The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales (5 page)

But I had no idea what to do next.

I tried to imagine explaining to my mother (to Maelor's mother, for that matter) what had happened. I wasn't sure which bit they would find harder to believe: the fact that the most eligible bachelor of Cwmcapel had tried to force me, or the fact that I had deep-frozen him for his pains.

Of course he'd never do that, my dear. You must have imagined it. Are you sure you haven't had a drop too much of that French wine?

Come on now, dear, unfreeze him. You've had your joke, and I'm sure I don't know how you did it. Very clever, of course. But think how cold the poor boy must be by now.

God, but he looked stupid, even through inches of ice.

In the end, I left him there in the rose garden and just walked away.

It was a lovely summer's night, warm and balmy and smelling of hay and dust and, faintly, salt and seaweed.

I walked and walked, and when morning came I had arrived at the seashore. There was a small island just off the coast, and I took off my satin shoes that were falling to bits, hitched up what was left of my dress and waded across.

Finally alone.

There was a well with sweet water on the island, and wild brambles and even an apple tree.

Finally alone.

Over the years, I don't quite know how, I acquired a reputa
tion as a wise woman who could make and unmake spells, see into the future and cure afflictions in humans and beasts.

I suppose the story of what had happened to Maelor helped a bit.

It was mostly women who came to see me and ask me for advice. I gave them my apples and a drink from the well, and they left, strengthened and comforted, and spread the word.

For twenty years and more, I was happier that I'd ever been. After that, I sometimes dreamed of the world again. Never of Cwmcapel, and not often of other places, but just sometimes I wondered what it might be like somewhere else, across the water in other countries. What it might be like meeting other people.

I had companions, of course. There were the seals who'd lie for hours on the rocks in the sun, and at night threw off their skins and came ashore to dance.

There were birds, crows and gulls mostly, who would sit in the tree and entertain me with stories of what they'd seen and heard.

There were quite a few cats, and a couple of donkeys and an old, wise, moth-eaten sheep.

After another twenty years, I decided I needed a change from my island life. I packed some ripe apples, filled a flask with water and waded ashore for the first time in four decades. I turned round and round with my eyes closed and finally chose a direction that seemed promising.

M

They didn't like it, of course. And not just the hunters. In some places it was half the village that would slam its doors in our faces when we came to shop for something that we couldn't grow, or to visit a friend or the library. Some men spat when they saw us; and even some of the children jeered.

If we thought a fox or a hare or a bird was that important, they said, we could go and ask
them
for ink or butter or clothes.

But they still brought their animals to us when the vet had given them up.

Then we heard rumours of what they called a counter attack.

They came one morning, quite early; a group of horsemen, and women too, in pink coats, all thundering hooves and sweaty, nervous horses and baying dogs. They scared the goats and the sheep and the sick animals in the hospital.

They scared us, too, with their lashing words and the way some of them looked at us, looked us over. I'd never realised before in quite that way that we were all of us women in the community. I didn't think the pink-coated, purple-faced women would be much help.

My hands were shaking, and I'm not at all sure how much of that was rage and how much fright.

All I could think was No, no, no.

But I couldn't do a thing.

Then from somewhere sprang a frightened rabbit, white tail bobbing madly as it tried to run for safety.

Somebody raised a gun, and laughed.

‘
No
!
' I roared. The bullet stopped in mid-flight.

Nobody moved.

Nothing moved.

Nothing at all.

I scooped up the rabbit and held it for a moment, feeling its rapid heartbeat.

When I set it down, I caught a movement at the edge of the trees. It was somebody walking. Coming towards us.

A woman, older than me, quite a bit older, plump and sunburnt; walking with long, easy strides.

She took in the scene in front of her, stopped at one of the hunters and snapped her fingers in his face. He made no move.

She laughed.

I couldn't take my eyes off her.

I swear the trees rustled and whispered although the wind never stirred, and everything around me sang, blackbirds and skylarks and nightingales and wrens and banshees, and the vixens in the hills shrieked and howled with joy.

I knew who she was.

I had spent half my life waiting for her. I had never entirely stopped dreaming about her.

D

I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was a blazing fire. Sparks flew from her hair and her finger tips. Her eyes shone brighter than the sunlight.

I leapt into the flames.

We left the hunters where they were. The horses and dogs had woken up soon enough and wandered away, bemused but unharmed. The hunters had been turned to stone.

Learned people are even now travelling to the remote spot and writing about the discovery of a hitherto unknown stone circle in the hills of North Wales. Some of the more enlightened ones ask the women in what they call the New Age community nearby whether the stones hold any religious significance for them, and the women speak of a miracle.

Then they laugh at the scientists who try to explain to them about rope pulleys and slides and wooden rollers.

She's teasing me for my old-fashioned language. But darling, I say. What do you expect? I have been living alone for so long. I was born back in the Dark Ages. I am an old woman.

Not that old, she replies, laughing, and kisses me. Not that old.

Arganhell

Sixth century

Arganhell, or Arianell, was the daughter of a man of royal family in the early sixth century, in Gwent. She was said to have been possessed by an evil spirit and was kept in bonds by her family for fear she would throw herself into the river or into the fire; and to keep her from biting and tearing her clothes and the people about her. Her illness was cured by St Dyfrig (St Dubricius) who cast out the evil spirit. After her miraculous recovery Arganhell devoted herself to God for the rest of her life.

There is a stream in Monmouthshire that was once called Arganhell.

You are Arganhell.

I know that because you answer when I call you, although I cannot understand what you are saying. You talk to me. They take the body out here every day and tie it down so that it does not move, and then they go away and I don't see them again until evening.

You are Arganhell. You talk to me and sometimes you throw glinting lights into the body's eyes that dazzle them so that they can't see. Your waters mumble and sigh and rush over the stones, they tinkle and they laugh; but their laughter does not hurt. People's laughter hurts and I want to hurt them back. I want to cut their throats to stop the laughter getting into their mouths; once I almost cut the laughter out of a man's belly because that's where it starts; there is a place in the belly where laughter is made and then it rises up inside the body, through the throat and out of the mouth and you can hear it and see it and it causes pain. I wanted to cut his belly open so I could see where the laughter started, to stop him laughing at me ever again but they stopped me instead; they crushed the hand that held the knife and twisted the arms and bound them and they dragged the body out to sit beside you, Arganhell, day after day. Your waters giggle and laugh but the laughter does not hurt.

Sometimes I think you listen and then fear rises like a great noise; when I think you are listening and you know all my thoughts in your cold clear water. Then my thoughts fly away and I look at the stones under the water, grey and black and silver, others a dull red like the dried blood on my clothes once a month. When the bleeding started I didn't know what it was; long ago when I was still living in the body, I remember I used to say
my body
as if it was mine, I must have thought it was mine then. That was before I died. I didn't know how to die properly, that's why nobody has noticed yet. Or perhaps they have and they only pretend.

They have noticed something, they're afraid of the body now; they tie it up so that it can't move.

Isn't that funny Arganhell, they're afraid of the body that's afraid of them.

When the bleeding in the body that I then thought was mine started, I didn't know what it was; I remember I thought I was dying and I was afraid; there must have been a time when I was afraid of being dead, Arganhell, isn't that strange. I went on bleeding, one day two days three days and still the blood, and then I told my mother and her mouth twisted and she said it's because you're old enough, that's what it's going to be like from now on.

And when her brother, my uncle, started coming into my corner of the hall at night she said the same thing. You're old enough now. And her mouth twisted and she looked as though she was remembering something and she looked pleased.

That's when I knew it was just a body, Arganhell, not mine, not me, just a body.

Your water is mumbling to itself and the stones make clinking sounds like music. There is a piece of slate with sharp edges lying near one of the hands.

I watch the fingers twist and strain against the ropes and the hand free itself, I watch as the arm slips out of the rope and the hand grips the piece of slate with the sharp edges and puts the pointed end against the white inner skin of the other arm and presses down hard, and I watch as it slides the sharp edge against the skin and there is a thin red line where the slate has passed. Red, not grey like the slate. You'd think a grey stone would leave a grey line not red, wouldn't you Arganhell, but the line is red; and as the slate slides along the skin again and again there are red droplets forming and then there is a thin line of pain like a wail, and for a short while the body can feel something; even I feel something for a moment as I sit perched inside the head looking out through the eyes that are sometimes dazzled by the glinting of your waters, Arganhell. That's how I know I'm not quite dead yet, because sometimes I can still feel something and the dead feel nothing. Not even when you cut their bodies; I tried that once when I first knew that I was dead but nobody took any notice. I knew that when somebody is dead people will take notice, and lay the body out and wash it and paint it and burn it and put the ashes in an urn and bury that. Nobody had done anything like that with my body although I knew I was dead; I knew I was dead even though I could still feel something when I pushed the point of a knife into my skin and saw red blood come out. But I was old enough for bleeding so I thought, perhaps I will still bleed even though I am dead now. I wasn't sure so I tried it out when one of the slave women had died, I pushed a knife through her skin and into her flesh but she didn't bleed a
nd her face didn't move and her eyes stayed open and wouldn't look at me. She was dead and I wanted to be like her, but she wouldn't tell me how; I sat beside her all night and talked to her and asked her and asked her and then I became angry with her and shouted at her, and I pushed the knife into her because she couldn't feel anything and I wanted to be like that and she wouldn't tell me how.

In the morning my mother's brother who is my uncle found me and he laughed at what I had done and said, you have come too late, I killed her first. And he kicked the dead body and he laughed again and took me away with him. And all the time while he lay on top of the body that I knew then wasn't mine I thought, I have become like him, he killed a woman with cruelty and then I killed her again; he has killed me and he feels nothing of what he does and soon I will feel nothing at all but I will still not be dead.

The piece of slate has fallen to the ground, and I watch the hand snake towards it and pick it up again, and I watch as the pointed end is pressed into the skin of the arm, of the thigh, I watch as the hand scrapes the ragged edge over the shinbone and the back of the other hand; but this time I feel nothing at all, and I hear nothing at all as they come to fetch me in for the night when it's dark. I see their mouths opening and closing and see them point at the piece of slate and while one of them tightens the ropes so the fingers won't be able to find their way out again, another bends down and picks up the slate and flings it into the water, your water Arganhell; will you look after it for me because I will need it again tomorrow.

* * *

This day is cold, there is no light glinting on the water but there is water in the air, falling in droplets out of the sky; they have no colour, like blood does, they are cold not warm and they taste of nothing. There are large grey shapes in the clouds moving slowly like ghosts and the trees on the hill shiver because they are cold.