To give backing to this observation (which was made most frequently, and quite loudly at that) by one Dera Black, one need only catch a snatch of the conversation which was taking place at the table in the parlour.
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” said Dera, going on yet again in the same frame which was beginning to take a serious toll upon all of her listeners.
“Why don’t you quit your complaining?” asked Jade. The emphasis behind her suggestion was unmistakable, though she did not look up from the game she was playing with Josephine. Both held an assortment of paper-cards in their hands, on which were drawn different characters. There was a stack more of them on the table there betwixt them; and they drew from the pile, threw their own cards away, and stole one another’s cards when they desired, all in the pursuit of being the individual with the higher set of points. (Exactly how this was managed, neither Heidi nor Dera had ever paid enough attention to learn. It was only Jade and Josephine who ever played this strange game, which Jade and her brother had invented as children.)
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” returned Dera, casting a scowl towards Jade which Jade herself failed to notice. What with the grumpy expression upon Dera’s face, coupled with the grey downpour which was pelting past the window directly behind her head, the view for Heidi (who was sitting opposite Josephine and beside Jade) was a very poor one.
“I would, you know,” said Jade, in a cheerful voice which she knew would goad Dera to no end, “if you could manage to keep all of your snivelling to yourself.”
“I am not snivelling.”
“You might as well be. All you’ve been doing, all week long, is whining about the rain. None of us like it, you know! But do you hear anyone else reminding all the others about it, every five minutes? Well, I don’t. I only hear you.”
“You had better watch it, Jade,” warned Dera, a look of real anger passing over her face.
“Watch what?” prodded Jade. “Or else you’ll what?”
“I’ll not tell you again.”
“Spare me, would you? I tell you, if I have to listen to you for one more –”
And here she was cut off, for Dera chose at that moment to leap directly across the table, and to send Jade (and her chair, which broke into several pieces) sprawling to the floor.
“What in the world is the matter with you?” cried Jade; but try as she would, she could not disengage herself from Dera.
“I’ll teach you to talk to me like that!” hollered Dera, aiming a blow right at Jade’s head.
“Stop that, now!” said Heidi, reaching down to take hold of Dera’s arms. She tried to pry them away from the grip they were beginning to gain on Jade’s neck, but was thrust backwards almost immediately by a hard elbow she received in the stomach.
“Well, to you too!” she screamed, launching herself forward across the floor to regain her grasp on the wild woman. Jade was struggling below her; for Dera had taken hold of her throat again, and seemed truly intent upon strangling her.
Josephine stood in the corner, looking with horrified eyes upon the brawl taking place on the parlour floor. Surely, she wanted to do something to help – but whatever could she have done? She certainly was not about to go getting herself punched in her own face.
For sure, Jade would have been the first one to think of this; but, distracted as she was by the prospect of being throttled to death, Heidi was the one who needed do it. So she gained her feet, took a step back, and thrust her whole arm towards Dera. Her aim was to send Dera flying, and she was successful, to a degree. Dera certainly did fly a-ways across the room; but Jade went, too, as her throat was still so strongly enclosed in the grip of Dera’s fists. Heidi heard her splutter, as they both went soaring into the hearth. (Thankfully, it was summer, and there was no fire burning.)
A few moments later, Jade managed to loose Dera’s hold on her, and proceeded to begin a rather ugly fistfight with her. She did not take advantage of her own ability to send Dera sailing into a wall, or falling to the floor to crack her head against the wood; but merely went all about the room with her several times, ducking and jumping, and aiming blows at her which were just as lethal – if not more so – as Dera’s own.
“I’ll end you yet!” she hollered, coming up behind Dera in an attempt to lock an arm round her chest. She failed to do that, and only succeeded in having her own arm grabbed by Dera, which was presently used to swing her full over Dera’s head, and to bring her crashing in a rather painful-looking way to the floor.
“I should love to see you try!” Dera replied.
Now, Heidi was beginning to grow very tired of the fight – and would have been, even if she was not bent over double, awaiting the pain in her middle, engendered by Dera’s elbow, to dissipate. Quite all of a sudden she straightened up, threw her arms up into the air, and cried loudly, “That’s enough!”
The two brawling women, who had been positioned in the centre of the parlour before Heidi shouted, were all of a sudden looking upon each other from opposite ends of the room. And yet it seemed, a few short moments afterwards, that Dera was not looking upon anything at all; for she had hit her head when she crashed into the wall beside the table, and was rendered unconscious quite instantaneously.
“My goodness!” said Josephine, hurrying from her corner to the motionless, slumping figure that was Dera. “I think you’ve killed her!”
“Oh, she has not,” said Jade. “Don’t you see? She’s breathing.”
Josephine shook her head sadly. “You all are much too violent,” she said. “Much, much too much. Why, you’re nothing but a bunch of ruffians – that’s what you are!”
Jade looked absolutely indignant. “She hit me first!” she shrieked, jumping up and down on the floor and pointing to Dera.
“You look like a perfect child,” scolded Josephine.
Jade glowered.
“Now, take hold of one of her arms, and help me get her to bed!”
Had she not been so aggravated and sore, Heidi might have laughed at the sight of them dragging Dera across the room, and heaving her up onto her cot. But she was aggravated, and she was sore; so she only turned away with a growl, and stomped off into her own room.
She threw the door shut behind her; but it was opened not an instant later by Jade, who stood looking in for a moment, silhouetted there in the doorway by the light from the parlour.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice nearly timid.
“Well enough, considering,” said Heidi, her words falling very hot.
“I didn’t start it, you know.”
“I care not who started it! I simply cannot see how you two expect to go on living in the same house with one another. Sooner or later, someone really is going to get killed.”
“Oh, no they won’t.”
“Oh, yes they will! And I don’t want to see it.”
Jade came to perch herself upon the edge of Heidi’s bed. “All right, all right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I suppose it was just as much my fault for teasing her. But she was becoming so terribly annoying!”
Heidi could not help but laugh. “Yes,” she said, envisioning the fight once again and laughing all the harder. She reached up to wipe a few tears from her eyes. “Yes, yes – I suppose she was.”
“Well, at least someone agrees with me. You should have seen the look on Josephine’s face! I’m afraid she’s angry with both of us.”
“Whatever did I do?”
Jade only began to snigger.
“Oh,” said Heidi, as though only just remembering. “Oh, yes. That.”
“Yes, that,” said Jade, swinging her legs up onto the bed to stretch out beside Heidi. “I suppose you really could have killed her,” she added thoughtfully.
“Oh, no. Don’t you go playing at that! She is absolutely fine.”
“She only just made it!”
“You stop that right now.”
Another round of laughter passed betwixt them; but Heidi fell silent rathe
r quickly. The violence in the parlour (as Josephine would refer to it as, for days and days afterward) had sparked memories of another kind of brutality; one which Heidi had not witnessed for a relatively brief period of three years. It was Nirin Ida’s last night in Morsheyd, that. Or, to be perfectly honest, it was Heidi’s, too – as well as her mother’s, whose own departure was rather more of the eternal sort.
Two years after her brother’s death, it was. Two years since Helena had gone. (Heidi had heard from her only once since then. She was in Remás by that time with Andrew Makepeace, and was carrying her first child. Heidi read the short letter, over and over again; but did not think even once of replying to it.)
It was a bitter cold winter night, with snow and sleet falling slantwise from the sky, and coating everything with a slick freeze. It was a quiet, too. Nirin had just come in, and was still in the process of wiping his boots, and shaking the frozen flakes from his head, when Wyra Bastian entered the kitchen from the parlour. As most always in those days, she had a bottle of spirits in her hand, and a permanent frown etched across her face. She flung herself down in a chair at the table, and watched Nirin miserably as he peeled off his wet coat.
Heidi had just finished making supper, and was doing all she could to pretend that it was only another normal evening; that the man who had just come through the door was not a murderer and a crook, but was an upright and decent fellow who had just done with a hard day’s work; that Wyra was not actually a horrible mother (which she undeniably was), and that the bottle in her hand was not present; that there had never been a little boy, so very bright and beautiful, who lived in that house; and that her own sister was not gone because she could not stand to be there anymore, but only because she had moved off to start a new life with her husband. All in all, this was a tall order to fill – but Heidi did what she could, and tried to smile to herself, as she served supper to the man and woman at the table.
When she finally sat down with her own meal, she turned her eyes immediately down to it, and began to eat silently. Nirin said nothing, either, and did indeed seem to intend to spare them all another night of terrible noise and shouting. Wyra was not eating, though; and in fact was only staring down the table at Nirin. She sipped from her bottle occasionally, but her eyes never left him.
Heidi hoped against all hope that she would lower her eyes; that she would cease her staring, and pick up her spoon. Surely, Nirin was soon to notice – and Heidi had only just acclimated herself to the idea of a peaceful evening.
So, in an attempt to make it seem that there was a reason for Wyra’s eyes to be anywhere other than on her plate, Heidi asked her, “Did Mrs Bettie stop by today? I remember you saying that she would.”
But Wyra did not answer. She only continued to stare at Nirin.
“You should eat your food, Mum,” said Heidi pointedly. “Eat it while it’s hot.”
But she did not eat. And in the manner that she was conducting herself, it could only be moments until –
“Is ‘er somethin’ the matter with ye?” asked Nirin finally, throwing his spoon to the floor. “Is ‘er a reason why ye’re a’starin’ at me?”
Quite as always, Wyra said nothing at all. But the look in her eyes, which was composed of both fear and accusation, spoke volumes enough as it was.
Nirin shook his finger at her. “Now,” he said loudly, “ye listen here, ye old sack o’ mud. Iffen ye don’t stop a’starin’, I’ll come down there and turn yer eyes away meself.”
“Mum,” Heidi begged, laying a hand upon the older woman’s arm. “Please stop.”
“Listen to yer girl!” cried Nirin. “Goodness knows she’s the smarter one.”
When Wyra refused to avert her gaze, after that, Heidi knew that trouble was not far in the coming. So she pushed her bowl away, lowered her face into her hands, and awaited it as best she could.
She heard Nirin push out his chair, and stamp across the floor to the place where Wyra sat. Heidi peeked through her fingers at the scene, and watched as her mother was yanked from her chair and tossed down to the floor. The spirits rolled away, gushing all across the floor as they went. Nirin aimed a kick at Wyra; but Wyra made not a sound.
Heidi got to her feet, then, and took hold of Nirin’s arm. “Please don’t,” she said. “You know she doesn’t mean it.”
“Do I?” he asked, turning round to shove Heidi away from him. She fell to the floor, and began to crawl away; but he seized her by the leg and pulled her back to him.
“Let go!” she cried, kicking out against his hand.
He lost his hold on her. Instead of trying to regain it, though, he only turned back to Wyra, and pulled her up to her feet. She stood nearly two heads below him, but stared up into his face with something that resembled courage; but which Heidi recognised only as drunkenness. Enraged nonetheless, Nirin took hold of the woman by both shoulders, lifted her a foot off the ground, and threw her towards the stove. She hit her head as she fell.
Nirin stared after her for a moment, in something that resembled concern; but which Heidi recognised only as fear for his own safety. He went to Wyra, and rolled her over. He looked down into her face, and then felt her chest, which Heidi could tell even from her position near the table was devoid of breath. Then he stood up, and looked down at Heidi. Heidi was certain that he would kill her.
But he only stepped over to the door, replaced his coat over his shoulders, pulled open the door, and disappeared into the night.
Heidi crawled immediately to her mother. She listened for what seemed a very long time, in futility, for her breath; but was never rewarded by the sound of it, come to fill that still body with life.
She sat there for many long hours, gazing down at her mother – and thinking of how very quickly it had all ended. She had stayed at home these past two years, when she could have gone to Helena, only for the purpose of protecting this pathetic little creature. She had endured so much more than she had needed to – to protect her! And her life was snuffed out in an instant? It simply made no sense.
So there she sat till dawn next day. Nirin had not returned, and Wyra was still quite lifeless. (This latter bit may seem something of an unnecessary observation; but Heidi was so eager for it to be something other than what it was, that she actually believed for a little that the wrong might be undone, and that her mother might still come back alive.)
Of course, Wyra Bastian did not come back to life. She only laid there, perfectly silent (as none should be surprised at), and enjoyed the beginning of her last, and quite permanent, repose.
Heidi could scarcely stand to look at her. She gathered up what possessions she deemed absolutely necessary, and absconded from the house. First she stopped at Meadow Street to see the undertaker, Mr Eggett. She explained that her mother was lying dead upon the kitchen floor of their home, gone finally at the hand of the spirits (which most everyone in town was aware that Wyra Bastian had been quite fond of, ever since her husband Olly died). She told Mr Eggett that she was leaving this instant; that she could not bear to ever lay eyes again upon her mother’s dead face; and that she would never return to the house on Oxbow Lane. She realised, she said, that this must be a terrible inconvenience for him – so she gave him every last piece of money she had, and begged him to take care of her mother. Finally he agreed, and promised to see to the matter without delay.
And, with that, Heidi escaped Morsheyd quite as quickly as she could. At first she had no idea at all where to go; but then she recollected the place that Nirin Ida had mentioned to her, when they first began making plans to go to – Tolin? At least, she believed that that was the right name.
Nirin had decided that, come spring, all three of them would travel to Tolin, where he had already secured positions for both Heidi and himself at a kiln. Not too much money in that, he said; but he was friends with the artisan there, and that fellow was more than capable of getting another fellow a bit of money, when he needed it.
She knew not what made her decide
to go (for surely, did she not consider that anyone whom Nirin called “friend” was perhaps not the most favourable character she could align herself with?), but she soon found herself making her way down that long and weary road, accepting what help was offered her, and inching along quite at the pace of a snail. She could have gone to Helena, all this time; but the ill will she still harboured towards that woman (a word which was easier to use to refer to her as, in the stead of that term “sister” which she did not deserve) kept her from it.
By the time she arrived in Tolin, she was sicker than she had ever been, and could indeed hardly walk. She found her way to the artisan, who was named John Skyler. She mentioned the name of Nirin Ida, and said (with what little confidence she had left) that she believed there was a position awaiting her.
At first, Skyler only laughed at her, and assured her that there was no deal in the absence of Nirin. But then she fell to her knees (partways from exhaustion and sickness, and partways in supplication) and beseeched him to allow her to take the position anyway; for she was quite as wretched as any creature could be, and had just lost her own dear mother! Nirin had run off on her – and, oh please, sir – whatever was she to do about that?
And so, finally, Heidi secured her position in John Skyler’s kiln – and she suffered over those burning ovens for two years, and for it got very little money and even less thanks. But what was that to her? She could do nothing about it; and was sure, for a time, that she did not deserve much more anyway.
Unsure as to the exact reason why she did so (though suspecting that it was probably due to the immense feeling of isolation what had come to settle down upon her), Heidi sent out a letter a few months after coming to Tolin, speaking mostly of her own sorrows, and relating to no one else in particular, though it was addressed to Helena Makepeace. It was written on a particularly desolate evening, when Mrs Flebott had gone away with her son; the house was quiet as a tomb; and there was present a significant amount of spirits. She could not remember, afterwards, very much of what she had written; but she was certain of the fact that she had delved somewhat deeply into the past, on a grief-induced mission to ignite some amount of guilt in her sister’s distant heart.
Broken Earth Page 42
