Cold Shoulder Road (10 page)

Arun nodded, and slowly followed as Is jumped down from the terrace and crossed the road. Poor thing, she thought, he thought his Mum would be here.

Well, maybe somebody here can give us news of her.

The town was so extremely quiet that it was a comfort to hear the sea thrash and tumble on the far side of the shingle ridge. A few blue-shirted men walked about, their eyes on the ground. If questioned, each of them would shake his head and lay a finger on his lips.

Here and there, a door stood open. Is peered through one, inside which a voice could be heard, apparently talking to itself, and found that she was looking into a schoolroom, where twenty blue-shirted boys and one girl in a red dress sat listening to a teacher, who was telling them about Julius Caesar. Once in a while the girl would put up her hand and ask a question. The teacher seemed relieved when she did so. The boys diligently made notes and kept quiet.

I bet the teacher would rather they yelled rude words and threw ink-balls, thought Is. Wonder why there’s only one girl?
She
ain’t a Silent Secter. They’d never let her wear that red dress, I’ll lay.

“Come here!” called Arun softly, beckoning from farther along the street. He had found a largish, slightly ruined building, which might once have been a small church or a large chapel. Its door, also, stood open, and is looked inside, wondering what caused a soft, shuffling, scraping noise that came from within. It was like ears of corn blowing, or feet walking through dead leaves.

The hall, quite roomy inside, was packed with people, gravely and silently dancing. There must have been forty at least, and they were all elderly. All wore the blue and black clothes of the Silent Sect. Two lines of them faced each other, soundlessly clapping their hands and stamping their feet. Couples took it in turn to perform figures in the middle, passing, gliding, turning, bowing. A Master of Ceremonies, who stood on a chair, silently conducted the proceedings by waving his arms.

Nobody smiled. Everybody was serious.

To Is, the sight seemed extremely sad.

They sure need some music, she thought. One o’ my Dad’s tunes – ‘The Day Afore May-Day’ – that’d put a bit of zip into their doings. Ain’t it half queer, though, to see ’em figuring away like that, footing it up and down, without even the squeak of a fiddle.

Arun evidently felt so, too, for he suddenly – and most unexpectedly – burst into song:

Forty elderly, astonished, and scandalised faces were turned towards him.

The man who had been conducting the dance hopped down from his chair and came to the door, making indignant gestures as of one who shooes away intrusive pigeons.

“Hush
, boy!
Go away
!” he hissed when he was within whispering distance. “You disturb our Holy Quiet. Suppose the Elder heard you!”

“What if he had?” said Arun defiantly. “He’s not
my
leader.”

But, already, the spirit that had so suddenly taken hold of him seemed to be ebbing out as fast as it had come; he shrugged, kicked a pebble, and turned away from the door, which was shut quickly but softly behind him.

Then Is noticed that the girl in the red dress was running towards them. All the blue-shirted boys from the class had begun dispersing in different directions, walking very quietly, looking at the ground, clasping their piles of school-books. Lessons were done for the morning, it seemed. Only the girl skipped along cheerfully, kicking up her heels, staring curiously at Is and Arun.

“Hey, was that you singin’, you boy?” she asked Arun. “It was a real spanger, that tune! Sing it again! Who are you? Are you staying here? What’s your names? Why are you so dirty? I’m Jen Braeburn. I’m the worst girl in the town. Everybody’ll tell you that!”

“Why are you the only girl in the school?” Is asked.

“Cos the Silent girls ain’t allowed to go to school. They gotta stay home and do the dishes. But my Dad runs the King’s Head, he ain’t Silent, and he won’t have me about the pub in opening hours. So I goes to school. My little sister Fenny, she useta go, too, but she got took by the Gentry for a Handsel. It’s a precious shame. I’m the only one that—”

Somebody tapped Is on the shoulder.

She turned, to see a small, brown-faced woman regarding her searchingly.

The woman wore the regular clothes of the Silent Sect – blue pinafore, white shirt – but her soft, curly white hair escaped here and there from under the tight blue headscarf. Her face was weathered, and very much lined, with deep grooves from nose to mouth, but its expression was friendly. Her eyes were a dark brown.

She tapped herself on the breast, then gestured along the street, then beckoned Is and Arun to follow.

“That’s Mrs Swannett,” said Jen Braeburn helpfully. “Reckon she wants you to go along to hers. I’ll see you later. On the beach, maybe? Or . . . I’ll tell you what—” she suddenly leaned close and whispered, “I’ll see you at the Talkfest! At Birketland! We has rare times there! We play word-games! It’s prime! You come along to Birketland; then you can sing that song again.” She put her finger to her lips with a mocking grin, hissed “Lomak!” then scudded away towards the King’s Head.

They followed Mrs Swannett, who led them along the main street, still beckoning them to follow. Her house was the last, at the northern end of the town. Beyond lay the beach, littered with driftwood. The house was white-painted, trim, and had a small yard in front which contained nothing but cobblestones.

Mrs Swannett opened the front door and stepped inside, beckoning them to follow.

The front room, neat and clean, was furnished as plainly as possible. There were four chairs, a table, shelves with some china, and a few pots. No pictures, no ornaments. Their hostess beckoned them through this room into a back kitchen, which had in it a curved copper washtub perched on brick pillars above a fire of driftwood and sea coal. The water in the tub steamed enticingly.

“Reckon the lady thinks we’d like a wash-up,” suggested Is.

Mrs Swannett nodded. Her eyes rested calmly on their bruises and scrapes and general state of filth.

“Well . . . I reckon we
are
a bit mucky,” Arun conceded.

But, wondered Is, if we take our duds off, how’ll we ever get them back on again? Mine are just about in shreds. If we had anything else to put on—

To her surprise, Mrs Swannett seemed to catch her thought; she pointed at the ceiling, then again, decisively, at the hot water. She appeared to measure Is with her eye, then left the room and could be heard going upstairs.

“I’ll wash first, Arun, you go after,” suggested Is. “Why don’t you pick up bit o’ driftwood for the lady while I’m a-splashing; shan’t be long.”

Arun nodded and walked out of the back door on to the shingle bank, which lay just beyond.

Is helped herself to a bowlful of hot water, a jugful of cold from a pail that stood on the floor, and had an enjoyable wash. Her cuts and grazes stung, but felt better for being cleaned up. And, as she was finishing, Mrs Swannett reappeared with a pot of ointment, which smelt strongly of feverfew, and a bundle of clothes. The ointment, applied to her wounds, greatly eased their soreness. The clothes – black trousers and wool jacket, blue shirt – she held against Is, then nodded. She tapped her chest, then made gestures of two different heights from the ground.

“Two children?” guessed Is. “Boys? Yours?” She pulled on the trousers.

A nod. Then the woman covered her face with her hands. Is suddenly received a strong picture of the sea: great black and green waves, white-crested, tossing and curving.

“Drowned?” guessed Is. “In the flood?”

Another nod. But then she shook her head. No . . . not in the flood.

Is picked up the necklace of pale-brown clear stones, which she had taken from her pocket as she undressed, and, on an impulse, offered them to Mrs Swannett. But the woman, as if horrified, made pushing-away gestures, and shook her head violently. Quick, put them away, put them in your pocket, her signs indicated. No, no, they are no use to me. None at all. None.

Now Is was dressed and Arun came back with a large bundle of firewood. Mrs Swannett beamed at him gratefully and showed him where to put it. Then she and Is went into the front room, where Is was given a bowlful of peppermint tea and offered a hunk of fresh brown bread, which she politely declined, explaining that they had eaten breakfast at the King’s Head.

As she drank the tea, Is asked Mrs Swannett, “How long have you lived here?”

Mrs Swannett fetched a slate and wrote on it,
6 months
.

“Did you know Arun’s mother? Ruth Twite?”

A nod. Of course.

“But she’s not here?”

No.

Now Arun came in. (He had been much more speedy over his wash than Is.) He, too, had been kitted out with black trousers and blue shirt. He looked neat, clean, and subdued.

“Can you tell me where my Mum might have gone to?” he asked Mrs Swannett, sipping his peppermint tea.

But she shook her head.

“Have you any notion
why
she went?” asked Is.

Mrs Swannett looked troubled. She frowned, clasping her hands together, twisting them.

Now Is had an inspiration. She broke into thought-speech.

“Mrs Swannett? Can you hear what I’m saying? Can you hear this? Arun and I can talk to each other this way. It is ever so much faster than using tongue and voice and words and language. Can you hear me? Do you think that you could learn to do it, too?”

She stared intently across the kitchen table into the woman’s dark-brown eyes. Mrs Swannett frowned, as if a midge or a mosquito were insistently buzzing round and round her head; she rubbed her brows, ran her fingers through her hair, shook her head in a puzzled way as if to clear it.

“Mrs Swannett!” repeated Is in thought language. “Listen! Can you hear me? . . . Arun, you say something to her, too.”

Arun came in, quiet and steady. “Mrs Swannett? Can you hear us? If you can, try to answer in the same way. Tell us your name. Your own, your first name.”

The woman stared at them, first one, then the other. Her brown, lined face was creased with concentration, then distressed. She looked as if she might burst out crying.

Oh drabbit it, thought Is, maybe all we’ve done is upset her, poor thing. And I reckon she’s got trouble enough already. But it did seem, before, as if she caught what I was thinking. And
I
caught what
she
was thinking. But it’s a shame if she’s upset for nothing, and when she was so kind, giving us her boys’ things—

But, gradually, Mrs Swannett’s face was clearing. She gave them a small, tense, frowning smile.

“Again? Say something more?”

Her thought came to them slow and hesitant, but plain.

“Tell us your name. That you were given when you were born.”

“My first name is Window. Window Wyatt, before I married. Now Window Swannett.”

“Window! What a grand name!”

Suddenly Mrs Swannett was swept by a gust of overwhelming joy and excitement. She laughed and trembled and gripped her hands together.

“But this is so wonderful!
So wonderful!
” A pair of tears ran easily down her cheeks. She did not bother to wipe them away. “That people can talk to each other like this! I never dreamed of such a thing. How did you ever learn, ever find out that you had such a marvellous gift?”

“Up north we learned it, in the coal-mines,” Is told her. “You see, there we were all working in the dark, and cut off from each other, so thought-speech was the only way we could keep in touch.”

“And now . . . now, I can talk whenever I like. I can talk to you—” Mrs Swannett could hardly believe her good luck. “Nobody can forbid this!”

“Tell us about your children?” Is asked her.

Tears swam in her eyes. “My boys – Enoch and Hiram. They were such good, good boys. Hard-working. Sweet-tempered. The Elder – Dominic – he gave orders for all the men and boys to go fishing. On a day when the weather was very threatening. Micah told him the wind was too high, that it would strengthen to a gale. But the Leader said
No
. He said
Go
. And so they went, and ten never came back. Both my boys. Micah was a-bed, with a broken arm. He did not go. Our boat floated back, four days later. But the boys did not come back.
Oh!
” She covered her face with her hands. “They lived a life of silence. And then they died a silent death. After that, Micah – who is a strong man, in his own way – when it is too late, he sold the boat and bought a cart. He told the Elder he will not go fishing again. Instead he drives the cart . . . He makes some money, enough, not much. The Elder was angry. But Micah is a strong man, too; in his own way,” she repeated. “But he obeys the Law of Silence.”

“Mrs Swannett, what is a Talkfest?” Is asked.

Mrs Swannett glanced about cautiously, then her face broke into a radiant smile as she realised that she could not be heard.

“Some of the children . . . are disobedient. (Once Hiram had a fever, and in his feverish ramblings he talked about it.) They meet secretly, at High Birket, in the forest, and talk together. Their sin! They play rhyme-games and riddles. They would be punished terribly if the Elders found out. The Leader is very strict – especially strict – about young people talking.”

“The Leader . . . that’s this Twite feller?”

“Dominic de la Twite. He came to us from the Low Countries to take the place of Amos Furze who sailed to Connecticut.”

Arun said, “I remember Amos Furze. He wasn’t a bad fellow. What sort of person is this Twite?”

Mrs Swannett thought.