Ladies From Hell (8 page)

She smiled, full herself now, remembering. Flies buzzed, soothing, on the midden outside the window; to her mind they sounded as loud as the noise of the Jugs. Her eyes slid closed; she thought for a time she might pleasure herself, but her fingers were sleepy too. Her chest rose and fell, steadily; then, in an instant, she was bolt-awake. The sound that had troubled her had come again; and this time there was no doubt. Something was scrabbling at the latch of the door!

She was out of the blankets in a flash, scrinching herself up in the far corner of the bunk. Her knife was in her hand. It was a good knife, long and jagged and sharp. She had used it, more than once; but would it serve against a Thunder-thing?

The Convolvulus King watched through the window, with more of his white trumpet-eyes. The noise came again, and a voice calling. She pulled her lips back from her teeth. The bar of the doorcatch joggled impatiently; and the wooden wedge fell away. The door grated inward, letting in sunlight and warmth.

The Thunder-thing was tall, taller by half a head than the Rural, and her eyes were terrible. Round her face as she stood was a moving blaze of yellow; and there was something else. A blueness, blue as the sky, as kingfisher feathers, as sparks. The Rural licked her mouth. She thought she had never seen so bright a colour. She gripped the knife; and her heart pounded, as if about to burst out from her chest.

The newcomer advanced, it seemed uncertainly, screwing her eyes against the gloom of the little cabin. Then she froze. She said softly, “Oh, my God …”

She glanced behind her, pushed the door to slightly. She said, “I thought the place was empty. Why didn’t you answer me?”

She took another half pace forward. The knifeblade shook a little; and she stopped again. She seemed to sense an almost-physical barrier, a vital space that would be encroached on at her peril. Another step, another six inches, and the Rural would attack. She put her hands out, slowly, eyes on the blade.
She said, “I ain’t going to hurt you. See, I don’t have anything. I don’t want to hurt you. Can you understand?”

The Rural shifted her position fractionally. The other stared at her, eyes narrowed. She said, “
Can
you speak? Do you know what I’m saying?”

There was no response; and the stranger sighed. She moved back, with equal caution, till she felt the doorpost behind her. She squatted slowly, then sat. She said, “I guess we’re in for kind of a long session, honey. Because I ain’t going no place. And you ain’t going to
get
no place, not by the looks of you. Not for a long, long while.”

She produced a pack of cigarettes, lit up carefully and extinguished the match. She leaned her head against the doorframe and blew smoke. “Fact is,” she said, “I’m in kind of a fix. I’ve gotta get out of sight for a time, maybe a good time; and there ain’t nowhere better than here. So we’d best get working on some kind of relationship, huh?”

The other made no response; and she sighed again. She said, “Are you a deafy? Or are you just plain crazy?
Do
you understand what I’m saying? If you do, nod your head.”

Nothing.

“Do you live here on your own? What’s your name?” Nothing.

“I guess I forgot,” said the newcomer. Names don’t rate much with you folk, do they? Maybe you never even had one.” She smiled. She said, “I’ve got a name. All my very own. But maybe that don’t matter neither.” She paused. “I’m from America,” she said. “That’s one heck of a long way off. You ever heard of America?”

No reply.

The other blew smoke again, carefully. “Well,” she said, “We’re going to have to try something out. This is the way it’s goin’ to work. There was an old guy once, back in my home town, found a year-old pup wired up to a tree, way out in the woods. Alsatian pup, she was. She was close on dead; and boy, had she been treated rough. And you know what he did?

The old guy? He got her in a van, first off. And fed
her in there, two, maybe three weeks. On account of he couldn’t get near. So what he done instead was sit and talk. Just talk, like I’m talking to you. Nice and easy. And you know what? In the end that pup got to be one of the nicest damn dogs you ever could meet. Just by talking. That’s what I’m goin’ to try with you. Because honey, I’ve got all the time in the world as well …”

The sun was higher now, beating on the tin roof, and the temperature in the little shack had increased. The Rural felt her eyelids droop. There was something in the Thunder-thing’s voice, something calm and sleepy … The knife point dropped; and she shook herself awake again, with a little jump. But the strange personage had not moved. “No way, honey,” she said. “Not just awhiles, at least. You might not be all that smart; but I guess you’re pretty quick with that thing. You just go on fighting me your way, huh? And I’ll tell you all about the old man’s dog. The dog he rescued. She had a name too. Do you want to know what it was?”

The voice went on and on, tinkling and chuckling, like water over stones. The words made sense, a sort of sense. They reminded her of things she had forgotten. The brook, now. Surely she had not always lived here. There had been a house by a brook, a house with a garden of flowers. At the bottom of the garden a wooden bridge on which you could lean, see the great shadows of fish in the green water below. Cool green, gliding green, set with weed banks that waved and waved in the current, forward and back, like flags. While the sun-sparkle on the water danced too, made little bright skeins of reflection that moved forward and back, forward and back …

Her eyes had quite closed that time. She jerked them open, with a little harsh cry of alarm; but the other still sat by the doorpost, a fair-haired young woman in a bright anorak, her hair tied back behind her ears like the tail of a horse. She didn’t somehow seem quite so frightening now. Perhaps … perhaps she wasn’t the Thunder-thing after all. But she had come with the thunder, so she must be. The Rural stared through the window, begging mutely for help; but the Convolvulus King
still reared his great head outside, his eyes still watched white and calm.

“It’s gettin’ to you, honey,” said the American girl. “It’s gettin’ to you. You know something? Sure as God made little apples, I’m going to win. All I got to do is wait. You don’t know what to do, do you? You poor little mixed-up bitch …”

The voice went on again, losing none of its gentle calm. “Now I’m gonna tell you about yourself,” it said. “You know what you look like? You’re a mess, honey. You are the biggest Goddam mess I ever saw. And take it from me, I’ve seen a few. If you ain’t crawling, I’m goin’ to be vastly surprised. Come to that, if I ain’t crawling as well before too very long I’m goin’ to be equally taken aback. Jeeze, this place stinks …” She lit another cigarette, very slowly and deliberately. “If you was to look in a mirror,” she said, “you would scare your little self one-half to death. Only maybe you ain’t ever seen a mirror. Maybe you don’t know what that is either.”

She added the match to the small pile by her feet. The eyes of the Rural followed the movement of her hand, returned to her face. “No mirrors,” she said. “And no America. How the other half does truly live … I bet you never smoked a cigarette either. I bet you don’t even know what they are.” She took the pack from the pocket of her jacket, held it out. The other’s expression didn’t change. The American girl shrugged and put the packet away again. She said, “Maybe you’re the smart one …” She blew smoke. “Well,” she said, “the day’s wastin’. And we ain’t no farther forward. On the other hand, we ain’t slipped back none …”

The notions of ‘morning’ and ‘afternoon’ were alike to the Rural; but she was acutely sensitive to sun angle. She snatched a hasty glance at the window, turned quickly to stare up at the back wall of the shack. The American girl brushed back a straying wisp of hair. “What’s the matter?” she said softly. “You expectin’ visitors? Or is it food parcel time again?”

No answer; and she shook her head. “Maybe you’re gettin’ hungry,” she said. “Or do you want a drink? What do you drink, anyway? Not that filth outa the canal, for Chrissake … Where’s your water?”

Something connected, in the Rural’s brain. Not words, but the shape the words made. A little husky sound
escaped from her; and the American followed the quick turn of her head. She saw, for the first time, the lagged standpipe that protruded from a clutter of rubbish in the corner of the shack; the old brass tap, the pans and rusty kettle that stood nearby. She smiled, broadly. “Honey,” she said, “you know what we just done? We communicated. Now I call that real progress …” She repeated the word, quietly and deliberately; again, the Rural’s eyes moved to the tap.

“I got you wrong,” said the American. “You ain’t dumb at all. You’re real smart. Now, what you going to do? You want a drink, you just go right ahead. Go on, don’t mind me. Get yourself a drink.”

The Rural did not move.

“Then,” said the American, “I guess this is where we try something different. Take the process a stage farther on.” She stubbed the cigarette she had been smoking, and uncrossed her legs. Instantly, the Rural tensed. “Now don’t you go fussin’ none,” she said. “I’m goin’ to get a drink for you, is all. Nice and easy, nice and slow. Don’t you go panicking now. You just watch …”

She stood up, by degrees, moved slowly across the shack. “You got three choices,” she said. “You can stay right there, which I hope you’ll do; you can make a break for it; or you can come for me with that pigsticker of yours, which I profoundly do not wish …” She filled a saucepan from the tap, back half-turned but watching from the tail of her eye. The Rural didn’t move.

“Attagirl,” said the American. “That’s the way now. Nice and easy. Ain’t nobody goin’ to hurt you. Not for a little water … Now, I’m comin’ back. I’m goin’ to sit me down, just like before. See? You ain’t scared of me now, are you? Not any more …”

She rested against the doorframe, and considered. “Problem the second,” she said, “is making the handover. Because I am not, repeat not, going to put myself inside your reach.
Not yet awhile. I guess that’ll set us back right to square one. So what I propose …” She reached, almost in slow motion, for a thin wooden pole, some four feet long, that lay on the hut floor. It looked as if at one time it might have been a curtain rod. “What I propose,” she said, “is the coward’s way out. That way I managed to live to my present healthy age.”

Very slowly, she began pushing the saucepan of water toward the bunk. “According to the book,” she said, “this shouldn’t scare you none. You got a critical distance, ain’t you? Well, what’s coming inside it is your saucepan. And you know what water is, don’t you? Water don’t hurt …”

The pan lay within the Rural’s reach. She tensed, trembling; relaxed again slowly as the stick was withdrawn. “Attagirl,” said the American once more. “Tell you what. Next time, you just come straight out and say you’re havin’ gas. OK?” She laid the pole down. She said, “Well, go on honey. There’s your drink.”

The Rural stayed huddled; and the other sighed. “Well,” she said, “I guess we can’t win ’em all …”

Something bounced and crashed down the embankment a few yards from the shack. The Rural’s head jerked round sharply, then back to the American’s face. “Well, how about that?” she said, intrigued. “Honey, this becomes more and more encouragin’. Because whatever you are or not, you are
not
deaf …”

The Rural was exhibiting strong anxiety symptoms. Her eyes flickered rapidly, from the stranger’s face to the window and back.

“I wonder what’s eatin’ you now,” said the American girl. “Let’s just try and work it out. Your food parcel’s come, ain’t it? Like you knew it would. Somebody up there looks after you real good. And you want it bad. ’Cause if you don’t get out there pitching, one of your little hairy pals along the way is goin’ to get there first. Only you can’t get out there. Because there’s no way past me. You can’t work me out at all, can you? There’s just no way.”

She uncoiled herself again, gradually. “I am gettin’ mighty stiff,” she observed. “You have got very much the best part of this deal.” She strolled from the hut, stooped
to the crate, hefted it and returned. “Problem solved,” she said. Then she grinned. The Rural, apparently, had not moved; but the handle of the saucepan was turned round the opposite way. “That is my girl,” she said. “Honey, you’re comin’ along just fine. Just like that puppy dog I told you about …”

She crossed the shack, set the battered cardboard container down. “I am going to start turning my back on you just a little more,” she said. “Which may, or may not, be a capital error.” She found the can opener, used it and returned with a faint groan to her place by the door. “Pork and beans,” she said with a grimace. “Ain’t you just the lucky one …” Once more, the pole was brought into use; the opened can inched across the floor to stand finally beside the saucepan. “From the looks of you that’s how you generally eat,” said the American girl. “So I don’t have to tell you to mind your fingers …”

The Rural stared at the open can, and back to the door. The problem was baffling, insoluble. The light of the long day was fading; and the stranger still barred the way, still held her prisoner. She had decided, almost certainly now, that she was not the Thunder-thing; the Thunder-thing had claws, not a soothing voice with brook-water in it. Also—and again a far memory stirred—she had given her drink, and food. Her mind grappled with the concept of giving. Surely there had been someone else, long ago, who had given such things to her. Someone warm …

She found herself stirred by wholly-forgotten emotions. She moistened her lips, stared from the food to the stranger’s face, the dark looming of the Convolvulus King beyond. She knuckled her eyes and nose. Her mind made shapes; strange bright little shapes, that refused to join into a pattern. A picture came, of the stranger sleeping, herself creeping forward with a knife; and she frowned. Somehow she didn’t
want
to stick it into her. All the blood would come then, and the voice would stop. She knuckled her eyes again, harder than before, wiped her nose with the back of her arm. Yet she couldn’t eat, not with the stranger watching. She stared at the
bean-can again, at the doorway, the great shape beyond, and didn’t know what to do.