Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  My hands look like white gloves. I cover my fingertips with my mouth, breathe on some warm. Closing my eyes, I think of the Thrashing House key. Just to be sure. I think of its shape, the heaviness of the metal, the pattern of arrows in it. And it is Valmarie’s face what swirls up behind my eyelids. The key is back where it belongs and perhaps that’s where it should be, so the bells get rung, so the women can pass it between them, night after night after night, and everything can be as it always has been … but the palms of my hands feel empty. My hands still want the stories trapped in the key.

  I look down the hill at Valmarie’s house. A candle sparks alight in her window. She’s not asleep.

  Morgan

  A cough. I wipe my eyes and look up. Dad stands in the dark at the other end of the kitchen table. He says, ‘I didn’t hear you go back to bed.’

  I say, ‘You look like a ghost.’

  He says, ‘Light a candle.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t tell your mother—’

  ‘I don’t tell her anything.’

  ‘—that I gave away a plank.’

  I push my hair back and smooth it down neatly. I choose to try being a psychologist. ‘You don’t want her to be disturbed.’ I put my palms together.

  ‘No.’ He sighs.

  Psychologists make people talk. I wonder if he will. He isn’t looking at me. I say, ‘Does she think there would be damage if we weren’t so trapped?’

  He sits down opposite me, puts his elbows on the table. He glances at me, and away. He looks like he’s been caught. He says, ‘She wants to live like this.’

  ‘It’s some dream, to know no one.’

  ‘She can’t cope with other people’s emotions.’

  I nod, wisely. ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘She finds them unsettling.’

  ‘It’s unsettling that we’re alone and you’re talking like her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a word for that – mirroring? It’s in the psychology book.’

  His voice is louder. ‘It’s not an appropriate word when she’s not here to mirror. So you’ve read a book and you think you can diagnose her?’

  We stare at each other in the dark.

  I look away. ‘I don’t want to.’

  He says again, ‘You think you can diagnose her?’

  Outside the window, I can see the pink fence, dim in the dark. I say, quietly, ‘Have you heard of narcissism?’

  Now he’s looking at the fence through the window. He says, ‘You’d do better just to see her as vulnerable, in need of our care, rather than fitting her to a list of symptoms. She needs empathy.’

  ‘She needs empathy?’

  ‘What point is there in analysing her?’

  ‘I need a case study. Our family might be my only one. If it is, I won’t be a very good psychologist.’

  ‘We don’t need one.’

  I lean forwards and he looks back at me. I say, ‘Did she ever see a real psychologist?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have wanted to. She doesn’t want to be … dissected. Sampled or discussed.’

  ‘Well, she’s probably deeply happy that we live on an island with no psychologists. Unless everyone who lives here is a psychologist. But then, I wouldn’t know, would I?’

  ‘She has every right to expect our understanding.’

  ‘And I don’t?’

  ‘She needs to feel safe.’

  ‘If I was a real psychologist, I’d say, there’s no danger.’

  He pauses. ‘Don’t attempt to diagnose her. It won’t do her, or you, any good.’

  ‘Has she always been this focussed on herself – is it her ego—’

  ‘Her ego?’

  ‘—or her id?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘That make her this … emotionally—’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss her like this.’

  ‘But we never discuss anything.’

  ‘We’re talking now.’

  I stare out of the window again. ‘So, this is you, speaking to me. And you’re still not telling me anything.’

  ‘She’s become more … fragile over the years. Her emotions have been jarred, become set at some young age when she was too often left alone. Some parents are more … attentive than others. These things are learned through generations.’

  ‘So, what is she passing on to me, and Hazel, and Ash – that parents should have temper tantrums whenever their children do anything that upsets them?’

  ‘You could at least try to understand her.’

  I sigh. ‘I am trying. She felt unloved. Is she loved enough now?’

  ‘We bring towards us, so often, that which we are most afraid of.’

  ‘Is that a quotation?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You asked that woman, the plank woman, about—’

  ‘Don’t tell your mother that either. She’ll find it …’

  ‘Disturbing. That someone wanted something from us other than burial. Disturbing that you know something that’s happening here. So tell me. I won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘They don’t teach boys to read here. Your mother finds that idea threatening. She thinks that if men are treated like simple beasts, that’s how they’ll behave.’

  ‘Has she ever encountered a simple beast?’

  ‘In her nightmares.’

  ‘She has nightmares?’

  ‘Always.’ His eyes stare at his hands. His fingers drum on the table.

  I ask, ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Who?’ He raises his eyebrows.

  I spread out my palms in a psychologically open gesture. ‘The beasts in her nightmares. What do they do?’

  ‘Turn their backs—’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a nightmare, it sounds like body language.’

  ‘—because they want to eat her up, but they don’t love her enough. They would rather die of hunger.’

  ‘Are you saying she wants to be eaten?’

  ‘Have you ever had a dream where you’re shouting and screaming for something you desperately need, only to find that all the people turn away, and their backs are hairy, ridged, frightening to you?’

  ‘No. There’s no point in analysing my dreams. They’re all the same thing happening over and over again.’

  ‘Until you do, you won’t understand her.’

  ‘Do you?’

  He shudders. ‘She says our dreams are tied together.’

  ‘And are they?’

  He meshes his fingers, glances up at me. ‘What?’

  ‘The men who live here. The men who can’t read. Are they really like beasts? When you bury them, are their backs hairy, from a lack of literacy? Is there a collective noun for men with hairy backs?’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Not that I’ve encountered.’

  ‘In the garden at home. Our real home, do you remember telling me that earthworms were …’

  ‘I may have said they were cautious.’

  ‘You said they were discreet. You’ve forgotten.’

  ‘You’re testing me.’

  ‘I’m just confirming whether your long-term memory is working or not. Or perhaps testing my own. I was trying to ask, what were you saying to the plank woman about some men?’

  ‘The drain was blocked.’ He pauses.

  I tap my fingers on the table.

  He says, ‘Your mother sent me out to the smithy – she needed a rod to unblock it. The smithy talked. And I’ve overheard passers-by, whispers—’

  ‘So you don’t deny the whispers are there?’

  ‘She says the people on this island don’t understand her. She believes we don’t listen. No wonder she needs this safety. Can you imagine how it must feel for her, believing no one ever hears her?’

  ‘But she talks all the time. She doesn’t listen, so she can’t tell when we hear her.’

  ‘Give her time.’

  ‘How many years does she need?’

  ‘As many as it t
akes.’ He slides his chair out and stands up. His dressing gown is still wet from the rain.

  I say, ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  He says, ‘I do understand how you feel. It might not always seem that way, to you, but—’

  ‘It doesn’t. You side with her. Is there a shadow side of both of you – has her shadow put yours in a corner, to play with?’

  He stands in front of the kitchen doorway and I can only just see his face. He says, ‘You have been reading that book, haven’t you?’

  ‘Devouring it.’

  He glances over his shoulder at the doorway, coughs and says, ‘In the past, I persuaded her into situations I shouldn’t have. As a child, my family had nothing. I saw opportunities and was blinded by my own … greed. The outcome was … she became … terribly frightened. Fear can become trapped within someone who is already vulnerable, even if the actual danger was eradicated, by us leaving the mainland.’ He nods at me, ‘And yes, sometimes feeling this amount of guilt is not unlike having a shadow.’

  ‘I think I would be a good psychologist. Thank you for telling me something. What situations did you persuade her into?’

  His face fades into the darkness of the hallway and his feet creak away up the stairs.

  Mary

  There’s a small willow tree next to Valmarie’s back door. I crawl under the lowest branches, wriggle back in the leaves. The door is open as wide as my hand. Inside her house footsteps thud on a wooden floor. Chairs scrape. I tuck my feet in tight underneath me.

  Valmarie’s voice speaks; there’s someone with her.

  ‘—but what came out?’

  ‘Stone from Clorey. A stone with a hole through it.’ It’s Kelmar’s voice. ‘Sounds right to me, like that were the truth of him. For hims stone voice banging on relentless with no bloody substance were all I ever got from him. Not like you …’ Her voice trails off.

  I hunch back under the bush and listen as hard as I can.

  ‘Bill, what came out of him?’ asks Valmarie, sharp.

  ‘Well, that were strange, that were a pile of dark, dank earth. Like him buried hims truth, or hid something true deep down underneath the earth. Or it could mean that him died in hims heart, that him were already as good as buried.’

  ‘So it’s true.’ There’s anger in Valmarie’s voice.

  Kelmar’s voice says, ‘What’s true, Val?’

  Her voice is sad. ‘He buried something true in the graveyard …’

  Valmarie coughs and asks, ‘What truth came out of Annie’s Martyn?’

  Kelmar says, ‘A question mark made of glass. Something him wanted to know, only the answer would’ve shattered him?’

  Valmarie says, ‘A secret from Annie, or her from him? I’d be surprised. Annie hopped around after him like a hare. And he thought her the most beautiful woman on the island.’

  ‘Can’t see it, can you? Skin and bone, and that tangle of hair. Takes all sorts. Mary’s Da were an old worn boot, just the one, and cracked. Felt all kinds of uselessness.’

  I’ve got a pain in my chest, thinking of Da feeling useless.

  ‘What of the tall man?’ says Valmarie, sharp.

  I listen, hard as I can.

  ‘That’s what were the strangest. Nothing left of him at all. No trace, not a shadow. Do you think him were a ghost, so him vanished himself?’

  Valmarie says, ‘Seemed real enough to me when we took him there.’

  ‘But just vanishing. Do you think we missed it? It could’ve been so small we never got it out the hatch. A grain of sand. A speck of dust.’

  So Langward’s truth vanished. I shiver so hard the leaves rustle.

  Kelmar keeps talking, ‘Do you miss Bill, Val, even a bit?’

  ‘Not after what he did. Nothing can replace …’ She sounds tearful. ‘You’re not acting like you miss Clorey.’

  ‘I’d not miss him any more than I’d miss breathing if I woke up dead.’

  Footsteps thud, there’s a clang of pots. Must be the kitchen behind that door. Just thinking of Langward makes my belly twist. The smell of him – but salt and dust aren’t bad smells anywhere but on him. Spending so much time on boats him would smell of salt, and him could just have musty clothes.

  Even so, hims smell is haunting me.

  The wind blusters through the leaves of the willow, twigs catch in my hair. I crawl out, listening close. Valmarie and Kelmar are too quiet. Maybe them can sense I’m hid out here. Some kind of knowing them’ve got … I hunch down under the kitchen window, right next to the open door. There’s a candle burning on the windowsill, so them won’t see me past the reflection.

  Inside, Valmarie’s stirring one of the pots on the range.

  Kelmar’s at the table chopping herbs. She says, ‘There’s too many things unpunished. Small things, mostly – thieving and suchlike what dun warrant a thrashing. But some crimes are never punished, because none will speak. We should have a way that someone can speak out just to one person, not to all. If them’ll not speak out at the Weaving Rooms, or are too young to do so, then them get no justice. None are took to the Thrashing House and there’s only silence. I wonder sometimes, what of the men? If them’re hurt, them dun tell any of us. Just sort it between themselves.’

  Valmarie shakes her head and smiles at Kelmar. I’ve never seen her smile before. She says, ‘Women don’t have to resolve everything for everyone.’

  Kelmar says, ‘Some crimes are unheard of for years, some are never spoke of, because the folks concerned can’t go to the Weaving Rooms to talk of it, or the crimes what are the worst – them dun want all folks to know.’

  My throat’s thick, stuck. There’s something in Kelmar’s voice what makes me want to walk right into that kitchen and just cry. Fill the whole kitchen with tears till she has to swim to get me, and gather me in her big arms. But I dun even know her. Dun want to. I wrap my arms around myself, tight.

  Valmarie leaves the boiling pot, puts her hand on Kelmar’s shoulder and says, ‘You’ve been told something—’

  Kelmar shakes her head. ‘It’s not about our sons. Not for the chattering of neither, it’s just … some folks dun feel able to speak.

  Valmarie goes back to the pot and says, ‘Well, if they won’t speak out, that’s their business. The Thrashing House feels to me like it’s made from the worst parts of us all. All brought together in one place.’

  Kelmar picks up a bowl and stands next to Valmarie. She pours chopped leaves into one of the pots and says, ‘What’d you mean, worst parts of us?’

  Valmarie says, ‘No, no – stop – that’s enough sage.’

  Kelmar puts down the bowl and gets a wooden spoon. ‘I’ll stir it.’

  Valmarie nods, steps back and wipes her brow.

  ‘Worst parts, Val?’

  Valmarie watches her stir. ‘All of our angry vengeful thoughts, all the guilt, the blame, the sadness, jealousy. Well, that’s what it feels like, walking past it. It’s pulling those feelings in, soaking them into the wood. Anyway, I’ve never known how it came to be there. It’s ancient, isn’t it? Did your ancestors build it? It felt ancient when we unlocked that great front door, pushed the men through. Ancient and hungry.’

  Kelmar glances at Valmarie and says, ‘The Thrashing House isn’t made from any part of us. It’s made from just one tree.’

  Grandmam never told me about this.

  ‘Here,’ says Valmarie, patting Kelmar’s arm. ‘I’ll take over now. Crack the willow. It would have taken more than one tree to build the Thrashing House.’

  Kelmar goes back to the kitchen table and breaks a chunk of bark into small pieces. She says, ‘That’s not what I mean. The tall trees what used to grow here were cut down long before you and I were alive. My Nan’s Grandma told her the Thrashing House grew itself. That it were the last remaining tall tree. It twisted out its branches, dug in its roots and grew so big that none would go near it to cut it down. Then it made itself into the Thrashing House, twisted and flattened out the walls and the door
and the bell tower. In the top of the bell tower the bells grew like flowers, and them grew into the bells we ring out. The key grew like a fruit and it were picked by a woman on her twenty-first birthday, so that’s how the women’ve come to have it and the age of being a woman were decided.’

  Valmarie says, ‘Well, we’ve got the key back. Not before time. That girl is a liar and a thief. We should—’

  Kelmar says, ‘Pass it to the next on the bell list tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you believe that’s how the Thrashing House came to be?’

  Kelmar says, ‘Well, if it’s true or it isn’t, that’s what’s been talked of in my family. I think the Thrashing House calls the folks what are needed here to this island.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I think you were called. For you’re needed, and the tall men are needed for the trade, and the few other folks what’ve ever found their way here – we needed someone to bury our dead, dun we? Him knows how to prepare the dead. She makes good solid coffin boxes. We need them, whether we like it or not.’

  Valmarie says, ‘Well, it’s a good job we don’t have to like them. I didn’t hear any kind of call … I was made to stay.’

  Kelmar says, ‘But you’re needed. You learned skills with herbs what none others’ve ever had before you. You can see right into a person and know just the right dose, and the herb what’s needed. You’ve got this whole house full of herbs, the tinctures you’ve made, and folks come to you to talk of what ails them, but you’ll not tell others what’s not for thems ears.’

  A pot boils loud and rattles the lid. Valmarie says, ‘You’re wrong. I’ve learned things because I’ve had to. I needed to stop feeling like driftwood.’

  Kelmar puts her arm round Valmarie’s shoulder and says, ‘You are needed here, Val. Dun matter how, just matters that you’re here. Well, that’s what I think. But the Thrashing House dun call the men to be put inside it. Your husband. My husband,’ she spits out the words. ‘We took them there ourselves. Maybe we wanted them gone. We should at least be honest with each other – we did want rid of our men. Come on. You never loved