The Book of Rapture

by Nikki Gemmell

  ‘From Salt Cottage?’ Mouse. Cold, incredulous. ‘But boats can’t get to it. It’s too rough.’

  ‘Trust — your — B.’ The man smiles. ‘There’s an awful lot you don’t know about him, mate.’

  And as he talks there’s a fragment, déjà vu, from when, you don’t know, you’re so tired, can’t work it out; but a last glance, to the beach, to three imprints of tiny bodies pressed into the sand, in a row; three joyous angels like snow angels and children’s footprints leading down to them but not back. As if three little bodies had been magicked from your land by the sky or the sea but of course, the high tide mark, yes, that would work and you shake your head trying to shake sense from it but no, how, can’t, too tired, everything hurts.

  For they are removed from hearing the discourse of angels.

  44

  ‘Why were we put to sleep?’ Mouse is not letting up.

  ‘Because we couldn’t risk you being awake.’

  ‘Why?’

  B sweeps up his twin brother and locks his arms around his legs. ‘Because your dad knew you’d never get into the boat, you’d never accept an escape by sea. Without them. You were far too terrified of all the stories you’d heard and your dad said your little hearts might just stop, with fright. And he also thought that back on land, if any of you woke up in the boxes, you’d be all bouncy and snuffly like a bunch of kittens and you’d give the game away. I had to go through several roadblocks and if any of you so much as sneezed they weren’t too sure you’d be able to talk your way out. For me, you were much better off asleep.’ He glares playfully at Tidge, your boy who has a need to be loved, by everyone, which means he’s never wily enough with his talk. He’s far too innocent for this world, his heart’s too wide open; people like him always get crushed. He squirms in embarrassment.

  ‘Why weren’t we told where we were going, B?’ Mouse is not finished yet.

  ‘Because perhaps if you knew, some of you might not have come. Some of you might have chosen to remain at Salt Cottage … which wasn’t for the best.’

  ‘Why aren’t they with us?’

  ‘They’re extremely busy right now. They’ll be back.’

  ‘Put my brother down.’

  His little mind going like a windmill in a hurricane and the ends of your fingers tingling as if all the blood is draining from them and pooling in a panic in your heart because B’s face is suddenly set; in an instant the atmosphere is changed, like sun snatched by cloud.

  Tidge’s now struggling in his arms to get down, get out, and B’s blowing another bubble right in his face and there’s no smile, no warmth and Tidge doesn’t blink. ‘Please put me down,’ he pleads.

  ‘That’s what I was waiting for, Mr.’ He’s floated gently to the ground. B looks closely at all your children. Stripped, suddenly, of any silliness.

  ‘There was nowhere else to go,’ he says in another voice entirely. ‘No safe house left. This room was the only choice. I wasn’t able to tell your father that.’

  The room hushes like a blanket has dropped over it.

  Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us?

  45

  You gaze at them and gaze at them like a curiosity-crazed tourist from a glass-bottomed boat, willing them on and holding out trembling palms; holding them strong and calming on the blades of their pale, fragile backs.

  Keep on sculpting light.

  46

  But B. He looks different. Shinier. Scrubbed. The leather jacket is gone, and the biker boots he’s worn his entire adult life, and the struggle of a beard always light on his chin that shouts of the little boy who’s never grown up. He used to look tether-less, a wild pony, but now he looks tamed and it’s wrong. He’s in uniform. His hair’s severely combed. He doesn’t look any more like the family friend who loudly magicked sweets from ears and theme tunes from pianos; he looks like someone else.

  The new lot.

  As if the old B’s been stolen and replaced.

  Mouse clamps his hand at his mouth as if he’s going to be sick. ‘When are we getting out? What are those noises in the night? Where are Mum and Dad? What’s happening, what?’

  But the man Motl trusts with his life — and his children’s — is ignoring all the talk, he’s backing out fast, singing cheerily that he’ll be returning soon with some food and not to worry, just wait.

  But leaving a tumble of questions churning, churning in his wake.

  Rough is the road.

  47

  Tidge flops on the bed. ‘Food glorious food,’ he cackles.

  Mouse looks across in despair: he’s not getting it. G rattles the key and he swivels at the efficient click and spins and spins the doorknob then stalks to the one person who may, just may, know something about what’s going on. ‘What is happening?’

  But Soli’s face is closed for business, the shutters are down, it can’t be read. Her shoulders are tight like she’s battening down an explosive force, some fearful secret she’ll never let out. She turns to the vaulting sky, to the stately migration of clouds and sucks a stem of hair furiously, as if it holds the taste of home; of certainty and parents and a rightful childhood when everything was all right and she didn’t have to do this.

  ‘Tell us!’ her brother commands.

  Soli leans further to the sky.

  He holds his palms to his head and begins to yell in frustration.

  ‘Be patient, you,’ she says calmly, ‘we’ve made it. We’re safe. Be grateful for what you’ve got.’

  Mouse covers his ears trying to shut the know-it-all out because his sister’s not in the habit of saying be patient, you, in that silky mummy voice, she’s not entitled to it yet. He grabs a chunk of her hair with an explosion of savage intent. Pulls. She screams. Strands break. ‘Well, that’s the split ends dealt with,’ he declares in triumph.

  His sister punches him, equally as violent, yelling that their father wanted them to stay put and listen to B and that’s all she knows, all she was told and you know why? ‘Because he didn’t want us doing anything we shouldn’t. Like running away. Or not listening. Or pulling hair. Brat’

  Mouse comes back for more, kicking and punching his sister, all feralled up. ‘Tell us what’s going on, tell us.’

  She’s had enough. ‘That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? Biting and scratching. Nothing useful. You, you … thing. You weren’t meant to be born. You weren’t meant to be with us. The doctor said you weren’t worth it. Never forget that.’

  Silence, as if the air itself has flinched.

  Your three children stare at each other in horror, at the words coming out, at everything soured up so fast. Oh, girl girl girl. She always has that arrow-aim of swift, attacking talk. And she’s right. You were told to abort the second twin in utero, it was feeding off the healthy child’s food supply, it would save the bigger one; ‘it was for the best.’ You couldn’t. That tiny heart, beating so fast, that fierce little life. The insistence of it. You’d had a miscarriage two months before their conception and you’ll never forget the swamping, crippling grief of it. ‘Cry, and cry again,’ the nurse told you gently as your womb was being scraped out. ‘It’s a bereavement, love.’ Oh yes.

  The boys were never supposed to know but your daughter found out, and let it slip. And in the howl of the learning you rocked your younger boy and kissed the beautiful double cream of the back of his neck, you nuzzled that warm, soft nape and told him he was wanted so fiercely, so much. But he wailed over and over, ‘Mummy doesn’t love me.’

  ‘No, darling, sssh, you’re here because we love you so much.’

  But from that day onwards your daughter’s words have been like a splinter under his skin that can never be pulled out, a hurt that will never stop. And what do you know, it’s all been freshened up.

  ‘Where are they?’ Mouse wails to her now, defeated, the only question left he can push out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replies, exhausted.

  The boys know she’s spea
king the truth.

  A new silence, thick.

  As they take it in.

  The enormousness of the alone.

  In this parent-bleached place.

  What we sneak becomes the house we live in.

  48

  ‘I bet this was Dad’s idea,’ says Mouse, later. ‘He’s so kind of, you know, trusting.’

  His siblings look at him dubiously.

  ‘Oh, forget it.’ He sighs.

  I think I’ve reached somewhere I shouldn’t have TWENTY YEARS TOO SOON.

  Despite yourself you laugh.

  His sister stalks to the bathroom; his brother speaks soothingly in her wake. ‘You heard B. There was nowhere else. No safe house left.’

  Mouse sighs and sits cross-legged on the bed. ‘I want to resign from the lot of you,’ he announces, shutting his eyes and trying to coax calm back.

  ‘A feast is coming, dude,’ Tidge teases.

  Mouse rubs his head as if his brain has wound down with the great dumping wave of stress and tired at being in this place. Tidge doubles over. It’s been a long time since food.

  I’m STARVING. And I’ve never felt more alone in my life. It shines glittery bright. In this enormous, waiting quiet.

  So. Here they are. Each in a little universe of their own and hasn’t it happened quick. The silence between them is soiled and how you despair at that. At the vicious hurt only family can inflict.

  Anger sinks the boat.

  49

  B’s back. Wheeling in a trolley with three silver domes all sweating with impatience and announcing he’ll be coming every day, around this time, and before anyone can say, hang on, every day?, he’s out the door with a triumphant click of the key in the lock. The kids stare at the trolley as if it’s a Trojan horse. At the silver domes waiting to be plucked off. At the strawberry milkshakes deflating in thick glass.

  Silence.

  Tidge takes a sniff. ‘Chicken, guys.’ He circles, hands behind his back like a judge at an agricultural show. He plucks a dome. ‘Rice. Warm bread. Mangoes and custard for dessert.’ He tugs his brother’s elbow. ‘Come on, you, Mum and Dad have planned it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because, der, they’re the only people in the world who know exactly what our favourite foods are, and they’re all here.’

  ‘It could be poisoned.’

  You’ve got to be kidding, says Tidge’s face. Soli’s had enough. She grabs Mouse’s arm and marches him forward with that enthusiasm for doing she’s had since birth that’s as persistent as rust and can’t be shaken off. All he can do is sigh, in the manner of people who wear black turtlenecks. Who he says he’s going to be when he grows up because those kinds of people never do sport. Or what others want. Tidge throws a bread roll at him and cackles. The energy between them is all wrong. He’s one of those people who’s been blasted with life; as for Mouse, it’s like it has to be fed through him with an intravenous drip.

  ‘Mum and Dad ordered the custard just for you, mate.’ Tidge laughs. ‘And it’s about to be delivered,’ as he flicks it onto his brother’s face and licks it off then declares that there’s no one to wipe their lips with spit on a tissue or tell them to close their mouth when they chew so what are they waiting for, come on, bro, come on!

  My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

  50

  Mouse suddenly dives in, hunger getting the better of him. His siblings cheer as he works his way from the custard first to the rice last and then one by one they flop back onto the bed, and laugh. Basking for a moment in the fabulousness of transcending; believing, for a moment, in that Salt Cottage certainty: that everything will be all right. Because yes, the table’s soaked in their parents’ gleeful touch. So yes, they must have planned it. And yes, the three of them are hidden away in here, warm and safe.

  Your youngest burps in satisfaction (the little bugger) and now they’re all doing it (the little buggers) and no one’s stopping them and they’re suddenly laughing endlessly, can’t stop. Tidge’s then singing ‘Food, Glorious Food’ in burps and placing a silver dome on his head and now they’re all marching around the room and clanging the domes with knives and jumping on the bed because no one is stopping them and they can, they can. The three of them finally crash onto the mattress in a jumbly heap and are quiet, breathing deep, and their little cage of a room suddenly has such a tranquillity soaked into it, like a place where you’re put to recover and rest, to clean yourself of the past. A metre from this room the grown-up world starts but not here, not now, not yet. This, for the moment, is the wonder house. Sanctified by joy.

  Tidge gets all cackly again. Turns to his brother and hugs him and as he clamps him tight he whispers, ‘Mummy,’ then again, urgently, ‘Mummy,’ catching the smell of you, your gardenia perfume, on his brother’s skin and clothes and hair. It’s everywhere, as if you’ve rolled each of them in your love before letting them go, like flour into dough, folding it through them.

  ‘I can feel her here,’ Tidge whispers in wonder.

  ‘Me too,’ Soli says, ‘she’s like salt in a fishing village. All over the place.’

  She turns in that vivid air but you’ve caught it. Her eyes blinking like a semaphore signal. The crack in the mask.

  They stand not still, they never close their eyelids, those sentinels of Gods who wander round us.

  51

  B returns for the trolley. Takes a backpack from his shoulder. Throws it at Mouse. An adult throw. Hard at his chest. Your boy fails to catch it. This is not unusual. He’s never caught in his life anything except chicken pox. He’s always the last one left as the sports teams are being picked, knows too searingly well that smile of not-caring that becomes stretched and aching and tight. As your heart breaks. B’s someone who’s always picked first. It’s in his smile and his walk. You’re not sure what his game is now and you bristle in defence.

  You’ve never been sure the man likes you. Perhaps it’s a jealousy over your husband, or perhaps something else. You suspect he knows of Project Indigo. Just occasionally, a too keen glance when you walked into the room with a sheaf of papers, or a nonchalant question about work. You can’t imagine Motl telling him. From some other source, perhaps; whispers, or something worse: briefing notes. You wish, wish you could surrender to trust.

  ‘Spare clothes, team,’ he announces now.

  Tidge plucks out his favourite Star Wars T-shirt. ‘Two sets of everything,’ he says slowly, thinking it through, ‘so in two days we’ll be out. Yippeeee!’

  ‘You won’t be here long,’ is the only response. And too curt for your liking. He never talks in that tone when you’re around. He takes a book and an old doll from a shopping bag. The toy wears a sailor suit, its china head has no hair left, just holes and one eye is skewed like a toddler’s dug in fierce. Mouse looks at it warily: it belongs too much to someone else. The leather cover of the book is blackened by age and an enormous brass clasp seals it defensively shut. These things would never belong in their mucky, crayon-scuffed house; they’re too strange and remote. ‘The book is for Soli. The doll for Tidge. If we got this far’ — B’s voice bunkers down — ‘I was to give them to you.’ He hands a tiny key to Soli. ‘For the book.’

  ‘What about me? What do I get? No fair,’ Mouse cries.

  ‘Check your pocket, scribe.’

  The pen. Of course. With its mission attached. A smile fills up Mouse. B ruffles his hair. ‘You, Mr, landed the jackpot. That pen is one of your father’s most precious things in the world. Besides me. Oh, and you lot.’

  Your boy glows, blinks, tears gathering at the gate. Kindness is breaking him, finally, and you soften. Perhaps, just perhaps your Motl is right.

  THIS REPORT WON’T BE STOPPED UNTIL MUM AND DAD WALK BACK INTO IT. I promise, Dad. I’ll show you I can do it, you just watch.

  Strong, he writes into the night. Motl knew exactly what he was doing with that pen. Little Mouse is the child who always says he can’t do anything, is
hopeless, is not good enough. His father has given him this task because he knows he can do it, and do it well; he is giving him the gift of esteem.

  We should support each other, give more warmth, in such a demanding world as this.

  52

  Day three. The stillness hour, 5 a.m., the hour when voices carry furthest. ‘Where are the boys?’ Tidge’s asking again as he stares out of the window at the emptiness of the street.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mouse replies, from the bed, the sheet a sweaty rope about him. ‘It’s too early. Forget it.’

  Tidge can’t. It’s in his arms that are shawling his shoulders tight, and his pale fingers that are tightly clutching his flesh. His exuberance has been extinguished in this room, his silly, charming spark, and you all need it so much.

  ‘Come back to bed, matey,’ Soli pleads.

  Eventually, taking his time, Tidge pads across. An arm from his sister and a leg from his brother lock over him.

  But his eyes. Wide awake.

  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

  53

  What you all need: Tidge’s bubbly shine. Soli singing into her hairbrush when she thinks she’s alone. Mouse’s astonishingly pure whistling that enslaves anyone who listens, when he’s happy, when he’s completely absorbed in a task. The talking-dark tonic of the magic house, its endless swish of sea and sky crowding the air.

  Not this. An unnatural silence so quiet it hums.

  You slam your eyes shut on mornings when the boys would wake Motl and you with their high sunny voices springing into the day and then they’d thunder across to your room and clamber onto your bed and you’d both clamp pillows over your heads but they’d drag them off and burrow into your laughing, protesting warmth. You slam your eyes shut on that rich, rich world. That time with your family was like God breathing life into the spirit-sapped bellows of your days and making everything alive and light. That great incandescence, vanished. For now you stand in a great cavernous stillness and the room waits in response. Just the selfishness of your ambition, your choice, all that’s left.