The Book of Rapture (10 page)

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.

Soli buries her head in her hands and groans. Despite yourself you laugh, remembering those golden days at Salt Cottage
when it was like the four of them existed on this earth to bring laughter into your life; your beautiful, buoyant coterie; all those days burnished with them. The varnish of them all, glowing you alive, and you are so thankful for that no matter what your existence is now because you lived, truly lived, once.

And the day star arise in your hearts.

65

‘Why couldn’t
I
have been the perfect one? The one who’s … cherished.’ Mouse watches Soli pacing the room like a dog in the back of a stationary pick-up.

‘The squeaky wheel on the bike always gets the attention, mate,’ she responds, fierce, like he should get it. ‘They never worry about me.
I
never get any hovering. And I don’t look like any of you guys, either.’ You lean; there’s a pale, soft underbelly in her voice that she rarely allows out. ‘Maybe I was adopted.’ Tremulous, younger than she’s sounded for years. Oh, love. She’s blue-eyed and black-haired and none of the rest of you are but it means nothing and you need to tell her, enfold her in your arms; need to tell her how vividly different all your three children are and it constantly amazes you. Need to tell her that when you were pregnant with her Motl would put his hand on the drum of your belly and a calmness would bloom through you; need to tell her that as a tiny baby she taught you to relinquish control, to shed selfishness, and you’re so grateful for that.

‘You’ve got Mum’s laugh,’ Tidge says brightly. That boy. It’s as if he’s permanently surrounded by bluebells and daisies when there’s not a bluebell or daisy in sight.

‘Not lately, mate.’

‘Well, we could all do with it back,’ Mouse says by way of apology.

A soft quiet. Peace at last. They need this. When the twins
were in utero they’d jump awake when they heard Soli’s toddler cry, so blood-bound, all of them, and over the years the fundamental force of that has been lost. Perhaps, perhaps, this room can knit it back.

Mouse flops down on the bed and opens out his arms. A cuddle’s needed. ‘Sis?’ He clings then pulls her off in alarm. ‘Where are you?’ Running his hands over her skinniness, feeling her bones, the jittery pulse of her flesh. And the bananas going off, and the apples bruised, and two days now up.

Engineers fashion wells, carpenters fashion wood, the wise fashion themselves.

66

Okay The deal. I DO NOT want my skeleton found in this cupboard, thank you very much. I do not want ants delirious at my flesh
.

    Three days since B left. His food hasn’t lasted as long as it should.

    
Wish list: a full belly. A lovely snuggly roll in Mums laughing. Air as crisp as an apple bite
.

    Mouse gazes out of the window and sighs. Buds are on the bare tree, the air outside is lightening, the cold’s beginning to unclench.

‘It still smells good out there,’ Tidge throws in from the door. He’s got all fancied-up today, in his good clothes: red checked shirt, jeans with the knees out.

Mouse straightens his brother’s collar and wipes a soap smear from his face. ‘Anyone we know?’ he teases.

Tidge lifts him in a hug. ‘Does it still smell good to you, dude? Is it a smell you could trust?’

‘He could be just minutes away.’ Soli throws a warning across the bows of the room. But both boys have caught a telltale chink in her voice.

‘Ah-ha!’ Tidge cries, triumphant. ‘So you’re starving too, eh sis?’

‘Something must have gone wrong,’ she says, quiet. ‘He said to stay put,’ quieter still.

Mouse throws in that maybe this was planned. Weeks ago. ‘It needs to be said.’

Soli takes the key from her pocket and places it next to the doll and kneads her right temple just as you used to when a migraine attacked.

‘I can’t bear this,’ Tidge declares, hands on his hips. And with a lunge he grabs the key and walks out. Locks the door behind him, swiftly and cleanly, like a sail on a yacht snapping free from its rope.

‘I won’t be long,’ he yells from the other side.

    Gone. Gone. Gone.

    Just like that.

The sensible man is not influenced by what other people think.

67

Your boy your boy your boy. You cannot see him, he is lost. You flap your fingers at your face like you’ve eaten something hot. Disbelief. Panic. Anger. That he could be so disobedient. ‘This might just work.’ Soli, tight, pulling at her fingers like she’s trying to pull off invisible rings. ‘As long as he doesn’t open his mouth’ — thinking it through — ‘because he’s got that ridiculous habit of being friendly, to everyone, as long as he
thinks
, yes.’ Her voice rises in horror and yes, you repeat, yes. Because you’ve coached them all that they’ll get into more trouble now by being honest than by making things up, but if anyone’s not going to follow that advice it’s your elder son, your shining boy. The
bugger
. So naughty that he ran away, and left his siblings behind. So selfish and unthinking; he’ll get a slap for it, smart on the bum, when everything’s right again, for what he’s put you through. You won’t forget this.

‘Remind me,’ Mouse is saying slowly, ‘exactly
why
this might work?’

Soli takes a deep breath. ‘Well, you know. His face always makes people…
like
him. And that has to be good. He bewitches them.’

Mouse says nothing. He hates that about his brother. Always wished he was an identical twin, wants the same face. ‘Yeah,’ he whispers now. ‘People seem to …
adore
him, don’t they?’

Your daughter mutters, God knows why, and gravely Mouse repeats, God knows why, but it’s true, it’s like he’s spent his
whole life seducing you and you always fall for it, you even steal him at night from his bed sometimes and just hold and hold him, kissing him, breathing him in, and now he’s gone, lost, this has gone wrong, they’re not meant to go off alone, they’re stronger together than apart.

Often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.

68

Ten minutes. ‘As long as he walks with confidence,’ Soli says. ‘He’s got to walk straight down the middle of the corridors. He can’t hug the walls. He has to walk like he belongs.’

Actually,’ Mouse says, ‘I can’t see the dude ever hugging a wall.’

Neither can you. Because Tidge is the St Bernard of the family, crashing through life with his big lollopy tongue and licking people adoringly, wherever he can, whoever he can get. He’s not prepared for this, has no idea about fields that tremble for three days then stop.

WHY CAN’T YOU SEE HIM?

Nineteen minutes. He mustn’t open his mouth in amazement; he has a habit of doing that. Close your mouth, my darling, you will him now, close your mouth, close your mouth.

You cannot bear this.

Anger now. Because he doesn’t worry about pleasing others, he breezes through life, bugger the consequences, doesn’t think. Mouse, on the other hand, is your thinker, your pleaser, and he has such a build-up of resentments because of it. Where is your sunny boy, where
is
he?

Twenty-eight minutes. Bewitch them, yes. Beauty is power and it’s helped Tidge his entire life and it may help him now, please,
please yes. The unfairness of his brother’s beauty has built up through the years like silt over Mouse’s heart but you’re all hoping now that Tidge’s face is protecting him, because everyone’s always gazing at him, ruffling his hair, transfixed; even though your heart is telling you this new world doesn’t work like that any more, among those men out there who’ve lost their light hearts.

    ‘
I
should have gone,’ Mouse announces.

‘If anyone was going to do this,’ Soli says, ‘it’s him.’

She’s right. Because he’s the doer of the family. Your type always survive, you teased Mouse once; you lie low, you commentate, you watch. That makes me feel like a rat, he protested in response.

‘I should have gone,’ he now repeats, standing taller at that door than he’s ever stood in his life.

‘No,’ Soli says fiercely, ‘I’m not having you lost next.’

Only men of ability and virtue can give complete exhibition to the idea of sacrifice.

69

‘He’s gone to find the secret room controlling the hidden camera in the telly. I
know
him. He’s gone to get Mum and Dad. He thinks they’re … close. He wants to rescue them. He’ll climb the crow’s-nest of this city to search them out. I know him, he’ll never stop.’

A white balloon scoots across the pavement and gusts into the air, tumbles like washing in a dryer, shrinks to a tadpole speck, a black dot, is nearly to heaven, gone.

Four little hands, splayed flat on the glass.

An enormous rush of love so fierce it hurts. When you were working in the lab you’d run,
run
up the driveway each night, needing to hold their hot squirmy bodies close, to smell them, bundle them up, all that bursting lovely life. How to bottle it? Oh, for that morning again when you were leaving for work and your lovely elder boy farewelled you at the door and called you back for another kiss and then another and instructed you gravely to buy a sandwich before you got to the office then kissed you again and you felt weighted with grace.

‘He’s petrified of being broken,’ Mouse murmurs.

‘I know.’ We all do. Am I broken? he panics whenever he trips or knocks his head, quick, am I broken? And you have to check for blood and tell him it’s not so bad because he’s terrified of the sight. ‘I have this vision of him out there somewhere, broken,’
Mouse says. And there’s no one to help. No one to say, hey, it’s nothing. Even though it is, I bet, I bet.’

Forty minutes. Your daughter’s shaking. No words any more. Air taut.

Forty-nine. She’s just yelled, ‘I
hate
this,
hate
being grown up,’ with her fingers clawed frozen at her head and the bones in her hands little rakes. ‘I can’t
do this
any more, can’t live like this.’ You stare in wonder, at yourself. At what she has turned into in this place.

You squeeze your eyes shut.

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say this to the mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.