1908
I meet Tom the day that Papa tells me of the disease, and makes the Rules.
I’m nine. I’ve never been away from Rawblood alone before. Papa wouldn’t like it. But he’s asleep in the garden, one hand swinging heavy in the sunlit air, pince-nez clinging to the end of his shining nose. I slip away like water. The lane to Manaton is quiet, dappled, hot with the last of the day. The hedgerows are high, filled with green and secret light.
My hands are crammed with two large, fragile pieces of apple tart, stolen from the kitchen table. The sweet, warm scent. I am alone in the world. Beyond Rawblood, the reach of Papa’s stare. My arms swing long and free. Summer light. Sleepy birdsong clear as glass. The sandy shale good under my boots. Distant voices from the neighbouring fields. Harvest is nearly over.
I walk slowly, digging each toe in, dragging it behind me as an injured bird drags a wing. I kick a cloud of fine grit into the air and squeeze my eyes closed. The rhythm of my feet, drag, shhh, kick … I have a strong sensation of dreaming, though I know I’m awake. Under my breath I sing a song I have made up, about badgers. It has no set tune. When the time comes, I will find a stone to sit on, or climb a tree, and then I will eat my two pieces of tart, but not yet … The rhythm of my feet on the road.
I stop. I am no longer alone. Behind me there’s a girl, as if from nowhere. She stands in the bend. I think she’s been following. She’s thin, bigger than me but with a worried face, as if she’s left something at home. Two brown buck teeth peep between white lips. We stare.
‘Hello,’ I say.
She makes a noise and sticks her hands in her pinny pockets.
‘Do you want some?’ I say. I offer a fist. Apple slides between my fingers. Perhaps she will be my friend.
The girl looks at the pastry in my hand. Her teeth pull on her lower lip. She keeps worried eyes on me and points up the lane. ‘Where you from?’ she says. ‘You from there?’
‘Rawblood,’ I say. I try not to say it too proud. I look at the two pieces of tart in my two hands. ‘One each,’ I say with some regret.
‘From there,’ she says. ‘It’s probably poison.’ Her eyes are on the tart. ‘Does it have poison in?’
‘No,’ I say, offended. I raise a hand to my mouth. Sweet crumbling crust. Sharp, green, sugar.
The girl bites her lip and stares. Then she bends quickly, fumbles in the sand. Something curves through the air. The sharp edge of the flint strikes the corner of my eye, everything bursts. Something else hits my temple with a crack. The world swings backwards out of balance. The girl throws and bends and throws with perfect concentration, loading her hands quickly from the road. They all land. Some are small, and sting. Some are large and make thuds on my flesh, sharp sounds on bone. I show the girl my back and hunch up small. Stones strike fiery on my kidneys, ribs, spine. Something hits the base of my skull and splashes white across my mind and eyes. Everything tastes of tin.
My cheek strikes the road with a thump. It stretches before me like a landscape. Through the pulsing in my ears I hear the soft give, the crunch of road as she comes. I try to get up. My arms and legs are buckets of damp sand. She comes on with soft steps. Hot stuff trickles from my scalp to my chin, warm red drops. The sounds I make, kittens drowning.
Her shadow. Her feet are before me, tight bound with rags. No shoes. She bends. Her grubby shaking fingers uncurl my fist, lift the remains of the tart from one hand, and then the other. I try to bite her, my teeth graze her arm. She turns quickly, the hedge quakes and she’s gone.
I sit in the warm road. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go home; Papa will see blood and cuts and know I disobeyed. I should never, ever have left … A tooth is loose. I cry in hitching sobs.
Around the bend, footfalls. I push into the hedge, through the hawthorn, the bramble, to the grey cold stone wall at the heart of it. Sharp, unkind branches tear my dress. Something living crawls in my ear. I hold my breath. It’s quiet. The wood pigeon murmurs. Breeze moves, brings the first scent of evening.
The footsteps stop just by.
‘Bit of blood,’ says a voice to itself. It stutters a little on the consonants, like a badly fitted drawer. ‘All right in there?’ Something brushes through the leaves like a monster. I bite. ‘Ow,’ the voice says. It withdraws. ‘No, ow.’ I feel a bit sorry. And I hate and fear the dark hedge. So I come out.
The boy stands in the road, clutching the red place on his arm where I bit him. He’s about my height with bare brown feet and a fishing pole. ‘You bite pretty nicely,’ he says. ‘Why you all bloody?’
‘Girl came and took my tart,’ I say. ‘It was apple.’ I show him my hands, fragrant with crumbs.
He nods, serious. ‘Oh, yup,’ he says. ‘That’s a stinker.’
‘Stinker,’ I say, enraptured. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tom,’ he says. ‘You?’
‘Iris.’ It’s the first time I’ve told it. It’s strange and a little powerful.
‘There’ll be some taste left,’ he says. So we sit on the verge and lick my gummy fingers. There’s earth and little bits of bark mixed in but it still tastes like apples. I’ve never shared anything before. His tongue tickles. I laugh. It hurts.
He sees. ‘Took a right pasting, you did,’ he says.
I say, ‘I don’t want Papa to see the blood.’
‘All right,’ he says. ‘Come with.’ He takes my hand.
The stream runs shining over fat stones into a small pool of deep green. Rowan trees lean across it. The banks are covered with blackberry bushes. Midges dance in the cooling air.
The cold water shocks our bodies. We scream and paddle. Tadpoles and minnows flee from our white feet, corpse-like in the river water. The blood spirals off me away into the stream. We eat shiny blackberries until we’re stained purple. We wash it from us. My dress dries crumpled in the sun while Tom fishes. He doesn’t catch anything.
‘Should have a trout to show for it,’ he says. ‘Might not get it too bad if I have a trout.’
‘You ran off,’ I say. ‘So did I.’
‘Meant to be getting the hay in,’ he says. He tells me about his dad, his ma, where they live, which is a farm with cows.
‘I love cows,’ I say. ‘Big eyes and eyelashes.’
‘They kick,’ he says. ‘Lots.’
When the midges have risen all about us and the skyline has cooled to a milky grey, Tom says, ‘Home, I suppose.’
I say. ‘Come home with me!’
‘Can’t,’ he says, and I catch his apprehension.
‘With me, with me,’ I sing, ‘come home with me …’ I dance around him and pull tufts of his dark hair. I dance and sing loudly because I don’t want to be alone in the dark lane.
‘Pest,’ he says. ‘Well, I’ll walk you.’
Papa sees us as we come down the hill in the last of the light. He comes out of the door like a bull. ‘Iris, what were you thinking, to leave me so? Do not go off, do not! The mist could come down!’ He trembles.
‘There is no mist, Papa! I promise.’ He is always thinking there will be a mist and it is very frightening for him.
Papa looks at me, the cuts and bruises, the dirty dress. He takes Tom by the scruff, lifts him clear off the ground. Buttons spring from Tom’s shirt as Papa shakes him.
‘What was done to her?’ Papa says. ‘Speak. What hurt?’
‘I didn’t,’ Tom is saying as Papa shakes and I shout, ‘No, no, it wasn’t him!’
‘Who are your people?’ Papa says. ‘They will hear of this. And now a hiding, the worst of your life.’
‘Tom Gilmore,’ he says, teeth clicking as he’s shaken. ‘Trubb’s Farm.’
I tug at Papa’s sleeve. ‘He helped me,’ I say. ‘Papa! It was the other one who threw the stones …’
Papa drops Tom like a sack of wheat. Tom sits surprised on the ground. Papa covers his face with his hands. ‘Tom Gilmore,’ he says. Tom says nothing. Trying to guess which answer means trouble.
I sa
y, ‘Papa, please leave him alone.’
Papa makes a noise. ‘I forgot,’ he says. ‘I promised, and I forgot.’ He stares at Tom. ‘You may feed him, Iris. But out here. Not in the house.’ He turns and goes back towards Rawblood, his back shaking up and down.
Tom and I stare after him. ‘He’s crying,’ Tom says.
‘I know.’ There seems little else to say. It’s no more or less peculiar than the other things that have happened today.
‘Might be some tart left,’ I say, and that thought eclipses all others.
Papa dresses me with tincture of iodine. The scent is strong and red. My bedroom is very snug. The fire is lit, as if I am not well. It leaps busily and crackles in the grate, warm on our faces. The night is outside. We are inside.
‘Why were you crying, Papa?’
‘I was reminded of a promise I made once,’ he says. ‘To your mother. I had forgotten, which is very bad as one must keep promises. But not only that – I was angry, Iris, because I fear for you. I have always been careful to guard you, have I not? I have tried to teach you right, as a father should?’
‘Yes,’ I say, stricken. ‘Why, Papa? Why did the girl throw the stones? Why did she think the tart was poison?’
‘Others fear us,’ Papa says. ‘Our family. Dear heart, they will hurt you if they can. We have … a disease. Like Rawblood, it has run in our family for ever. It lies dormant within us like a sleeping foe. It is named horror autotoxicus. Servants do not like to work at Rawblood, because of it. So we have Shakes, only. Even he does not stay at Rawblood, but lives above the stable. No servants sleep in the house.’ For a moment his face is far-away and blank and then he goes on, ‘Horror autotoxicus is unusual; it is not caused by contagion, or by a virus. It is caused by feeling.’
‘That is strange,’ I say, thinking of a cold I had last summer. ‘What does it do?’
‘It makes you very ill,’ Papa says. ‘It makes you hot with fever, and visions come to you of terrible things. You slip into a dream, where monsters roam. In the end you lose your mind, so that you no longer know the places that you love, or the faces of your family. Sometimes it causes you to harm others.’
‘No! I will always know your face, Papa, I will always know Rawblood …’
‘I wish it were so, Iris. You must keep very calm and live quietly, because horror autotoxicus can come on if you are excited or upset. If you have a strong feeling which you cannot control, you must tell Papa at once. It could be the first sign.’
‘All my feelings are strong,’ I say. ‘I cannot possibly tell you all of them!’
‘You must try,’ he says. He tuts and dries my face. ‘But do not despair. We can prevent it. You are in no danger as long as you live quietly at Rawblood, and do not run off. It is a rational thing, which we can approach with reason. I see that I have expected too much of you, Iris. Your disobedience shows me that you cannot be trusted to apply your own judgement. So I have made Rules, which you will follow, and which will keep you safe.’
Papa takes a piece of paper from his pocket. He reads it aloud to me, then pins it to my bedroom door.
1. Other children: not friends.
2. Servants: not friends.
3. The disease: a secret.
4. Papa’s medicine pouch: forbidden. When Papa takes medicine: leave room.
5. Eight o’clock to noon: reading with Papa.
6. Afternoons: play in the garden. Not out of the garden.
7. Bed: at seven.
8. Books: as good as people.
9. Tell Papa everything.
‘These are like promises, Iris, do you understand?’
I nod. The loveliness of the sun and the water and Tom have dissolved into tiredness and I hurt everywhere. I had not known my body could hurt so. I am no longer eager to see the world. I am not sure it’s a friendly place. Horror autotoxicus … Even the name is horrible. But I will be all right. Papa will make sure of it.
‘I will obey all the Rules,’ I say. ‘But I will keep Tom! It’s called a bargain, Papa.’
Papa looks at me long. ‘You are your mother’s daughter,’ he says. ‘It is not possible, Iris.’ He cradles my head in a long white hand. He holds me in a gentle vice and looks into my eyes. ‘Say them after me,’ he says. ‘The Rules.’
I squirm, ‘Papa, too tight …’
‘Say them, Iris. I must be sure that you understand.’
‘Other children,’ I say. ‘Not friends …’ I say the Rules, again and again.
Eventually Papa releases me, puts a hand on my head, and I know I am forgiven. He says, ‘Very well. We will read.’
‘Hervor!’ I say.
‘Always Hervor. Such violent tastes. Very well.’ He takes the book from where it’s open by the bed. We read.
It is not really called Hervor, but the Waking of Angantyr. It goes like this. Hervor’s father, Angantyr, dies and he is buried with a famous sword called Tyrfing. It means ‘Measurer of Fate’ or sometimes it is called ‘Bane of Swords’. Hervor is a fighter. She wants the sword. She is quite bad-tempered about it. I like this because it seems to me people are often too good, in stories.
Hervor goes to her father’s grave and opens it like a door. She goes into the underworld which is a dark place full of bonfires. She wakes Angantyr from his sleep. This is another reason it’s my favourite. If my Papa died I would go and wake him. Angantyr is angry at being woken. He says that Tyrfing is a terrible sword which is cursed. It will perform evil deeds. And both sides of the blade are poisoned so if you touch it you die. Hervor says, ‘I am your only daughter. I am heir to the sword. I’ll take it and cut myself on the edges. I will walk through all these fires. I’ll risk the curse. I’m not afraid.’ So her father is very impressed with her bravery. He gives it to her, and tells her she must go back to the living world before daylight. If the door to the land of the dead is left open at dawn, the dead vanish for ever. Where to? No one knows.
She runs back with Tyrfing through the raging fires, across the black land. She reaches the door as the sun is casting its first rays across the ground. She slams the door shut. Her father is safe. She has the sword. All is well.
After that she travels all over the world dressed as a man, riding the horses of the sea. She has many adventures. I have longed for adventures.
Papa’s voice, the warm fire. I still love the story but I have understood, today, that I am not Hervor, and that books and life are not the same.
1912
I’m thirteen.
In the pink light of the closed curtains Henry Gilmore’s skin is grey birch bark, his cracked lips tremble over yellow teeth. Constant sound comes from him, like a kettle nearly boiled. It’s called farmer’s lung, or hay catarrh. The land’s repayment for a life’s work. There’s no doubt that he’s dying.
I look to my father where he stands by the bed. He gives me no sign. I don’t know what comes next.
‘I hope you are better soon,’ I say to Tom’s father and put the basket of plums on the bed. It lands with a soft thump. Henry Gilmore winces and breathes, a bubbling sound. He lies back on the pillow. Strands of yellowing hair cling to his brow like waterweed. A narrow bar of sunlight falls across his sunken cheek. Breath moves through his parted lips, effortful. He turns his clouded blue eyes on me. There’s something stony and seeking in his look. For an instant I can trace his younger face, buried deep beneath the old, a dark reflection on water. His bones are fine and beautiful in the afternoon light. Henry Gilmore and I see one another, and the air stretches thin between us, time narrows and draws out.
‘Do you know,’ says Henry Gilmore, ‘that you have the devil for a father? Your father is the devil in the night.’
Something touches me once between the shoulder blades, light. Papa is at my back. ‘You go now,’ he says.
I go down through the house’s dusty innards, down the breakneck stairs. I go fast, eyes squeezed shut, listening for Charlotte Gilmore’s ghost.
*
I wait, kic
king at the fat white ducks that wobble across the yard. My skin prickles. The devil in the night.
I go round the corner of the house to the livestock stalls. At the end, past the milkers, the tip of a velvet muzzle crests the stable door. The pony makes a soft sound. She thinks I’m Henry Gilmore.
When I come close she lays her ears flat down on her skull. She backs into the far wall, trembling. She’s grown, now. Sleek and stout. But she’s never liked me, since the day we took her from her dead mother’s side. So actually she’s hated me since the day she was born. I have a grudging respect for it; the strength, the consistency of her dislike.
I put out my hand to her and chirrup. ‘I saved your life,’ I tell her. ‘Tom and I did. He, Mr Gilmore, would have left you.’ The filly stares, nostrils flared. I think about Tom and smarting wells in the rims of my eyes.
As I cry I feel the velvet of the pony’s muzzle on my arm. She is delicate, her lips fondle my sleeve. I feel the warm kindness of her breath, the comfort, the solid strangeness of her presence. Her silken face. I have enough time to feel all this before her blunt mouth seizes my forearm in a bruising vice. I feel every one of her narrow columns of teeth. She shakes me, watching my pain. I punch her on the poll, hard between the ears. She smiles and tightens her jaws. Her dark horse eyes are bright as I beat her about the head.
My father casts pitying looks at the broken fences, strides delicately through the cow dung which covers the cobbles, dark and pungent. He goes to the trap, and places a box under the back seat, calls me to him as if not quite sure of my name. Eyes dark and occupied with something.
‘What’s in the box?’ I say to him. ‘That you put away.’
‘Money,’ my father says.
‘Why?’
‘To settle his debts.’
‘Why should you?’ I am indignant. ‘What he said …’
‘Pay it no mind, Iris. He is dying. And I have wronged him, in my time. It is good,’ he says but not to me, ‘to make peace if one can.’
I saw the quick shift in Henry Gilmore’s wasted face. I know that look, that blue contempt. I’ve seen it before, in another pair of eyes. Henry Gilmore found no peace from us.
Rawblood Page 2
