Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  (Deuteronomy 16:14)

  Tirzah’s mother has been what she calls bottoming out the house. We can’t wait for spring to do our cleaning this year, she says, head tightly wrapped in a scarf. This place was due for a good session anyway. She’s allowing herself a breather with Tirzah before tackling the front room. We’ll soon be ready for your birthday and Christmas and, more importantly, the baby’s arrival. Tirzah has her legs up on a kitchen chair and is balancing a cup on top of her belly. Mam, I’m frightened, she says. What is having a baby like? Her mother pulls the corners of her mouth down. It hurts, love, she says. It hurts a lot. The contents of Tirzah’s cup slosh around as the baby kicks. You will recognise the pain when it comes, her mother adds. How? Tirzah asks. You just will, her mother says. Now, I must get cracking. You go on sorting that sewing box for me, there’s a good girl. Tirzah is puzzled by her mother’s answer. Why did she rush off like that? She can’t imagine pushing a huge baby out through such a small opening. I won’t think any more, she decides. Or I’ll only go off my onion.

  It takes a few days for the smells of bleach and polish and paint to subside. Tirzah is planning her birthday party. Of course, it will be a small affair, but still, she is excited. If only Osian could come, she thinks, sucking her pen at the kitchen table one November day when the cold air has deadened all normal sounds in the streets. It will not be the same without him. But she realises she is thinking of the old, gently amused and sweet Osian. The one who enabled everyone to have fun. He has gone just as truly as the new, strange Osian has. She’s working her way through a chunk of fruit cake and takes a bite. As she does, the thought of Brân flashes like a startled bird across her mind. We must do something, she thinks, glad that Biddy is her friend again. She has already found a good, warm coat for him in a local jumble sale. And a pair of walking boots. Tirzah starts to make a new list. Candles, matches, socks, a roll of strong plastic for lying on, food in tins and a tin opener. They will have to use rucksacks to carry it all. Then she writes down toothpaste and toothbrush. She is waiting for Biddy to come for tea after school. Quickly she finishes her lists, puts the notebook away and lays the table.

  After their meal, the girls are allowed to go in the front room and put the gas fire on. Biddy has described her own birthday trip to town and the film she saw and the food she ate. Now she is talking about how funny Ffion is. You would die at some of the things she comes out with, she says. Really? Tirzah answers, not looking at her. She never used to strike me as the comic type. Well, she is when you get to know her, Biddy goes on. She’s a laugh a minute, that one. After a short silence, she scrutinises Tirzah’s flushed face. Hang a banger, though, she says slowly. Are you jealous of Ffion? Tirzah nods. Oh, you thick twit, Biddy says. I love you more than anyone in the world. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Tirzah reaches to give her a hug. Gerroff me, Biddy shouts. Honestly! When they are settled again, Tirzah gets out her notebook and explains her plan to take stuff to the woods. Maybe we’ll need Ffion as well, she suggests. Things will be so heavy. They think for a few moments. No, Biddy says. I will do a few trips. That will be safer. Tirzah throws her a look. Truly, Tiz, I don’t mind. I’m very strong, you know. The fire gives a series of soft hiccups. They are both picturing Brân somewhere out amongst the dying bracken and silent, leaf-shedding woods.

  I will do it on one condition, Biddy says. Tirzah knows what Biddy is going to say, but she keeps quiet. You must answer me truthfully, Biddy says, coming to kneel in front of the fire. Is Brân the father of your baby? Tirzah is hollow, she is so ashamed. Yes, she answers, keeping her eyes fixed on the gas flames. Biddy is silent. Oh, Tizzy, that wild boy? she says eventually. How terrible. I sort of suspected it was him. But Tirzah cannot say another word, so she shrugs. Now she feels even worse. The memory of her furtive encounter with Brân makes her wince. I promise I won’t tell a soul, Biddy says, peering at her. Now let’s not dwell on it any more. The birthday party! That’s what we should think about, and she claps her hands. So Tirzah makes a huge effort to wrestle her mind on to another track, and tells her she’s going to invite Derry. He’s such a sweetheart, he really is, she says. And Betty Palfrey, because me and Mam like her. Gran and Bampy, naturally. And we’ll ask Osian’s mother because she’s so lonely, and Ffion, since she is so hilarious. Biddy nudges her energetically. Soon they are making a list of all the food Biddy likes best. I love party grub, Biddy shouts, jumping on and off the settee. Can we have roast potatoes? I love, love, love ’em. Tirzah watches her bouncing, pencil in mouth, still trying to get into the spirit of things. No, we cannot have spuds. Even though you love them. Anyway, you love most food, so it makes no matter. It’s to be things like small sandwiches and cakes. Oh, and those cubes of cheese on sticks. There’s posh, Biddy says, flopping down.

  The next day, Tirzah takes the scrap of paper Derry gave her when they parted in the park, and walks to the telephone box. Inside, she is bewildered; she hasn’t used a telephone much. Of the people she knows, only Pastor and Gran and Bampy have one. It’s difficult to decide when to insert the coins, and the chirruping brrr, brrr, brrr is so nerve-wracking she drops her purse and has to start again. Twice her money comes jangling from the rejected coins slot, but finally she can hear the stupid thing ring, and she asks for Derry. Soon his raspy voice fills her ear. She can barely believe it when he asks her if he can bring his girlfriend. Tirzah clutches the handset. But, Derry, she hears herself saying into the receiver, I thought you were going to love me for ever and ever. You didn’t waste much time finding a replacement. Well, o’ course, he says, not losing a beat. I knew you’d never ’ave me, so I thought I’d carry on, see? Find someone more my dap. Tirzah is silent. I will still love you for ever, though, he adds. Just don’ tell ’er that. Derry, you are an idiot, she says finally. And yes, of course, bring your girlfriend. She hangs up, balanced on the edge of laughter and tears. Someone is waiting to use the phone, so she pushes the heavy door open and walks home, still not knowing how to feel about Derry’s fickleness.

  On the day of her birthday she wakes early. The room is dark, and freezing air snakes out from the gaps between the curtains, burning her naked arm where it lies outside the bedclothes. So, I have sent lots of things to Brân, she thinks with satisfaction, thankful to Biddy and her three treks to the woods. For the time being the burden of Brân is lighter. Sometimes her shoulders actually ache, she is so aware of him, and she wishes she didn’t care. At least he has necessities to last for a while, she thinks. And I have organised the people who are coming to the party. We can let off the fireworks left over from Bonfire Night. When she was little she thought the explosions and spangles in the black sky over the village were expressly to celebrate her birth. So now they will be, she thinks. When they’ve had mid-morning coffee, her mother bans her from downstairs, so she reads on her bed. After lying down for a while she becomes aware of a strange pressure creeping over her belly, and pulls the bedclothes down to have a look at her bump. Over the stretched, unblemished surface of her skin she can see ripple-like tightenings, and sure enough, moving like strong currents of water under her spread hands, her muscles are contracting and letting go.

  Tirzah pulls the bedclothes up to her neck and turns to lie on her side. She remembers Mrs Palfrey telling her something about the body doing practice contractions, and tries to relax. She is relieved, though, when the sensation gradually lessens. Her mother calls her for an early lunch, and afterwards she returns to her room to rest. When she awakes, it is already dark outside and the clock says six. With an effort she pushes herself out of bed and prepares. It’s not complicated: her hair is already braided, so she changes the ribbon, and then climbs into one of her old maternity smocks. Then she goes downstairs. Hanging from the hall ceiling, bunches of balloons nudge each other, and when she opens the dining-room door to have a look, the table is laid with all kinds of party food. Dear Mama, she thinks. In the kitchen, her mother is taking a tray of sausage rolls out of the oven. Don’t you look ni
ce? she says, giving Tirzah a hug. There is a knock at the door and she rushes out to answer it. It is Gran and Bampy. Then someone else appears. Tirzah can tell by the way her mother is talking it must be Derry, so she sneaks a look. Derry and his girlfriend are standing in the doorway. Come in, come in, her mother is saying. Let’s keep the cold out. Into the front room with you. She calls Tirzah to take their coats. Tirzah feels awkward, convinced they are both gawping at her growing bump, but she does as she’s told.

  Osian’s mother arrives, then Betty Palfrey. Tirzah’s mother and Gran are in full swing, greeting people and seating them, but Tirzah hangs back in the kitchen until her mother finds her. We’re missing the birthday girl, she says, and drags Tirzah by the hand. The front room is crowded with people, but seeing their smiling faces, she starts to brighten; everybody wants to kiss her and say happy birthday. Derry’s girlfriend’s name is Jeanette, and she has perched herself on his knee. Tirzah realises she is quite a lot older than him. She strains to hear what Jeanette is saying to Osian’s mother. While Jeanette talks to her, Mrs Evans’s eyes wander around the room as if she is searching for something. Biddy and Ffion come in late, laughing, but Tirzah doesn’t mind. She is just relieved to see them. Soon, her father gets home and it is time to eat. Let us pray, he says from the head of the table. When everyone’s eyes are shut, Tirzah looks at them all bowing their heads, and then at the plates of filled baps and sausage rolls, the bowls of crisps and pickled onions, the orange halves covered in silver paper, bristling with cubes of cheese on sticks, until it all begins to blur. I mustn’t blub now, she thinks, sniffing the tears away. Not while the party is going on. Tuck in and enjoy, her mother announces.

  After the guests have eaten a second bowl of trifle each and Tirzah has blown out her seventeen candles, it is time for fireworks. In the garden, bundled in their coats, everyone breathes clouds of smoke and stamps their feet. Tirzah stands amongst them. She can see each dear person, and they can see her, but there is a membrane separating her from them all. At any moment she might snap her moorings and sail off into the star-pricked, crystalline darkness that crowns the valley. She is at odds with her own life now. And afraid she will not be able to manage her changed future. Her father lights the rockets, and with thrilling whooshes they ascend. Huge, bursting, orange flower heads spill down weightlessly on to Tirzah’s face and drip showers of sparkling gold on the surrounding slate roofs. She watches as purple rosettes explode, and emerald light streaks overhead. The upturned faces around her change colour in the flashing night and become strange. Suddenly she feels a jolt, and puts out a hand to find something to hold on to; her belly is doing an altogether different sort of secret dance to the one it did earlier, and Tirzah knows she is feeling her baby move for the first time. Across the garden, Gran is tracing Tirzah’s name in ragged, silver lines with her fizzing sparkler, and as the final rocket explodes with a deep boom, showering them in starry, scarlet petals, the baby shudders and flips in her womb.

  Hast Thou Entered into the Treasures of the Snow?

  (Job 38:22)

  Throughout the month after the party, Tirzah can’t shake off the sensation that she’s acting a part. Here she is, walking to the shops, or lying on the sofa in the front room with Biddy, or eating with her parents in the fuggy kitchen, but more and more her life is turning into a sort of extremely dull pantomime; her family and friends are actors proficient at memorising their lines, while Tirzah is always tripping over her words or blanking out in the middle of a sentence. It will soon be Christmas and everyone has been planning presents, but Tirzah can only gaze hard at each person, yearning for a sense they see her and understand how alone and afraid she feels. No one will be still; they are busy and breezy, their eyes always sliding away from hers towards the next important thing.

  I must get a grip of myself, she thinks, marshalling her strength to make sweets for everyone. Each morning she resolves to try harder to be normal and ignore the terrifying shell solidifying around her, only to flop into bed at night like a flung glove puppet. She can’t stand the sight of her schoolwork these days. When she looks through the pages, she is unable to understand anything. It’s as if her head were full of feathers. Then one night she wakes from a sleep so deep it takes long minutes for her limbs to unlock, and she realises the truth: she is alone. Even though they care about her, no one can help her now. Soon she and she alone will have to give birth to this child. That is why everyone is skirting around her. In the semi-darkness, listening to the profound silence lying on the valley, it is as if she has been abandoned to her task already.

  Down in the kitchen, she lights the gas under the kettle and sits at the table, feet freezing in her felt slippers. Under the mutter of the heating water, another, unfamiliar sound is making itself heard. The noise is like a thousand voices whispering hush, hush, hush – dry, shale-like, falling away, building, then dying only to build again. It is as if some huge machine were throwing handfuls of tiny stones at the window and rubbing them in. Tirzah rises from the table and unlocks the back door. In the golden light falling over her shoulders on to the path, snow is moving in draping, undulating sheets. Innumerable icy flakes skitter on the broken concrete and strike the windows. Freezing air billows into the kitchen, pressing the folds of her nightdress to her body. She hears the snow spreading itself over the dug-up earth and quickly shuts the door on it. Automatically, she snatches the kettle off the flame with an oven glove and pours a scalding stream into a mug. Then she drops to one of the easy chairs by the damped-down fire. Oily warmth sneaks from the sleepy covering of coal dust her mother shovelled on last night, but Tirzah doesn’t notice. Her mind is searching the whitening woods for Brân, the blood in her veins stuttering. She is lost, flitting through the trees, calling for him. At last, chilled to the bone, she stirs and moves to the table again.

  By the time Tirzah fully comes back to herself, dawn, muffled and grudging, is pushing at the window, and the herbal drink is cold, but she swallows it, remembering the promise to her grandmother. Stiffly she walks along the hall and climbs the stairs. With her slippers on and dressing gown still tied tightly, she climbs back into bed and falls instantly asleep. When she wakes again it is late in the morning and her mother has brought toast and hot chocolate. Look! she says, and opens the curtains. Thick crusts of snow crown the slate roof tiles opposite and stand on the windowsills. The sky is grey and lowering. We’ll be in for some more later if I’m not mistaken, she adds. I love a bit of snow, mind. But I hope it doesn’t hang around too long. When she is alone again, Tirzah listens to the snow silence. Last year she would have been impatient to get out in the lane with her sledge and play late into the evening with all the others. Still, she is happy. And it makes things more Christmassy. She is pleased with her mint creams, all wrapped, ready in their ribbon-tied cellophane bags. The trays and trays of pale-green coins took days to do.

  Tirzah lies in a deep bath and watches her bump surge. The ankle-skimming bath water rule has been relaxed for the time being. That’s probably the only good thing about being pregnant. I wish for a baby girl, she thinks, surprising herself. In the middle of a contemplation about names, she suddenly realises that Brân needs a hot-water bottle or two. The idea of a little girl is so warming, even a stray thought about Brân does not concern her. It will be Christmas Eve in two days, and Granny and Bampy are coming, as well as Biddy, and Uncle Maldwyn and Aunty Ceinwen. Her mother ordered a big chicken in November and has been humming in the kitchen with the radio on, making sage and onion stuffing and mince pies. The pantry is full of good things. Everything will be lovely. And that’s all I’m going to think about, she decides, pouring hot water from a jug on to her belly. Mrs Palfrey is calling later to examine her, and when that is done, and Biddy sent to deliver the hot-water bottles, she is going to enjoy Christmas.

  In the afternoon, her mother comes into the front room with a Christmas tree. But, Mam, won’t Dada be angry when he sees it? she asks. His majesty can stick what he feels
up his jumper, her mother says, carrying the tiny tree in its pot to a space by the nest of coffee tables. I mean that with love, of course. We are having a tree this year. Then she shows Tirzah the ornaments she has been collecting. Together they decorate the branches, trying not to listen out for the front door. Tirzah looks at the tree and can hardly believe it. Never before has this happened. Her father always says no. When she was little, if she pleaded, he would start to get worked up and throw questions. Are we pagans? he would shout. What does the birth of Christ have to do with baubles and gewgaws? The only thing Tirzah was ever allowed to do was write a scripture verse on the mirror with a bit of dry soap. Once she drew some holly leaves at either end of the sentence, but her father insisted she wash them off. Shame on you, he’d said, watching her rub at them with a dishcloth. Give the Devil an inch. And now, here they were with a tree.

  Tirzah inhales the smell of the fir branches and is whisked instantly to the forestry and a warm, still day when she and Osian fell asleep together in the crook of an old tree. How long ago that seems now. Then her mother comes back with a string of fairy lights. Never, Mama! Are we having lights as well? she says, filled with excitement and dread. They drape the cord with its multi-coloured lights around the tree and her mother switches them on. Turn the big light off, Mam, Tirzah says. Then they sit in the semi-dark with the little red, green, blue and yellow lights shining. Outside, large flakes of snow drift past the window. Let’s have a mince pie, shall we? her mother suggests.

  The gas fire hisses, and side by side on the sofa they eat warm mince pies together. At five o’clock they hear the sound of a key turning in the lock, and her mother rushes out, shutting the door behind her. Tirzah can make out her father’s raised voice, and her mother’s lighter, insistent tones talking over him. Then the row moves into the kitchen and fades. She half-closes her eyes and watches the lights spread and dazzle. She has a sense of this small, pine-scented room perilously perched on the huge curve of the world, surrounded by yawning, colossal tracts of nothing. Again, she wonders if any of this matters a jot. And instead of the thought making her sad or panicked, she finds it comfortable. Everything will be fine, in the end, she thinks, aware for a fleeting moment of the shining presence she has felt before, hovering over the house.