The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales (7 page)

She said as far as she knew, he knew everything. Omniscient, she said, was the word for that. He was, so she'd been taught, everywhere at once. Omnipresent, she said. That's what you call that.

Always tried to teach me words, that girl. Always tried to learn words off me too. What do you call this bird, what's the word for that bush, that animal here, that thing there? Didn't teach her much behind those castle walls, did they?

Not the right things, anyway, if you ask me.

Not that you would.

Who'd ever ask me anything, other than how much for a quick hour in the hay or the grass, or the pig-sty? They know it won't be much I'll ask.

But that's all over.

I used to know her, when she was still alive. I used to think I liked her, in the sort of way you like a cat or a dog you can't eat. Not much use, but a bit of company maybe.

I used to think she liked me too. I could be useful to her you see, showing her the things her booklearning hadn't even mentioned.

I did lose patience with her more than once; she was so nice and so slow, that girl; didn't understand anything. Didn't understand that you have to kick them before they can think of kicking you; didn't understand that begging is good but stealing is better; because their contempt hurts less when you've done something contemptible – other than just existing and getting in people's way, I mean.

She never understood that.

I used to think it was because life must have been so different for her; maybe her people were so rich that even girl children were welcome there and treated well.

I found out after a while that it had not been so. They'd treated her like everybody else treats their daughters. But then, she'd rarely gone hungry; not really; not like rats biting and tearing at your insides and the fear that this time it's going to be the last and you're going to die; and then worse than the fear, the not caring. That's the last thing before the pains start, and after the pains are done with you, you die.

She didn't know about things like that.

She knew about words, and stories from that book all about her god who she said was everywhere and knew everything.

I can hear her footsteps again. She is walking on the wind.

She was so young.

Two years younger than me, but she'd never catch up.

Didn't know anything, didn't understand. Not much use except for the company, like a cat or a dog you can't eat, or a tame bird.

Sang like a bird, when she was happy. She sang to her god, but she wouldn't sing to earn us some bread.

I understood that; I hate people gawking and measuring you up with their eyes, the men for a quick lay and the women because they see their men look at you like that. What you think doesn't count; what you are nobody's interested in.

Who
you are, she said one evening when I went on like this. Not what.

You may be a
who
, I told her, but I'm a
what
, that I know for a fact, and so are you now you're on the road like the rest of us.

She smiled at me and shook her head, and stretched out her arm and gave me something she'd been working on with her clever white fingers; a necklace she'd made from acorns and horse chestnuts and bird feathers and shells from the river.

For you, she said. It will look beautiful against your skin.

Maybe she'd just made it and tired of it and wanted rid of it; or perhaps it was to show me that she thought I was a
who
, not a
what
; or maybe she made it for me as a gift because she was sweet and a little simple in her head. But all I thought of was the bread she could have stolen instead; the hares she could have snared or the fish caught; or even the men she could have earned a few coins from, although that was something even I only did when there was nothing else, and she, never.

But there she sat, smiling as if she was pleased with herself, with me; as if I should be pleased with her; when all I could think of was being always hungry and cold and never having a place to go home to.

You silly little bitch, I said, then shouted; you simple-minded useless piece of woman-flesh, and I tore the necklace out of her hand and broke the string and scattered acorns and horse-chestnuts and shells everywhere, and feathers flew. Because the truth was that she had reminded me that I was nothing, not even
what
, and I wanted her to stop.

It will look beautiful against your skin she had said, as if
beautiful
and I could go together. Those words of hers were clawing open the graves of things I'd buried long ago and was finally rid of. She was bringing back all the dreaming and the hoping I'd killed off and put away because the pain was too much. So I had to stop her.

She was sweet and simple-minded and didn't understand; and at first I thought I could knock the nonsense out of her like it had been knocked out of me, but I couldn't.

And maybe it hadn't been knocked properly out of me either; because I'd never been much good, and look at me now; a beggar woman after all. And I think I've done well for myself.

The shadows gather; twigs are cracking under the tree.

Who's there?

But it's only me and her ghost.

Only me.

I didn't see her for a while after that time with the necklace.

She ran away from me and I don't blame her; she was a runner-away, that's why she was still around. She was sweet, and simple in her head, but she did know some things about looking after herself. She knew better than to stay with a woman who'd lay into her like I did that night.

She never fought back, or even screamed. She just curled up until it was all over, her hands holding her head; and then she looked at me and got up and backed away; and then she turned round and ran away into the dark.

She had more sense than to stay with someone who'd beat her like I had done that night.

She had more sense than me. I had stayed with someone like that until I'd been kicked out; and even then I'd hung around the door hoping to be let back in. No pride.

She told me that in the castle, they'd taught her that pride was wrong.

They'd taught her that her god had said that if someone hit her on the one cheek, she had to turn her other one as well; not run away or fight.

Stupid, I told her. Fight, that's what you have to do. Running is for cowards.

I've not been able to do either.

I can't turn the other cheek, she said, in a serious voice, as if she was really thinking about it. I would like to, but I couldn't. Maybe if I'd had the choice...

They beat you at home, in the castle? I asked. I'd never met a girl that's not been beaten, as a child or later, when she would bring shame over the family. Boys people are sometimes careful with, if it's an only son; but if a girl dies from a beating, there's money saved and one husband less to find.

Yes, she whispered, as if it was something shameful.

I could see that she'd kept her dreams and her hoping; she'd not killed them and buried them like I had. She'd kept the pain too, and it was hurting her then.

What was that?

But there's nothing there. It's only the little stream whispering to itself. Not far to the
llys
now, to the big wooden doors where I'll stand with my face covered and in the shadows, begging for a crust of bread. They feed me well, but I have to come here every day and ask them, hold up the cage and show them my pride is still safely locked up inside it; no chance of it getting out and incommoding them.

Incommode. That's another of her words; she used it once, when I'd only known her a few weeks; and then she laughed and said she'd never have to say that word again, because now she was free.

The wind is rustling in the trees and the dry grass, snapping and sighing in the branches like voices arguing.

Sometimes I wish she'd come back and haunt me, properly I mean, so that I could see and touch her; and hear more than just her footsteps following me.

There's only her invisible ghost here now; only her ghost and the wind stalking through the dry grass.

I didn't see her for a while after she'd run away from me; I thought I'd never see her again, but a few weeks later she turned up again. The group I was with had gone on to another little market town, and there she was, on the market, driving geese and suckling-pigs for the farmers, helping herself to apples and loaves of bread and smiling at everyone.

I remember thinking, there she is, stealing like me now, bold as brass. She's learned something; maybe I've beaten some wisdom into her. Then she turned round and vanished in the crowds, and I thought maybe I'd imagined her there after all, because I wanted to see her.

But I met her again a few days later; and she hadn't been stealing at all that day I saw her. She'd found work in the
llys
of a local prince and the other servants had taken her to the village on market day.

But you're from the big castle in the town, I said, and now you work in a place not half the size of your castle?

Yes, she said, and laughed with her teeth showing. And, see, they even give me money for it! At home, I had to do work and all I got was my sisters boxing my ears and my Lord Father coming into my bed at night...

She stopped, I could see that she hadn't meant to say that. Then she talked on, about how her new lord believed in her god too, and let her go on believing and do her singing and her praying in peace. And she said again that she was happy, and she was free.

If I don't like it here, she said, I'll move on, live on the road again, like you, find other work. Are you not happy for me?

I did not tell her what I thought, that I do not think you can be in somebody's pay and still be free. She was sweet, and a little simple in her head, but even she would have seen that I was crying down what I could never have. And also I could not forget her face when she held up the necklace for me; and the way it changed when I started cursing her, and beating her.

So I tried to smile for her and marvelled that she should not be afraid of me. But perhaps now that she had a place in the world again and even owned something she'd honourably come by, she felt that I was less of a threat to her. I who was nothing.

Early the next morning I woke up from the place I had found for myself to sleep, in a stable. There was a commotion in the street, screaming and yelling. I stumbled outside. It was cold, the sky green and pale blue.

A knot of people was standing in the middle of the street. There were shouts of ‘Thief' and ‘Robber'; and some people were throwing stones. I heard another voice, screaming and crying, ‘No, no...' and then the
thwack
of another stone hitting its mark.

I'd been caught like that once, and I'd been lucky to run away. This one wasn't so lucky.

I craned my neck and sidled my way through the crowd; and there she was lying on the ground, holding on to a chicken, hiding her head in her hands but it was no good; I'd only been using my hands on her, but these were heavy stones with sharp edges, and already there was blood running through her fingers, and although her legs were still twitching and her body writhing she'd stopped crying. Stopped making any sound.

I stood there, knowing I should help her, and also knowing in my bones that I was too late, or that soon now would be too late; that nobody would listen to me; I who was known to be a thief and a vagrant; who'd believe me if I told them that she was sweet and simple and happy not to have to steal any more? And still I wish, oh how I wish I had spoken; she might have heard me turning my cheek to protect her, she might have known that there was someone on her side, someone who knew her. She would have known that I was sorry I had beaten her. You shouldn't hurt something that wants to be free if you have no need, she'd once said when she let the rabbit in our snare escape. I'd beaten her for that too, but not very much because I knew that she wanted to be free and she thought that I did too. She didn't know that it was too late for me.

So I stood there doing nothing until it was too late for her and she was dead.

I was still standing there when all the people had left, the excitement being over.

I couldn't bear her being dead.

She was the only one who'd ever looked at me as if I was somebody.

She couldn't be dead.

I went back the way she had come, stealing a chicken on the way. I didn't know if she'd been taking the one she'd held in her hand to her new lord's cook, or whether she'd decided to run away and had taken it with her.

I stole a chicken and took it back to her lord's cook; I didn't want them to think she was a thief. I was going to tell them that she wasn't.

But the man didn't even look at me; he snatched at the bird and cursed because I was late and boxed my ears.

He thought I was her; he didn't know what she looked like. He'd not even looked at her and he didn't look at me.