Rupert Thomson - Divided Kingdom

When I woke the next morning, I didn’t know what to believe. Were the images I had seen the product of my own fevered imagination? Or could it be that I was beginning to receive the pictures that the others were receiving? Was I gradually gaining access to their peculiar, unspoken language? If my vision of the night before could be relied upon, it looked as if White People had been slaughtered in their hundreds and then buried here. I hadn’t actually seen the bodies tumbling out of the truck, but somehow I knew that that was what had taken place. We were camped on the edge of a mass grave. In covering themselves with mud, the White People had been remembering their dead, and the chilling, unearthly music had been both requiem and homage. If that was true, they were more conscious of the past than people said.

Another possibility occurred to me. Though I had been living among the White People, I hadn’t actually become one, and that had given me the license to create my own mythical version of their lot, which wasn’t something they were necessarily capable of doing themselves. After all, if my own feeling of release was anything to go by, then the removal of their white clothes and the smearing of themselves with mud might simply have been their way of ridding themselves of the abuses to which they had been exposed, a ritual that enabled them to go on living as they did — from hand to mouth, from pillar to post. When the singing came to an end, we had walked down to a brook that ran between two banks of heather. Stepping into the ice-cold water, we had washed off the mud, then put our cloaks and boots back on, and I remembered how clean I had felt, how light, how free.

As I packed up our few remaining provisions and scattered the last embers of the fire, I decided that it didn’t much matter where the truth lay. They could have been reliving the agony of those who’d gone before or shedding pain they had themselves endured. The ritual lent itself to a number of interpretations. In the end it seemed likely that it was part of a process of purification and renewal. It was also part of their own unique culture, which was relentless in what it required of them. To suffer. To continue.

Just as they didn’t greet one another, so the White People didn’t say goodbye. There was no leave-taking, not even so much as a backwards glance, only a gradual dispersal, a miniature diaspora. Along with Ob, Neg, and Lum, I joined a group of about twenty others, setting off in a north-westerly direction that would bring us, sooner or later, to the sea. Lying a few miles offshore were several holy islands, most of which belonged to the phlegmatics. Some distance further north, the border with the Green Quarter came curving round to meet the coast. I wondered which of these destinations the group had in mind.

The land quickly became harder to negotiate, the fells much higher and topped with splintered crags, the woods thornier, more dense. Though deserted, the moors had had their dangers, but the country we entered that day felt all the more hazardous for being populated. As we passed through a village during the afternoon we were pelted with manure and bits of coal by a horde of vicious, foul-mouthed children, and then a bucket of slops was tipped from an upstairs window. We suffered cuts and bruises, nothing more serious than that, but I still thought we should be circling places like these, especially since the terrain now offered so many opportunities for concealment — or else we should hurry through on light feet, while everybody slept. I had no say in the matter, though. There didn’t seem to be any decision-making as such. There was only a momentum, which was neither questioned nor explained.

Some miles beyond the village, the path we were following began to loop back on itself as it coiled down into a gorge. Far below, I heard the breathy race of water. Growing sideways out of walls of rock were trees whose branches had the look of flayed limbs, the flesh stripped away, the sinews and tendons all exposed. From somewhere to the south came a muffled roll of thunder. On reaching the floor of the valley, we crossed a stretch of spongy turf to the edge of a river, its waters running thin and green across great beds of pale stones. I watched as my companions settled on the ground. Some dozed off almost immediately. It was strange how their expressions never altered, their faces as blank when conscious as they were in repose. Lum sat on a bank below me, studying the crooked gash on the front of her calf. The wound was black with dried blood, but I knew it to be free of infection; I had cleaned it myself only a day or two before. We exchanged a glance. When I looked into her eyes I was aware of neither emotion nor intelligence. My gaze could find no purchase. Instead, it travelled on into a kind of dizzying infinity.

I lay on my side, facing the river. The cold seeped up into my hip. I turned over, on to my back. These days I could sleep almost anywhere; I could even sleep if I was shivering. Once it was dark, Lum came and lowered herself on to me. Opening my underpants, she coaxed me into her. She began to move up and down, slowly at first, then faster, more rhythmically, her hands spread on my chest, her teeth clamped on her bottom lip. Afterwards she fell asleep beside me. Her breath smelled of onions and sour milk. Though I was tired, the rush of water kept me awake, and when we struck camp several hours later I didn’t feel as if I had slept at all.

It seemed we had chosen to ignore the one road that led through the region, and for once I approved: we were in the heart of the Wanings, and it paid to be cautious. Still, there were repercussions. One of our number was attacked by a feral cat, which tore at his throat and hands. We bound his lacerated flesh as best we could, with strips of cloth and crushed dock leaves. Later, we found our way blocked by a rock-fall, and we were forced to retrace our steps. With its steep climbs and its sheer drops, the land itself appeared to be against us. The injured man wouldn’t stop whimpering. A few more miles of this, I kept telling myself. Just a few more miles.

Towards dawn we filed down a farm track into a clearing. I saw no dwelling of any kind, only a barn and a wrecked white car. The wheels had been removed, and the sockets that once held its headlights were empty. I walked over to where Ob stood. He was staring at the barn door. A rat had been nailed to the wood in a manner that made me think of crucifixion. I heard a steady crashing noise behind me and turned quickly, thinking people were coming through the undergrowth, but it was just the rain. A few of us took refuge in the barn. There was nothing much inside, only straw bales piled against one wall and some broken tools. The rain drew a heavy curtain over the doorway. I made a bed out of several old sacks and tried to sleep. The world beyond the barn was murky, indistinct.

Only seconds later, it seemed, I woke to see men standing in the entrance. Shotguns lounged in the crooks of their elbows. Their hat-brims dripped. Without saying a word, they hoisted their rifles and fired over our heads, and the air filled with sawdust, feathers and straw. I managed to roll sideways and duck through a gap in the wall where a board had come loose. Outside, I found Neg and Ob. As the three of us plunged back into the rain-soaked trees, Lum rose up out of the bracken where she’d been hiding. We moved deeper into the woods. All sounds came to me through a loud, insistent buzzing. It was hours before I could hear properly.

We didn’t sleep again that day. Though we were able to link up with some other members of our group, there were, ominously, fewer of us than before. For the first time I sensed a loss of heart. Our supplies were running short. Every time our clothes dried on us, the clouds would open, drenching us in seconds. We could find neither food nor shelter. We continued to move in a north-westerly direction, but there was a drifting quality about our progress that did nothing to reassure me.