Story Song - A NEW story by Annie Whitehead

In 2019, Annie wrote a short story called 'Frozen' - which was reposted here yesterday. Many kind commenters said they wanted to know more about these characters, so here’s the sequel. But can you guess the song?

The seasons do not change here. The sweet pungency of the orange blossom already fills the space between ground and rooftop, so cloying that at times I fear I will not find a clear space of air to breathe…

My maid fans me and the wafts of cool air flutter across my wet face, but the heavy air descends instantly again, pressing, drawing the sweat out of each pore in its relentless quest to make me suffer.

And suffer I must. I gave up my one true love because I thought it was the right thing to do. I sent him home to his family, to make peace with his brother while I did my father’s bidding and married his rich trading partner. My love’s message, the one saying that he could not live without me, arrived too late - why could the messenger not have ridden faster? - and I was already aboard the ship that brought me to this furnace.

When I arrived I did not understand, at first, how hot it is here. As I stepped off the ship, the warm sea breeze swirled around me like a comforting blanket. But my husband does not live by the sea, and our house is a dusty, dirty day’s ride from the coast. My eyes were sore with gritty sand thrown up by the hooves before we had even got halfway here.

I am cloistered. I must not go alone from the house, for fear of the beasts they call striped hyenas. I have never seen one, but I hear them, their ticking clicking noise followed by a throaty rasp. The servants here have warned me of a fierce giant cat, spotted, found in the desert. They, too, fierce and fearsome as they are, are prey to the hyenas and when I heard this, I felt very small indeed. Small, lonely, and broken.

I always told myself that I had made this sacrifice for the sake of my love. But was that completely true? Or was I tempted, just a little, by what my rich husband could give me? At home we ate simple fare, pulling leeks from the ground in winter, occasionally killing an old chicken for the pot, but here the food is delicately flavoured with all manner of colourful spices that heat the food and stain the cook’s fingers. The meals often come served in the pot they’ve been cooked in, a strange shaped vessel with a top that is tall, narrowing to a steam hole at the top. They say ‘tagine’, but I do not know whether this means the vessel, or the food inside. There is a green-leafed plant, a herb I think, which they call ‘kuzbara’. We never had such flavours at home. Nor did I have anyone to cook for me. I admit that on occasion I do sit back and enjoy being waited upon, even if sometimes the heat of the spices burns in my heart at night when I lie down upon my soft pillow.

Gold bangles rattle on my arms and gem-set rings sit so fat on my fingers that the digits do not meet at the tips, so splayed out are they from the jewellery. Were I at home, and preparing wool for spinning, I would have to take them off, for it would hurt to grip a carding tool. But here that is not a concern, for everything is done for me; I do not even dress myself.

Now, though, I do slip two of the rings and all of the bangles off so that I can grip a quill and rest my arm upon the writing desk. They glint in the sunlight on my little table, where I try to write these few words. How to begin? I sit back in my chair, and my dress glues itself to my skin. A channel of sweat trickles down to the small of my back. “What is it like in England now, my love? Winter will have passed - oh how I miss the snow and frost - and the buds will be forming on the blackthorn trees by the river. Tight tiny balls of white will unfurl soon until the pathway is flanked by swathes of foamy blossom. Soon there’ll be cuckooflowers and the first bumble bees will appear. In amongst the trees on the edge of the meadow wood sorrel will be coming into flower as the earth warms up again. Did you stay, at my cottage, the place where we first found each other? And has anyone mended that leak in the roof?” I put down the pen, for it is slipping in my sweaty hand. No, that’s not the real reason. It is that I cannot bear to write my next question: “Are you there alone?” 

I should deserve it if my love has found someone new. But I would carry that weight in my heart forever, dragging my living carcas around, bent over before my time. I cannot ask him. Can I?

I put down the quill, turning away so that my tears will not smudge the ink. Why? I will never send the letter; how can I? My thoughts don’t need to be on a page at all, for I can never share them. This is my penance.

All I can do is take advantage of my husband’s absence to go again into his library. He does not approve of women reading, it is not common in his culture. He should not be too worried; after all, I cannot read the script in most of these volumes and I am told that they are not even read left to right, top to bottom, as I have been taught to do. There is one book here though, a little collection of verse, and though it is in Latin, I can read a little, enough to know that it speaks of love, and longing. It does not cheer me but, like a scab that invites picking, even though I know it will hurt, I need to remember; I need to remind myself, daily, what I threw away. I pick up the book, and make my way to the seat by the window, the better to see the tiny words. 

The noise is so loud it makes me shift in my seat. Before my bones settle, a torrent of shouted abuse rises up in the air. I move to the balcony and look out into the courtyard. My husband’s overseer is berating the poor servant who has dropped a basket full of tied bags of spice lifting it onto the cart. Some of the bags have split, and the contents mixed with the fine-grained soil. They are lucky that my husband is away in the south, and cannot see what they have done. As the servants scurry round like ants, trying to save as many of the bags as they can, and puzzle over what to do with the spilled waste, I cast a glance beyond them, to the ornamental thuya trees, which have never shed their foliage in the whole time I have been here, and think about the bare branches on the trees at home that will shortly be coming into bud. How I long to be there to see the land waking up again after its winter sleep, to witness once more the changing of the seasons. To be in England…

I turn so quickly that my dress wraps around my legs and for a moment I am hobbled. Peeling the fabric from my damp skin I go back to my room, collecting my jewellery. Down in the courtyard I ask the overseer to explain that I will, in my husband’s absence, escort this load to the coast, and ensure it is safely loaded aboard, with no further losses. Well, perhaps there will be one more loss, but I do not tell him that.

*****

Jewellery is currency, and pays for my passage and the captain’s silence. If ever I step aboard a ship again, I will spend the whole voyage on deck, not hidden in a cubby hole down below. The captain wishes to keep his lucrative deal with my husband, so none but he can know of my presence. In the dark, I vomit, and when the light shines through the opened door daily, there is a wordless exchange: a plate of food for a bowl that needs emptying. My shame is his secret, and I wonder why he keeps it, for my gold and gems were surely not enough. He tells me on the last day that he remembered me from the outward journey, recalled how I had healed his hand, cut when his whittling knife slipped. That incident had brought me only memories of the injuries my beloved had sustained when first I met him, but the captain remembered differently, recalling a sad woman’s kindness. Wrapped in silk carpets, I leave the ship the same way I boarded, and now I am here, on the edge of my father’s lands.

There is smoke coming from the cottage roof, rising into the air. I am sure there is the fragrance of hawthorn blossom floating in the breeze, too, but I almost dare not breathe.

And then I see him. He is standing in the doorway, shirt-sleeves rolled up, hair in need of a cut. His hand goes to his brow as he peers into the sunshine. He lowers it to his side; he has seen me.

We are running. He would not rush if he were not alone any more, and now nothing matters but our embrace, our kiss, our love. He says, “Why did you not write to say you were coming home?”

I remember the way the pen dragging across the page felt like it was pulling pieces of my heart out as it went. And I recall how his letter to me arrived too late to stop my journey to far-off lands. “Messages are too slow,” I tell him.

I know we must leave. My father will be furious, and my husband will search for me. But we have a moment, my love and I. A moment where I can listen to the flute-like ee-oh-lay of the woodthrush and watch the delicate orange-tip butterflies feasting on those cuckooflowers I missed so much, and know that wherever I go from now on, I will always be home.

© Annie Whitehead

Did you guess the song title?

Clifford T Ward - Home Thoughts from Abroad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsJ8iqS-Kio

And the poem he's referring to can be found here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43758/home-thoughts-from-abroad

Annie's Website

Annie is an author and historian, a member of the Royal Historical Society and of the Historical Writers’ Association.

There will be another story inspired by a song tomorrow!

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 Note: There is copyright legislation for song lyrics 

but no copyright in names, titles or ideas

StorySong graphic by @Avalongraphics 

additional images via Pixabay accreditation not required

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