The Visitors

by Mascull, Rebecca

  A sad little shadow my soul casts. These are the years 1883 to 1889. This is the Time Before.

  2

  I am six years old. It is late summer and the mellow perfume of plums, pears, apples and blackberries sweetens the air. I know that when the weather is hottest and the hops are ripe, many new people arrive on Father’s land and stay for a while. The ground shakes with their carts and caravans and tramping feet. They bring an army of exotic fragrances: woodsmoke and baking potatoes, perspiration and latrines. And every morning, a remarkable thing happens. Father marches into my room carrying his bugle, opens the window that faces the hop gardens, lifts his instrument and blows a rhythm across the land. I am permitted to clutch his leg as he does this and I can perceive the toots of the bugle tum-ti-tum through his body and into mine. At this signal, the people beyond stir, their work and chatter soon drumming the earth. In my long afternoons, I sit at my window and sniff the air, aware of these hordes and aching to meet them. The oast house exudes heat which drifts to my window and makes my skin clammy. A dizzying wave of yeast-stink pervades the air for days. If Nanny comes, more rarely Father, I point outside towards our guests, eager to meet them. But the answer is always no, no. I am not allowed to mix with them. I can smell the parasite deterrents our farmhands use to keep themselves free of the pests the strangers bring, the lice and the fleas and the bugs. But I do not know this fact as yet and I do not care. I only want to meet them. I point and point again. My arms are pulled back, down. My hand slapped. This makes my blood boil.

  My tantrums grow worse. Now it is five or six outbursts a day. Afterwards I am exhausted and tearful, needful of arms around me. Yet the more I rage, the less I see Father. One September day I am tied to my chair all afternoon. The moment Nanny frees me, I escape and bound to my door. Careless Nanny has left it unlocked. I throw it open and hasten down the stairs. A maid’s hands grasp at my blouse but I wrench away and crash into the umbrella stand, which spews its contents. I scramble across their spiky guts and reach the front door. Outside, I skip down one, two, three, four steps and on to the drive. I trip on a rock I have forgotten at the edge of a circular border and the gravel greets my face with a clawing scrape. Skin, blood and stone fuse. But I will not stop. I get up and run-stumble on eastwise down the twisty path. I follow my nose to the hum of strangers gathered along the hop lanes. My flailing arms meet with resistance as I pass, bodies to the left and right, solid, foreign. I reach the end of a row and stop, winded. Then I feel a hand touch mine. I pull away, ready to yell, but it is a new hand: cracked and cut, used to manual work, but slender, mobile and female. It touches my hand again. This time I do not recoil. It begins to move, making shapes. Two fingers lie flat on my palm, one touches the tip of my fourth, a hand grasps my outstretched fingers. And so they go on, these odd shapes. Now, a finger draws a line from the top of my thumb down its curve to the tip of my index finger, then touches the tip of this and then one finger flat in the palm, then three fingers side by side. I am utterly still.

  The next hand is Father’s, on my shoulder. I turn, use my free right hand to point at the shapes. But the hand withdraws. I cry out, stretch into space for that new hand. It comes again and I relax. I want that hand now. Father’s nudge at my back, we walk slowly back to the house, the new hand still there, still making those shapes. We go to my bedroom and sit on my bed. I do not know where Father is, I do not care. I assess the hand, up the arm to the head. Thin arms. Hair tied back in a tight, neat bun. Curly, wild when free, I imagine. Warm skin, sharp cheekbones. Full mouth. The lips smile. A countenance so pleasant I kiss her cheek. A sharp whiff of hop, sweat and soap exudes from her skin.

  The hand takes mine again. It makes more shapes, new ones, quicker and quicker. I love this hand now. I want it never to leave. Nanny taps firmly on my back and I turn in fury, want to grab her and snap her, toss her away. I want nothing but my lady, who now taps my face. I remember my grazed cheek. In my enchantment, I had forgotten the pain. I permit Nanny to cleanse my wound, but cling to my lady’s hand. I want to explore her further so I let my hand roam, reaching down to her buttoned boots caked with mud, fingering her skirt of coarse cotton, covered with an apron stiff with grime, frayed and hole-ridden along its hem. I get up and retrieve my sewing basket. I will mend it for her and put everything in apple-pie order and she will love me. I feel someone leave the room but assume it is Father and do not care, as long as my lady is here.

  When I return to the bed and sit, I know from its flatness that I am alone. Now that I am calm they have taken my lady away. I go to the door and it is locked. I scream and beat the walls. My wrath is scorching. I have never felt such a longing and loss as I do for my lady, for that hand and its shapes. I will not eat, I will not drink, I will not succumb until I have that hand again. Time watches me, impassive. I sense the Visitors come. They are sad for me; I almost feel their touch like the faintest breath on my skin. They want to console me. But they cannot, they cannot do a thing for me, cannot act for me in my powerlessness. I despise them for being no help and no use. I close my eyes and shake my head to insensibility to rid it of their pointless pity. I fall on my empty bed, sobbing, gasping. In time, I wipe my face and take up my doll. I tidy her hair and straighten her clothes. I sit on the edge of the bed and cradle her in my lap. She sleeps.

  Hours later, I have not moved. I do not understand patience, but I know that nothing will happen while I am screaming. So I sit still and wait. Then, a jolt as the door is unlocked and opened. I know two figures approach by the stirring of air and their tread. One is Father and the other follows: tiptoe-light, tentative. Father pats my tear-dried cheek. I grasp his hand, do not know the common way of begging, but do my best, a kind of drawing towards my heart, my head swaying, eyes tight shut. Please, please. Bring her back to me. And here it is, her hand again in mine. I straight away flatten my palm ready for the shapes. They begin again. If I fidget, they stop, so I remain static. Then an object appears in my hand. I know it well, it is a key. Daily, Father lets me unlock the tall clock in the hall and wind it up. She removes the key and makes three shapes: one finger hooked in the palm, a touch on my index fingertip, a pointed finger at the base of my thumb. Then the hand is gone. Back comes the key. The three shapes again. The key. The shapes. And so it goes on.

  She stops. She wraps her fingers around mine. She takes my index finger and moulds it into a hook in her palm. Then she shapes my straight finger pointing at the tip of her index. Next I point at the base of her thumb. Now the key is back in my hand. Away again. I have to make the shapes myself. She helps me. I recall them exactly. The three shapes, then the key. The three shapes, always the same three shapes in the same order. She places my right hand over her own, so that I can discern the shapes it makes from her viewpoint. This helps me refine my style and I quickly become adept. I am good at this trick. It is new and it is fascinating. I like the complexity, the sense of purpose.

  I remember Father and flail my hand out for him. He is there beside me. I take his hand, put in the key, remove it and make the three shapes. He grasps my hand and shakes it like a jolly gentleman. I do not think he appreciates how wonderful my new trick is, so I do it again and again. His hand is rigid with concentration. He stops me and throws his arms around me, lifts me and wheels me about the room. So I do it again and again, as it cheers him and makes him love me. He sits me down with her and this time my doll appears in my hands. I learn new shapes then hold my doll. There are four shapes this time and they are different from the others. Yet the last two are the same one repeated. I check this to make sure and yes, it is correct.

  This day we pick up many objects around my room and make the shapes for each: bed, chair, brush, pin, shoe. Then parts of the body: ear, nose, mouth, eye, hair. As she demonstrates the new patterns, my face is screwed with anxiety to read it precisely and reproduce it correctly. I am delighted when I get it right. And I do get it right, repeatedly. I want to pick up more things and make more shapes, more and more. Ever
ything. But she is selective, ignores some requests, proffers others. I learn at least twenty and make them over and over. Soon my fingers are fatigued. Not from motion, as my hands are habituated to doing fine work for hours on end. But my mind is tired. It is unaccustomed to such strenuous and peculiar activity. I want to lie down, but I do not wish her to leave me. I take her hands and pull her to the bed. I stroke my eyes to show I am sleepy. She makes new shapes for me, five this time, some I know already from other patterns. She strokes my eyes too then makes the five shapes. I draw her fingers to my breast. I am very frightened that she will go. But she does not. She is lying beside me and lets me squeeze her hands. Before my eyelids droop, the Visitors come and they are most excitable and congratulatory. I fall asleep with a merry heart. I dream of her. My dreams are a mixture of the real and the impossible, as are yours. I can run without impediment, I can leap and float, my feet above the ground. But I cannot miraculously see and hear in my dreams. Instead I feel through my body, my muscles’ sense of space, my joys and terrors, as in my waking life. This dream is of my lady’s hands, just her hands in mine. They move with mystery and offer a kind of hope I do not yet understand but I want it, how I want it so.

  She never leaves me. She is there when I open my eyes in the morning and there until I close them at night. There is no extra bed in my room, so she must sleep elsewhere, but comes in before I wake to be with me and stays until I have fallen asleep. I have woken in the night to find her absent, and have shouted for her. Nanny comes and I shove her stupid old face away and yowl and reach for the other one, the lady with the hands. Nanny slaps me across the mouth but then Father’s hands are on my hair. There is a commotion in the room. People are stamping and throwing themselves about. I reach out for Father. Instead she comes, the one I want. She helps me to lie down. She caresses my eyelids and helps me fall back to sleep. Nanny does not come again, not this night or ever. Nanny has gone.

  At first I wake every night and cry out for my lady. I fear that she will tire of me and drive me from her presence. But she does not and soon I am comfortable with her leaving me when I am still awake. I know she is always there for me in the morning, so I do not fret. I am happy to sleep alone, knowing my days will be filled with her. I do not have to spend the afternoons locked in my room any more. I have her with me all day and we play and learn new shapes. She smells different now, of clean linen and Mother’s soap.

  I have never been so pleased with myself and my lot. It is the most exquisite treat to have a companion who stays with me always. I hug her and kiss her often, take down her hair and brush it, but I was right, it is wild. I find if I wet it first with water from the basin on the washstand it tames and lies flatter. I brush it damp like this and plait it or tie it in rags at night, so that there will be ringlets in the morning when she comes to wake me. Every day we play new games. I copy her when she shakes my hands or pats my fingers gently, we nod towards each other and at our closest I let her breath tickle my skin. We explore more rooms, more objects and more shapes. Two weeks pass and I learn dozens of new patterns. It is still novel to me and I enjoy it. But I have no clue as to its purpose. I make no connection in my mind between the shapes I am learning, the patterns they make and the objects she gives me. I can repeat them, but they mean nothing to me. I never make the shapes when the objects are not there, only when I hold them in my hand. I do not know that these patterns mean more than themselves. I am a mynah bird. Yet something grows in me, a kernel of thought, that there is intent behind this dumb show, that it is not a plaything like our other sports. It is important. But I cannot grasp why and my lady cannot convey it. Until she takes me to the hop garden.

  I know from before that once the people leave Father’s land, the bines go too. The plants do not return until the cold has come and gone and the warm days recur. My lady lets me grasp the bare poles. Most of the plants have been picked. But I find a single hop cone clinging to a forgotten spiny tendril straggling from a mound. I give her the flower as a present. She takes it, puts her right hand in my left and makes three shapes: her flat hand rests in my palm and brushes upwards across my fingers, she prods the tip of my fourth, pinches the end of my index finger. Then the hop flower is put in my hand. Again, the three shapes. Then the hop. Three shapes. The hop. Shapes, hop. Shapes, HOP. Shapes, H-O-P. I stop her hand. I stop dead still. I am thinking. I hold the hop flower, roll it around in my left hand, crush it. I reach for her hand. I make the three shapes, H-O-P. I give her the flower. H-O-P, again and again. The shapes are a word. The word is a sign. A sign that speaks. The flower I hold in my hand has a name and its name is H-O-P. I spell it.

  ‘H-O-P.’

  I drop to the ground, scrabble around for that hard, round thing I like to throw. I place it in my lady’s hand, she gives me five shapes. S-T-O-N-E. Its name is stone. I spell it out.

  ‘S-T-O-N-E.’

  I laugh and jump and skip and grasp my lady’s shoulders, which shake with laughter too. More, I want more. We tumble around the garden and we find G-R-A-S-S, a L-E-A-F and a T-R-E-E, even a N-E-S-T. I reach out and touch my lady’s face. Tap my palm, rest my hand on her chest. What is my lady’s word? What is she? She spells it for me. L-O-T-T-I-E. Lottie. I spell it back.

  ‘Lottie,’ I spell to her. ‘Lottie.’

  We are talking with our fingers.

  But what is the word for Me? Does Me have a name? I pat my chest, I tap my hand. What is my name? Lottie takes my hand. One finger flat in the palm, a fingertip pointed at my middle finger, the side of the hand placed at an angle across the palm, a fingertip pointed at the thumb. L-I-Z-A.

  ‘Liza,’ says Lottie.

  ‘Liza,’ I say.

  My name is Liza.

  3

  I learn hundreds of words. We go into every room and Lottie shows me the names for everything I can lay my hands on. I know the word for every object in my house now, from the simple ‘copper’ in the kitchen to the poetic ‘marcella counterpane’ in my bedroom. Nouns first, then verbs and adjectives. I can explain qualities: hot, cold; young, old. I can express opinions: like, dislike. I join words together and make pidgin sentences: Liza run. Liza drink milk. Liza love Lottie and Father. I lose all interest in those who cannot finger spell. Father learns it in a day, but he is not as quick as Lottie and me. I want to tell him things, but when he speaks back I have to wait a long time for his words and sometimes I push him away mid-sentence, bored. He evidently starts practising, for soon he is better and we talk every day. He takes me on walks and names flowers and herbs for me, gives me the terms for all the parts of the hop plant and the equipment in the oast house. He shows me precious objects in his study: a conch shell, a marble egg, a rose quartz crystal. I learn the names of all the soapstone chess pieces. He makes a special chessboard from wood, with raised rules between the squares, so that I can feel to move the King one space forward, the Bishop two spaces diagonally, the Knight up two and along one. He begins to teach me the game and shakes my hand heartily when I make a good move. I know he loved me in the Time Before, but I feel he loves me more now.

  Next I learn about names. I discover that Father is Father and Mother is Mother. I know Cook is Cook but has another name, Martha. This is confusing so I call her Cook Martha. There is Maid Edith and Maid Florrie. And Maid Alice who is lady’s maid to Mother. I still visit Mother every day and I am allowed to drip drops of lavender water on a handkerchief and mop her forehead. She lets me touch her hand and now I make shapes for her. She lets me do it into her outstretched palm, but never answers me.

  Afterwards, I tell Lottie, ‘Mother make no shapes.’

  Lottie says, ‘One day.’

  I know I am Adeliza Golding, Father is Edwin Golding and Mother is Evangeline Golding. Lottie is Charlotte Crowe.

  I ask, ‘Why Lottie not Golding?’

  She says, ‘Different mother and father.’

  ‘Where sleep?’

  ‘Not this house.’

  ‘What house?’

&nbs
p; ‘By the sea.’

  ‘What is sea?’

  ‘Big water.’

  ‘Like pond.’

  ‘No. Very big. Salty.’

  ‘Liza go now to sea and meet Lottie mother and father.’

  ‘One day,’ says Lottie.

  Soon I stop calling myself Liza and understand the word ‘me’. Later, I think that my two years of hearing before the fever helped to store in my mind a plethora of ideas derived from my ears which must have been locked in some piece of dusty furniture at the back of my head. Lottie has the key. She not only teaches me names for objects or feelings or ideas, but she does something else: she talks with me all the time. She sits or walks with me and finger spells long sentences into my hand. Many of the words I do not know, but others I do, and I can work out some from their context. She treats me like a hearing child, one who cannot yet understand all the vocabulary the adults use, but who learns through listening and repeating and constant exposure to language. She does not engage in baby talk. For the first time in my life, I have found a person who does not treat me like an infant, an object of pity, or an animal. She treats me like a person.

  I become very clever at the finger spelling. I want to do it all day, all night too. Any time I am alone, if Lottie must be absent for a moment, I speak to myself through finger signing into my own left hand. Lottie and I do not hold our palms flat any more to converse. When we talk, I hold my hand before me, curved downwards as if holding an invisible plum, while Lottie makes the signs rapidly within the curve of my hand. I do the same. My right hand is so pliable now and the left stiff to compare, as it never speaks. Our minds and our hands think in words, not separate letters. When you listen to a person speak, you do not notice every letter, nor do you read each letter separately when you look upon writing. Our conversations are the same. Our fingers move so fast in forming our words, I challenge anyone to follow the quicksilver speed of our conversations.