The Meadow

Beneath the sky is a gentle hill covered with wild grasses ripening at their tips, rolling out from the shadows beneath the trees and flattening into a wide meadow.  Tusks of reeds stand out from the flatlands, dry now with the heat of summer, and tiny yellow and white flowers cluster among the grasses.  There are rangy bushes of hawthorn, their flowers beginning to harden into berries, and dark gorses.

The light falls with an indiscriminate tenderness over this small landscape, the edge of its heat abated by the pools of shade welling underneath the trees at the top of the hill.  A woman is walking towards them.

She is wearing a full, grey skirt which falls down to her ankles and, despite the heat, a thick jumper.  She is, perhaps, tired, although a casual observer might not notice this;  she is moving too deliberately to be merely leisurely, and yet too slowly to be walking for the sheer pleasure of energy.  Besides, she is carrying a bundle, held in the crook of her left arm, which is weighing her down.  It seems at first to be a bundle of rags, but she is talking to it.

- Not far now, little one, she says.  Not far.  And then we'll sit down, eh?  Just for a little while.  And have a little rest.

She pauses, and readjusts her weight slightly.

- You've never seen the meadows, my little pie.  It's about time you did.

She stops again and brushes the hair out of her eyes.

- They're beautiful.  But you'll see from the top.  That's where I used to go, when I was a little girl, not that much bigger than you.  All by myself.  And I'd sit under the trees and dream...what dreams!  I always had such beautiful dreams.

It is difficult to tell how old the woman is.  She might be quite young, about twenty, or she might be fifteen years older; she has sculpted, even features and her skin is very fair.  Her long dark hair is tied loosely in a ponytail low at the back of her neck.  She is thin, too thin, and the sensuality of her mouth is almost shocking against the pallor of her face.  The most striking thing about her is her eyes; they seem ancient.  They are troubling eyes, it is hard to look in them for long without flinching, as if pain were contagious.  And then, just before you break away, it is as if a mist has swept over them, or a sense that the surface of water is broken, and the troubling depths vanish.

She brushes past a bush of may and the air around her is suddenly full of white butterflies.  She stops, delighted.

- Look, my little pie.  Aren't they pretty!

But then it is as if she remembers the baby is sleeping, and she settles him carefully on her arm, so he is not disturbed.  She keeps talking, murmuring, in the same slow hypnotic tone, but really she is speaking to herself.

- Such a long time ago.  Before you were even thought of.  It's hard to think of then.  So long ago.  He said to me, look! and up they all went, like a cloud of flowers, and we stood there, like a pair of fools, our mouths hanging open...

 She laughs, and pulls off a dying blossom from the bush and holds it to her nostrils.

- Such fools we were.  And so in love.  Everyone would laugh at us, but we didn't mind.  We were too - we were too happy -

A spasm of indescribable pain crosses over her face and then passes, leaving no trace.  She continues walking, slowly, determinedly, to the top of the hill.

- Almost I've forgotten all that.  But if it wasn't for that, you would never have been born.  How about that?  And I couldn't play with your little fingers and toes.  But it was so hard.  I didn't know it would hurt that much, and mama and grandmama running around like old hens, and all that blood.  And then, there you were, so tiny, so perfect, and your face all scrumpled up and cross.  But then I looked at you and I forgot all about my pain.  I was so amazed!

The woman stops, heavily, for a short time, squinting up at the sky.

- About one o'clock, I think.  It's taken a long time to get here.  I don't remember it being so far away.
There is a little dribble of sweat running down her forehead and she wipes it away.

- But that was a long time ago.

For a time she continues in silence.

- Maybe if he'd been there, it would have been different. Maybe he would have felt that - that - But he had to go away. He was away oh it seemed like an age. And when he came back - 

She suddenly sits down on the grass and puts the baby against her chest and whispers in his ear. 

- Oh, baby, I want to tell you so many things. So many things. So when you're a man, you'll know. Like when I was a little girl. I built a house up there, behind the trees, so I could hide. Maybe you'll do the same thing. I'd look up at the sky and I was so happy, all by myself and daydreaming. You're such a dreamer, my mother would say, you've got your own world. She'd get so angry with me! And I can tell, you're a dreamer, too. 

A cloud is passing over the sun and for a while the woman watches it.  There are some burrs on her skirt and she carefully picks them off, one by one.  Then she sighs, and slowly stands up, carefully holding her bundle.

 - We'll never get there if I sit down all day.  I just want to show you...So you'd know and remember, later.  So you won't forget -

She is suddenly surprised by a flood of tears.  She wipes them away harshly.  There is no quiver in her voice.  She begins to sing, in a low whisper, singing fast so the words bump and hurry.

- There was a man, he went mad, he jumped into a paper bag, the paper bag was too narrow, he jumped into a wheelbarrow -  a wheelbarrow -

She stops.

- When he came back, something had happened.  I was so sad he had to go away, he was so looking forward to you coming.  Though he was frightened, too, you know?  Like I was.  But when he came back  -

 She stops again.

- I wondered what he'd seen.  But it can't have been anything worse than what I've seen.  And then, I began to realise -

She stops again.  Her eyes are very dark, it is as if she cannot see anything around her.  Then she gives herself a little shake and begins to sing.

- The wheelbarrow took on fire, he jumped into a cow byre, the cow byre was too nasty, he jumped into an apple pasty, the apple pasty was too sweet, he jumped into Ne'er-do-well-Street, Ne'er-do-well Street was full of stones and he fell down and broke his bones.

She laughs again, lightly.

- Broke his bones!

But suddenly she is sad.

- It wasn't what he saw.  It must have been - something he'd done -

She pauses to collect her breath.

- How I hated him then.  He didn't understand anything about you, he didn't want to understand.  He went out all the time, he wouldn't say where, and he started drinking.  He never did before, not like that.  He said I knew nothing at all.  He hated me.  All these shadows.  I learnt to say nothing at all.

It is almost as if she is reluctant to reach her destination.  Her direction seems uncertain; she is wandering around the gorse and hawthorns, not quite in circles, always bearing towards the hill.

- I wondered what he thought when he looked at you, little pie.  Because it wasn't what I thought.  And he'd get so angry when you cried!  And you did cry, such a lot, but that wasn't your fault, was it?  But it was as if, when he looked at you, he remembered something horrible.  And I wondered more and more what he had done.  And when he was asleep, his face looked - so - so - He looked like you.  I didn't understand him any more.

She looks up at the sky and then, quickly, down at the baby, as if the sun were some kind of danger and she is checking.  It seems as if everything is all right, and she continues.

- And then, when he had to go away again, he said:  remember, I love you.  I love you more than anything.  And he was crying, he hadn't cried for a long time.  He said that, and then he went away.  And he didn't come back that time, did he, little pie?  I think he knew he wasn't coming back.  I think he wanted to die.  I hated him for that too.  How could he?  How could he?  How could he say he loved me and want to die at the same time?

The tears again, and again she brushes them away impatiently as if they do not belong to her.

- And me and mama and grandmama all by ourselves, trying to keep you clean.  It took all day, keeping you clean, there wasn't enough of anything, and trying to wash...oh baby, you are such a trouble!  Such a pretty little trouble!

Now she has reached the foot of the hill and laboriously, more certain now of her intent, she begins to climb.

- We used to come here for blackberries, every autumn.  And then we'd make big pots of blackberry jam.  All bubbling on the stove, black and sticky, and then all winter in the cupboard.  And sometimes we'd come out here and have picnics.  This was my favourite place.

The grass now is less scrubby and softer, and she bends down and picks up a smooth white stone, which she holds in her palm.

- It's like an egg.  Isn't it pretty?  I'll show you when you wake up, but you musn't put it in your mouth!  But you can hold it in your hand, if you're good.  I had a jar of these stones, if you keep them in water they shine, I kept it by my bed.

Now she has reached the trees.  She chooses the closest, an ancient oak, and sits down underneath it, with her back leaning against the trunk, looking up through the branches at the sky.  The dappled light falls over her face and for a second she seems seven years old, delighted with herself for having come so far alone.  After a short time, she begins to unwrap the baby.  He is very still, and she is careful, as if she doesn't want to wake him.  Underneath the oddments of cloth in which he is swaddled, the baby is dressed in a white christening dress, an antique one with handmade lace.  He is very small, perhaps three months old.  But he does not move, not even with the gentle motions of sleep, he is too stiff for that.  His hands and face, in the white lace, look as if they are made of a blueish wax.  His eyes are shut and his face has no fat on it at all.  All the contours of his skull are visible, his cheekbones and his small jaws and the wavery dark lines between the plates of bone, and the skin is sunken over the fontanelle.  She is singing to him, almost inaudibly, a lullabye.  Then, when she has unswaddled him, she holds him up and shows him the meadow.

She is very careful not to look the other way, over the hill, where there is no more meadow.  Off in the distance, there are men in green and brown uniforms holding guns and, further off, the muffled crump of shells falling on the town she has left behind her, sounds like a giant walking, far off in the distance.  But she is not thinking of that.  She has come this far, and she is not thinking of that.  Instead, she holds up her baby and shows him the meadow of her childhood, as if its beauty were some kind of answer.