The Book of Rapture (6 page)

‘And all this is being done in the name of freedom,’ you spat, in a voice they’d never heard.

The whole family looked across. Because you had become old, it had begun from that night. But Motl was all-calming. He murmured ‘Mum’ in his warning voice. He said people can choose to live as victims or courageous fighters and we all had to think very carefully about how we proceeded from this point. And that there are some people who are broken by unfairness, and there are some people who are not.

‘And we will not be. We will not.’

Old is my body, heavy and frail, it moves not with my fleeter thoughts. But strong my purpose, strong my heart.

30

Mouse’s eyes aren’t working properly any more. He’s rubbing them, they’re filmy, scratchy, raw. His writing has grown ragged, the notebook drops. He’s curled at the foot of the bed; surrendering, finally, to sleep. On the floor, just like he used to approaching six, when he couldn’t bear to hear his father’s hrumph of annoyance any more but was still terrified of the dark so he’d pad into your room and lie meekly on the carpet so as not to wake you both up. In the morning the politeness of his curled little body on the hard floor would break your heart; you couldn’t, possibly, get cross. Children are so much better than adults.

Tidge’s the big brother only just. Mouse got stuck and had to be dragged out, Tidge just … slid. That about sums them up. The first boy was baked to perfection but the second emerged a touch overcooked, his skin raw and angry with rash. And upon arrival your youngest child took one look at his big brother and yowled a howl that sliced through the room. It was as if he sensed right then that this beautiful creature would dog him his entire life, that his big brother had glamour and he did not. For the elder is like one of those mysterious creatures from the ocean depths who glow, unstoppably, with an inner light. And Tidge’s taller. You don’t know what happened to Mouse’s inches, they just got lost in the unfairness of the genetic lottery. ‘Tidge’ll never get spots as a teenager,’ he wailed to you once, and you fear he’s right. Your youngest is a head-downer as he
talks, he’s not used to the slap of face-to-face. He has a gift for aloneness and moodiness and withdrawal, from birth that pattern was set.

They arrived early. Your waters broke at thirty-two weeks and they were rushed into incubators and prodded and pierced with all manner of equipment slipped under pale, translucent flesh while you turned, couldn’t bear it, and wept. And late that night, their first night in the hospital, Motl sensed Mouse’s retreat from this world: after twelve hours he’d had enough. ‘Don’t go,’ he pleaded to his fragile bundle of flesh, ‘hold on, little man, it really can be wonderful in this place.’ But his pleas weren’t enough, they didn’t convince. Then with flurrying fingers Motl listened to his heart and did something he absolutely wasn’t cleared to do: he unplugged the little scrap of life not much bigger than his hand. He lifted it clear of his plastic box. He placed it next to his big brother.

Tidge pressed close. He curled his tiny fingers into his brother’s flesh. Squeezed. Hauled him into this life.

Mouse’s got a lot to be grateful for. You’re always saying it in your warning voice. Which your daughter often repeats. Soli, Soli, Soli. Your prickly slip of a girl who’s always trying so hard to be good, to get everything right. Will you grow old in terror of each other, as mother and daughter, of the hurt you can both inflict? Please no. The professor and you did all your experimenting with her, the first-born; you were working the whole parent thing out. You both hovered so much, loving so fiercely, sneaking into her room and standing by her cot and just gazing, in awe, night after night. So much relaxing to get right, letting-go to learn, so much fear at the outset. Of all those things you were told children snatch from you: money, control, self-esteem, beauty, youth. It took a long time to learn what they inject: confidence, gratitude, strength.

And now, speeding into womanhood. You’ve always been
enchanted
by her. Always glancing at her effortless loveliness.
As for Motl, he looks at her in a way you’ve never seen before, like he looks at no one else in his life. Certainly not his wife. Some women are jealous of the gaze that fathers reserve for their daughters, but with Motl it makes you laugh. It’s so … naked. Adoring, reverent, astounded, chuffed. Evangeline was the nickname she chose for herself for when she’s a pop star when she’s grown up. ‘It’s entirely inappropriate,’ Motl’s always teasing her, but you’re not so sure. She’s better than you. The wonder of that.

O thou enwrapped.

31

After that dinner at Salt Cottage Motl and you handed out the watches the three of them now wear on their wrists. ‘We’d been saving them for the summer hols,’ you rasped, your voice filling up, ‘but, hey, you might as well have them tonight.’ Then you clamped each of them tight like you were trying to breathe in their skin, to imprint it onto your own so you’d always have it close; their particular smell, each one so different, that you’ve known their entire lives. Trying to soak them into your dress so that in the future you can hold it to your face and breathe them back.

Later that night Motl and you curled around each of them and put a hanky over their mouths and clung to their lovely trusting warmth like they were life buoys in a vast ocean of fear and neither of you knew when land would be reached. Then everything went black —
‘like death, I guess’
— and the three of them woke in this other world entirely, this pale, waiting place. Cast adrift, your fragile boats, and you all hope for landfall so much.

You had assumed Motl had told them what was happening; you trusted him to lead them to safety; where
is
he in all of this? What happened? Is he all right?

Your memory, just before your own world went black: Motl and you waiting, holding hands, side by side in your armchairs in a quiet the cottage never has. The arc of a car light. ‘They’re here.’ Your husband, quiet. A quick squeeze of your hand. They
came in through the unlocked door; no knock. A blast of cold wind from outside blew through you to the embered place inside they cannot reach, they can never reach. You blazed life. As you sat there waiting with your eyes shut for whatever was ahead. Because it was the only way it could be done. To save the children, to free them, that’s what Motl had told you; otherwise the family would be hunted down like injured animals and the pursuit would never stop, there would never be any rest, any peace. ‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘I have a plan. It’s only you they want.’

So. You were gently but firmly grabbed from behind. Pulled to your feet. Pinioned by your wrists which were then cuffed to a belt and a hood was placed over you, cutting off any light. Shortly afterwards, a sharp blow and your world went blank, everything addled, your family lost. And now you are here, in this place.

Mouse jerks awake.

    
Okay, okay. Something else. From that last night at Salt Cottage. Dad crying but trying not to. His tiny spasms held in. I’ve never seen him cry before. I WISH I HADN’T REMEMBERED THAT. I wish wish WISH we were all back there. Back. Please, get us back
.

    Now is the time when what you believe in is put to the test.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart.

32

You need to burst into their room right now. Need to climb into their dark world and flick on the light and spring-clean it with your laugh. Want their glee back. You know each of their giggles exactly, they’re like three fingerprints of joy and you’ll always hold them tight, so tight, in the fist of your heart.

‘Trust me,’ that’s what he said, ‘never forget that.’ But it’s so hard to hold on to.

This is the way to die: Beauty keeps laying its sharp knife against me.

33

Early morning. Tidge still vastly under. His face smooth as if it’s lit from within, his eyelids shiny like they’ve been brushed with Vaseline. Mouse awake. Rises stiff. The night’s anxiety still curled in his bones and even more nagged by worry now. Because dawn’s here, the closeness of a key that works. Light slits open the black. Brightness comes quickly and he runs to the window and presses his palms to the sky and wants to dive up, up into that wide happy blue, wants to lick the lovely air. Footsteps. Outside. In suits and heels as they brisk along in that hurried way that city feet do. Your boy knocks on the glass but they cannot see or hear; unknowing they pass. Cars, finally. Thank goodness. He picks up his notebook.

    
The traffic lights have a reason now. I was getting worried for them, they looked so forlorn. Like they’d been stood up
.

    The busyness of the waking city seeps into the room and your youngest stands sentinel, waiting for goodness knows what: Motl and you perhaps to rush into this place and scoop them up whooping and laughing with relief but then his eyes squeeze shut — no, no — he shakes his head, no more crying’s allowed out, Dad wouldn’t want it.

    
But they didn’t come. They didn’t get us out. We’re ALONE. What happens to grown-ups when their past catches up? And their kids. NO FAIR what happens to them. NO FAIR
.

Your hand sits in the classroom of God.

34

Hot water ticks in the old pipes. Groans. Shudders. The building’s waking up. Mouse’s fingertips push at the glass. People walk by unaware of the panic fermenting at their feet. He looks at the bed and hesitates; soon he’ll have to wake his siblings but he can’t quite do it yet. They need their sleep. The warm shock of his caring heart; one of those moments when you think, hey, what’s the worry, he’ll be all right. Your dear, dear boy, trying so hard to be the man for a bit. He smooths a lock of hair from his sister’s face. She needs her sleep, the weight of responsibility is scowling her up; she’s got a new line in her forehead from trying so hard to be the mother of the group. And he doesn’t want to crash all his anxiety into his brother just yet. This will swamp him. That nothing has changed, that you never came in the night.

Well well.

His brother’s woken like he’s heard his thinking. Mouse burrows under the covers. ‘They’re not here, dude,’ he says, ‘and there were noises. Outside the door. And there’ll be a key soon and … I’m scared. Tidgy? I want to go home.’

His brother gulps, eyes wide, trying to remember Motl’s words, to hold on to hope. He opens his mouth, nothing comes out, terror clogging his talk. And so here they are now, your beautiful boys, waiting, minute by snail minute. For goodness knows what. Deep wavery breathing from them both. Now their boxers are back. Punch-
punch, punch-punch
. Jabbing away at
their skin. As they stare out at the morning they can’t get to. At the window they cannot break.

Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said the morning cometh, and also the night.

35

This will not defeat you. Light is anyone’s birthright and you want it back. By heart you know Salt Cottage. Those words are not accidental. By
heart
.

The winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not: it was founded upon a rock.

36

A group is being hurried down the street. Mothers and grandmothers and children. The littlest are crying. The mothers are pulling them along with still, hollow faces like the life has been walloped from them. Even the smallest hold bags. Some are just plastic from the supermarket. Several have coats over their pyjamas as if they’ve been caught in their sleep.

‘Where are the boys?’ Tidge asks. There are small ones, yes, but none over seven or eight.

‘I don’t know, dude,’ Mouse replies. And as he speaks it is like mercury coming into you, seeping through your veins, its stately chill. ‘I don’t know,’ your youngest repeats, rubbing mist from the window, from the horrified O of his mouth.

‘The boys are with their dads,’ your daughter interjects, teacher-bright. ‘They’re on their way to school’

But a glittery quiet. As the three of them keep watching. Mouse’s tongue blunted now and you know why. Because he overheard Motl and you talking once about fields on the edge of the city with freshly turned soil that trembled for three days then stopped.

‘Why, Mummy, why?’

‘Sssh, darling, not now, get some sleep.’

But knowing snapped open in him like a switchblade.

    
EVERYTHING is too close
.

    Your wild love. Your wild love.

They make haste to shed innocent blood.

37

Busyness has come. The city’s tootling on with its day. Sunlight bursts through gliding clouds and a big happy blue hollers for the three of them to get out. Outside the window a plastic bag turns cartwheels on the street, joy riding on the breeze. People hurry about in their too-busy-for-stopping way that city feet do. The doorknob spins and spins catching on nothing. They’ve all had a go and everything is too quiet in this pale cocoon of a room but not in a calm way, a birds-hushed-before-an-earth-quake way.

‘I wonder what happened in this place. You know, before,’ Tidge wonders aloud.

Mouse still can’t talk. Thinking too much.

    
Our turn will come. And all we can do is stand here and stand here waiting for goodness knows what
.

    Because of what you did once.

Then said I. Lord, how Ions?

38

Okay What I’ve heard because no one’s telling me, are they? Dad saying this regime stops people being human but Mum saying it doesn’t stop people being human it brings out the worst in them, what lies buried in everyone underneath. That we all have this animal inside us, every single human being, and Dad says, no, Mrs, not everyone, and then it’s a fight. Mum all shouty that everyone has this capacity to be inventively, viciously cruel, to any person who’s the outsider
—
the threat
—
and it’s been like that since humankind began and it will never stop and then the stories come and I crouch under the stairs winded by the listening. What grown-ups do. New-born babies put outside a mother’s cell in a bag with a starving cat. Jumping on a back until it breaks. Pigeons stuffed into mouths. Eyes gouged out with spoons. Drilled flesh. Villages gassed. Families holding tight in the centre of a room and single people at the edges by themselves. Parents forced to shoot their children as punishment. Parents forced to watch as their children’s throats are slit. Parents forced to watch as their children are starved to death. Mothers beaten by their babies until the babies are dead. Right. What grown-ups do. All of this. MUM? DAD? Are you out there? CAN YOU COME? Please come
.