The Book of Air

by Joe Treasure

  ‘And what if you didn’t? What if you refused?’

  ‘He never forced me. He never hit me or anything. Not for that. But I always did it as thoroughly as I could, and Sarah as well, to keep Maud from having to. Sarah and I could laugh about it. He wasn’t bad, Caleb. Just an old man who wanted to feel big and strong when he wasn’t any more. But it was difficult for Maud. She never got used to it.’

  ‘And that’s why she doesn’t talk?’

  ‘I do was the last thing I ever heard her say. Are you disgusted with me now?’

  ‘Why should I be?’

  ‘I was always half afraid of you.’

  ‘Why?

  ‘Because you were the bad seed.’

  ‘And Penny was the good?’

  ‘Until she ran away. Then it was a wicked streak you’d both inherited.’

  ‘Not from mum?’

  ‘No, he loved your mum. We all did. Your mother was a living saint. It was your father, with his fleshly appetites and worldly desires, who’d kept her from the path of righteousness until God cast him down from a high place and raised up Caleb to seek Hebron.’

  ‘He fell off a ladder. He wasn’t cast down by God. He had a heart attack. I don’t know anything about his fleshly appetites. It was Derek who liked Korean tarts. And the extent of my dad’s worldly desires was to have mum cook him steak and chips for tea on a Friday night and watch a bit of telly.’

  ‘You miss him.’

  ‘He would have known how to take care of this house.’

  ‘You loved him.’

  ‘Did you believe those stories – about my dad, about me being the bad seed?’

  ‘I never believed anything bad about you.’

  I take her hand and she shivers.

  ‘Do you want to go back inside?’ she says.

  ‘No. Do you?

  ‘No. And you’re not disappointed?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That I’m not a virgin.’

  ‘Abigail – you might be the first grown-up virgin I’ve ever met.’

  ‘You’re teasing me.’

  ‘It’s hard not to.’ I look her in the face. ‘I’ve had sex with other women you know. I was in London for years before I met Caroline. And Caroline wasn’t a virgin when I met her.’

  ‘You can tell me that another day. You should stop talking about Caroline now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s time.’

  She kisses me. I realise I didn’t expect her to be passionate. She’s so practical always and so self-contained. And modest, of course, with the headscarf and the heavy skirts – always careful to close the curtain when she washes at the spring. I’ve never seen her flustered before. There’s garlic on her breath. She puts her hand up to my face and I kiss her fingers. The nails are darkened at the rim with soil, and the palms of her hands are rough and calloused. There’s a memory of the milking shed overlaid by vegetable smells – roots and rank weeds and the sweeter scent of sage. Unbuttoning her blouse, I see a fine silver chain and a star of David at the end of it.

  ‘It was my mother’s.’ she says quickly, as though she has to justify this secret ornament. ‘She gave it me when Grandma Cheryl took me on the Jesus Bus. So I’d remember who I was, she said.’

  ‘You’re Jewish?’

  ‘That I was her daughter – she didn’t want me to forget. What do you mean, Jewish?’

  ‘If Cheryl was Jewish what was she doing on the Jesus bus?’

  ‘Stop asking questions.’

  As I free her from her clothes, I find I can trace her day’s work across her body, tasting the salt on her skin and the sharper tang of sweat clinging to the intimate crevices, and then sweeter flavours that are only hers and owe nothing to the field or the kitchen. After a while her breath is warm on my face and the sounds she makes in her throat are louder to my ear than the woodland noises and then drown them altogether.

  Agnes

  It feels strange to write in this book after so long. I’m not who I was when I last opened its covers. Having a baby of my own makes me think again about my mother. She knew what it was to have a baby die. She had suffered imprisonment in the red room. I see how fear might have grown in her, all her fears for herself swelling into one monstrous fear that her second child would come to harm. I’m sad to think that I will never say this to her. That I know why she slapped me when I paddled too deep, why she hissed at me when I spoke up too loud or played too wildly. And I’m sad that she will never know her grandchild. I have called him Walt, after my father. I think of the village now as a river that flowed through me, and my life just part of its flowing. I can’t bear to think that it will never flow through my child, that I have stopped it here, in me, and fear that little Walt’s life will be like a dried up river bed without it.

  It was hard having him. Dell helped, and Madge, an old woman who comes to the O sometimes with pigeons. Madge has a knack for snaring, but no teeth, so she brings the birds but only slurps at Dell’s gravy and gets drunk on Trevor’s brew. The cramps came on at tea time and came faster and sharper into the evening, but it was the dead of night before little Walt appeared. Madge said this was quick but it seemed long enough to me.

  I thought at times that the pain would tear me open. At times my mind went somewhere else and I seemed to be in a river and the pain was like water rushing through me, wave after wave, and I must either fight it or drown in it, and drowning was better.

  So lovely it was at last to hold him damp and blooded from my belly and so tiny in my arms. I’ve never known a sweeter thing. For such a time I’d known him, but never yet seen him face to face. All winter he’d called to me, kicking and turning, nagging me to eat the wild berries Trevor pickles in gin. But when I took his tiny wrinkled fingers and his little eyes blinked open and looked into mine, I came at last to his calling. And I understood Sarah’s grief at losing Dell to the scroungers, never to see her again.

  Madge took a kitchen knife to the binding, and Walt became his own person.

  ‘Oh, Agnes,’ Dell said, ‘Look at his tiny noggin, all red and furrowed. Who’d have thought he’d be so lovely.’

  Madge took him from me to wrap him from draughts. When it was Dell’s turn to hold him, she hugged him and hugged him, saying, ‘Look at the little tablet.’

  Loving Walt as I do, I find I must try to forgive Brendan. I know I will catch glimpses of him in Walt’s face as Walt grows older, and I would be sorry to mind. Even so, I think what Brendan did to me was wrong. I see that now clearer than ever. Wrong to give me this baby, then to punish me for it. To do it to me when I was far from home and afraid of him. And I was always afraid of him, though I called it love. And it was wrong of him to tell lies about my mother. If I killed him I’m sorry, but not too much. I can’t wish Brendan safe at the Hall and me locked away to save him from shame.

  I have seen more pictures, but never with such innocent wonder as that first time. I guard myself against their power. I prefer to sit at the back with Trevor, where the light spills from his machine, and help him work. I love to see the long dark ribbon curling off its wheel to wrap itself round another, the pictures so tiny and so delicately made, and so many of them, each one hardly different from the last. I cry to think of the skill of those who made them, all long dead and forgotten.

  As for the Jane Writer, it lights the pictures and makes them move, but I’m afraid its name is only the trace of a memory and nothing more. When I ask Trevor he shrugs and says that’s what Cat’s mother called it and that’s what it is.

  I’ve grown used to the work at the O. For a while I could only waddle like a fat sow, but now Walt is born I help Dell with cooking and banking up the fire. And together we watch the baby. Dell is my friend now and knows everything about me that can be told in words, though nothing of what lies deepest in my heart. She knows that Brendan is Walt’s father, which makes Walt almost a brother to her. That Brendan might be dead. That if he’s dead, then I am to blame. She was quiet wh
en I told her that – sad and thoughtful. I was afraid she would hate me for it, but she knows what men can do, knows about the dangers of the road, never goes far without a knife in her belt.

  When someone leaves word at the O I help her write it. We use the wall for paper and our pen is a stick padded at the end with fur. Our ink is pale and watery but we crush berries into it – blackberry, hawthorn, sloe – and so the word lasts long enough to be passed on, then fades, making space for other words. Trevor can neither read our letters nor understand how their shapes can make a sound, seeing them, I suppose, like the scatter of leaves blown in at the window.

  I read to Dell from the books and have found a different way of reading, moving forward from one sentence to the next, content with one meaning at a time, sometimes two, often not even one if the words are hard and their meaning too strange to us. Dell is curious about my own book, but finds my writing in it no odder than many things I do.

  And what of the Book of Air? I still love it above all other books that exist or might exist. I still feel Jane’s presence sometimes, though I am far from the Study. I still want to believe that everything is in Jane and Jane in everything, but it gets harder. And I wonder if it could ever be true for Dell or Trevor or any of the people who live beyond the village.

  Other things I once believed seem just tales to me now. The story of Maud who went at night to the house of windows that is now a ruin. Of how she danced with the Monk by starlight to the jangle of bells. Of how one night she didn’t come and the Monk in sorrow tore out his own heart. Brendan said this was good for a winter evening by a cottage fire and I think he was right. And the story of Old Sigh who flew down from a burning tower, without a stitch of clothing on him, to save the Book of Moon. The Mistress told us that one, but I think now it was a story meant only for children.

  Jason

  I’m woken by the church bells. Abigail is breathing steadily against my neck. We’re snug in our quilt, bedded in mossy soil and dead leaves, and the old trees stand around us in the grey light.

  A slight movement tells me Abigail’s awake. I sense her listening.

  ‘Jason?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you hear that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘Nothing, probably. It means Django’s up. Or never went to bed.’

  ‘Do you think we should find out?’

  ‘I’d rather stay here with you.’

  ‘So would I.’

  She stirs and we disentangle from each other. I get up and pass her some clothes, her underwear and her skirt, and turn my back to let her dress.

  We leave the wood and walk down the woodland side of the brook, hand in hand, pushing through straggly yellow weeds. The Mercedes with its nose dipped towards the water reminds me of our last wild car ride.

  ‘Jason,’ she says, ‘last night…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When you said am I Jewish, why did you say that?’

  ‘It’s a star of David, a Jewish symbol.’

  ‘Because I think I must be.’

  ‘But Cheryl was a Christian. I mean, seriously.’

  ‘Cheryl wasn’t anything. She just went along for the ride, and to protect me from my mother’s influence.’

  ‘But if your mother…’

  ‘Mum wasn’t Cheryl’s, not really. Cheryl adopted her. So you’ll remember who you are. That’s what Mum said when she gave it me. That must’ve been what she meant.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘But what does it mean? That I’m descended from all those Old Testament people, those kings and prophets and high priests, those Israelites wandering in the desert?’

  I can’t help laughing at the earnest way she says it.

  ‘And I was never meant to be praying to Jesus?’

  ‘Join the club.’

  That makes her laugh too.

  Reaching the road, I climb over the fence. Abigail follows and I help her down. She’s preoccupied, thinking about her mother I suppose, and the whole Jewish thing, and I’m wondering what it means, if anything, and whether she wants to talk about it. But turning to the church I see Simon on the tower looking down over the parapet. I don’t see any clothes on him. He holds himself against the cold and his little shoulders shake. There’s light from the window below him and the shadowy form of the monkey swinging on the bell ropes.

  I run round to the gate and into the churchyard and see Django standing on the roof of the nave, straddling the ridge. He’s got his clarinet in one hand. There’s the bulge in his jacket where he keeps his Bible closest to his heart. He edges forward, moving westward towards the tower. The slates are bright with dew. The stained glass below him flickers with colour – not sunlight but candles. The altar must be covered in them. His foot slips and he recovers, arms out, holding himself steady with a little panting laugh of excitement.

  With a few stray notes, the bells fade. The monkey runs out through the porch to meet us, then back inside the church. Up on the tower, Simon begins whimpering. He has his back to Django, but it’s obvious that whatever’s happening Django is controlling it. Simon is leaning forward, as if nerving himself to take more risk. I hear behind me Abigail’s sharp intake of breath. And I hear all the birds of the morning – a riotous clamour – and nothing now to disturb or silence them, no traffic, no tractor or chainsaw, no fighter plane, no road drill, nothing across the wide expanse of fields and woods and wasteland and distant abandoned streets – just birdsong. The air seems dense with the sound, but it’s as thin as ever. When Simon leans forward there’s nothing between him and the churchyard but a fifty foot drop.

  Django’s laughter grows and he begins to shout. ‘Don’t be afraid, Simon. They that wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings like eagles.’

  Simon shivers and lets out another whimper. Then he takes a step up and he’s standing naked on the edge of the parapet. My insides react with a lurch as if I’d taken that step myself and was already falling. And I see how this is meant to end.

  I make my voice as steady as I can, just loud enough to reach Simon without startling him. ‘Simon,’ I say, ‘step back away from the edge. Whatever he’s said to you, you don’t have to do this. Step back and wait for me.’

  Django’s looking at me now, and his face is so full of joy I could punch him. ‘Consider not the things of old,’ he says, ‘For, see, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away and the tongue of the stammerer shall speak plainly.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ I tell him. ‘You’re scaring him.’

  ‘I’m not scaring you, am I, Simon?’

  Simon shakes his head, but his eyes are shut and his teeth are clamped together.

  The window is brighter now, the medieval saints are stirring into life, and I see that it’s more than candles burning. Django’s built one of his bonfires on the altar and the whole of the chancel is ablaze.

  ‘Behold,’ he says, gesturing at Simon, ‘mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth.’ He lifts his instrument and plays a little upward run of notes. ‘I will cause the sun’s shadow to move backward on the sundial. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy righteousness shall go before thee.’

  I don’t know if there’s a way to stop this without making it worse. I’m measuring the distance I’ll have to cover to catch Simon if he falls. Can I move now without disturbing his balance, without prodding Django into greater madness? Would I do better to go inside and up to the tower?

  ‘You shall be like a watered garden, Simon, like a spring whose waters fail not. Your descendants will rebuild the ancient ruins. You will be called repairer of broken walls, the restorer of paths to dwell in. All they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet.’

  Simon is nodding his head, though his eyes are shut tight. He’s heard this before – he already knows what’s expected of him. />
  ‘Rise on the back of an angel and be seen on the wings of the wind. Fly, Simon. Fly in the midst of heaven.’

  Simon raises a foot and puts it out into space and I’m thinking the world’s about to end all over again. There’s no end to the ending of things. Our life is one long sickening plummet into loss and more loss. I hear footsteps in the grass behind me and a hum of distress, but my eyes are fixed on Simon. Whatever power Django has over him, Simon thinks he can fly, or thinks he has no choice but to behave as though he thinks he can fly. This is what I should have been attending to, only this – taking care of Simon. Because if Simon dies nothing makes sense.

  A swallow swoops over the roof of the nave, a blackbird starts up nearby, and I notice the birdsong again that I’d forgotten to hear – a chorus of inattention and indifference.

  My body reacts to the explosion. My eyes are shut for no more than a second, but when I next look Simon is gone. I heard a scrabbling sound and the thud of a falling weight, but see nothing now except the sun over the porch roof and the sheen of damp slates. From the neighbouring fields and woods all the birds have taken flight, flitting into the air or rising on slow wings.

  Behind me Abigail is talking. ‘Maud,’ she says. She’s calm, but means to be obeyed. ‘Maud, give me the gun.’

  I turn for a moment and see them, Maud staring in shock, the shotgun sinking in her arms towards the ground. Abigail has one hand on the barrel and the other round Maud’s back. Deirdre is behind them and Aleksy further off, still running. The monkey passes me, scampering through the grass towards them.

  I turn back to shout Simon’s name and his face appears above the parapet. He makes the noise he makes before speaking. I see the effort, the motion in his neck and lower jaw. The first word comes out and it’s my name.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I tell him. ‘You’re all right. I’m coming to get you.’

  I take the stairs two at a time and reach the top breathing heavily. He’s kneeling by the door, rubbing himself. ‘Uncle n-Jason,’ he says, ‘There was a bang. I hurt my mm-bottom.’