I need not have given birth in order to create something meaningful, even if only to me? Or to love completely and without condition. (To die for that love, if need be.) Because now, having stared at death in its half-blind eye, I am not afraid anymore, Charles.
I am not afraid.
Later
It’s him. There he is, yes, it’s him. Eloise feels the palpitation, tripping behind her ribs. There, on the corner outside the pub, smoking, talking with some friends, or perhaps some nicotine-bonded strangers. It’s only his back, his profile fleetingly, but she knows. Will she walk there? How can she not. It was his face she saw in that moment of choosing to act, to leap for that lighter, to live.
Will he be happy to see her? He had fought for her when she’d ended it. No one had ever had the courage or commitment to fight for her before, or since. But she’d resisted at the time, stone-set (paternity proved). Eventually he had given up. Or perhaps he had thrown himself into his new role for her sake, to prove something?
She approaches, perhaps in his peripheral vision, perhaps not.
‘Tom?’
‘Jesus. Eloise.’
His eyes widen, and he attempts to smile but then he also takes a step back, away from her.
‘Oh my god. Tom. It’s so good to see you. Gosh, how are you?’
He looks at her. It hurts. She walks away a few steps from his friends, beckons him to join her with a tilt of her head and the subtlest of smiles. He draws a lungful of smoke, exhales, then stubs out his roll-up, wipes his hands on his sweatshirt and follows. She smiles more openly now.
He speaks first, hands thrust low into his jeans’ pockets. ‘I saw you on the news. Christ, Gell, are you alright?’
‘I’m fine, absolutely fine. Never better really. How are you?’
But this is a stupid question, she realises. He does not look good. Pale, thin, tired. He has a purple horseshoe scar over his left eyebrow.
‘Yeah… not bad, considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘Oh, you know. Had a bit of trouble. Had to get out of London for a while.’
Eloise wants to have heard him wrongly, wants him to rewind, wants all to be well for him. She wants him to be happy, even if this is without her.
‘Oh god. I’m so sorry, Tom. What kind of “trouble”?’
‘Long story. No big deal, I’m getting it sorted.’
‘Oh. OK, that’s good.’
‘Yeah. Trying to, anyway…’
‘And your son? I’m sorry, I don’t know his name… What did you choose in the end?’
‘Josh.’
‘That’s nice.’
Tom’s eyes grow moist but his soul seems too parched to weep. She begins to worry now.
‘Is he OK?’
‘As much as he can be. He’s in foster care.’
‘Oh! I see. Do you mind if I ask why?’
‘His mother… We tried, you know, for a few years, but we couldn’t make it work. I still saw him every day, picked him up from nursery. But then she started getting into some right nasty shit. Dealing, you know, and not just weed, the heavy stuff. Eventually she bunked up with a proper dodgy geezer, really bad news. Yeah, the lovely fella who gave me this, in fact. Though, he offered worse.’
He indicates his scar, scratches it lightly, half smiles and shrugs.
‘Oh no! Oh, Tom.’
‘Yeah, I tried to get Josh out of there but his mum wasn’t havin’ any of it. And then he got stuck in. God knows why, neither of them could give a toss about the kid really. Some kind of power thing, I suppose. Respect, as some like to call it.’
Eloise is horrified now, but also confused.
‘So, why is Josh in foster care?’
‘Well, that bastard eventually went down, didn’t he, for some other piece of serious violence. And then she lost it. Got a bit too friendly with the needle. Overdosed.’
‘Bloody hell! Is she…’
‘Yeah, she’s alright. Alive anyway. But then the council stepped in and took my kid. No one knew where I was, see, which obviously was the whole idea up until that point. Mum wanted to have Josh, of course, but she’s not well. Emphysema. And it’s all my dad can do to look after her.’
‘Oh god, I’m so sorry.’
She wants no more pain for him now. She wants to be able to stop frowning, not to feel her stomach clench at each new piece of his news. She wants to see him smile again, to hear that irresistible laugh.
‘Yeah, but it’s OK. Or it’s gonna be. I mean, I get to see him twice a week. But now I’m home I’ve got to get settled again, get sorted. Then I can get him back. And I’m really getting my shit together, you know. You’d be proud of me, darlin’. I took your advice, you know, I studied art. Well, in a way. I’m a tattoo artist now. Doing alright, making some decent dosh, building up a clientele. So now I just need to move out of my parents’ tiny gaff and get my own place again.’
‘Great! Of course, yes. Oh, Tom, that’s really good. Good for you.’
She can think of nothing else to say.
He moves closer. ‘I think about you every day, you know. Apart from getting Josh back it’s what keeps me going, remembering you. Thinking about what’s possible… about everything it’s possible to feel. And to do.’
Her pulse responds. ‘Really? That’s good. That’s really good to hear, Tom.’
She needs to change the subject while she takes this in.
‘So, how is Josh? How’s he coping with everything? What is he now, seven?’
‘Yeah, he’s doing alright considering. He’s a good kid. You’d like him. Bright, sweet. Loves his music.’
‘Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry that all this has happened to you. To Josh.’
‘Yeah, it’s all a bit shit. All fucked up. But I’m working on it, and we’ll be alright.’
She still doesn’t know what to say. She wants to tell him that she thinks about him too, all the time, but she can’t. So she reaches out to touch his face. He bends into it.
She wants to hold him but doesn’t know if that would be right. If it would be welcome. She wants it all to be OK, to make it OK for him, she wants to go back to that sense of possibility that he talked about, to a love that could be anything it wanted to be. Is any of that still possible? Now?
She cannot know, not yet. But she also cannot stand back from him any longer, so she moves in to hold him.
The holding in return comes slowly, but then feels as though it will never end.
‘Don’t hurt me again. Please,’ he asks. ‘I couldn’t handle it if you hurt me again.’
She holds him, and hopes that she never will.
*
As she looks into the faces of her own children, she remembers the first time she set eyes on another child. The memory is unsurprising as her offspring are now so like that other child. That wondrous new being first encountered in the tall grass, after the long walk. Now fully grown, now her mate. Her children live within the comfort of his skin, and with his kin. They have the shape of his limbs, his hair, his face, his eyes. Although the colour is her own, so she is told.
But their smiles… their smiles belong to another, to one long gone. So long now since the sacrifice on the mountain that ensured all their survival. She knows that this is where her mother would have gone. And now there comes another sharp pang, the stabbing knowledge that her brave, strong mother has never seen these faces, never seen her own living echo within these fearless little souls, and never will. Not with eyes that belong to the body, anyway. Perhaps in other ways? Yes, perhaps.
Sometimes she imagines that her mother walks besides her, or maybe it is something else, something made of light. She cannot know, but she feels only this, between all things seen and unseen there is no separation.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the early readers for their input and encouragement: Michael Carroll, Lucy Allen, Robert Morgan, Kate McLaren, Alan Brooke, Melinda Chandler, Helen Robertson and Linda Garry Bretherton.
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br /> For listening to some very strange questions and giving some very useful answers: Professor Mark Thomas of University College London.
For invaluable editing, mentoring and expertise: Dr Stephen Carver and The Literary Consultancy, Sadie Mayne, Kate Coe, Ruth Redford, Jill Sawyer, Annabel Wright.
For their professional faith in me: Kwaku Afrifa-Osei, Xander Cansell, John Mitchinson, Unbound.
For solidarity (and free therapy): The Unbound Social Club.
Very special and loving thanks (which can’t begin to cover it): Simon Stanley.
In loving memory of: Robert, Marjorie and Simon Bretherton.
A word or two on inspiration and sources: There were so many different sources of inspiration and information for this book, I couldn’t begin to list them comprehensively. Some were indispensable mines of expertise, some ignited a chain reaction of ideas and many more stretched the limits of comprehension for a simple storyteller. However, with a broad brush stroke, there were several sources that played a consistent part in my research and motivation and these were (with thanks): The New Scientist; thedarwinproject.ac.uk; and with caveats acknowledged – Wikipedia; the BBC, the Discovery Channel (and any ‘body’ investing in science education, popular or academic); pretty much anything on TV from Lord Attenborough or Professor Alice Roberts and other translators of nature, genetics, deep ancestry etc.; Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings; Dr Jon Lieff’s Searching for the Mind – and for its very existence – The Natural History Museum in London. Several spiritual teachers, especially those exploring ‘the middle way’ also informed certain characters and aspects of the book, but the words of Alan Watts perhaps proved the most resonant. Also of great interest in this aspect of the book was the work of the Science and Non-duality Conference. However, the last word of thanks must naturally go to the great man himself, Mr Charles Darwin, who changed everything.
So, should anyone other than the fiction lover in search of a distracting tale be reading this book: To the scientists, I apologise. To the philosophers, I send my humble regrets. To the faithful, forgive me for I am riddled with doubt. Bone Lines was written as a meditation on evolution (personal and general) and on the power and possibility of synthesis. It began with a series of What Ifs but is offered to any others fascinated by the human condition, or nature and survival, or moved by tales of love, hope, ingenuity and the yearning for meaning. Perhaps it may also resonate with any other ‘lost souls’ juggling the cerebral imperative of the rational with an emotional pull to the ‘spiritual’. Whatever your experience of the book, I thank you for the gift of your precious time.
(If you enjoyed Bone Lines, please be so kind as to share a review or recommendation where you purchased the book, and/or on goodreads.com. It’s very straightforward and is a great help to authors. Thanks!)
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Book 2 in The Children of Sarah series
‘Eloise.’
‘Darius?’ she whispered, ‘what is it, why on earth are you calling at this hour?’
She might not have responded to the humming vibration at her bedside, had she not seen his name light up. And if he was addressing her as ‘Eloise’, it must be serious.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Oh no. No, my love. Something is very, very right.’
She was wide awake now. Sitting up, reaching for her glasses, though she was not sure why.
‘Hold on.’
Eloise did not want to waken the sleeping soul that now shared her room. She went down to the kitchen and without turning on the light, picked up the glass of wine by the sink that she hadn’t had the time to finish. (There were other more compelling distractions in her life these days.)
‘What is it, Darius? Where are you?’
‘We’ve found something.’
‘What, where?’
‘In what’s left of the glacier.’
‘What?’
‘A claw, LoLo. And not just any claw. A huge claw. A claw that we really don’t think should be there at all. Not by itself, not naturally.’
Eloise drained the Rioja, right down to the sediment. ‘Do you think it has something to do with her?’
‘We won’t know until we age it, but there’s more. It has markings, LoLo. It’s been carved.’
‘Christ.’
‘Exactly.’
Bone Lines Page 27