The Book of Air

by Joe Treasure

  I sit Simon on a chair and crouch to look at him. There’s no colour in his face. The external bleeding isn’t much but I’m worried about the knock to his skull. Behind him, Aleksy’s doing a lot of grunting. Maud and Abigail hold him still while Deirdre sews him up. Simon keeps twisting round to look, so I give up and turn his chair the other way.

  When I start cleaning the wound Simon says ‘ow’ and puts his hand up but he doesn’t take his eyes off the main attraction. ‘I said ow.’

  ‘I heard you, but I’ve got to make sure it’s clean before I put a bandage on.’

  Aleksy asks Deirdre if she’s done this before.

  ‘With a horse, once, I did,’ she says.

  ‘Well remember, please, that I am not a horse.’

  I explode at them. ‘Christ, you two, what were you thinking, taking Simon?’

  ‘He was on the cart,’ Deirdre says. ‘He was playing in the boxes. We were a mile away before we knew.’

  Aleksy grunts. ‘Stop talking and sew, you psycho bitch horse doctor.’

  Simon giggles.

  I ask him what’s funny and he shrugs. ‘He called her a cycle horse witch doctor.’

  ‘Tell me what happened today. Who attacked you?’

  ‘Yellow people,’ he says.

  Yellow people? And they threw stones at you?’

  ‘Sticks and stones will break your bones.’

  ‘And fired a gun?’

  ‘It was loud.’

  ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘I hid in my house.’

  ‘You would have been safer back here, you know, in a real house with stone walls. You can build your house in the dining room if you like. Do you want to do that?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Did the stones hit your house and knock it down?’

  ‘I looked out the door.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘When Aleksy…’

  ‘When Aleksy was shot?’

  He nods. ‘And…’

  ‘He started making all that noise.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abigail comes with the brandy and a strip torn from her sheet for a bandage and leaves them beside me on the table.

  ‘I’m going to put some alcohol on this, Simon,’ I tell him. ‘It might sting.’

  He pulls away, shaking his head.

  ‘I’ve got to. It’s so it won’t get infected.’

  He looks at me now. ‘But Jangle says…’

  ‘What? What does he say?’

  ‘Jangle says I’m inf… inf…’

  ‘You’re not infected, Simon. I got sick and now I’m better. But you’re fine.’

  ‘Not that.’ He’s annoyed with me for getting it wrong. ‘Jangle says I’m inf…isible.’

  ‘Invisible? How does he make that out?’ I’m laughing and I can see he doesn’t like it. I reach for the brandy bottle. ‘Is it a game,’ I ask him, ‘some game you and Django play?’

  This doesn’t help. He’s struggling to say no, or not a game, or to call me naughty for laughing.

  ‘Just hold still,’ I tell him. I put a corner of the bandage to the mouth of the brandy bottle, up-end it, stand it back on the table and dab the wound.

  ‘Ow ow, I said ow.’

  ‘Are you invisible all the time, or only some of the time?’

  ‘All the time, Jangle says.’

  ‘And are you invisible to everyone? Can I see you? Can Django see you? What about Abigail?’

  I can tell these are annoyingly stupid questions.

  ‘You can’t mmm….’

  There’s a b word buzzing in his throat. His eyes bulge and he does his vomit face. I take Abigail’s bandage and begin winding it about his head.

  ‘…mmmbeat me.’

  I stop what I’m doing, hold his head and look into his face. ‘No one’s going to beat you, Simon. Did someone say they would? Did Django?’

  ‘No. You…’

  ‘I can’t, I get it. And I won’t beat you. Whatever you do. No one will. I promise.’

  ‘No one. Ever. Jangle says.’

  I split the end of the bandage to tie it round his head. It bothers me that he’s talking like this. No one’s ever hit him, as far as I know.

  Deirdre has finished with Aleksy, so I take Simon by the hand to join them. Aleksy’s still clinging to his chair. He’s pale and sweaty and breathing hard. Maud comes from the stove with a warm flannel and wipes his face.

  ‘You all right?’ I ask him.

  ‘Better than ever.’

  ‘Simon says you were attacked by yellow people.’

  Aleksy nods. ‘Fluorescent jackets.’

  ‘Like a uniform,’ Deirdre says. ‘An army.’

  ‘What if they’re just people,’ Abigail says, ‘like us, and these jackets are just what they had?’

  ‘That’s what I tell her. Listen to Abigail, Deedee. These people find a warehouse somewhere. Nice waterproof jackets hanging on hooks. Who cares what they look like?’

  ‘Dozens of them? All the same?’

  ‘Dozens! Who says dozens?’

  ‘I saw at least a dozen.’

  ‘Not so many. I saw maybe five.’

  ‘They were among the trees.’

  ‘Exactly. Trees, shadows, patches of sunlight enough to blind you. You see someone here and then here. Same few people, scurrying about.’

  ‘Scurrying! These men had guns, Aleksy.’

  ‘Maybe men. Maybe women and children. Maybe just children.’

  ‘An army of men. I’m telling you, Abigail. Jason, listen. Armed with guns. They nearly killed you, Aleksy. You’re not thinking straight. He isn’t thinking. They’re organised. They were waiting for us.’

  ‘Kill me? With this scratch?’

  ‘It was a warning shot.’

  ‘It was a pop gun. A small handgun maybe in the hands of a child. Bang, bang, bang. Couldn’t hit me once. Just this graze. Couldn’t hit any of us. Some soldier wanted to kill us, Deedee, we’d be dead.’

  ‘And we will be. They’ll come for us, now they know where we are.’

  ‘And how they know this?’

  ‘If they followed us.’

  ‘If. If.’

  ‘It’s not the same for you, Aleksy. Listen to me, Abigail. Aleksy thinks this is the worst that can happen – a bullet in the arm. Even a bullet in the head isn’t the worst. Getting shot isn’t the worst, Jason.’ She turns back to Abigail. ‘They’re men. They don’t know what we know.’

  ‘Forget men and women, Deedee. It’s land, OK? Our land. Their land. We don’t go past the woods no more, then they don’t come for us. Live, let live.’

  Abigail puts her arms round Deirdre. ‘We’re safe here, love. They won’t hurt us here. You did a good job. See how we take care of each other.’ She stoops to gather up the bloody scraps of sheeting. She gives the floor around Aleksy’s chair a rough wipe and stands up with her bundle. ‘Maud, make a pot of tea. Real tea. Use three bags and let it sit. We all need tea. And then we’ll clean this place up.’ She goes out the back door into the yard.

  Aleksy and Simon are comparing bandages and I’m asking Deirdre about the time she sewed up a horse and Maud’s warming the teapot, when Django comes in from the yard with Abigail behind him. ‘Where is he?’ He drops his shoulder bag on the floor and hazelnuts spill out. ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Aleksy says. ‘Strong as an ox.’

  Django doesn’t respond. He crosses to where Simon is standing and drops to his knees. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘Yellow people.’

  ‘Butter and honey shall he eat.’ Django is talking to himself, then louder to all of us. ‘Butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse evil, and choose the good.’ He’s impatient, exasperated. He stands and turns to Abigail. ‘Do we have butter and honey?’

  ‘There is no butter, Django. There’s cream…’

  ‘Why aren’t we making butter?’

  ‘You want butter,’ Aleksy says, ‘build a
churn. Here’s a project for you. We’ll all be happy. Even happier if you help with wheat so next year we’ll have bread to spread it on. You see Abigail’s made jam already.’

  ‘And honey?’

  ‘We’ll have honey,’ Abigail says, ‘in the spring. There are hives in one of the cottage gardens.’

  ‘Not till the spring?’

  ‘Maud’s kept bees before. She knows what she’s doing.’

  ‘We talked about this, Django,’ Deirdre says. ‘Weren’t you here? We’ll be able to make candles from the wax.’

  ‘Cream then, and jam, stirred together in a cup.’ It’s meant as an order. No one moves but Django doesn’t notice. ‘For butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land.’ He’s looking at Simon again. He lifts him under the arms and stands him on a chair. He’s fiddling with the knot of the bandage. When he begins to unwind it, I step in to stop him. ‘What d’you think you’re up to?’

  ‘Don’t touch him.’ He speaks fiercely. ‘You smell of the earth.’

  ‘I’ve been digging a toilet. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Your pomp is brought down to the grave with the noise of your viols. The worms are spread under you, and the worms cover you.’

  I don’t know how to answer this. The bandage slips off and I move in to take Simon in my arms, to hold him from danger. I watch in silence as Django puts a finger gently to the graze. Slender musician’s hands he has. Simon closes his eyes but doesn’t wince or complain.

  Django speaks in a murmur. ‘Shot, and nothing to show for it.’

  ‘He wasn’t shot,’ I tell him.

  ‘You’d think so, to look at it now. It’s hardly a scrape. You see, Simon, no one can beat you.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Invincible, that’s what you are.’

  ‘Why do you tell him these things?’

  ‘You built towers, Jason.’ He turns on me, eyes blazing. ‘You raised up palaces and they’re brought to ruin. For you said in your heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high. But thorns shall come up in your palaces. They will become a habitation of jackals and a haunt for owls. The high ones of stature shall be cut down, the haughty shall be humbled, and a little child shall lead them.’

  ‘Hey, Django,’ Aleksy says, ‘you eat too many of your own nuts, I think.’

  ‘Stop this, Django,’ I tell him. ‘Stop filling his head with this nonsense.’

  Abigail says, ‘Maud’s made tea, Django. Real tea. I think you should have some. We’ve all had a bit of a shock.’ She fills a cup and hands it to him on a saucer. ‘There’s milk, look, in the jug on the table.’

  When he takes hold of the saucer, the cup rattles. ‘Yes, all right,’ he says. He looks at the tea and then at Abigail. ‘Tea. What a treat. It smells good. Thanks, Abigail. Thank you, Maud. Thank you.’

  Maud steps forward and rests the palm of her hand on his forehead.

  ‘Is he hot?’ Deirdre asks her. ‘Is it the sweats? It can’t be the sweats. It doesn’t make sense. Not after all this time. Who would he catch it from?’

  Abigail tells him to sit down and to drink some tea, and he does as he’s told, but when she asks him how he feels, he looks at her vaguely as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  Deirdre’s asking him where he’s been. Did he meet anyone while he was gathering nuts?

  ‘Let him be,’ Aleksy says. ‘Just his brain overheating. He thinks too much.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks, Abigail,’ Django says at last. ‘Just need to lie down for a bit.’ He gets up and puts his tea cup on the table. ‘No offence, this room is stifling.’ We watch him go out into the hall and hear his footsteps on the stairs.

  Agnes

  Something has happened that I couldn’t have guessed or hoped for. Better than a pot full of ink, though I have that too. I am out of the red room, away from the Hall and the village. Somewhere among the ruins of the endtimers – more than that I can’t say. Somewhere on the road is all I know.

  The day after they fuddled my brain in the woods – that was the worst day. Worse than when my father died, because I felt it was my own death. They might have wrapped me then and laid me in a pit. I put my face to the broken window to catch what air I could. I tasted the edge with my tongue. I put my wrist to the glass to test its sharpness. I cut myself enough to drag the pain out of my head. I sat in the space between the tiled walls with my arm aching sweetly and heard myself called by the broken glass. I had eaten nothing since their filthy broth and nothing much before that. Moths gathered in my stomach. My head rose up in the narrow space, away from the rest of me and I felt I had at last learnt the secret of calling that the endtimers had mastered, that Jane knew and teaches us to long for. The cracked glass called me from its tangle of ivy, aching to be washed of its dust and mildew, washed in fresh blood, and I rose up in answer like smoke from a candle.

  That night I crawled under the bed when the voices came, and answered each one with a cherry stone dropped into the hole. Each time I heard the clatter and the echo and the distant plop as the Grace Pool received it.

  And then a voice came that I knew better than the others. ‘Agnes, is it really you? Do you hear me when I speak?’

  I opened my mouth to answer but breathed in dust and all that came was coughing and noise. My throat hurt and there was no sound left in it.

  ‘Bessie whispered it was you, but I don’t know if I can believe her… My baby is kicking, I lie gently on my side so as not to hurt it… I hope you’re there and can hear me… I’m half afraid of what kind of a creature it will be when it’s born at last… I hope they let you out… I can’t stay long, Daniel will wonder where I am… Think of me sometimes…’

  Maybe she said more, I don’t know. I slept and was woken by steps outside the door. I thought it might be Roland come again, or Brendan to hold me, to fall on his knees and hold his head against my belly and plead with me to love him in spite of everything, so I could tell him it was too late and he should suffer for all he had made me suffer.

  The door opened a crack and a voice whispered my name. It was a woman’s voice. I held still, afraid it was the Reeds come to beat me, the Reeds who weren’t Reeds, being men under their leafy veils. The door opened and closed and again I heard my name. I crawled from my hiding place, rose to my knees and to my feet. I stumbled a little but put out a hand to the wall. Even in the darkness I was ashamed of my condition, ashamed of my hair loose on my face and the dirt and the blood and my dress torn and unwashed, ashamed of the tears that came too easily, of the snot thick and salty on my tongue, of my own sour smell.

  ‘Agnes,’ she said, and again, ‘Agnes, child.’

  I tried to speak but my throat filled up and the breath was snatched from me.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  I said, ‘If I had remembered Jane. If I had held myself ready, a pen balanced for writing.’

  ‘You can’t stay here.’

  ‘They’ll make me stay.’

  ‘Are you strong enough to ride?’

  ‘If Gideon’s back is strong enough to take me.’

  ‘Agnes, Agnes, they’ve starved you almost to nothing.’

  ‘If I’d remembered. That the temple is not a room but a mind ready for learning.’

  ‘You have somewhere to go.’

  I didn’t feel safe to answer, but I saw it wasn’t a question. Or if it was a question, Sarah took my silence for an answer.

  ‘You’d know how to find them again?’

  ‘You know about the scroungers?’

  ‘About them, yes. Some things I once heard.’

  ‘From Brendan?’

  ‘Was there a child among them? Not a child any more. A girl of your age.’

  ‘There’s a girl who lives with Trevor. Brendan took her something, a gift from the Hall.’

  ‘Tell me about her. What do they call her?’

  ‘Dell.’r />
  ‘Of course. Dell for Adele, orphan child.’ Her eyes shone with tears. ‘Does he take care of her, this Trevor? Is she safe from harm? Is she happy?’

  ‘They take care of each other.’

  ‘And you could find your way back to them?’

  ‘Maybe I could.’

  ‘Tell me about her. What does she look like? Is she healthy? What colour is her hair?’

  ‘It springs out from her head like a sheep’s wool before shearing. Not pale like a sheep but dark and lovely. She smiles and laughs and sometimes looks solemn. She helps Trevor feed the Jane Writer and cooks for all the scroungers who come.’

  I stopped, afraid that Sarah could no longer hear me for her sobbing. I saw then that her own hair is as dark as Dell’s, with a glow in it like the night sky. Too little of it shows, she wears her scarf so neatly.

  When she was quiet again and we had stood together for a moment, she said I should take food from the kitchen and some clean clothes and a blanket to sleep in and leave while it was still dark. She led me out on to the landing.

  Seeing Brendan’s door, I wondered if he was studying or asleep or away in the forest. I felt such bitterness that he had left me to answer for our wrongdoing, when he was surely more to blame than I, to be locked away, and now to be banished from everything I had ever known, every place that had comforted me. I thought I might tell Sarah that I was carrying a child and whose child it was. I thought even of telling her about this book, but was too afraid. I asked instead if I could be alone for a minute in the study to remember the times I had been happiest at the Hall. So she left me there and said I should be quick and meet her in the stable. I felt bad but the red room has made me cunning. I feel bad still, thinking about how Sarah saved me and was my true friend, but I’m glad I have the ink.

  Sarah had brought a bucket of water to the stable and a towel, so I could wash my face. She stroked my hair and said she would miss me. She has some new book learners, she said – Megan’s sister Peg and Rachel’s boy Ralph – but none as quick as me. She held me close and I felt her tears. She spoke soothingly to Gideon as I saddled him, saying that he must take a good look at the stable that he might not see again for a while. I thought she might have said forever but would not, either for my sake or for her own.