In the Blood

by French, Jackie

  ‘I’m Danielle,’ I said. ‘And this is Neil. Look, I’m sorry to barge in like this…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Gloucester happily. ‘I’m sorry there was no one here when you arrived.’

  ‘It was just so hot at lunchtime,’ explained Perdita, busy at the sink filling smudged glasses with cordial and water. ‘So we all thought, bother it, we’ll go for a swim till it cools off a bit. So we did.’ She handed a glass to each of the children, then one to Neil and me.

  Gloucester lifted the lid off a jar on the table. ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Per, where are…oh, here they are.’ He passed us another jar. ‘Cornmeal and blueberry cookies,’ he said. ‘A bit heavy but not too bad.’

  ‘We’re out of wheat flour till the autumn trade with the City,’ explained Perdita. ‘But cornmeal’s almost as good.’

  It wasn’t, I discovered as I bit into the cookie. It was heavy and gritty with a sort of constipated feel to it. But I supposed you could get used to it.

  One of the children—Malvolio—tugged gently at my skirt. ‘Come and see the chickens,’ he ordered. His nose was running, but at least the snot was clear.

  ‘There are sixteen,’ offered Viola, deciding to sit on my lap. Her shorts—or underpants—were wet as well. So, soon, was my lap. ‘There’s a white one and two red ones and three grey ones and ten black ones and can we have a ride in your floater now?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ suggested Gloucester, catching the expression on my face. ‘How about you lot go and fetch the eggs. You can tell them all about the chickens at dinner. You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?’ he asked.

  I glanced at Neil. He made an ‘it’s up to you’ face back.

  There was no way to refuse their hospitality without seeming rude and anyway I didn’t want to. ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to stay the night too,’ said Perdita happily. ‘It’s been weeks since we had any visitors, and that was only Brother Paederophile.’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Brother Perry,’ explained Gloucester. ‘From Nearer To Heaven. It’s a community just up the coast.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’ve just been there. No, we’re not thinking of joining it,’ I added quickly, seeing the expressions on their faces. ‘We just wanted to bring them news of one their ex-members.’

  ‘Mmm?’ said Perdita. ‘Which one? Don’t forget the nest under the tractor!’ as the children ran out the door.

  ‘Sister Doris,’ said Neil.

  If I’d been hoping for some sudden revelation I was due to be disappointed. Gloucester just said, ‘Sister Doris? I don’t remember her.’

  ‘Was she the ancient one who did yoga and circular breathing?’ asked Perdita.

  ‘That was Sister Rosemary,’ said Gloucester.

  ‘Doris was only fourteen when she left Nearer To Heaven,’ I said. ‘They thought that she came here for a while.’

  Gloucester’s face cleared. ‘Oh, Doris. Now I remember her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Perdita darkly. ‘You would.’

  ‘It was only for two weeks, Per,’ said Gloucester easily.

  ‘Three,’ said Perdita.

  ‘And anyway, it was years ago. She went off with that dark-haired chap, you know, the one with the ponytail who wouldn’t do any work.’

  ‘Neither would dear little Doris,’ said Perdita tartly.

  ‘Oh, Per, she wasn’t that bad. Anyway, she deserved a holiday after those ghouls up the coast. She’d had a horrible life up there.’

  ‘Ghouls?’ asked Neil.

  ‘Yes, ghouls. Always trying to get their hands on anyone with a bit of life left in them.’

  ‘What, to satisfy their desperate lusts?’ said Neil lightly.

  ‘Well, that too I suppose,’ said Perdita. ‘Just toss that cat off if she’s annoying you.’

  ‘Definitely Brother Perry,’ said Gloucester. ‘But I really meant, to work for them. That lot doesn’t like to raise a sweat. Devotees!’ he snorted. ‘The only way they get devotees is to pay them, and even then they don’t stay long. The devotees do all the work up there,’ he explained.

  ‘How do they get the credit to pay them?’ I asked.

  ‘Cannabis magnifica microflora,’ said Perdita with a grin. ‘It’s an engineered strain of marijuana that was outlawed in the City about a hundred years ago. I think old sister thingummie brought the seeds with her when she founded the place. The devotees grow it for them and dry it and then the initiates sell the leaves. Never the seeds, in case someone else tries to grow it.’

  I wondered if Doris’s parents had been trying some of it when they’d been washed out to sea. ‘Do you trade for it too?’

  Gloucester nodded. ‘Not for ourselves. Well, not much anyway,’ he added, in response to a glance from Perdita. ‘Spot, I said off the table! We trade it on to the City.’

  ‘I thought it was banned in the City?’

  ‘Sure. We hide it in the corn. No one does that tough a check on stuff that’s imported anyway.’

  Perdita grinned. ‘And even if they found it, so what? There’s nothing they can do to us.’

  I wondered if I should tell them exactly what the City might do, from Proclaiming them Outlawed so that no medical equipment, seeds or other technology ever reached them, to a limited but deadly flu-type virus that would remain infectious for a maximum of three days—time enough to wipe out a community, but not enough time to spread.

  But I said nothing. Besides, they were right. A small amount of Cannabis magnifica microflora probably wasn’t worth any retaliation at all.

  Perdita hauled out a bag of potatoes and put them on the table for Gloucester to peel. ‘It’s our turn to cook tonight,’ she explained. ‘Then kid duty. The others will be in later.’

  ‘Can I help?’ asked Neil.

  Perdita shook her head. ‘Just sit and talk,’ she said. ‘What did you want to tell Heaven about Doris anyway?’

  ‘That she died,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Perdita’s words were automatic. Gloucester didn’t even pause in his potato peeling. Evidently the memory of Doris was too faint for any real feelings of regret. ‘How did she die?’

  I glanced at Neil. I didn’t want to bring the memory of blood and violence and terror into the messy happy kitchen. But on the other hand it was just possible that they might know something that would help.

  ‘She was attacked,’ I said slowly. ‘Whoever—whatever—it was tore her throat and her wrist. She said he drank her blood.’

  I looked up. They were staring at me, the potato peeling forgotten. ‘You’re not serious?’ said Perdita shakily.

  ‘Yes,’ said Neil. ‘I’m afraid we are.’

  ‘But it’s…it’s like a vampire sort of thing!’

  I nodded.

  ‘Fresh blood, that’s what I want,’ said Gloucester softly.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  Gloucester seemed to wake up. ‘It’s what she said when she left.’ He blushed. ‘She said, “I’m sick of little kids’ games. Fresh blood, that’s what I want.”’

  ‘What did she mean?’ asked Neil.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gloucester slowly. ‘I thought…I thought she just meant we were…well, too tame for her. She wanted some excitement. She said she’d been cooped up all her life and now she wanted fun, not weeding the cabbages and picking strawberries.’ He glanced at Perdita. ‘I was hurt at the time,’ he admitted.

  Perdita smiled at him. ‘Stupid,’ she said affectionately, then shrugged. ‘I think that bloke promised to take her some place. Some place exciting, but she wouldn’t tell me where. Just looked superior. Little Doris was good at that.’

  ‘She was pretty, that’s all,’ said Gloucester.

  ‘Pretty unbearable. I wish I could remember his name. They left together.’

  ‘You don’t know where he came from? Or where they were going?’

  Perdita and Gloucester shook their heads. ‘One of the others might
know,’ Gloucester suggested. He looked troubled for a moment. ‘You don’t think that chap was a…a vampire or something do you?’

  I shook my head. ‘That was what? Four years ago? Five? If he was going to do something like that to her, he’d have done it long ago.’

  Neil looked at me strangely. ‘He might just have…restrained himself.’

  ‘A restrained vampire?’ Perdita shoved the potato peelings under the sink, then handed Gloucester the grater. ‘You grate the spuds, I’ll peel the onions,’ she said. ‘I want to make potato cakes.’

  Chapter 23

  No one else remembered anything worthwhile about Doris.

  ‘She had red hair, didn’t she?’ said Ophelia vaguely, pouring plum sauce on her potato cakes.

  ‘Fair hair,’ corrected Hippolyta, but without much interest.

  It seemed that only two in the whole community had even been temporarily marked by her presence: Gloucester, by what I assumed was a short affair, and Perdita, who resented it and then forgot it, except as a joke for later years.

  Poor forgotten Doris. No regret so far for a life cut short, for the loss of whomever, whatever she was. Except for my regret, of course, and Neil’s, and Elaine’s and Theo’s, too—but ours was abstract and resulted more from the horror of her death than any real feelings for her. How could we regret the loss of someone we’d never known?

  Dinner was a happy messy affair of hot potato cakes and leftover cold spaghetti. The leftover salad was thrown to the hens while Gloucester made a new one, slightly gritty.

  The children spilled food and yelled questions into the conversation, but were otherwise surprisingly well mannered. The adults talked to Neil about apple trees, milk production and Utopias they knew in common; it seemed that most of the members of Black Stump had also wandered from Utopia to Utopia in their early years, before deciding to come home.

  They did make some attempt to talk to me, but once they had established that I knew nothing about mastitis and that the only places I knew were Nearer To Heaven and Faith Hope and Charity (I had no intention of letting them know of my life in the City, and certainly not about the Proclamation) they mostly left me alone, apart from offers of more food.

  ‘…and considerable resistance to codlin moth.’ Neil concluded a short dissertation on his last three years of experiments. One of the older Black Stump members (Yorick, I think his name was…no, it couldn’t possibly have been Yorick) nodded.

  ‘We mostly juice the later apples,’ he said. ‘It’s easier than spraying.’

  ‘Yes, but that way you’re perpetuating the problem,’ said Neil eagerly.

  ‘Not if it’s not a problem,’ said Couldn’t Possibly Be Yorick. ‘The trouble with you youngsters is…’

  I nudged Neil. ‘We’d better be getting back,’ I said.

  There was no hope of getting back to Faith Hope and Charity before dark—the stars were now bright through the window. (It was still hard to get used to the views out the window matching each other. In the City one window might look out on a beach, another on Moon Base 3. But if we left now we’d at least be back by midnight.

  Neil looked disappointed. Not Possibly Yorick said, ‘Why bother? There are plenty of beds.’

  Neil raised his eyebrows at me.

  I nodded. To be honest I was glad of the excuse not to go back to my too-quiet house, with the dark stains still on the sofa and the smell of blood that no amount of scrubbing seemed to remove—an image that made me grin faintly, for a reason I couldn’t possibly explain to the rest of the company. At least there was no Lady Macbeth!

  It was late when we finally got to bed. The children had been settled long ago, and a bottle of home-distilled blackberry brandy had been brought out, tasting like sweet cough mixture and with enough fire to burn your toes.

  We sat round the table and I let the talk flow around me, until the lights began to flicker and Perdita said, ‘Blast, Hippolyta, you forgot to check the regulator again,’ but without any particular heat, and the party began to break up, Gloucester and Perdita to the children’s room, and the others to smaller cottages among the trees towards the creek.

  Not Possibly Yorick escorted us past the chook shed and opened a door in the back of the main shed. ‘Sorry about the accommodation,’ he said. ‘We had a guest cottage until last year, when Romeo and Juliet moved in.’

  ‘You didn’t really call some poor child Romeo,’ I said, slightly fuzzily.

  Not Possibly Yorick grinned. ‘No, of course not. We renamed him when he and Juliet decided they were in love. Sickeningly romantic.’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘No, his real name is Caliban. And Juliet is really Julius. It seemed to fit. See you in the morning. Breakfast is any time you’re ready.’ And he was gone.

  I looked around the shed. Then I looked at Neil.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ he said encouragingly.

  Actually it wasn’t too bad at all. A small room had been partitioned off from the main shed and if the timber was rough and unpainted it would still keep out the draughts. The floor was plasticrete, but mostly covered by the same sort of matting that was in the hallway of the main house. And the bed looked as though the sheets had been changed recently, although it would still be wise to check the blankets for spiders.

  The bed…

  One bed, even if it was a double.

  ‘I guess they assumed we were together,’ said Neil. He didn’t seem very upset about it. He began to unbutton his shirt.

  ‘Neil,’ I said.

  ‘Mmmm?’ He looked at me, then blinked. He’d had a fair bit of the blackberry brandy too. ‘We can put a bolster down the middle if you like,’ he offered.

  ‘We don’t have a bolster.’

  ‘Don’t we?’ he asked vaguely. ‘I don’t even know what a bolster is.’

  I could have told him, but didn’t bother. I didn’t think he really wanted to know. Neil arranged his shirt over the back of a chair.

  ‘Neil,’ I said again.

  ‘What?’ He untied his trousers and stepped out of them. He wore thermoshorts underneath. Blue ones. ‘It’s no big deal, you know,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t suppose they have another spare bed anyway. They don’t get many visitors, and Wanderers mostly carry bedrolls.’

  ‘I know. It’s just…’

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ said Neil, slipping into the left side of the bed without checking for spiders and settling himself comfortably on the pillows.

  I considered him for a moment. Then I switched off the light (a steady glow—it must have been powered from a different source than the house lights), undid my dress and hung it as neatly as I could in the darkness of the chair. Then I slid into bed beside him.

  I tried to be still. But it’s hard to cry without shaking and the more I tried the harder the sobs came.

  There was a rustle beside me in the bed.

  ‘Danielle?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Danielle? Oh, darling one, don’t cry. What are you crying about?’

  He put his arm around me so I was gathered in to his shoulder, the rest of his body arched slightly away. His armpit smelt slightly of sweat and slightly of the homemade greasy soap in Black Stump’s bathroom, and he felt wonderfully warm and solid.

  ‘Are you crying about Doris? We’ll find who did it. I’m sure we will.’

  I shook my head against his shoulder.

  His voice grew slightly harder. ‘About Michael then?’

  ‘About who? Oh, Michael. No.’ Michael seemed another world away. I hadn’t even thought of him since we’d arrived at Nearer To Heaven, half a lifetime ago.

  I felt his shoulder relax a little. ‘Why are you crying then?’

  I shook my head. I was crying because I was lonely, because the Black Stump laughter had reminded me of the Forest and all that I’d lost. I was crying because Neil thought it was no big deal to share a bed with me.

  I felt his hand stroke my back. ‘Go to sleep,’ he
said. ‘I’m here if you need me.’

  To my surprise, eventually I did.

  Chapter 24

  Breakfast was subdued. There was only one adult in the kitchen when I arrived, Ophelia, an older woman with deep wrinkles from either sun or laughter (or maybe both), who I’d hardly spoken to the night before. She offered me cornbread and mulberry jam, cold cobs of corn or corn muffins, and any sort of tea as long as I picked it myself. She also offered me a Painbegone.

  ‘Bloody blackberry brandy,’ she said, swallowing two herself. ‘I swear, one day we’re all going to wake up blind. Or dead, instead of just wishing we were.’

  ‘Where are the kids?’

  ‘Down the creek. Gloucester’s taken them all, sweet man that he is. He had kid duty last night too, and your man went with them, what’s his name?’

  ‘Neil,’ I said. He’d vanished by the time I woke up, for which I’d been grateful. Possibly. Definitely. Almost certainly.

  ‘He’s pretty sweet as well,’ she said. ‘He took the kids for a floater ride to shut them up before breakfast, in spite of the effects of the brandy. God, I’d kill for a cup of coffee. But there won’t be any till the autumn trade.’

  ‘I think there’s some in the floater,’ I said. ‘In fact I’m sure of it. You’re welcome to it. I don’t know how you could get it out of the dispenser though.’

  ‘I have my trusty screwdriver,’ she said, brightening, and galloped out.

  I helped myself to a gritty muffin and quite excellent mulberry jam, and settled for a glass of cordial instead of trusting my Virtual-gained knowledge of herbs in the garden. Then I sat and wondered exactly I was going to do next.

  I was still wondering when Neil came in, happily unencumbered with children. I’d quite enjoyed them the night before, but this was morning and my head ached and it’s hard to concentrate with children around.

  ‘Morning,’ said Neil. He looked around hopefully. ‘Any chance of a cup of something?’

  ‘Herbal tea if you pick it yourself, cordial on the bench, or coffee if Ophelia managed to take the floater apart to get to it.’