Chris Cleave - Everyone Brave is Forgiven

But his face! As though she had asked him to murder someone. It was too bad that she had taught him geometry but no sense of proportion.

“Do go, won’t you? There must be some around here.”

“I can’t.”

“But it is perfectly simple. Just put your shoes on, and go!”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Have a cigarette instead.”

He took them from her bag and lit one for each of them. She didn’t try to forbid him and so, without fuss, he passed from her power. She almost laughed. He watched the glowing end as if it contained lost summers, then stubbed out the cigarette half smoked — not crushing it but rolling the point until it was extinguished, to keep for later. Mary smoked hers till it blistered her lip.

“Please?” she said again.

He lifted a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. His “no” the louder for going unspoken. Her mood — which had cooled to a pale despair — now boiling over again into furious irritation.

“After everything I have done for you! You act the man but you are an ungrateful child. I might have known your sort would never come right.”

He shrugged.

“But you are incorrigible!” she said, unable to stop a miserable grin curling at the corners of her mouth. “You are a lazy, unappreciative nigger who will not lift a finger to help.”

He said nothing.

She raised a warning hand. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m from a good family and if it weren’t for you I’d be with them now. I wish I’d never come looking for you. I wish I’d never come to this nasty jigaboo club.”

Zachary didn’t change his expression at all. The light seemed to be dimming and she did not know if they had any candles. She did not know if candles were still available. She was not convinced that light was still manufactured.

Her anger was gone. She did not remember ever being angry. There was only a feeling of dread: of the darkness finding its way. And here was the boy. She shivered in her blankets as his eyes became Alistair’s. She moaned and turned away.

Now, finally, the full gaze of the war came upon her. Her mind was fragments, each loud with its voices. She fought to keep one image of herself alive at the center. She was rushing across town with a willing heart, to a point marked with an X. She was wearing her alpine sweater. Yes, that was it. But war had been declared, and it was thrilling and then it was terrible. Life was all the heavier for starting with a lightness of heart.

“You mustn’t have any more morphine,” said Zachary.

Her eyes snapped open and she stared at him, wondering how it was possible that he was still here, unchanged, when she had gripped the blankets and shut her eyes tight through the terror of eternity.

“What?” she whispered.

“No more.”

“Just a little, don’t you see? Just to take the edge off.”

“No.”

“Please…”

“No.”

“You’re cruel because you don’t yet understand,” she said, and closed her eyes.

She slept, and when she woke her mind was clear. Alistair had arrived. She sat up, her heart soaring. He was just as she had last seen him, on the platform at Waterloo. He cupped her face in his hands and she let herself be kissed. Orange sparks floated on the night. The cold air of the basement made her shiver, and she held him for his warmth. Oh, the slow dances they used to play, back when needles could still be found for the gramophones. His eyes were electric bulbs, and as she stared back into them she realized that she was awake, and sitting alone.

“Oh…” she whispered, disintegrating again.

When she awoke she was in her blankets, shaking monotonously in the dim light of the bulbs. Zachary was at her side.

“Thank you for coming back. I’m so very sorry for what I said.”

Zachary produced something from his pocket. “I didn’t have the money. The manager says you can owe him.”

Just looking at the syrette of morphine flooded her with relief. She had forgotten how to be alive, that was all, and now she remembered the trick of it. She stretched out her hand. “Thank you.”

Zachary held out the syrette, balled in his fist. She watched his hand with rapt attention, the smooth brown skin and pink quicks. “Please…”

“Remember how you always said no, when I asked for a cigarette?”

“Don’t be like that. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.”

“This isn’t appropriate for you.”

She made herself smile. “No, darling. It’s only medicine. Like aspirin.”

“Aspirin didn’t call me a nigger.”

She looked from his hand to his face. “Please…”

“You can have it if you want. But if you do, then don’t come back here. It’s not like we can’t live without you.”

“It’s not as if .”

‘It’s not as if we can’t live without you telling us it’s ‘as if.’ ”

He held his hand out, his grip seeming to loosen. She gasped. She needed the syrette more than she had ever needed anything.

“Do you want it?” said Zachary.

“No, thank you,” said Mary, and tried to smile, and burst into tears.

—

All through that day and night Zachary watched as she lay between wakefulness and sleep. Once she sat up and told Poppy Brown not to eat the blackboard chalk. She shouted at Kenneth Cox for never sitting still. Around noon she spoke in French, then fell asleep. Later there was a long, muttered conversation. She whispered that she was sorry, over and over. Zachary left her bedside and went to see what was the matter with the other children. Ruth was tearful, and Charles and Molly weren’t helping. Zachary got her to come and sit with Mary. He warmed water on a primus stove and had Ruth wash Mary’s face and hands while she lay, half conscious. Ruth still wept.

“What’s wrong?” said Zachary. “Is it because the others pick on you?”

She shook her head, her braids flailing.

“Are you hungry?”

Ruth shook her head again. He took her hand but she pushed him away. A roar of laughter came from the theater overhead. It must be the matinee already. He squeezed his temples to push away the exhaustion. He lit a cigarette and wished he knew what to say. He wished an older child would come to the Lyceum, so he wouldn’t have to be in charge. He wished someone would come who didn’t need looking after.

“You like sweets?” he said. “I could get you some.”

Ruth shrugged and said nothing.

“What about that doll you had? You want me to fetch your dolly?”

Ruth only crumpled again. Zachary supposed he ought to know what to say, but he could find no comfort in himself to transmit to her. It was just as the players said: it was a war, and they were Negroes, and even their side wasn’t on their side. All they had was themselves: nineteen minstrels, nine musicians and four stray children, besieged in a city besieged. If he’d still had his father he might have felt strong about it — proud, even. The players were kind to him, but however close they drew, he felt that he didn’t belong.

His father had wanted more for him than minstrelsy, and now that his father was gone he felt no ties to it. Life held him in this place, that was all, like a scream trapped in a jar. There wasn’t even a grave he could visit, a fixed place to start his own life from. So long as his father was lost, he was lost with him. All he could do was hug Ruth and tell her everything would be all right. It was the same thing the government posters were claiming.

When he went back to Mary, she was awake.

“Zachary… can you get me something?”

His chest went tight. He knew she was going to want morphine.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so hungry.”

He brought her coffee, bread and margarine. He played piano for her. In the evening the fever came again and she talked for hours to a man named Alistair. She argued with her mother, sometimes angrily, sometimes tearful and pleading. When her fever finally broke, she slept. He brought the other children over, and they took turns to watch her through the night.