HOPWOODS
Outline of a story to be read at the fire-side by an ancient woman speaking to her great-grandaughters with a lisp in an obscure, if not extinct, Westcountry dialect.
"Once upon evil times squatted the Hopwood forest; great sulking sap-blooded beast! There, in the gloom behind the suburbs of Darknasty Town. Though it was thinner than a forest, it was broader than a wood; and it was secret, strange; and a hundred-fold dingy as murder!
And the Hopwood squatted, even heavier still, upon a single, weak girl. That girl's features shone for the sun in that hole in the world; for she was unique. Not only that, but she was strong as any ox too, for she was worked like an ox by monsters. But be warned: above all, in the head, was she weak!
And years pass, as years do.
And the girl grows, as girls do.
Puts on curves for the Hopwood.
(There are no boys in Hopwood).
She grows fine and paler still, and stronger still - in body. While her mind grows soft - with fair reason, as shall quickly be shown. The black-blue crows of her hair flap loose and wild about a skimpy waist, a virgin's waist; for she is virgin still. A rarity in any parts, but here. Hers then is the crux of this yarn...
A tired back has she, from tilling, drudging, smoothing and scrubbing by dim daylight on the farm of her two fathers (those father's be Hop-ogres!) and the putting of fathers to bed of a Darknasty night...
Evening time and here in her cell she sits, tinkling upon a jeweled harpsichord stolen from musicians in a troop. A royal band, in days long dead (murdered for sure). Camped they did, just the once, off the lanky town road. Camped knackered out, eating good rabbit, blowing good tunes into the horrible air. Never again to be seen or heard by umpteen faraway furious queens. The instrument preserved, minus jewels, adored each evening since throughout the Hopwood. Small ears cocked to listening, lulled to dreaming. Her fathers, too, the devils. Enjoy a nice tune, they do. Soothed are they and steered home thus at the end of a day's hard killing. To be pampered and fed and put to bed, as has been said.
But she, our girl, does not sleep so easily. Drifts alone to her closet, pretty room. A child's room still. Rocks, all soaked in gorgeous moonlight at the open window (a-pondering) then sprawled all ache upon the lowly feather bed...
And each night, the ghost of those fathers' mother (blind hag, buried long since under the potato field) pours tales into porcelain ears. Dreaded fables. Man fables. The spite of this witch, significant hoarder of men in her time, and boys and demons too, never sleeps. The hag never tires from this awful telling:
whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper.
And the virgin's eyes, wet and wide as ought, never having gazed upon a live man. Boy even. (Only her devils).
And the virgins eyes have never fell upon a lively, living man.
Lungs never filled with man-scent.
Nor mouth with man-taste.
Nor pale flesh with man-limb.
But on and on she lives, wakes, works: day, night, season, year. Works more; and plays the melody. And aches and writhes. And grows and fills...
The Hop-ogres murder, they do. Bring back trespassers in dry sacks. Make from them bread, wine, leather money bags and more to sell at Sunday market. To travelers come from a-far to goggle and hear true Hop-ogre song. Purses, buckles, stiff caps and soap holders they buy, at fair prices too. Quite the respectable business, indeed. Local celebrities, the Ogres. Tell tales, they do, of ancestors a-hunting men for the whittling; great brutes. A bad breed, banished forever to Hop-ogre mountain.
Neighbouring farmers listen with winks and nods. Tradition lives, but they never let on. Bad for business, no question.
'Our brutes be jolly brutes now.'
No place for loose tongues in Hop-ogre wood.
Bring back trinkets from market, the fathers, to daughter; her tune leading them sleepily home. No kills during harpsichord hour. Kiss their great foreheads later, she does; washes great feet. Feeds them, calms them. Drags them drunk to bed.
More and more a habit of late, slips does the girl into the tool hut behind the Big Tree: to unstitch a sack. Candle hand shaking, shadows all jumping. Rummage and poke... Through shivers she ponders some grandmother fable.
Men and boys and flesh and veils pulled aside; and oaths and promises broken.
And feel and tear and see, with a wide ghost face...
Back on the bed, shaking the room: her fathers must know. (What could they know?) Her grandmother knows. Whispering bitch.
Strange details quickly dissolve.
What did she find?
Just what did she see?
"What did I find?
"Just what did I see?"
One thing she recognised, once, deep in the ear of a freshly filled sack; a camera, zoom lenses, flashbulb and all.
"That's a camera, " says she, "zoom lenses, flash-bulb and all."
Her fathers had erred, made a mistake. This one had been journalist. No holiday twits. An investigative journalist, investigating disappearances. Himself to disappear; famously.
"I'll have that camera," says she.
Hot on this stiff trail comes a trespassing Sheriff in a black felt hat. Turned to a good use quick enough. Into two dozen cigarette cases and a bone stool, upholstered in black felt, for a flashy-eyed daughter on her eighteenth birthday.
Cracking, she is, by this time!
Then hot on that cold trail come three county rangers in green felt hats, green leotards and green jerkins. Camouflaged; but clever? Creeping busily among the low hops. All coded whispers into neat walky talkies; they spread and gain the wicked cottage. Yet warm and alive, with eyes all green, they study a farm girl they find there. They; dizzy, but not from the trek. She; dreamy in black cotton skirts. No longer alone in the world, t'would seem.
Moonrise, and this world is filled with music. Her music. Doomful lure. Melodies potent and sad.
One of the lads, advantaged in a special tree, is snared quicker than his mates. A lover of music, perhaps; but a clumsy fool for all his green finery. Falls, he does, on his head with a CRACK: while two other fools in a similar trance reach the misses' window frame.
Ah! If she would turn that dainty head,
What a pair she would find!
What a pair she would see!
But plays, she does, in the calm hour; fixed and sleepy - till she dreams (of what?). While these trespassers dream of a virgin in black...
And that's how they're found. Dreaming! By the ogres on silent return. With a SNAP of two backs she's off cooking and feeding them soup. (Does she know?) Her fathers. Eat soup and bread and tonight; and so much wine! With grins and glances, soon dreaming themselves of market profits saved. Too heavy to drag into bed.
The virgin tonight, wider awake than other nights (don't know why), takes a first drink of the hideous wine (don't know why) and comes to the porch (don't know why). Under a scoffing owl. Wry witness.
The wine, redder than other reds, causes stomach to fold and sick. She's hearing the cynical witch with her tease stories; her love and her hate stories. She's dizzy, the girl, and wanders off. Eyes big, nocturnal: under scoffing cold stars...
Seeks out the special tree, she does, her obsession to quench. But stumbles and falls before reaching the hut. All of a stretch on the frosty grass, she turns on her back. Deep shivers rising from loin to erupt in a SOB and a CRY (and a prayer, perhaps. But what would she pray?). The virgin has never yet wept, never felt the cool warmth of a tear on her cheek: but now she weeps. Long and bitter and lost to it all, she weeps. Cold moon risen high, the owl shamed silent.
Sob sob sob sob sob sob sob!
When she's empty and still and colder inside than out, she turns on her side. (To wane?)
And when she turns,
when she turns;
What does she find?
Just what does she see?
A man, she sees. A man without a sack. In one piece. A man in green. She thinks:
"Is this a man?" and she knows it. "A man in green? Do men wear green?" she looks to the feet, all scuffed, "green slippers, too?" She looks to the face. He fell on his head but he's smiling. The owl clucks, and the man stirs to suck a deep, deep, breath: grin or grimace widening.
Un-opening an eye; says he:
"I heard my wife tonight. Saw her first, then heard a love song. She wears black skirts with no frill, no stocking, no hat, no shoe, no jewel. She has no pet, no gold, no friend, no love. She speaks with herself. She lives in a house which is not her house. She slaves for monsters, but theirs is not her family. Lives life without living, she does. I heard her tonight. She'll be my wife."
And he fixes her to her place. Her place by him. She's looking at him, of course, and fixes him in his place by her. And smiles a smile. Egged on by that owl, by the cold, they close in, hold close; and closer... and sleep. Sleep long. They do not dream (what should they dream?); but awake in the dew, under a peeping-tom sun. A sun come gently to warm...
and to warn!
"Girl! girl! breakfast! eggs!"
"Girl! girl! breakfast! meat!"
Slamming of doors, thumping of fists.
"Girl!'girl! GIRL! GIRL!"
Up rise the ogres, great clogs to the floor, heads all a-
thump thump thump thump thump thump thump!
Ill-tempered ogres finish the night's wine, stale now and swallowed down to angry guts.
Still under the tree they are, the pair, the girl and her hard headed ranger. (Pretty in green, but spotted with red). She, kissing the wound and his bruises. He; her nape and shoulders. She starts up quick on the hearing of course; with a cry, and a leap of a new heart turned suddenly old.
"Flee!" says she, "flee! They'll grind you to ash! They'll smell out your blood! They'll come with their sacks!"
Rubbing his eyes and stretching his back; yet lazy and holding her skirt:
"Calm yourself, wife and mother of babes to be; we are polished bright and well prepared! I will seek out my sharp companions, for we boys are three!"
He rises now, dizzy and slow. "Go beat them their eggs and boil their meat, they'll be buried before they can eat," and he tackles that tree once again while she pleads, his death in her eyes:
"They'll find you, they're great. They'll shake you down, into a sack!" But green stockings and slippers are gone into
foliage and she must restore shredded wits, and creep, bent and shuddering, to a dim reeking kitchen...
They find her there, having turned that house twice on its head, and though they've never once touched that white flesh with a single hard mitt, she's blown to the corner by lungs. They're mad and suspicious, these guardians of innocence, and jab at the weeds in her hair. There's been men about this house (they don't say) and she's strange, and she's late - and is that wine or blood on that wetted lip? She has strength not to lead them to the man they would crumple, but no more, and faints away relieved. Expert noses to that lip, to those skirts, and its the smell of a man THEY'VE not opened. A third green twig to be found, but not for quick snapping: for he has touched the girl. Far worse, perhaps; and they will know it!
And they will know it!
If girl is as beast?
IF GIRL IS AS BEAST!
And off they stomp in search of reekable havoc. Big tongues a-flapping and a-watering, teeth a-grinding, hair a-standing and yellow-green eyes screwed to mean slits...
Disturbed from cruel dreams by the gossip of bees, she's out of her corner and squinting into the midwinter's day.
Breath held fast, listening hard. Not a sound above insect transmission and raven's fear: and her own bare feet kicking through grass on route to the special tree. A gasp from dainty lungs on the discovery: hacked, split and toppled to the ground. A search among broad leaves, limbs and sharp twigs poking holes in skirts and skin: and only the owl uncovered. Crushed silent, this creature never once seen, only heard of a night (every night in past years) and loved in its way; in her way. Cradled briefly in a rocking lap, omen of grief yet to come, perhaps.
Or perhaps not!
She's up again and running there and here, about the house, about the farm - into the wood. But no trace nor hint of that father of her babes: and its back to the likeliest place. To the hut. But only two sacks, empty, she finds outside the door; and no new guest to be met through sorting. Spirits hard, then, are lifted; but soon enough dumped as a single green slipper is found in a bag. She groans, she does, and sits on a stone. No notion. No plan in her head.
Cold sun, colder now, slipping low through all those trees; whispers into dozy ears:
"Grandmother!"
So over she drifts to the potato field. She'll find him, perhaps; or comfort in the remains of a hag. And that's what she finds, the remains of a hag - all grave earth dug away and scattered about. The witches crooked frame embarrassed; fists clenched over breast and loin as if caught unclothed. Indeed, clothes, once fine lace, grey tatters now all a-fluttering.
"Grandmother!" cries granddaughter, (but does she expect a reply?) Gets a reply: but not from the corpse. Human voices; shrill and distant, and plural. Some hoot or some shriek of will or despair. Hard to know when you've heard neither. Turning slow circles; casting evening shade over the length of one dry relative, cannot decide from whence the calling came. Stares into that hole of a flummox.
Head still turning as darkness drops.
One last time (in this tale) that harpsichord calls her back. Its playing time, though no-one about to play for.
And she never did play more strangely. Ghost music raised from a suffersome soul...
Head hung heavy and far away; drifts, she does. Frail fingers caught up in those pretty bone keys. Soul all unsettled and dying - yet hears the words,
"You never told that she was beautiful."
and turns to that man now, leaning at the window. Smiling still from the listening.
But another here, too. Not a man, and smiling, but not from the listening... But if not a man, then what? A living mirror. Its image, red headed, not black. Same white skin drawn across fine chin, fine bones, tight brow, sharp nose; but not her own nose - and lips! orange as gold fish and turned to such a welcome! Carved from such a smile!
The man's smile drops to a blush (though no-one's watching HIM).
She watches herself, framed in her own open window: and seems to know this woman. Peculiar looks upon her.
Speaks the mirror:
"I said, husband and father of our babies to be: you never told that she was beautiful." But that without changing her gaze. And his smile drops further while his new Woman, full and bright, turns on him, puzzled with frowns, and demands:
"Husband and father of my babies to be? Then, man, was it not to be me?"
Arrested by sounds at the door like moaning, like grief; she turns,
and what does she see?
Just who does she see,
all dressed in green and speckled with blood, perhaps wine, perhaps radish...
but reeking of blood?
A second women! and yet a third! One dark as a horse, one light as a fawn; and they're dripping that blood on the floorboard. But the faces, chiseled almost to their sister's image, are dull:
"We buried the hearts in the grave of that witch, their bodies too weighty to carry."
(Who's hearts?)
"Our lads we laid in the cart."
(Which lads?)
"Pried them apart for the homeward journey. They'll feel a stiff breeze under moon and stars, tonight, they won't. We must off, but shall wait till black sunrise, at the start of the lanky town road."
They're gone then, each in a tear. And the man and his bride step through the door; she, too, all in green. They too spattered with blood, though the blood is their own. He! is a bearer of more tragic news:
"They were not your fathers; the hag, not your mother's mother."
"Should I believe?" (eyes still pinned on the bride in green).
"These women, good women, OUR women, did come out of fear for our lives. Omens in visions they saw; but would not suffer them. Left our kids with their grannies, to save us."
"We saved only him."
"When they toppled my tree (the beasts!), the game was on!"
"Your tree? What game?"
And out goes she, to straighten broken feathers in a heap. Buries the bird, her bird, she does, in the hole, among blooms; with her fathers and her Gran. Aided by this orange-mouthed twin.
Sprinkle brown earth.
Speak soft words...
That's where we leave them, under strangely shifting stars; in the Hopwood: all theirs now.
And the man, when he leaves, does with a vow to return in the Spring; which he never does, but is never missed."
* include the virgin auction on market day.
