The Book of Air

by Joe Treasure

  I take my jacket off and wrap him in it. ‘You’re freezing,’ I tell him. ‘You need to come home with us and sit by the fire and have some breakfast. Let’s see if those bantams have laid us any eggs.’

  I see Abigail and Maud down among the gravestones, clinging to each other. The monkey’s chatter rises to a scream. He’s found Django sprawled beside the porch, a dark stain spreading around him on the grass. He clambers over the body, making noises of alarm, glancing back to see who’s with him. He pulls at the hole in Django’s jacket. White flakes come out of it and scatter on the ground. He pulls again and there are more flakes. I think for a moment that Django is stuffed like a toy bear. Then I see that it’s paper. The monkey is pulling the pages from Django’s Bible, which wasn’t quite thick enough to save him. The swallow soars up over the church, drawing my eyes across the trees until I lose it against the sun.

  I’m startled by another burst of noise. The chancel windows are shattering in the heat. Some of the roof tiles crack at the far end of the nave and flames appear.

  ‘Come on, Simon. Time to go.’

  ‘But where’s…?’

  ‘We’ll talk about Django when we’re on the ground.’

  ‘He said I had to…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘…I had to…’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.’

  ‘…I had to fly.’

  ‘No one can fly, Simon. Only birds can fly.’

  ‘But Jangle said.’

  ‘Quick, Si, before the fire gets us.’

  I lift him and he climbs into my arms.

  ‘If the mmm-bantams have laid an egg, can I have soldiers?’

  ‘No bread, Si, remember. Not this year. Later we’ll have bread and you can have all the soldiers you want.’

  I take a last look over the parapet and I see the monkey chattering away among the gravestones with Django’s clarinet. He crosses the road and scampers across the lawn, diminishing as if into an unimaginable future where babies will be born to replace the dead and everything lost will be found.

  Agnes

  Since I last opened this book, a horrible thing has happened, and we have left the O, Walt and I, for ever. Dell is with us. Until last evening we had no thought of making this journey. But now we shelter in the shadow of a fallen house and wait for the rain to ease before we set off again on the road to the village. Dell is asleep. Neither of us slept last night. Gideon stands patiently, head down against the wind. Walt lies beside me in his basket while I write. He holds one foot above him and makes small contented noises. He knows nothing of the danger we are in, trusting his safety to my care.

  Yesterday at dusk Dell sent me to the canal for water, while she skinned some rabbits. When I had scooped up the last bucket and was loading it on the cart, a boy came, leading a cow along the pathway. The cow tugged a boat. Inside the boat a man stood to steer it with a paddle. I have seen other scroungers travel like this, usually with a horse or a donkey, sometimes with nothing but a pole to push against the riverbed. This cow was white all over like no cow in the village and bigger than any I’ve seen, with strong muscles in her rump. The boy was so small beside her that I took him at first for a child, until I saw the wisps of hair on his chin. The man shouted something from the boat and I couldn’t tell if it was me he was shouting at or the boy. The cow seemed to understand him, anyway, because she stopped and dropped her head to graze at the side of the path. The boy waited, leaning against her side, looking so frail and sickly that I thought he might have fallen over into the water if the cow hadn’t been there to support him. The boatman spoke again and I heard enough of his words to know he was asking where a person with a thirst might get a drink.

  I told him he could follow me to the O. If I had known what trouble I was bringing to us all, I would have dropped the water and run into the darkest alleys of the forest. But how could I have known?

  There was a dog chained up on the boat that growled at me, until the man slapped its muzzle. Quick and jerky in his movements this boatman was, in a way I’ve observed here among the scroungers where a man can’t stand easy among his neighbours but must watch for danger. He had a voice with a creak in it like a door shifting in a draught. When he stepped on to the path, his hot stink blew against me.

  He took a swipe at the boy, sent him to fetch some things from the boat and set about untying the rope from the beast’s harness. He winked at me and more words came out of his mouth. I moved so that the cow was between us, making a show of patting and stroking her. Seeing her so close, I wondered at her bulk and her milky colour.

  ‘You like my Charlie?’ he said. ‘Got a bunch of them, all Charlies, barned up back home. The lads tend them while I’m on the canal.’

  He told me people called him Quinlan. If the boy had a name I didn’t hear it. I led the way, pulling the water cart under the trees. Quinlan followed with the cow. He was not much taller than me, but powerfully built. He wore a kind of smock that showed his knees and his huge calves. The boy trailed after with some fish from the canal and a bag of fresh squirrels.

  Back at the O, I poured Quinlan a drink and he took a seat by the fire, while the boy stayed outside with the cow. For a while I was busy helping Dell make the rabbit stew. There weren’t many wanting food but we thought more might come in later and what was left would keep for another day. When I went back to fill Quinlan’s mug, Madge was sitting by him with Walt in her arms. I went back again later with some stew for Quinlan and a cup of the gravy for Madge and I stopped to cuddle Walt and kiss his little squinting face, and I felt Quinlan’s eyes on me and saw the way he gnawed without thinking at the inside of his mouth, while his eyes slid up and down.

  It was a quiet evening. And when all but a few had left or settled to their beds, I went again to take Walt for his feed. Trev had joined them by the fire, as he does sometimes to show welcome to a stranger. I lifted Walt from Madge’s lap and turned away, and felt the hairs rise on my neck as if Quinlan’s eyes could reach through the air and touch me.

  I sat where I could feel the fire’s warmth, but out of sight behind a curtain because I wouldn’t have people see me with my clothes unbuttoned. The scrounger women are not so particular, but I still keep to village ways. Walt was in a fussy mood and wouldn’t settle, so I put him to my shoulder to rock him and hum a low tune that I remember my gran singing to me.

  On the other side of the curtain Quinlan was talking. ‘She’s not bad looking, and plump enough, with a nice pair of bags on her. A bit pale. But she’ll colour up with outdoor work. I’ll offer a good price.’

  I thought at first it was the cow he meant, and wondered why he would think of selling her and who’d pull his boat for him if he did.

  ‘She’s a face filler, mind, I can see that,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose there’s much left for your sows once she’s done with the scraps. I’ll take her off your plate for all that, and the tadpole with her.’ I knew then he meant me. I’m heavy still from carrying Walt and swollen with milk.

  I waited for what Trevor would say, but it was Madge who answered. ‘And we get what in return?’

  ‘There are plenty can haul water and cook a rabbit stew. You don’t need this girl eating double.’

  ‘She’s a worker,’ Madge said, ‘and sharp at everything.’

  ‘And we like her.’ It was Trevor at last speaking up for me. ‘Dell likes her. She’s family.’

  ‘You know how the world goes,’ Quinlan said. ‘I’m in the leather racket. Charlie leather. Four pelts I give you and you let me take the girl. I’ve three good lads to help make her welcome. She’ll cook for them when I’m on the road.’

  ‘It’s a good offer, Trev,’ Madge said. ‘How many years before that tiddler’s grown to pull his weight? And who’s to say there won’t be more where he come from?’

  There was nothing then but the crackle of the fire and the murmur of talk from the others at the O. From Trevor I could only hear s
ighing. Then he spoke again in a sad, wheedling voice. ‘She’s happy here, see, her and the boy. I heard your offer, but what’s in it for her is all I’m asking?’

  ‘Look, I’m set up. Got the space. Got more meat than I know what to do with. Live in my barn, you do all right.’

  ‘Well you can ask her yourself, I suppose. She came free and can leave free.’

  ‘Wo,’ Quinlan said, ‘I don’t do business with no girl. We spit on it, man to man, she don’t need asking.’

  I heard Dell calling for me then and was afraid to be found listening. So I took Walt with me on my hip and set about gathering the dishes to be scraped and stacked, all the while dizzy with fear.

  I told Dell when we had a moment alone in the kitchen. It put her in a rage, though she kept her voice low. ‘I know his sort,’ she said. ‘You’d be skivvied hollow. See his boy, standing out now in the cold. Dead on his feet. And at least the boy gets snoring time. Cheeses, Ag, you’d be nursing his precious charlies all day and then he’d be slobbering at you. And the lads he speaks of, they’ll all want their turn. And what does he want with a kid? You leave here with Quinlan, Walt won’t live to see another spring. He’ll get plump, all right. He’ll be fattened for the pot.’

  I told her that Trevor had spoken up for me and said it must be my choice. She calmed down then. But how feeble Trevor had sounded I did not say. Walt began to squirm and whimper, so I sat in a high-backed chair in the darkest corner of the kitchen near the log pile and let him feed. This time he was ready and took it eagerly. I felt the force of his mouth on me and the pulse of it, stronger than my heartbeat, reaching deep down inside. I thought of all the jobs to be done. Tidying and sweeping. Damping the fire in the stove. Taking the stew from the heat before it spoiled. It was a good stew, with parsnips and onions, and a good rich flavour of thyme and rosemary. It had been a quiet night and there’d be plenty for tomorrow. Warmed by the stove, I let my eyes close and gave way to sleep.

  I woke to feel the roughness of a man’s hand on me. I was uncovered, and still tender from Walt’s sucking. Rigid with fear, holding the baby tight, I opened my eyes. There was very little light, only the red glow from the stove. But I could see it was Quinlan. He had pulled his smock up to his waist and stood as naked as Old Sigh, his thing nudging at me and twitching like a creature with its own will. I drew my head back as far as the chair would let me.

  ‘Your turn, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘your turn to suck.’

  I shut my mouth tight then, and my eyes too, and held on to Walt. I hummed maybe in my fear but couldn’t think straight to make any other sound.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘You’re with me now. It’s settled.’ His voice was soft but there was menace in it.

  From another room came the clatter of dishes and the scraping of chairs across the floor as Dell and Trevor worked, and from outside among the ruins the soft scrabbling noises of creatures that like darkness. After a moment I heard the hiss of Quinlan’s breath. His hand moved and withdrew. I waited sick with terror to feel it again, calloused, palsied, damp with sweat, settling on some other part of me. I remembered Brendan the night he took me from the red room, his hands reaching up under my skirt. But the strange disturbance I felt then was a pale shadow of this fear that seemed to rob me of motion.

  When nothing came, I opened my eyes and saw that there was a knife at Quinlan’s throat and it was Dell behind him holding it. I watched them in the light of the fire. Dell looked ready to kill, but I could see no fear in Quinlan’s face, only cunning.

  I looked down only to see if Walt was still sleeping and to lift him closer, but when I raised my eyes again everything had changed. Quinlan had turned about and forced Dell to her knees, gripping her wrist to keep the knife safe. Her cry had brought Trevor running from the outer room. There was a desperate scramble then, all three tangled together, and the firelight throwing their huge shadows on the wall. I stood, pushing my chair back. I could think of nothing except keeping Walt from harm. Laying him in the log basket by the stove, I looked about for something to fight with in case Quinlan should come for me again.

  There was a grunt of effort or of pain and Trevor was on the ground, curled up as though winded from a blow. Dell too had fallen, upsetting a table, and lay dazed and breathless against it.

  ‘Now then sweetheart. You come without any squealing, or we unstitch the tadpole and see what his insides look like.’ Quinlan was talking to me. He was holding Dell’s knife, which was already stained with blood, unless it was only the flame from the stove gave it its colour.

  Some power surged through me then, a rage such I had never felt. I reached for the nearest thing, which was the lid of the cooking pot, and hurled it at Quinlan’s head. He made to duck, but it clipped his ear and clattered away into the dark. While he was still reeling, I held up the pot, took two steps towards him and threw the stew in his face. I stepped back, letting the pot fall, feeling only then the searing heat of it.

  I watched him lumber about, howling, crashing into furniture, blinded by the scalding broth, and had no thought of what to do next, except to find some way to soothe my poor burnt hands. I didn’t see where Dell came from, nor what she held beside her, until she was close enough to take a blow at him. It was an axe she struck him with, and I felt the heat of his blood on my face as he went down and was sickened, all at once, by the smell of blood and ash and rabbit meat and rosemary and burning skin.

  There were figures then in the doorway, sleepers roused by our noise, gaping and wide-eyed in the glow of the flames. But none of them stepped forward. It wasn’t their fight. Dell rolled Trevor on to his back and cried out to find there was a bleeding gash near his heart and not a breath of life left in him.

  Some of the men helped us dig graves for Quinlan and Trevor. We carried them to the patch of ground where Cat is buried, which was a garden once I think, though long neglected like the ruins all around. We put Quinlan in a far corner so that their bodies might not be eaten by the same worms. Dell bound two sticks together into a shape like a t to mark the place where Trevor’s body lay. I asked her was it for the t of Trevor’s name, thinking I might one day show her the difference between a big and a small t, but she frowned and shook her head and said it would be the same for anyone loved and missed. Then she wept bitterly.

  She told me it wouldn’t be safe for us now at the O. People would come looking for Quinlan. The boys he had spoken of would want to know where he had gone and his boat full of leather. She said we should trust no one, not the men who had helped us, not Madge, not the regulars who had been Trevor’s friends. If we meant to go north we should set off south. I saw she was right. So we packed up what food and clothes we could carry, with some precious things of my own to load on Gideon’s back. We thought of taking the cow to help with our burden – such a fine strong beast and the boy who tended it nowhere to be seen. But we knew it was too pale and strange and would mark us out on the road. We slipped away while it was still dark.

  I think now of life at the O as a dream from which I have woken. I once feared more than anything to watch a flogging at the Hall. But a flogging had its own shape, always the same. You knew the worst of it from the beginning. Even in the red room I knew why they had put me there. I see now that here among the scroungers, at the best of times, everything must be haggled over from day to day and everyone lives by chance like a weed in a cottage wall.

  I have lived here no one’s wife and free to care for my child without shame. But all the business of calling and being called and then standing on the lawn among neighbours to hear certain texts from the Book of Air was as warm and comforting to me as sunshine, and it seems to me now that shame was its necessary shadow.

  After Walt was born no one stood with me to ask, as after any birth in the village, ‘What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion? What mystery that broke out now in fire and now in blood at the deadest hours of night?’ And no one to explain that through these hard wor
ds of Jane’s we are reminded that from the moment of our making we are fire as well as air, that Bertha no less than Jane is in all of us, that we are conceived in crime and must live a mystery to ourselves.

  I have found the turn of spring with all the birds coming and the bright leaves and the snowdrops pleasant and comfortable, but here, away from the village, it has no meaning. And so with everything. Times and changes are just themselves and nothing more. I see that it is not just the Book of Air that I yearn to read more than one way, but the events of my waking life. I didn’t begin to understand this until Walt was born. Even if Quinlan had never come to the O, I would have wanted more for Walt than this thin scrabble for existence.

  If we mean to go north. Those were Dell’s words. We both knew without saying that with nothing left for us at the O but danger we would try to reach the village. There is danger for us there too, I have no doubt of that, but at least Walt will be safe. My neighbours will surely take the child, even if they turn me out. If I am locked away or killed, perhaps they will raise him at the Hall. If we lose our way in the forest and starve or fall into the hands of ruthless men it will be worse.

  I think Dell has her own reasons to come that neither of us will put words to. For myself, I am frightened of the village, and frightened of what I must do when I get there, but driven by a desperate hope. My courage might fade when we come near the Hall and within the Mistress’s reach. But we have decided and must take our chances.

  Jason

  In the dining room, what’s left of last night’s dinner litters the table – the plates stained with gravy, the wilting flowers, the candles shrunk to dried puddles of wax. The chairs are just as we left them, angled away from the table, one tipped over on to the floor.

  I sit with my back to the window. Simon is on my lap. He’s wearing my jacket and I hold him close, but he doesn’t stop shivering. I’d take him to the kitchen, but Maud’s in the kitchen with Abigail. The church is still burning. I can taste the fire. The flames light up the mirror above the mantelpiece and animate the pictures.