A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees Page 2

  ‘Halleluyah!’

  ‘Halleluyah, indeed, brodyr!’

  Suddenly he stops. His pale eyes – startling against the tanned darkness of his skin and the blackness of his beard – dart from one face to the next. Silas notes his hair: thick and dark and oiled, a contrast with the meagre covering of his own freckled scalp.

  ‘Are you ready, brothers and sisters?’

  There is a mumble of assent.

  ‘I didn’t hear you, brodyr. Are you ready?’

  This time the rumble is louder.

  ‘Praise the Lord!’ someone says excitedly.

  ‘And praise Edwyn Lloyd!’ Jacob adds.

  Edwyn shakes his head. ‘No, my friends, we should praise Gabriel Thomas. Without his vision and perserverance, there would be no Y Wladfa!’

  He waits for an echo of approval and nods at them all.

  Silas shifts on his feet, and lifts Myfanwy to him. The child is shivering. She rests her head against his shoulder and he feels her teeth rattling against him. The wind is rising with the sun and becoming bitter. He undoes his jacket and gasps slightly as her body makes closer contact with his own. Too many words. It is too cold to stand here and listen.

  ‘But there are others to thank too – my wife and Selwyn Williams. They’ve been waiting for weeks to meet you.’

  ‘And we want to meet them too!’

  He pauses. Acknowledges Jacob’s shout with a nod, and then looks around at them. ‘It has not been easy, friends. The Lord has tested us severely. You’ll see.’

  Silas tries to catch Megan’s eye. It is time they got out of this wind. But Megan doesn’t notice him. She is looking at Edwyn with the same expression as all the other women: something close to adulation. He tuts, and as Edwyn Lloyd begins to speak again, looks again towards the coast. No grass. No trees. Nothing. But it’s as if only he can see it.

  Three

  The young men are eager to disembark. They go with Edwyn Lloyd in the small boat and row to the shore. Silas expects they kiss the land, imagines they dive from the boat and race each other to get there first. That is what he would do, if he were younger, or if he were unattached like Jacob, but as it is he has to wait until the next day. He has to help Megan and his two infant daughters to pack, and he has to listen to the wails of another mother who has lost her child in the night. The sound makes him gag on his morning biscuit and clutch Myfanwy so closely to him that she grumbles to be free.

  ‘I want to play.’

  He shakes his head fiercely and draws her closer. Stay.

  ‘I want to go.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why not, Dadda?’

  He mustn’t cry. Not yet. Not now. Not any more.

  The other women cry too but Megan is quiet. It is as if she can withdraw her mind. Nothing flickers in her face. He watches her as she packs carefully, folding each item of clothing into the smallest possible space. She pauses over nothing. She makes no sound, looks impassively around her, checking to see that nothing of their life here remains – as strong and silent as a stone.

  The sea is gentle in this inlet, almost like a lake, and it takes just a few moments for Silas’ oars to fall into rhythm, sliding into the water in time with the first mate’s. If he shuts his eyes he could be back on the Conwy estuary again with its smell of salt and seaweed and the cry of birds. Just ahead would be the small house where there seems always to be a bright patchwork of washing spread to dry on the gorse of the surrounding headland. But here there are just cliffs, and behind him, the beach. He keeps twisting in his seat to look; a flat land coming closer, a haze of brown vegetation turning into small stunted trees and bushes. A strong wind blows from the land into his face, becoming colder and drier with every stroke of the oars. A persistent wind; it has not let up since they’ve anchored here. He shivers and checks that Myfanwy and Gwyneth are huddled into their mother. Megan is looking ahead, her eyes sometimes darting to his, and then back again at the coast, a grimace fixed onto her face by the wind.

  ‘Nearly there now,’ he says, not expecting a reply, ‘nearly on land.’

  Winter. Maybe that’s all it is. Everything looks dead in the winter. In the spring there will be leaves, flowers, grass. He tries to hold onto the thought and believe it.

  The oar slips into the sea, drags at the water and then emerges again. They are in time with the waves crashing and then dragging at the beach.

  Browner. Colder. Beside him, Megan’s head swivels. Everything is clear now. Every detail. Yellow patches of cliff become pockets of dead gorse and weeds like bramble, and in between them the ground is bare, sandy, infertile. This is more than winter. It is as if something has killed everything. As if there’s been a plague. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. Nothing lives.

  Megan’s eyes widen. ‘Silas…?’ She says. ‘Silas?’

  Nothing but banks of mud, pale cliffs. Sea.

  He reaches for her hand.

  ‘Silas…?’ It’s as if she’s come alive. As if she suddenly sees.

  He is holding his breath. As soon as he realises he lets it go – and a brief small mist appears and then disappears in front of his nose. It is so cold it almost hurts him to breathe. He concentrates on the sound of his breaths and the way these small sighs fit between the quiet splashes of his oar.

  Then another sound. Something higher. Megan again. Her mouth open; clutching the babies so closely to her they are beginning to cry. ‘We have to go back,’ she says. ‘We can’t go there.’ She tries to stand and a slug of the sea spills in, adding to what is already there on the bottom.

  The first mate turns to look at her. ‘Sit down, woman. You’ll drown the lot of us.’

  ‘We’ll die if we go there.’ Her voice is high and hoarse, and her eyes are staring unblinkingly at the shore. ‘Those birds – it’s a sign. There is something wrong. Something evil.’

  Silas wants to go to her, but all he can do is reach out with his hand. ‘Sit still, cariad. The children are frightened. We’ll soon be there.’

  He needs to hold her, whisper to her that everything will be all right, but she is pulling away from him and trying to stand again. ‘No. I can’t. We have to go back...’ Her voice ends in a sob.

  ‘Please, Megan, sit.’ He presses her down and she collapses onto the seat, but she is still staring ahead. ‘Can’t you see? Blackness, death... we mustn’t land...’

  As the boat grinds against the sand she wails. ‘Too late, oh sweet Lord, help us.’

  ‘Megan!’

  She looks back at the Mimosa. Soon it will be gone. Soon they will be left here, and there will be no way back. ‘I can’t leave him, don’t you see? My poor baby. He’ll be searching, calling. I can’t leave him.’

  Silas reaches over, grips both her arms and stares into her face. ‘Cariad, cariad. He’s in the Lord’s arms now.’

  She shakes her head, tries to shake his arms from her. ‘No!’

  The hard thick skin breaking, the hurt coming out. If only he could draw her to him, but the boat rocks whenever he shifts. Already their feet are wet.

  ‘Come now. We have to go on.’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, no, not without Richard… oh cariad bach, I can’t leave you out there.’

  Silas can feel Myfanwy’s face on his, the whiteness of it, as it turns and looks at her mother. ‘Hush, hush. You can do nothing for him now. He’s at peace… in God’s arms.’

  ‘NO!’ A pure sound. Loud. It seems to sear the air.

  The men hauling trunks and boxes up the beach stop and look. Silas stands, then heaves himself over the side so he is thigh-deep in water. It is too cold to hurt. He pulls at the boat until it is in shallow water, then lifts Myfanwy onto the sand. ‘Sit here,’ he tells her, ‘make a lap for your sister.’ The little girl sits quickly, her serious eyes never leaving him. She crosses her legs in front of her and smoothes out her skirt. Then he removes the shawl containing Gwyneth from around Megan’s neck and places the child in her sister’s arms.
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br />   ‘Come,’ he says to his wife, and with the first mate’s help he pulls her from the boat. She is shaking now, sobbing loudly, but that is good he thinks – better to let the poison out, better to make the wound clean. He clutches her to him on the beach, smoothes back her hair then holds her face between his hands.

  ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, cariad, he’s gone.’ The dark shadows of memories creep out from where they have been hiding. Richard.

  Richard. He remembers the first time he saw him. Black hair caking his head like a well-fitting cap. Eyes the colour of indigo. Pink skin well filled with flesh. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been this. Most of the babies he’d seen were thin, weakly-looking with tired eyes. Richard’s eyes stared at you right away, looked at you with something close to defiance. Who are you? What do you want? What am I doing here?

  They’d still been in Rhoslyn then, tenant farmers on a smallholding. He was a tailor by training but gradually he’d swapped his needle for a spade – a couple of years of decent harvests had meant that he was better off digging than sewing. Gradually they had acquired a bad-tempered but productive sow, some good egg-laying chickens and a few cows which were generous with their milk. Each market day he came back feeling more wealthy and every night he went to sleep with plans in his head. In a few months he could ask permission to build another barn, try another crop, get a few more cows, he could even employ a servant – and he would send Richard to school. For the first time in his life he felt powerful. It was as if Richard had been the missing piece in the puzzle of his life. Once he was born it seemed that everything had fallen into place. ‘I have never been happier,’ he’d tell Megan as they tiptoed away from the sleeping child, and she would turn her head with that lazy smile of hers, then reach out to him and it would be like a door opening and he would feel enveloped in her warm comfortable world.

  Megan’s body had always been sumptuous. Even on this cold beach he is aware of his fingers sinking through the cloth of her sleeves and into her flesh. The warmth there makes the rest of him feel colder still. He hugs her close and feels his own body wake to her touch and smell. She is shivering, and the clattering of her teeth sets his jaw trembling too. The dip in the sea has chilled them both. He helps her up the beach and to the side of the fire someone has made in front of some unfinished huts.

  He finds Myfanwy at the shoreline with Gwyneth, watching the waves creep towards them. She is so young, so serious – everything she does is done with such determination. He picks them both up together; glad at the way the weight of their small bodies tests the strength of his arms. He tucks Myfanwy’s head beneath his chin but she complains and tries to squirm free.

  ‘Be still, now. If you’re not, I’ll drop you.’

  ‘But I want to walk!’

  He carefully lets her fall and she walks at his side, her hand clutching a piece of the cloth of his trousers then letting go. Independent. Always a fighter – from her very beginning.

  ‘Silas!’ Sometimes the memories of voices seem so clear it is as if they are beside him still.

  ‘Silas!’ Ah yes, his mother-in-law, Elinor, her voice sharper than usual – trying to cover her panic. Then, of course, his own heart quickening in response.

  ‘It’s breech. You have to go get the doctor, now, ar frys!’

  Ar frys – oh yes he’d been quick. Ten minutes on Bessy to fetch the doctor, and then the man not hurrying enough – more concerned in tutting and protesting. ‘Breech? You should have called for me before now. You’re a fool, man. Why didn’t you call for me from the beginning?’

  Then, once the doctor had been pulled into their cottage and the door had been closed, the sound of the birds chirping: a couple of sparrows and then a blackbird on a tree. As if nothing was wrong.

  He closes his eyes. Remembers. His axe smashing through wood, and his words, bargaining with God: Don’t let her die. Spare her and I’ll never tell another lie. Let her live and I’ll never curse the fat old sow nor that cockerel in the morning. I’ll even listen to her old fool of a father.

  Then a scream. The memory stops him breathing even now. The only time he’d ever heard Megan scream. And then a door slamming and the doctor shouting orders and he’d flung down his axe and covered his ears. Don’t let her die.

  He touches Myfanwy’s head. Good girl. She looks up and smiles at him and he reaches out suddenly and draws her to him so he can feel her warm sweet breath on his face.

  It’s always the same. Once the memories come they loiter in his head. There’s Elinor’s shadow passing over him; her face too calm, too serious. Then that thought, that hideous idea. He tries to drive it away but it won’t go: Megan or the child? If he’d had to choose what would it be?

  He’d taken a breath, asked the question. ‘Is she all right?’

  Megan or the child? Which would he have chosen? Megan, he’d have said.

  He buries his face in Myfanwy’s hair. Forgive me.

  Megan, Megan, Megan.

  ‘Hush,’ Elinor hadn’t answered but had held Richard out to him. ‘Look after your son.’

  But he hadn’t taken him, not straightaway. ‘Is she dead?’

  Too loud. Blurted out. Elinor had shaken her head. ‘Hush, think of the child.’

  Then they’d both heard: a weak crying and Elinor had shoved Richard into his arms and hurried back, shutting the door behind her.

  Then, for a long time, not a cry, not a shout, not even the murmur of conversation, until at last the door of the cottage had opened and the doctor had called him, his face long and unsmiling. ‘A fine girl,’ he’d said. ‘You’re a lucky man.’

  ‘And my wife? I heard her...’

  For a few seconds the old devil had played with him, shaken his head slightly but then looked up and at last he had smiled. ‘Lucky for you I managed to turn her. They are both well. Your wife, Mr James, is a courageous young woman. A gem, in fact.’ He smiled more broadly. ‘A bit of a polish now and again and she’ll sparkle for you, I expect. But now she needs to rest. Leave her be a while.’

  Both well. As soon as the doctor had gone he’d rushed in.

  ‘Mam, can you give that fire a prod? There’s more wood by the stove.’

  Myfanwy had been in her arms, her head twisting and her mouth rooting.

  She’d pretended not to notice him. ‘Not as pretty as her brother, poor thing – looks too much like her father.’ Then she’d looked up at him and smiled. Ah, that smile – how he’d wanted to hug it to him then and make promises he had absolutely no hope of keeping! If only he could see it again now.

  Megan is sitting where he left her, legs drawn up, her chin resting on her knees, staring into the fire.

  ‘Megan?’ She makes no sign. He calls her again and she turns towards him.

  The light is strange. The sky is too open. The flames and smoke are being churned violently by the wind and make shadows that flicker on her skin. He looks at her sunken eyes, and the flesh drooping from the bones of her cheeks. How can she have changed so much without his noticing?

  ‘Gwyneth needs you, cariad.’

  She holds out her arms in silence. He watches as she tends to Gwyneth, guiding the child’s mouth onto her nipple and then stares again into the fire. His gem. His precious stone. Something he should have cared for. He slumps down beside her and holds her hand in his. His fault. Every promise he made himself, he’s broken. I’m sorry, he says. We shouldn’t have come here.

  He looks around. Desert. A cold desert of bitter winds. He squeezes her hand again. Then wraps his arm around her shoulder, holding them both to him. Sorry, he says again.

  Four

  Yeluc

  This I know: the world belongs to Elal. Where his arrowheads touched the ocean floor so the ground rose up. Great rivers drained the water from the land and the memory of this is imprinted in the dry gorges and wide empty canyons. This was before man came. Before man became. Before Elal thought of us. He planted for
est, swept out plains with his arms, drew up mountains with his fingertips, and then he thought of us: his Tehuelche. He made us large and strong like himself and he gave us legs so we could wander around his great creation. I suppose he wanted an audience, animals who would talk more loudly than the mikkeoush and armadillos. So he thought of us. His people. His guardians for all that he had made rise up from the ocean. He filled us with promises and hope. He told us that when we die he would see that we would take our places in the firmament and shine as stars. Elal. A god but also a man. A giant but also small enough for us to see. It is his land, he allows us to dwell here because of his great munificence. It is important to remember this. Important to know. Important to tell those around us and to remind the children that come after us. Elal. Great one. By looking after his land so we look after ourselves.

  When I saw the big swan on the ocean I knew that Elal had not sent it. Even though I know Elal is used to swans and first learnt to shoot his arrows through her feathers I could see this was not his bird, not his carriage. Of course I have heard of such things before: large birds that bring men. But I had never seen one, not in front of me, not like this, even though I am old and have seen much of the world and am wise to its ways. I watched it grow big and bigger still and then voices came to me, calling, shouting, words I didn’t understand, not even the words the Mapuche use or those whiter men from the north. I am used to their words from my father and even speak them a little, but these words were full of spit, clearings of throat and growls. Later they told me it was the tongue of heaven, but no one has ever heard the stars speak.