The Buttons at Rill

Nessa Vale:

“My grandmother crossed Rill Causeway every Sunday, whether she had business on the other side or not. She wore her brown coat and carried a blue biscuit tin under one arm.

“The toll had been abolished before I was born. The little stone booth remained because nobody wanted the expense of removing it. Nettles grew through the floor. The drawer still opened, though. Grandmother would take one button from the tin, place it inside, and push it shut.

“She said our family owed the crossing.

“I thought she meant money. Her aunt had kept the tollhouse and sometimes let relatives pass for nothing. There were stories of a clerk coming from the district office with a notebook, but nothing came of it. The council sent Grandmother a letter saying no debt existed. She used it to line the canary’s cage.”

Perrin Vale:

“It was not every Sunday. It was whenever the river smelled of iron.

“You could smell it from our orchard, especially before rain. Grandmother would stop whatever she was doing and fetch the tin. Once she left bread rising on the table. I went with her that time.

“She never put the button in the drawer. She dropped it through the old coin slot. I heard it strike something far below, though the booth stood on solid stone.

“I asked what happened when the tin was empty.

“She looked surprised.

‘Then we begin on our clothes.’

“That frightened me, but Grandmother laughed and gave me a boiled sweet. She was not a solemn woman.”

Nessa Vale:

“The tin was half full when she died. Bone buttons, horn, pearl, little wooden toggles from children’s shirts. We put it in the pantry and left it there.

“Then came the red rain.

“The river rose over the lower orchards by noon. At dusk, the lamps across Rill went out. Three families were stranded there, including Perrin’s wife and their baby. The constable said the causeway stones had shifted. He tied a rope across the road and told us to wait.”

Perrin Vale:

“There was no road by then. Nessa will not say that because she walked over it.

“I went to the tollhouse with Grandmother’s tin. The coin slot was shining inside. Not reflecting anything, just pale, like the belly of a fish.

“I poured in every button.

“They did not fall. They went forward.”

Nessa Vale:

“He means they appeared on the flooded road. A white row, two abreast, just beneath the water. I recognized the red glass button from my school dress. Beside it was the brass one Father wore on his wedding waistcoat.

“The constable said they were bubbles.”

Perrin Vale:

“Bubbles do not have thread in them.

“We followed the row. The water reached my knees, then my waist, but it did not push. Halfway across, I looked down and saw that each button was fastened to cloth.

“Not scraps. Clothes.

“Grandmother’s brown coat was under the water, stretched the whole length of the causeway. The sleeves reached from bank to bank. The buttons held it closed, and we were walking along the seam.”

Nessa Vale:

“I saw stones. I insist on that.

“But I also remember the smell of Grandmother’s coat when rain got into the wool. I remember feeling warm around the ankles.”

Perrin Vale:

“We brought everyone back. Even the baby slept through it.

“By morning the river had dropped. The causeway was exactly where it had always been. The toll drawer stood open, and the biscuit tin was inside, dry and full.

“Not with our buttons.

“These were larger, most of them, and made from things I could not name. One was thin as onion skin. One was warm. Nessa wanted to throw them away.”

Nessa Vale:

“I wanted to count them.”

Perrin Vale:

“We do not count what is owed.”

Mara Vale, Perrin’s daughter:

“They still disagree about the coat. I have it upstairs. It fits nobody in the family, and it has no seams.

“Each Sunday I carry the tin to Rill. The council replaced the booth with a steel box for emergency telephones, but there is a narrow slot in the back.

“Sometimes the river smells of iron. Sometimes it does not.

“I pay anyway.”