by Alex Marwood
Poor Lucien. Her heart burns for Father. What an honour he gave her mother, she thinks, and look how she’s repaid him. Eden lets out a squawk, and Romy realises how hard her fingers are digging into the child’s tiny arms.
Lucien clears his throat, and speaks. ‘What shall we do?’ he asks. ‘What shall we do?’
He speaks of betrayal. Somer’s not the first. The shame is on all of them. They stand where they have landed and listen as the day’s light changes, as the fires go out in the smithy and the bread, proving, overflows the pans. Romy wishes she’d brought an overcoat, as the wiser, older hands paused to do before they ran to the courtyard, for once the sun passes behind the house-eaves she starts to shiver. Eden struggles in her arms and, when she realises that she is not going to be let down, begins to wail. Stop, oh stop, Romy begs silently as her neighbours glare at her as though she could, by some magic, shut her up. Her arms are hurting and so are her knees and, for the first time in her life, her back, from the weight of her wriggling burden. And still she holds her, because to do anything else will bring punishment down on her head.
And still he speaks. Vita, Ursola, Uri, the Guards, still like statuary around them, Somer staring at the step on which she stands as the blood crusts on her naked scalp. ‘Liars,’ he says. ‘Lying and thieving and cheating. You swore to us all when you came here that this was an end to that, for you. This woman has stolen from the wombs of her sisters. Every one of you who has done as she has done has stolen their child from somebody else.’
In among the crowd, a woman begins to sob. Because of Somer, one fewer of them will get her own turn, come the next solstice.
‘Does anybody else have anything to confess?’ he asks. Looks out over their heads in the gathering gloom, as they draw in their breaths and search their souls.
‘Not a single one of you? What shall we do?’ he asks, as they shiver in the dark, beset by hunger and thirst and cold and the deep, deep wish to sleep. ‘What shall we do?’
Ursola steps forward. ‘We’ve all betrayed him,’ she says. ‘I’ve looked at my fellows with wicked eyes. I’ve stolen extra bread. I’ve rested when I could have been working for all of us. I am no better than many, no worse than many.’
From the bag tied to her waist, she produces the hair clippers. Hands them to Vita, undoes the tie that holds back her mane of hair and drops to her knees before her.
13 | Romy
September–November 2003
He squalls his way into the world when the fruit harvest is at its height and Romy doesn’t hear about it, or notice that her mother is missing, for two days. Anyone at Plas Golau who can walk and understand simple instructions is out in the orchards, and his birth has attracted none of the pleasurable anticipation that Eden’s did. In fact, Romy only realises that it’s happened when Somer, long since demoted to Farmer, returns to the fields looking like a popped balloon. She doesn’t go up and ask. She has barely exchanged a full sentence with her mother in six months, even though they sleep in the same dormitory. The shame is almost unbearable, the shaved heads all around her a constant reminder of her connection to the sin.
In the Pigshed, Eden’s other siblings have quietly stepped in and taken over her care, and Romy has let them do it, for she knows that this bastard child has effectively cancelled out the status gain of having a sister in the Family. She’s no more of a figure to Eden now than any of the older children are. Eilidh is probably as important to her now as Romy is. At least it means she no longer has to fight her indifference. If Eden is the One, it would be useful if she knew who Romy was, but she no longer has to pretend to be devoted to the sister who has never seized her heart.
She doesn’t bother to go and visit her new brother. Lucien has called him Ilo, but he just sent the name by messenger to the Infirmary.
* * *
* * *
He comes into the Pigshed in November, when the frost makes it impractical for him to stay with his mother in a Moses basket in the fields. Ursola arrives, hands him to a Teacher, and the Teacher puts him on the rug in front of the stove and goes back to leading the recital of the Pieties.
Knowing the Pieties off by heart, Romy has the space left over in her brain to allow herself a little curiosity. Standing in the third row, smaller children in front and taller ones behind, she has a good view of the bundle in the hearth.
‘A liar is a thief,’ she recites. ‘Who lies to his brethren steals food from their mouths.’ And she sees a little red hand creep out from among the wrapping and wave in the air.
‘A promise is an empty vessel,’ she says. Eilidh, standing next to her, has lost her front teeth and has particular difficulty enunciating this one. The bundle by the fire wriggles its limbs inside its wrapping. It looks like a maggot, thinks Romy. Like a fat maggot sucking the goodness from the harvest. They’ll want me to see him. They’ll probably want me to look after him, but I won’t. He’s not my baby, not my mistake. I won’t be punished for it.
Eden, two tiers in front, recites clumsily, but with pious verve. ‘Everybody is a nobody, everyone is a someone,’ they intone.
‘We are the Ark,’ they say. ‘We are the future. Mankind depends on us,’ and then they applaud, as they do at the end of the Pieties every day, and they stand down for morning break.
She’s putting on her coat to go out and run off the morning’s energy build-up with the others before chores begin, when the Teacher pulls her up. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello to your little brother?’ she asks.
Reluctantly, Romy pauses, arm in sleeve. It’s not a question at all, really, but an order. Eilidh stops dressing, too. Always her friend, always loyal, despite her disgrace.
‘Ooh, yes,’ she says enthusiastically. ‘Come on, Romes.’
Romy considers, just briefly, refusing, and then she sighs and lays her coat aside. Eden runs out into the farmyard with Heulwen and Roshin, laughing as though she will never bear a burden. She won’t, of course. No one is telling Eden to love the bastard. She has a higher purpose.
They go over to the fireplace. She’s glad she has Eilidh, because she knows that, without her, doing this alone, with no one but the Teacher watching to see that she shows the correct responses, it would be so much harder.
He is wrapped in linen. No angora from the special herd for Ilo. We have more in common than he will ever know, she thinks. The odd ones out from the very beginning. The outcasts. But that doesn’t mean I have to ... oh.
Eilidh has pulled the head-covering back so they can see his face. Romy’s first thought is that he is less ugly than her sister was. Her next, piling in on top like a second wave, obliterating everything, is that she can see all of them in his face. Her mother. Eden. And herself. A blond version of me, she thinks. The first time I’ve ever seen someone else who looks like me. I keep trying to see myself in Somer and Eden, but I can’t. But in him, I do. I see me in him. My God, I see me in him.
And his eyes open and they’re blue, and they wander for a moment and then they fix upon her face, and he smiles.
He recognises me, she thinks. ‘Oh, hello, baby,’ she says, and gives him a finger to clutch. ‘Hello, Ilo. I’m Romy. I’m your sister.’
Among the Dead
October 2016
14 | Romy
My knife is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I own. It is perfectly balanced, perfectly sharp. I carved the handle from two slim pieces of walnut, made it to fit my palm, to nestle into my grip as though it were an extension of my hand itself, and the Blacksmiths riveted the blade smoothly between the two pieces with a hinge of horseshoe iron, and polished it until it gleamed. The blade’s not long, but it’s sharp. Just the feel of it in the pocket of my jeans comforts me.
Not enough to make me leave the flat, though. It takes me three full days to do that.
I need food, and cash, and a phone. I have twelve pounds, which must buy me enough for a few days
, though honestly I don’t really know, but I’m sure it won’t buy me a phone. I need to find a library, so I can do the internet. And I need to work out how to get to Finbrough, because really, when it comes to finding my brother and sister, I don’t know where else to start.
* * *
* * *
I spend nearly an hour dressing. My choice isn’t wide, but still it takes me all that time, for my hands are shaking and I keep having to stop to rest, to calm my breathing. Eventually, I take one of the beta blockers I was prescribed back in Weston – my racing heart simply won’t slow – and then I have to wait for half an hour for it to begin to work. I don’t want to take them more than I have to, but my head is spinning and I feel as though my heart will burst out of my chest. I’m sorry, baby. Your mother has let herself get soft. I’m not the lioness you will need to keep you safe.
Once the pill starts to work, I settle on jeans, a T-shirt and a dark blue hoodie with a big front pocket, because they hide my knife well and because I want to be anonymous, at least for now. Once the dressed-for-work crowd has passed, this seems to be the primary uniform on the streets of Hounslow, and blending in is good. I pick up my keys and the bank card and put them in my bra, slip what money I have into my jeans pocket. And then I let myself out. I don’t take my address on a piece of paper. Despite what Janet thinks, I do, in fact, have a functioning memory.
* * *
* * *
The door swings to behind me and I’m still alive. No one has come at me with a machete, nothing has exploded, no boil-covered plague victim is grabbing at me begging for help. People, people, swishing past me on the pavement, and no one so much as looks in my direction. A plane passes overhead, so much louder without walls and tiles between us, and I cringe, cling to the wall behind me. And then it’s gone, and I’m on my way to find the Magic Piano.
The bank card was a brainwave of Vita’s. We all had one, leading to an emergency fund, in case one of us was separated, or kidnapped, or trapped in some way, and needed the means to bring ourselves home. Home no longer exists, of course, but the money is most likely still there and she would agree, I’m sure, that I’m going to be using it in the spirit, at least, for which it was intended.
I find a Magic Piano (this is what Spencer told me it was called) recessed into the plate-glass window of a supermarket. A man sits on the pavement beside it, with dirty hair and a dirtier coat, and a friendly brown and white dog, a polystyrene cup with a couple of 10p pieces in it resting on a piece of cardboard that reads HOMELESS AND HUNGRY, PLEASE HELP.
I wish he weren’t there. Maybe that’s what everyone thinks, which is why he’s homeless and hungry. I can’t give him anything until I’ve been to the Magic Piano, and I really don’t want to go to the Piano while he’s there. I slow down as I approach and try to look as though I’m dawdling while I make a decision.
‘It’s okay, luv,’ he says, and his voice sounds as if it’s coming from a storm drain: all cracked and grimy and full of flotsam. ‘I’m not going to rob you.’
A challenge. ‘Is that what you thought I was thinking?’ I say.
He jingles his dog’s chain. ‘People always think that, when they see a Homeless,’ he says.
‘With good reason?’ I ask, and he looks aghast. Then he laughs.
‘Wow,’ he says. ‘Haven’t met a Millennial with a sense of humour in a while.’
‘No one’s told me I had a sense of humour in a while,’ I tell him. The ice is broken and I’m not worried by him any more. I dig in my pocket and find the cash card from my box. Put it in the slot and punch in the number. 0712: Father’s birthday.
It thinks for a moment, then a figure flashes up on the screen that makes me blink. 73,887.00.
I stare at it. I’m not sure I knew there was that much money in the world. Maybe there’s a mistake with the decimal point?
I have just over £400 in my benefits account. We didn’t spend much, at the Halfway House.
73,887.00
WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER SERVICE?
My hand is actually shaking, slightly. YES, I press. Then CASH WITH RECEIPT. I suppose I should get a receipt, so I can show it to someone, if they ask. If there’s anybody to ask. They could all be scattered to the winds, the Ark lost forever, for all I know.
I choose £200. I have no idea how much a phone costs. Hopefully it will be enough. I wait, nervously, for alarms to ring, but after a couple of seconds it spits out the card, whirrs deep inside and then follows up with the cash.
‘Spare a quid for a cup of tea?’ asks my companion, immediately.
I give him ten pounds, which should be enough for him to buy some bread and cheese, or gin or heroin or whatever. I’ve learned a lot in the Halfway House.
‘Wow, thanks, luv,’ he says, and tucks it into a filthy pocket.
‘I don’t suppose you could tell me where the library is?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘I think there’s one up by Hounslow Central.’
‘I mean, to walk?’
‘Have you tried looking it up?’
I grind my teeth slightly. ‘I don’t have a way of looking it up. That’s why I want the library.’
Another funny look. ‘Well, hang on,’ he says, and the hand goes back into the pocket. Comes out with one of those little screens I see people staring at as they blunder into each other on the pavements. Prod, prod, prod, he goes, and then ‘There you go,’ he says, and shows it to me. There’s a map. A map! It’s too small for me to see properly, so I hunker down on the pavement beside him.
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘You have the internet in your pocket?’
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asks. ‘Mars?’
‘Wales,’ I say, and he accepts this as an adequate explanation. I look at the map, try to memorise it, but it’s too small to read the road names. He does some swipey thing with his finger and thumb, and suddenly it’s expanded. ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘What’s this machine called?’
He laughs. ‘Mobile phone,’ he says. Like, mo-bile-phoooone. When they trained us how to put the SIM in and work one, the mobile phone was a little thing with push-button numbers on the front and a little tiny screen that showed you what you’d typed.
‘Where can I get something like this?’ I ask. If I have one of these, I won’t need the library after all. It seems extraordinary that a tramp should be walking about with such a miracle of technology in his pocket.
‘Doh,’ he says. ‘Shop.’
‘What sort of shop?’
‘If you want a new one, phone shop,’ he says. ‘But I got this one from Crack Converters. The pawn shop. It was only about £20.’
I can’t hide my astonishment. All the information in the world, in your hand, for £20? I could buy ten of these with the cash I have right now. Well, nine and a half, now he’s got my ten pounds. But still. ‘Where’s this Crack Converters?’
He points up the street. ‘Get to the main road and turn left.’
‘Wow, thanks,’ I say. ‘That was worth ten pounds.’
‘Oh, don’t,’ he says. ‘You’re a funny sort of Millennial. You’re not meant to believe in swapping cash for services. You’re meant to give me money and then tell your friends how virtuous you’ve been.’
‘I don’t have any friends.’
‘Well, you’ll be able to tell the whole of the internet now,’ he says, comfortingly. ‘That’s almost the same.’
* * *
* * *
I get home £60.05 poorer – £40 for the phone, £10 for the charger, and £10 for a two-minute tutorial from the man in Crack Converters on how to switch it on, plus 5p for a bag to carry my purchases in. Extraordinary. It will take me years to understand the relative values of things. Six eggs are £1.79 in the Bath Road Minimart, and this bag will last literally forever.
Back in the flat, I find the contacts folder and press it to open.
I only have one contact, stored for years on the SIM for emergency use. I touch it for a moment, wait, and it starts ringing.
He picks up on the eighth ring, just as I’m starting to think that he’s not going to answer. That it really is all over. That maybe he will never answer and I really am alone.
‘Bloody hell,’ he says. ‘I thought you were dead. What are you doing in Hounslow, 143?’
How does he know? A sudden flurry of paranoia. I glance around the room, half-expecting to see one of my former comrades standing in the corner, watching me.
‘I saw someone had been using a card in Hounslow,’ he says. ‘Seriously didn’t expect it to be you. Where’ve you been, 143? Having a little holiday in the fleshpots?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘They took my box for evidence. They’ve only just given it back.’
‘Yeah, enough of the petty details,’ he says. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to come back,’ I say. ‘I want to come home.’
15 | Romy
‘Home?’ Uri splutters. ‘You think there’s a home for you here?’
I’d half-expected a response like this. I need to play it carefully. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I belong with you. I always have. I would be with you now, if I could be. Lucien always said that we should stay together, no matter what happened. You know he did. He always wanted us to gather around the One.’
Flattery. Not a lie, as such, because lying comes hard to me. But if Uri thinks I mean him when I speak about the One, there’s no harm in that, is there, baby?
A silence. It goes on for so long that I take the phone away from my face to see if we’re still connected. Eventually: ‘And what makes you think I’d take you back?’