The Poison Garden

by Alex Marwood

  I put a hand on his shoulder. He’s such a kid. I’d forgotten. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I do.’

  ‘But what do we do?’

  ‘Keep your pack packed. Be ready, always. If we can’t get her to understand before it’s too late, we’ll have to leave her behind.’

  ‘And go where?’

  ‘Cairngorm. They’re there. Uri and the rest. That’s where they went.’

  He drinks this in. I guess they didn’t tell him everything, in the Guard House. He’d only been there a little while. He’s only young.

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’ he asks.

  I tell him. Well, not all of it. Not yet. Give him a chance to get used to the easy bits first. He’s not stupid. He’ll work it out.

  Before the End

  2012–2014

  32 | Romy

  June 2012

  On the other side of the hill pass, a silvery-black lake reflects the sky, nestled in the heather. Every year, the morning after the summer solstice, when the party is over and the children have been released from their confinement in the Pigshed, the women carry the remainder of the solstice feast up into the hills to eat on the heather and enjoy the bitter mountain waters. Their moment of liberty, if just for the morning. Lucien doesn’t like mixed bathing. For the moment, for the rest of the morning, they can do what they want, but they must be back in their clothes, modesty recovered, by the time the men come up after clearing the courtyard to share the meal.

  Eilidh throws herself down in the heather and Romy drops down beside her. All around them, women are stripping off their dresses, exposing pale bodies to the air. The Plas Golau suntan: brown faces, scalps, forearms and upper feet, and sharp lines of demarcation with the white beneath. Romy, with her olive complexion, feels conspicuous in the women’s Bath House, when she finds herself surrounded by all this ivory skin. She never really wonders who her father was, for his part of her story most likely ended with ejaculation, but she does wish, sometimes, that he’d been a normal blond like everyone else in the world. Eilidh is so white she feels concerned for her, for the dangers from the mountain sun.

  ‘This is the life, eh?’ says Eilidh.

  Romy strips off her top and rolls onto her back, arches her spine. Is there any bed more comfortable than a blanket laid over the natural bounce of living heather? She can’t help scanning the bodies of the three female Guards. In this gathering of rib and hipbone and breasts that have lost their stuffing till they dangle from chests as though they don’t quite belong there, Fitz and Ash and Willow are lionesses. Muscles that ripple in their arms, thighs and bellies hard as granite. Their skin is smooth and lustrous, for Uri insists that they bathe daily and oil themselves afterwards, to protect against infection and the elements. Romy rolls onto her belly. I might get dressed in a bit, she thinks. For, although she’s rougher round the edges, she feels slightly nervous that someone might notice that she looks more Guard than Drone.

  Down the slope, Vita, magnificent in an emerald-green swimsuit, her silver hair tumbling down to her waist, leads the charge into the water. Her mother, freed from the Dung Squad for the day, joins in for all the world as though she belongs there, whooping with shock as she runs into the mountain-cold water in her underwear, looking younger than Romy has seen her look in years. She’s hand in hand with Eden, laughing. Eden’s still fond of her, despite it all. She may be part of the Family, but she never forgets who her mother is.

  ‘You not going in?’ Romy asks.

  Eilidh shivers. ‘Maybe once I’ve got myself nice and hot.’ She fingers her medallion as she watches the other women. ‘It’s pretty cold in there.’

  ‘I guess it’ll clear their hangovers,’ says Romy.

  Eilidh laughs. ‘Is that why they do it?’

  ‘I heard,’ says Romy, ‘that you can drink as much as you want.’

  Eilidh’s eyes grow wide. So many things you want, at sixteen. ‘Really? D’you think Kiran ...?’ Their old friend Kiran passed into full adulthood last night, and they’re burning to hear his account of his first solstice party. It sounds so wild, through the Pigshed walls. The drumbeat so arousing, the cries of the women sounding, if they didn’t know better, for all the world as if they’re in pain.

  ‘I should think so. Wouldn’t you? Anyway, I guess we’ll see soon enough. And there’s food and food and food. No portions. They killed two pigs and three sheep last week, you know.’

  ‘Waah,’ says Eilidh.

  * * *

  * * *

  When Lucien comes, astride his big black horse and leading his men, they’ve long since left the water. It’s a beautiful thing about him, thinks Romy, that he still loves that horse despite the fact that it nearly killed him. Our Father is so kind. He forgives everything. Then she sees Kiran, skin grey and shadows under his eyes, and she waves and nudges Eilidh.

  ‘There he is,’ she says.

  Eilidh looks, wrinkles her nose. ‘Is there really any fun so good it’s worth feeling like that for the picnic?’ she asks.

  Fitz and Ash, altered and eerie in feminine garb, come over to join them on their blanket, chat amiably as though they were equals. They respond to the girls’ attempts to pump them about the night by smiling and laughing and turning away. You’ll see soon enough, they say. And yeah, we had a good time. You think this picnic is good, but there’s so much food you don’t know where to start.

  ‘Some people don’t know where to stop, either,’ says Ash, and Fitz laughs. Out of her green fatigues, Fitz is pretty. Smooth golden skin and a smattering of freckles, eyes as blue as robins’ eggs. Perhaps it’s the change in her expression. Around the Guard House she mostly wears a slightly feral frown, as though she feels that to be a Guard she needs to be on her guard all the time. Out here with the women, her face is relaxed, the brow no longer knitted, the corners of her lips turned upwards.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Too right.’

  ‘Did anyone get drunk?’ asks Romy. Some of the women are quiet today. Slow-moving. And they’re drinking deeply from the elderflower cordial in the flagons, diluted with water from the lake.

  ‘Not us,’ says Ash.

  ‘No,’ says Fitz. ‘We’ve got more sense.’

  The men reach the water and start to strip. Romy wonders passingly why it is that the men can show their skin in front of the women without kicking off a frenzy of lust. It’s just always been that way. But she looks anyway, for she’s not seen Kiran without his top since last year. He’s grown up fine, his body slim and muscular from his work in the smithy. She’s surprised to realise that she’s enjoying the view.

  She turns away. ‘Is there dancing?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says Fitz. ‘There’s dancing.’

  * * *

  * * *

  Lucien joins them at four o’clock. They’ve moved into a circle, the older teens, the younger twenties. People who’ve grown up together, old comrades from the Pigshed, flirting and fooling, for all the world as though they have no duties.

  He’s been attracted by the laughter, she realises, as he gets up and walks towards them. He’s been glancing over every time they’ve guffawed. He’s so familiar, and yet so not. A presence who moves among them every day, guiding, but aloof, retiring early to his quarters, for Vita says his burden is heavy and he has to think late into the night. He is never like this – one of them – apart from today. It’s part of the magic of the longest hours. It must be hard for him, she thinks. To have to be the Leader. He must be very alone.

  He looks Romy straight in the eye and asks if he can sit, just like a normal person, just like a human being. And Romy gets goosebumps, but she plays the game and moves casually aside to make room for him just like he’s one of them. He drops from standing straight into the lotus position, and smiles at them all in turn.

  Lucien is sixty-two. His hair has gone white and his neatly trimmed
beard to match. His body is still lean, though a little old-man paunch is just faintly visible beneath his tunic. His teeth, she sees, are snaggled, and eyes that she remembers from her ceremony as bright blue have faded to a blueish grey. A face surprisingly unlined, but for the creases around his eyes when he smiles. If it weren’t Lucien, if she didn’t know how deep and great his deliberations, she might well have assumed that the smoothness indicated a mind untroubled by thinking. But he is, and he’s here among them, and they’re all trying to hide their excitement, to pretend that this is an event that happens every day.

  ‘What are you all up to?’ he asks.

  Someone has to speak. Come on, someone. Romy looks at her companions beneath her eyelashes. The longer the pause, the more awkward we make it, the higher the barrier we put between him and us. She glances at Eilidh. He’s your father, she projects at her. You at least should be able to talk.

  And then she’s speaking, because she’s realised that everyone else is more tongue-tied than she is, and he’s smiling at her and nodding, as though every word she has to say is interesting.

  ‘It’s just a silly game.’

  The blue-grey eyes continue to rest on her, and she’s drowning. They may have faded, but still they are clear and piercing. From a distance, you feel as though they can see right into your soul.

  And then she’s cold all over, because she’s realised that, when you see them close up, there is nothing behind them.

  ‘We ...’ she stammers ‘... just Simon Says.’

  ‘Oh, that old game,’ he replies, and helps himself to a handful of berries from the bowl they’ve hived away for themselves. Trickles them between his lips and holds her eyes with his.

  There’s nothing there. Nothing. He’s as empty as a prayer bowl. The heat has gone out of the sun.

  ‘So did you all have a good time last night?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Fitz, ‘it was good.’

  ‘It was great,’ says Kiran. ‘Not that I’ve anything to compare it with.’

  Lucien ignores him. Looks again at Romy. ‘And you?’ he asks. ‘It must have been your first time?’

  She finds her voice, though it’s small with shock. How can this be? How can we follow him, when there’s nothing there?

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Next year. And not till winter.’

  A little tic of a frown. ‘Next year? How old are you? I thought you came of age this year?’

  ‘Next November,’ she tells him.

  ‘Ah, still,’ he says. ‘Not long till you’re ready.’

  33 | Romy

  December 2013

  She’s preparing to leave the Bath House when Somer grabs her by the wrist. ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘Stay in the light.’

  Romy stops. ‘What?’ she asks. She feels uncomfortably unconstructed in her long, loose dress. It’s the first time she’s worn it since her maturity rite four years ago, and it’s no more comfortable now than it was then. It has had to be let out at the shoulders, for she’s taller and broader by several inches.

  Her mother seems to have shrunk again, her daily humbling showing literally in her stooping shoulders. If that’s what thirty-five looks like, thinks Romy with all the certainty of godlike eighteen, I would rather die in battle. And then she feels a wash of guilt, for this is the woman who bore her, nursed her, brought her here to safety, and drops back.

  ‘Tonight,’ says Somer. ‘You’ve not been before.’

  ‘I know that.’ She’s trying to look cool as a vixen, but inside she prickles with nervous excitement. Eighteen, and never been to a party. Tonight is the night. All the abandon she’s heard through the Pigshed walls all these years – this time she’ll be part of it.

  ‘Listen to me, Romy,’ says Somer. ‘This is important.’

  * * *

  * * *

  By the fireplace, Eilidh laughs loudly in the middle of a group of older women, and a knot of envy forms in her sternum. It’s Romy’s first solstice too, but no one is gathered around her draping her with garlands, tying friendship bracelets around her wrist, smoothing unguents into her skin. Sometimes she feels as though she and Eilidh live on different planets.

  ‘Stay in the light,’ says Somer, again.

  Her head snaps back into the here and now. ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t know,’ says Somer. ‘It’s not like you think. Lucien, Vita, Uri – they’re not there tonight.’

  She wants to let out a loud ‘doh’. ‘I know.’

  ‘Listen to me, Romy.’

  She listens, resentfully.

  ‘Drink slowly,’ says Somer. ‘You’re not used to it. None of us is, and it can get away from you before you know it. People ... aren’t the same tonight. You’ll see.’

  Eilidh brushes past. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Romy. ‘Hang on. Don’t go without me.’ She turns back to her mother. ‘I can take care of myself,’ she says confidently.

  ‘I know. I know.’ Somer lets her arm go, looks suddenly tired. ‘Just ... stay in the light.’

  * * *

  * * *

  In the courtyard, Kiran presses tankards of cider into their hands. She drinks, and nearly spits, for her first taste of alcohol is not, as she had expected, like a particularly nice form of apple juice, but sour and bitter at the same time. Kiran laughs at the expression on her face. ‘You’ll get to like it,’ he assures her, and she takes another sip. Without the element of surprise it’s closer to palatable, but she can’t imagine she will ever grow to like it. But hey – you can pretend to like anything.

  Ursola approaches, smiling, her strange boxy camera in her hand. ‘You two,’ she says. ‘Solstice photos.’

  The girls straighten up, feel strangely self-conscious. Photographs aren’t part of their lives. Kiran makes to step back, but Eilidh holds his arm. ‘Can we have Kiran too?’ she asks.

  ‘Really?’ asks Ursola. ‘You don’t want your very own?’

  Eilidh shakes her head. Smiles her sweet smile. ‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘I want it to be the three of us. It’ll always be the three of us.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure ...’ says Ursola. ‘Is that all right with you, Romy?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Romy, and crowds in the other side of Kiran. Feels warm and loved, and part of something.

  ‘Smile,’ says Ursola. ‘Say cheese.’

  * * *

  * * *

  This is a splendid party. Trestle tables piled high with dried fruit, the pork and mutton they reaped in honour of the occasion earlier in the week, great heaps of flatbreads. No holding back tonight. The Leaders have locked themselves away and the people are free to cut loose. A tradition. Freedom, for one night and one day, two nights a year. The courtyard is strung with paper lanterns, candles burning in Mason jars, two great bonfires blasting out heat. By the makeshift dance floor the drums are starting up, a steady, heady rhythm that makes her want to sway her hips, throw her hands in the air. Women, in dresses, heads wrapped in garlands and cloth turbans in place of hair, are already straying into the open space, still in groups, starting to dance, throwing back their heads and laughing. She feels at once shy and arrogant: uncertain of how one approaches these people in this mood. An electric anticipation hangs in the air that she’s never felt before.

  ‘This is going to be a good one,’ says Kiran, with all the knowledge of three solstices under his belt.

  It’s four o’clock and dusk is drawing in.

  * * *

  * * *

  The Guards are there. Not in uniform, but still clumped together, keeping apart from the rest of the Drones. Another tribe within their tribe. They lounge on straw bales like watchful cats, the three women as uneasy in their dresses as she is in her own. They don’t talk, she thinks. The men and the women. Not with us, but also not much amongst themselves. Several of the men are smoking, a
habit she’s heard of but never seen.

  Off the leash like the rest of us, she thinks, and takes another drink. Her cheeks are oddly flushed and the drumbeats, which sounded so outlandish when she was a child, are making her want to dance. And then Dom turns his head and stares at her. His eyes narrow and his lips move. He’s saying something about her. Just a couple of words, but it is enough to make all of them turn to follow his gaze. The men, the women: still as statues and staring, as one being.

  She blushes and turns hurriedly away to look at her friends. The way they look, she thinks. I don’t like it. It was as though they were sizing me up.

  * * *

  * * *

  Midnight, and Romy is drunk. Smeared with pork juice and sugar, ripe with sweat. The Guards still stand by the barrels, watching, eyes narrowed, exchanging comments from the corners of their mouths, and Romy is on the dance floor, shaking her body. This is something different. Something primal. There is no music. Just drumming, drumming, drumming: the men queuing up to take over as others tire, the firelight licking the walls and making their shadows huge across the ground. I understand the dress now, she thinks. The freedom of her unclothed body beneath feels louche, delicious.

  She throws her hands in the air and jerks her hips, side, side, forward, back, and then, from the crowd, Kiran is there with her, dancing in her rhythm, his feet moving to match hers as though they are one person. There’s a sheen of sweat on his face and in the firelight his cheekbones are so pronounced they throw shadows. And her hips fall into line with his hips and they raise their arms together in the air, no touching, no speaking, just looking, and she is filled, suddenly, with a rush of lust that terrifies her.