Chris Beckett - Dark Eden

‘You should see your face,’ I said, laughing as I took the thick sweet stuff.

‘You should see yours !’

She reached out to pull me towards her for a kiss.

And I wanted to kiss her too, but at the moment our lips touched Bella came back into my head. I thought about her tying a wavyweed rope to a branch and round her neck, all alone, all alone in forest, thinking I didn’t care about her. I thought of her testing the rope to make sure it was firm and then getting ready to jump, knowing that in the next second there’d be a horrible scary choking time and then nothing, nothing, nothing ever again.

I froze up inside. Kissing me must have been like kissing a stone.

‘What’s the matter, John?’

I didn’t tell her. I didn’t like to talk about things like that. I didn’t want people to think things like that were a problem for me.

‘We shouldn’t hang about,’ I said, trying to move away in my head from that cold cold stone inside me, which was how it felt to know that Bella was dead, a big icy lump of stone filling me up. ‘We’ve got two dead bucks here, look, and foxes and starbirds will soon want their share. I’ll mind these bucks, and you run back and get Gerry. You won’t need to run all the way. You should be able to call him not far from here, if you just get above the trees a bit.’

Tina looked at me, and shrugged.

‘We need to get some clay,’ I reminded myself out loud, as she walked off. ‘Clay to line the glue pit with.’

Six seven wakings after we did for those bucks, me and Gerry went over Lava Blob way, hoping to meet people from Family. John was busy trying to figure out how to make wraps that could keep a person warm up on Snowy Dark, sitting surrounded by woollybuck skins, and a leopard tooth knife, and string made with dried wavyweed, and more string made of buck sinews and dried buck guts. He’d been absorbed in this for several wakings, absorbed like only John could be, cold and distant and sunk down inside himself, not caring or noticing anything else at all, and it was good to get away from him.

Jeff stayed and helped him. He was good with his fingers, and good at thinking of new ideas, and his feet weren’t up for another long walk.

Gerry and me had done for a few bats on the way to Blob, and picked a bit of fruit. We’d brought some embers with us on a piece of bark and now we lit up a little fire to cook the bats and soften the fruit. Hoppers came out of forest and looked at us, funny yellow hoppers, wringing their four hands together like they wanted to say something but were too shy. They waved the long feelers around their mouths in our direction, and went Peep peep , peep peep . Gerry chucked them a few fruit rinds and they hopped forward, snatched them up and darted back again to a safe distance to munch them up, watching us all the time with their big flat eyes.

‘Are you glad you followed John?’ I asked him.

He looked at me and I noticed that his eyes were every bit as big and round as his brother’s. For some reason it just wasn’t something you noticed as much with Gerry as you did with Jeff, I suppose because Gerry’s eyes didn’t have Jeff’s weird clever mind looking out of them, only the mind of an ordinary young newhair, who didn’t really know what he thought about anything.

‘Of course I am,’ he said. ‘John’s the best. He always knows what to do.’

‘But aren’t you missing your group, and your friends? And your . . . ?’

‘Yeah, but John’s plan is important, isn’t it?’ he interrupted me quickly, before I could name his mum. ‘We had to give up on Family for that.’

His lip was trembling. He was having a job not to cry.

‘Why do you think John’s plan is important?’

‘Well . . . it’s . . .’

He looked uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to having to think about the reasons for things himself. He relied on other people to do that for him.

‘Well, there won’t be enough food in Family, will there, pretty soon,’ he finally remembered, ‘if Family keeps on growing. That’s what John reckons anyway.’

I laughed.

‘I reckon if John told you to walk up onto Snowy Dark stark naked you’d do it, whatever reason he gave.’

‘Yeah I would!’ Gerry said hotly, ‘I’d do anything for him.’

‘Except maybe harm your brother Jeff.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t harm Jeff, no, but . . .’

He broke off. We’d both heard voices in the distance. So had the hoppers. They didn’t turn their heads because we were nearer to them than these new arrivals and they wanted to keep an eye on us, but the feelers round their mouths were reaching sideways, quivering. I don’t know whether they smell with those things or what, but you could see they were trying to figure out what it was that was making these other sounds.

It was men’s voices, heading in our direction.

‘Quick!’ I told Gerry.

There was a big patch of starflowers nearby and we crawled into middle of it.

‘I can smell a fire,’ said a man’s deep voice.

I recognized the voice as a big fat bloke called Dixon Blueside. I’d never spoken more than a few words to him myself, but he was one of those people that are around a lot, and talk loudly, and always have an opinion on everything. Blueside people I knew said he was greedy with food and always took more than his share.

‘Yeah, look. Over there. A fire. Who would have come out here and lit that?’ he said.

‘Maybe it’s John Redlantern,’ one of his companions said.

‘Michael’s names!’ muttered another nervously.

‘Michael’s names what ?’ scoffed Dixon. ‘You scared of one newhair boy and his three little friends?’

‘No, but . . .’

‘ John Redlantern! ’ bellowed Dixon. ‘If it’s you round here, piss off out of our valley before we come after you with ropes and clubs like a bloody slinker! You say you want to cross Snowy Dark? Well, don’t let us stop you, mate! Don’t hold back on our account. Or swim down Exit Falls, why don’t you? And you too, Tina Spiketree! You too! Don’t think your spiky hair and your pretty little tits will help you!’

Only a few wakings ago we’d been part of one Family with these men. If we’d met them in Forest back then they’d have stopped to chat, told us where we might find some stumpcandy, asked how things were in our groups. We might not have liked each other but that would have made no difference. We were all Family then.

‘Put the fire out,’ Dixon said to his companions. ‘Any luck they’ve got no spare embers and they’ll have to eat their meat raw from now on.’

We heard the rustling as they swept the fire over the ground with branches. There was a yelp when one of them trod on a hot bit.

‘I heard Redlantern group gave John skins and ropes and blackglass when he was chucked out,’ said one of the others. ‘Maybe he’s left them somewhere around here and we can nick them.’

I realized I recognized this voice too. Harry Blueside was the boy’s name: a slender young guy with nervous, restless eyes, who always seemed to be moving on to the next thing when he was talking, like he couldn’t stand to be in one place. He was only three four wombs older than me and John. He’d once asked me if I’d slip with him. He’d said he couldn’t stop thinking about me.

‘Yeah, go on, have a look,’ said Dixon Blueside. ‘See what you can find.’

He raised his voice again.

‘ Gerry and Jeff Redlantern! You out there, you little idiots? Your mum’s half frantic worrying about you! We passed her not long back looking for you. Get back to Family now and you might still be forgiven!’