Joe Treasure - The Book of Air

‘Yellow people.’

‘Butter and honey shall he eat.’ Django is talking to himself, then louder to all of us. ‘Butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse evil, and choose the good.’ He’s impatient, exasperated. He stands and turns to Abigail. ‘Do we have butter and honey?’

‘There is no butter, Django. There’s cream…’

‘Why aren’t we making butter?’

‘You want butter,’ Aleksy says, ‘build a churn. Here’s a project for you. We’ll all be happy. Even happier if you help with wheat so next year we’ll have bread to spread it on. You see Abigail’s made jam already.’

‘And honey?’

‘We’ll have honey,’ Abigail says, ‘in the spring. There are hives in one of the cottage gardens.’

‘Not till the spring?’

‘Maud’s kept bees before. She knows what she’s doing.’

‘We talked about this, Django,’ Deirdre says. ‘Weren’t you here? We’ll be able to make candles from the wax.’

‘Cream then, and jam, stirred together in a cup.’ It’s meant as an order. No one moves but Django doesn’t notice. ‘For butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land.’ He’s looking at Simon again. He lifts him under the arms and stands him on a chair. He’s fiddling with the knot of the bandage. When he begins to unwind it, I step in to stop him. ‘What d’you think you’re up to?’

‘Don’t touch him.’ He speaks fiercely. ‘You smell of the earth.’

‘I’ve been digging a toilet. What have you been doing?’

‘Your pomp is brought down to the grave with the noise of your viols. The worms are spread under you, and the worms cover you.’

I don’t know how to answer this. The bandage slips off and I move in to take Simon in my arms, to hold him from danger. I watch in silence as Django puts a finger gently to the graze. Slender musician’s hands he has. Simon closes his eyes but doesn’t wince or complain.

Django speaks in a murmur. ‘Shot, and nothing to show for it.’

‘He wasn’t shot,’ I tell him.

‘You’d think so, to look at it now. It’s hardly a scrape. You see, Simon, no one can beat you.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Invincible, that’s what you are.’

‘Why do you tell him these things?’

‘You built towers, Jason.’ He turns on me, eyes blazing. ‘You raised up palaces and they’re brought to ruin. For you said in your heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high. But thorns shall come up in your palaces. They will become a habitation of jackals and a haunt for owls. The high ones of stature shall be cut down, the haughty shall be humbled, and a little child shall lead them.’

‘Hey, Django,’ Aleksy says, ‘you eat too many of your own nuts, I think.’

‘Stop this, Django,’ I tell him. ‘Stop filling his head with this nonsense.’

Abigail says, ‘Maud’s made tea, Django. Real tea. I think you should have some. We’ve all had a bit of a shock.’ She fills a cup and hands it to him on a saucer. ‘There’s milk, look, in the jug on the table.’

When he takes hold of the saucer, the cup rattles. ‘Yes, all right,’ he says. He looks at the tea and then at Abigail. ‘Tea. What a treat. It smells good. Thanks, Abigail. Thank you, Maud. Thank you.’

Maud steps forward and rests the palm of her hand on his forehead.

‘Is he hot?’ Deirdre asks her. ‘Is it the sweats? It can’t be the sweats. It doesn’t make sense. Not after all this time. Who would he catch it from?’

Abigail tells him to sit down and to drink some tea, and he does as he’s told, but when she asks him how he feels, he looks at her vaguely as if he’d forgotten she was there.

Deirdre’s asking him where he’s been. Did he meet anyone while he was gathering nuts?

‘Let him be,’ Aleksy says. ‘Just his brain overheating. He thinks too much.’

‘I’m fine, thanks, Abigail,’ Django says at last. ‘Just need to lie down for a bit.’ He gets up and puts his tea cup on the table. ‘No offence, this room is stifling.’ We watch him go out into the hall and hear his footsteps on the stairs.

Something has happened that I couldn’t have guessed or hoped for. Better than a pot full of ink, though I have that too. I am out of the red room, away from the Hall and the village. Somewhere among the ruins of the endtimers – more than that I can’t say. Somewhere on the road is all I know.

The day after they fuddled my brain in the woods – that was the worst day. Worse than when my father died, because I felt it was my own death. They might have wrapped me then and laid me in a pit. I put my face to the broken window to catch what air I could. I tasted the edge with my tongue. I put my wrist to the glass to test its sharpness. I cut myself enough to drag the pain out of my head. I sat in the space between the tiled walls with my arm aching sweetly and heard myself called by the broken glass. I had eaten nothing since their filthy broth and nothing much before that. Moths gathered in my stomach. My head rose up in the narrow space, away from the rest of me and I felt I had at last learnt the secret of calling that the endtimers had mastered, that Jane knew and teaches us to long for. The cracked glass called me from its tangle of ivy, aching to be washed of its dust and mildew, washed in fresh blood, and I rose up in answer like smoke from a candle.

That night I crawled under the bed when the voices came, and answered each one with a cherry stone dropped into the hole. Each time I heard the clatter and the echo and the distant plop as the Grace Pool received it.

And then a voice came that I knew better than the others. ‘Agnes, is it really you? Do you hear me when I speak?’

I opened my mouth to answer but breathed in dust and all that came was coughing and noise. My throat hurt and there was no sound left in it.

‘Bessie whispered it was you, but I don’t know if I can believe her… My baby is kicking, I lie gently on my side so as not to hurt it… I hope you’re there and can hear me… I’m half afraid of what kind of a creature it will be when it’s born at last… I hope they let you out… I can’t stay long, Daniel will wonder where I am… Think of me sometimes…’

Maybe she said more, I don’t know. I slept and was woken by steps outside the door. I thought it might be Roland come again, or Brendan to hold me, to fall on his knees and hold his head against my belly and plead with me to love him in spite of everything, so I could tell him it was too late and he should suffer for all he had made me suffer.

The door opened a crack and a voice whispered my name. It was a woman’s voice. I held still, afraid it was the Reeds come to beat me, the Reeds who weren’t Reeds, being men under their leafy veils. The door opened and closed and again I heard my name. I crawled from my hiding place, rose to my knees and to my feet. I stumbled a little but put out a hand to the wall. Even in the darkness I was ashamed of my condition, ashamed of my hair loose on my face and the dirt and the blood and my dress torn and unwashed, ashamed of the tears that came too easily, of the snot thick and salty on my tongue, of my own sour smell.

‘Agnes,’ she said, and again, ‘Agnes, child.’

I tried to speak but my throat filled up and the breath was snatched from me.

‘What happened to you?’

I said, ‘If I had remembered Jane. If I had held myself ready, a pen balanced for writing.’

‘You can’t stay here.’

‘They’ll make me stay.’

‘Are you strong enough to ride?’

‘If Gideon’s back is strong enough to take me.’

‘Agnes, Agnes, they’ve starved you almost to nothing.’