Something Inextricable by Adrienne Giacon (best novels for students TXT) 📕

His waistcoat had the cut of another man. It did not sit upon him with ease and grace. Instead it forced its way around the sides-not meeting in the middle but leaving gaps that showed his own greedy sized shirt underneath. His fingers stroked the fabric of the couch he sat upon without my invitation, like the cheek of his first born son.

“Tis very unfortunate, your circumstances ma’am.”
His Irish accent which I had once found musical now only served to confuse the words in my head. He waved the paper in front of me again-as if that would make a difference.

“Your husband was an honourable man, a good man tis true.”
His ruddy cheeks were round and hard, I had to fight the urge to thrust a rosy apple handpicked from my garden earlier that morning between his lips.
“He is with the good Lord now. God rest his soul.”

I said nothing. All words had fled. I nodded my head. What was he doing here? Could he not see I was in grief? That my heart had been torn out? I wanted to cut off my hair with a sharp rock and wail until my lungs burst, to let the pain fly free from my body. My mother in law would call that inappropriate behaviour. So I sat there with my hands folded on my lap, like I had seen the English widows do. It did not make me feel better at all.

“Now, as I said before, yer affairs are in a bit of a pickle. A few unpaid debts there ye see mam. However, I can sort it all out fer ya. Just sign this paper here and I will take care of it. Take this house of yer hands. Then all will be square see. I can sort out the affairs of your late husband’s estate just like that.”

His eyes lingered upon the paintings on the wall coveting them as his own. I sat like I had seen English widows doing, without moving. Mr Doherty eased his body off my couch, his hand lingering upon the fine weave of the fabric, reluctant to leave its comfort. He slid the paper across the table. I wanted to scream “Get off my land you snivelling pig before I slit your throat and throw you to the dogs for dinner.” Instead I rose and walked to the door.

“Thank you, you are so kind.” I said without any hint of sarcasm.
He left with the other mans waistcoat embroidered across my mind.
I held the sheet of lines in my hand.5th of something 1880? The date I presume. Though I knew numbers, I had never learnt the letters. I spent all morning looking at it. Trying to see how my life had ended up on this piece of paper. I held it to my heart but only felt the same rustling that I had at the banker’s office. There did not seem to be any substance behind it. I stood from the small wooden writing desk, closing the lid hoping to trap the paper within it, binding its message forever. The windows were crosses of white, like the ones they put on the graves. Beyond I could see the sea. The tide had gone out, farther than the fine white sand exposing the mud that lived beneath. I went outside then, walking back and forth my long skirts rustling around my boots.

Something inextricable had happened. The House still stood where it always had .It had not moved an inch. But something within it had. I stood back from the street as if I could see it with the naked eye. Naive I know, it would not be so easily revealed. Do you no longer want me to care for you? Was it something I did or didn’t do? I called to my home. I felt something stir then.

If my husband was here and knew what I was doing he would laugh at me. My neighbours? Their lips would curl with derision. Yet I knew the house was created with materials made from the earth just as the small whare my mother had been born in. It was alive I knew that. It was they who were fools not I. It was their skins that had grown too thick to feel not mine. I had rubbed my children’s skin every morning with my soft hands coated with oils from berries, as my mother had done with me- to make sure the same thing did not happen to them.

I circled around the property. Every now and then I bent to pick one of the delicate English flowers that struggled to grow in the garden and would have died except for the stubborn persistence of my husband and his family. It was proper to inspect the garden. It was not proper to be looking for ‘signs’.

I hoisted my skirt as I came around the corner, the feel of the fresh air against my bare legs made me long to rip them off. To free them from their confines. The house next door stood silent. I pulled my feet from the boots and felt the earth upon my feet. The little bumps and lumps of the earth, so subtle, unseen from above, yet beneath my feet were the caresses of the hands of my mother. I thrilled at the sensation as I walked, connected to her. I picked up the boots that had held me prisoner, careful to leave no signs of my impropriety.

“Bad luck or good luck? Perhaps we make our own luck?” Something my father would have said if had ever spoken to me. I pushed his blood within me to the side that drank cups of tea, sniffed English flowers and hid from the rays of the sun. Why did this land no longer want me here?

I stood at the far end of our garden looking for the ‘signs’. I stilled my breath and stood silent, connecting through the earth like the tree that shared my space. Allowing the sky to pass over and around and through me. Still. Silent. Being. Still and cold as a rock. I saw the ripples in the garden then; the browned leaves; a branch broken; a bald dark spot upon the grass; a place where all had died around it. Discord where there should be harmony. I moved closer.

Aha! I saw it move. Hunched over in the corner doubled up with bitterness. It’s limbs were swollen and bulbous- each joint filled with water. I do not know how I had not noticed him before. I moved closer the words my mother taught me flowing from my lips. They flew forth from my mouth and wrapped themselves around him, he was startled then. He was not as quick as they usually are. Grown complacent from his surroundings, he was trapped. The Tipua – nature spirit, turned to growl at me. I worked my toes into the ground standing tall and strong. I would not run from a ‘spirit of nature’. From the Maori God Tu the warrior, I had inherited the right to stand fast.

I bent down and inspected the Tipua carefully. The rock upon which he sat was not grey like the rocks from the seashore that scattered the cliffs below the house down to the shore. This rock was of a different kind.
“You cannot see me. The people here have no eyes or ears. Their feet no longer walk upon the earth

.” He said.
I said nothing moving to the left and to the right, observing.
“I have watched you often. In the sun with your hats and your umbrellas. Even you prefer to walk in its light rather than cower under a bush where it is dark and damp and sooo wet.”

He shivered. The rocks surface was porous and filled with many holes. This rock was from the earth-deep within and used to warmth.

I hoisted my skirts and squatted on the ground, making the signs of harmony in the dirt, tracing them with my fingers. Each line had strength and meaning. A continuous flow of patterns and shapes melted into the earth, the chant spinning forth from my lips. I felt my mother’s moko upon my chin as I watched. She always drew close at such times unlocking the wisdom from those that came before.

The Tipua’s eyes grew wide, expanding from their grey slanted shape into small boulders round and true; big as eggs. I shuffled to the left and traced my fingers again in the dirt- continuous harmonious lines and patterns. I sat back and waited. The Tipua’s grey arms unwound themselves from their bitter folds, his fingers uncurled. He reached out and stroked the rock upon which he sat like he was handling the wings of a butterfly. Slow, softly, cautiously not wanting it to disappear. I nodded my head in approval.

The rocks holes and pits were all filled with wet damp sludge. Once green leaves disintegrating into blackness. I picked up a dried curled leaf and dug at them, cleaning out each hole. Green moss had grown along its side, small insidious curls creeping up. I picked up a broken twig and scraped it off showing the colour of the rich brown soil it had been growing over.

“I can see that you have been put somewhere that you do not belong.” I said. I used my fingers then. Clawing away the dark wet blackness that was covering the rock.
“I know what it is like.” I whispered surprised by the tears that leaked out my eyes. I bent down and tugged at the rock, it moved a little. I rocked it back and forth, gently easing it out of its hole in the ground. I tilted it a little and water trickled from every crevice down the rocks face and was absorbed into the earth.

“Aaaaah”

the tipua sighed. His swollen joints reduced revealing slim firm arms. I felt the burden ease a little.I tugged at the rock some more. Then seesawed it across the ground. It moved a few inches and landed on the edge of my skirt. I pulled it out quick as a blink,