The smooth surfaces of the kitchen still this thinking. I find the milk jug and pour a little into a small pan, then place it on the cooker. The bottom of the pan makes a hiss as it connects with the heat. It must still have been wet from washing. I picture Thomas methodically cleaning up late at night after my story, finding peace in his movements. For a moment I am jealous of him.
The moon is bright and full through the window. I look on it and see a forever face, a permanence. Some things will always remain the same.
In the stillness it comes to me that I am not alone.
I go to the pantry and listen by the door. Is that breathing I hear? I open the door and at first there are only the black lines of the shelves against the grey jumble of the night. And then I see Thomas. He is crouching, his back against the bottom shelf where the large jars of pickled onions live. His hands are over his face, but I know him.
Betty stands beside him. It takes a step forward, radiating energy, and I get the feeling that it might be about to hit me. ‘I won't hurt him,’ I tell it, and it stands back and lets me through. I kneel down and put my blanket around him; he is a puddle on the floor in his floral dress, with his big white socks and his blue knitted jumper. I say words of comfort and feel them sink into him, penetrate his misery and bring him back to himself. Eventually he drops his arms and I sit back on my haunches.
‘It's freezing in here,’ I say.
Thomas says, ‘It's a larder. It's meant to keep the food cold.’
‘I know that.’
‘Help me up.’ He holds out his hands, and it takes all my strength to pull him to his feet. Then I collect the blanket from where it has fallen and try to put it around his shoulders once more, but he shrugs it off. ‘Too hot anyway,’ he mutters. ‘You have it.’
But his skin is so cold as I help Thomas to the kitchen. Should I call Doctor Ben? But he has washed his hands of us, that is what he said to Ted. ‘I can't treat a patient who doesn't believe he is sick,’ Ben said.
Besides, he thinks Thomas is dying. He stays true to his diagnosis.
The milk has bubbled over in the pan. Thomas tuts. ‘I'll have to clean that up tomorrow.’ He props himself against the sink and I pour the milk into a mug. When I hold it out to him he shakes his head, so I sip it and feel it as a solid, welcome heat in my mouth and between my hands. Another thing I can be sure of.
‘I'm an idiot,’ Thomas says.
‘Nothing new there.’
‘Well, now I'm a bigger one than usual.’ He pats the soft roundness of himself with gentle hands. ‘A huge one.’
‘Does it hurt?’ I ask him.
‘No. But it makes me... slow. And awkward. And I can't sleep at night for its turning and poking.’
‘It moves inside you?’
‘All the time, but worse at night. Sometimes I love it and sometimes...’ He looks at Betty, who has emerged from the pantry and shut the door behind itself. ‘...I hate it and I want it out of me. It drains me. I can't explain it.’ His face contorts again. ‘It makes me so ugly.’
I put down the mug and give him my most serious face. ‘I hate to tell you this, Thomas, but you were always ugly.’
He punches my arm. It actually hurts.
I say, ‘Ow!’
‘You deserve it.’
I move to the window and relish the constant moon. The garden is flat and leafless, like a picture. Nothing moves. I wish I could speak to my moon, charm it, make it smile.
‘What's going to happen?’ says Thomas.
‘With you, or with everyone?’ I ask.
‘I don't know. Both.’
I understand what he wants from me. I say, ‘You'll have this baby and it will be – it will be – people will take one look at it and they will realise that it needs our love, our unity. Babies bring people together. That's what they are for. Everyone celebrates the arrival of a baby. I read that somewhere.’
‘And everyone will love it?’ Thomas says, a husk, waiting for me to fill him with hope.
‘Everyone.’
‘But it will be mine.’ He puts his hands on the swelling and his face becomes peaceful as he closes his eyes. Is he trying to communicate with it in the way that I communicate with my Bee? Are pictures passing between them? After a moment he opens his eyes, and says, ‘How come you're so sure?’
‘Sure of what?’
‘That it is.’ He makes a gesture, palms unfolding, like the blooming of a flower between his fingers. ‘Is a baby.’
‘I just am. And so are you.’
‘You're my confidence, ‘ he says. ‘You're my confidence, Nate.’ He reaches for my hand, and squeezes it.
‘Get some sleep,’ I tell him. ‘Let Betty put you to bed.’
Betty comes forward, and scoops him up. He sighs. I think he might sleep now.
I return to my room to see Bee lying there, and my space in the bed beside it. For the first time I ask myself – is that truly where I belong? Is Bee an integral part of me?
I am Thomas's confidence and Bee is mine. But what if Bee has lied to me, just as I have lied to Thomas? I can't bear to think of it, of Thomas's hands on that swelling and Doctor Ben saying there is no hope. And I doubt. I doubt.
Once, in the school allotment, when Paul and Adam mixed up all the labels on the seeds for a joke, Miriam made it their job to care for all the seedlings personally until they could identify them all. It took them months and every time they asked Miriam for help, she said, ‘You made that bed, now you have to lie in it.’ It became a well-worn phrase for a while, behind her back, although I'm sure she heard us whispering it, trying to emulate her teaching tone.
There are two types of understanding in this world. There's the kind that comes from the reading and the hearing, and it doesn't penetrate the skin. It is surface knowledge, like a soft blanket that can be placed over the shoulders. And then there is the understanding that comes from doing. That kind of understanding is not soft. It is water that soaks into the rocks and earth, and makes the seeds grow. It is messy, and painful, and impossible to hold.
I get back in my bed. I lie in it.
*
Thomas moans deeply. The sound, dense with pain, fills his small room. It sinks into his peeling wallpaper and the thrown-back bedsheets.
I talk to him, but he is in a place beyond listening. I say ridiculous, hopeful things, as the skin over his left hip suppurates and oozes, a red mess of blood and pus. Doctor Ben examines it. From my position, sitting next to Thomas' head, I have a view of Ben's expression and also down the length of Thomas's naked body. The swelling is giant, grotesque, the wound on it sickening. Nobody knows how it happened. There were screams in the early morning and I found him this way, Betty hovering over him, shaking its featureless head back and forth.
Thomas's shiny skin is pulled tight across his chest and stomach, stretched to the point of splitting. But my eyes are not drawn to this as much as to his cock and balls. The balls are shrivelled like walnuts, tiny, in a wrinkled pouch that nestles under a tiny worm of a cock. There's no hair on him there. And the smell is so sweet and terrible, like death.
Bee, Betty and Bella squeeze up against each other in the corner of the room, blocking the light from the window so we are in semi-darkness. They are motionless. I can see now how it is possible to hate them. Did Betty do this to Thomas, or is this suffering part of the coming of the baby? Is this part of their plan? His eyes roll back in his head and he moans again. I have to say something. I have nothing to say.
‘Thank you for coming out,’ I say to Doctor Ben.
He nods. I think my desperation persuaded him to attend.
‘The injury must have happened days ago. It's become infected,’ he says.
‘No. He was fine yesterday.’
Ben shakes his head, then says, ‘Can you hold him down? You'll need to be strong.’
‘I'll try.’ I clamp my hands on Thomas's shoulders, try to prepare myself to put my weight against him. Ben lowers one hand on to the swe
lling. It could only be a light touch, but Thomas lets out a noise that I have only heard animals make, a cry beyond meaning, and the vast lump inside him moves, independent of his body, rippling under Ben's hand.
Ben falls back, stumbles, and I can't hold Thomas. He has a strength that I could not have imagined as he pulls himself up from the bed and throws me off. He turns on to his knees so that he is crouching, and Thomas puts his own hands to his wound and pulls it apart.
I see his fingers reach in, peel back the skin and dig through the thick yellow mess that spills out of him, coming free from his body, hanging in strands and globs and soaking into the sheets. He pulls free a solid, grey-streaked mass and it falls on to the bed. It writhes and flails and Ben cries out, a noise of such terror. He gets to his feet and reaches out to the mass. Thomas screams.
The Beauties move so fast that my eyes see it as a trick in the dim light. Two of them take Ben's legs while the third puts its hands on either side of his head, and squeezes. There is the sound like the cracking of an egg, and then Ben is gone. He is all gone. His eyes and nose and mouth are gone to pieces, a mess, and all I can recognise is the tangle of grey hair that my Bee scoops up in its hands and carries from the room. Bella takes the rest of Ben, carried in its arms. I am left alone with Thomas, Betty and the thing on the bed.
The baby.
Thomas's eyes are clear and free from pain. He sits back and gathers the baby to his chest. And it is a baby, recognisable in its arms and legs, its scrunched-up eyes and moving mouth. It lets out a noise that is undoubtedly a baby noise. I saw a brand-new baby once before, all pink and swaddled, when I was very young, and it was being passed around a room filled with women who softly held it close. I'm certain that's what this is. A baby. A baby. The word is a delight in my mind. The baby's skin is yellow, as yellow as the Beauty, but in every other way it is a baby.
‘It's a girl,’ says Thomas.
I don't even understand. ‘A girl,’ I repeat. Yes, between the legs there is a smooth, split bud. A vulva. A vagina. A womb. This baby has a womb.
He breathes out, and Betty comes to him and puts its head on his shoulder, close to the baby. I move back from the bed to give them some time together and I look at Thomas's wound. Yellow mucus has formed a crust over his hip and there is no blood, no visible injury. I think Thomas will survive this.
Instead, as Betty hums to its newborn daughter, I realise I have a new fear growing inside me, ready to end everything that I thought I once knew.
*
...and the man and his wife of clay, who was a present from the earth itself, wanted a baby so badly that the man ripped at his flesh, crying out in need.
Then a miracle happened.
He took a handful of his flesh and it transformed, before his eyes, into a child that was half of the clay and half of the man. It was a girl, a gift beyond price. The man and his wife loved their baby girl instantly and were overjoyed, but then it came to them that not everyone in their village would rejoice with them. There were those who rocked jealousy in their arms each night, and those that fed hatred in their bosom. Did they harbour enough of these terrible emotions to hurt an innocent baby? Surely nobody could be that scared, that jealous, that evil?
So the man called a meeting and held the new baby up high in the firelight, so everyone could see how tiny and beautiful she was. ‘Look at my baby,’ the man said. And everyone was struck afresh by the miracle of new life, and they swore to protect her from that moment on, and on, and on, until the end.
On cue, Thomas comes forward and I retreat from the centre of the circle so that all eyes are on him, and the bundle he unwraps. In the glow of the fire, that yellow skin is the colour of butter, warmer than the mustard skin of the Beauty. She is getting lighter.
She starts to cry, from the cold no doubt. There is a frost tonight and the circle is tight, so I can see everyone's face clearly as they look at the arms and legs, the head, the littleness of the limbs. The Beauty sit outside the circle, as usual, in their own Group – but all their bodies are turned to the baby.
‘This is Holly,’ says Thomas, with the pride of a father. ‘Merry Christmas to us all.’ He covers his baby over. Behind him, Betty hums with pride. I like to think it's pride.
William is disgusted and Eamon is mirroring his expression. Such ugliness. But Ted sits beside William and his face is thoughtful. He does not speak. Nobody speaks. I feel the knife that separates us keenly. Can Holly heal this wound?
‘Are you trying to feed us this shit, Nate, and make us like the taste?’ says Gareth. His face does not give away disgust. He and Hal are stuck fast to their hatred of the Beauty. They are dangerous men.
I glance at Ted, but he does not move. ‘It's only a story,’ I say. ‘Just to help us along the way.’
‘And what if nobody wants to go your way?’
Thomas falls back to Betty's side and it puts its arms around him and the baby. I feel the tension in the Beauty growing. Bee and the others raise the tone of their humming, just a little.
I say, ‘You can do what you like, Gareth, as long as you let others do the same. Live and let live.’
‘Like they did with Doctor Ben?’ Gareth asks.
The Group is silent. I feel the knife of their attention pressed against my neck. I say, ‘That was an accident.’ And maybe it was. I would love to be sure that it was – that he had deserved what happened. The Beauty must have seen in his mind and known his intention. Of course, that must be true. It would make it easier to forget kind Doctor Ben, my friend in days gone past, who now visits me in my sleep and watches me with accusatory eyes in a disembodied head.
‘Hal and I saw them burying that accident, and his head was ripped clean off. He didn't want that thing you call a baby to live, so they got to him first.’
‘He threatened the baby,’ I say.
Gareth says, ‘He swore an oath to take care of all human life! If he was prepared to kill it, then he knew it wasn't human.’
I hear approval in the murmurings of the Group. Gareth is gaining ground. If I can feel danger in the air, then so can the Beauty, and I know how far they'll go to protect Holly.
‘Listen,’ I say.
‘We've had enough of your stories!’ calls Hal.
‘Then let me tell you straight that you'll all die.’
The Group quiets. They want brutality tonight, either in words or actions, so I'll give them what they want. I continue, ‘When you killed one of the Beauty, Gareth, they didn't retaliate. And we made laws to deal with such things. Well, now the Beauty have made their own law. Nobody will harm that baby. Nobody will touch that baby without the permission of the Beauty, or they will rip off your heads. It's their future as much as it's ours.’
Ted stands up in the silence. Everyone looks to him. ‘It's a new rule,’ he says. ‘The Council will ratify it.’
‘No,’ says William. ‘No, they won't.’
He leaves the circle. Eamon follows, then Hal, Gareth and others – mainly the elders. Their Beauties do not go with them. They stay, gathered together, close to Thomas and the baby.
Ted sits back down and puts his head in his hands. We, the remains of the Group, watch him. I want him to do something, say something. I want him to be stronger than ever before, but he does not speak.
In the end it's Thomas who breaks the spell.
‘Holly's getting cold,’ he says. ‘I need to take her inside.’
‘Did it hurt?’ says Adam, suddenly. He and the teenagers have all stayed.
‘I've never felt pain like it,’ says Thomas. ‘It was like dying.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘But it healed so quickly. And then it was like it never happened. I know it was terrible, but I can't remember what the pain was like. It's strange.’
Adam and Paul exchange long looks. ‘And do you love the baby?’ says Paul.
Thomas says, ‘Oh yes. She makes my life complete.’
At least I got something right tonight.
‘Oh Jesus,’ says Uncle Ted. His hands fall from his face. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’
‘We didn't want to say until we knew what would happen with Thomas,’ says Adam. ‘But it's all right, isn't it? It will be all right?’
He asks it of me, but it's Ted who replies. ‘Move into the big house,’ he says. ‘Keep as quiet as you can. Don't go anywhere alone and keep those lumps hidden.’The fear in his voice is like the charge in the air before a lightning storm.
‘They'll come around,’ I say.
‘No. No, they won't.’ And with that he leaves the circle too.
The knife has fallen and we are split. With the death of our doctor, there is no way to heal this wound.
*
It's raining. The cold has seeped into everything. We all complain of it, but I think maybe we are really complaining about our fear. It is the same feeling – icy fingers around us, squeezing, as the silence stretches on from the other side. Those we once recognised as part of us will break it all, just as winter breaks the world down into death.
We sit in the large room where Uncle Ted once threatened me. That feels like a very long time ago. The table has been pushed back against the wall, and blankets and cushions cover the floor.
The teenagers like this room. The tall windows let in the sun, if there is any to see. Not today, though. This is the slowest Sunday I can remember. I've told all my old stories so many times over the past weeks, and there are no new ones in me. I hoped Holly might inspire me, but she is a clean sheet of paper. Even her cries do not move me. They sound automatic, like the cheeping of a bird for its mother. Mindless. This scares me too, and adds to the cold.
Thankfully, Holly sleeps a lot in Thomas's arms. Thomas has commandeered a corner of this room, and it's rare that he moves from it. He keeps blankets piled high around him, covering his body and the baby. He smells terrible. Betty is the only one who does not seem to mind. It stands near to him, unmoving. I've not seen it touch him or the baby. I don't even hear it hum.
The Beauty Page 6