11. A POSITIVE DECISION

Janie gets to think the unthinkable...

Dawn had long since flecked the sky with its warm, orange greeting to a new day when Janie Cobweb stirred in her sleep and slowly woke up.

She knew she had dreamed in the night, but couldn’t remember what the dreams had been about. All the night-time images, adventures maybe, journeys through the wilderland of her imagination, had faded to be no more than a confused muddle of partial images and nobody people. But she knew there were things there, important things, revealing things and she knew too much about herself to be fond of what they might be.

She opened her eyes and saw him.

Now the darkness had been escorted out both indoors and out (there were window slits in the stone cottage, not big enough to let much light in but they didn’t have to be, facing east as they were and the sun being full and magnificent) and she saw him standing there as close to shadows as he could get.

Was he waiting patiently or impatiently? She didn’t really care.

“So you’re awake at last,” he said to her, the suave smoothness of his voice like a soothing balm that banished any questions she might have thought of asking, so she nodded.

“You are quite a little sleepy-head,” he continued, “but I guess you have been dreaming. Sweet dreams, no doubt, of sweetmeats, even maybe of a lover...”

That shook her.

There had been a boy back in Amblesole, one she’d glanced at several times in recent weeks and hoped to catch him glancing back. But he hadn’t. Instead he’d been caught by her courting another lass in a secret grove, but that had been expected, even by her. He was, after all, older than her, and so was the girl, but that hadn’t stopped her from wanting to harm the two of them. What right had the boy her eyes settled on ignore her and cuddle up to another girl?

It was, the villagers said, very sad when they both got crushed to death by a tree that nobody had expected to fall. Nobody, that is, except Janie Cobweb who knew that somehow she had willed it.

Did this daddy of hers know about that little incident? Little, that is, to her though not to the mourning families of the two lovers? She’d even seen what the lad had been doing to the girl, touching her privately whilst she had been groping him with an unbelievable burst of physical passion. Was it right for people to be like that? Dirty, dirty people...

They hadn’t deserved to live. Not when Janie Cobweb could have been the girl and she doing that lovely stuff, the sweetest of kisses, to him…

“I know all about it, Janie,” said her father softly, “you simply must learn to control yourself better...”

“You’re a fine one to talk!” she almost snapped back at him, “what with the things you did to my mother before I was born...”

“Only the once, Janie, only the once, because I needed a daughter,” he told her, scowling a little as though the memory meant more to him than it should have. “But you’re here now, and all is well. I waited around for you to wake up because I’m on my way.”

“You’re on your way? But we only just met!”

“A long night ago,” he nodded, “and during that night I guess you must have dreamed...”

And she had, she remembered with a flash of insight some of the things she had dreamed. She had dreamed wonderfully well, had recaptured random images from a twelve-year long past and made a kind of sense out of them.

“The Priest...” he reminded her as though he had been privy to her dreams..

She blinked. Yes, the Priest. The Priest who had always favoured the boys. He had, she had been sure, flirted with lads, even touched them when nobody was looking, little fleeting touches, like a lover might. She had ... not quite hated, but disliked … that priest. She had never known why. Maybe she had wanted him to take a moment’s notice of her and her bright eyes and fresh complexion. Anyway, she had let it be known that he did particularly wicked things to some of the boys, and that had made their parents go wild.

She had watched him being strung up on a cruel leather thong, watched him as he dangled from an oak tree, its branches swaying in a caustic breeze and him screaming his lungs out, wanting to die there and then but the wind not letting him, lifting him as if to save him, then dropping him, again and again. It had taken a long time, had that priest’s death, and he had earned every moment of it.

Being with the boys when he could have been being with Janie Cobweb. Could have been and should have been. There was never anybody at home to care for her, to tell her she was treasured. Nobody to tuck her into her cot at night and pull the crude blankets over her.

“Jed should have been there. I told him,” explained her father, “but you scared him off.”

So she had been alone, and she was being told it was her own fault. The boys had had everything. So what if she’d exaggerated a little bit? So what if the particularly wicked things were whispered words and not actual deeds? They might have been. She had seen the look in his eyes, and hated it.

“He had a woman at home,” whispered her father.

She looked up at him. “He had?” she asked, “Who had?”

“The Priest, the one with the boys. He had a wife at home, a secret wife. You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“It had to be a secret,” her father told her, “he loved the woman and she loved him, but the Pope in Rome, may the fires of hell turn his toes into cinders, hadn’t much time for love.”

“I never even guessed,” she muttered.

“His wife watched him dangle and went away. She killed herself, who wouldn’t in her position with a child in her belly and nobody to kiss goodnight to?”

“She … he was having a baby?”

“Until you meddled,” nodded her father. “But I enjoyed watching! You did a good job, Janie. I like seeing the innocents of the world suffer. It serves them right. You’re not innocent, are you? You’re a right little daughter of Hell, and no mistake. But I’m leaving you to it. I’m leaving you to your future with a word of comfort. You’ll do as I tell you, won’t you?”

She gulped and nodded. If he knew the darkest corners of her mind, and he did, he had proved it, he would know if she lied.

“You’re a good girl, Janie. A very good girl and I love you with every cherishing bit of devotion a father can feel for his daughter. I love you to Hell and back! So go forth into the world, grow up, grow a little bit older, but every time you feel like doing a this or a that, think first. Be sure you’re right because you haven’t always thought, have you?”

She shook her head. He knew too much. About her, about what she thought and about what she did. She’d have to be very careful. She’d have to learn to close her mind from him. And then, given time and honour, she’d have to do the unforgivable.

Even then even at her young age she knew the day would dawn when she’d have to kill her father.

© Peter Rogerson 18.11.17