It really is Seth. His face is his face, at the top of a crumpled lilac robe. The crumples are shadowed grey and blue and there are stains, soup stains, tea stains. The particles in the air have gone berserk with the opening of the door.
‘Thank God. Dodie.’ It’s his voice and he leans down. The warmth of his cheek shocks her properly awake, pushes her up to sitting.
‘Where’s Jake?’ she says, and letting in that name fills her with a hot wash of fear. The room wobbles and spins and her focus shifts, there’s a smell of something familiar but she can’t think what it is.
‘Get up,’ Seth says. ‘We’ve got to get out of here, now.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Now.’
‘I can’t.’ She tries to stand but her legs are weak. ‘Jake?’ she says again.
‘Come on.’
‘Daniel took him,’ she says.
‘Daniel?’
And then she recognizes the smell of burning and a soundless scream comes from her mouth. Seth pulls her to her feet and rushes her along the corridor.
‘Where is he? Where’s Hannah? She made Daniel take him.’
‘What? We’re going to him.’
‘Are we?’ Dodie’s legs stop working and she crouches, faintness fizzing and sparkling in her ears and eyes.
‘Not now,’ Seth pleads. ‘Come on.’
‘But Jake?’ She’s bitten her tongue and the sharp iron taste wakes her. A small reservoir of energy gets into gear, going to Jake, going to him, going to him.
‘Where?’ she says again, but Seth is concentrating on finding his way through the corridors; maybe they’re lost, like rats in a maze, coming to a dead end or a locked door, but it’s all different now; there are doors that are open where once they were all shut, doors gaping onto rooms, and in one Dodie sees three people sleeping on the floor, neatly, face up, hands folded on their chests and she thinks she recognizes some of the faces. Her feet stop. What?
Seth drags her on and he is stronger and she lets herself be whisked along like a ghost of herself just above the surface of the ground. They go to a room she’s never been inside before, with filing cabinets and computers and a plastic smell. An old man is sitting with his head in his hands. On the desk in front of him, there’s a pile of pills beside a glass of water. He raises his hairy grey face when they come in.
‘Ah, good,’ he says. He gives Seth a thick brown envelope. ‘Now scram.’
‘I can’t,’ Dodie says. ‘My little boy . . .’
‘You’re going to him,’ the man says. ‘No time, no time.’
Dodie’s head goes into a swoon but her legs still work and so does her ability to obey orders. Outside a car is waiting, engine revving. There is smoke in the air, looming blackly from somewhere at the back of the building. There’s the heavy thwack, thwack of a helicopter, its belly a fat glassy shine above her. Seth opens the car, shoves her in the back seat and slams the door.
2
Rebecca’s in the driving seat, revving the engine.
‘Rebecca?’ Dodie says. ‘How? You?’
‘It’s Bex,’ Rebecca says and, ‘Shhh, let me concentrate. Haven’t driven for frigging yonks.’ She manoeuvres the car through the open gates, out onto the road and puts her foot down.
Seth reaches back to give Dodie a banana. She holds it for a moment before peeling back the skin and filling her mouth with the dense sweet flesh. Her salivary glands start to pump again and it hurts, like small explosions in her cheeks; she swallows a big lump and it forces down her throat like rape. Nausea clamps her stomach almost shut, but at the same time she feels the sugar immediately getting into her blood, a distinct tracery through her body as it branches; miraculous how fast it spreads. She eats another bite and then another and then her throat closes and her stomach feels like it will split.
There is the sound of sirens. ‘Fuck, that was close,’ Rebecca says.
‘What’s happening?’
‘It’s all gone tits up,’ Rebecca explains. ‘The police are arresting everyone who hasn’t scarpered or . . .’
Died, Dodie thinks. The banana threatens to come back up again; she swallows hard, hardens her eyes.
‘Your clothes are there, better change and we’ll chuck the robes away.’
‘Why are they arresting people?’ Dodie says.
‘We don’t know,’ Seth says. His voice sounds very young and gruff. She would hug him if she could reach. There’s a tangled pile on the back seat. Rebecca, or Bex, Dodie notices, is wearing a denim jacket and specs.
‘You’re wearing glasses,’ Dodie says.
‘Not allowed to in there,’ Rebecca says, ‘so I was blind as a frigging bat.’
‘Not allowed?’ Now Dodie comes to think of it, she’d not seen anyone wearing glasses at Soul-Life. She imagines glasses with a mask and gives a soggy giggle.
‘It’s fantastic to see straight again,’ Rebecca says. ‘I can’t think straight when I can’t see.’
The saliva is still pumping stupidly in Dodie’s mouth. She swallows it; watches the low suburban sprawl flow past the windows.
She takes a deep breath. Her heart is swinging like a pendulum, hurting each time it strikes her ribs. ‘Do you know where Jake is?’ she dares to ask.
‘Florida.’
‘Florida?’
‘Martha took him,’ Seth says. ‘I’ve got the address and everything and money to get us there – from Obadiah. I’ve got our passports and thousands of dollars.’ He holds out a wad of money.
‘Martha took him?’ Dodie says. Her stomach is cramping. ‘No, it was Daniel – it was Hannah.’ In the sound of a siren she hears Jake’s cry as he was snatched from her arms.
‘Obadiah said it was Martha,’ Seth says.
Dodie’s mind scrambles. Was Martha in league with them, then? But no, no.
‘ Why? Why would Martha take him?’ A bus overtakes them, sending up a sluice of water. ‘Florida?’ she says again. Adrenalin fizzes through her, yet there’s nothing she can do but sit here, sit still, in this car.
Rebecca looks back over her shoulder. ‘Better change before we get to the airport. The police are searching.’
‘For what? I don’t understand,’ Dodie says weakly. ‘What I saw, did I see bodies? I thought –’
‘Later,’ Rebecca says. ‘Let me concentrate; never driven on the right before.’
‘But there were bodies.’
There is no response. It’s starting to rain and Rebecca fumbles about to find the wipers. Dodie watches them swish to and fro and to and fro. She looks at her brother’s shoulder, leans forward and pokes his arm. ‘Why wouldn’t you see me when I came all this way?’ she demands.
Seth twists his neck to look at her, his expression puzzled, dazed, as if he’s just waking up. ‘Don’t know,’ he says. ‘Don’t remember. I . . . Hannah was telling me . . . no . . . it’s all fuzzy. I went kind of ballistic when we got there and someone gave me a jab and then . . .’ He bites a knuckle, as if that will help him think. ‘I remember you on the phone and she said I mustn’t worry you.’
‘Worry me?’
His brow is furrowed with the effort of remembering. He looks older. In just these few weeks – and yet he looks like a baby too. Her baby brother. She sees how bitten the nails are, the specks of blood around the cuticles.
‘Hannah said you were ill again,’ he continues. ‘She told me to humour you, she said and I . . . oh, I can’t remember. And I kept seeing Mum . . . I kept seeing her, Dodie.’
‘What do you mean?’ Goosebumps riffle over Dodie’s skin and she hugs her arms.
‘Like a ghost,’ he says.
‘Maybe a dream?’ Rebecca suggests.
Seth shakes his head, almost angrily. ‘No.’
He turns back to look out of the windscreen and Dodie takes in his fine, familiar profile, his fluffy stubble, his filthy ears. Another police vehicle screams towards them in the opposite direction, siren warping as it passes.
‘Fuck,�
� Rebecca says.
‘Yeah, fuck,’ Seth agrees and Dodie feels her face split in an empty, automatic grin.
‘Anyway,’ Seth says after a moment. ‘They put me in a peace-pod, like in solitary, for weeks it felt like.’
‘Pea pod?’
‘Peace-pod, like you were in.’
‘Cell,’ she says, and no one contradicts her.
‘Seth,’ she says and leans forward to touch the reality of his shoulder. ‘It’s all right.’ He catches her hand and squeezes it tight. Their eyes meet, and snag, and look away again.
It’s cold. She reaches for the clothes, the jeans, the sweater, the leather jacket; she shoves Seth’s clothes to him and they shift and wriggle in their seats as they struggle to dress. She has to undo her seat belt and sit sideways to get into her jeans. They are stiff and alien, so much too big around her waist that she doubts they’re really hers – but yes, there is that bleach mark, and in the pocket the New York transport map she shoved there, it seems like years ago. The watch has gone, though, those clever little numerals that Rod did.
‘Did you see my watch?’ she says.
Rebecca shakes her head. ‘I just had to, like, grab what I could quick.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Dodie says. And it doesn’t. Some things she can let go. Just things. They throw the robes out of the car window and see them swirl away like lilac spooks.
The wipers are making Dodie sleepy now. To and fro – going to Jake, going to Jake – clearing a space that is only a space for a split second before the raindrops slant, gelid, halfway to being sleet. It’s winter after all. ‘What’s the date?’ she says.
‘Dunno,’ Seth says.
‘Must be nearly Christmas,’ Rebecca guesses. She looks over her shoulder. ‘You OK?’
Dodie opens her mouth on a logjam of too much to say, but where to start? It’s impossible, and she shuts it again, swallows hard.
‘We’ll get there,’ Rebecca says. ‘We’ll get a flight and then we can fill you in – on as much as we know.’
‘You coming with us?’ Seth asks her.
‘You joking?’ Rebecca says. ‘I’ve always fancied Florida.’
‘Me too.’ He gives a weak little laugh and begins to gnaw what’s left of his thumbnail.
Dodie closes her eyes and goes into the thought of Jake, willing him to be safe. She saw him for such a brief time; held him, inhaled him and then he was snatched away. Still, in her hands is the sensation of him, his weight on her lap. And she can still feel Hannah’s hands on her back, pushing. Were they in it together, Hannah and Martha? In what, though? Why would Martha take him and leave her behind? Poor Jake, he’ll be so confused. Why would Martha want him? But it’s no good, there’s no sense to be had and her mind stalls. She lets the wipers lull her into a shallow kind of trance.
3
The airport swarms with uniforms and the long black snouts of guns. It’s Christmas here, Santa ringing a hand bell, the ground wet from boots and dripping umbrellas. The three of them buy tickets for the first flight to Tampa and then go to a café. Dodie and Seth sit down while Rebecca orders them each a cheese sandwich with a sticky heap of coleslaw and a mountain of crisps. She brings back three giant milkshakes: one pink, one yellow, one brown. The cheese has a waxy, personal taste and the sandwich is so gigantic Dodie can do no more than nibble the edge, but she sucks the milkshake, strawberry, in long, smooth glugs, feeling her stomach stretch and bulge against her ribs. Seth finishes his sandwich and reaches for the rest of Dodie’s.
‘You must be starving too,’ she says. ‘I think my stomach’s shrunk.’
‘I had plenty of food,’ he says.
‘While you were locked up?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I had none,’ she says. They stare at each other.
‘Nobody brought you anything?’ Rebecca says. ‘For how long?’
‘Who put you in?’ asks Seth.
‘Hannah.’
‘But Hannah’s cool,’ Seth says.
‘Cool?’ Dodie chokes on a crumb in her throat, and Seth whacks her on her back until tears fly from eyes. ‘Cool?’ she says again, when she can speak.
‘She was OK with me. She was like, motherly?’ he says.
Dodie inhales sharply and hides her face in her hands. Motherly! A surge of laughter comes up her throat like sick. She counts to ten, finds the phrase Let it go in her mind, tips her head back to see a twizzle of tawdry tinsel. You’d better be good, you’d better not cry pumps from some vast speakers, and she bleats out another laugh.
‘What?’ Seth says.
Rebecca pulls a face at her and takes a final gurgling slurp of milkshake. Seth munches loudly in a way that would make Stella scream. Stella. Dodie pushes away the milkshake.
‘Mum?’ Seth says. Is he reading her mind now? His hand, all salty from the crisps, clamps hers. ‘Did she, I mean . . .’ He clears his throat. ‘Did she . . . I mean was it, like, suicide?’ This last word sticks in his mouth, but Dodie hears it. She nods.
‘That’s what she said. Her head was all like . . .’ He twists his head to one side and she shudders, her innards turning hot and liquid.
‘Did you find her, Dode?’ he whispers.
Their eyes meet for a flinch of a second.
‘Come on, guys,’ Rebecca says, grabbing his arm, ‘we can do this on board. We’d better buy some stuff – it’d look sus going through security with nothing.’
They follow Rebecca into a shop where she buys bags and books and gum and tampons and tissues so that they can look like normal passengers. Dodie puts her passport in the pocket of her new, tacky flags-of-the-world bag. Seth unwraps a stick of gum and puts it in his mouth.
They remove shoes and coats to go through security; put the brand-new bags full of brand-new stuff in the trays. Dodie retrieves her jacket gladly when it comes through the X-ray machine; it’s hers, a part of her, and the parts are hardly holding together now. In the pocket there’s a tissue, a pound, a bus ticket, her lipstick and a Lego pig.
The flight is ready to board and they go straight on. It’s only half full, so they could spread out, but the three of them cram together in a row, Dodie in the middle.
They watch obediently as the air steward performs the safety procedure routine. The take-off flattens them back against their seats and the plane tilts into the rain and cloud of the winter afternoon. Rebecca has her eyes shut, specs clutched in her hand. Her freckles swarm against her skin, gone milky pale. She opens her eyes and catches Dodie’s look, puts her glasses back on.
‘Did you know he died too?’ Rebecca says.
‘Who?’
‘Our Father.’
‘No. When?’
‘A couple of days ago. He was really sick but, of course, no doctors.’
‘Like John,’ Dodie says and Rebecca nods. A quiver passes between them. ‘So he’s dead, then.’ Dodie digests this for a moment, can’t make it matter. What was he to her?
‘That’s when it all started to, like, fall apart,’ Rebecca says. ‘Helicopters, police and that. Fights. Actual shouting in the corridors, and no one telling us anything. I was shit scared, I can tell you.’
‘I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘Nor did I,’ Seth says.
Dodie notices that his hands are trembling as he savages the skin around his thumbnail. She catches his hand and pulls it away from his mouth. And he starts to bite his lip instead. ‘Calm down,’ she says, as much to herself as to him. She squeezes his bony knee. ‘It’s OK, we just get to Jake and after that we can talk and it’ll all be OK.’
They are quiet for a while. Seth chews gum. Rebecca takes her glasses off and shuts her eyes. The pilot tells them how high up they are and what the temperature is in Florida.
‘Why did Martha take Jake?’ Dodie says, reaching across Seth to touch Rebecca’s arm. ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ she pleads. ‘She wouldn’t do him any harm?’
‘Yeah,’ Rebecca says. ‘Martha’s OK.’
‘Maybe she was trying to keep him safe?’ Seth says. ‘She is his auntie, I guess. Great aunt?’
Dodie stares. ‘Great what?’ she says.
‘Well, she’s Mum’s sister so –’
‘What?’ Either the plane has hit some turbulence, or it’s her stomach plummeting.
‘Didn’t you know?’ he says.
‘What? What?’ On the screen the plane noses clumsily down the east coast of the continent. ‘What?’ she says again. ‘Martha is Stella’s sister?’ She’s silent for a moment, her mind scrambling. ‘But she never said. Why wouldn’t she say? Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. She came with Our Father to pick me up from Sheffield. Mum said she was my aunt.’ The way Seth’s chewing his gum is starting to drive Dodie mad. She puts her hands up to her eyes, cups the warm dark, feels the tickle of her lashes on her palms as she pictures Martha’s face. But it’s nothing like Stella’s.
‘Are you sure?’ she says again. ‘Why didn’t she tell me then?’
He shrugs. ‘It was the night I was meant to be babysitting,’ he says, adding, ‘Sorry about that.’
Dodie snorts.
He tells her about the night he left, the shock of stran gers in the house, the rush of it all, no time to pack even.
‘Why did you agree to go, then?’ she asks.
Puzzled expressions chase across his face. ‘Mum said . . . School . . .’
‘Were you being bullied again?’
He swallows hard, ignores the question, and rattles through the story: the hotel, the first-class flight. He tells her about the films and the on-board food and then his voice trails off as he gets into his arrival at Soul-Life. ‘I was totally freaked,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know it was going to be a churchy thing, I thought it would be like a house and . . .’ His fingers go to his lips as if trying to retrieve something slippery from his memory.
‘The day you left, do you remember what time it was?’ Dodie asks. ‘Was Stella wearing the red dress?’
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