“Everything’s different,” said Abi.
“For sure,” said Danny.
“It’s a sea change,” she said.
“You’re right.”
“We’re doing okay. There’s just me and her and you.”
“Yes.”
“That’s something, isn’t it?”
“Nothing but. We are blessed.”
“Where now?”
“A place where there’s plenty of fresh water . . . and fruit. Lots of berries.”
The weather changed. A mild wind blew through the valley. The wind opened her so easily! The flight of an arrow or bird, single-minded, no swerve possible. And now the light in the tent, smell of the man, his pain, belonged to her, and these slow days of circling bushes, picking berries, an eye out for bears, was a slow version of flight. She could see every change in the landscape, every shift inside herself, every passing thought. She was not afraid or ashamed. Her baby was content. Something was coming, something she’d need was on its way but not quite here yet. Now they were alive, what they were doing made her feel safe. The rhythm of horse hooves, their own and others. All their breaths and pauses and sleeps and wakenings.
In a way nothing had changed. Yet nothing was the same. They camped on the green land with all the other animals.
Branches waving madly all summer.
“I hurt myself.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Danny.”
“It’s just the rock mine.”
“You’re dreaming, Danny.”
“Did you call her Annie?”
“Yes.”
Danny opened his eyes and whispered goodnight but the girl was already asleep, on her side with her knees drawn up, in the sleeping bag, her face a disk.
Nights were cold already and he felt they’d made a mistake, putting aside their community. Too late in the year to stay at altitude. He stretched his arms up and pointed his toes to tighten the muscles then let them go loose. Wave of nausea, the horses breathing, a night bird. How long could he control the pain before the pain controlled him?
And he’s by a lake with other men watching the girl twist and turn in the water, all skin, light muscle, laughing, showing off, no sign of pregnancy. A complicated feeling, looking at her, seeing her, as the men lift her dripping from the water.
“Abi?”
“Yes?”
“Come over here a moment.”
“How are you, Danny?”
“Well, Ms Slip-Slop. Guess what?”
“What?” she asked.
“I’m not so good.”
“Your face is white.”
“Reminds me I’m living, a lot of pain. Still. How are you, Abi?”
“We’re good. Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“The horses?”
“Good. Good.”
“Annie?”
“She’s fine.”
“Have you seen the wild ones?”
“No, but I have heard them.”
“Just now. I just came through the grape fields. See you there later?”
“Yeah.”
“What can I do?”
“As if it is simple. It’s too late.”
“Danny. What do I do?”
“Well, seems clear to me. We give up or we keep on.”
“We keep on. We look after each other.”
“What if we can’t?”
“We’ve been here before. Danny, I can’t go back.”
“I think you should.”
“I don’t know the way.”
“Red does.”
Sometimes he looked older than anyone she’d seen and other times he was young and beautiful; his illness was unbelievably frightening in its selfishness.
She was beautiful, too, she knew that, but terrible in her protection of Annie.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t?”
“It is happening.”
“What can I do?”
“Let me look at you is what I’m saying.”
“That makes a difference?”
“Your baby won’t die.”
“I won’t let her die.”
The baby was everything. She couldn’t go without food. The horses would get them to the sea. She’d look for signs. A lot to ask, but she had a bit of time.
When she woke the sky was light and the man in the tent was snoring. There was frost on her hair. The horses stood tethered, cropping grass and, when she turned over, the baby screamed and she groaned and the horses looked at her and she felt deeply ignorant. She didn’t know anything. All she had was this. As she fed Annie, cold surged and she curled up as tight as she could. Afterwards, she lay on her back and stretched. Her belly to the sky, empty as the sky. She pulled her jeans from under her head, unrolled them and struggled them on, stiff and clammy, then slipped out of the sleeping bag.
The greatest time of his life, this. He was in love, and they’d seen the ponies. Six, six. They’d come. They’d come right into the clearing. He was the youngest, stoning the deck, cleaning the shitter, taking the wheel, tying up and casting off. He loved Abi. She was sunburnt and muscular. Annie was his. He was in love. His first time ashore drinking. In front of his eyes the glassy sea — he hadn’t loosened the ropes and the tide had gone out, and they were listing. In his ears hoof beats. Not just a headache. On the beach a woman and a dog were running. Drunk, he was sliding off the deck.
He rose on his elbows and looked around. She was gone. He crawled out of the tent. Abi was gone. Red was gone. Annie was gone. All the horses.
Abi spent her second night alone with her baby, awake, looking into Annie’s eyes. Back in pandemonium, under an open sky all stars, something churning. A steady flow of tears. Red standing guard. The untethered horses uncertain, questioning.
She was at a loss. The baby had a fever. She felt isolated again, contained, remote. She tied Annie to her front and climbed onto Red. She would ride Red to the pass, through the plain to the vine hills, and then turn right. The others had gone.
28.
What is a story without a happy ending? Through selection is achieved a brief perfection — anticipated — so why dwell on the extinction of things? So much is going on. Abi and Danny in vanishing reveal their grace.
What?
There is something beautiful about them.
What about us, Charles Darwin?
They are beautiful, but you are my life.
Ah, Charles.
The village is my life and you are part of the village.
QED. I’ve always wanted to prove something. I took Danny’s voyages and grew them in a Petri dish. I can’t prove he was my brother. Now I’m thin with the telling. Even the best tale will be overlooked in favour of new ones just coming into being. But as long as I am alive village life is not done. No, no. No villagers remain, but symbols abound. The stones and the sand might be everything.
The horse-bitten barn sails in all weathers, cracked and missing boards and with holes in the roof. I moved in when Emma died. Everyone but me has left and the village is a collection of low walls and foundations. Long grass grows on the vine hills. The river level changes at random. Summers are often wet and winters bring drought. I remember Emma young, under a tree. We were in love. I remember what she looked like then, perched on a root, hugging her knees, grinning at me.
I might have finished the wall, the path, if there had been enough time. Emma planted honeysuckle for Abi and white clematis for Danny inside the wall, where it could be seen from the glass room. And now the room and house are gone, clematis and yellow honeysuckle are a rampant wave cresting the wall, though there is no inside or outside.
Each winter they wilt and leaves scatter over the sand. Tow-headed weeds grow in the dry ditch in front of the foundations of Tom’s house. When it’s quiet a hundred Turk’s head lilies rattle among the long grasses in the ditch that used to separate his house from the road. I’m used to the
perpetual rhythmic roar, imagine machines, imagine waves.
We had a daughter, Emma and I. Annie died when she was ten. It seems as if I have only just found this out, though I’ve been discovering it all my life.
We had a son who left when he was eighteen and never came home, never wrote. There is parent, child; the space between is empty, waiting. I, thou. Near the beginning, near the end. Light enters through the holes in the roof. Travellers may still return.
I visit Apocat and Kata on the reserve.
“The village,” Kata says. “Tell him.”
“Ah yes,” says Apocat. “A turtle got trapped inside.”
“Why was it there?” I ask.
Kata sighs. “Old tribes have brittle bones.”
“We held to our own, dear,” says Apocat. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Why am I still here?” I ask.
“Yes, that’s a puzzle. Is he the projection or the veil? What is he, Kata?”
Kata cackles. “Don’t be stupid. That’s clear as day.”
“I am not needed, Kata.”
“Oh, but you are, Charles,” says Apocat. “For a little while longer.”
“People expect an end, Charles,” says Kata.
Strange, the absence of wickedness in the barn. Absence of any emotion, really. I’m just back from my old wall. It’s not for dividing anything, you know. It’s a promontory. It gives perspective. Look, there’s the box-turtle come out from under the straw, lifting his head, craning his neck; he is wary of me, doesn’t yet know his life is just some kind of worry. And I hear what he has heard. Over top of the deep explosions, close footfalls: the approach of a horse.
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