Pat Barker - Another World

Toiling across the sand carrying the bag, she’d become aware of a dull ache in her back. Period trying to start. Her whole body felt bloated; if you’d stuck a pin in her, water would have poured out. She was glad to sit down, though when she said she felt tired Fran snorted, ‘At your age?’

Fran’s ankles were swollen. When she dug her fingers in to show Dad they left pits in the skin that didn’t spring back into place like flesh normally does. Fran sat and watched the hollows in her flesh, while Dad fussed about with towels and the sunshade.

Miranda did what she knew she was expected to do and started to amuse Jasper, who was fractious from the heat. The little tendrils of hair on the nape of his neck and round his ears were several shades of gold darker than the rest of his hair. He was supposed to wear a sun hat, but he wouldn’t. He kept pulling it off and throwing it away. She showed him how to make a tower and stick a lolly stick in the top as a pretendy flag, but he used the stick to knock the tower down, and then cried because he hadn’t got one. Sighing, she shovelled sand into the bucket, and started again.

Dad said he was going to get ice-creams. Did she want one? Yes, she said, though she didn’t know if she wanted one or not.

A shower of sand spattered her hands. She looked up through a tangle of hair to see Gareth grinning. Fran told him to go away. He wandered off, straight-backed and mutinous, kicking sand to show he wasn’t bothered.

A minute or two later Miranda looked up the beach and saw Dad walking carefully towards them, pausing to lick the backs of his hands where the ice-cream had melted.

Miranda ate hers quickly, stuffing it into her mouth, then said casually that she thought she might go for a walk. She needed to get away from them to think and didn’t wait for a reply before setting off. There was no reason, she told herself, for her to spend the entire afternoon playing with Jasper. She was fed up with everybody assuming she liked children just because she was a girl, or that she loved Jasper just because he was her half-brother. Dad would never have left Mum if Fran hadn’t got pregnant. That’s what Mum says anyway.

The sun was hot on the nape of her neck, her armpits and groin itched, she felt heavy and sullen, as tense as those fat pods of honesty that pop the moment you touch them. She started to climb up the cliff path, hoping for a breeze. The sea was a thin glittering line, far out. No murmur of waves, but there was a constant high-pitched whine, some sort of insect, but to Miranda it seemed that this was the noise heat made.

At the edge of the path there were daisies and poppies. She picked one of the poppy heads and split the rough green outer casing open to reveal tightly furled moist petals, which she tore slowly apart. Red and wrinkled, like a newborn baby’s skin. Dad took her in to see Jasper when he was only a few hours old. The petals were sticky. She rubbed her hands and let the shreds drop.

She sat down and looked back at Dad and Fran. How far away they were and how tiny, as if she were seeing them through the wrong end of a telescope. One day, she thought, she’d remember seeing them like that. When she was old, and it was raining, she’d look back and think how happy she was today, because she was young and the sun was shining and Dad was still alive. And none of it would be true.

She stretched out, wriggling till she found a comfortable spot for her shoulder blades, and let the sun dissolve the pain.

And the next thing she remembered was hearing Jasper scream. Gareth’s got it all wrong. She wasn’t there.

It’s two o’clock before Nick and Fran go to bed, and then there’s a last-minute argument over who sleeps where. She wants to sleep in Jasper’s room. Nick says, No, she’s tired she needs her sleep. He ’ll sleep in Jasper’s room. ‘You won’t wake up if he cries,’ she says. ‘Of course I will,’ he says. ‘I always do.’ At last she gives in. He makes up the bed, in darkness in case Jasper wakes, and crawls between the sheets. He’s exhausted. How can he not sleep?

He dozes. Once he turns to snuggle into Fran’s back, but his groping fingers reach out into emptiness. He feels the edge of the mattress, and wakes more fully. Moonlight streams through the open curtains on to the duvet, which darkens as a cloud passes over, then whitens again. Nick heaves himself on to one elbow, and sees Jasper in that typical baby position, both arms raised above his head, fists curled over on themselves.

He doesn’t want to think about yesterday, but the memories come in flashes. Gareth kicking sand into Miranda’s face, his stiff-legged defiant walk as he strode away, then slumberous darkness and peace in the patch of shade. Waking up to longer shadows and a cool breeze goose-pimpling his bare chest. No Jasper. Already afraid, staring up and down the beach. The glittering sea and the empty sands seemed to prepare a bowl of silence into which the scream fell. Running along the beach, thigh muscles pulling, feet clogged, like the worst dreams you can remember. Fran, hopelessly far behind, holding her belly in her two hands as she ran. The screams get louder as if Jasper’s coming towards him, though he can see him now and he isn’t moving, he’s lying on the ground. And then, in a rush, blood streaming down Jasper’s face into his eyes, into his open mouth. Bare chest registering wet cold and slime, fingers pushing back sticky hair, trying to see the size of the wound through perpetually welling blood. Fran comes up snatching air through a gaping mouth and takes Jasper from him. He sees Gareth climbing down the cliff face, clambering cautiously over the big rocks at its base. How pale and still his face is. The sun flashes on his glasses as he turns.

No Miranda. He can’t remember where Miranda was.

The moonlight lies on the floor as white as salt. He turns over, wrestling with the too-tight sheets until he’s pulled them loose and wrapped them round his body to form a friendlier nest. That was a good talk they had downstairs. He’s amazed at Fran. As soon as Gareth said he’d been running away to York, to his gran’s, she seemed to reach a decision. Tomorrow she’s going to ring her mother, take all three children for a day out in York, and then, if her mother agrees — and she will, she adores Gareth — he’ll stay. Of course it’s not as simple as that. There’s packing to be done, schools to visit — but in principle Fran’s taken the decision. ‘You can come home for weekends,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ Gareth replied, with no noticeable enthusiasm. Nick said almost nothing, just let them talk. He’s trying very hard not to be pleased. Alternate weekends, he thinks. They’ll do a better job with both Gareth and Miranda if they don’t have to cope with the two of them together. The reality is, somebody else will be doing the job. But that can’t be helped. He and Fran need time together with their shared children.

Sleep. He’ll go to see Geordie tomorrow. It’s only been two days, but already it feels like a long time. He needs to see him again, not for Geordie’s sake, or Frieda’s, but for his own.

Jasper snuffles and stretches, settles himself down again. Nick manages to drift off into a sleep that’s light at first, translucent, full of flashes of sunlight on water, but then, abruptly shelving, becomes heavy, dark and deep.

*

When he wakes again, he knows he’s heard a sound. He strains to listen, but there’s only the snuffly sound of Jasper’s breathing. He feels the sickness that comes from being abruptly roused from a deep sleep. He gets up and pads across to the door, goes out on to the landing, stands at the head of the stairs, looking down into the hall.

All around him the house is sleeping, muffled in a thick pelt of darkness. Fran’s snoring slightly. He hears her turn over, muttering in her sleep. ‘Jas —?’ but the name disappears into a gobble of smacked lips.