Joe Treasure - The Book of Air

‘We have blades,’ Aleksy said, ‘knives, scythes, axes. But what about… you know, stones to sharpen them?’

‘Whetstones.’

‘Exactly, Jason. What about whetstones? Scythes you must sharpen all the time or the grasses don’t get cut, just…’ He made a whistling noise, dropping his arm from the vertical to the horizontal.

‘You want to go out this morning,’ Abigail asked him, ‘to find whetstones?’

‘Whetstones, yes, and whatever else. To take another look round the farms out on the English Road. I take the cart, if Deedee comes. I don’t handle the horse so good.’

Deirdre was distracted. I thought perhaps she hadn’t slept, or was concentrating on not losing her breakfast. She looked around the table at the rest of us, opened her mouth to speak, shrugged and said nothing. She was reluctant to go – that was obvious – but perhaps just as reluctant to lose her status as horse expert. Maybe being alone with Aleksy was a factor, but I couldn’t tell whether it was a draw or a deterrent.

‘So if you two go,’ Abigail said, ‘and Jason digs, Maud can wash clothes and bedding while it’s fine.’

Everyone seemed OK with that.

‘And Django, you could help me get more wood in.’

An ordinary morning. The kind of morning we’ve come to think of as ordinary. Except that Simon’s missing, and Abigail has pulled me from my digging to enquire about him.

‘So that’s the last time you saw him – at breakfast?’

‘What about Django? Has Django got him?’

‘Django went off by himself about an hour ago – to gather nuts, he said – and left me boiling the jam. Simon wanders but he likes to know where the grown-ups are.’

‘I heard him playing in the shed when I was crossing the yard. Since then I’ve had my head in this hole.’

Not quite true, now I think about it. I looked out later when Aleksy and Deirdre were pulling the cart from the shed, still with its awning advertising Deirdre’s shop and with empty boxes on it –the big horse so quiet, stepping back neatly for Deirdre to hitch it up, and the canvas flapping. Abigail and Django had paused in their work, Django resting on his axe, Abigail looking up from the woodpile. For a moment then I wondered who was watching Simon, but the dark trench claimed my attention.

‘Have you looked upstairs?’

‘I’ve been up and down, calling.’

‘He sometimes won’t answer if he’s busy with something. What goes on in his head, Abigail? Does he think about everything that’s happened?’

‘Children have ways of coping.’

‘What kind of a life is he going to have?’

‘Easier than ours. He’ll grow up into it. It’ll be what he’s used to. We’re still adjusting. He’ll know what his life is from the start.’

It calms me to hear her talk like this. ‘And he’ll be all right when we’re all gone?’

‘There’ll be others, surely. Other children.’ She blushes and looks away towards the moor.

‘Deirdre’s, to start with. You know she’s pregnant.’

‘She told you then.’ She faces me, with a puzzled look that says, why you, I wonder? ‘She asked me to keep it to myself for now.’

‘It’s sort of obvious I suppose. If you know what to look for.’

‘And you know?’

‘Caroline was pregnant. My wife. We were expecting a child.’

‘Oh.’ She takes my hand, calloused and flaked with mud and holds it in her lap. ‘I’m sorry, Jason. That’s hard.’

‘Not as things go.’

I’m conscious of what I’m not saying, not owning up to, while I’m accepting Abigail’s sympathy – that I didn’t discover Deirdre’s secret by looking. ‘I’m sorry, I’m muddying your skirt.’

‘That’s all right.’

The geese come waddling round the side of the house. They push their necks forward and run hissing at the jackdaws, who heave themselves into the air.

‘Can I ask you something, Jason?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘How come Simon’s skin is so dark?’

The question takes me by surprise. I mean, Caro, if someone had asked me something like that in normal times, before the virus, I’ve had said, how come you’ve got shit for brains? But Abigail so obviously means no harm by it that I try to give her a serious answer. ‘Random – that was what Simon’s dad called himself… Random was West Indian. I mean that’s where his parents were from.’

‘From India.’

‘Not Indian Indian. From Jamaica or Trinidad or somewhere. You know – Afro-Caribbean.’

‘You mean they were from Africa?’

‘Originally, I suppose. Their ancestors were. Would have been taken to the West Indies as slaves. But Random was from Peckham.’

She looks blank.

‘That’s in south London. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’

‘Sorry. You must find me very stupid. I’ve seen Indians. There was an Indian family in the village near our farm. But I’ve never seen an African.’

‘What kind of a life have you had, Abigail?’

‘A simple enough life, I suppose. Simpler than yours. We had a tractor and running water and hot water for washing and cleaning. But we kept to ourselves and ate mainly what we grew.’

‘Did you watch telly? Use the internet?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘But you went to school?’

‘We weren’t to talk to strangers. But the grown-ups taught us things. And when I grew up I taught the younger ones.’

‘Like Maud.’

‘I did what I could for Maud.’

It’s like watching a bird settle on a branch, hearing her talk. You don’t move. You hold your breath almost. Challenge or probe, show too much curiosity, and the wings flap, the branch dips and rises, and she’s gone.

But I ask anyway. ‘Did you have children?’

‘No.’ She looks at her hands. ‘Not yet.’

‘And did Maud never speak?’

‘She was chatty enough at one time.’

‘And what happened?’

She hesitates, drinks from her mug. ‘It’s not my story to tell.’

‘I’ll wait for Maud’s version, then, shall I?’

She looks at me to see that I’m joking and she laughs. She’s inclined to cover her face – I feel the impulse in her hand – but instead she turns away, and I see how the laughter lightens her and how young she is.

I’m wondering which of us will be first to let go of the other’s hand and get on with what needs doing. Then we hear the cart on the drive. It’s moving faster than it should. We’re halfway across the yard when the horse comes round the side of the house, dragging the cart at a speed that tilts it on to its outer wheels at the turn. The geese scatter. The jackdaws flap from the stable roof, making their harsh noise. Deirdre pulls sharply on the reins and the horse rears up.

Aleksy is slumped beside her. Deirdre’s shouting, ‘He’s hit, they shot him, he’s losing blood.’ We’re all over him, trying to help him down – Deirdre above him on the cart, Abigail lifting his legs, me pulling at him, taking the weight. And Aleksy’s thumping me, pummelling my shoulder. ‘Not me. The boy. See to the boy.’ I pull away and he stumbles to the ground, cursing in Polish.

I get on the cart and fling the cardboard boxes aside. And there’s Simon in a foetal crouch. He rocks from side to side, humming to himself.

‘What is it, Si? Where’d they get you?’

Abigail is beside me, straightening Simon’s legs, feeling for damage, touching his arms and fingers.

I lift his hand gently from the side of his head. There’s a gash above the ear, muddied and bleeding – not a bullet wound.

‘Is it your head, Si? Does it hurt anywhere else?’

He’s crammed with words that won’t come out.