Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  Him turns and walks away. The tall men are done with me. Done with all of us till next month. Them push the boats off the beach and the long oars stir up the waters.

  Barney is not in the boats.

  Not in our home.

  Not in my arms.

  My throat gets unstuck and I howl and scream like my heart will clean break out of me. So loud Da comes out of our cottage.

  Da gets to me and I feel a sharp bite on my shin. A thick rope lies next to my foot on the sand. It’s moving, twisting, glints of teeth woven through the strands. Da pulls me up on my feet and I punch hims big chest and bury my head in hims neck.

  ‘Barney’s gone!’ I shriek. ‘Him’s been took.’ And everything goes blank and dark.

  Da sits beside my bed on the wobbly stool. Slumped over, wearing all greys, him looks like an empty canvas bag.

  Him says, ‘You’ve got a fever, Mary. Been talking strangeness what makes no sense. Brown eyes and blue eyes and bruises. Ropes tied all over you an’ the whole island. You know where you are?’ Hims tired eyes look at me like I’m going to be gone any moment.

  I roll away, face the cracked grey wall and whisper, ‘Want him back.’

  Da’s voice sounds loud. ‘Him is gone, Mary, and it’s not your fault.’

  I know it is my fault. Shouldn’t have let him get away from my eyes, not for a moment, not even to be hid where I thought him’d be safe.

  The ropes come up over the bed. I’m tied to the island and all twisted. I scream and here’s the blank dark place again.

  I hear my voice … ‘Da, find him …’

  ‘Him is gone …’

  In the blank dark, blue eyes are everywhere, staring at me.

  I shout at them and ask them and cry at them, for Barney.

  The back door to the cottage slams.

  I’m carrying a fish eye out of the cold room on the tip of a broiderie needle. I grip the needle with all my fingertips to hold the eye steady. The eye blinks. I judder and the eye falls off the needle into a barrel filled with ice. My head is burning hot. Someone wipes a cold cloth over my forehead.

  The back door slams in the distance.

  ‘Mam,’ my voice says, ‘can you see Barney?’

  Da’s voice is loud in my ear, ‘Mary, you’re in a fever. Mam’s buried.’

  ‘No … no … no.’

  Mam’s voice is here. ‘This fence is made of threads. Woven with broken lost things. Everything they want to forget.’

  ‘Dun tell me to forget Barney!’

  Something cold on my face. A hand, a cloth, a piece of ice …

  Da’s voice, ‘Shush up Mary, you’re shouting …’

  I call out, ‘Mam, can you see where him is?’

  Da’s voice says, too loud, ‘Mary stop it, it’s a fever you’re in. Mam’s gone. Settle now, settle.’

  Mam’s still talking. ‘Forgotten things will make a person sick …’

  I’m crying.

  She’s gone.

  Da wipes the cold thing over my face, says, ‘Have a drink, come on, there’s meadowsweet in this water.’ Hims arm holds up my back, tilts a cup to my mouth. I clench my lips tight shut, water rains all over me. Wet all over … Da bangs the cup down, and says, ‘You dun even want to get better.’ Him lets go of my back, I fall. Down through cloud, rain, fog …

  Hands reach out from the sky, hold out food, bowls of soup, plates of steaming vegetables, stew, I’m getting fatter and fatter from eating and I punch my huge belly. It unravels, like stitches on a broiderie. All the stitches twist, wriggle like maggots, twirl and squirm themselves into the shape of eyes.

  I’m in a tunnel of blue eyes.

  The back door slams.

  Da’s voice calls my name from the day Barney got took, calls again. Over and over, ‘Mary, where are you? Mary, where are you? Mary …’

  Him never called Barney’s name.

  The blue eyes blink.

  Him knew Barney weren’t here …

  Da puts hims cold hand on my cheek. ‘Come back Mary, come home, come back.’

  This morning the sun is bright. Da opens the curtain so the light gets in. I sit up slow. Him looks like someone I dun even know.

  Da folds hims arms. ‘You’re through the worst of it. I need to go fishing so we can eat – the tall men’ll be coming back in a week or so. Is tha’ all right, but?’

  ‘Aye Da, you go, I’ll be fine right here.’

  Him is polishing a battered compass with hims jumper sleeve. Hims eyes are so tired. Like them’ve seen a thousand monsters just sitting here with me. But Da knew Barney weren’t here … the day him were took.

  ‘Go Da. I’ll be fine. Da?’

  ‘Aye, Mary?’ Him puts the compass back in hims pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry about Barney.’ I watch hims face. It dun change.

  Him picks at a hole in hims jumper. ‘Aye,’ him says, quiet. ‘So am I.’ Him gets up, stretches, cracks hims neck and goes. Him dun mean it. Hims life will be easier with just us two working, with no boy he dun love, to teach to catch fish.

  So the tall men are coming soon. I’ve been in bed for over two weeks.

  Days and nights and days of fever.

  Dun believe I’ve lost this much time – Barney missing, with me not able to look for him. I want to cut and rip and unpick all the days what’ve gone, thread them back together so them’re made all over again, but I can’t feel my hands.

  Nights and days and nights of not looking. Of no one looking.

  I try to stand but the floor shifts around and my legs trip me back on the bed. I try again. And again till I’m all stood up. It takes a while, but I get over to the bedroom door. I go through to the main room with the cupboard with Barney in it, only him isn’t in there. I open the cupboard and look at all the boxes and baskets full of threads and linen. It’s dark in there.

  Blank dark.

  Ice in barrels. I blink, and it’s just the cupboard and all the broiderie stuff Mam had. All the hoops and frames. All the linen she never put pictures on. That’s what I do. I make broideries on the linen and the tall men come and take them away. Them take a lot of things away. Them dun take my brother, though that’s what everyone’ll say, but I know, because I looked.

  On the floor by the cupboard, there’s a white shell what looks like something I should remember, so I pick it up. I grip hard on the shell. I remember the eyes of the tall man who pinched out the fingers of my hand when Barney were took. Brown eyes. Not like all them others. The gold flecks around the pupil in hims right eye. Just like Barney. Maybe Barney got took into hims face somehow and kept hims own eyes. The smell of the tall man fills my nose. Salt and dust. I snort it out.

  I put the shell to my ear.

  Listen close; the sea comes in, so close, like it’s in the room with me, so close, like it’s in my head, filling it with waves.

  Barney’s voice speaks inside the shell, ‘Mary, where’s moppet?’

  Just hearing him I cry out.

  This shell is precious.

  The floor goes crooked. The wall hits against me. I go into our bedroom. Barney’s moppet lies on hims bed, its long ears unravelling, one eye hanging off and a squinty mouth.

  I bring it to the table in the main room by the window and sew on the eye, only it seems even more wonky.

  Getting my broiderie scissors, I cut the whole belly open down the middle. I take some of the stuffing out and put the shell inside. Stitch it up again, like a surgeoner.

  Secret now.

  I put my ear to it and hear Barney’s voice in the shell inside of it. ‘That’s better Mary,’ him says. ‘All better now.’

  I want to speak back, only my voice is gone.

  Too secret to speak of.

  I lie down on Barney’s bed, curled up with the moppet next to my ear, hear Barney’s voice sing la la la like the baby him still is. I listen close, hims voice talks and I hear a dreaming place of Barney’s. Not the blank dark place in the fever – Barney’s dream is all
light and the wind blows us up in the sky like butterflies.

  Barney’s dream is in hims voice:

  In this place you an’ me dun have to be big or growed up acause we’re small like flutterbees. We both little up in the sky. Mam and Da is big. Them creeps out of a tunnel in the grass.

  Them runs round round round looking for us, we doing hidings in the sky. Them looks up high and sees us. Them pulls fishing net out thems hair. Them doing chasings after us. Me and you, Mary, we got our own flutterbee wings, real ones.

  We go up in the clouds acause we doing laughings what makes the wings flap hard.

  Mam and Da is leaping – jumping up and up to catch us in nets. Them sees us with brave wings, an’ shrieks in thems mouths so loud thems eyes roll around and all around.

  We laughing Mary, doing laughings so loud.

  Mam and Da is leaping higher and higher, eyes all big mad. We not afeart; we know them can’t catch us.

  Morgan

  Mum has emptied her plate of parsnip stew. She looks at me with narrowed eyes across the kitchen table. ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ she asks. ‘Is it an attention thing?’

  The twins watch her.

  Dad eats painfully slowly.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I answer.

  Mum says, ‘Yes, it was like that when I cooked too. This is why I prefer eating. Cooking’s awful. I eat it through my nose, just smelling it I get the taste, and by the time it’s ready, I’m full.’

  ‘Yes, it’s like that,’ I reply. But it’s not. After I’d called them the first time, then finished cooking, I dished it all up and ate mine. I called them again, waited for them to come. Emptied their plates back into the pot, warmed it, sat and tapped on the table and dished it back onto their plates when I finally heard their footsteps coming along the hallway.

  Mum stands up. She says, ‘You like me again,’ as she walks out of the kitchen.

  Dad glances at me, nods just once, chewing.

  The twins scurry out after her. ‘Mum, can we—’

  ‘—have a story tonight?’

  ‘The one with the flying rats …’ A door bangs shut and their small feet run up the stairs.

  I clear their plates and put them in the washbowl. Dad sits at the table, still slowly chewing, his curly grey hair tied back in a black bow. He looks like a pirate, but smells of cologne.

  ‘Dad, they’re my books, they’re the only things I …’ I turn to face him.

  He stares into his plate, his eyes like marbles.

  I pull out the chair next to him and sit down.

  ‘Dad, if she reads one of my books to the twins, will you make sure I get it back?’

  ‘What?’ He swallows almost painfully and shakes his head. ‘Oh.’ He looks surprised I’m here. ‘Yes, it’s very good. More peppery than usual. I’d prefer even more, next time. But yes, very good. Thank you.’ He puts down his spoon though he hasn’t finished his meal. ‘Right. You’re all right?’ He glances at me and back at his plate. ‘Good. I’ll go and take over from your mother with the twins.’

  ‘Thanks. But Dad, could I talk to you—’

  ‘Good. Very good.’ He doesn’t look at me as he leaves the kitchen.

  I put on a block of peat, stoke up the fire in the range.

  Pick up a bucket and go out of the back door to the well in our garden.

  And back into the kitchen and pour

  and pour

  back to the well

  back to the kitchen

  and pour –

  fill four huge pans with water.

  Put them all on the range together.

  When they’re boiling, I get all the small sacks of rice out of the cupboards.

  I put the rice in the boiling water.

  When the rice has puffed up, thickened and starchy, I go outside, put a bath towel over the drain by the back door and strain the rice.

  Haul the rice back into the kitchen, wrapped in the towel.

  And again. And again.

  I cover the whole table in rice, a glutinous thick layer and I stand in the corner of the kitchen and watch the steam coming off it.

  When the steam has gone, I get a wooden spoon and a mixing bowl and stand on a chair.

  I scoop out the rice so the table shows through where I carve the words into it:

  I AM HUNGRY BUT

  NOT FOR FOOD

  Mary

  Somehow time has passed. Nights have washed through the sky like a dark blue dye, and rinsed out into days. The broiderie needles feel like them’re covered in salt. So do the linens and the threads and the table. So does the washtub, my blankets, Da’s fishing nets, the tatties and Barney’s bedsheets. Salt is used for the fixing of dyes, but I dun want the world to be fixed like this.

  While Da is out fishing, inside this home I have to somehow keep, somehow live, no one else breathes this air, no one else eats or sleeps. No one stares from the window, washes or cleans, makes messes or broiders, loses or finds things, mends broken torn dropped things, cooks or tells stories, smiles, shouts or curses, unless it is me.

  Barney’s toys are faded, bleached and pale from missing hims touch.

  About one hundred and fifty people live on this island and if I have to ask every single one of them if them know where Barney is, I’ll lose my voice and my legs’ll fall off from walking to them all.

  So I’ll have to do it a bit at a time.

  This morning I can walk better, so I leave our cottage, turn left and walk as far as the furthest cottage on this row.

  Rap on the door.

  Chanty answers. ‘What you knocking this early for?’ Her hair is curly on one side and flat on the other. She’s got the Thrashing House key on a chain around her neck; it’s her turn on the bell list so I’ve got to talk nice to her today.

  ‘Excuse me, Chanty, for interrupting your sleeping. Thought I’d get your Mam. Have you seen or heard anything of my Barney?’ I ask, my arms folded.

  ‘Course not. You still sick? Been took. Tall men dun it. Ask anyone.’

  ‘I’m asking you. Please.’

  ‘Ah, get gone. Got too many things to do before the bells.’ She shuts her door.

  I might have to talk to her polite, but I can think whatever I want. Bloody rude cow.

  I hammer on the next door.

  Beattie’s got her sleeves up. Her arms are red.

  ‘Have you heard anything of Barney?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ve been in bed the longest time. All right now? Come in, I’ve got eggs and tattiecakes on the go. You look like you could do with a bit of mothering.’

  ‘No, you’re all right Beattie. You heard any talk?’

  ‘No doll, no talk of the boys. Or nothing new or for certain. Get back indoors, it’s going to rattle down any moment.’ She peers up at the thick grey clouds.

  It dun rattle down yet.

  I bang on the next three doors.

  Merry is sat just behind hims front door on a wooden stool, sharpening the paring iron and slane what him uses up the peat pits. Him dun bother answering me as him is old and miserable. Him dun ask folk questions anyway, so him won’t have been told.

  Jek’s fixing hims fishing nets and asks me how come the women have took to putting buttons on the necks of the jumpers, and him shows me how easy them get caught in the nets. I tell him it’s probably to do with main land fashions, for Annie told me a few years back that the tall men wanted jumpers full of holes called the grunge, but now them want cable or ribbed.

  Old Nell’s walking stick is leaned against Camery’s door, so she must be visiting her. I can hear them inside, arguing. Nell’s saying, ‘… them’re a danger to us, could’ve killed her. We have to keep getting them took …’ and Camery’s saying, ‘… so them’re a danger to folks further away? Well, why are we not bothered about them? Just because we dun know any main land folks, it dun mean them’re any less …’

  I knock and Camery answers her door. She cries out and tries to hug me, but her pale ragged shawl stinks
of chicken shit, so I get clear fast.

  The last door is Annie’s cottage, right next to mine. If anyone’ll talk, she will.

  She opens it before I get near enough to knock it. Her three great black dogs charge out and one thuds me spinning. Annie kicks the front door shut behind her, sweeps her frazzled hair off her face.

  ‘Oh Mary, come on. Glad you’re better. Gave me a fright you being sick so long. Let’s us two walk on the beach, the dogs need it.’

  ‘You’re all right, Annie, my legs’ll not do more than what them’ve done this morning. You heard anything about your Kieran yet, or my Barney?’ I lower my voice. ‘What are them saying in the Weaving Rooms?’

  ‘Shush now. I’m not telling you Weaving Room talk. Look, whoosh! Them’re off!’ She strides after the dogs down the beach, her brown coat swashes in the wind. She calls over her shoulder, ‘I’ll pop round yours later, Martyn’s fixing up our new cottage at Wreckers Shore. Him’ll be gone all day.’

  ‘You’re moving Annie?’

  She turns round and smiles. ‘Aye, but it’s lovely. More space all round it. We’ll grow tatties and onions and kale, it’ll be perfect. Dun be sad! I’ll still visit you. You get indoors afore the rain.’ She strides away. She could do with one of Beattie’s breakfasts – she’s just as skinny as me, and twice as tall.

  I go back indoors to our cottage, sit down and let my head unravel in Mam’s old rickety chair. The rain rattles down on the roof and makes the beams seem too low. I’m too small to see anything, to find anything so little as Barney, when there’s this huge sky what takes over the whole island by hurling down all this rain.

  So none of my neighbours know anything about Barney.

  Or no one’s saying anything at any rate.

  I keep the moppet hid from Da. The moppet fills a small part of the gap what Barney’s left, for it gives me hims voice. Not always; sometimes it’s just the sound of the sea, but sometimes it’s Barney’s baby talk I hear, before the waves wash hims voice away from me. I ask it over and over, every day, ‘Barney, where are you?’ But hims voice always says, ‘It’s dark.’ That makes me cry more than anything else.