Let’s play rock, paper, scissors, he said, but we couldn’t get very far because he kept stopping to stare at his hands and mine.
Where are you going? I asked as he held my wrist and examined my fingers. He brought them right up to his face, taking in every whorl and grain of dirt.
Home, he said. Home!
But where is that? I asked.
Close by, he said.
He fell asleep, his cheeks flushed. He was somebody’s son. Somebody out there had kept him safe. Outside it was raining now, the water sluicing down the windows. Our journeys were different but intersecting briefly. I wished him all good things. I wished to keep somebody safe too.
14
In the service station we dispersed into the sparse crowd. It wasn’t busy that time of day. I kept my eyes very open, made my way to the bathroom and sat in a stall, breathed. A light sigh came from the one next to me. I watched the shadows cast by their feet as they moved. The stall felt safe, I didn’t want to leave it and go back into the world. I wanted only marbled white formica, lino wearing at the edges, a confined and clean space.
When I worked up the strength to leave the stall, there was a woman with long black hair washing her hands in a basin. She had a methodical way of washing—soaping over her palms, up over her wrists, down again as if brushing off something. Rinse and then lather again. I could have watched her all day. I took a place at the basin next to hers and attempted her thoroughness. Our eyes met in the mirror and I forgot about washing my hands. Marisol, I said. There was a smudge of dirt at her temple. Her face registered a brief but intense surprise. She rinsed her hands one last time and then bent over the sink and washed her face gracefully.
You remembered my name, she said.
Are you following me? I asked. I tried to look threatening but it didn’t land.
I should ask you the same thing, she said. Who would follow you? You don’t even have the right map.
I have one now, I said.
She smiled at me. Well done, well done, a gold star for you.
We went together to the wet rooms without discussing it. Coins into the turnstile, we took off our clothes and stepped under the jets of water, bodies separated by a thin laminate partition. The proximity made me feel giddy. We didn’t speak. Water pooled from her side into mine and I bent down to touch it, I had the wild idea that I wanted to drink it. And then I thought, Oh, I recognize this, and it was funny to feel something other than fear, desperation, to know that other feelings were still possible. I leaned against the partition and imagined her body doing the same. Arm to arm, leg to leg.
When I brushed my teeth in the shower, too vigorously, and I spat on to the floor, there was blood in the foam and the terrible sensation of something loose in my mouth—gravel, dirt, bone. My hands in my own mouth, panicked. My tooth, I called to Marisol. Something’s wrong.
We dressed and met outside the cubicles. Wet-haired, barefoot, she peered into my mouth. That needs to come out, she said. Want me to get it now? I can pull it out. It’ll hurt but only for a little. I love pulling out teeth.
No, I said. I pulled tissue paper from the dispenser and held it to my mouth to stem the bleeding.
It’s normal, she said. It’s the new normal. The baby takes a tooth. Did nobody ever tell you?
Nobody told me anything, I said, the paper slowly growing wet with my own blood. Nobody fucking told me a thing! And I was suddenly so angry about it.
Look, she said, baring her own gums, gapped and pink at the back.
We left the wet rooms and emerged into an arcade area, electronic games pinging and flashing. I leaned against the brightest one, worrying at the tooth with my tongue. I’m going to miss my bus, I said as she pushed coins into a machine and pulled the lever. It’s probably already gone.
Stay with me, she said, her face lit red and yellow, eyes trained on the pictures spinning around.
Aren’t you with someone else already? I asked, trying to remain casual.
Oh, she went off not long after we met, she said. We had different ideas. Perhaps the same will be true for us. But two minds are always better than one.
All right, I said, after thinking about it for a few seconds.
You should have hesitated longer, she said. I could still kill you.
I can protect myself, I said.
She moved suddenly, pressed me up against the wall with one hand twisted behind my back. I felt not panic but excitement, my heart jumping up a notch. Prove it, she said.
Nobody else could see us at that angle. Her body pressed to my back. Her mouth felt close to my neck, her breath hot on my skin. I couldn’t see if she held a knife. I kicked backwards instinctively, wrenched my arm away and took hold of my own knife, spun around to face her. She was flushed, rubbing her shin where my foot had made contact, her eye on my knife where it trembled in the air. The noise of people walking past just a few metres away, carrying food, the arcade machines singing out.
All right, she said. Consider me convinced.
My breath was hard and I was warm everywhere. The machine nearest us showered coins. Marisol scooped them into her hands, her pockets, with small but visible delight.
Let’s go then, she said. She moved decisively out towards the car park, and did not look back to see if I would follow.
15
Marisol was better at survival than I was. She had pitched her first tent in a field and left it there within the crucial starting hours, buying a new one, a khaki one that blended in. She had driven the first car into a lake and swum to the surface some way away, hoping they were watching and would presume her dead. She had done a swap, a trade, for the second, but she didn’t elaborate.
You need to let yourself remember how you did it before, she said to me as we drove. The system has failed us. But our bodies got us here the first time. We can survive, you know we can survive, we are living proof.
Marisol was a country girl too. On her own journey she had acted as the mother, even though she was one of the youngest, had been struck by puberty almost before she had time to get used to the idea of it. Where I had let the girls go off alone she had tried to keep everyone together, and like that they had moved through the countryside. I felt ashamed of how I had not cared about what would happen to the other girls. I had just let them go. I had let them walk into whatever disaster was waiting. But then they had done the same to me, too.
My theory, she said, is that they’re watching every move we make, and they want to see how well we’re doing. Don’t lose sight of that. We have a lot to prove.
We drove all through the night, the mountains giving way to twisting woodland. It was very warm. Marisol had heaped bottles of water everywhere in the car; they rolled under the seats, moved from side to side. She held an open one between her thighs, and when it was my turn to drive she periodically reached over and tipped it up to my mouth. I was very aware of her hands near my lips.
From time to time we stopped to pee together, opening the car doors to create a screen. We were bashful about it at first but soon stopped. Our bodies felt both functional and transgressive. There is a person inside of you, I said to Marisol, and she replied solemnly, And inside of you.
Russian dolls, she said, when we had finished laughing. We go on and on and on. Do you ever think what the baby will be like?
I have no frame of reference, I said.
They are two strangers coming to meet us, she said. Are you ever afraid about that?
I am now, I said.
I pictured them not as babies but as two tall, mysterious figures walking towards us from a moon-like landscape.
When we parked, Marisol showed me what was in the boot. Tinned food, packets of pasta and oats, powdered milk and soup, a gas stove and spare canisters, a mess kit. I held up one mysterious package, unmarked. Hot chocolate, she said. Army-issue. High-calorie
. I didn’t ask where she had got it.
We slept in the car, parked far off the road. Marisol tilted the driver’s seat partly back. I prefer to sleep sitting up, like this, she said. Then if they come you’re not meeting them at a disadvantage.
Have you seen them? I asked, making a nest in the back out of my sleeping bag.
Sometimes I think I have, she said.
Are you afraid? I asked her.
Only sometimes, she said.
Her breathing slowed. I could not sleep with her right there. I ran through our interactions, the times she had touched me or looked at me, an inventory, trying to solve her. Nothing could be taken for granted. Her hair tipped over the headrest, skull at an angle. I felt protective towards her neck. I reached out to touch the very ends of her hair and fell asleep, eventually, curled up like that in the cold blue.
16
We stopped in a roadside bar the next night to use a real toilet and eat some food. Marisol ordered glasses of weak beer. It’s fine, she said, when she caught me looking anxious. It’s a decoy. She lifted up her glass and drained half of it in one go, smooth, her throat bobbing.
I sipped at my own and surveyed the room from our table in the corner. It was busy at that time of the night. The men were older than us, leaning into their drinks, into pools of orange lamplight. No bright lights here, that was why Marisol had picked it. One woman sat at the end of the bar, body disguised in a shapeless dark dress that reached to her ankles, light hair in a braid, and I thought she could be one of us, suggested it to Marisol, who turned to her, frowned, shrugged. Our food came, cooked meats and hard bread, pickles. Thank you, Marisol said. Her smile was a beam, cold and true. She would need to watch that, I thought. The barman was stunned by it. Let me know anything else you need, girls, he said. Anything at all. He went back to the bar but I could tell he was watching us. Under the table, I scored the wood once then twice with the knife from my pocket, before putting it back. I’m going to the bathroom, I told Marisol.
I opened the door to the bathroom and was suddenly on the ground. Arms wrapped around me, a hand against my mouth. I tried to bite but my teeth could not gain purchase. Sour skin, my reflexes not up to scratch.
I know what you are, said a woman’s voice. Her hand moved to my throat and squeezed, fingers in the soft spaces under my jawbone. I bucked my body, tried to fold in half like a horse throwing its rider. My elbow made contact with her stomach and she grunted, her grip loosening slightly. I did it again, driving my body into hers, and as she rolled away, I hooked my arm with new strength around her neck. I pulled us both up and scrabbled for the knife in my pocket, pressing it roughly to her throat. It was the blonde woman from the bar. Greenish light from one bulb, all that blackness outside compressed into one thin window near the ceiling, no way to get outside from here. I was shaking. Our eyes met in the mirror. Her face contorted, and she hissed at me.
The door swung and someone came in. It was Marisol. Help me, I said, you have to help me. Marisol froze. The woman struggled in my arms and opened her mouth, but I pressed the knife closer. Make a sound and I won’t hesitate, I whispered. I watched in the mirror the blade indenting soft skin. If I did cut her throat there would be no denying it, I would watch myself do it, and I wondered if I had it in me, to gut or be gutted with the act reflected back at me, the fear in the woman’s eyes, the blood pouring over my hands, and I thought Yes, yes I do, maybe I didn’t always, but I do now.
Help me! I implored Marisol again. Why are you just standing there?
She blinked, then snapped into action, undoing her belt. Hands behind your back, she told the woman. She wrapped it around and around her wrists, tying it as tightly as possible. We pushed the woman to the ground together and I held her there with the weight of my pregnant body. The woman looked right at me. She was whispering words I couldn’t hear and didn’t want to hear, as if praying or cursing. Shut up, Marisol said without looking up from her handiwork. When she was done, the woman immediately started to writhe in an attempt to escape, but only succeeded in flopping on to her stomach. Marisol pulled a wedge of paper towels from the dispenser and pushed them into the woman’s mouth as a gag. Her teeth bit down, saliva wetted them into solid mulch. We dragged her with some difficulty into a cubicle. Her legs poked out from the bottom, but there was nothing to be done about it.
Marisol kicked her. That’s what you get for being a fucking bitch, she said, amiably, as if discussing the weather. She kicked her again, harder.
Enough, I said.
The woman’s eyes were wide and livid. We washed our hands and walked out of the bathroom and picked up our bags. Marisol paid the bill, cool as anything, while I started the car, gripped the steering wheel until my fingers were numb.
17
We drove on and on, sleeping in snatches. The discomfort of the car might have been a problem if we were not so weary, our bodies working overtime. Through the night we had to roll down the windows to keep the cold air at our faces like water, playing the radio, playing the old tapes we had discovered in a box under the passenger seat. Strings and strange beats. Music from a long time ago. We alternated driving and napping, one face intent on the road while the other went soft and slack, headlights dividing the countryside into slices. Every time there was a car behind us we craned our necks to look. We swept back on ourselves, took deserted roads and tortuous routes. It was exhausting.
One afternoon, Marisol pulled over and jabbed at her map. We’re burning out, she said. We need a place to lie low, to rest and re-evaluate, somewhere safe. Just for a night or two.
You mean like a hotel? I said.
No more hotels, she said. I still can’t believe you were using them.
I suppose I just like the luxurious lifestyle, I said, and she laughed, sharply, at me.
At the edge of a vast stretch of woodland we parked the car. Marisol packed her things efficiently; I scooped mine into my pack with no care.
There’s been no rain, she said. We can hide our tracks. We know how to do this.
We walked for a long time. The squirrels were loud, their blundering movements making us halt. We didn’t speak, just mouthed words and indicated with our hands. Here? Further? Where?
We came to a stream and pitched our tents on the hard earth beside it. I set a fire and boiled water to make tea and packet soup, as Marisol scoped out our surroundings. She was fast and sharp as a bird. I saw the possibilities for a new and generous mode of surviving in the way she put a hand on a trunk as if to ask its permission.
How did you get rid of the wire? I asked her, when the fire was mainly embers. We could only see a little of the sky where we were. The shape of her was dark across from me.
Someone did it for me, she said. The father. We were stupid. I gave up everything. I annihilated my life with how much I loved him, with the idea of our family together. But he couldn’t handle the reality, what it is to run and be chased. He didn’t like what it brought out in me. And so I’m here.
I wondered what R would think if he could see me now, lean and wild-eyed, the survival mechanisms kicking in. But then he had never known me before the dark feeling. The blue-ticket woman he thought he had been safe with was always something else underneath, instinct twisting below the surface, setting things in motion.
I wondered what the white-ticket women felt. Were they fulfilled and serene in their purpose, or did they, too, see the world as a sharp, cutting thing; did they, too, have a dark feeling under their skin, pulsing with violence? Did our transformations unite us, make us one, fix whatever was missing in me? Or was I always going to be less? How many ways were there to be a mother?
Marisol looked at me, properly looked at me. It seemed that nobody had ever done so before in my life, that any other gaze had merely skimmed over my skin like a breeze. There was nowhere to hide from her but I did not have the urge to run.
You
seem sad, she said.
Something like that, I said.
She reached over and put her hands on my face briefly, then picked up my locket where it lay on top of my jumper and opened it without asking me. I inhaled, but didn’t stop her. She took out the crumpled white scrap, smoothed it out, put it in the palm of her hand. She frowned briefly, then smiled.
Hey, she said. I understand. But you don’t need this. Put the other one back where it belongs.
I retrieved the blue ticket and restored it, carefully, to its rightful place. For the second that the locket was open and empty, I felt loose and dangerous, unmoored with the knowledge that I could be anyone.
Rip it up, she said, giving me the white one. Rip it as small as you can manage. You’re not one of them.
We watched as the pieces flew to the ground like snow, like confetti.
In the morning I swilled my mouth with water and the tooth was looser than ever. I walked away from the tents and knelt in the leaves and the soil, and I wrenched the tooth out with my fingers. It hurt less than I expected. My mouth filled with blood that I spat out. I poured water over the tooth in my palm until it and my hand were clean. When I returned I showed it to Marisol like some kind of proof.
It’s a talisman, she said, folding my fingers over it. Keep it safe.
So I slipped it in my jacket pocket next to the knife, and the two objects knocked against each other, their own kind of communion. Fragility and a hard edge. What I had lost, and what I had found.
CABIN
1
We found the cabin in the afternoon, not far from the water. Green light, overgrown. At first we thought it was a mirage. We circled the perimeter, cleared long grass and foliage. The door was chained but Marisol used a hairpin to pick the padlock. She showed me how she did it, reminded me, for once upon a time I had known that skill too.
Blue Ticket Page 11