Being Here (23 page)

CHAPTER 20

T
HE RED LIGHT BLINKS.

Carly brings the machine close to my face. My voice is little more than a whisper. But inside my head, the words march bright, clear and confident. They follow my orders. They line up in perfect ranks. Not one rebels.

I examine the images behind my eyes. I see it all from the outside. The woman in the dark dress is crumpled on the earth, one hand to her neck. A purple bruise is flowering there. The girl is on her knees in the dust. She has hair the colour of midnight. It catches the sun. Her face is fresh and unlined, though if one looks carefully there is knowledge amongst the innocence. And one can trace the journey of that face through time to come. As the years unroll, the knowledge will spread, a canker on the bloom, until innocence has fled forever. Becomes a memory only. But now … now the bruise is in its first flush. Now she is between two worlds, clinging to each as they slide inexorably apart. The boy stands, his eyes downcast. His hair is a mass of dark curls. There is tension in his limbs as if he is on a hair-trigger of flight.

The world is inside my head. Past and present and future are rolled together. Everything is inside my head.

The woman speaks.

‘You cannot have both, Leah. You cannot embrace God with one arm and the Devil with the other. You cannot be with me and … consort with abominations. Choose, Leah. Choose between the light and the dark. Choose one and cast out the other. For the love of God and the love of me.'

The boy turns his eyes towards the mother and daughter, regards them for a moment. Then he takes a step forward. The woman recoils, slithers away a metre in a puff of dust, clutches at the crucifix around her neck. The girl raises her face. He bends and traces with a finger the snail track of tears on her cheeks, puts the finger to his lips and tastes the saltiness there. He turns and walks away. Towards the looming apple trees in the distance. He doesn't look back.

The girl scrambles to her feet and runs after him, stops, turns. The bonds that tie her spirit tear and split. Agony is written on her body.

‘Choose, Leah,' her mother croaks.

The boy shrinks and disappears in shadow. The trees swallow him. The girl holds out a hand to her mother, helps her to her feet. They stand for a moment, fingers entwined. Then the girl drops her head and her hand, turns and walks away. She moves slowly, follows the boy into darkness.

The air is cool and sweet beneath the trees. It smells of fruit. Apples lie on the ground and some are bruised, discoloured. Beneath the scent of growing things there is the tinge of corruption and decay. She walks on, dappled in light and shadow.

The boy sits halfway down the avenue. He splits a blade of grass between his nails and doesn't look up as she approaches. The girl sits beside him, plucks a blade herself. They work at green flesh in silence.

‘I love you, Adam,' she says finally.

He keeps his head bent over his work.

‘I know,' he says.

‘And I love my mother.'

‘I know.'

She throws the shredded blade away and buries her face in her hands. Sobs rack her. The boy puts an arm around her shoulders and draws her to him. She folds into the crook between his chin and shoulder. He feels the cold drip of tears. Then he lowers her to the ground so they are lying face to face. He kisses her gently, feathers her cheeks and lips. She puts a hand behind his head and draws him closer, kisses him harder. She feels his body against hers, presses herself into his flesh as if she would be absorbed by him. She loves for the last time.

The sun dips further in the sky, peeks below the level of trees. Her skin tingles with its caress. She reaches out and brushes the boy's hair away from his eyes.

‘I cannot choose,' she says. Her voice is not wet with emotion, but bruised with despair. ‘I cannot.'

He sits up and takes her hand in his.

‘I understand,' he says. ‘Which is why I must. Come with me, Leah.'

They stand, walk further along the avenue. He keeps her hand in his. Shadows change the landscape.

Darkness sprouts from the ground and trees thicken and crowd. The path they tread narrows, forces them together. Branches droop, the leaves and their shadows merge. Dark walls rise.

The boy stops. The girl glances over her shoulder. She can no longer see the pathway through trees. There is no sound, except their own breathing. Their breaths mist against the darkness. The air is tingly with cold.

‘Here,' says the boy, reaching forward and parting the darkness. He steps through. The girl follows. Leaves caress her as they part. She moves into light.

They stand on the summit of a mountain. A dizzying drop yawns beneath. On all sides, ice and snow glitters. The girl glances at her feet, a step from the brink. She shuffles backwards. The sky is powdered blue, dusted with wisps of cloud. The sun is swollen gold. Mountains crowd on all sides, but her eyes are drawn from them. Down, down, down into a patch of green in the valley below.

A winding road, as delicate as a pencil line on green paper, leads to a castle, its walls buttery in light. A thin ribbon of moat sparkles. The turrets, four, five, six, point towards Heaven. Each is capped with red. From this height she can see no movement, but the girl screws her eyes and sees thin windows stencilled on the walls. She knows people move there and they are happy.

‘It's as beautiful as I remember,' she says.

It is a page from a book. It is a page from a distant childhood.

The boy lets go of her hand and steps towards the edge. She moves to stop him, but her limbs won't obey. He turns to face her, his back to the brink. He puts a finger to his lips.

‘Everything you can imagine is real,' he says. ‘Remember that, Leah. And know, too, that I will always be with you. Inside your head. Nothing, no one, can take that away.'

She wants to scream, but cannot. She wants to move, but cannot.

The boy spreads his arms wide, raises his face to the heavens. His face glows with the kiss of the sun. Then he topples slowly backwards. Time stutters. Stops, moves again. For a brief moment their eyes lock. And he is gone.

She finds her body again, rushes to the edge, drops to her knees. Far below, the boy's body floats and shrinks in air. He turns leisurely as he drops, becomes smaller and smaller, a dark smudge against the green fields with their pencilled roads. He becomes a speck.

He becomes nothing.

A scream tears at her throat, but doesn't come out. The valley below is washed in shade. The castle swims and fades, eaten by the dark. It is as if a page has turned, the final page of a story and the endpaper is black. The mist of her breath dissolves and dies. She is on her knees in the orchard. One world has returned and another has gone forever. She knows it has gone forever. An apple lies on the ground. Something has burrowed beneath its flesh. Its perfection is blemished by a dark bruise that she knows will spread and spread until all that was green and good is consumed by darkness and time.

The girl staggers to her feet. The world is muted, the birds do not sing. She turns towards home, towards her mother and towards her future. Nothing, she knows, will ever be the same.

‘Let. Me. Listen.'

The words sound faint to my ears. I wonder if anything I have said has been picked up by her machine. I need to know if the story is out there, beyond my head. I need to know.

Carly has an expression on her face I have difficulty reading. It might be pity. It might be horror. Her hand trembles as she presses buttons on her machine. Then a stranger's voice scratches at the air. It is a thin voice and it chips at words, extracts them one by one. Barely a minute elapses before the sound subsides into nothingness.

I have spoken no more than four or five sentences. But they are enough. For me, if not for Carly. If I had the energy, I would lament the disparity between what is in my head and the poor, withered version that whispers at my ear. It is cruel evidence that everything has been stripped from me. Words were the last, and the most precious, gift to desert me.

Most precious, save one.

But it is enough.

I close my eyes. I am so tired. I barely feel the brush of Carly's lips against my cheek, barely hear her promise to see me again tomorrow.

I sleep with guilt. I wanted to say goodbye to the child. The girl with a boy living in her head.

But perhaps it is better this way.

CHAPTER 21

I
T IS A TROUBLED NIGHT
. Images, memories and dreams crowd me.

I wait for something, but I do not know what it is. I am no longer afraid. I am … curious.

The blinds in my room are closed against the dawn. It lends the air a sinister aspect, as if time has frozen. Or as if I have frozen and somewhere the world goes on without me. Even the sounds from outside are muted.

The doctor with the pockmarked face and thin moustache bursts in. It jolts me from an almost permanent doze. He is followed by a group of people in white coats. They assemble around the end of my bed. I cannot make out individual faces, but they appear impossibly young. Can they be medically trained? It seems absurd. But then everyone is young nowadays.

The doctor pats my hand and utters meaningless greetings. His smile is practised. Then he peers into my eyes and takes my pulse. I suspect we both wonder if there is a point to this. He turns to the group. They gaze back, a row of pale faces suspended above clipboards. One or two shuffle from foot to foot.