Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame

Author:Janet Frame [Frame, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: CLASSIC FICTION
ISBN: 9781922148896
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2014-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

26

The hollow house will never be filled.

The Christmas cards are propped along the mantelpiece; the sixpenny lights like blatant outsize boiled sweets, red, gold, and berry-blue, twist and squirm on the ceiling; the concertina bells that sigh when the breeze from outside snuffs at them, are settled and specked with flies that sit close, like black millions of people on a paper world; streamers and thin paper Santas hung by the neck with spangle, loop from wall to wall of kitchen; a dying branch of pine leans tired upon the bookcase, rows of calendars hide, face to the wall, in shame, till the first of January, promising their glory of rose and lily and sea and sunset and hunted stag; the bitter sprigs of holly dig for spite through the faded wallpaper. And the hollow house will never be filled.

It is Christmas Day, three o’clock in the afternoon. Toby and Bob Withers are sprawled asleep on sofa and armchair. Amy has just finished washing the dinner dishes and putting away the remains of the roast lamb and the dark half-eaten earth of plum pudding, dropping, as she opens the door of the safe that hangs outside under the pear tree, a few scraps of meat for the cats, Fyodor and Matilda. Puss puss. Puss puss. But Fyodor and Matilda are far far too sleepy to uncurl from their breathing black and grey cloud. Everything drowses, why not we, say Fyodor and Matilda. The sun covers his face with soft white and grey paw and the few kittens of cloud uncurl yawn and curl up again. Puss puss indeed.

And O little town of Bethlehem, Come All Ye Faithful, sings the Ladies’ Choir, specially chosen, over the radio.

Amy walks to the window and looks down the path. I thought I heard someone coming, a car. I’ll give them a piece of shortbread or Christmas cake for afternoon tea. But I hope it’s not visitors. I’ll just put the cloth over the table to keep the flies away from the cake and go and have a lie-down in the front room.

She takes off her slippers, new, tartan, shaped like rowing boats, and lies down upon the bed in the front room.

Behold a virgin shall be with child

and shall bring forth a son

and they call his name Emmanuel

which being interpreted is God with us

and because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold

but he that endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

And many other texts did Amy repeat to herself, staring at the fly-specked ceiling and the dressing-table opposite with its clutter of old bills and photos and Bob’s handkerchiefs, dirty from his smoker’s cough; and Amy’s bottle of heart pills, and Bob’s liver pills; and the large green comb, like a rake, that gathered grey hair in its teeth, and was never cleaned; and then Amy’s bottom teeth that she never wore because they never fitted. And Amy with her head upon the dirty pillow-case – she has given

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