Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  She nods at it. ‘Do the bedspread. Flowers. Lots. Every colour you have. I want to be able to dream in flowers when you’ve finished. I need some good dreams, from somewhere.’ She draws a square of green linen fabric from her pocket and blows her nose on it.

  She says, ‘I’ve got to make food. My eldest isn’t here. She cooks. Get sewing. Dinner soonish. Downstairs.’ She walks away.

  ‘Dun talk like I’m just a thing of yours.’

  She spins round. ‘Did you see my eldest? Outside?’

  ‘No,’ I answer.

  ‘Liar.’ She walks off. Her feet thud on the floor.

  I call after her, ‘Look, I’ve got to—’

  She’s gone off behind another door.

  The crescent moon door at the back of the downstairs hallway is open. I go in. Morgan’s Mam is crouched, rummaging in a cupboard in a huge kitchen. There’s cupboards all around the sides, a range and a great wooden table and five chairs. She gets out a handful of onions and stands up. She sees me and drops the onions. Them roll across the floor.

  I bend down to pick one up and watch her under the table, picking up three at once, dropping two of them. She glances at me and says, ‘What’s your name, liar?’

  I put the onion on the table.

  She stands up and looks me up and down. She says, ‘Your leg seems fine now. If my home has made you better, you owe me. I need those flowers on me.’

  ‘I never agreed a trade for feeling better.’ I bite my lip.

  She picks up an onion from the floor, puts it on a chopping board, as another onion rolls off the table and bounces off her foot. She wails, ‘I don’t know how to do this!’ She bites her hand, slumps down on a chair and folds her arms like a little girl.

  ‘Did you make all this?’ I wave at the table and chairs. ‘See, there’s something you’re good at. It’s like the wood’s still living, the way it shines. And the pictures in the room along the hall …’ My voice chokes.

  ‘What did you see?’ She leans forwards. ‘In my drawings?’

  ‘A lost boy.’

  She seems lighter in her face. She strokes her hair away from her cheek. ‘In one of them, I saw a sunrise on the surface of the fence, which was even higher. The sunrise shone from the fence into the windows, so it looked like the sun rose on the walls inside all the rooms. I might do that. There’s a thought … another layer of fence, higher than the house.’

  ‘But it’ll blow down in the winds!’

  ‘I could paint on a view to see from the top windows, instead of this blasted island. Mix white paint and salt together for the sun. A white, pure light …’ She leans back in the chair. Puts her hands behind her head.

  She says, ‘How much gossip is there, outside, about us?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. Always thought there was.’ She looks at me, eyes narrowed. ‘Just a niggle.’ She stares out of the window at the fence.

  ‘How’d you know what’s lost to folks, to draw pictures of—’

  ‘I get such good ideas in the kitchen.’

  My hands are chopping the onions. The smell makes me hungry. Morgan’s Mam’s eyes are far away. She shakes her head, ‘What was I hearing you talk about, flower girl?’

  ‘All the lost things in your drawings?’

  ‘Loss. Hm. Ah well. It’s an interesting process.’ She wrinkles her nose and sniffs. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  She tells me that she dreams every night and draws every morning. That it’s something about a subconscious and how it’s the place in us where dreams hide. She stands and leans on the windowsill, stares out at the fence. ‘The creator of automatic drawings harvests … yes. Harvests the images gathered within the collective unconscious. Reaps them—’ She runs a finger through the air.

  I say, ‘Are you saying you’re drawing pictures you’ve farmed from our dreamings?’

  She turns and smiles at the table. ‘I’m just going to draw some designs for the inside of the fence. It’ll make me feel better about, you know. Distractions.’ She glances at me. Licks her lips. ‘How long will dinner be? Five of us if you’re eating too.’

  The twins come in first.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ says Ash. Them scrape two chairs back from the table and sit down.

  ‘Do you all end up doing what your Mam wants?’

  Hazel says, ‘Always.’

  Thems Mam walks into the kitchen and sniffs the air. Both twins beam at her. She sits down and slides her chair up to the table. She nods at me, runs her spoon around the rim of her plate and the deadtaker strides in.

  Him has grey curly hair tied back. Black suit and a white collar. I want to ask him something but my voice is stuck. I remember him. Him sits down. Him took Mam’s body away. Him puts hims hands on the table. The tear in hims gloves. Him is not wearing gloves now. Hims hands shine pale. I’m going to be watching him shovelling stew into hims mouth, trying not to think about hims hands touching dead bodies.

  The four of them sit there, spoons in thems hands, and stare at the pot of stew in the middle of the table. I want him to notice me. Him has to remember Mam for me. Remember her from before I’ve been told I’m a thing of hers to trade, like a broiderie.

  Them watch the pot, like the stew’s going to slop itself out onto thems plates. I sigh, loud as I can, and dish up. I serve the twins first, then thems Mam, then the deadtaker. Them wait till I’ve filled all four plates and plunge in thems spoons.

  I stand next to the deadtaker. Him has dandruff flakes on hims shoulders. It looks like snow on rocks. I blow on it, only it’s stuck in the tight weave of the fabric.

  ‘Sit down too,’ hisses Hazel.

  ‘I ate mine while I were waiting for you lot.’

  ‘Have you poisoned it?’ whispers Ash and takes a great mouthful.

  ‘Shh,’ says thems Mam, glancing at the deadtaker. She guzzles her stew down, dun think she even tastes all the herbs I’ve put in it. The deadtaker eats slow, tiny spoonfuls, like him has five stomachs inside of him and them all want to be fed, but no more than just a taste.

  I ask him, ‘Do none of you say thank you when someone’s put food in front of you then?’

  Him puts hims spoon down. Morgan’s Mam drops hers on her empty plate. The twins stare up at me.

  Him slides hims chair out, turns to face me. Hims dark eyes gleam. ‘Right. Intruder. You have all of our attention. Now, what is it that you want?’

  ‘You buried Mam. She were bitten by a diamondback. Dun know much else about her death. You must have been one of the first to see her deaded. And you would’ve been the last.’

  ‘And?’

  I say, shrill, ‘You’re freezing cold for someone what should know of grief, and how it needs a bit of warm.’ I fold my arms.

  ‘This is not the time to speak of grief.’

  ‘You put her in the ground. I were never told much, well, not enough. Dun think she’s resting proper.’

  ‘What would make you think that, Mary Jared?’

  ‘You know my name, so you do recall her. I think Mam’s in my cottage. How come she’s not sleeping, still and quiet in the graveyard like Grandmam? I’ve never thought she’s hanging around the cottage, much as I’d like to hear what she’s got to say about the state of her deathlife.’

  Morgan’s Mam gets up and her chair crashes back against the wall. She covers her mouth with her hand and slams the door on her way out of the kitchen.

  The deadtaker frowns up at me. ‘Perhaps in your home dinner is a time for conversation. It most certainly isn’t here.’

  ‘Well, we did chatter at teatime – there’s nothing wrong in that. Only there’s not much point chattering at home now, as I’m the only one left, and if I did talk, I’d be talking to Mam’s ghost what I can’t even see!’

  The twins stare at him. Then me. Then him. Then each other.

  I shout at them, ‘Will you two stop thinking so loud!’

  Him stands up. ‘We’ll continue this disc
ussion downstairs, and then I must see to my wife.’

  The basement is lit by candles all along the walls. The room is filled with planks of wood, stacked along shelves. There’s three more doors along the far wall.

  The deadtaker walks towards the door in the middle.

  I stop and glance back at the stairs. ‘Let’s talk here.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Him turns and leans hims arm on a shelf.

  ‘Is it true Mam never saw the snake what bit her?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Fascinating death.’

  My heart pounds.

  ‘She was bitten. Not by any snake I saw, though she was marked by one, and filled with venom. When I arrived, three women were with her. They seemed to be chanting, or rather, as they said, singing.’

  ‘What’s wrong with singing? She were out on her own, like Annie says, and them three found her.’

  Him nods. ‘Ah yes. One of the names was Annie.’

  ‘And the diamondback addersnake?’

  ‘It’s all documented, in my book. The signs of poisoning by snake venom were there.’

  ‘So, what do you mean, fascinating death?’

  Hims eyes are bright, more alive than in the kitchen. Him likes talking of hims job, even if it’s a job none other would want.

  ‘It was the way they said it. Rehearsed. “She was bitten by a diamondback, it got away. She never saw the snake that bit her.” All three women used almost exactly the same words, though I questioned them individually. Not one of the three would be drawn further. It’s not my area of expertise, so in the end it was, let’s say, more convenient for me to simply document it. I have doubts. Those doubts have stayed, increased, even. I have no logical explanation.’

  ‘But it sounds like that’s what happened, like them said. She were bit and got deaded.’

  Him looks at me. ‘As you say.’

  ‘You dun believe it.’

  ‘It sounded … invented. And the snake—’

  ‘Maybe them were nervous of you.’ I stare at hims pale hands.

  ‘Their behaviour aroused my suspicion. I can tell a liar, even if I’m not the most appropriate person to extract the truth.’

  I ask, ‘Have you still got your documentation? Can I see what you wrote down when she got deaded?’

  Him says something about confidential, but I say, ‘No one will care what you did or dun write down.’

  Him says, ‘Sadly, you’re probably right. Your mother was an interesting case. One that I was unable to come to any conclusion which satisfied my personal or professional curiosity. No islander has ever asked for a sight of my documentation before. In fact, other than asking me to prepare their loved ones for burial, and all that entails, which, understandably, they have not the stomach for, no islander has ever asked me for anything other than a plank of wood. So why are you here, Mary Jared?’

  ‘Are you going to show me what you wrote down then?’

  Him lowers hims voice. ‘An information exchange would be a beneficial … trade … as you would call it.’

  ‘And what would you want to do this trade about?’

  Him glances at the stairs, then leans forwards, whispers, ‘You have a building here. You people believe it to be a place of justice. I would have thought that the person or persons concerned with your mother’s death would have found themselves there.’

  ‘Well, I dun think a diamondback could’ve slithered in through the keyhole.’

  ‘But do you believe it calls people? It’s the local belief in it that I find so personally interesting. That all crime can be punished, dealt with, with a thrashing. I’ve recently heard locals say that some men have been “thrashed”. They’ve disappeared,’ him lowers hims voice, ‘and yet, I’m not called to attend to their bodies?’ Him raises hims eyebrows.

  ‘I’d say, if you’re finding yourself thinking of the place so much, it’s already calling you.’

  Him starts, backs away.

  ‘What have you done what’s so bad, then?’

  Him looks like I’ve slapped him.

  I say, ‘It’s best if I tell you what Grandmam told me. That’s my documentation. I’ve got it in my head. And you’ll show me your book.’

  ‘I’ll find you some paper and a pen. I assume you can write?’ Him walks towards the middle door and unlocks it.

  ‘Course I can. How many pages?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many pages are we trading?’

  ‘I have filled approximately four, perhaps five, in my documentation on your mother. But it doesn’t matter—’

  ‘I’ll do the same.’

  Him goes through the middle door, leaves the key in the lock and comes back out of the room frowning, a pen and some sheets of paper in hims hand. Him waves at a dusty chair and hands me a small piece of wood to lean on.

  Him goes over to the stairs, sits down and ties and unties hims laces while I write:

  Dear Deadtaker,

  This is some of what Grandmam told me: The Thrashing House stands on the topmost hill. It’s the tallest building on this whole island. On the main land, Thrashing Houses are said to be for beating out the grain, the wheat from the chaff. Only here it’s something quite different. Our Thrashing House is where we put folks when we dun know what else to do with them. No one ever heard of anyone ever coming out again what’s been put in.

  The Thrashing House itself is alive, it has paddles and knives and sticks and bats what come out of the walls into the rooms when someone’s been sent in. And it thrashes them if it thinks them deserves it.

  The deadtaker spits on hims fingertip and rubs at hims boot. I write more of Grandmam’s story:

  Long, long ago, a woman killed her husband. No one believed she would have done it for she were right quiet, only squeaked instead of having proper talk in her mouth. She were a bit rodent-like in her appearance. All short and sharp with two buck teeth. Everyone else on the island were under suspicion, and she herself were so shocked at what she’d done she never spoke at all, not even to squeak, after him were dead. She locked herself in the Thrashing House one day, she couldn’t stand the guilt.

  She were turned into a chain, for she’d felt herself chained to him, and had no other way to get away from him, other than to kill him dead with a knife. The Thrashing House thrashed the truth from her and that chain were the truth in her, of why she killed him. A rodent on the end of a chain can be right dangerous, so that’s the moral of that: make sure you never keep something dangerous chained to you, even if it’s smaller than you are. Its teeth might be sharp, and if it’s not of a mind to use them, it can always raid the knife drawer.

  A woman burglared every house on the island and were caught one night. Caught with her hands plunged deep in a jewellery box, a shimmering green glass ring on her finger, what we all knew never belonged to her hand. She became a gleaming ring which were dull copper on the inside: it were only coated shiny.

  She were looking for value: fine metals, jewels or secrets; anything she could find what would make her seem greater than what she really were on the inside. And that were the truth in her. On the outside she thought herself shiny, only the truth of her were that she were dull.

  Another, a girl of fourteen, had a vicious run-in with her Mam. In a fury like a Glimmera, she cut off her Mam’s hand. Showed no remorse, all she’d say were that ‘It were her or me.’ Neither would say what the fight started over, and it dun even matter. Something about wanting to swap colours of hair, some such nonsense what were impossible all along. She wanted something her Mam had, and her Mam wanted what the daughter had. So the daughter took a hatchet to her Mam’s hand, so her Mam couldn’t get at it first. She became a glove. A left-handed one, to fit the hand what had been took. Not too much to learn from that one: just that you can cover up something what’s been lost, like putting an empty glove over a hacked-off hand; but sooner or later, it’ll flap clean off like a shadow and show you there’s nothing really there.

  The deadtaker taps hims f
oot on the floor. Polishes a boot with hims sleeve. I’ve nearly filled four sheets of paper, so I write:

  People who have gone mad, or are dangerous, or done something so bad we dun know how to punish them – get sent in there. Sometimes folks seem to go in of thems own accord. Only it’s not really thems own accord. The Thrashing House can seek out the truth. If it senses someone has done something bad, or is dangerous to others, it calls to them, and the truly guilty slowly and surely find thems way into it.

  I say, ‘I’m done. You going to show me your documentation about Mam then?’

  Him stands up, quick. Strides over.

  ‘You’ve left that lace undone.’ I point at hims boot.

  ‘Look in the desk in the room through the middle door. If I’m not here to see you read my documentation, you did not read.’ Him holds out a hand. ‘Agreed?’

  I drop Grandmam’s story in hims pale palm and snatch my hand back.

  Him puts it in a hidden pocket on the inside of hims jacket. ‘You’re not as quiet as I remember, Mary Jared.’

  I ask him how come him recalls my name, and him says that him reads hims documentation book a lot, that him wishes him had asked more questions when Mam died, and him had questions for Da, but Da shut the door on him.

  I say, ‘Well, you’ll not get any answers out of an old worn boot.’

  ‘A what?’ Him walks to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Nothing. But tell me, and tell me the truth.’ I breathe in. ‘You got the dead body of a three-year-old boy in this house?’

  ‘There have been no deaths of late.’

  I breathe out. ‘So the drawing of Barney really is from your wife’s head?’

  ‘It’s similar to an inkblot technique, but using a more advanced and experimental skill. I assume you’ve never heard of the collective unconscious, of individual consciousness? She’s developed a visual language that speaks of much that is lacking in these theories. I admire her skills greatly. Her dedication.’

  ‘Look, your family’s too cooped up together, you’re coming up with some dipsy nonsenses what make no sense. What’s so special about your belonging people, or what’s so wrong with us, that you got to keep us out?’