Mansfield with Monsters (3 page)

“You don't think…”

My words fell away as the mound of earth started to move before our eyes. Loose dirt tumbled, bugs scuttled and fled, and the paua shells quivered as the grave started to quake and break apart.

“God, it can't be,” Jim whispered.

A forearm thrust up through the crumbling mound. The arm was a pale, sickly colour but the familiar calloused hand and torn blue galatea shirt sleeve left us in no doubt as to who had been buried there. The hand clawed and groped at the dirt as Jo tried to climb out of his grave.

I turned to run back into the house but the woman was there, hair wild and mouth open in a twisted smile. She stepped toward me, the butt of her rifle scraping across the floor-boards.

“He's mine, now. Forever,” she said.

I shoved Jim down the path, past the thing that was dragging itself out of the earth, and we fled through the paddock. I kept my head down, expecting at every breath to hear the roar of the rifle, to feel a bullet in my back, but she let us go.

We saddled up the horses and gathered our packs without daring to look back. As we swung up in the saddle, I looked up at the blushing sky.

“Should we go back for Jo? He might still…”

“He's dead,” Jim said flatly. “What came out of that earth ain't Jo no more.” Jim kicked his horse on and took off up the road.

I took a last look at the green paddock and the line of weeping willows by the creek, and then cantered on after him.

A bend in the road, and the whole place disappeared.

The Wind Blows

Suddenly—dreadfully—Matilda wakes up. What has happened? Something dreadful has happened. She looks at her arm. Under the previous night's moon-light her skin had warped and twisted, her hairs retracting and the webbing between her fingers expanding. Not for the first time she had lost all semblance of humanity and become a thing of the sea, a monster. She remembers it as if through a mist, shrouded memories of slipping into the water alongside her brother Bogey, of devouring sea creatures, of power. Now the soft skin is once more pale pink flesh. She has not become trapped in that other form. It is only the wind shaking the house, rattling the windows, banging a piece of iron on the roof and making her bed tremble that has startled her so.

Though the wind blows and shrieks outside, it has not claimed her for good this time. Leaves flutter past the window, up and away; down in the avenue a whole newspaper wags in the air like a lost kite and falls, spiked on a pine-tree. It is cold. Summer is over—it is autumn—everything is ugly. A white dog on three legs yelps past the gate. Could it all be over? Could she be free? The wind that tears at the house is surely the night-wind, the wind of change, yet the hideous transformation has come to an end. Could it be? No, impossible. Her cursed fate is tied to that wind and the waves, but always at night. She mustn't think it, she mustn't hope, and she begins to plait her hair with shaking fingers, removing strands of sea-weed and not daring to look in the glass until the last possible moment. Mother is talking to grandmother in the hall.

“A perfect idiot! Imagine leaving anything out on the line in weather like this… Now my best little Teneriffe-work teacloth is simply in ribbons.
What
is that extraordinary smell? It's like shellfish and old socks. Oh, heavens, this wind!”

She has a music lesson at ten o'clock. At the thought the minor movement of the Beethoven begins to play in her head, the trills long and terrible like little rolling drums… Marie Swainson runs into the garden next door to pick the ‘chrysanths' before they are ruined. Her skirt flies up above her waist; she tries to beat it down, to tuck it between her legs while she stoops, but it is no use—up it flies. Matilda stares at her through the window and wonders what it would be like to be a normal girl, to live without the fear of the ocean and wind claiming her forever. No one escapes the wind.

“For heaven's sake keep the front door shut! Go round to the back,” shouts someone.

And then she hears Bogey: “Mother, you're wanted on the telephone. Telephone, Mother. It's the butcher.”

The butcher. All that sliced, long-dead meat. Nothing fresh, nothing wriggling. How hideous life is—revolting, simply revolting… And now her hat-elastic's snapped. Of course it would. She'll wear her old tam and slip out the back way. But Mother has seen.

“Matilda. Matilda. Come back im-me-diately! What on earth have you got on your head? It looks like a tea cosy. And why have you got that mane of hair over your forehead.”

She brushes her mother's hand away. The force of it frightens her mother. She can see it in her eyes. But it would be worse for her to see the patch of scales on Matilda's forehead that hasn't changed back this time.

She hurries away down the hall. “I can't come back, Mother. I'll be late for my lesson.”

“Come back immediately!”

She won't. She won't. She hates Mother. “Go to hell,” she shouts, running out the door. Bogey is in the garden, hair whipping in the wind. He smiles at her.

“Wasn't last night delicious?” he asks. He closes his eyes and tastes the wind, his tongue slipping over his lips in quick, darting movements.

“You know I hate it,” Matilda protests. The transformation has always been terrifying and painful for her. Bogey has never seemed to resist it.

“I heard them, Maddie. In the deep, calling to us. The time for us to go to them is coming.” Bogey opens his eyes and there is something cold, unblinking in his stare.

“I have to go,” says Matilda, the wind tearing at her. She has heard the voices from the deep too, but she cannot remember them, will not let herself remember.

“Soon,” Bogey calls after her as Matilda flies down the road. “It's almost time.”

In waves, in clouds, in big round whirls the dust comes stinging, and with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure. There is a loud roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, and standing at the bottom of the road outside Mr Bullen's gate she can hear the sea sob: “Ah!… Ah!… Ah-h!” The pull. It wants her close. It wants her to change, to claim her once more. But Mr Bullen's drawing-room is as quiet as a cave. The windows are closed, the blinds half-pulled, and she is not late. The-girl-before-her has just started playing MacDowell's “To an Iceberg”. Mr Bullen looks over at her and half smiles.

“Sit down,” he says. “Sit over there in the sofa corner, little lady.”

How funny he is. He doesn't exactly laugh at you… but there is just something… Oh, how peaceful it is here. She likes this room. The wind cannot reach her in here. It smells of art serge and stale smoke and chrysanthemums. There is a big vase of the bushy flowers on the mantel-piece behind the pale photograph of Rubinstein. Over the black glittering piano hangs “Solitude”—a dark tragic woman draped in white, sitting on a rock, looking out over the stormy sea.

“No, no!” says Mr Bullen, and he leans over the other girl, puts his arms over her shoulders and plays the passage for her. The stupid—she's blushing! How ridiculous!

Now the-girl-before-her has gone; the front door slams. Mr Bullen comes back and walks up and down, very softly, waiting for her. What an extraordinary thing. Her fingers tremble so that she can't undo the knot in the music satchel. The webbing between her fingers is swollen, stretched. It's the wind… It's howling outside. And her heart beats so hard she feels it must lift her blouse up and down. Mr Bullen does not say a word. The shabby red piano seat is long enough for two people to sit side by side. Mr Bullen sits down by her.

“Shall I begin with scales?” she asks, squeezing her hands together, wincing at the word.

But he does not answer. She doesn't believe he even hears and then suddenly his fresh hand with the ring on it reaches over and opens Beethoven.

“Let's have a little of the old master,” he says.

But why does he speak so kindly, so awfully kindly, and as though they had known each other for years and years and knew everything about each other.

He turns the page slowly. She watches his hand—so human, so delicate. It is a very nice hand and always looks as though it had just been washed.

“Here we are,” says Mr Bullen.

Oh, that kind voice. Oh, that minor movement. Here come the little drums…

“Shall I take the repeat?”

“Yes, dear child.”

His voice is far, far too kind. The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like the prickling goosebumps along her arms. Why is he so…? She will not cry. Here she has nothing to cry about. Not now, not when she is safe in this room where the wind can't touch her.

“What is it, dear child?”

Mr Bullen reaches for her hands, but she folds them in her lap. His shoulder is there, just by her head. She leans on it ever so little, her cheek against the springy tweed.

“Life is so dreadful,” she murmurs, but she does not feel it's dreadful here at all. He says something about ‘waiting' and ‘marking time' but she does not hear. It is so comfortable… forever… .

Suddenly the door opens and in pops Marie Swainson, hours before her time.

“Take the allegretto a little faster,” says Mr Bullen, and gets up and begins to walk up and down again.

“Sit in the sofa corner, little lady,” he says to Marie.

 

 

The wind, the wind. It chases her home, calls to her, stirs images of ancient, drowned cities and dark forms swimming through ruins. It touches violent memories and makes Matilda giddy, but she fights it back, runs into the house. It pounds on the window. It's frightening to be here in her room by herself. The bed, the mirror, the white jug and basin gleam like the sky outside. It's the bed that is frightening. There it lies, sound asleep, waiting for her. She cannot fight the transformation when she sleeps, cannot keep the wind and waves from her dreams… Does Mother imagine for one moment that she is going to darn all those stockings knotted up on the quilt like a coil of serpents? She's not. No, Mother. I do not see why I should… The wind—the wind!

“Is that you, Bogey?”

“Come, Matilda. I can't stand this any longer.”

“Can't stand…” Matilda dares not finish the thought. Bogey is standing in her doorway, head down, blood soaking his right sleeve, dripping from his hand.

“Bogey, what have you…?”

“Come and see, sister.” He holds out his bloody hand to her.

Matilda steps around him and into the hallway. The wind is howling outside but inside the house is silent, still. A lock of dark hair sits twisted in a pool of blood seeping underneath the door of Mother's room.

“Mother?” whispers Matilda.

“Our mother is the sea now, Maddie. Our true family awaits.”

Matilda chokes back a sob, but the mist is starting to clear. She is remembering.

“I'll put on my coat. It's an awful day. You get yours.” Bogey's coat is just like hers. Its dark sleeve covers most of the blood. Fastening the buttons she looks at herself in the glass. Her face is white, they have the same wild eyes and hot lips.

“It will be better, won't it?”

Bogey's smile is not human, but is somehow comforting. Matilda takes his webbed hand and walks with him down the stairs. At the back door the body of their grandmother lies slumped against the wall. Her head lies on the floor in the hallway. Matilda feels nothing as she steps over it and sees her grandmother's eyes staring up so blankly. A guttural laugh bubbles up from Bogey's chest, is whipped away by the wind.

They cannot walk fast enough. Their heads bent, their legs just touching, they stride like one eager person through the town, down the asphalt zigzag where the fennel grows wild, and on to the esplanade. It is dusky—just getting dusky. The wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rocking like two old drunkards. All the poor little pohutukawas on the esplanade are bent to the ground.

“Come on! Come on! Let's get near.”

Over by the break-water the sea is very high. They pull off their hats and her hair blows across her mouth, tasting of salt. The sea is so high that the waves do not break at all; they thump against the rough stone wall and suck up the weedy, dripping steps. A fine spray skims from the water right across the esplanade. They are covered with drops; the inside of her mouth tastes wet and cold.

Bogey's voice is breaking. When he speaks he rushes up and down the scale. It's funny, it makes her laugh, and yet it is just the start of the transformation. The wind carries their voices—away fly the sentences like narrow ribbons.

“Quicker! Quicker! We must get closer.”

It is getting very dark. In the harbour the coal hulks show two lights; one high on a mast, and one from the stern.

“Look, Bogey. Look over there.”

A big black steamer with a long loop of smoke streaming, with the portholes lighted, with lights everywhere, is putting out to sea. The wind does not stop her; she cuts through the waves, making for the open gate between the pointed rocks that leads out to sea. It's the light that makes it all look so awfully beautiful and mysterious. A couple are just visible on board, leaning over the rail arm in arm.

“… Who are they?”

“… Brother and sister.”

“… Will they be safe? Will their ship get away in time?”

Bogey doesn't reply. They both know the answer.

The wind. She can't bear it. She must think of something else… .

“Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small? There's the post office clock chiming for the last time. There's the esplanade where we walked that windy day. Do you remember? When it first happened?” She quivers at the taste of salt on her lips—tears sliding down her cheek and bending to her mouth like a river running to the sea. The wind is inside her head now, swirling with the waves and drawing her down. She doesn't know, can't know if she will ever come back.

“Good-bye, little island, good-bye…”

Now the dark stretches a wing over the tumbling water. They can't see the brother and sister on the boat any more. Good-bye, good-bye. Don't forget… The ship is distant, but they will reach it easily enough, slip up over its side and feast. Everything fades but the roaring waves and the wind whipping around them, tearing at their shells of flesh and skin.

The wind drowns out their cries as the change takes over. They shed their clothes and dive into the shadowy waves, Bogey laughing and Matilda screaming as their bodies twist and transform. For the first time Matilda sees clearly in her monstrous form, the mist lifted. Her claws are strong, her jaws powerful. The ancient strength from the deeps fills her, and she exalts. Moon-light glints on silvery scales before she and Bogey sink beneath the surface. The sea is treacherous and, far below, beyond the reach of the light, their new family awaits.