Touch (19 page)

Then I'm piling up the mail, watching the answerphone blink and ignoring it, switching on the kettle as Marie pushes the kitchen windows open. The house is chilly with absence. I carry our bags upstairs and place them side-by-side on the bed, ready to unpack. I wonder where Yusef is now, where in the world he can be. I stroke the tanned skin on my arms and it moves in tiny wrinkles under freckles and goose bumps. Marie's calling me down for tea, saying something about the back door key, and I'm suddenly happy. Glad that he's never grown old.

The woman made her way deeper into the forest, pushing aside the branches of a willow that blocked her path. Dried leaves broke off and fell under her fingers. The branches sprang back like whips. Then the scrubby trees in the outer reaches of the forest gave way to a mixture of oak and beech, scattered through with ash and sycamore and the silvery trunks of birches. Here and there a marshy dip and the glint of water. She toiled on, burdened by her swollen belly, by the duffel bag that hung behind her. The strap cut into her shoulder. Sun reached through spaces in the foliage and dappled her face. She stopped walking, gasping, becoming pale as a contraction tightened her womb. The first ones had come early that morning as she left the city. The shattered roofs of houses had gaped under smoke that scrawled itself across clear sky.

The spasm passed away and she pushed on, oblivious of everything except the quickening pains in her belly. She trudged through gold and copper leaves that littered the earth, kicking up the underlying mould. Dead seasons enveloped her. The forest was closing in.

Shadows under the trees grew denser; stray sunlight intensified, slanting down in thin wands. All around her were the strange sounds and heavy scents of the forest. High above were bird cries; the wings of birds flapping through topmost branches. She wiped sweat from her forehead. A robin flew past, needling the air with its notes. It was late in the year and fungi sprouted lavishly: sulphur-yellow horns ringing the roots of trees, honey fungus spreading up their trunks. Then funnel caps and the scarlet heads of fly agaric. Sometimes there were luminous puffballs and mushrooms that she knew would be good to eat. She had not eaten for a long time, but now the thought of food sickened her. The air was laden with the stink of decay; sunshine gleamed like old gold and leaves spiralled into autumn's shadows.

 
The woman toiled onwards. Somewhere, far behind, the city was burning. The shelling had become heavier over the past days, mortars, rockets and then artillery rounds systematically delivered. Buildings were pockmarked with shrapnel and bullets. Shoppers had been killed in the marketplace. She'd seen soldiers sluicing away blood and broken glass. Day by day the city was encircled. A few people she knew had escaped. They'd gone further west, to safe havens that were never really safe. They could just as easily be traps. Traps for rats. All that hatred. It was everywhere, demolishing their lives. Shells sucking out the church windows, smashing statues of the Virgin. Water mains gushing into the street, lit gas pipes scorching the air. All for nothing: all because of jealousy or fear. All of which turned to hate because of history working away below the surface of things.

Yesterday, she'd stumbled from her shelter in the church crypt to find her quarter of the city burning. The house next to hers was smouldering, its window holes blackened, its roof tiles spilling into the attic. She'd gathered up her things and left. Anything to get away from the stink of fire. On the kitchen table she pinned a note for Martin in case he came home. But she'd had no letter, no word for weeks. Instead of queuing for bread she packed a few things and walked towards the suburbs, dodging through streets where snipers were at work, mocking the population with sudden death, executing strangers through telescopic sights. It was like the eye of God watching. Even God had gone mad here.

The driver of a lorry ferrying drinking water had given her a lift out of the city, past the shells of buildings and bullet-pocked houses, the overgrown gardens where starving pigs foraged. He was a dark-eyed, furtive young man wearing a sheepskin jerkin. His hands were pale and his long fingers drummed at the wheel. There was a blue diamond tattooed on the back of each finger. She had felt his eyes on her, but she was safe enough in her condition. Even the militia wouldn't rape a pregnant woman. Though she'd heard rumours. He'd left her on a wooded hillside, near the burned-out shell of a black saloon car. A pair of women's patent leather boots were standing on the roadside, as if someone had meant to collect them. Then she'd walked past them to the forest, entering its cathedral of stillness. Behind her the city was burning. She didn't care. It was all blurred now. Blurred by sleeplessness, by the daily expectation of loss. The child inside her was a stone, weighing her down. She pitied it: that was all.

The woman came upon a narrow game path winding through the trees. It was a relief: it must go somewhere. She needed to lie down and give herself up to the pains. They were assailing her with greater and greater frequency now. Beneath her blue headscarf a lock of black hair had fallen loose, tumbling against her pinched face. Her eyes were brown, large and afraid. It was her first child and she'd cut herself off from all help. Not that there was any help to be had. Not here. Not back there, where lives were broken in a moment by the crack of a bullet, a knock on the door.

The trees began to thin out, allowing sunshine to splash onto the fallen leaves. It was filtered by the foliage above, flickering and swimming in a dizzying motion. She must rest. Her mind was numb with fear and fatigue. Her body was not her own. It was aching, thrusting itself forward to the birth, building a wave that would wash her aside. She wanted to give herself up to it. First, she had to find shelter.

There was a broad clearing littered with the stumps of cut-down trees. It was divided by a stream that spread itself into a pool of sunlight at the far end. A few yards from where she stood, built in the shelter of a holly tree, was a crude lean-to of logs and piled earth. In front of it lay a heap of grey ash where a fire had been. A sudden gust caught at it, whipping dust into the air and scattering it across the grass. The clearing held the scent and haze of woodsmoke. On its far side lay two large mounds of earth. One of them smouldered sullenly, spouts of smoke drifting from its flanks. The other had grown cold and was being excavated by a man, naked to the waist, who shovelled charcoal into sacks.

The woman walked slowly over to the hut and sank down where the fire had been. The charcoal burner was aware of the woman even before he saw her: a cracking twig, the swish of her legs against ferns. He was black from head to foot from his work. Sweat made pale streaks down his trunk. Someone had entered the clearing. He turned about, gripping the shovel to face the intruder. It was rounded at the end and very sharp. In the trenches they'd fought with these on raiding parties, killing each other in the darkness of dugouts and shell holes. They'd fought and died like beasts. Now, near his hut, he saw a human shape. He ran to the stream, leaping it easily, holding the shovel at the ready. He'd kill if necessary. That was easy now.

The man came close to her and she saw that his filthy hair was blond and spiky, bristling up from a high forehead. He was short and broad and his eyes were pale blue in a face twisted by rage or fear. She was indifferent to her fate now. She sank down and couldn't move. A new pain cramped her and she bit her lip.

 
The man stood in front of her. He watched her face as a spasm drew in her cheeks. She didn't look at him, but at the hard-packed earth. He saw her swollen belly under the loose clothing and understood, letting the shovel fall. He waited, hands on hips, watching until the pain left her. When he spoke his voice was quiet and deep. It had an odd, caressive tone, at odds with his hard body.

‘Who are you, eh?'

She looked up at him. Her voice was bitter.

‘A woman.'

He stared at her, not understanding.

‘Where from?'

Questions. She roused herself, leaning on one elbow, not looking up.

‘I came from the city. They shell it every day now. I've no people left, no husband. No place to stay. I came to the forest.'

He nodded slowly. Her eyes had a feverish brightness, but her voice was dull, hesitant.

‘You?'

The man swept his hand round the clearing, a gesture that included both it and the forest beyond. He grinned briefly, ironically, showing pointed teeth. His eyes were a scorched blue.

‘A man.'

She shrugged. So what? It was enough.

‘Your time...'

He moved a hand up to his face, as if unused to words.

‘...it's very close?'

She nodded, putting her teeth to her lips and tasting blood.

The man turned suddenly, abrupt in all his movements. He beckoned her into the hut where some blankets were laid out on a mattress to make a bed. It was dark inside; it smelled of woodsmoke and earth. She lay down, resting for a few moments, then struggled upright to unpack the things she would need from her bag. Baby clothes and a shawl bought in a city shop.

 
The charcoal burner left the hut and appeared a few minutes later carrying some live coals on his shovel. He knelt down before her and began to kindle a blaze from a pyramid of wood chips, wafting the embers with a leaf of wild rhubarb. The sunlight was beginning to draw back, allowing shadows into the clearing. They darkened it stealthily. A faint chill was beginning to ride on the air. She was glad of the fire.

The man brought her a drink of water from the stream and gradually she sank into a state of drowsiness, almost without consciousness. Before the war they'd lived their own lives. Lives with distinct memories and a future. Her childhood in that same city, her mother walking her to school through dirty snow with the broken melody of a song going through her head. Then years later, a day with Martin when they'd taken a boat out across the river and picnicked on an island. They'd watched a cormorant diving, knifing into grey water, emerging with tiny fish in its beak. In the evening swifts had chased insects above the treetops, screaming in wild gangs. And they'd made love, fumbling like adolescents in the dusk. That was before the fighting, before neighbour had cursed neighbour, before the warlords and militias. Before fear had annulled everything. Fear on the surface and more fear buried under that.

 
She turned over, moving from side to side, the ache in her back deep and persistent. It made the pains more bearable to drift like this in the shallows of sleep. Her breathing assumed its own rhythms, quickening and falling away with the cramp in her belly. She lay half-conscious, half sunk to sleep. Images of the forest and the city crossed her mind and re-crossed it and then were shut out by new pain. Pale fungi, flickering foliage, shattered houses, smoke coiling like a rope slowly flailing the sky. Once she opened her eyes to find the man watching over her. He'd washed the charcoal dust from himself and squatted with the firelight on his hair and skin. He gave her a wry smile of encouragement.

Now the intermittent pains were being taken over by waves that made her grunt with shock. She'd never felt her body like this, had never been so irresponsibly afraid. The birth was dragging out another layer of darkness. She had to close off her panic, couldn't surrender to it. The antenatal books she'd read had told her how to relax, how to breathe though the contractions. But the pain was a tide dragging her, swinging her legs apart. This child would kill her to be born. The colossal weight of it was pulling at her like gravity. With a terrible effort she roused herself for the birth.

The man heard her owl-like moans and felt scared. Afraid of this after all he'd been through! That was strange. He held a wet cloth to her head. Flames glanced across her dark, occluded eyes. With each cry the child moved down, the head crowned, then emerged like a strange planet, plastered with blood and hair. He brought a light and got ready to take it. It came in a gush with the woman's final gasp. He took the cord in his hand and cut it as she'd told him. The tiny mouth opened in the child's puckered face and it gave a wail. He wrapped it in the shawl and handed it carefully to its mother.

‘A boy!'

She nodded, exhausted. Minutes passed in which she soothed the child at her breast. There was no joy, just bitter milk flowing from the pain in her breasts. She was at the very frontier of wakefulness. Another spasm. Then another.

‘Take the cord... gently!'

He twisted the slimy umbilical around his hand and waited until the afterbirth came away. It lay there, wounded and raw. The woman sank back with her child and the charcoal burner took the thing and wrapped it in a square of cloth, carrying it to the edge of the clearing where he flung it away into the trees.

When he returned the woman had already fallen asleep with her child. It was a boy and had given a single, thin cry of life, its lungs filling under his hands. It was a boy. He felt glad; he didn't know why.

The man built up the fire with fresh logs. A new moon was sailing above the treetops, casting a faint light into the clearing. Wind hustled through the branches, making the leaves shiver. The stars were spangles of frost glittering against darkness, infinitely far yet almost close enough to pull down and sift through a man's fingers. The Milky Way stretched across the heavens, star after star sending its light. Existing even after death. A huge and slowly turning illusion of light. The road to heaven. They'd watched the same stars from dugouts on the frontline. And falling stars that came and went in a blink like tracer rounds. Then white-hot bullets had ripped in overhead. He'd seen what a round of hot metal could do to a human body. That wet thwack of contact. A neat entry wound and a gaping exit, leaking entrails, blood, shit. Then necrotising flesh. Gangrene. He'd seen the eyes of men who knew they were going to die. He'd witnessed their disbelief at the way a split second could change everything.

In sleep the woman's mouth had sagged open and a lock of hair had fallen across her face. It was dark, like the wing of a bird. Firelight flared upon them: the crouched, expectant man, the sleeping woman, the newborn child bundled beside her. She had his blankets for her bed. He reached forward, moving the lock of hair aside, watching her breathing come and go. The woman slept a deep, narcotic sleep. A profound unconsciousness, beyond dreams, beyond the danger of memory.

When she awoke it was sudden, startling. The light had shocked her awake. She felt the warmth of the bundle in her arms, but hardly dared look at the child. She was sore and stiff. Her thighs felt caked with blood and dried birth slime. She changed the cotton pad she'd placed between them the night before; the bleeding had stopped. That was good. She longed for a bath, to be washed clean and under fresh sheets. Already the clearing was hazy with sunlight, though the air was still chilled and damp. Dew glistened on the grass, pearling a fine tracery of cobwebs.