Joe Treasure - The Book of Air

‘He said something? Because you probably didn’t understand him.’

‘Yes, not much of a talker is he.’

‘He’s a good boy.’

‘Who said he isn’t?’ Deirdre shrugs, drinks from her wine glass, looks out at the driving rain. ‘So what was she like?’

‘Who?’

‘Simon’s mother. West Indian, was she? Afro-something-or-other? Gorgeous anyway, judging by his looks, which, no offence, he didn’t get from you.’

‘I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.’

‘Oh I’ve been paying attention all right.’ She moves closer, and her words are warm against my face. ‘But my own tastes are not angelic. In either sense.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You’ll get the idea.’

‘Aren’t you afraid?’

‘Probably. I’m afraid most of the time.’

‘Simon’s not mine, you know.’

‘Adopted?’

‘I’m his uncle.’

‘His uncle? Wow. Of course. Who’s left but orphans, widows, mothers of dead children?’

‘I assumed Abigail had filled you in.’

‘Let’s not talk about Abigail.’ Her mouth tastes of wine. Her hands are behind her, busy adjusting and unclipping. Then they’re in my hair and on my chest. She makes a noise in her throat. I’m assaulted by loneliness. It doesn’t stop me, but it’s there anyway, holding my mind separate from my body. Sorry, Caro. Sorry for you, dead and gone, bulldozed into the ground. Sorry for me, doing this, like everything else now, alone. Sorry, but there’s comfort in the contact, and my heart settles to it. It was racing back there with all that talk of Simon, and Simon’s parentage. But it’s all right. Deirdre doesn’t know. So Django doesn’t know, and what I see in his eyes is just his way of looking.

‘Ow, ow. It’s OK. Don’t stop. Ow.’

‘Sorry. I hurt you.’

‘They’re just a bit sore.’

I draw back and raise my head to find her eyes. I heard her in the garden throwing up, and I know it wasn’t the garlic. ‘Are you pregnant?’ The question feels arbitrary, the way it comes to me. I expect her to laugh, and she tries to, but her expression is evasive and gives me the answer. Even by candlelight I see the flush of colour on her neck. She settles on a defiant stare.

‘So that’s what this is about.’

‘What? You think I need a man to take care of me?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You know nothing about me – what I’m capable of. Just because my moods are on the surface you think I must be feeble. But I can take care of myself. I managed fine before I got here.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

She climbs off the bed, wrapping herself up, and stands at the window. ‘It wasn’t easy on the road, you know, with the cart, and the goats to slow me down. There were times when I was pretty much a sitting target. And don’t think I couldn’t have just chucked some food in the Land Rover instead, don’t think I wasn’t tempted.’

‘You had petrol?’

‘Almost a full tank.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘Because getting to safety is nothing if you’ve got no way to live. Fat lot of use your car’s going to be.’

‘So you made the right choice. Congratulations.’

‘You make it sounds so easy. You haven’t a clue.’

‘About what? I know what’s been going on. I’ve dug my share of graves. I know what it’s like to survive on what you can steal, what you can fight for. Tell me what I’m missing, Deirdre.’

I think at first she isn’t going to answer. When she does, her voice is almost drowned by the storm. ‘So these two men stopped me on the road. They wanted to know what I was carrying on the cart.’

‘When was this?’

‘Weeks ago. Before Aleksy. One of them just began unloading my boxes on to the verge. A fat ape he was, with a nose like a pig. The other one said he wanted to see what was in them before wasting his time, and he took out a knife and started cutting them open. I assumed he was the boss. So I told him he could have me if he left the stuff. While he was unzipping his trousers I asked him what he’d been – you know, before – and he said a city trader. He seemed sort of harmless, quite nice in a way, except he stank. Next thing we were doing it right there on the verge. He hadn’t finished before the ape pulled him off me and said it was his turn. The trader swore at him and I said that wasn’t the deal, but the ape hit me and started anyway. The trader’s knife was just there, in the grass, where he’d left it. I got the pig-faced bastard in the thigh. Then I went for his back. I hit a rib, felt it jarring all up my arm. He got off me then, or the trader rolled him off.’

‘And then what?’

‘What do you think? The trader finished the job.’

‘Unloading the boxes?’

‘Not that job.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘He’s the father, probably. Though I can’t say for sure.’

I want to ask her how this ended. Did the trader keep his side of the bargain or what? But she’s finished talking. She looks out at the storm for a minute. Then she covers her face. After a while I hear small bleating noises.

She’s a mess, but I’m no better – just a different kind of mess. We’re none of us any better. Abigail drives herself like an ox. Maud’s lost the power of speech. Django, if he was ever normal, has retreated into his own world. Aleksy struggles with a repertoire of blinks and twitches.

‘You’ll be all right.’

‘How the fuck do you know?’

‘We’ll take care of you.’

‘We?’

‘Me and Abigail.’

She’s staring out the window again.

I used to think of myself as walking forward into the future, constructing the future I was walking into. I used to think of myself as not wasting energy thinking of myself as one thing or another, but just doing what had to be done. Now I seem to stand sideways on, watching some version of me that isn’t quite me. I notice myself feeling things. Or not. Or more than one thing at a time. Now, for example.

I pull my trousers on and go up to her at the window.

‘Deirdre… talk to Abigail.’

‘Fuck off, Jason. No, don’t touch me. I don’t want your hands on me. Just fuck right off out of my life.’

‘Tell her you’re pregnant. She can help.’

‘The horses are mine, by the way, and the goats, and most of the edible food is what I brought – whatever Abigail thinks, hiding it in the cellar like it’s her personal hoard.’

‘Get some rest, Deirdre.’

‘I was all right on the road and I’ll be all right again, don’t you worry.’ She’s reached the door and stands with the bottle in her hand. ‘Once a month in the missionary position, that’ll be Abigail’s idea of sex, if she ever lets you into her capacious knickers. Because Abigail’s idea of sex, in fact, is snuggling up with Maud. Or hadn’t you worked that out yet? They just let you stay to dig holes and shovel shit.’

‘Sleep it off.’

‘Sleep the fuck off yourself. And then you can pack up your pretentious wine glasses in your chav wet dream of a car and you can leave us all the fuck alone, because we don’t need you here.’

She slams the door behind her and it swings open again. The catch is worn – something else that needs fixing that I haven’t time to fix. Her footsteps are unsteady on the backstairs. I hear her stumble and swear. For a moment there’s nothing louder than the storm. Pulling on a sweater I go out to the landing and listen while she gets to her feet again and makes it down to the first floor. There are other footsteps, another voice murmuring comfort – Abigail seeing her safely to bed, or Aleksy thinking he’s in with a chance.

It’s only when I turn again to my door that I see Django sitting with his back to the wall. There’s barely enough light to see his expression, but it’s one I’ve seen before. He does compassion like a mime-artist, head to one side, mouth and eyebrows arched. He holds his jacket open.