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SHAPES: A Retelling of “Tam Lin”
Elizabeth Avery
The complex is beautiful. It’s one of the largest in downtown Portsmouth, and if you ask most people, it’s one of the finest, too. The shrubs out front are neatly trimmed, if a bit squat. The ramp is neatly swept, silvery concrete. A wooden swing hangs from the willow that leans against the East window. The bricks on the first level are so clean, they shine.
There is someone outside the door—a tall young man, clean-pressed, a bowler hat shading his face. In his three-piece suit he comes from another time. He doesn’t fit in with the modern Portsmouth morning, the joggers sliding past him in their neon poly blends.
One woman—not a jogger to judge by the chain-smoke cloud that follows her—breaks from the pedestrian flow. She sidles up to him, already sure what he wants.
“Randall Carter keeps a wonderful complex,” she says, by way of introduction. “It’s such a shame, really.” The young man looks like he’s about to ask a question. When the woman continues, however, he turns toward her, readjusting his well-pressed shoulders.
“The complex can hold more than half a dozen families, all comfortable and well. The economy being what it is, though—we don’t say ‘recession’ around here” (she smiles at him, conspiring) “there are only two families living there. Three, you know, if you count the MacPhaes, but who can tell if they’re ever coming back... And then there’s Randall himself, and his little daughter. Janet—not so little now, really. Star of the basketball team, you know, or she will be once that Parry girl graduates.” The woman wrinkles her nose, pulls a crinkled packet from her coat pocket. She draws out a limp cigarette, like a snail pulled from its shell. She takes a drag. When she exhales, she blows her smoke at an angle. “Janet’s a good egg, if a bit flighty. And with her father in such a condition, who can blame her, you know?” She peers at the young man as if he does.
The woman makes a clucking sound, a concerned matriarch in a daytime soap. “Whether you count two or three families in the Carter complex, it’s a lot of work to keep it. And Randall can only do so much in his wheelchair, of course.” The woman gives the young man a knowing look, the look two people with working legs sometimes give each other when they’re in a mood for pity.
She stares up. The young man follows her gaze. He absorbs the gradation of filth, from the scrubbed-earth red of the lowest bricks, to the dinge on the third floor windows, up and up to the top. Seven floors. The top is nearly black, and it blends into the sky. The roof bends in the wind, or seems to. There is a spindly outline in a window, like some dying, exotic plant. Things move, and do not move.
The young man says he’s not looking for an apartment.
The woman nods. “What are you looking for?” she asks. The young man is silent.
The woman huffs, and resumes her stroll down the morning street. As she waggles around the corner, the young man isn’t watching her. He stares up at the roof, trying to discern an edge. He stares for some long moments. Then he turns away, his shoulders square with a decision made.
He begins to whistle, an ice-cream truck tune, a too-happy tune, and he, too, makes his way down the street.
...
Janet watched them from inside. She had her legs tucked against her, and she leaned against the third-story window. The window-seat cushion was too thin.
She shifted, let her feet rest on the floor. But she could feel her belly too much, then. She quickly pulled her legs back up. There was life inside her, but she didn’t have to face it yet.
If Tam were here, things would get better. Janet thunked the crown of her head against the wall.
“Ow,” she said. She scruffed her hands through her yellow hair. She stared out at the street again. The man in the hat, and the old woman, were gone.
Of course they were. More likely the port would dry up than they’d get a new tenant anytime soon. No one came to Carter Complex any more.
Janet wished they still called it Carter Hall. Her dad thought that Complex sounded more modern, and maybe it would attract tenants. It had been Carter Hall until Janet’s mother died. She rubbed a spot of dust from the window. Carter Hall sounded like a palace. Carter Complex just sounded like apartments.
She sighed. She stood up. Just because she’d been up sick since four o’clock didn’t give her a reason to neglect her work.
She climbed up to the top floor first. The stairs were clean, at least.
Janet didn’t know why she bothered to keep them so; she was the only one walking them. There was a motorized lift between the first and second floors, but they couldn’t afford any more than that. Besides, Dad said the lifts were ugly. They made people uncomfortable. People don’t want reminders of things like that when they’re coming home at the end of the day.
Still, there was one who used to walk them...Janet shook her head. There was no one left but her.
Janet took a deep breath before opening the door at the top of the stairs. There used to be a sign on the door that read “Penthouse,” but now there was only the number 7 in dirty brass. She used to avoid the penthouse because it hurt too much, but lately she’d just been avoiding the filth—so she told herself. It got dirty faster than the other floors, or so it seemed. The dust was not a presence here, but the articulation of an absence, a lack.
Janet recalled the way Tam’s mother filled any room she entered, infusing it with a heady smell of peat and incense. The woman absorbed light, and reflected it back at will. She was tall and regal, always dressed in velvet. And Tam, beside her as if leashed. Tall and quiet, his face neutral. Until Janet pulled out a smile.
No. No thinking of him now. Janet had let the filth encroach too long.
She brandished her duster. The feathers glowed neon green in the early morning half-light that barely filtered through the windows’ grime. The dust sparkled when she dislodged it, before fading into shadows.
Janet took a deep breath. She pressed a hand to her stomach’s curve. There wasn’t much give.
She could feel bile coming up, radiating in her throat. She checked the rotten-looking grandfather clock—a quarter to seven behind the cobwebs. The sun was coming in stronger now. Right on time.
Janet dashed into the greenish bathroom, throwing her duster behind her.
A cloud of dry filth spattered in the air. She made it just in time, crouched fetal over the toilet. She coughed and choked with sick. Her throat and nose burned. She knew the baby couldn’t kick yet, but there was plenty of violence inside her all the same.
When there was nothing left, she could breathe again. Janet unrolled some stale tissue and wiped her nose, rinsed her mouth with a palmful of tap water. She sat on the floor and stared up at the ornate porcelain sink, the claw-foot bathtub and mildewed shower curtain. The mirror was brassy and speckled. Is it really only two months since they left? She wondered. But she knew it was.
Janet felt tears coming in, but she shook them away. I can deal with this. Right now her father would be waking up, would be needing her. None of this was his fault. She didn’t want him worrying. She stood up, wiped the sweat from her face. She braided her hair up tight and neat. She nodded at her reflection, and the wan girl in the mirror nodded back.
She left the duster where she’d dropped it. She would clean after school. Janet ran down the stairs, successive doors banging shut behind her.
...
The young man comes around the block again. His suit is still smart and clean, no smudges on his shoes. He stops at the corner, staring at the Carter building again.
The young man is beautiful in a sweet way, a way that most young men these days try to avoid. There is a natural flush to his cheek, and color to his lips. His bowler hat casts shadows over his dark, gleaming, thick-lashed eyes.
If anyone were watching now, she would see him pull at his jacket, adjust his hat. She would see those full lips whisper something, but she would not be able to discern his words. His beauty would distract her, and no one would blame her for that.
She would be overcome by the desire to give him something. Perhaps she would tug at the ring on her finger. Perhaps she would purse her lips.
But no one watches at this moment. The young man has made sure, with several slow paces around the block, that no one is near.
He whispers something else, then, and the watcher would now grow bored. A pretty young man, certainly, but nothing to distract her from the morning’s business. She would turn away, thinking of things to be done.
And if she turns back, for one last glimpse of the beautiful youth? He is gone now. She would see nothing.
...
“Let’s hustle, Carter!” The coach’s cries swung at Janet over the basketball court. The October air chilled her lungs and made her cough.
Her legs burned. Her belly ached and boiled. Janet wheezed, desperate to keep up. Only a week ago—two weeks? Barely three... she led the pack at every practice, breaking ahead of even the seniors, her long legs rotating smoothly underneath her. But her body didn’t listen to her now.
She couldn’t manage. She jogged to the bench and collapsed on it, scuffing her knees on the peeling red paint.
“Five minutes, Coach,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I’m feeling sick. Please.” The coach harrumphed. “You’ve been sick this past week at least,” he growled, crossing his meaty arms. “If you were any other girl...” he squinted at her. “You come see me after practice if you wanna talk, Carter.” His glasses reflected sun and sky.
“Thanks,” Janet said. “I’ve just been working too hard lately. It’s my own fault.” He looked doubtful. “Seriously, Coach. I’m okay.” She smiled as wide as she could manage, feeling a painted grimace spread across her face.
The coach sighed. “You take care of yourself, Carter,” he said. He faced the team; the girls slogged by him on their fifth lap. “Parry! Hustle!” he yelled at the girl in front.
Janet still gasped for air. She hated this. She put her head between her knees and listened to the buzz of blood rushing to her head.
After a few moments she felt a tap on her shoulder. Five minutes already? She pulled her head up. Her braids lashed her back when she flopped them over her shoulder.
She had to squint through the bright sunlight to see who it was. The school nurse squinted back at her, her apple cheeks pulled into a simpering smile.
“Why don’t you come inside, dear?” she said. “This nippy weather won’t do you any good.” Janet swung a look at her coach, who tossed his cell phone from hand to hand. She rolled her eyes. She’d told him she was fine.
“Sure, Nurse Court,” she said.
She followed the nurse through the school’s beige halls. Nurse Court was so short that Janet could see clear over her, though the nurse plodded only a few steps in front.
The health office sat at the end of the third hallway. The door was low, and the room smelled like bandages and stale cotton. Janet ignored her turning stomach and eyed the window blinds warily. If Nurse Court had her figured, she didn’t want anyone to see her cry.
The nurse sat down at her plywood desk and gestured for Janet to sit in the yellowing chair opposite. Janet sat as delicately as she could.
“I’m not one to judge, Janet, dear,” said the nurse. From the softness in her eyes, Janet could almost believe her. “I know how hard this must be for you.” Nurse Court’s words sounded scripted. Janet imagined she must have said them many times over the years.
“I’ve seen this enough times to know. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” The nurse offered a box of tissues, but Janet would not, would not cry. Some of the windows were open.
The nurse continued, Janet’s face apparently having given her away. “Now don’t worry, dear. Girls today have options.” She slowly slid open a plywood drawer. There was a rustling of paper.
The nurse withdrew a glossy pamphlet. It was tan, plain. No feminine pinks to remind you of baby clothes. Portsmouth Women’s Clinic, it said. Janet stared at it. She straightened her shoulders. She could feel the joints in her back again.
She looked up at the older woman sitting across from her, and startled at the genuine fear in her eyes. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Janet, honey,” said the nurse. “I’m sure you can understand the...position this puts me in. Your decision is your own, but...” the nurse’s chins wobbled, her lip trembled. “I hope you understand.” Janet did understand. She thought of the Sisters in their black habits, judgment dangling from their rosaries. She knew the pamphlet on the desk could get Nurse Court fired, or worse.
Her voice came out flat when she spoke, but she managed to keep it from breaking.
“Thank you.”
...
There is a woman. She paces the steps, the curb. The wind cascades around her, billowing her skirts like sails. Her green eyes glitter, jewels or scales.
She, too, surveys the complex.
Her teeth snap in her smile.
...
Janet unhooked her bicycle from among the vast row by the school’s entrance. The other girls were in leggings for the ride home, but not she. She tucked her skirt up into her belt on each side. The heavy wool plaid and numerous pleats were more than enough to keep her decent, and she liked to see the nuns’ faces as she cycled past with her knees bare.
Bicycling was still comfortable, for which she was thankful. Janet rode out of the parking lot as fast as she could. Her visit with Nurse Court had kept her late, and she didn’t want her father to worry.
...
After dinner Janet climbed the steps. Her father was fed, clean, and helped into his brown chenille armchair with his Newsweek in hand. He wouldn’t want to stir for at least two hours.
Janet tried thinking in her room at first, but the pink and yellow paint she’d picked out when she was five made her feel like all her younger selves were watching. So she went from room to room, sitting briefly and starting up again. There was nowhere good to think, nowhere to make a decision. She needed to decide.
So she ran to the top floor like she used to, ignoring the cramps that popped up with her first steps. The door creaked when she opened it, moaned shut behind her. There was a clicking sound. A moment’s echo.
The dust had settled back as if she’d never been there. The afternoon sunlight dripped into the room, too thick, congealing in the windows. The glass bent and flowed, and the light buckled in the panes. The peeling paint on the walls took on an encroaching green, the color of copper rust.
Janet sat down on a brocade loveseat, settled back. The wooden armrest felt solid, smooth under the dust.
She let out a harsh breath, more air than she thought her lungs could contain. She unzipped the overfilled book bag she’d dumped on the floor. Binders, notepaper, study guides expanded inside. Janet dug through them all. There it was.
Her planner had crumpled the pamphlet under its weight, torn off a corner. Janet smoothed the paper down as best she could. She unfolded it on her lap, stared a moment without seeing.
Then she began to read. The words got past her eyes easier than she thought they would. She was not afraid.
Janet realized that she’d already made this decision. She took air in, now, even more than she’d let out before. She held it inside, let her head buzz with oxygen. She exhaled. There was a number on the back of the pamphlet, and an address.
She dug through her book bag again and found her phone. It was nearly out of power, but still held more than enough to make this call. Janet lifted her head.
And there he was. In the shadow, in the dark at the corner of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. The brim of his hat kept the light from his face.
Still, she could hear his smile when he said her name. She leapt from the couch and rushed to him, crushing him into the wall with the force of her embrace. The warmth from his body spread into hers, beating her blood and coloring her skin.
Tam pulled her back, just enough to see her face.
“What’s happened?” he asked. Janet saw a sheen of water on his cheek, a patch of wet on his suit shoulder. She touched her own face, and realized she was crying. Never in front of her father, not with Nurse Court. But here, on the seventh floor, Janet could cry.
Tam broke away a little more, keeping one arm secure around her. He looked around the room. His eyes darkened.
“How long have I been gone?” he asked. Janet swallowed. Her tears dried as quickly as they’d come. Now her eyes flashed too.
“Two months,” she said. “More than that, now. And—” she searched for the right words.
“I know,” he said. He placed a hand over her abdomen. She wanted to hand him some of this burden, but she didn’t know how.
Janet closed her eyes. She breathed in his scent of amber, wood, rivers.
It rushed her back to the last time she’d seen him. In this very room, under cover of night. His mother, her father, both sound asleep in another world. His skin pale as hers in the trickling moonlight. Even then, he seemed to flicker away from her.
And in the morning, he was gone. His mother too, and all their things. The dust thick on the place, and the windows stained and dark. Janet had gathered her clothes off the floor, confused, betrayed. A double rose lay on the spot where Tam and she had lain before. She gathered it up, too, and ran from the room as if chased.
A day had passed, two. Three. Janet couldn’t understand why they’d left, at first. And she couldn’t understand how. But she began to.
She remembered waking that morning when her head hit the floor, knocking her into consciousness. Small red marks clustered on her forearm, as if someone with a stubbled cheek had just rested there. He couldn’t have been gone long—and Janet began to imagine, as the silent days stretched into weeks, that she had woken on the exact moment of his departure. Dreams echoed in her mind; a bright and angry queen—a spiraling darkness, a forest filled with roses. Tam—calling to her—nowhere to be seen.
And now he was here. She kissed him. She let herself revel in his presence. For a moment.
“Tam.” She focused her gaze on his, thankful for their equal height. She drew power into her voice. “You have to tell me what happened. What’s happening.” Something inside her jerked. She coulbe so far along already.
Tam’s face stayed open, his eyes connected to hers. “I’ve tried to come back,” he said. “I’ve tried. This is the first time I could get away.” He slid his hands through her hair, untangling her braids in eddies and swirls. “I didn’t know how long I’d been gone. I’m so sorry, Janet.” Janet pushed him away. His hand flickered out to her cheek.
“Excuse me?” she stared him down. He flinched, but didn’t look away. “Two months is two months anywhere, Tam. Not that I even know where you went.” She scowled. He whispered something, something sweet and inaudible and delicious...no. Janet would not let him draw her back in.
“What’s that?” she demanded. Tam hung his head. His fingers trembled over his neck, buttoning and unbuttoning his collar. His nails throbbed red with bitten edges.
Janet was tired. Living alone with her father, with a secret she couldn’t tell but everyone could figure; it hurt. It hurt knowing Tam left her to bear this burden, bear this child, alone. And now she worried for him, instead of blaming him.
She let out a frustrated cry and put her arms around him again. She could hear what he was whispering now.
“She stole—I tried—she took me away—I’m so sorry—” his breath passed in quick, hot rasps over her cheek. Janet whispered back to him, cooling nonsense sounds. She led him to the loveseat’s deep green brocade, and they sat down together. He couldn’t stay still. Janet moved her hands back and forth over Tam’s shoulders as he fought to find the right words.
Finally he cleared his throat. “I don’t want to scare you,” he said—though that only made it worse, really. “I lived in Portsmouth first, you know. The place I’ve been—it’s hard to come back from. It’s been seven years since...” he trailed off again. Janet began to lose her patience.
“Tell me,” she said, gently as she could.
He nodded, resolution sifting over him, making him sit up straight. “My...mother. So long ago, she took me away.” Janet nodded. She’d heard little snatches of this before: a lonely childhood in the shadow of ever-present Mrs. MacPhae, a woman with apron strings of steel, to say the least. The two of them moving from place to place, never staying anywhere long...Janet reprimanded herself for not understanding before. Of course he was always going to leave. Or rather, Mrs. MacPhae would leave, and take Tam with her.
“Does she know you’re here?” asked Janet. Tam groaned.
“I’m certain she does,” he said. “Janet, you believe me, don’t you?” Janet didn’t know quite what it was he needed her to believe. Still, of what he’d said, she was pretty sure she believed it all. “She’s going to take me away,” said Tam. “You have to help me.” Something sparked over Janet’s shoulders like the touch of a blade. She felt taller, wider, stronger. Yes.
“Tell me what to do.”
“When she comes for me,” he said, “you can save me then.” He looked down at his raw, bitten hands. “She’ll change me. She’ll make you think I want to hurt you.”
Janet had to laugh at that for a moment—but stopped. Hadn’t he hurt her already?
“Janet.” She looked up at him again. “Just hold on to me, don’t be afraid. Don’t let me go.” He took her hands in his again. “I am your child’s father.”
Janet glanced at the pamphlet on the floor between them. It fluttered in a breeze neither of them could feel. Her hold on Tam tightened.
...
A scream of wind, a rush of enclosing darkness. The top was off the complex, and Janet could see the sky. Somewhere, it was Halloween.
There was a woman. She stood over Tam and countless others. Her presence filled the air with the thick sweetness of opium smoke.
Janet tried to remember what she needed to do. Where was Tam? She had seen him, just a moment ago, in the crowd that stood before that gaping, howling void. They were all singing—praying—maybe crying.
She plunged in, hollering his name. She heard Tam call hers back. It didn’t take long to reach him—she only followed the sound, and the coal heat emanating from that central void.
But when her hands clapped over his arms, when she pulled him in—ah! A rending of light split the air, and smoke tore into Janet’s lungs. She wheezed, sick again. Her eyes watered and burned. When she blinked them clear, she couldn’t see Tam. She held something, but it wasn’t him.
The new thing in her arms writhed, hissed, boiled. Its face contorted into a wrinkled sneer, then a mask of pain. Janet heard a woman laughing.
Fur sprouted from its throat, its hands, everywhere. Ebony claws dug through her school uniform. Janet winced in expectation of pain—but she remembered Tam’s words. Don’t be afraid. She gripped the beast tight. She stared into its face, its eyes, hoping for some acknowledgment, some promise. She saw nothing.
Still. She knew Tam was hidden somewhere in this creature, powerless perhaps, but there. She clung to the golden fur, taking comfort from its shimmering heat even as the beast clawed after her skin. And it vanished. Janet panicked, remembering her promise to hold on—then felt a slither in her hands. A crackling hiss, and she looked down to a snake clasped on her breast. It gaped its growing jaws, venom dripping in liquid splinters off its long, silver teeth. Its girth changed in her hands, from a small quick thing larger and larger, heavier, until it threatened to crush her under its muscled weight. Janet wrapped both arms around it, fighting to keep a hold on its slick, hard scales.
The woman bent over Janet, and the snake, too, disappeared. Janet felt warm human skin against hers, and choked with surprise at finding Tam again, naked in her grasp.
He tore away from her and cowered in the dark. She saw no charm in him then, no sweet beauty. Only a trembling dark-haired boy, lean and pale and plain, huddled inside his own limbs. There was no spell over his body, as there had been—she knew now—when they’d met. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. His eyes were dull, his lips cracked and white. His breath came in gurgling shudders.
Janet ran to him, covered him with her hands, her hair. She yanked off her sweater and wrapped it over him. She rubbed at the shivering bumps that covered his skin, knowing nothing but to hold him close and keep him warm.
Another scream poured through the sky, driven by voice or by wind. The woman appeared before them, elemental rivers hissing around her—fire, water, air. The earth she stood on rose to her calling, buckled beneath her.
Her gaze pressed down with physical weight, so that Janet’s shoulders slumped and the joints cracked in her spine. Janet stood, slowly, painfully, bringing her lover up with her. In an echo of her movements, Tam straightened, too. His voice returned enough for him to laugh.
The woman drew closer, wind seething around her. Lightning crackled from her fingers, the tips of her hair, her navel. She stepped forward and plunged a hand into Tam’s chest.
Janet cried out, but before she could stop anything the woman retracted, drawing with her something gory, brown, gleaming. A heart—a shell. Janet looked closer, not knowing what she hoped for. The woman wiped away a nascent slime, and Janet saw what it was—an anatomical wooden heart, or the shell of one, hollow inside. A crack ran a jagged circle through it, a splintered rift engendered at a near-invisible join. Tam clutched at the hole closing on his chest, probed and tested the blossoming pink scar tissue.
The woman pressed the wooden shell to her chest. She stared for a moment at the couple before her.
“An ill death may she die!” The woman’s voice charged and magnetized the air with all the power of an ancient god.
Her gaze shifted from Janet to Tam. Lines shimmered over her face.
“Oh,” she said, and in her tones Janet heard the rustle of innumerable fallen leaves. “Tam, I would have given you a true wooden heart, if I could. I should have known that you would break this shell.” The lightning faded from her touch. The heart, now clean and smooth, vanished.
In a river of smoke, the woman was gone.
...
They leave the clinic together, each leaning on the other. Breezes whistle around them. He strokes a hand over her flat belly. She rests a tired head on his shoulder.
Winter has come, and the first snow blankets Portsmouth. The widows’ walks are brimming with it, rendered useless, at least until spring. Cold, soft white subdues the edges on the horizon.
