On Beulah Height (37 page)

So everything were spoiled now. I thought for a bit after we left Dendale that it was all going to be all right, but now it were back to what it had been before but worse, with Mam taken badly again and Dad walking round like he had come to the end of things but just couldn't stop moving.

That's how it were, you see, for all of us, I mean. It's funny how you can know inside that everything's knackered, that there's no point in owt, but outside you just carry on living like nothing was different, like it made some sense to be going to school and doing your lessons and learning stuff by heart to help you for the future.

I don't know how long this went on. It could have gone on forever, I suppose. Some folk have been dead forty years before they get buried, Dad used to say. I know I were in the top class and next year I'd be moving on to the secondary. I remember thinking mebbe that would change things somehow for me. They gave us a lot of stuff about it at school one day and I went home with it to show Mam.

And I found her dead.

No, I don't want to talk about it. What's to talk about? She'd lived, now she were dead. End of story.

Which left me and Dad.

They wanted to take me away and put me with someone. They wanted to write to Aunt Chloe straight off and see if she could help.

But I said no, I were going to stay at home and look after Dad. Someone had to look after him now, didn't they? And what with Mam being so ill for such a long time, I'd been doing most things round the house anyway, so where was the difference? They said we'd need to have someone from Social who'd come in to help and I said that would be okay even though I didn't want them, 'cos I could see this was the only way they were going to agree.

So that's what we did and it was okay for a bit and it would have been okay forever if only Dad could have got his farm and if only Mam hadn't died like she did and if only ...

Any road, he went off one morning and I never saw him again. They said he went up over the Corpse Road and down into Dendale, and over to the far side of the reservoir closest to where Low Beulah used to be. Then he filled his pockets with rocks and walked into the watter so that when the divers found him, he were lying close by the pile of rubble which they'd made out of the old house.

I said it weren't so, he weren't dead, he'd just gone away and he'd come back for me one day. They wanted me to look at his face afore they closed up the coffin and buried him, but I wouldn't. Of course I know that he's dead but that's not the same as knowing for sure, is it? That's what Dad used to say. There's knowing and there's knowing for sure and there's space between the two of them for a man to get lost in. That's where he is for me, in that space. Lost.

And after that? After I came to live down here with Auntie Chloe? I had to do something, you can see that. Things don't just stop and start again, like nothing had happened before. But things can be changed. I read in this book about yon singer called Callas, how she changed herself from being plain and glorrfat, so that's what I was aimed at, changing myself, that's how come I burned my head and all. To be like Mary? Oh, yes, I wanted to be like Mary. And Madge. And Jenny. I wanted to be like any of them as were wanted and missed. ...

That's all. You said I just had to talk about the old days, I needn't talk about now if I didn't want. Well, I don't. And I don't want Aunt Chloe to hear this, that's definite. But him, oh, aye, you can show it to him if you like, let him hear what it's like to be me, I'd like him to understand, that's for sure. Because who else is left in the world to understand?

DAY 4 Songs for Dead Children

Lieder are usually sung in their original German, but the young mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Wulfstan, feels strongly that something essential is lost to an English-speaking audience, the majority of whom have to get the sense of the songs from a program note. Unable to find a satisfactory performing translation of the cycle, she has made her own, not hesitating from time to time to use her own Yorkshire demotic.

The original texts were the work of the German poet Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866), who had reacted to the death of his son by writing more than four hundred poems of lament, some specific to his loss, many more general. Mahler used five in his song cycle. His interest in setting them was primarily imaginative and artistic. He was unmarried and childless when he started working on them in 1901. By the time he completed the cycle in 1905 he had married Alma Schindler and they had two children. After their birth, Alma could not understand his continuing obsession with the Ruckert-based cycle, which superstitiously she saw as a rash tempting of fate. The death of their eldest daughter of scarlet fever in 1907 seemed confirmation of her worst fears.

Here are the poems in Elizabeth Wulfstan's own translation.

(i)

And now the sun will rise as bright As though no horror had touched the night. The horror affected me alone. The sunlight illumines everyone. You must not dam up that dark infernal, But drown it deep in light eternal! So deep in my heart a small flame died. Hail to the joyous morningtide!

(ii)

At last I think I see the explanation Of those dark flames in many glances burning. Such glances! As though in just one look so burning You'd concentrate your whole soul's conflagration. I could not guess, lost in the obfuscation Of blinding fate which hampered all discerning, That even then your gaze was homeward turning, Back to the source of all illumination.

You tried with all your might to speak this warning: Though all our love is focused on you, Yet our desires must bow to Fate's strict

bourning. Look on us now, for soon we must go from you. These eyes that open brightly every morning In nights to come as stars will shine upon you.

(iii)

When your mother dear to my door draws near, And my thoughts all center there to see her enter Not on her sweet face first off falls my

gaze, But a little past her, seeking something after, There where your own dear features would appear Lit with love and laughter bringing up the rear, As once my daughter dear.

When your mother dear to my door draws

near, Then I get the feeling you are softly stealing With the candle's clear gentle flame in here, Dancing on my ceiling! O light of love and

laughter! Too soon put out to leave me dark and drear.

(iv)

I often think they've only gone out walking, And soon they'll come homewards all laughing and

talking. The weather's bright! Don't look so pale. They've only gone for a hike updale. Oh, yes, they've only gone out walking, Returning now, all laughing and talking. Don't look so pale! The weather's bright. They've only gone to climb up Beulah

Height. Ahead of us they've gone out walking-But shan't be returning all laughing and talking. We'll catch up with them on Beulah Height In bright sunlight. The weather's bright on Beulah Height.

(v)

In such foul weather, in such a gale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale! They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here. In such foul weather, in sleet and hail, I'd never have let them play out in the dale. I was feart they'd take badly. Now such fears I'd suffer gladly. In such foul weather, in such a bale, I'd never have let them play out in the dale For fear they might die tomorrow.

That's no more my source of sorrow. In such foul weather, in such a bale, I'd never have sent them to play up the dale. They were dragged by force or fear. Nowt I said could keep them here. In such foul weather, in such a gale, In sleet and hail, They rest as if in their mother's house, By no foul storm confounded, By God's own hands surrounded, They rest as in their mother's house.

On the morning of the fourth day of the Lorraine Dacre inquiry, Geordie Turnbull rose early.

He had a hangover, not the sort that makes you turn over in bed and burrow under the sheets in search of masking darkness and the sanctuary of sleep, but the sort that sends you stumbling to the bathroom to void the contents of your gut one way or the other, and wish you could do the same with the contents of your head.

Ten minutes under a cold shower set at maximum force brought him closer to the possibility that there might be life after coffee.

It had been a long time since he felt like this. His release from custody and return to Bixford hadn't brought him the relief he'd hoped for. First off, there'd been the press, who both in person and on the phone had pestered him all day. Then there'd been the attitude of his fellow villagers. Fifteen years ago in Dendale it had taken him aback to see the speed with which he'd declined from good ol' Geordie to the Fiend of the Fells. But there he'd been an off-comer, an outsider tolerated because he was pleasant company and would soon be gone. Here in Bixford he thought he'd set down roots, but the taint of being questioned in a child abduction case soon showed him how shallow those roots were. Not that anything had been said, but an overheard whisper, a turned-away glance, even the over-sympathetic tone in which they'd asked about his ordeal down at the pub, had been enough to send him home early to his thoughts and his own whiskey bottle.

Now, toweling himself vigorously, he wandered from the bathroom to the kitchen. His brain was clawing its way painfully to normal consciousness level, but how far it had to go was evidenced by the fact that he'd filled his kettle before he registered that the back door onto the patio was wide open.

This jolted him several steps farther up the slope, and when he heard the footstep behind him, he twisted round, flailing with the kettle at the intruder.

The man swayed back, easily avoiding contact with anything other than the lash of water whipped out of the spout. Then he stepped forward and brought his forehead crashing against Geordie's, paused to examine the effect, before driving a vicious punch into the unprotected belly and raising his knee to receive the man's face as he doubled up. Finally he strolled round the retching figure, pushed a kitchen chair against the back of his legs and pulled him down onto it by his hair. Blood from Turnbull's nose and split eyebrow spattered his naked belly and thighs. The intruder pulled some sheets of kitchen roll and tossed them onto his bloodstained lap.

"Blow your nose, Mr. Turnbull," he said. "I think there's something you want to get off your conscience. When you're ready, I'd like to talk with you about it."

On the morning of that fourth day Elizabeth Wulfstan rose early too.

She slipped out of bed and flung back the curtains on the deep sash window, drenching herself luxuriously in the light which flooded in, heedless of the fact that she was naked and the window fronted directly onto Holyclerk Street.

Hail to the joyous morningtide! The words formed on her lips but she did not speak them, much less sing them.

Below her the street was empty, not even a milkman to enjoy the spectacle she offered. Not that hers was a classically voluptuous body. She had a singer's good chest development, but her breasts were small, almost adolescent, and there wasn't enough spare flesh to hide her ribs' corrugations. Indeed what was most likely to have caught a prurient milkman's eye was the complete absence of hair from her head and her pubes.

What caught her eye were two spaces in the line of residents' cars parked along the curb. As she stood there, going through a sequence of breathing exercises, she checked to left and right and couldn't spot either Walter's Discovery or Arne's Saab.

She finished her exercises, crossed the room, opened the door, andwiththe same total indifference to the possibility of being seen, strolled down the corridor to the bathroom.

Here she brushed her teeth, then gargled gently with a mild antiseptic mouthwash, rinsed, and examined the moist pink interior of her mouth with critical interest.

Now she sang the words, pianissimo.

"Hail to the joyous morningtide."

Finally she showered in lukewarm water so there wasn't too much steam, toweled vigorously, and returned to her room.

Inger Sandel, dressed in shorts and sun top, was sitting on the bed.

Elizabeth didn't break stride but went to her dressing table, sat down, and began to make up her face. It was a slow, delicate process. Her skin was naturally sallow and it took meticulous work to transform it to the flushing fairness of her preference.

Satisfied at last, she met the other woman's eyes in the mirror, then spun slowly round on her stool to face her and said conversationally, "You an active dyke or do you just like gawking?"

Inger said, "Am I a practicing lesbian? Yes."

"Always? Sorry, that's daft. I mean, when did you suss it? When you were a lass or not till later?"

"Always."

"So you never tried it with a man? Not even Arne?"

Inger gave one of her rare smiles and said, "Of course with Arne. Once. He wanted. I wanted to work with him. It seemed necessary, and once out of the way, it has stayed out of the way. And you?"

"Not with Arne, no way."

"But someone?"

"A tutor at college. Thought I'd best try it to get it over with."

"And?"

"And I got it over with."

"So there was no relationship after between you and this tutor?"

"No way."

"You are sure of yourself, I see. But what about him? Did he not want something more?"

"Well, I left a fiver on my pillow next morning and went off early. I expect he got the message."

It was a moment when, if they were ever going to share a smile, they might have done so. But it passed.

"Any more questions?" asked Elizabeth.

"Why do you shave your bush?"

"To get a match with this," said Elizabeth, patting her bald pate. "Turns you on, looking at me, does it?"

"It is ... pleasing, yes."

"Pleasing?" She stood up, yawned, stretched. "Well, don't get your hopes up, luv."

She slipped into a pair of pants and pulled a black T-shirt over her head, careful not to touch her face. Then, taking the blond wig off its stand, she fitted it onto her head and studied herself in the dressing-table mirror.

"I had no hopes," said Inger.