The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales (6 page)

I can hear something moving in you Arganhell, thumping and splashing and metal clinking against your stones and many footsteps.

All day long the body sits and waits and the fingers pinch the legs that are white and blue with the cold in the air, and watch how long it takes the tired blood to flow back into the white pinch marks. When you pinch a dead body there are no pinch marks because the dead don't feel anything.

One day I will be dead and the body will be dead and everything will be over.

* * *

I can hear the clinking again Arganhell, and the splashing and the thumping in your waters. There is a long line of horses and they dip their hooves into you one after the other and walk through your waters and clink against your stones and walk out on the other side, the side where the body is sitting and where I am watching them through its eyes.

But they never arrive here, as soon as they touch dry land they dissolve like the ghosts in the clouds, and there is nothing left here, not even a mist.

I watch the stones in the water, grey and black and silver like smoke, others a dull red like dried blood. There is the sound of crying in my head, and I watch the body start to sway, and beat itself and its head against a tree; the bark is rough and damp and smells dark green, and there is a thump, thump, thump that drowns out the crying and after a while there is nothing at all except the thump, thump and the swaying and there is a patch of pain that spreads through the head and the arm and the shoulder of the body, nothing much but I can almost feel it and after a while I forget the crying and I'm dead again.

* * *

I cannot hear the clinking this time, or the splashing in your water, Arganhell, but I can see the line of horses and men coming just like before. They stop at the other bank and look for the ford and then one of the men shrugs his shoulders and his mouth opens so I know he is saying something although I can't hear his voice. Then the first horse puts its feet in your water, Arganhell. It snorts and it is afraid of the rushing waters because it was nearly drowned once in a cold mountain stream. It paws the water and makes the stones clink and goes backwards, and I wonder do the hooves hurt you, Arganhell, do you feel it when something walks through you, because you are alive.

I leave the body and then I am on the other bank with the horse, and I can see the body still sitting under the tree, eyes staring like dead but they're not dead yet, not yet. Do not be afraid of Arganhell, I say to the horse. I can see the fear in its belly and I breathe into its nostrils, Do not be afraid of Arganhell, and then the horse puts its feet into the water and walks forward, and I am sitting under the tree again with the body, watching the line of horses and men cross your waters, Arganhell.

There is a man in the long line of horsemen. He looks different from the others. All the other men take one quick look at the body and then they look away again; there is fear in their eyes and in their bodies, they look away and then they walk away and pretend they have not seen. They will forget that they have seen the body, and then it will be as if it had never been, as if I had never been. That is almost as good as being dead.

But the man who is not like the others has seen the body, and he looks at it and he looks at me and he knows that I am inside it. He looks straight through its eyes and looks at me. He knows that I am there.

He says, do not be afraid, just like I said to the horse. Do not be afraid. And he stoops and takes out a knife and I think he is going to help me and kill me and then I will be dead. He sees the look in the body's eyes and puts the knife away, and squats down and undoes the ropes with his fingers. There are a lot of knots and they are tied fast, it takes him a long time and all the while I can hear his breathing and smell his sweat and I am afraid, afraid.

It takes him a long time as he undoes one knot after the other, while the line of horses and men goes past. One of the horses stops and the man sitting on its back opens and closes his mouth and talks to the man who is untying the ropes, and the man answers him and shakes his head, and then the man on the horse's back shakes his head too and kicks the horse's sides and the horse walks on.

The ropes slide away like snakes, down the body and off the body's arms and legs and I can see the hands opening and closing but nothing else moves.

The man gets up from his crouch and opens his mouth and speaks but I don't hear him. He goes to the edge of the water, and he scoops up some of your water, Arganhell, in his hands and brings it to where the body is sitting, and holds the hands to the body's lips. They are cracked and dry, the mouth is dry with thirst; and then they part and dip in the water, your water, Arganhell, and drink, and cold silver runs into the mouth and down the throat and into the stomach. He helps the body get up and stagger to the water's edge, and he says...
name?

I point one of the body's hands at the water and say your name, Arganhell, because that is the only name I know. He nods and gets into the water, and takes some in his hands again and pours it over my head; there is cold silver water running down the long tangled hair of the head, dripping down from the neck onto the back and the chest of the body, down, down all the length of the body.

Arganhell
, he says. And
In the name of the Holy Ghost.

He pours more water onto my head and combs the matted hair out with his fingers very gently, as though the body wasn't almost dead, as though it mattered whether or not there was pain. He combs out all the tangles and the knots in the same way he undid all the knots in the ropes, and he makes a fire and burns the ropes.

And then he walks away and I am still sitting under the tree beside your waters, Arganhell, but now some of your water is inside the body and some of it is on the outside of the body, dripping down from the long wet hair on its head; and the taste of your water is still on the tongue in its mouth. The ropes are gone from the body, it can move now and it dips its hands into your waters, Arganhell, to find the slate with the sharp edges.

But as they dip into the water there is a tingling in them, and they move and there is a feeling of silver and of swiftness as the water moves between the fingers, and the current tugs at them, this way and that. As they pull out of the water there is a flash as drops of water fall from the fingers back into the stream, and a coldness as the air touches the wet hands; and then they're in the stream again, feeling cool and silvery and playing with the currents. The sun comes out of the clouds and there is warmth on the face and on the body and, as I take the hands out of the water and hold them up into the light, there is warmth on them too, all mixed together with the wetness and the drops falling from them back into the stream; back into your waters Arganhell, that gleam and glint like sunlight.

I open the mouth and I say your name again,
Arganhell
, and cup the hands and scoop up water and lift it to the mouth and I drink; I am so thirsty, Arganhell. And I cup them again and bring up more water and lift up the hands and pour the water over my head so that it drips down from the hair all over the body and I can feel it, drip-dripping down, wet like silver, wet like water.

I sit and listen and there is a thumping somewhere inside the body; I stop breathing so that I can hear it more clearly and the thumping gets louder and louder; it comes up the body into the throat, and then it is roaring in my ears and I let out the breath in a long
whoosh
and put a hand on the throat where the thumping was loudest, and there it still is, throbbing through the skin of the neck. I sit there for a long time with a hand on the throat feeling and listening to the thump and throb.

Then I take the hand away and sit just watching it as it opens and closes; I watch the knuckles come up white through the skin as the hand clenches and disappear again as it unclenches; I see red crescent moons where the fingernails have pressed into the skin of the palm. I lift the other hand and put its fingers into the palm, on to the red crescent moons and I stroke them slowly, like I remember the man passing his fingers through my hair. The skin of the palm is warm and soft and moist with sweat. The back of the hand is smoother and cooler; I can feel the bones and the veins through the skin and as I press a finger down on the vein the blood stops flowing and after a while there is a bump and a throbbing, until I take the finger away again and the blood can go on flowing. I follow the line of the vein until it disappears into the crook of the elbow. There is a thin red line on the inside of the arm that is covered by a scab, it makes a rasping sound as I pass a finger over it; and there are thin needles of pain as I pick it off.

The inside of the other arm is very soft and on the outside there are hairs, but very soft and dark, not hard and yellow like the hairs on the arm of my mother's brother who is my uncle. I stroke the hairs, down and down and down like I once remember stroking a cat on the threshold of the great hall in the sunshine.

There is sunshine now, Arganhell, on your waters that glint and gleam like silver; and on the arm of the body that is my arm, Arganhell. The sunshine is warm and I try to purr like the cat purred when I stroked it but there is only a croaking in my throat; perhaps I have forgotten how to purr, perhaps I can only hiss and spit now.

I move the hand up the arm and over the shoulder and on to the neck, and the other hand too; they encircle the neck and there is a pain around the throat where the croaking is; a pain all around the inside of my throat that grows tighter and tighter and I can't breathe. My hands stroke the neck and I make the croaking sound again; I remember sitting in the sunshine on the threshold of the great hall with the cat that was purring because it was happy and it liked me; and I remember that I was happy, a long time ago when I was still alive, like you are alive, Arganhell. The pain in my throat gets worse and worse and the croaking gets louder and louder and I can't breathe.

I say your name and I lie down and dip my face into your waters and drink and the cold silver water runs down my throat. There is water now in my face but salty, not sweet like your water, and it is warm not cold. And the croak in my throat turns into a roar and the body is rocking and swaying as if a big hand was holding it and shaking it; and everything hurts, Arganhell.

* * *

I think what I am doing is crying; I remember I used to cry a long time ago when I was still alive, and now I sit and cry for a long time by your waters and then I sit and watch the water stream past and then I fall asleep.

When I wake up one hand is numb and I hold it with the other; it begins to crawl like ants and I am afraid and I shake it and shake it to shake off the ants, and the crawling stops. One side of my face is hot from the sun and the other is cold from the soil and the grass that it has lain on. I lift a hand and pass it over the face; there are the shapes of blades of grass on the skin of this side of the face; the skin is cool and damp and there is a green smell on my fingers. The skin round the eyes is hot and dry and the lashes are like fine grass. The hair of the eyebrows is smooth and dry under my fingertips. I listen to your waters talking and mumbling and laughing and telling me stories while I sit for a long time stroking first one eyebrow and then the other, stroke, stroke, stroke.

The skin of the forehead is cold and my hand feels warm on it. The hair is still wet; I smooth my hands down it like the man did, slowly, gently, down and down and down until it is all dry. I take a strand of it in my mouth and it tastes salty and bitter and warm.

And then my feet twitch and I get up and I walk a few steps, slowly because it is so long since the body walked by itself, without being dragged or pushed. I walk a few steps away from the water and then I walk the same steps back and alongside you because I don't like not being near you, Arganhell. I have been with you for so long.

The feet are uncertain, they are clumsy and they stumble but they walk on, not as fast as your waters are flowing but they walk on.

After a long time they stop by the water's edge and my legs fold and I am crouching over you and looking into your water and there is a face looking up at me. Its lips are moving, my lips are moving, and I say,

I am Arganhell
.

Eiliwedd

Sixth century

Also known as Almedha, Aled or Eluned.

One of the many sons and daughters of King Brychan of South Wales.

She was expected to marry a certain prince of a neighbouring kingdom, but would not do so and ran away from home instead. She attempted to hide herself in rags in three villages, but was hounded out of each as a thief or a vagrant. Later, plagues from heaven were visited upon all three villages. Eiliwedd finally convinced the lord of a manor near the town of Brecon to let her stay as a hermit in a simple hut on his estate and give her alms to live on. But the prince (or, in other versions of the legend, her father) finally found Eiliwedd, and when she refused to come back with him he beheaded her. A spring is said to have welled up at the spot where she was murdered.

I knew her.

I used to know her. When she was still alive.

The sound of her footsteps follows me wherever I go.

They feed me well, the people in the
llys
, god knows why. She sometimes said that.
God knows why.
Perhaps her god does know.