The World is a Wedding (27 page)

She saw the bee stagger drunkenly to its death and spent a minute, or an hour, she knew not which, watching it struggle, relinquishing itself to stillness, then death. That was her bee. She was its keeper: how much more was she her child's keeper? This child who was conceived by a dark act, in an unholy alliance.

There was a gentle tap on the door and Flora came in and sat down on the bed. She handed Grace an envelope. Grace took from it a softly focused photograph of a baby. The photographic card was thick and scalloped and edged with white and gold. It was of a newly born baby surrendered to the deepest sleep. She saw that he had grown in the day or so since the photograph must have been taken.

‘I didn't know you had taken a photograph,' Grace commented, pushing away the bedcovers.

Flora looked away, almost embarrassed, and Grace saw that her child meant something to Flora. Flora and Wilfred didn't have children yet, and she wondered if perhaps Flora Myffanwy was hoping for a child.

‘I took it when you were sleeping. I . . . I like taking photographs.'

There was a pause and Grace knew for certain that Flora wanted a child. Grace ran her palm over the smooth surface of the image.

‘Thank you,' she said, accepting the gift, accepting the friendship.

‘I thought you would like it,' replied Flora.

Then Wilfred knocked and came into the small bedroom.

‘You have taken a photograph!' he exclaimed, looking with astonishment at Flora.

Grace put the picture back in the brown envelope and handed it to Wilfred, who looked confused. She prompted him to take it again.

‘Would you take this, please?' she said. Wilfred looked at her. His face fell into solemnity and he nodded.

‘If anything happens to me, will you give this to my father?'

I'
ve come to see Grace Price.' It was a black night with no stars, and Wilfred, night-blinded, couldn't see the woman who was speaking.

‘I'm sorry, you've made a mistake,' Wilfred lied, into the darkness.

‘I know you have her,' the voice uttered, ‘so let me in.'

The woman came forward onto the step and Wilfred, taken aback, stood aside. Mrs. Prout lifted the cloak from her face and then brushed past Wilfred through the sitting room and up the staircase as if she knew where Grace was.

‘Stay here,' she demanded. ‘Let me be.'

Wilfred saw Mrs. Prout look at the two closed doors at the top of the landing, lift the latch on the door of his da's room and disappear inside, shutting the door resolutely behind her. Wilfred stood flabbergasted. The charmer had come, and the smell of sage and thyme about Mrs. Prout's shawl and matted hair lingered in the air.

 

It was night again. Grace heard the latch on the door lift and she stirred slightly; it must be Flora Myffanwy checking on her. She waited a few moments before she summoned the strength to open her eyes and smile her welcome at Flora, before falling back to that ineluctable warmth and that paradoxical sensation that she was gigantic, her body floating above the earth yet at the same time, minute in the universe. She felt Flora Myffanwy's hand on her upper arm, then tough nails pinching her very hard.

‘Oh! Ow!' Grace exclaimed on an in-breath, her mind yanked back into her body from the cloudy landscape it was spreading itself thinly across, like a vapour. Grace opened her eyes in alarm, jerked her arm towards herself and away from the pain, but the hands held on and the fingers pinched harder, the sharp nails digging into her flesh, cutting into it, so the pain didn't go. A woman swayed into form.

‘Let go!' Grace pleaded weakly, but with all the strength she could muster. ‘Let go!' Her eyes filled immediately with tears. Her right hand went to pull the pinching hands off. ‘Stop!' she begged.

Mrs. Prout laughed. ‘So you're awake now?'

Grace, her senses alert, saw it was Mrs. Prout in the shadows. She swallowed and roughly brushed the plentiful tears from her eyes and looked at the mark on her arm that had been administered so vehemently and was now bleeding.

‘I will do it again,' Mrs. Prout claimed, her eyes wild and staring.

‘Go away.'

‘If you fall into that sleep again, and dream of that other Heaven, I will come in the depths of the dark night and I will needle you.'

She's a witch, Grace thought.

Mrs. Prout looked at the child who lay wrapped in a blanket.

‘This is the child. I saw you with him in the street at night,' the woman whispered, and bent and kissed the baby's fragile forehead. Grace took the child in her arms. Mrs. Prout lunged, grabbed Grace's forearm and bit down hard. Grace yelped, upright now, eyes open. The baby stirred and slumbered.

‘I bit you, Grace Price, with my old yellow teeth in your firm fleshy arm.'

What was this woman doing here? How had she got in? I could call for Wilfred, Grace thought; if I call for help, someone will come, but she didn't. Something inside her let the apparition stay.

‘I will not let you sleep like that again.'

I am dreaming, Grace thought. This is a dream, a nightmare. She would wake. Flora would be here in the morning, soft and consoling, and Wilfred standing at the foot of the bed, worried and making hapless jokes, trying to make it all better than it was. The night would pass. The dark would pass, second by second. The woman would fade from her mind like a bad miasma.

‘Lie down,' Mrs. Prout ordered. Grace lay back knowing it was all a dream. The woman put her hand to the edge of her shawl and pulled out a very long, very fine needle, then clamped the needle horizontally between her teeth. She folded back the bedclothes at the bottom of the bed and held Grace's left foot in both hands. Grace looked in alarm at this woman, while Mrs. Prout stroked her foot tenderly, took the needle in her right hand and stabbed it hard into the skin over the joint of Grace's big toe. Grace leaped. The needle was wrenched out. Mrs. Prout then jabbed it into her little toe. And out. And in her heel beside her ankle. And out. Then she licked the needle with her fat tongue.

The dream will fade, Grace told herself, going to turn over on her side. I will wake up; it will be normal again.

Mrs. Prout clasped her other foot and speared the needle in again; then again until Grace felt clarity return to her thoughts, as if her mind had shrunk down to fit her skull. Air, fresh and sharp, reached deeper into her lungs, her tongue gathered back its muscularity and waves of soothing undulated through her.

‘What you want you cannot have,' the image of Mrs. Prout muttered. ‘Grace, open your mouth.' Grace obediently tilted her head back. Mrs. Prout shrugged off her shawl, produced a vial and dropped liquid onto Grace's tongue. Grace tasted brandy burning the inside of her parched mouth and the cracks in her lips—then something, some essence of herself, seared back into her body.

‘This is the child. This is your brother's child.'

Oh, Grace thought, someone has said it. The truth had been spoken aloud, and she had been set free. She nodded, meaning,
Yes, this is my child and my brother is the father
. Mrs. Prout pushed her face up very close to Grace, their noses almost touching so that Grace could see the perfect black in the centre of the irises of the woman's ancient eyes.

‘Now you listen to me, you girl, you woman, you whore, you slut, you mother, you wife. You queen, you virgin, you sacrifice, you listen to me.' Grace felt vehement fingers jab hard and sharp on her between her breasts.

‘
Live
.' And with that, the woman turned, jigged a jig, and was gone.

 

Wilfred lay in bed wide awake and full of fear for Grace. Mrs. Prout had come and gone, having stayed only briefly, but still he couldn't sleep. Perhaps if he checked on Grace and knew she was passable well, he might be able to fall asleep. He stood up and went and knocked very lightly on the door to his da's bedroom; there was no answer. He carefully lifted the latch. There was Grace, breathing, sleeping on her side, a white sheet pulled up to her shoulders, the baby asleep beside her. She seemed undisturbed by Mrs. Prout. Somewhat reassured, Wilfred turned to go, but then instead pulled the wooden chair from the foot of the bed and put it as silently as he could next to Grace. He sat down, his legs apart. He was wearing only his long-johns—he still didn't own pyjamas. He sat there in the pitch-black, absorbed in his thoughts.

His da was sleeping downstairs on a roll of blankets, and had been since Grace arrived. His da hadn't said anything, beyond that brief, heartfelt conversation in this room and his almost pleading request that they get Dr. Reece to come and see to his daughter, to save her, the night he had found Grace, like Goldilocks, sleeping in his bed. Wilfred knew he disapproved profoundly of the fact that Dr. Reece hadn't yet been called, but his da kept his counsel, stood back, and let Wilfred unravel his own adult life, and his own predicaments.

The baby shuffled slightly. Wilfred noticed how the child had grown since yesterday, and appeared to grow every day.

Wilfred looked at Grace. ‘I am sorry,' he whispered. He put his head in his hands. ‘I am sorry I proposed to you at the picnic. I am sorry I took so long telling you I didn't want to marry you, and that I told you in the street, in front of those tennis players. And I'm sorry I didn't say anything when your father came to tell me we were getting married. And I'm sorry I stood there in such a black mood on the day of our wedding, and for all the nights I lay there hating you. And I'm sorry I loved Flora Myffanwy, and not you: that when I knew what it was to love Flora, I knew what it was to not love you. I'm sorry I divorced you and humiliated you in front of everyone, so that you had to leave. I didn't understand what you were enduring. I am sorry I didn't understand. I am sorry I didn't get Madoc by the throat and throttle him. And I'm sorry I let you leave in such a hurry. I thought I was a good man, but I had never been tested.

‘I spent months worrying and wondering where you were. I thought you would have gone to Swansea—it never even occurred to me you would go as far as London. I didn't know where you were, Grace.' Grace moved slightly, her eyelids fluttering. Wilfred sighed.

‘All these things I have wanted to say to you. They have been on my mind, and weighed upon me more and more heavily, so that I haven't known what to do. Since you left I have been wrestling with my conscience. The more I understood, the guiltier I have felt.' He rubbed his chest back and forth.

‘I thought you had given the baby to us,' he whispered ruefully. ‘I wanted to keep him. I would have, if you hadn't come back. And I saw the hurt in your eyes when you met Flora and realised that she was now my wife, and I saw hope fade from you.

‘Tomorrow morning, Grace, if you are not better, I want to go to your father and tell him, get him to see you and take care of you. I can't wait any longer. I will ask you first, but that is what I want to do. Your father is not a bad man, Grace, if you can forgive him. He is a kind and caring doctor, but he is weak. Your mother is cruel. And you, Grace,' he reached out and stroked her hair, ‘were innocent. Then Madoc . . . The deeper the rot, the shinier the front, eh?

‘Please forgive me, Grace. I am so sorry for the hurt I've caused you.' Wilfred got down off the chair, knelt at Grace's bedside and took her two roughened, hot hands in his and put his forehead down on them.

‘Please don't die, Grace. Please don't die,' he begged.

 

Wilfred finished eating his breakfast pensively, as if he was waiting for something portentous to happen. He must get Dr. Reece this morning; he would leave immediately. He watched Flora open the cutlery drawer, the knives and forks rattling, and search for a pastry brush. Wilfred finished his cup of tea and looked towards the window.

‘Are you waiting for someone?' his da asked.

‘Hello?' a faint voice called. Wilfred jumped up and searched out of the window, but the voice was coming from inside the house. Flora looked into the sitting room.

‘I wondered if I could have a scrambled egg?'

Wilfred went through to the sitting room and saw Grace in her white nightgown and a long shawl, the baby in her arms. Grace: frail, thin, but alert. Alive. Yes, she was alive. There she was, standing on her own two feet, the baby in her arms. There was a smile on her pale face, dark circles under her eyes, but a light in her eyes. Whatever journey she had taken was finished.

Wilfred stepped forward. He loved her. He loved this woman, his friend, and he was grateful from the depths of his heart that she was alive. He hadn't had to bury her, nor see the tragedy of a child without a mother. This woman had been sent to test him, and test him she had—but she was alive. Whatever risks he had taken, whatever foolishness he had shown this woman, and he knew it was a lot, something had been surpassed; something within her had risen to meet the hardship life had brought to her.

Wilfred stood there, both hands on Grace's upper arms, his eyes closed tightly, nodding as he thought these thoughts. When he opened his eyes, he saw the child's face, lying in its mother's arms.

‘You have a beautiful child, Grace,' he said.

 

Grace was lying on the bed, resting through the morning. She had dreamed, or thought she dreamed, that Mrs. Prout had come during the night, disturbed her sleep and reordered her thoughts. And she thought she remembered Wilfred speaking to her in the night. Peace and a growing sense of health were flowing through her, as if after a battle. She stretched her feet, pointed her toes and felt her legs tingle. She brushed the hair from her face when she heard a voice say something, a voice she knew. She listened. As if summoned by the voice, she stepped weakly out of the bed, picked up the child, wrapped it in a blanket, then she took the envelope Flora had given to her and walked barefoot downstairs gingerly but purposefully to the kitchen.