The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales (11 page)

In the year 874 came the Vikings, came the Vikings who seized and burnt and destroyed. They swept north from Chichester into the Sussex weald and forest of Kingley Vale. The Saxon defenders sought sanctuary among the ancient green and mossy pathways where the Yew trees held sway, but found no respite there. The Yew could only watch and grieve as, day after night after day, the once silent groves echoed with the violence of sword and shield, shriek of iron and split bone. The inhumanity of it, the pointlessness of it, slipped weeping into the leaf and the bough of the Yew tree, turning the brown bark to purple. And the presentiment of death seeped into the berries, staining the pale, subtle fruit a vivid red.

Then the Yew understood that the cycle of things had changed. How their destiny was to stand witness, memorials to those who had fallen in order that such things should not happen again. That they must live until the lesson of harmony had been remembered. They did not wish it, they did not wish to be left behind as the rowan and the sycamore and the beech passed into different lives, different dimensions, but they accepted it was their lot because of the battles that had been fought beneath their branches. So where each warrior fell in Kingley Vale, a Yew touched the earth with long, trailing fingers and a new tree sprang up. Soon, where the bodies of the courageous slain lay, a copse of sixty Yews stood sentinel, a reminder of where the last battle had been fought and lost.

So the ancient Yews of Kingley Vale lived and lived and lived and lived, bound now to an unkind cycle of decay and rebirth and memory. Their branches grew down into the soil to form new stems. The trunks of the sixty trees rotted, but gave life within to new trees that grew and grew until they were indistinguishable from the root.

The years passed. The generations passed, the centuries passed in the endless pattern of silver springs and shimmering summers, golden autumns and hoary winters. But still men did not learn that death breeds only death. Little by little, the reputation of the Yew grew. Without wishing it, the Yew became a symbol of resurrection and hope, of wisdom. In Marden and Painswick, Clifton-upon-Teme and Iona, throughout the length and breadth of the country, the Yew became the favoured tree of the graveyard, of mourning, testament to the transience of memory and the frailty of human experience.

Twelve hundred years have passed since that first battle. Still, if you follow the path to the centre of Kingley Vale, the sixty stand untouched by sun or moon or rain. Their branches are gnarled, twisted like an old man’s knuckles, their boughs are weary. Fingers, tendrils, trail the ground, touch the earth, paddle deep around in mossy roots and stippled bark. And within and above and around the wood, dwell green woodpeckers, red kites and buzzards, deer and stag, the chalkhill blue, holly blue and brimstone butterflies, so brief.

The people of Sussex fear to walk in the oldest part of the forest. They say that, at the winter solstice, the Yew trees whisper to one another, sing sibilant song of the folly of men. And so they do. Each year, when the shimmering spirits walk, if you listen carefully you will hear the trees speak of the hopes, the stories, the delusions of men, all the words they have captured in the seams of their leaves, the run of their branches, over the previous year. The indiscretions of human beings as they have come to the grove to walk, to pray, to weep, to climb, to rest, to wish.

These Yew trees are the oldest living things in the country. They wish it was not so. They would like to slide softly away, as can the ash and the oak and the elder. But human memory is brief, stupid, unconnected. Men have not yet learnt to live side by side, like the trees of the forest. So when the white winter dawn comes once more, and the solstice is over, the Yews sigh and stretch and settle back into their ancient selves once more.

For the length of an age.

Author’s Note

This is one of four stories inspired by mythology or ancient legend. ‘Why the Yew Tree Lives So Long’ was commissioned in 2011 for a short story collection published in aid of the Woodland Trust. All proceeds raised went towards the charity which protects our woodlands.

Why Willows Weep
was the brainchild of bestselling novelist Tracy Chevalier, who edited the collection which includes stories from Richard Mabey, Rachel Billington, Blake Morrison, Joanne Harris, Philippa Gregory, Tahmima Anam, Ali Smith and Philip Hensher. Each piece was inspired by a different tree – silver birch, oak, ash, beech – and with woodcut illustrations by Leanne Shapton.

I chose the yew trees of Kingley Vale, close to where I was born and grew up in Sussex. The oldest yew forest in Europe, there are many myths and legends associated with the nature reserve, not least that the oldest of the trees sprang up at the spot where the Saxon defenders of the Sussex Weald fell trying to hold back the Viking invasion of the ninth century.

SAINTE-THÉRÈSE

Montolieu, Languedoc, south-west France
Summer 2003

Sainte-Thérèse

Still, methinks,
There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath?

Act V, Scene III,
The Winter’s Tale
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

In the blinking of an eye can the world shift. A pinprick of time that changes everything that has gone before it or will come after. Between one catch of breath and the next, the rest of forever defined by that single, solitary moment. For some it is a falling in love or a death or a song.

For Hermione, it was a saint.

They stopped in Montolieu for no better reason than Leon decided he’d had enough of the car. Even with all the windows wound down, like bitten nails, the heat had won. Parched brown fields stretched out in all directions as the road climbed higher up into the hills. Stumped plane trees, bark peeling and stained like liver spots, under which old men would play
boules
later in the day. The names of villages on signs – Alzonne, Pézens, Moussoulens – slashed through with a red line as you left the village. The occasional cluster of houses, but no sign of food or life. Nothing. Just the shimmering heat floating above the ribbon of tarmac.

As usual, Leon seemed to think it was her fault the morning hadn’t gone well. For at least half an hour he had been picking away at her, criticising her map-reading skills, her organisational skills and . . . well her, in fact. It had taken her a while to accept he actually took pleasure in putting her down, making her seem stupid. Hermione knew that friends found his behaviour embarrassing and it made them feel awkward. She despised herself for putting up with it but, after ten years of marriage, their patterns were set. She no longer had the energy to argue back.

Habit, habit, thought Hermione, shifting in her seat. The leather sucked horribly under her legs. The irony was that her biggest fault, according to Leon, was that she was such a doormat. Always letting people take advantage of her. And now she had that familiar knotted feeling in her stomach, of tight nerves and disappointment at another day gone bad.

Hermione glanced at her watch, hearing the irritation in Leon’s pointed silence. Twenty past eleven. She sighed, set her eyes on the middle distance and hoped for something to turn up, to make things go better.

The last bells of midday were clanging as they pulled into the village. Odd that a sound designed to gather people together should be so lonely, so plaintive. Montolieu looked like so many other of the pretty mountain places they’d passed through in this part of the Languedoc. Wooden shutters, opened just a crack to let in a little of the August heat. Elegant narrow stone houses that gave directly onto the street. Tubs of red geraniums on window ledges and on scrubbed stone steps. A heavy sense of stillness, a lack of hurry.

A romantic place, Hermione thought, the sort of place to discover hand in hand. She glanced at Leon, registering the beads of sweat on his upper lip and the patchwork of tiny red cuts from shaving, and sighed. Romantic with someone else, she corrected herself. Romantic in a book. She glanced at the guidebook open on her lap and saw that Montolieu was famous for its many bookshops. She opened her mouth to say something to break the silence, then stopped. Leon’s expression made it obvious anything she said would be wrong.

She closed the book and looked out of the window.

A cock-eyed sign welcomed tourists to
PARKING DE L’EGLISE
. The capital letters made her want to shout the word aloud:
L’EGLISE – THE CHURCH
. Leon was frowning, concentrating so as not to bump the wheels of his precious Xantia on the high kerb. He pulled into the nearest space, killed the engine, then tapped his fingers three times on the steering wheel, like he always did: one, two, three. Was it pride at a task accomplished? An excess of nervous energy? Relief? Hermione had never been sure.

She was conscious of him jabbing at the switches to shut the roof and windows, aware of the soft whirring of mechanisms in motion, the clunk of each window arriving in place. All very subtle. All very top-of-the-range.

Until Leon got out of the car, still without saying a word, she hadn’t thought he’d keep the sulk going. The sound of his door slamming was like a slap in the hot air. She assumed he was heading for the restaurant in the square opposite, but forced herself not to turn round in her seat to give him the satisfaction of seeing her watching.

Usually she’d feel upset, then blame herself for not averting it. But today, something inside her snapped. It was simply too hot and unfair and she couldn’t summon the energy to move or follow or call out. She had done nothing wrong. She went along with what he wanted, did her best, but it was never good enough. Today, it didn’t seem worth even trying.

She opened her door to let the air in, and sat quietly. Little by little, she started to feel better.

After fifteen minutes or so, she’d had her fill of the view and being looked at. Eyes behind net curtains. And if she stared any longer at the bizarre metal flamingos holding up the porch of the house opposite, Hermione knew she’d start laughing and would not be able to stop. In fact, she felt quite light-headed.

Finally, she glanced over to the square and saw Leon was sitting at a table, his back to the car, to her, drinking his wine and examining the menu with large look-at-me gestures. Hermione was surprised he hadn’t gone ahead and ordered his meal too. He was waiting for her, she realised, having clearly decided to forgive and forget.

The normal pattern of things would be that Hermione would make the most of it. That she would hurry over and be grateful for the chance to put things right. But whether it was the sun or the stress of the holiday taking its toll, Hermione found herself rebelling. What, precisely, was she feeling grateful for? That he wasn’t going to continue to be a pain? That he wasn’t going to carry on behaving unreasonably?

She wouldn’t do it. Not today. Today Leon could wait. Wonder where she’d got to. Perhaps even worry something might have happened to her? The thought of it made her feel powerful. She was standing up for herself. He could wait.