Elizabeth Cox is an Irish writer living in England. She’s written for the Westmeath Examiner, and had a regular column for KCWLondon where she wrote about children’s creations in the context of contemporary art. A graduate of NUI Galway’s MA in Writing, her fiction has been published in Allium, A Journal of Poetry and Prose.

Weaving

The woman in the shawl pulled at the reeds in her hand, folding one green wickering length over another, and then again, turning it in her hand each time, first to face east, then south and west, to where the fire was set, then north until it had turned full circle and four more reeds were woven in. She liked this repetition, her hands under strict orders and following along by rote. It freed her mind so that it may wander, and she, a simple woman in the corner, occupied by her task, was too busy to be listening, to be sculpting anything more than the dried reeds she plucked from the floor. The other women in the room seemed not to notice her – one finding the tea leaves, the other making a great production of warming the pot, then drying its bulbous body. Only, it was the second, older woman’s stubby fingers that betrayed her: fidgeting as if they knew they were being watched.

            “So good of you to visit,” the younger woman said, walking in from the front hall where the squat pantry was, a gold-patterned box in her hand. She pushed her mother aside without seeming to, and opened the box with a twist, the flourish of citrus and cedar scenting the air. Agnes, the mother, looked askance at the visitor, and moved towards the shelves where the cups were kept. The woman in the shawl with weaves like lace met her eye briefly, and Agnes sat down, thick fingers and calves crossed over one another, a child waiting to be told off.

            “Ah, not a problem, sure I was passing and I remembered hearing that you hadn’t been to Sylvia’s for a turn of the moon or two. I hoped that meant there might be something rich to sample here.”

            The young woman, Cassie, smiled into the pot as she felt its warmth, holding it on either side and swoosh swooshing the dry leaves within, letting them flavour the ceramic, the air, as they waited.

            “Good to know that the world watches out for poor women such as ourselves.”

            “Oh, it does,” said the woman in the shawl, pulling the reeds so the gaps closed between them, “It always has.”

            Agnes nearly started at that, holding herself on the horse-hair stuffed chair with effort. The movement of her head, though, did not escape the woman in the shawl, who watched how the head turned towards Cassie and quickly away to the front door, before settling on the floor, covered in browning reeds and mud-stained straw. The shape of the young woman’s mouth changed, her teeth near to grinding.

            “How is the flooding in the south field?” the woman in the shawl asked the reeds gathered in her lap.

            “Flooding?” said Agnes, “There’s no flooding, is there Cas?”

             “I… I’ve not been there for a few… I’ll go there today, before dusk, I promise,” said Cassie firmly to the woman in the shawl, bowing to present her with a cup of tea paled by milk.

            “We’ve no báinne yet from cows, not been able to make it to the market – well, you know,” Agnes said all in a rush as the woman in the shawl raised the cup to her lips.                 Only, she did not sip. Hovering, she seemed just to take in its smell, her lips moving in a form of incantation to cool it. Agnes sat quietly then, watching Cassie more than the woman, forgetting then remembering her own tea, bringing it close before thinking better of its heat and perching it once more on the worn kitchen table.

            “There’ll be time enough to check the south field tomorrow. By dawn or dusk the midges will get you, no point making their time easier by presenting your haunches.”

            At any other time, with any other guest, Agnes would have chittered on about the devil of a time she had with midges, how they seemed to explode poor Cassie’s skin as a babe, but how they’d figured upon a solution of ewe’s milk and linen, and Cassie would sit smiling and, depending on the guest, mention how the best solution had been a cup of tea by the fire, rather than rose-tinged walks by the lake, the acceptable way to let their guest know the truth of any rumours. Instead, the three woman listened to the fall of the ash in the grate and the cooling of the tea by their side. The woman in the shawl turned her reeds once more, and once again, pulling the hollow hides flush, the pattern too intricate yet to be recognised.

            Cassie dared her mother to break the silence, to ask after some relative she had seen more recently than the old woman, to bring up the planting, or the fierce winds, or the likelihood of getting out to fish in the common boats while no few families were still waiting for the cured planks and rivets to make their own. She dared it the way she dared herself on the edge of the lake under the mountain, the days it rose waves only as she had heard the sea could, dare it as she dared the flame as she dipped her finger into wax, dared it as she dared her footing as she walked the mountain cliff. To see it all destroyed, utter devastation, the very worst that could occur, and all of everything torn from her control.

            But she knew her mother would not, just as she knew she would not lie down by the lake edge and let its inky depths take her, as she knew the layer of wax would be what protected her from burning and some greater force kept her feet from skidding on the scree. She knew her mother would sit silent, letting the woman in the shawl pick and pull out the moment as it needed to happen, protecting them with her knowledge as clearly as she exposed them. Her mother was smarter than either of them allowed, though no wonder, knowing the daughter she raised. The old woman stood with slowness.

            “Come, Cassie. Show me that old well that’s stopped drawing.”

            Agnes was grateful to be alone, though the sun had started down before she roused herself from the seat by the kitchen table and tidied away the cups. There were still the potatoes to put on and the butter to churn. She reset the cushions and took up some of the scraps from entering and exiting the two roomed cottage – leaves, twigs caught on stout shoes, the reeds the woman on the shawl had occupied herself with while herself and Cassie gathered their wits. Some of the heat had gone from the fire, though no wonder they didn’t notice, with the calm turn the weather had taken. Agnes kneeled by the range, clods of turf and the last of the dry beech along with the flotsam gathered beside her to give a boost and boil the water before Cassie returned. She had no need of the metal bucket and scoop, so scant was the ash that had fallen, though usually that was the biggest job at this stage in the day.

            Before she closed the door, she held up the piece the woman had woven, admiring how much was managed from so little. Almost without seeming to, she tossed it in the fire, though the reeds were suddenly too green to give heat to the room. Agnes knew the woman in the shawl wouldn’t be back.