns she loves in the daylight. She has picked blackberries in places like this with Biddy and Osian many times. There is nothing to be afraid of. But still, behind her, peering out from the undergrowth and mirroring her every movement and pause, she cannot shake the feeling that something is eager to catch her. Something vile and ravenous. Off she goes again, weaving between the crowds of twilit tree trunks. Suddenly, as if the woods have given her a shove, she is flung out on to flat, open ground.

  Sure enough, the thistly fields are recognisable. The withdrawing light settles like peace around her, and she waits for her breathing to return to normal. The dripping between her legs has slowed. With the looming trees behind, she now walks over greying, dewy grass, calmly climbing the stone boundary walls when they block her way, until she knows where she is. Each stone her palms touch is slightly warm, the lichen-covered surfaces comforting. Here I am, she tells herself. Here I am in one piece, and everything is all right. She conjures up the image of her little bedroom, and her bed with its puffy eiderdown. Under the pillow her flannelette nightgown is folded, waiting to drop over her head. Out here, Tirzah is like a tiny speck caught on the immense patchwork spread of a hundred fields. Finally, she runs, and doesn’t once look back, not even when she gets in amongst the narrow, glowing windows of the village.

  Her breath is loud in her ears when she reaches Mr Singh’s shop. She can hardly believe her eyes, but there he is, pulling his shutter down and padlocking the shop. It must only be eight o’clock. The sky is a celestial, dying blue as Tirzah walks the rest of the way home and lets herself in quietly. Standing in the hall she remembers her mac and umbrella, and how she stashed them in the field. Dammo, she thinks. I’ll be in trouble for that as well. Somehow, though, if you set a coat and brolly against what she has done today, it’s hardly worth getting yourself in a knot about. The dining-room clock is still snipping up the seconds, and the dire old verses in their frames go on doing their best to frighten her to death. Silently, head down, she concentrates on locating her parents.

  There is a scuffling sound from upstairs, and a clearing of the throat that can only be her father. So he’s still in his study. She tiptoes down the hall to the closed kitchen door and puts her hand on the wooden knob. Pressing her ear to the paintwork for a moment, she slowly turns the handle and inches it open. Without stepping into the room she twists her head around the door and has a quick look. There, in the easy chair by the fire, is her mother, sleeping, Bible open on her lap. Tirzah can see from the way her cheeks are tight and shiny she has been crying. Oh, poor little Mam, she thinks, a lump expanding in her throat. Then she shuts the door and makes for her bedroom.

  Tirzah takes her clothes off. The stained knickers she was wearing need to be washed out immediately. She sniffs the sticky gusset and detects, like mushrooms and old leaves, the earthy, sour smell of Brân’s semen, and mixed with it, the tang of her own blood. What’s done is done, she thinks. And turning from Brân’s famished face and wiry fingers, decides to banish all thoughts of what happened from her mind. She daren’t have a bath; the roaring of the boiler would wake everyone up, so in the bathroom she washes with cold water. Rivulets course down her goose-bumped skin, and the sponge refuses to froth, no matter how much soap she rubs on it. Between her legs feels like a slippery, hot bruise; it’s painful in an entirely new way. Carefully she pats herself clean. Back in the room, her flesh burns it’s so chilled. Putting the soft nightie on, she is comforted by the warm folds draping around her body. This is lovely, she thinks, burrowing down between the crackling sheets. It’s luxurious, noting her aches and pains now she’s safe in bed. Just when she is about to slip over smooth, shining rocks into the deep pool of sleep, her mother opens the bedroom door and turns the light on.

  Tirzah struggles to sit, pulling the eiderdown to her shoulders. Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs! her mother exclaims, plonking her fists on her hips. Where did you spring from? I was getting worried about you. Tirzah doesn’t speak. How long have you been here? her mother asks again. I’m not sure, Tirzah says, trying to be as truthful as possible. She wonders if her parents have heard about her walking out of the manse. Mam, she calls, and lifts her arms for an embrace. Come to me, her mother says in a thickened voice, and rushes to kneel by the bed. Enclosing Tirzah with fierce arms, she plants firm kisses along her forehead and pushes the strong curls back. Tirzah snuggles in, her mind blank as a bowl of milk. Now then, I think the best thing would be to forget this whole business with the elders, her mother says when she has sat back on her heels. Don’t you, cariad?Yes, Mama, Tirzah, says. I would like that. I’ll speak to his nibs, her mother adds, getting to her feet. There’s enough trouble in this old world without us adding to it. I’m sure the Lord agrees with me. She wipes her eyes with a hankie fished from the pocket of her apron. Do you want a bowl of soup? You must be famished.

  Tirzah lies against her pillows when her mother leaves, and wonders at the way things are turning out. She can’t help smiling. Is it really going to be this easy to explain her absence? Her room has never felt so enveloping and safe. But then, like an unexpected wave filled with pebbles and ropes of weed, another feeling dumps itself on her. What she has done is so wicked no one in the fellowship will ever get over it. Surely she is a fallen, impure girl now. In a way, chapel doesn’t matter, but it’s not right to lie to my mother, she tells herself. And it’s not safe. To act the way I’ve acted is not safe. Inside her empty heart she experiences something worse than the sharpest hunger.

  Reluctantly she turns her mind to Brân. He hadn’t spoken to her. Did he even care who she was? He’s probably completely mad, she realises; no one can talk to a crow. He is a wild, stinking, dangerous thing. How could I have lain down with him and opened my legs that way? She clenches her fists until the nails hurt her palms, thinking of the soiled pants drying in their miserable little knot under the bed. She begins to fear that the real, inner Tirzah is not there any more, not that mysterious girl who jumped out in Brân’s hut, but the soft, holy part of her she has always sensed happily inhabiting her skull and extending down past her throat like a mollusc in a complicated shell. Maybe it has gone. And she is the one who lost it. Then another thought falls on her. Maybe the very Devil has yanked her soul out and devoured it in one gulp. And she, Tirzah, handed it to him on a plate.

  The Widow … Shall Come, and Shall Eat and Be Satisfied

  (Deuteronomy 14:29)

  In the days that follow, Tirzah lives in a kind of featureless stupor. Her parents have ructions at the manse with Pastor about her running away from the elders, but she is only dimly aware of the upset. Later, in the kitchen, her father announces that he’s told Pastor this is a private matter, and he will deal with it as he sees fit. And the way he deals with it is to ignore Tirzah, which suits her just fine. Her exams are about to start, and will go on for nearly a month. She is trying to lasso her mind, make it attend to history and English and maths. In her room, surrounded by papers, she sits at the desk and stares at nothing. After the first biology paper, she can’t remember one thing about the questions or how she answered them. Her mind is wearing a groove around other things, but she forces herself to keep working, and eventually starts to feel more alive. One evening, she realises Derry is spending most of his time out of the house these days. Not that he ever hung around a lot, but still, now he
seems to slip in so late his food is welded to its hot plate; her mother grumbles every morning as she scrubs the dried-on leftovers in the sink, threatening to stop cooking for him. And he’s off to work before even her father gets up, almost as if he’s avoiding them all. She doesn’t blame him for making himself scarce. Even though he’s a peculiar article, she misses having another human being around the house. The smell of his deodorant and cigarettes are the only clues he’s here at all. She thinks about the way he winks at her when they pass on the stairs, and decides to peep into his room.

  The bed is tightly made, and the cold, lino-floored room has an unlived-in feel. Hospital corners and then some more, Tirzah thinks, venturing to sit on the taut coverlet. How did Derry learn to make a bed that way? Where are his parents? She knows he was not brought up in this valley. His accent is slightly more guttural than everybody here. She’s used to it now, but still when he speaks there are some words he squashes, and others he opens out in a different way, and she has to think twice to understand him. Maybe he grew up in a children’s home. She should ask him more about himself. When I can, I’ll have a chat and get him to open up, she decides. I’ll ask him more about his job and his parents. Somehow she knows Derry’s on her side, even though he thinks, as he once told her, that she’s not all there.

  There are no photos in frames on the chair that serves as his bedside table. His few spare clothes are neatly stacked on the single shelf of the closet. She knocks the empty wire hangers and they send out a mournful tinkle; he doesn’t seem to like hanging anything up. Feeling twitchy, she quickly pushes her hands in between the mattress and bed frame and pulls something out. This is the first time she has seen a dirty magazine. Some of the women are lying down with their legs spread, and she can hardly stand to look at the way they hold the lips of their private parts open with sharp, red fingernails, as if inviting someone in. Their pink, juicy insides are raw-looking. Tirzah is mesmerised by what appears to be an endless display of fresh wounds. Is this what she looked like to Brân?

  Do men like looking at such sights? They must do. Some of the women are kneeling, bottoms presented to the camera, tousled heads twisted to slyly glance over their shoulders from under turquoise eyelids. Tirzah is weak and her ears burn. She has never seen an anus before, not even her own. Usually, she would turn her eyes away from a cat’s pale bottom if she could help it. Ych-y-fi, she says under her breath. There’s rude. Why would anybody want to inspect that? Do women do things like this for their husbands? Do the women enjoy it? A wriggle of laughter tries to escape from her chest. Dirty, that’s what it is. A dark and fascinating doorway has swung open, and Tirzah is poised on the threshold. She wants to step through, but hesitates, held rigid by a mixture of fear and curiosity. What about the people she knows? Imagine Pastor’s wife squatting like that. It can’t be true. Then an image of her parents pops into her head. She rams the magazine back under the mattress and rushes to the bathroom. Never in this world have I seen anything like it, she thinks, looking at her flushed face in the mirror. Lord, protect me from lewd thoughts, she breathes, trying to swallow spurts of laughter as she pats her cheeks with a towel.

  Back in her room, she sits at the desk and opens a book. It all looks like double Dutch; the words keep scrambling about on the page. Right, she thinks, fidgeting in the seat and feeling grubby, if I can’t revise, I will make myself read Little Women through to the end. Then, when that’s finished, I’ll go back and have a final look at geography, ready for tomorrow. But before the first few pages are finished, she’s imagining Meg, Jo and Amy doing what the women in the magazine were doing. Not Beth, though. Or Marmee. That would be the absolute limit. Jo would be most sexy, with her cropped hair and spirit of adventure, but such a thought is wicked. Jo is so wonderful. And Meg so shiningly good. That vain, silly Amy with the stupid nose is the most likely one. Tirzah shakes her head to clear it. Closing the book, she kicks off her shoes and falls on the bed.

  What about Derry? Does looking at those women make Derry a sinner through and through? Poor Derry, she thinks. He can’t help it. And she remembers him twining one of her curls around his finger, and the way her answer had shut off his eyes’ sweet, awakened expression. In the real world, he probably wouldn’t ask a girlfriend to do the things those women do. But who knows? Maybe Derry would actually like to see Tirzah bent over, giving him the old glad eye with her bottom in the air? I could never do something like that, she thinks. But judge not that ye be not judged, she remembers, blushing to own that she had contemplated charging Derry for what the kids in school called a grope. I’ve done nothing I’d be proud to write home about, and that’s the truth, she tells herself.

  The exam goes smoothly, she thinks. If finding it easy is a good sign, then she’s done well. At teatime, her parents still haven’t asked how things are going. I sat an exam today, she announces, and they both look at her, waiting for what she will say next. I’m not going to tell them anything else, she thinks, irritated by their raised eyebrows. Instead, she asks where Derry is these days. Her mother’s nose is shining as she dishes out fried fish. Derry is leaving us soon, she says. But why? Tirzah asks. Shouldn’t we be caring for him? Why is he going from us? Her mother shoots her a look. That is none of your business, she answers, pouring parsley-flecked white sauce over the sizzling slices of fish. How many potatoes? Tirzah thinks of Derry’s cold bedroom, and his magazine. I’m not hungry, she says. Her mother looks more closely at her. Now then, she says, ignoring what Tirzah has said and ladling two potatoes on to her plate. Eat up, there’s a good girl. Derry was only ever going to be here for a short time, just until he got his own place. And your father says our work with him is finished. She sits down and puts her hands together. He is a very lost, hardened soul, and has turned his face from the Lord. She looks across at Tirzah. Besides, she adds, it’s not as if he was a friend of yours, is it? Her father comes into the kitchen and sits. Throughout grace, Tirzah wants to howl, thinking of how alone she will be in the house without Derry’s presence. Her father tucks in, mashing his potatoes into the parsley sauce. Lovely meal, Mair, he says. Very nice. Tirzah’s mother flushes. Thank you, Gwyll, she says, popping a morsel of fish into her smiling mouth.

  Tirzah hates this dinner. She doesn’t understand the point of fish. And why smother it in white sauce? She watches her parents eating contentedly. I’m sorry, she tells them. I cannot eat. She gets up to leave the table. And where do you think you’re off to? her father asks. I don’t remember giving you permission. Sit down. Tirzah stops a tear sliding down her face with a finger, her throat full of something like feathers. She gazes at her mother. Oh, Gwyll, her mother says. She’s upset about Derry going. You know what she’s like about the strangest people. Her father sniffs. I’ve never heard such nonsense, he says. Derry’s had his chance. He has turned his back on the Lord. And the Lord will not be mocked. Tirzah would like to say something, but it’s no use. The trouble with her parents is they can only think of people as souls, saved souls and unsaved souls. That’s all they care about. She is suddenly plunged into a grey world, crowded with millions of unloved souls drifting around like patches of smog. In amongst them is Derry. Who will look after Derry now?

  Her father puts down his cutlery. You may leave the table, he tells her, but first, an announcement. Tirzah and her mother stare at him. Widows and orphans and suchlike, he says abruptly. That is where we should be labouring. Mair, he continues, very interested in the tablecloth, we have a Mrs Rowland and her daughter Muriel coming this Friday. A sad tale, but I feel an assurance that we can spread God’s love and show them the error of their ways. Amen. Now, off you go. He picks his fork back up and heaps it with food. Then, without looking at either of them, he opens his mouth wide and shoves the forkful in. Gwyllim! Tirzah’s mother says. For shame! Now I understand why you complimented my cooking. I thought at the time it was odd. There’s devious you are. Trying to butter me up like that. Just to foist some strange new people on me. Now, Mair, her father sta
rts, and then fizzles out. Tirzah is so fed up with both of them that she leaves silently. Running upstairs, she quickly ducks into Derry’s room and takes his magazine. Then she rests against her closed door, trying to think of a good hiding place, and finally squeezes it behind her wardrobe.

  When Tirzah gets home from school the next day, her mother is cleaning Derry’s room. Later he arrives to get his things and lingers to talk to Tirzah in the hall. She has been waiting for him, her coat buttoned up against the cold she feels inside, but cannot think of anything to say now he’s here. She looks at him properly, for one last time. Don’ get yourself all ’et up, he tells her. Maybe I’ll drop you a note to tell you where I am? Tirzah nods and tries to shape her lips into a smile. Then if you’re ever, you know, in another jam, he goes on, you can just write me a letter. They stand in the gloomy hallway. Come ’ere, he says, to Tirzah’s surprise, and embraces her quickly, fumbling to get his arms around her bulky coat before her mother comes downstairs with his old duffel bag. Tirzah is glad she was able to stash the magazine under his few clothes, unbeknownst to her mother. Thank you, missus, he says, when she hands it over to him. Thank you for ’aving me. There we are then, Tirzah’s mother answers. All the best to you, Derry. Tirzah reaches and touches his hand. He smells of coal dust and cigarette smoke. Goodbye, Derry, she says, before running upstairs.