by Dai Smith
She turns away to flick her duster at spiders. Then she pauses again to peer through the nets. She automatically dusts the windowsill and sees Tamar grimace as she sucks her hand. She remembers the childhood taste of warm blood, cut through by bitter fern-juice. She knows the juice will make the insides of Tamar’s mouth tighten; its sour taste will cause the blood to feel creamy on her tongue. Tamar still goes on sucking though; probably it’s something to do. Her mother rearranges the drapes and moves away from the window.
As she sucks, Tamar looks up behind the house to the mountain. Although the mountain is near, she has never walked there. Today’s gently rounded summit is the colour of her mother’s bunches of dried sage. Every day she looks at the mountain and notes its changes. It sits above the house – both unreal and part of home. Up till now she has never thought of going there, but today, suddenly, she realises there is nothing to stop her. She could just go; walk and walk and eventually stand on the very top. The possibility flashes briefly, and then Tamar looks down and studies her hand. She thinks really it’s too far.
Later that evening, her mother, dry-eyed, will remember seeing Tamar hunched up in the garden. She’ll hold her daughter’s summer cardigan tight against her body and tell her husband how Tamar looked out there, sucking. How every now and then she’d shake her hand and then put her thumb back in her mouth, how just once she looked up and gazed at the mountain. She’d looked as if she had never seen it before. The mother thinks if only she’d gone out into the garden then, taken a little strip of plaster, or called Tamar in to bathe her hand, perhaps given her some ice cream. She remembers how she’d paused to look through the bedroom and then the landing windows, and how irritated she’d felt to see Tamar so absorbed, messing about on her own in the garden, her socks loose around her bony ankles. Spoiling the flowers.
Tamar had known all along how her mother was watching from above. She’d shaken her hand as if the pain of the cut was unendurable because her mother watched her, but she wouldn’t look at her. More than anything she wanted something to happen. Something exciting and different. She didn’t even mind if it wasn’t nice, just as long as it was something. Her mother always said little girls had no business wishing their lives away. Enough unpleasant things happened every day without wishing for more. She’d grow up soon enough and know these things for herself.
Tamar watched her mother as she pursed her lips and talked on and on. She listened to her mother but didn’t believe a word she said, not for a moment. Even waiting in the garden it was possible something could happen. Knowing her mother watched through the window made things exciting. It was like being a closely-guarded prisoner, and mother was the warder. Tamar knew that really her mother would love for her to go out and play with the other children in the street; she was always arranging little visits with children she thought were her daughter’s friends. She never gave up trying to make Tamar play with her older sister, even though she must have known it was a waste of time.
Tamar turned her back on the windows and walked toward the back gate, scuffing the stones, raising little puffs of dust. The gate was tall and locked, smelling darkly of fresh creosote. As Tamar walked nearer, the smell intensified. The gate would be tough to climb, impossible with Mother looking through the window.
Tamar’s mother has made her another healthy lunch; a hard-boiled egg, some crackers, a stick of celery. She tells her if she eats her egg and celery she can have ice cream. She knows Tamar won’t be able to. Her mother watches as Tamar cuts the celery into tiny crescents. Tamar hears the clink her mother’s spoon makes in her ice cream bowl. She eats very daintily. Ice cream is all she is eating for lunch. It is variegated ice cream; tenderest pink, creamiest yellow. Tamar has eaten her egg and managed, though she was careful, to put some bits of eggshell into her mouth. They grate between her teeth. No matter how she tries, she cannot eat the wet celery moons. No ice cream for you then, says her mother, as she whisks off the table cloth.
Later, around about midnight, still holding the cardigan, Tamar’s mother thinks about lunchtime. She could have offered her soft bread and butter and cheese. It would have been so simple to give Tamar that. Tamar would have loved to eat a bowl of raspberry ripple ice cream. She finds it hard to think of how she ate hers slowly, exaggerating each movement of the spoon. Tamar had sat quietly without looking up. The silence in the kitchen was so complete she could hear the crunching of eggshells as her daughter chewed.
She’s baffled now, unable to keep still, suffused with a wincing, stark regret. Why hadn’t she relented, pretended it was all a friendly game? She imagines herself back in the kitchen, but this time telling Tamar to shut her eyes tight while she places a bowl of pink and white ice cream before her. She could have sprinkled it with hundreds and thousands, poured a gleam of scarlet sauce liberally into the bowl. Instead, after listening to the crunching sounds Tamar made for so long, she’d said calmly and deliberately, go upstairs and clean your teeth. Don’t stop till I call you.
An hour after lunch, Tamar’s mother reminds her it’s time to call on Tom. This is one of the arranged things her mother does. The afternoon is drifting slowly up and away in a dusty haze of hot tarmac and wilting roses when Tamar gets outside. Her mother had insisted she carry a cardigan. There seems to be no possibility of anything happening in amongst the small, red-brick houses of Tamar’s neighbourhood. The hard surfaces make the air so hot and heavy it singes the insides of her lungs. The glaring warmth of everything makes Tamar think of leaves and water. She hopes Tom will want to go fishing.
Tamar’s friend lives near the canal. Tom thinks fishing will be a good idea. He has a fishing net and says they should see if they can catch some sticklebacks. Tamar is to carry a jar for holding the fish. She waits on the porch as Tom gets ready. She can hear Tom’s mother; she has some friends around. They’re laughing; there is a smell of cigarette smoke. Tom’s family has a television. Tamar can see the strange flashes and bars of light coming through the open door to the lounge. No one is watching, but the women in the kitchen are all humming along to a song a dancing man is singing on a show. When he shouts ‘…What’s new pussycat?’ the women all sing along. ‘Woh ooo, woh ooo woh oo’ they hoot. They are holding imaginary microphones, though Tamar doesn’t know it. Then they stop and laugh at themselves.
Beyond the singing women the back door is open, and Tamar can see clearly through the house to the little children playing on the swing and slide in the garden. There is even a paddling pool. Tom’s mother shouts up the stairs. She tells him to get a move on or his little friend’ll start taking root. She’s not angry at all. Such a slowcoach, she says, walking barefoot to the front door, smiling at Tamar. She rests against the door frame. ‘D’you want an ice lolly, lovey,’ she says in a cool, casual voice and ruffles the little girl’s hair.
Tamar has to be very still. She wants to reach up and hold the hand down onto her head; it feels like an absent-minded blessing. Instead she says no thank you. She thinks about the silent kitchen and the eggshells. Her mother eating ice cream. The way things are. Tamar sits down on the porch tiles. The floor is a rich brown, smooth and chilly against her skin. The tiles don’t shine like her mother’s porch. She would like to live in this house. Tom has three brothers and a baby sister; his gran is always around, giving him sweets. They have a television that everyone can sing along to. She supposes this is what makes the house so different.
From where she is sitting on a stool in the kitchen, Tom’s mother can see Tamar in the porch. The following week, when it’s all over and she sees her friends again, she tries to tell them how she’d felt as she watched the little girl play with a cut on her hand. She’d looked so self-contained, so intent on what she was doing. Tom’s mother tries to tell the listening women about Tamar crouched out there in the shadowy porch, how she seemed far too eager for a smile, like a little puppy. As she sits smoking, one leg crossed over the other, she can’t put into words how she’d wanted to do something, make some ges
ture, somehow include Tamar. She sips her coffee and tells the other women how Tamar’s never included in anything much. They all sit drinking in the sunlight, and no one says a word.
On the canal bank it is cool. The nearly-still water smells of weeds. Tamar lies on the bank and dips her forehead in. The water is brown; she can’t see the bottom. She imagines two thin, hairless, pale-green arms snaking their way up from the oozy mud. She thinks she would gladly hold on to them and fall in, her body hardly making a ripple on the surface, her bulky clothes slipping away as she slides down, down. Tom doesn’t think this sounds nice. Think of all the dangerous stuff down there, he says; lots of rusty cans, and old prams. Big eels too. They decide to walk on and find some part of the canal where the water is clear. Tamar trails her cardigan in the dust. Tom walks on ahead; he’s eager to catch something in his net. ‘Come ON,’ he says over his shoulder. I’m not hanging around for you. Tamar walks slowly. It’s shivery but airless near the canal. The trees meet overhead. On the path in front of her she can see blobs of quivering sunlight. As she walks they surge up and over her, as if the sun is melting and dropping from the sky. The bank nearest the hedge is sprawling over the path, luxuriant with wild flowers. She stops to watch a huge black and amber butterfly open and close its wings as it rests on a drooping foxglove spear. It looks like a velvet brooch pinned there. No one seems to be awake for miles around.
Tamar walks on. She has no idea how long she has watched the butterfly. She doesn’t care where Tom is. Each step has become a huge effort. She has a blister on her heel. As she walks she stoops occasionally to pick up a stone. She puts each one carefully into her shorts pocket. Soon her pockets bulge. She walks to the place where the canal slips under the earth for a stretch. Above there is a little rise and some open ground. The hedge is broken by a stile.
Tamar notices someone is resting against the stile. She walks towards the person and then stops, standing quite near. She wonders if she should say hello. The person resting there is a man. He seems old. The sort of old man who would still wear a cap on a hot day, and a tweed jacket buttoned up. Tamar thinks it’s funny how old people never seem to get hot. The man turns and smiles at Tamar, gesturing for her to come nearer. It’s as if he’s been waiting for Tamar to arrive.
Tamar thinks she recognises the old man; he seems so friendly. ‘Do you know me?’ she asks. The old man smiles again. Tamar climbs up and sits on the top plank of the stile. She can smell tobacco and mints from the old man’s coat. It seems familiar. She and the old man just stand, looking up through the fields to the mountain. Tamar realises it’s the same mountain that hides behind her house. From here it is easy to see how anyone could climb up from the fields. She can almost make out a narrow path. The man starts to talk to her about the mountain. He tells her there is an enormous lake up there, just over the other side. Hardly anyone knows about it. No one ever goes there nowadays. He tells Tamar that there are the most delicious fruits on the mountain, called whinberries. He says they are dark purple and holds out his thumb. They’re as big as my thumbnail, he says. Tamar looks at the old man’s nail. It seems huge, ridged and very tough. Tamar touches the man’s nail and tries with her fingers to bend the nail over. I’m far too strong for you, says the man, and smiles.
Moving a little nearer he rests his arm on Tamar’s bare leg. The tweedy jacket scratches her skin. The man’s arm feels heavy, too heavy for Tamar to lift off. The man is gazing at the mountain. Would you like to climb the mountain and pick those berries? he asks, not turning to look at her. Tamar gazes hard at the mountain top. It looks like everything she’s ever wished for. She imagines lying down among the short, springy bushes and tasting the berry juice. She pictures the smooth, deep lake, brimful of clouds, like a milky eye. She would like to paddle in it. The old man climbs slowly over the stile and stands in the field. Come on, he smiles, let’s go now. He holds out his arms for Tamar to jump into. Tamar leaves her cardigan on top of the stile and leaps down, sure that she’ll be caught. She slips her hot hand into the old man’s cold palm. Then they walk together up the narrow track toward the waiting mountain.
STONES
Grace slips out through the back door after the police call around. The sight of her mother is too much. She stays long enough to see the officer put Tamar’s cardigan down on the table. She’d looked at the mound of soft yellow knitting from where she stood half hidden behind the lounge door. She tried to make sense of the cardigan. She tried to read the signs. She saw some sticky buds stuck to its waistband. She watched her mother’s blue eyes slip down to rest on it. Everyone, the two policemen, her mother and father, were all motionless in the small kitchen. And on the table, near the sugar bowl, Tamar’s cardigan, like a discarded skin.
Grace runs through the woods that rear up at the edge of the playing field. She runs along all its little dirt paths. She visits all the places she can think of. The beech canopy above her deepens to a secret green as the summer evening progresses. She runs through the pain of her stitch, through the undergrowth, welcoming its cuts and blows, until she falls down the steep side of a stream and comes back to herself in a luxuriant clump of dead-nettles. The palms of her hands sting; she has lacerated them on the drooping ferns that loll across her running paths. She sits in the silted margin of the stream and dabbles her raw hands in the water. Her gingham skirt sucks up mud. She thinks about her sister’s cardigan and shakes her head like a pony troubled by flies.
Grace pushes open the front door. Her mother sits on the stairs covered in shadows. Her father is leaning against the wall. No one shouts at Grace for being out late. No one notices her injuries. No one asks if she is hungry. Grace pushes past her mother. She sees again the cardigan, now in her mother’s arms. In her room the darkness is soothing. She climbs under the covers fully-clothed, and rests on her side. She looks across at her sister’s empty bed. The room seems different now. Better perhaps. Her own. She’s drifting through sheets of half-sleep, dreaming her little sister is never coming back. Grace thinks she is to be the only one again.
Then the bedroom light snaps on. Grace can hear talking; there is a sense something has happened. The house is full of people. Grace does not move her position in the bed. Her father comes in carrying Tamar. He places her carefully on her bed and tucks her in. Your sister’s back, he says, and goes out. Grace and Tamar stare at each other. What happened? Grace asks. She looks at her sister’s golden head resting on the pillows. Her hair stands out like a fluffy ruff. She’s had a bath. What happened? she says again.
Tamar puts her thumb in her mouth. Girls your age don’t do that, Grace says. I do, Tamar whispers around the sides of her thumb. She turns to lie on her back. I went walking with someone, she said. An old, old man. He was my friend from the canal. We went to pick mountain fruits. Grace asks, did you know him? There is no answer. We walked a long way, very hot, Tamar says, and he made me hold his hand all the way to the mountain top. Grace imagines her sister holding hands with an old man she doesn’t even know. She can see her trying to pull free. The man would need to be very strong to hold on to Tamar, who never wants to hold hands with anyone.
I liked him, Tamar says very quietly. Grace has to sit up to hear her. He gave me sweets. He said there was a lake. So? says Grace. There is a long silence. Grace can hear her sister’s even breath. You are so stupid, Grace says suddenly, and falls back on her pillows. To go with someone you don’t even know. Tamar says, but I had my stones. As if this makes the difference. Grace imagines Tamar perspiring at the side of the old man, her pockets weighed down by stones that had taken her fancy earlier on the canal bank. She is always finding nice stones. It drives their mother mad. When they are all out together she makes Tamar empty her pockets periodically, ignoring her screams. Now Grace imagines Tamar with the man. She sees her pulling away. Not frightened, but wanting to run in the grass. She sees the two figures walking purposefully up the shrubby mountainside, the only movement in the silence. What difference does having stones make?
Grace asks.
Tamar says, as if in answer, I needed a wee. I told him not to look. He said we were nearly there at the lake, but I couldn’t wait. Grace knows the brow of the mountain, the little blind lake behind its shoulder. She has been there with her friends. She imagines Tamar squatting down to wee, her blue cotton shorts bunched around her bare ankles. The immense, scraggy mountain all around her. The skylarks singing up in the clouds. Incurious sheep chewing sideways. Grace sees Tamar’s figure hunched down, trying to move her feet out of the way of her own jet of warm wee. Where was the man? she asks. Grace finds it hard to imagine the man there while her sister goes to the toilet. He said he would stand guard, Tamar says. I told him not to peek.
The bedroom curtains move in the midnight breeze. Behind the house Grace knows that the mountain waits. He touched my bottom, Tamar says, and smiles at Grace from her nest of pillows. Grace can see her sister’s tiny oval buttocks, pale amongst the scratchy ferns. She imagines the old man leaning down to cup them in his big hands. It’s not funny at all, Grace says. Tamar doesn’t stop smiling though. She puts her thumb back in her mouth and concentrates on sucking for a while. What did you do next? Grace asks. Tamar uses her fingers across her bedspread and mimes running. Then what? Tamar mimes climbing a tree. Grace knows Tamar is a good climber. And she runs fast. She sees her streaking away, and pulling herself up out of reach. The old man would never have been able to catch her. Tamar says, he tried to get me, but I threw my stones down on him. He fell over.
