Joe Treasure: The Book of Air

But all the time I was thinking of the ink that I must steal from Sarah’s cupboard and carry from the Hall in the pocket of my skirt. For once I didn’t mind that I must stay behind after the others to dust and sweep. When Sarah’s teaching was done, Roland was first to leave and Megan followed, smirking at me from the doorway because she was free to walk with Roland if she liked but I must stay and work. Annie took my hand. She looked at me in her mournful way and said I should knock on her cottage door when I had time. She lives with her father, Morton, who keeps nine cows and so they live better than most. I said I would, of course, but something dark about Uncle Morton will keep me from knocking. My mother shrinks from him too who has known him all her life. But mother shrinks from everyone.

Sarah had locked away the Book of Air in its cupboard. When we were alone, she asked me was I troubled by anything, and I said no. ‘Your letters are quick and neat,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you make time to come.’ And she gave me such a smile. I glowed with pleasure that she should say such a thing to me.

It was dark when I was done with my cleaning and stood outside in the passageway. The children were long gone from the schoolroom. If the Mistress sat in there alone she sat in silence. I listened for the rocking of her chair on the floorboards but heard nothing. She had gone to bed early, I thought, with her cats, which mean more to her than the people of the village. I felt the weight of the ink against my leg. I have a glass bottle from the endtime that I stole from the kitchen. It has a metal stopper that twists on to the neck so it won’t splash under my skirt but I think everyone must see it when I walk. And I’m afraid if I fall it will break and the stain will seep through.

I heard the floorboards creaking. Someone moved in the darkness and a low voice made me jump. ‘Soon you won’t be able to call me a boy anymore.’ It was Roland.

I guessed what he meant before he told me.

‘It’s my time,’ he said. ‘The men will come for me tonight.’ He held my hand and I let him.

‘Aren’t you afraid?’

‘Why should I be afraid of what all men must go through if they are to be men?’

I saw him shrug and turn his head away, but I thought he was afraid even so. There were footsteps above us on the landing and he gripped my hand more tightly. I felt his breath on my face and his lips feeling for mine.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

‘Soon, though, Agnes? Say we can talk.’

‘I don’t know. It’ll be different when you’re not a boy.’

‘It’ll be better,’ he said, and I felt his smile.

He pressed against me with his hand on my skirt, and I thought he would feel the ink bottle. So I slipped away from him and out of the Hall, and walked under the stars towards the village. I was at the bridge before my heart had stopped its racketing.

Dear Roland. It’s half a year and more since his voice cracked and a dust of hair settled on his chin. Who noticed but me? Having no parents he is everything and nothing.

I dare say it will be no worse than my own outing just before the break of summer when the women took me up on the moor at dusk. There were two of them. They came dressed as Reeds, veiled in green as Reeds must always be, and stuck about with rushes and meadow flowers. I knew who they were, even so, old neighbours whose men have died, though I knew not to speak to them by name. We call them Reeds, the Mistress says, because it was the name of Jane’s aunt who had to keep her in order when she was young and wild and hadn’t yet learnt her place. The Reeds left me on the moor for a night and a day and a second night to drink mossy water and scavenge for berries. I was hungry, but not as hungry as Jane when she ran away from Rochester’s house because she’d found out he had a wife. It was comforting to me to know that in suffering this I was remembering Jane’s greater suffering. I was lightheaded as the second night came on, and I fancied I could hear Rochester calling to me from far away, but I knew it was just the wind in the bracken. Before dawn I saw the Reeds searching for me to fetch me home. They stirred in the half-light like stunted trees in a gale and I thought the moor had found a new trick to play on me, but I saw soon enough who they were and stood to show myself.

I thought they might feed me, but first they showed me a secret and swore me not to tell and I’ve told no one yet.

And so I became a woman.

I was afraid at first when they came for me at home. I told them I wasn’t ready. But I had bled every month since the last year’s end and had passed my fifteenth year so they knew it was time. And what was it after all but heat and cold and hunger, and a secret to be kept from men and from children.

I’m still here, Caro. How come I’m still here? It never takes this long. From the sweats to the pit, three days and that’s it . Must be a symptom no one talks about – three days, but the last day feels like weeks, months, while your mind shuts and opens, and every opening hits you like a hangover. You’d tell people, except your head’s on fire and your throat’s closing up. Am I right, Caroline? Was it like that for you?

And I feel so old. I’m forty-four and I feel like an old man. It used to take time to get old.

From the sweats to the pit . The kids took to chanting that in the street. There was a ragged pack of them playing their chasing game the day we got out of London, Simon and me. They were playing as if their life depended on it, and not one of them untouched – jabbing the words at each other. Three days and that’s it .

We hit a road block near Chiswick. Hard men in gas masks, playing at soldiers, keeping the neighbourhood clean. Waving their guns at microbes. The real soldiers had buggered off weeks before. Or keeled over. Same all over London, same everywhere. Containment was the word they used. Didn’t last long. You need police to run a police state.

But they kept us waiting as if they were the real thing. A couple of cars ahead of us, a van behind, all the engines turned off to save petrol. It was quiet enough to hear the hum of the wind. Across the street, a terrace of houses and a pub on the corner, the Green Dragon. You felt the eyes watching through lace curtains and window bars – whoever was left – or just the windows watching.

And all the time I’m thinking, they’ll recognise Simon’s face. They’ll work out who he is. For a couple of days his picture was on the front pages, the TV, all over the internet – not everyone’s forgotten. They’ll ask for ID and see my name and make the connection and shoot us. Or I’ll say I haven’t got any ID and they’ll shoot us anyway.

A woman appeared in a doorway – she was wearing a pale blue sari, some silvery detail along the edge of the fabric, and she was so elegant you’d think nothing could touch her. But the moment she let go of the door and stepped into the street you could see she had the staggers. Her bag hit the pavement and vegetables spilled out – a tight white cabbage, peppers the colour of sunlight, five onions shedding translucent skin, all rolling towards the gutter. See, I was paying attention. We all were. Jesus, Caro, there must have been acres of vegetables rotting all over Kent, all over the south of England, and we were craving the stuff. I wondered if she was buying or selling, but I wasn’t getting out of the car to ask. I was heading west, ready to take my chance on the road. I figured there’d be food enough if we didn’t get knifed picking it. Fresh meat too, walking around on four legs, hens starving in their sheds with no one to let them out.

The van driver wasn’t waiting though. I watched him in the mirror, a big man manoeuvring his belly from behind the steering wheel and out on to the road. He must have been mad or desperate – anyone could see those jokers were itching to use their guns.