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| ISBN-13: | 9781854116123 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Seren |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 220 |
| File size: | 649 KB |
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A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees
By Clare Dudman
Poetry Wales Press Ltd
Copyright © 2010 Clare DudmanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85411-612-3
CHAPTER 1
Patagonia 1865
It is as if the land is coming on them in the dark, as if they are not moving, as if the sea is bringing it close: great cliffs each side, and in the distance the grinning crescent of a beach. At last, after all these weeks.
Everyone is on deck, the strange half-light illuminating their pale, silent faces. It is difficult to see, difficult to tell who is who. A single figure divides into two and then three: a slight ginger-haired man and his wider wife, then a child at their feet: Silas and Megan James and their child Myfanwy.
'I can't stand still,' he says and squeezes her shoulder slightly, but she keeps looking at the land. 'It's been so long,' she says, 'if we stop watching maybe it will go.'
That's what things do if you don't watch them.
There is a mewling from the shawl wrapped around her and Silas pats the warm small globe of material. Mine, he thinks, and allows a warm current of satisfaction to rise through his body.
He looks again at the land and then at the people watching. The light is gaining strength, dispelling shadows. He smiles. Everyone is dressed to the nines. Sunday jackets, and Sunday frocks, clean clothes on the children. Who are they expecting to impress? The Indians? Indians. The thought makes him shiver. Heathen and vicious according to some, given to marauding new settlements and carrying off the women and children. Will they be lined up on the shore ready to greet them? He peers out into the gloom, but still there is neither sight nor sound of life.
He is startled by a tug at his trousers. 'Dadda?' He reaches down and allows the soft small plump hand to close around his own. She is hopping up and down, restless and impatient.
'Calm, child.' They'll pay for this excitement later with her tears and protests. With his other hand he smoothes her head and feels the small springs of her curls bounce against his fingers – a shade halfway between his thin strands of vibrant orange and her mother's brown.
'Dadda, what are you looking at? Can I see?' Her small quacking voice. Her hand tugging at his own like the string on a kite in the wind, but he doesn't feel, doesn't hear. All he can think about is the land – how it will feel to have something solid beneath his feet, to hear the sound of wind through the branches of trees, and to taste fresh food again – fruit, a few leaves and meat without salt. There are other thoughts too – shadows and wisps of something dark that he pushes away before they gather substance in his mind. Not yet, he thinks. Later, when there's time. Then he will let it take hold, let it do its damnedest and hurt. But not yet.
For now there is just what lies in front of them. Land. He shuts his eyes, leans against the railing, and tries to remember how it will smell: the aromatic tang of crushed leaves, the barn-like fog of hay and cut grass, the damp mouldy smell of the forest floor ... the rich stench of a prize sow's muddy boudoir. Trotters churning up the cach. He smiles. Yes, just now, he longs even for that.
He opens his eyes again and peers forward. It is still hard to see. There is a great bank of cloud covering the sun and everything is grey. The shore seems lighter than he'd expect and there's something strange about the flatness.
'Dadda?'
He looks down at her and she tugs again at his trousers. Her voice, when it comes this time, is complaining and threatening tears. 'Why won't you lift me up? I want to see.'
The weight of her always surprises him. She clenches her knees at his waist and hooks her arm around his neck and then squeals as the sun comes out. 'Look Dadda! Yellow!'
The sudden sight of it winds him like a blow to the stomach. Behind the white beach the land is almost as pale, and is bordered by cliffs that look as if they have been painted there by a madman's brush – jarring oranges and more yellow. Even though the sunlight is weak the land ahead is glowing. Something grips his lungs, squeezes them tight. No trees. No grass. Too yellow, too bright. He closes his eyes and opens them again but the brightness stays. It is unreal, untrue, a brash, feverish dream.
'Dadda!' Myfanwy wails, 'stop it. Let go. You're hurting me.'
Her voice brings him back. Something real. He is holding her too tight, crushing her to him. He releases her and then carefully draws her head towards him so he can feel her burning cheek with his own, then, still looking at the land, turns his head slightly to kiss her. Sorry. Oh Myfanwy, cariad, cariad. Still holding her to him he squints ahead, trying to see something of promise. Not a single tree. Not a single patch of grass. Some off-white patches which could be tents, and a brown hulk of a wreck protruding from the water ahead of them. Apart from that, just yellow cliffs pitted with holes, too shallow to be called caves, and a few scraps of vegetation: dead-looking bushes and something that looks like it could perhaps be a bramble.
'This can't be the place,' he says. 'Soon someone will realise. That drunk of a captain has made a mistake.'
Megan gives no sign that she's heard. She's glaring at the land as if she's waiting for it to change into something else. As the sun climbs everything is becoming clearer and more vivid. A flock of birds erupt from a cliff with a couple of loud calls, and then settle again almost immediately. 'Seagulls!' she says, and grips onto his arm.
CHAPTER 2It is the 27th July 1865, midwinter. The sun rises timorously from the South Atlantic to no great height then slumps back down towards the desert of Patagonia. The day is cold and clear. Somewhere near the beach, which so far has no name but one day soon will be called Port Madryn, a cannon fires and causes some of the children to cry. At noon a keen-eyed child claims to spot a flag billowing on a pole – green on the bottom, white above with a faint indication of red in the middle; the red dragon, the child says, turning around to catch any approbation – and shortly afterwards a schooner appears in the bay from the north.
'That's his,' says the first mate, who seems to have the eyes of an eagle. 'Mr Lloyd's. I reckon I can see him on deck. He'll have brought some fresh supplies down here from Buenos Aires.'
The Mimosa's dinghy is launched, and Silas follows it across the bay. It merges with the sea and then re-emerges again, disappears and appears then seems to disappear for good. His eyes are weaker than the mate's. If he squeezes his eyelids together hard he can just pick out the schooner – a small brown smudge against the cliffs of the Península Valdés they passed yesterday.
Silas shakes his head slightly. They're wrong. A whalers' schooner, that's all it is. Silas has heard how they come after the whales, Right Whales, the ones that are easy to catch. Just the week before they thought they'd come across one of these ships, and for a while it had been comforting to think they had some fellow humans this far down in the South Atlantic. It had been days since they'd seen another ship. But when they came closer the 'steam' from funnels turned out to be the V-shaped fountains of whales exhaling as they reached the surface.
As Silas watches, the smudge across the bay seems to lengthen slightly and then divide into two. He blinks. A slightly smaller smudge and then something that moves steadily back towards them: the Mimosa's dinghy.
'Yes, it's him, I'm sure of it – Edwyn Lloyd! The man himself – coming over here to see us!' Silas turns to find his brother-in-law, Jacob, at his shoulder: a great fat moon of a face and a pair of stupidly adoring eyes. He grabs his sister's shoulders. 'At last you'll meet him, Meg!'
No. Silas shakes his head slightly. That isn't Edwyn Lloyd and this is not Patagonia.
But the dinghy is coming closer and Jacob's grin is broadening. Even Silas can see that there are three heads now, and the blackness of a beard and a hat on the one at the front. Silas has never met Edwyn Lloyd before but he's seen pictures in the papers, and this is how he is always dressed: tall black hat, striped waistcoat and chain. Stylish, slightly rakish. Explorer, adventurer, but also a man about town, proprietor of the press at Caernarvon, a friend of the Welsh gentry, of Gabriel Thomas and the rest of the emigration committee. He is thinner than his photographs, quite gaunt in fact, and fairly tall. Silas feels the muscles in his back clench, as though he is bracing himself.
'Edwyn!' Jacob calls out, as soon as the people in the dinghy are in earshot.
'Brawd! It is so good to see you.' Jacob leans over the side and half-pulls the man up the rope ladder, and, as soon as he has two feet on deck, engulfs him in a hug.
Silas watches Edwyn's two long, elegant hands on Jacob's back. The fingernails are clean and neatly trimmed and there are small, thick black hairs in two clumps along each finger. Then they catch hold of Jacob's arms and push him firmly away. When the two men are a foot apart they look at each other; Jacob's broad slack smile is answered by a sudden flash of teeth.
'At last! All of you, here! It's been so long. I was beginning to think the day would never come!'
'With the help of our dear Lord.'
Edwyn's smile is extinguished. 'Indeed, brawd, indeed.' He touches Jacob's arms again, then turns and leaps up the few steps to the quarterdeck.
'Fy ffrindiau ...'
My friends. Silas blinks – did he imagine that slight catch in the voice? Silas takes a couple of steps forward, but the man's face is hidden beneath the shadow of his hat.
Edwyn swallows briefly and then continues: 'Fy ffrindiau, I am so glad to see you here at last.' Beneath the shadow of his hat Silas can just make out a pair of intense blue eyes moving slowly from face to face. 'Welcome to America, and welcome to the start of a grand adventure ...'
'Dadda, I'm cold.' Myfanwy hugs his legs and he draws her to him. It won't be long now. In a minute Edwyn will have to break it to them that they have come too far south. They need to go back, he'll say, he's very sorry but that's how it is. They'll have to follow him back up the coast, where it is more like Wales and the vegetation is more lush and the air is warmer. Silas reaches out and grabs Megan's hand. She squeezes his in return. 'We're here!' she whispers loudly. 'Everything's going to be better now.' He opens his mouth to whisper back but Jacob hushes him.
Edwyn is leaning forward now as if he is sharing a secret with the women immediately in front of him. 'Ffrindiau, ffrindiau. I know you have suffered. I know what you have endured: a hard voyage, and before that theft, ah, so much has been stolen from us – our land, our language, our culture! But soon we shall endure no more. Soon you will see our promised land. It is there waiting for us. The land we deserve, just a few miles south. Cattle! Trees. A splendid river. And grass – oh you should see it – mile upon mile of the most verdant pasture. The best grass you can imagine, ffrindiau. Y Wladfa. Like the old Wales but better.' He smiles – a quick flame of light that is soon extinguished again – then raises himself upright and looks at the rest of them. 'Pristine, it is. Unspoilt. No one to interfere ...' he throws back his head. 'A land for the Welsh. Just think of that! A great nation with our own laws. No English landlords trying to cheat us with their taxes. No English clergy demanding that we pay their tithes. A prosperous place. A place where every Welshman helps his neighbour. No poverty. No cheating. No drunkenness or debauchery. A place where God's law shows us the way!'
'Halleluyah!'
'Halleluyah, indeed, brodyr!'
Suddenly he stops. His pale eyes – startling against the tanned darkness of his skin and the blackness of his beard – dart from one face to the next. Silas notes his hair: thick and dark and oiled, a contrast with the meagre covering of his own freckled scalp.
'Are you ready, brothers and sisters?'
There is a mumble of assent.
'I didn't hear you, brodyr. Are you ready?'
This time the rumble is louder.
'Praise the Lord!' someone says excitedly.
'And praise Edwyn Lloyd!' Jacob adds.
Edwyn shakes his head. 'No, my friends, we should praise Gabriel Thomas. Without his vision and perserverance, there would be no Y Wladfa!'
He waits for an echo of approval and nods at them all.
Silas shifts on his feet, and lifts Myfanwy to him. The child is shivering. She rests her head against his shoulder and he feels her teeth rattling against him. The wind is rising with the sun and becoming bitter. He undoes his jacket and gasps slightly as her body makes closer contact with his own. Too many words. It is too cold to stand here and listen.
'But there are others to thank too – my wife and Selwyn Williams. They've been waiting for weeks to meet you.'
'And we want to meet them too!'
He pauses. Acknowledges Jacob's shout with a nod, and then looks around at them. 'It has not been easy, friends. The Lord has tested us severely. You'll see.'
Silas tries to catch Megan's eye. It is time they got out of this wind. But Megan doesn't notice him. She is looking at Edwyn with the same expression as all the other women: something close to adulation. He tuts, and as Edwyn Lloyd begins to speak again, looks again towards the coast. No grass. No trees. Nothing. But it's as if only he can see it.
CHAPTER 3The young men are eager to disembark. They go with Edwyn Lloyd in the small boat and row to the shore. Silas expects they kiss the land, imagines they dive from the boat and race each other to get there first. That is what he would do, if he were younger, or if he were unattached like Jacob, but as it is he has to wait until the next day. He has to help Megan and his two infant daughters to pack, and he has to listen to the wails of another mother who has lost her child in the night. The sound makes him gag on his morning biscuit and clutch Myfanwy so closely to him that she grumbles to be free.
'I want to play.'
He shakes his head fiercely and draws her closer. Stay.
'I want to go.'
'You can't.'
'Why not, Dadda?'
He mustn't cry. Not yet. Not now. Not any more.
The other women cry too but Megan is quiet. It is as if she can withdraw her mind. Nothing flickers in her face. He watches her as she packs carefully, folding each item of clothing into the smallest possible space. She pauses over nothing. She makes no sound, looks impassively around her, checking to see that nothing of their life here remains – as strong and silent as a stone.
The sea is gentle in this inlet, almost like a lake, and it takes just a few moments for Silas' oars to fall into rhythm, sliding into the water in time with the first mate's. If he shuts his eyes he could be back on the Conwy estuary again with its smell of salt and seaweed and the cry of birds. Just ahead would be the small house where there seems always to be a bright patchwork of washing spread to dry on the gorse of the surrounding headland. But here there are just cliffs, and behind him, the beach. He keeps twisting in his seat to look; a flat land coming closer, a haze of brown vegetation turning into small stunted trees and bushes. A strong wind blows from the land into his face, becoming colder and drier with every stroke of the oars. A persistent wind; it has not let up since they've anchored here. He shivers and checks that Myfanwy and Gwyneth are huddled into their mother. Megan is looking ahead, her eyes sometimes darting to his, and then back again at the coast, a grimace fixed onto her face by the wind.
'Nearly there now,' he says, not expecting a reply, 'nearly on land.'
Winter. Maybe that's all it is. Everything looks dead in the winter. In the spring there will be leaves, flowers, grass. He tries to hold onto the thought and believe it.
The oar slips into the sea, drags at the water and then emerges again. They are in time with the waves crashing and then dragging at the beach.
Browner. Colder. Beside him, Megan's head swivels. Everything is clear now. Every detail. Yellow patches of cliff become pockets of dead gorse and weeds like bramble, and in between them the ground is bare, sandy, infertile. This is more than winter. It is as if something has killed everything. As if there's been a plague. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. Nothing lives.
Megan's eyes widen. 'Silas ...?' She says. 'Silas?'
Nothing but banks of mud, pale cliffs. Sea.
He reaches for her hand.
'Silas ...?' It's as if she's come alive. As if she suddenly sees.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees by Clare Dudman. Copyright © 2010 Clare Dudman. Excerpted by permission of Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
A PLACE OF MEADOWS AND TALL TREES,Glossary of Welsh-English Terms,
Glossary of Tehuelche-English Terms,
Author's Note,
Acknowledgements,