Once Upon a Time There Was a Traveller

by Kate Pullinger

  ‘You mean me?’ He was pulling on his boots.

  ‘Well, what if she needs the path cleared?’

  ‘She doesn’t leave the house.’

  ‘Me and Jay can clear her path!’ Nina interrupted. ‘We’ll take our spades.’

  ‘There you go then,’ he said as he opened the door and walked out, leaving some errant flakes of snow dissolving on the doormat.

  Later that morning as they left the house Nina saw that the first-floor windows on the east side were now entirely obscured by the drifts. After the calmness of the last two days the wind was becoming strong and all three gates were singing in certainty. Just for a second as they passed through the first gate Nina thought she understood what it was saying to her but then the song changed and her understanding was lost with the wind, like a dream you can’t hold on waking.

  Gwen was somewhere between middle and old age and lived alone in the little tumbledown dwelling in which she had been born. Had been born, had grown up, had seen her parents die and had never left.

  What must have once been a sweet but modest cottage now more closely resembled one of the many abandoned residences up in these hills. It stood on a low, scraggy bit of land that could have been nice if Gwen could have been bothered. Poor Gwen. Everything about her was lopsided. The cottage appeared to lean slightly to the left, and the fence around it to the right. Even Gwen herself always looked wonky; if she put her long greying hair up in a ponytail it flopped to one side. If she put on her best lilac cardigan it was covered in hair and lint and sagged off one shoulder. She had narrow shoulders and wide hips. Whenever Nina saw her she couldn’t help but think of a particularly overripe pear she had once found at the bottom of their fruit bowl.

  They cut straight down from the track towards the scrub-land to Gwen’s, though marsh and scrub-land now looked much the same, and the Tan Woods beyond were just a dark line in the distance contoured with a thick pallid stripe.

  The three of them picked their way along what they thought was the garden path – a dangerous path made more hazardous by the mantle of unadulterated snow disguising the many rusting objects and cracks that lay beneath. When they knocked on the door Nina could hear the startled scurrying of little hooves on bare tiles.

  ‘It’s tea with the goats then,’ Nina heard her mum mutter.

  Gwen appeared, wrapped in several matted blankets, hair up in a sideways bun that rested over her left eye.

  ‘Duw, duw, duw, what have we here? You’ve come to check on me? That’s nice of you. Me and the girls are fine though. Come in, come in.’

  Gwen’s Welsh accent rose and fell like the hills and valleys of the country, coming from somewhere far deeper than her throat. When Gwen spoke Nina sometimes wondered if her voice came straight up from the stone below the ground, through the tiles, up her stout legs and out of her mouth.

  As they entered the dusty space that served as dining and sitting room, the white goat with grey patches, Gloria, trotted over to nibble at their shoes. Their mum did her pretend smile and patted the animal on its head as the children giggled and stroked Gloria back.

  ‘Sit down, sit down.’ Gwen motioned to the small round table in the middle of the room. ‘You didn’t have to come. I’ve seen worse snow than this.’ She gave Gloria an affectionate pat and laughed for no reason, a loud, rolling laugh. ‘I’ll get you all a drink. You sit there, sit tight…’

  ‘Actually Gwen, we really can’t…’ Vivien began, but Gwen was already pretending not to hear as she vanished into the kitchen.

  The three of them waited in silence. They could hear Gwen chatting to the second goat, Gail. Gloria began nuzzling something which used to be a cushion and then wandered out to the kitchen to see what was happening, leaving them in the dark. The curtains in the room were illusory slips of stained grey lace but light still failed to penetrate through the ancient window panes.

  When Gwen returned she was carrying a tray with three small glasses filled with fresh goat’s milk and with several short hairs floating on top. She placed them down, one each, around the table.

  ‘The best thing about snow is the thaw – and then the spring. With spring comes hwyl.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jay asked.

  ‘It means “good-bye”,’ answered Nina, confidently.

  ‘Lord no, girl! You went sledging yesterday, didn’t you?’ Gwen continued. ‘I saw you. You know how you felt when you was on that sledge and it started to go fast? That’s what hwyl is.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jay said. He looked down at the glass of milk in front of him then caught his mum watching and saw the narrowing of her eyes as if she dared him to try it. He looked away quickly.

  As Gwen pottered back out to the kitchen, her slippers flopping off her feet, Vivien reached into her handbag, which she had clutched to her body just below the rim of the table. The children heard the familiar soft rotation of a large cap being unscrewed. Their mum reached across the table for Jay’s glass. Nina handed hers over gladly. The flask cap was just being tightened when Gwen reappeared.

  Vivien spoke quickly. ‘Listen Gwen, I know you probably don’t need anything but I’ve put a casserole on for dinner and there’s much too much for us. Shall I drop some round to you later? I hate to waste it.’

  ‘Well, if it’s going to be wasted I won’t say no. Duw, duw – we mustn’t waste food!’ Gwen laughed and grinned at Nina. Next to her Gloria looked as if she was grinning too with her strange oblong eyes.

  On their way out the front door they all turned to say good-bye. Gwen gave Nina a wink. ‘Off with you then.’ She laughed. But halfway down the path Gwen shouted after them, ‘You’re doing it wrong, you know!’

  They all turned around.

  ‘What?’ said Nina.

  ‘You’re wishing wrong. I can see the stone from here. I see you two wishing.’

  ‘How is it wrong?’

  ‘Come here, girl, and I’ll tell you.’

  Before her mum could stop her Nina set back off along the path at a run, hopping over the bumps in the snow.

  Gwen bent down and whispered the secret in her ear. She whispered for a long time. Nina didn’t say good-bye again but came bouncing back down the path to her mum and brother, a glossy rubber ball that Gwen had launched in their direction.

  On their way home they took the marsh route on the lower ground. It was divided in two by what was once a dry-stone wall. Now it was completely overgrown with moss and acted as a causeway across to the woods on the far side. In the spring they went hunting frogspawn along it. But on this day the wall was no more than a slight bump in an otherwise perfect mantle, which they wanted to corrupt. The sky had closed for a while and hung low and grey above their heads. They walked in silence. Vivien paused halfway along the causeway to empty the flask of milk. It made a sound like someone putting out a fire.

  The wall ended abruptly in a steep bank that was overhung by trees. As they went to hop down Jay suddenly dropped to his knees. When he stood up he was holding a skinny little robin carefully in cupped hands. It lay on its side and was quite stiff and crusted with frost so that it sparkled.

  Nina made a sound that began as delight and ended in dismay.

  ‘Poor thing, it must have died of the cold.’ Vivien went to give it a closer look.

  Jay pulled his hands back, ‘Can I take him home with us?’ he asked, his voice high with emotion.

  ‘What would you do with it, sweetheart? You can’t keep a dead bird in the house – it will rot.’

  ‘We could bury him,’ Nina said, and saw a look of relief swell over her brother’s face.

  Jay carried the bird all the way home with his arms outstretched in front of him. It made it hard to climb the bank but he wouldn’t let Nina help.

  When they got home they immediately set about making funeral arrangements. The snowman was stripped of the great aunt’s hat, and Nina stood in front of her mother’s mirror and placed it very carefully on her head. Jay named the robin ‘Sir’ like a knight. On
a piece of cardboard Nina wrote in red felt-tip: Here lies Sir Robin who fought bravely against the cold but lost. Their mum gave them an old shoebox, which they filled with cotton wool, and Jay set the robin in it with painful slowness.

  Using spades designed for sand-castles it took a long time to clear away the snow and dig a hole in a patch of soil in their garden. It had taken them ages to decide on the best place. Eventually they chose an area at the far end that overlooked the valley. Once the coffin was in place they covered it back up. The hard earth made a hollow noise as it was scattered over the box. Then Jay forced the cardboard headstone down on top. The two of them stood for a moment looking down at the grave. Nina, elated by solemnity, tried hard to hide a smile.

  Following the ceremony they went back into the house to change out of their smart clothes.

  As they left Tanodd Carreg by the front door, the light was not quite waning and the casserole was not quite ready, and their parents were in the kitchen bickering over who would take some down to Gwen later that evening.

  Beyond the garden the snow reached their waists in places and it was hard going. They had to take the long way round up the track to the second wailing gate and then double back on themselves across the hill. There was a thick flurry falling again and they stopped often to look up until they were dizzy. Even though the air was quite still the flakes whirled and spun on their way down, moved by some other force. When they reached the top of the hill their legs ached superbly from the effort. Breathless and glowing the two children turned to view their kingdom.

  Straight below they could see Tanodd Carreg – the roof completely covered, a thick plume of smoke rising from where the chimney must be. Far to the south the open space of the marsh ended at the dark forest beyond. They could make out Gwen’s cottage to the right of it. And Gwen herself. In a red and blue tartan blanket she was the only bit of colour in the entire realm. She lay on the ground next to the goat shed. She was waving. Nina waved back and Jay copied. ‘Bore da!’ they shouted.

  ‘She’s making a snow angel,’ Nina said. ‘Let’s make one too.’

  They made them deep – waving their arms for a long time. When they stood up and shook the snow out of their hoods, Nina remembered Gwen’s special word.

  ‘Hwl!’ she shouted down as loud as she could. ‘Hwyl! Hwyl! Hwyylllll!’

  Gwen was a long way away so she just waved back, though Nina was sure she could hear.

  It took their eyes a minute to pick the stone out, so deep were the drifts around it, but its shape was clear – a perfect oval, the size of a small van.

  ‘Gwen said it was put here by a wizard,’ Nina told Jay.

  ‘Like Merlin?’

  ‘Yes, he put it here to show where the little people live. They’re below the ground and they haven’t come out for a long time but they can hear our wishes if we do it right.’

  The children approached the rock slowly and quietly, their new knowledge weighing them down like pebbles in their pockets. Everyone knew the stone was for wishes. Even the sheep knew it was magic. In summer they would lie for hours on its solar charged surface. But today it was cold.

  Nina went first so Jay would know what to do. She marched around the stone three times before pausing significantly at the far end for several seconds to remove her gloves. Then she shut her eyes tight and plunged both hands deep into the snow until her palms met the solid rock. She made her wish and Jay followed.

  Steve found Gwen later that evening after eventually agreeing to deliver the casserole. Nobody knew exactly why she’d gone outside – it seemed she may have crawled there. The stroke hadn’t killed her, but the cold had.

  ‘If only we’d taken the food round sooner,’ Vivien could be heard saying over and over on the phone to various friends and relatives for the next few days.

  Nina began shutting herself in her room whenever the phone rang.

  It stopped snowing but the cold stayed. When a week later Nina and Jay passed by the spot at the top of the hill, two shallow dents could be seen in the crust. They looked nothing like angels.

  Some weeks later, on her birthday, Nina’s parents took her outside and told her to wait by the barn door. It was late spring and the morning mist was so thick that she could barely make it out. The humid air clung to the new green of the ash tree above her and as it became too heavy it fell in a drop on to Nina’s left cheek. She watched her parents disappear into the cloud side by side.

  A minute later she heard a noise she had been dreading. She closed her eyes and heard her wish become a ticking that became a purr. The dark shapes of her parents began to emerge from the mist, her dad encumbered somehow. Slowly a bright red pierced the grey between them. A deep emerald ribbon was tied to one of the handlebars, becoming the hundredth shade of green that Nina had counted that morning.

  It was a boy’s bike but her dad had repainted it and fitted a new bell. He rang it proudly. A beautiful, clear note echoed out into the nothing. Hwyl, it called to her. Hwyl, hwyl, hwyyllllllllll.

  The Journey to the Brothers’ Farm – Pippa Gough

  One day, oh, it must have been when I was about seven, Miss Kotzee read a story about Dulcina, a beautiful young girl with milk-white skin and flaxen hair of the purest silk, who married a prince. ‘Dulcina was fine-boned,’ Miss Kotzee said to the hushed class, ‘and her face was her fortune.’

  For many days I puzzled over the mystery of skin, bones, faces and fortunes. I knew about skin – black skin and white skin – but how did all the other things link together? I studied the other children in the playground. Bettina, I noticed, had very pale skin and white-blonde hair but she was an albino and her eyes juddered from side to side behind her thick glasses. Was this strange face her fortune, I wondered?

  At home on the farm I looked at the familiar tough-skinned faces of my father, brother and Auntie Das. The person who stared back at me every morning from the mirror on the back of the kitchen door looked the same. My face wasn’t as creased as Auntie Das’s, whose skin resembled a screw of brown paper from the butcher’s shop, but for the first time I noticed the plainness of the Lourens’ features: the small chin, brown eyes too close together, the lumpy nose, the coarse hair.

  ‘Do you think a prince would ever want to marry Bettina?’ I asked Miss Kotzee one break time. She hesitated and looked around nervously. ‘I mean, out of Bettina and me,’ I persisted, ‘who has the best chance do you reckon? Or out of the whole class?’ I took a bite of my sandwich and waited for her reply. Miss Kotzee pondered my question and, as I watched, her face reddened up to the roots of her cropped hair and her thick, wide neck became marbled with weals and blotches.

  ‘I’m not sure marrying a prince is going to be your fortune, Annelie,’ she said slowly, and sucked in her breath between orange lips. We both looked out of the window at the other kids in the playground.

  ‘You see,’ she continued, ‘in the story, from the moment Dulcina was born, it was in her stars to meet a prince. Her prince. That was her destiny, her fate, her path in life.’

  Miss Kotzee took another quivery breath and her blunt fingers stroked my cheek.

  ‘So, Annelie, in that way her face was her fortune. Your fortune, meisie, will lie in other things.’

  I thought this over. ‘So… she got all that just because she was so mooi?’

  Miss Kotzee nodded.

  ‘You mean, she just sat around on her jack?’ I could feel sudden tears pricking at my eyes. ‘She never had to fetch the cattle from the low field because the waterhole had dried up?’

  ‘Ja,’ Miss Kotzee said, shrugging her big shoulders. ‘That’s about right. And don’t say “jack”.’

  I understood then my face was never going to be my fortune. Nor was Miss Kotzee’s or she wouldn’t have been our teacher here in Bultdorp. But that was a long time ago. There weren’t any fortunes in the way my family looked, or anyone else around our farm. Our fate was to work with our hands, our big-boned, squared-off hands, swinging pick-axes into the
dry, red earth, where dust like chilli powder rose up to choke us from between the rows of whispering maize.

  This is the sworn statement of Annelie Louw, née Lourens, made on this day 17 February 1977 at Tweekopfontein Police Station.

  I own Louw Stores, 37 Main Street, Bultdorp. I have run this on my own since my husband Vernon Louw died three years ago. Every Monday I drive to Tweekopfontein to stock up on goods for the store from Van Riebeck Wholesalers. Today, Monday 17 February 1977, I left the store at sunrise for the usual Monday run. My journey takes me past the turn-off to Veldplatt, the Krugers’ farm…

  I loaded the bakkie with water for the journey and put Vernon’s old rifle in the front with me. For many years we had done this journey together. It had been our day out, away from the store. After Vernon had died Croenke’s youngest had offered to do the run instead but I found I still liked the break. And now I no longer minded travelling on my own.