The Testament of Jessie Lamb (25 page)

I decided to light the fire in the sitting room, and to sleep on the sofa there where it was cosy. I brought down clean sheets and a duvet. They were damp but I could warm them by the fire. I spent some time looking through the kitchen drawers for candles. I couldn't find any except half a packet of birthday-cake candles. It didn't matter. I could keep the fire going until I was ready to sleep.

I cleared the ashes out of the grate then went on a hunt for water to wash my hands. I remembered the airing cupboard with its big round hot water tank. Lisa had tried the cold tap but not the hot, and when I turned the hot tap in the bathroom, the pipe gurgled and water came. A tankful would be more than enough to last me.

The afternoon was gone and I scrumpled up the papers lying on the floor, and laid and lit the fire with the last of the matches in a box on the mantelpiece. I made it up with a couple of logs then put the guard in front. I drew the thick curtains and went out into the yard. The sun had already set and the sky was a clear dark blue. I could see the first, brightest stars. The rooks were cawing in the woods but apart from that it was quiet–open and peaceful to the sky. I peed in the garden and hoped I wouldn't need to come out again that night.

When I went indoors I couldn't see in the kitchen and had to feel my way past the table and chairs. My fire was blazing, filling the sitting room with the lovely smell of woodsmoke, making long black shadows behind the sofa and armchairs. I'd already gathered everything I needed–tins and tin opener, saucepan, spoon, mug of water. I held the saucepan over the flames for as long as I could, and ate my tea lukewarm, with my face glowing from the fire. Then I sat staring into the flames, letting my mind empty of everything but those red and yellow dancing shapes. As they died down I wrapped myself in the duvet and snuggled down to sleep, with the warmth of the firelight flickering across my eyelids.

I don't know how long I slept but I woke up with a jerk. When I opened my eyes it was black. I lay still remembering where I was. I turned towards where the fire should be but it had gone. I sat up and put my feet on the gritty carpet. The blackness was like a smothering cloak. There weren't even darker outlines of things, it was all just pitch black. The best thing to do would be to open the curtain.

I made myself creep-shuffle towards the window. My fingers found the heavy velvet of the curtain and pulled, then I put my hand out and touched the cold pane. But it wasn't any lighter. I pulled both the curtains back with a great tearing noise, but my eyes couldn't make any sense of it, there was nothing there but blackness. Was there a wall out there, facing the window, blocking the sky? I was shivering now, I felt my way back to the sofa and pulled the duvet around me. It was like the world had filled up with soot. I imagined being buried alive. No matter how wide you think you're opening your eyes, still dark. Darkness pressing against your face and no way out of it. What if you knew that, even though they thought they'd put you to sleep?

I tried to be sensible. There was no light outside because there weren't any streetlamps or other houses. Good, no light pollution. But my heart was thumping so hard it was making my chest ache. I thought of the young couple who had died here. Being dead is the darkness pressing itself into your eyes and ears and mouth, shutting you into your aloneness. If only there was just the faintest glimmer to show the shape of the window. But everything had vanished. I remembered my mobile which lights up when you press it. I'd switched it off to save the battery because there was no signal. I felt around the floor but it wasn't anywhere near. I was afraid to move, I needed to keep quiet and listen. As each minute passed it was more impossible for me to bear the next. If I can get through this, I told myself … if only I can get through this night…

When morning came at last my eyes ached from straining for it. They were playing tricks, seeing black shapes in blackness, moving layers of black. Eventually I could make out greyness at the window. Once I was sure the light was there I curled up and dozed.

I went outside an hour or two later, and it was a low misty morning with new puddles. Soft rain must have fallen in the night. The whole valley was muffled in cloud, I couldn't even hear any birds. I felt bleached and thin with sleeplessness. I knew I had been pathetic. But it would be better to back out now than fail at the last minute, and run away. Dr Nichol wanted me to be certain and I was too scared even to close my eyes. I was too scared of the dark.

When he's emptied the bucket he says, ‘You're smelly, Jess. You need a bath.'

‘I can't smell me.'

‘You'd be more comfortable if you had a bath. I don't understand you.'

‘Clearly.'

‘Oh for god's sake. D'you want to make yourself ill?'

‘Why not? I think I'll go on hunger strike.'

‘I doubt it.'

‘You doubt it. You still think I'm a greedy little kid. You still think you
know
, don't you? You still think you know everything about me.'

‘I know you better than anyone alive. That's why I know you're making a mistake. And that you'll come out the other side of this and thank me.'

‘You don't know. There are millions of things about me you
don't know!'

‘I'm going to run you a bath.'

‘I'm not getting into it.'

He goes out and I hear the clank of the plug, the faint squeak of the tap, the water gushing out in spurts through the old unused pipes. I hear him swirling it about, adding cold, turning off the hot. Eventually both taps go silent and he comes back in. ‘It's ready.'

I don't move. The tap drips.

‘I'll undo your locks in the bathroom then shut you in and leave you in privacy to undress and sort yourself out. I'll bring your clean clothes up.'

How kind of him. I don't move.

‘Come on Jess.'

‘I'm sorry but I can't help you.'

‘Look, just come and look at the bath–you'll see how much you want to get in.'

I don't move.

‘Have I got to carry you?'

I shrug.

‘For god's sake Jess, what game are you playing now?'

‘Passive resistance.' You taught me about that, remember? Remember telling me about Mahatma Ghandi?

‘Stop being silly.'

I guess he doesn't remember.

‘I'm going downstairs. Your bath's getting cold. Call me when you change your mind.'

When
you change your mind. He thinks he can make whatever he wants happen–not
if
, but
when
. ‘I'm not your puppet!' I yell.

His footsteps on the stairs pause, then continue down.

I don't owe him anything. This is enough now. He has plotted and planned against me, bullied me, hurt me. He has kept me here since Saturday! And he still thinks he knows best, he's completely undented. I shouldn't hold anything in reserve. I should do whatever it takes to get my way–lying, fighting, damaging–by whatever means I can find.

He hasn't hesitated to use force. And what about that box? This is on day one, when he's got me tied up on the floor. He goes out to the car and brings in a cardboard box. With
tools
. There's a hammer and drill and screwdriver, and he goes upstairs and I hear him drilling into the doorframe, fitting the thing that he slips the lock through when he locks me in. He
planned
that. At our house, in our garage, he went through the tool box and put stuff in the cardboard box, with new bikelocks and rope and the scarf for a gag, thinking ‘I'm going to use these on Jessie.' How
dare
he?

I'll show him. I'll show him whether he can control me. I am so angry I start shaking with hunger. ‘I want FOOD!' I shout.

He runs up the stairs.

‘Food! Food!'

‘I'll make you something when you've had your bath.'

‘FOOD!'

He goes downstairs and shuts the door.

I have to fight back tears. I'm not going to cry again here. He's wrong and I'm right, and now it's time to do anything I have to do, to prove it.

But I'm so hungry I can't think. When did he last feed me? Lunchtime, scrambled eggs and veggie sausages. I shouldn't be this hungry. I try telling my stomach that but it's not interested. I see my little pimple of a brain sitting on top of a big greedy body trying to order it about. When they put your brain to sleep that's all you'll be: a big greedy body.

No. No. Calm down. Inhale. Exhale. Calm. I think of the swishing machines.

My body is clever. With rhythms and secrets and powers that are nothing to do with my mind. My body will take over, growing the perfect life inside me. And my silly jabbering mind will be still.

I make myself focus on the fragment of grey sky I can see through the window. It's not completely dark. It's going to be alright. I am in control. I can feel myself getting stronger. I haven't gone through all this, just for him to foil me now.

I'm going to beat you, Dad.

In the Eden pantry I found a tin of peaches and had them for breakfast. By the time I'd had a wash and packed up and made it look as if I hadn't been there, the mist was lifting. I was ashamed. I walked out through the back garden. There was a raw new latch gate at the far end, swollen with damp. It let out onto a path which ran alongside the stream. On the other side there was a hedge of bare black prickly twigs sprinkled with star-white flowers.
Blackthorn
popped into my head and I remembered walks with my Father of Wisdom when he was trying to teach me plants' names. I used to tease him by deliberately getting them wrong and calling everything ‘hydrangea,' but now I thought to know about plants would be one of the most useful kinds of knowledge, if I was going to live here.

As I picked my way through the puddles I started to hear all the layers of distance around me; close by the rushing of the stream, and a robin singing in the hedge; further away the bleating of sheep and cawing of rooks building their nests in the high bare trees near the top of the wood.

The path was becoming boggy and I climbed up away from the streamside to drier ground. It smelled bad, and as I pulled myself over the wall and jumped down into the field, two crows flapped up in my face nearly making me overbalance. A dead ewe was lying there. And a raw mess of blood and slime beside her. It must have been her lamb. I steadied myself against the wall. There were a load of sheep by the opposite hedge. Their matted wool was trailing off them in clumps.

They watched me as I went on slowly to the next gate and then back down to the stream. For an instant I thought I saw a searing flash of blue. Was it a kingfisher? It was gone before I could tell. ‘Better than a peacock,' I whispered to myself. I crossed a footbridge and took the path up the opposite side of the valley, climbing till I could look down on the whole thing as if it was a model. The sun had finally broken through the mist, in soft white light. I imagined Lisa's pear and apple trees in a haze of blossom, neat green rows of vegetables growing, smoke spiralling up from the farmhouse chimney. The goat and her kid gambolling in the field, hens clucking and crowing, Lisa with a basket collecting eggs. It would be an idyll.

But I could still taste the smell of the dead sheep. As we grew old and stiff, weeds would start to choke the fields. Foxes would take the chickens, the goats would run wild through the decaying fence, cabbages and onions would go to seed. Then unpruned trees would grow into a tangled thicket, the bees would swarm, and winter gales would lift slates from the roof again. I imagined an old crone hunched over a fire gnawing a wizened apple. The last human being.

To live in this Eden, you would need fruit of the tree of No-Knowledge. How else could you dig the ground, repair the buildings, rebuild stone walls? You could only do it if you blanked out MDS. You could only do it in ignorance–like the poor young couple who had lived here last year. I sat on a tumble-down wall and stared at the view as the mist burned off. It came to me like a leap beyond my own fear. Like taking off and flying. I could see there was only one thing to do. And this time I really really knew.

I knew it was real because I was frightened. I would do it.

I phoned Dr Nichol from the train as soon as I got a signal, and told her I was ready.

‘Sure?'

‘Sure.'

‘So soon?'

‘Yes, I promise you.'

‘Take one more week, Jessie. Come and see me a week on Monday. 11.15.'

There was a message on my phone from Mum, sounding upset, saying please to call her. I knew what that was. When I rang she told me the funeral would be next Sunday. I said I was on my way home.

Over that week I helped Mum clear Mandy's flat. She had started on the kitchen while Mandy lay sedated in her room; she told me she couldn't sit and do nothing. She wanted me to have the puppets and masks. I filled a suitcase with them because I didn't know what else to do. How could I ever tell her? I imagined ringing her up from hospital on the day of my implantation. Or even asking Mr Golding to do it, afterwards. Maybe that would be kindest. At least she wouldn't have the anguish of waiting for it to happen. It would be clean and sudden, as if I'd been knocked down by a bus.