The Little Death

by Sarah Till

  ‘So why did you stay with David? Was it because you were scared of him?’

  I bit my lip. I want to tell him all my secrets, everything inside me that’s never been heard.

  ‘I wanted a baby. I thought at first that if I had a baby, it would protect me. But I began to realise that I wanted a baby more than anything. I was pregnant but I lost it. Them. I lost part of me somewhere.’

  He hugs me and kisses my hair.

  ‘That wasn’t the answer though, was it? A baby won’t make you complete, because you’re complete already. You’re whole, and you haven’t lost part of you.’

  I laugh loudly

  ‘God, you sound like her.’ We both look at Sarah’s house. ‘I bet she’s got that etched on her headboard, hasn’t she?’

  He snorts.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  It’s the diplomatic answer, but I can’t help wondering why he doesn’t know? Didn’t they even get to the bedroom? I recognise the pattern, obsessing over details of other women, and stop myself before the madness starts. Before it transfers from David and Sam onto Gabriel and Sarah. He’s holding me close and stroking my face, and the wind is whistling off the moor and blowing our hair into a tangle. I’m not sure what to do next, and I stall for a while. Dare I do this? Dare I warm to him? Now I’ve seen both sides to him, seen the evidence that he’s not just an opportunist, just a predator, he’s gentler. And concerned. Dare I?

  ‘I’m not sure about this, Gabriel. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.’

  He rolls another cigarette and smiles at me. Sarah is gone now, and he stares into the distance, towards the stars.

  ‘When we’re old and grey we’ll remember tonight. Did you know that the stars we are seeing now might already be dead? The light takes so long to travel through space that everything we see in the universe is a past event.’

  ‘Even the moon?’

  I think about Polly and how she loves to look up and share the moon with Jimmy.

  ‘Even the moon, although not as much as the stars. The stars we see up in the sky already know what’s happened. My mother used to tell me that was why they were winking at us. They’ve already seen what will happen to you and me and everyone else. By the time their light reaches here.’

  I smile back, let go of him and go to my bedroom. When we’re old and grey. The stars already know. If that’s true, they must already know what’s happened to Jimmy, and to Sam and David. And if we’re all made of starlight, is that where our gut instinct comes from?

  I’m not entirely sure if I should be in Gabriel’s room, or if he’ll climb into mine and David’s big bed. I look out of the window and into the apiary. The moon, not nearly full yet, lights up the yard and I think about getting back to work, losing myself in it. This is where it all started, what get me thinking about the moor and its behaviour.

  The way bees live is complex, and not at all how we might expect from their yellow and black stereotype. It’s evening and the bees are returning, their fat legs loaded with the pollen treasure, back to the queen. The worker bees are all female, the original multitaskers, nursing and making honey, and building the comb, and the ladies are all flocking back to feed the queen now. She mates in mid-air with all her suitors, grabbing as much sperm as she can then leaving them to die with their endophallus embedded in her still. The males are needed for mating only. I always feel a little bit sorry for them, their lives over before they get to see their progeny.

  Nature’s like that though, completely unemotional. The knot I have in my stomach was in no way part of nature, it was part of the competitive world we’d spun for ourselves. And I have to get used to this world again if I want to be with someone like Gabriel. I go over it in my mind, turning it over and over. Sarah isn’t really interested in him and, although it’s not the perfect scenario, my main dilemma is if I can overlook the fact that he’s slept with her. After all, I’m in the grown-up world now, not David’s artificially sanitised universe, where he can control even my facial expressions. People do sleep with each other all the time. Don’t they?

  I notice he’s brought the things from David’s workshop into my room and stacked them behind the door. I had an answer phone message from the repairman saying he would come tomorrow to fix the door and the glass, and I’d slept through the tidying up. I wondered if Gabriel came into my bedroom to bring the pile, and sat beside me, watching me as I sleep? Or had he pulled the quilt around me to keep me warm? We didn’t even know anything about each other, not really, we’d only met the other day; I didn’t even know how many sugars he had in his tea.

  But I feel something. It’s a deep want, more than a crush, and the beginnings of caring. I wasn’t entirely sure until earlier on; maybe it was just sexual attraction duping me into thinking I liked him. After all, my ovaries tingle every time I look at him, with his dark hair and thick arms, his body lithe and fit. Even the way he walked made me turn into silly-girl giggles, as if I was back at school and a boy from two forms up had smiled at me. Back then my response would have been to snigger, then to search him out and tease him. I was like a dog with a bone, relentlessly chasing my prey, but with an innocent look on my face. Now, I needed to get my teeth into him. I needed to take him and let him know I was serious, but it’s never the right moment. I snigger a little. How could it be the right fucking moment? My life had been out of control, but now I was taking it back.

  There’s so many things I would do differently if I were to have my time over again. It goes without saying that I’d keep in touch with my parents – being a runaway isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’d not take the lap dancing job and not live in the squat. I’d run as fast as I could from David when he hurt me for the first time, when the first hint of his cruelty arose. I’d run. But then I wouldn’t have any tiny still baby pictures, remnants of my thousands of wishes, just to show me that they can come almost true.

  Gabriel telling me about the stars reminded me that there’s this scientific proposal called the Many Universe Theory, and I know about it because as well as being an aetiologist, studying cause and effect, I am a physicist. Physics isn’t all particles and formulae, some of it is quite philosophical and Many Universes is something. I really had to think about it when I first heard it. It’s all about what we don’t know, and in particular, the absence of a satisfactory theory of quantum gravity. It’s been proved that an atom can be on two places at one time, but never directly observed, which suggests that our own senses prevent us from seeing the quantum world for what it really is.

  This is because we’ve evolved our senses for best survival, and the world is quite different from what we see with our own eyes. There’s a whole hidden world out there and, if an atom can be in the same place at one time, maybe two worlds or more. In fact, if you look at it from a probability and possibility point of view, there’s a different world shooting off at every decision we take. Many worlds, many, many other worlds, where David isn’t a cruel psychopath and I have a baby. There’s one particular world I want to be in right now, Gabriel’s world. There more I think about it, the more I realise the chance I’ve got right now, tonight, if only I shake off the dull and dour prissy good-girlness I’ve wrapped myself up in and just have a little fun. Gabriel wants love and fun, and that’s what I’ll give him. I can do fun. I can do many worlds. It’s just going to take me a little time to remember how to do it.

  Hopefully it will all come rushing back, because I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He hesitates and I hold my breath, but he doesn’t continue up the hallway and goes into his own room. I’m nervous, like it’s my first time.

  I listen at the wall, he’s in the room next door and I can hear him walking around. I hear him opening a drawer and closing the wardrobe door. Finally, I hear the bed squeak as he gets in. The thought of it makes me more breathless, and I press against the wall, tense now. I’m out of the door and in a second my hand is on the door of his room. I push it open and the handle bangs against t
he wall, making more of a noise than I intend it to. He’s lying naked in bed like a giant temptation that I don’t know if I should really take. But it’s too late, I’ve chosen which world I will be in, for tonight in any case. I pull my shirt over my head and unhook my bra, throwing it to the floor. I step out of my jeans and pants and we look at each other for a while. He’s half smiling, but I’m deadly serious about this. When I don’t move, he looks uncertain.

  ‘Come on, Patti. It’s OK. I’m falling for you. I never intended to, but I am.’ I walk over and get into bed. ‘I knew as soon as I saw you. I knew. I didn’t come here for this; it was the last thing on my mind. It was just right, but I wasn’t sure you felt the same?’

  ‘Neither was I. But I do now.’ He’s soft and emotional now, his face appealing to me as much as his hardness.

  ‘There’s something about you. You’re different, amazing. Your strength. After everything you’ve been to. You do believe me, don’t you?’

  He kisses me, long and hard, and I feel slightly faint. We hold each other for a while, and I remember the bread and the hardness against my back and panic slightly at the thought of making love with him. Because for the first time in my whole life it really means something. He’s so close now I can smell his breath. It’s the sweet smell of tobacco mixed with a peppery odour. His hands are on my shoulders, his fingers in my hair. Finally he whispers in my ear.

  ‘Do you want to...? ’

  I just want tonight. And maybe the night after. And the night after that. I’m on top of him now making love to him. He holds my hips as I move in a slow rhythm, our eyes locked, and I can see the starlight inside him. He’s beautiful and I run my hands over his dark skin. Every movement is mine and I feel as if this is the very first time I’ve been close to someone, closer than just our bodies. He turns me round and enters me from behind, and thrusts wildly over and over again, until he can’t stand it anymore, and he falls on top of me.

  After a few minutes I turn over to face him.

  ‘I’ll believe you if you stick around, Gabriel.’

  He’s still out of breath and he holds me tight.

  ‘I intend to. I can’t say it enough. I do. That was so beautiful.’

  I turn away slightly.

  ‘It was for me too.’

  It was beautiful. I worry a little that I’m shaking. Another, more soothing feeling tells me that this won’t be the last time. All my worries about Sarah’s little death melt away as I feel the afterglow of a new birth. Hope and beauty. I knew it.

  We lie in the semi-darkness playing with each other’s hair, and he smells like musky ginger. It’s a peculiar smell and he tells me that it’s an organic soap he uses because he’s allergic to normal soap. I tell him that I was born with less teeth than other women, and that my front teeth are not central incisors, but lateral incisors. He tells me that he was married at eighteen and divorced at twenty-one.

  ‘Any children?’

  He laughs.

  ‘No. No children. Not yet anyway.’

  My insides feel like butterflies and I realise that my future might hold the promise of children after all. Maybe all isn’t lost.

  I tell him that I’m a feminist and a secret postmodernist.

  ‘I would have said more of a secret feminist. Your life doesn’t seem feminist at all to me.’

  He’s stroking my hair and kissing my ear as I look over his shoulder.

  ‘Yeah. I suppose that’s what it looks like. But you know, in the face of oppression, strength lies within.’

  ‘Who said that? Superman?’

  ‘Me, just now! No seriously, anyone living under the constant threat of violence will act differently, don’t you think? Out of character. I had to do what he said. He said that he’d kill me. You know.’

  Gabriel tenses now.

  ‘When exactly did he say that?’

  ‘Lots of times. Mainly when he hurt me, but he used it as a threat. He said that no one would know I was gone, and he’d bury me where no one would ever find me.’

  He’s silent and I can feel his heart beating fast.

  ‘If he comes here again, phone me. Straight away. I’ll always be near. Please. Promise me?’

  ‘I will. I’ve never told anyone that before, Gabriel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he said he’d kill me. I believed him, but when you say it out loud it sounds mad. No one would have believed me.’

  ‘I believe you.’ He kisses me hard and we hold each other. ‘I promise, I’ll be here for you.’

  ‘But we hardly know each other. You’ve slept with my friend and I’ve just thrown my psychotic partner out. It’s not exactly ideal is it?’

  His heart is still racing, and he holds me tighter.

  ‘No. No, you’re right, Patti. But how often do you feel like this? How often do you find someone who you just gel with straight away? Who you have so much in common with? We’re both free agents, I can’t see the harm in trying. I want to be with you, for tomorrow anyway. And the day after. Why do we need to look any further than that?’

  I wait a minute until his heart is beating a little slower.

  ‘You still haven’t told me your biggest secret.’

  He laughs.

  ‘What’s that? What do you want to know?’

  ‘Why you’re really here.’

  He kisses my head and doesn’t answer. We lie in the darkness and I hear the wind outside, it’s going to be stormy. The barn door is banging, but I’m not going outside now to shut it – it’s too late. He kisses me again, and for a moment I believe him. We lie together in the warmth, wrapped in a soft throw, looking out onto the moon-bathed moor. We silently watch a pair of bats ride the currents; my head nestled in the curve of his neck. Clouds pass us in the dark and I think about a time in the distant past when I wouldn’t have worried about this at all, just enjoyed the moment. I can hear a late cuckoo calling somewhere in the distance and wonder what would happen if David caught us now. Gabriel drifts off to sleep and I ease myself from underneath him, his breathing still slow and deep.

  I wait until Gabriel is breathing more evenly, and I creep back to my own bed. It’s something I have to do, a hangover from the days when I lay down with strangers, with people who didn’t care about me. Some habits die hard.

  The Symbiosis of Nature

  The natural balance of the moorland is maintained by birds and small animal, as well as bees. The birds of prey maintain the balance of the small animal community and the fox balances small birds and animals by stealing eggs and hunting. There is little senseless killing on the moor, but the motives of impostors such a jays and cuckoo bees is more complex than mere survival.

  As well a pollination, eusocial bees work hard to populate the hive. Worker bees occur in many bee species other than honey bees, but this is by far the most familiar colloquial use of the term. Worker bees work together for the benefit of the hive, creating a balanced community. Honeybee workers keep the hive temperature uniform in the critical brood area (where new bees are raised). Workers gather pollen into the pollen baskets on their back legs, to carry back to the hive where it is used as food for the developing brood. Pollen carried on their bodies may be carried to another flower where a small portion can rub off onto the pistil, resulting in cross pollination.

  Almost all of civilization's food supply depends greatly on crop pollination by honeybees, and to a lesser extent by birds and small mammals, whether directly eaten or used as forage crops for animals that produce milk and meat. The symbiosis of nature relies on the balancing of the population and the working together of species to ensure this.

  Chapter Nine

  I wake up in the middle of our huge bed, and turn my head, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. David was gone. It’s still quite dark, and I get up and look out of the window. I can see Sarah’s house from here, and her light’s already on. She comes out into the garden, wearing less than she usually does, and starts her stretch to the sun. I crane
my neck to see if Gabriel is outside, checking for thin ribbons of smoke that give him away, but he isn’t there.

  I suddenly feel bad about leaving him last night and coming to my own bed, but then scold myself. Wasn’t the whole point of this to not feel obliged, to not make rules? I don’t want to carry over the bad habits I learned with David, the suspicion and jealousy. Otherwise I really will drive myself mad. He’d wooed me, and now appealed to me to understand him. And we’d slept together. A warmth floods through me as I remember how gently he was, how caring, and how passionate. I stumble out of bed, my eyes gritty, and, for the first time in many years, I don’t avoid the creaks. I pull a sheet around me and catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. My hair’s all knotty and I look terrible. It doesn’t matter, because no one’s judging me. He’s seen me at my worst, my most stressed and upset. The moment he first set eyes on me had been just after David had hurt me, my eyes watery and red, but that didn’t put him off.

  Before my mother died, long before I ran away, she sat me down and told me the facts of life. Of course, I already knew the physical facts, the reproductive rituals were everything fits together, and what to avoid. I sat patiently, thinking about when she would stop and I could go out and drink warm cider out of a bottle with my friends Linda and Joan. She went on and on, drawing a woman’s reproductive organs, which, from my upside-down view, started to look like ET. I smiled and nodded and eventually she put the paper away.

  ‘But that’s not all, Patricia. People have sex all the time, and not just with their partners.’ I’d got a funny sensation between my legs, something I usually got if I thought about Axel Rose or Carl Gerrard at school, and I didn’t want to hear any more. But she went on. ‘It’s not really about the sex. It’s about the friendship. Well, the closeness. Of course, attraction matters, for the first year, at least, then you need a lot more than that to hold it together.’