Silence like mould.
You want oysters. Want to throw back your head and swallow the sea. Want singing that rises heavenward, challenging the ceiling. Want to fling open your night windows with the lights blazing and marvel at so much wanting in: moths and midges, wind and sea and salt. Want to burrow deep into the envelope of your soil and smell the lovely grass. Want to be locked in sunshine. You come from a big sky place and now you have never loved the world so much. All the outrageous beauty of it. Want your Motl, impish and gleeful and full of juice, his touch as he slips into bed long after you’ve fallen into sleep and you stir and he curls around you in a moment of cherishing and chuff. Now now now. Touch is everything and you have left the house of touch. How you imagine Salt Cottage at this moment: taut, holding its breath; no children to bang and clatter life into it; windows firmly shut; no noise, no life.
The silence here is a presence. It waits.
Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.
54
A day so still it seems stunned. ‘It must be Sunday,’ Tidge murmurs, trying to work it out. ‘Hang on, no, I — I’ve lost count.’
You too. Your brain is winding down. The children are clotted at the window, pale and translucent. They haven’t been grubby for so long, proper grubby of black under fingernails and sunshine sweat and mud silky soft. Which is the opposite of stillness, which is now.
‘The doll doesn’t look worried,’ Tidge says, peering at it quizzically.
The sky hangs sullen, the colour of wet slate on a roof. Thunder skips across it like a series of bombs being dropped. The tree outside shivers. Mouse peels away.
Wish list: Air that’s got no complication in it. Like at home.
The waiting now is like a dog with its head on its paws. ‘Trust,’ Soli whispers, her hand resting lightly on Tidge’s hip, ‘just trust.’
The sun bursts momentarily through cloud. He smiles. Tugs on the heavy curtains. Swings. Laughs in delight. Your boy’s back!
He’s joined. By Mouse, whooping, ‘To stop the thinking, all right,’ and suddenly the three of them are bouncing off the walls in this place, trampolining on the bed, doing handstands against the walls. And it feels like the first time your youngest has ever done anything remotely resembling physical activity and your daughter says it’s ironic that his arrival in the real world should coincide with being in this place, in which the real world has been left behind.
‘Temp-o-rarily,’ Tidge chants, ‘temp-o-rarily!’ Glee smiling them up, and yourself.
It has not rained light for many days.
55
Soli pulls the boys into a sit. They’re in front of the doll. She’s placed it on the floor in front of them. Mouse is uninterested, he attempts to stand. He’s tugged back.
‘I have to tell you something about it. It’s really important. It could be the key to getting out of here. We have to believe that.’
‘Okay.’ Tidge nods.
His head is wide open but Mouse’s alarm bells are going off, he’s squirming, wants escape. He’s the cynic of the family, the watcher, the survivor; he’ll make a good critic, you laugh. Aged six he asked if we made God or God made us then declared he knew the answer — us — and you applauded his rationalism and encouraged it.
Soli now places any stray hands she can get onto her knees, attempting to corral all the skittery thinking. ‘Dad said I have to tell you to look at the doll, to help us.’
Yeah, right, says Mouse’s wriggle.
‘He promised he’ll come back and get us. And when we look at it, we always have to remember that. He promised me.’
But there’s a fierceness in those last three words that sits her brother up straight.
If even a dog’s tooth is truly worshipped it glows with light.
56
‘It’s like we teach our children what we want to believe,’ Motl said once, deep into the night, ‘then we see that they have this beautiful faith and it helps them go to bed peacefully and get a good night’s sleep — and meanwhile we’re off in the other room not sleeping at all. But it’s worth it, I think.’
I think we are frightened every moment of our lives until we know him.
57
‘Imagine we’re home.’ Quiet congregates as Soli weaves her spell of words. ‘Mum’s singing as she washes down the windows, Dad’s tinkering under the bonnet of the car. You’re riding his bike. You know, how you do — Tidge’s on the seat pedalling and Mouse is side-saddle steering and you’re whizzing down the drive and Mum’s laughing because she’s singing her mad songs, like she’s permanently twenty-three again, she’s got her face back.’ They all smile. Being twenty-three was your little joke whenever anyone asked your age, in the time when you’d sing every moment that you could, loudly and off-key and with all the wrong words. ‘You’re home, guys, safe,’ your daughter continues, ‘and we’ll have it again. Dad promised.’
You sense Mouse uncurling, loosening, even … believing. That they’re not alone, that this is all part of some grand plan. His eyes blink open to a room expectant and still and hushed, like a candle lit.
‘But he said we’ll only be able to endure all this if we leave our fear behind. If we trust. And we have to be appreciators. We have to be grateful for what we’ve got because if we’re grateful, we’re content. And from that … apparently’ — she falters — ‘comes strength.’
The three of them stay sitting in that room as pale as breath for goodness knows how long, brought down into stillness, feeling righted, lit. The day feels newly clean. Washed. Possibility unfolding before them. You sit back. Shake your head, smile. See now a fragment of your husband’s plan. The biologist in him ruminated once that religion is about enduring, in a survival-of-the-fittest sense. ‘Maybe it gives you strength. Maybe we’re programmed by evolution to have belief. Perhaps it’s in our genes.’
Mouse’s eyes spring open. ‘But Dad’s cling,’ he whispers, ‘it’s with me too much. I can’t.’
He jerks up his head as if he senses, in the prickle of his skin, he’s being watched.
You wear the stillness of his gaze like a thumbprint.
Haply thou wearest thyself away with grief because thou believe not.
58
‘Why are you doing this, B?’ Mouse’s suspicion is now ransacking everything.
‘I love striding off into the great unknown. Don’t you, Mr?’
‘Um, well, we’re not striding.’
B knocks on his head. No response. Tickles under the arms. No response. Mouse’s fencing himself off, he’s had enough. He’s now got the measure of this Peter Pan man who’s always distracting them with some new trick. Your kids are now wound up as tight as tin toys and the only magic that’s going to work any more is getting them out. And parents back.
B squats in front of your flinty scowly boy. Holds him firmly by the shoulders and whispers, adult to adult, that whoever saves one life saves the world entire and runs his finger down his face then leaves, shutting them away like a coat no longer needed for warmth. Mouse bangs frustratedly on the door behind him. You bite your lip. ‘A face that’s incapable of cruelty,’ Motl insisted, yes, but your babies are now being cemented into this room and of all the hiding places in the world they shouldn’t be here, in this place.
You had to obey your husband, had to surrender to this. Because you had no way of saving them, no ally, no plan. He did. And even though you have a totally different perception of B you had to relinquish control to Motl. Because he loves these children as much as you do. And you are the liability here.
Tranquil sage is he who, steadfast, walks alone, unmoved by blame and by praise.
59
A low butter moon pulls Mouse from sleep and he stands at the window and a prickling comes over him. ‘Mummy?’ he whispers. He takes out his notebook, breathing fast.
She’s close.
He looks across to his brother, to his face tight and troubled in restless sleep.
; Perhaps she’s RIGHT HERE. In this building. AND Dad.
Mouse gasps, Tidge wakes. Mouse jumps under the covers. ‘I don’t trust B,’ he says firmly, matter-of-fact.
‘Me too, dude,’ his brother replies and Mouse looks at him in wonder: perhaps his cynicism is finally rubbing off.
The cover’s furiously yanked. ‘He could be just amazingly clever, guys.’ Soli. Irritable. ‘He never gets questioned, or disappeared, or detained. Have you ever noticed that?’
‘I just hate all the silliness,’ Mouse wails.
Their sister holds up her hands in mock prayer. ‘Well, may he never grow up.’
‘Soli’s got a boyfriend, Soli’s got a boyfriend,’ both boys chant.
She grabs her pillow with a hrumph and curls like a carpet beetle on the floor. ‘It’s really hard being the only grown-up in this place,’ she wails. Shivering.
Mouse gets out of bed.
Walks to the cupboard.
Finds the spare blanket and throws it over his sister.
She looks up in disbelief. Smiles.
And now it is the turn of your own eyes to blink like a semaphore signal. Because as a parent generosity is the most important lesson you can teach your children, because from generosity springs everything else.
A soul waking up.
60
But Mouse. Still unable to catch on to sleep. Staring out at the clouds racing and the moon watching, as if the sky is fleeing. Finally falling into a dirty, scrappy, dishwater slumber and tossing and turning, his notebook splayed beside him.
Soli says we’re here for our safety Right. That Mum and Dad couldn’t tell us because we never would have gone with B, never would have left them. But too huge in my head is Mum’s watery ‘mmm’ when I asked her once if B was our friend. ‘Your father thinks so, yes.’ Too huge in my head is Mum saying, then again perhaps he’s an angel; what does she know? Perhaps he’s cleaving into our family for warmth because he doesn’t have any family himself. Too huge in my head is Dad chattering on about how we should always be kind to other people because we never know when we’re entertaining angels unaware. Too huge in my head is Mum spinning Tidge around and lifting his shirt and holding his shoulder blades and saying, ‘See, look, this is where our angel’s wings once were,’ then sliding her hands around his tummy and keeping them there for a very long time and bowing her head, and going very still.
She’s here. Close.
Then a spirit passed before my face and the hair of my flesh stood up.
61
Proper feral now, wilder versions of themselves. Like abandoned houses where nature has run rampant. A river-map of dirty lines on their palms, matted hair clotting into dreadlocks, clothes they can’t be bothered to wash. As grimy and greasy as worn bank notes. It’ll be war-paint next, blood on the cheeks. Mouse sniffles. A cold’s coming on. Tidge says it’s his body crying; Soli says shut up, you lot, you have to stay strong. She never gets colds. She’s such a pirate of a girl, always battling on; it’s in her chin, its perky point, and the set of her mouth. ‘I wish I could infect you,’ Mouse grumbles and breathes hard into her face.
Oh, guys.
He keeps looking across at the old volume on the windowsill. The book muncher of the family hasn’t dared a touch. As if he’s terrified of what it may hold, the certainty of what it may impart. Your child who’s knotted by complexity, so complicated, tight; for all his cynicism he hates novelty and adventure and risk, for all his pushing away he needs you so much. His little hand used to lock over your throat whenever you lay next to him to lull him to sleep. ‘I’m holding on to you so you can’t run away from the beddy-byes,’ he whispered once. ‘I’ve got the mummy disease, you have to stay close.’
He goes up to the old book now, hovers a touch, retreats.
Hold this book close to your heart for it contains wonderful secrets.
62
A bomb. Somewhere in the wings of outside. Far enough away but still the twins cower on the floor with their arms wrapped over their heads. Another. A siren insisting. And then it is over, the aftermath. The children rush to the window. A soldier’s footsteps pound past then a child’s. ‘Wow!’ Tidge shouts. Raggedy trousers flit by and there’s a cheeky yell and a flash of a smile and your kids crane their heads but all they catch is a tangle of hair and pyjama trousers under shorts and a white balloon being tugged on a string and they all laugh at the clean, crazy, up-yours joy of that, so bizarre and happy and fragile in this place.
‘Who was he?’ Tidge asks.
‘Maybe he’s from some old abandoned house.’ Soli smiles. ‘Filled with a huge gang of kids who flit about in the shadows, scavenging for food, playing jacks with the knucklebones of soldiers—’
‘Safe,’ Mouse butts in, craning his head at the window. ‘Let’s find them, guys. It’s no use waiting any more. We’ve got to get out.’
‘But Dad,’ Soli protests, ‘what if he comes and we’re not here?’
None of them can answer that.
You’ve all heard the stories. Feral kids. Caught in the city’s cracks. Lairs of lost children who’ve been stained by the world, with eyes that are old because they’ve seen too much. The trunk of the tree outside glows golden with the last of the day and the world for a moment catches its breath. Everything, suddenly, is weighty with the loveliness of the light; the blank, shining windows of the building opposite, the tree, the sky. Your kids’ existence has shrunk to this untouchable beauty, another child’s whoop and his joyous footsteps, their dying out.
Suddenly, insistently, irrepressible hope.
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.
63
B backs in fast. Spilling cutlery from the trolley, not bothering to pick it up. The table’s piled high but there are no silver domes, not even a white cloth. Something big’s up. The kids find each other’s hands. B turns. Takes a breath, doesn’t want to say what’s coming next. He has to go away. They’ll have enough to eat — a last-minute thing — only two days.
Mouse steps back. ‘But you seem … afraid.’ Because he’s nervy, trembly, like a horse before a race.
Soli leaps in. ‘What’s happening? Where are you going?’
B holds up his hands, shielding his face.
‘What if there’s a fire?’ Tidge. Sitting calmly under the window, holding the doll. And he has a point, a good one.
‘Yes, a fire, we need a key!’ Mouse.
‘Imagine if we’re stuck,’ Soli insists, ‘we’ll burn to death.’
B looks from one to the other as if they’re the most morbidly strange children he’s ever met. He takes the key from his pocket with a deep, doubting breath. Wipes the back of his hand across his lips. ‘This can only be used in an emergency. You can’t go outside. For anything else.’
The kids nod, saucer-eyed.
B walks to the book and places the key carefully on it. ‘You’ll never see your mum and dad again if something goes wrong.’ He shuts the door behind him and instantly opens it again. ‘Whoops, I need the key to lock you in, don’t I?’ He laughs nervously — he never laughs nervously — and his lopsided grin is not quite right, it’s too stiffly in place with a wobble in his lip, a new tic. He snatches the key and backs out. Locks them in. It shoots under the door as if alive with a force of its own.
The kids stare. Hesitate. Lunge.
Soli wins. Of course. She holds the key to her chest and rises on her toes like a pint-sized Mary Poppins about to swoop off a clear foot from the ground — Tidge shuts his eyes and chants, ‘Please don’t sing, please don’t sing’ — then she drops to her heels with a defeated thud. ‘Mum and Dad,’ she whispers fearfully. ‘We can’t.’
‘I’ll mind it if you want,’ Tidge volunteers, all sweetness and light.
His sister looks at him like yeah, right.
Do not seek refuse in anyone but yourselves.
64
Tidge’s nose is pressed to the door. ‘It smells pretty good
out there, guys.’ A cheeky grin.
Mouse knows what it means.
Soli too. ‘No, no, no.’ She wags her finger.
‘I was only commentating,’ Tidge huffs. ‘I’m going to be a private investigator when I grow up. I’m in training.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She takes the key from her pocket. Rises. ‘No,’ she whispers to herself, slipping it back.
‘I’m still starving.’ Tidge rolls onto his back, laughing, rubbing his stomach.
He’s now circling the trolley. Dividing everything into three. ‘B’s left an awful lot of peanuts. And the bananas are going spotty. And the apples have bruises. There’s not much that’s useful here, actually. He wasn’t thinking or was in an awful rush or—’
‘He’s done it deliberately,’ Mouse concludes.
‘Stop it, boys, stop it.’
‘I’m hun-greeeeee.’ Tidge, later.
‘What’s that, lovie?’ Mouse, holding a hugely theatrical hand to his ear.
‘I’m HUN-GREEEEEEE; Tidge giggles back.
The Book of Rapture Page 7