Chosen

by Lesley Glaister

  Seth nods. ‘That weird red dress. After school.’

  ‘I must have just missed you,’ Dodie says weakly, her mind going back to that dark, wet afternoon. It seems like years ago. She sees Stella’s reaching hand, glittering with rain.

  Seth shrugs and stretches the gum between his lips, sticks his tongue through the grey skin of it.

  ‘Will you spit that out, please?’ Dodie says. Funny how you can long for someone until your bones ache, and then be irritated so quickly by their habits. She gives him a tissue.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t let you know,’ he says. ‘I tried, but I didn’t really get a chance. I lost my phone –’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Dodie says. ‘It’s OK now.’ She folds the tissue, puts it in her bag and attempts a reassuring smile. Something’s coming back to her and she needs to concentrate. It’s something Stella told her once: how she had an older sister, not Martha, that wasn’t the name but it did begin with M – Marjorie or Melody or something? And this sister couldn’t have a child of her own and had tried to steal her, to steal Dodie herself when she was a baby, that’s what Stella had said: steal. Her own sister had tried to steal her child. Could Martha be that sister?

  ‘Jake!’ she says, a shock jolting through her. ‘Why did Martha take him away when I was locked up? Why was I locked up?’ Her voice rises and she takes deep breaths. Has Martha stolen Jake? The air feels thick in the cabin, made of plastic, hardening in her lungs.

  ‘Shhh,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘I didn’t even know Jake was there,’ Seth says. ‘Until Obadiah said –’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old man. He was, like, Our Father’s right-hand man kind of thing,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘He was the one who told me Martha had taken Jake,’ Seth says. ‘When the fire started he made Hannah unlock the peace-pods – and we had to get out of there fast.’

  The steward is there with a trolley. ‘Coffee? Soda? Beer?’

  Dodie shakes her head and the others ignore him. He shrugs theatrically, rolls his eyes and clanks off down the aisle.

  ‘Everyone was going ape-shit,’ Rebecca says and then, catching Dodie’s expression, adds, ‘Martha will look after him.’

  Dodie moans. ‘But what if . . .?’ But she cannot even bear to name her fears.

  ‘We’ve got the address and instructions,’ Seth says. He pats her knee and tries to sound reassuring. ‘It’ll be cool.’

  He takes an envelope out of his pocket and she grabs it. The instructions have been downloaded from Google and printed out. It tells them to hire a car at Tampa and gives directions to an address on the highway towards St Petersburg.

  ‘Oh God, oh God.’ Dodie rocks in her seat trying to urge the plane forward; the flight is three hours, three whole hours and then there is the getting to the house and who knows how long that could take? Tried to steal you when I was ill. Tried to turn you against me. It was something like that that Stella had said, and Dodie had taken it as some comfort that Stella hadn’t let her be stolen. Taken it as evidence that she wanted her. But later she’d decided it was a lie. Stella was a liar. She gets a sudden image of the toes, the empty, dangling hands. Her head throbs and her mouth fills with sticky water as if she’s about to vomit.

  ‘Hey, try and relax,’ Rebecca says. She takes Dodie’s hand. ‘Try humming.’

  ‘No,’ Dodie says, ‘not that. And . . .’ She suddenly remembers those bodies behind the open doors. ‘People were dead,’ she says.

  Rebecca looks out of the window. Raindrops flee across the scratchy glass like sperm racing to their destination, the plane slumps and wallops through a patch of turbulence and the seat-belt sign pings on.

  ‘Yeah,’ Rebecca sighs. ‘After word got round about Our Father dying and Martha pissing off, it all, like, blew up, fell apart and helicopters everywhere, and I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on. Some people ran off and some, like, freaked out at the thought of being out in the big bad world and wanted to follow Our Father. There were these pills.’ She stops and shudders. ‘It was like a kind of virus spreading and people topping themselves all over.’

  Dodie shuts her eyes and swallows sickly, thinking of the looming pall of smoke, picturing the pills beside the old man. Obadiah.

  ‘I’d already decided to leave,’ Rebecca says, ‘but it was hard, it wasn’t like you could just walk out, was it? It wasn’t just you made me want to leave, before you came I was starting to think, like, this isn’t me, though they hardly give you room to think. I never knew you were in a peace-pod,’ she adds. ‘I didn’t even know they existed. I thought you’d legged it after John died. Lucky cow, I thought. If I’d known what was going on . . .’

  ‘In-flight store – want anything?’ says the attendant. His trolley is packed with perfume and toys. ‘Pantyhose on special,’ he adds. ‘Nice line in lingerie.’

  They all shake their heads and he tosses his head as he flounces on up the aisle.

  ‘I’m watching a movie.’ Rebecca puts her earphones on.

  Rod! The thought of him shoots through Dodie like an arrow. She should try his mobile, you never know – but she hasn’t got a phone any more. She holds the plastic pig tight in her fist and it’s wet with sweat.

  Seth’s asleep, mouth hanging open and Rebecca’s pretending to be lost in whatever’s on the screen. Dodie puts on her own earphones and watches a news channel: all terrorism and flooding and freakish storms and fires. You could think Our Father right, you could think it was all rushing towards an end, but there’s sport too, of course, and then an old episode of Frasier, which actually makes her lift the corners of her mouth and forget for a few seconds at a time where she’s heading and the reason why.

  The three-hour flight seems to take six but at last the pressure changes, the pilot thanks them for travelling with him, wishes them a safe onward journey. They get out of the airport in the hot golden glue of late afternoon. The nearer she gets to Jake, the tighter a screw turns in her guts. Has Martha stolen him? No. That’s sick talk, Stella talk. Don’t think like that. Picture him instead. She knows his eyes are blue and his wispy hair is dark and that he has fading stork marks at the nape of his neck but she can’t picture him all together, only one detail at a time, and nothing will do but to hold him in her arms. The air is humid and flower-scented and she scuffs her feet on some waxy petals on the concrete while she and Seth wait for Rebecca to rent the car.

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’ she asks Seth, and he says yes, of course, and it’s a comfort to hear that, though she knows he’s got no more idea than she has. ‘Why would she do that?’ she pleads, unable to stop herself. ‘Why would she take him? Why would she steal him and leave me locked up? What if she’s not there?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Seth says. ‘I don’t know, right?’ She’s startled to see tears wobbling in his eyes. It makes her see that this is happening to him too. He loves Jake too. Think of his shock. Plunged so suddenly into this, this panic.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. She takes off her jacket and jumper and gets a sour whiff of sweat from her armpits. Taxis churn and hoot and planes take off and land and the air charges about in the wake of all the movement, all the burning fuel, hellish despite the efforts of the stiff and waxy flowers.

  4

  Air-conditioning makes the car icy inside. Shivering now, Dodie sits up front beside Rebecca, the directions on her lap. Rebecca clamps a bottle of Coke between her thighs and takes an occasional swig as she negotiates them out of the airport and on to the low highway where the ocean gleams through the haze. They do not speak except to work out the way. The road is terrifying with all the metal bullets shooting along and the fumes of heat and petrol shimmering the insubstantial world outside the windows. It takes less than an hour until they find the intersection and leave the freeway.

  ‘Well done,’ Dodie says. The snout of the pig is indented into the palm of her hand. Her skin has tightened with the cold of the air-conditioning. They find the boulevard without t
rouble and start to count the houses but the numbers aren’t sequential. It’s a long, rich road, houses set back from the street, behind trees, no two identical. Some are mock Tudor, or castle-like, and some are modernist boxes of glass and steel.

  It takes three trips along the road until they find the house, one of the starkly modern ones. In front of it a bush is studded with pink blossoms big as human hearts. Rebecca pulls the car onto the empty drive. When they step outside they’re met by a wave of heat, and the sound and smell of the ocean. A bird chips away regularly as if counting out the seconds. They get to the door and ring the bell but there’s no answer and the house is still.

  ‘Sure this is the one?’ Dodie says, although it clearly is.

  Seth has a pee in the bushes. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking over his shoulder, ‘can’t wait.’

  It’s like a film set with all the shining from the polished steel, the glass, the sea and the glossy leaves.

  ‘We’ll get him,’ Rebecca says. She hammers on the door. ‘Oi!’ she shouts. ‘Anyone in there? Martha?’

  ‘What if it’s a trick?’ Dodie says. ‘We should phone the police.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘But what if . . . what if . . .’ No, no, no, don’t go there, don’t think like that. She sinks down on the wooden step.

  Seth squeezes down the side of the property. He comes back with petals in his hair.

  ‘I’ll climb over and go round the back,’ he says. ‘Might be able to get in.’

  Dodie rattles and hammers at the door, searches under shrubs and stones for a key. And then the door opens and Seth is there, grinning, though his face is so pale that the grin is ghastly.

  ‘Back door was unlocked,’ he says. ‘There’s steps down to the beach. No sign of anyone though.’

  Dodie swallows. She’s almost reluctant now to step in. Better maybe to stay here in this spot and never know. A bright green insect climbs the doorframe, opens its leafy wings and zips away. Rebecca steps inside and Dodie follows. It’s sparsely luxurious with so much white and wood and – she catches her breath – a childish scribble on the wall. A wax crayon. A little shoe. And then Jake, all alone, sitting in a vast white room among a drift of loose screwed-up and scribbled-on pages.

  ‘Anything?’ Rebecca calls from upstairs.

  Dodie holds herself back a moment and makes her voice come out smoothly.

  ‘Yes,’ she calls, her voice an octave too high. ‘He’s here. Jakey . . .’

  ‘Mumma.’ He drops his crayon, pushes himself up on his feet and comes towards her, dribble running down his chin.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart,’ she says.

  Rebecca and Seth are there.

  ‘Thank fuck for that!’ Seth shouts. His fist flies into the air.

  ‘Come on, Jake,’ Dodie says. She scoops him off his feet and buries her nose in his soapy clean neck.

  He giggles. ‘Mumma,’ he says again, patting her.

  ‘Mumma’s here,’ she says.

  ‘Dink,’ Jake says.

  Dodie carries him back into the kitchen. There’s an empty feeder cup on the floor. She fills it with water and he glugs it back, the whole cupful in one noisy go. She fills it again and he drinks half.

  ‘Oh, he’s so cute,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Can I?’ Seth holds out his arms. Dodie is reluctant to let go but she hands him over.

  ‘Watcha, mate,’ he says, but Jake struggles to get down. He waddles about sprinkling water from his cup on the silver-flecked floor tiles.

  ‘So where the fucking hell is Martha?’ Rebecca says.

  Dodie spots half a cup of coffee on the counter. It’s still warm. ‘Martha?’ she calls, but they already know she’s not in the house. ‘She must only just have left,’ she says.

  Jake trots through into the wide, glass-fronted sun lounge. Dodie peers through the window, but can’t see Martha, or anyone, on the beach. It’s starting to get dark, the sun swelling scarlet as it dips closer to the sea.

  Rebecca kneels on the floor to gather the scattered pages. ‘She’s written tons,’ she says. ‘Jake’s ruined some of it. Here, this looks like it’s the start. It’s for you.’ She hands Dodie a splattery tattered page.

  Written for Dodie, it says.

  Stella and Me.

  In May 1974, when I was sixteen, and Stella thirteen, our mother died of drink. Dad was in Saudi with his brand-new family. We nearly had to go and live in Peebles with Aunt Regina, but we convinced the social worker not to

  ‘It’s about Mum,’ Dodie tells Seth.

  ‘Let’s see.’ He takes the page from her and Dodie stoops to pick up another:

  I don’t know how long until we found Stella. We’d gone miles I think. We’d gone way past the places where it was safe and easy to walk. She was in the mud.

  Seth picks up some random pages and reads, frowning. Dodie gives up. She’ll read it later. The words make her eyes sting and she presses her fingers to her temples.

  ‘Martha is my aunt,’ she mutters. ‘Doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘The dream was convenient, just as Stella said. It was expedient,’ reads Seth.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Rebecca says.

  Seth shakes his head and lets the papers flutter to the ground, then grabs Dodie and hugs her hard. She still finds it odd that her little brother is taller than she is; his chin rests on top of her head.

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ he says, that touching scrape in his voice, that fledgling manliness, ‘won’t we?’

  ‘Up?’ Jake tries to squeeze in between them, arms outstretched. Seth swings him into the air and he shrieks with joy.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll be all right,’ she says.

  ‘So what about your boyfriend?’ Rebecca says. ‘Where’s he?’

  Dodie blinks and sighs. Yes, she’ll have to think about Rod. ‘He went travelling,’ she says, ‘but I could try him. He should know where we are. Seen a phone?’

  They hunt about and find it and she sits, feet curled under her on the sofa – which is white, but grubbed with dirty little handprints – and keys in the number and waits. Rebecca brings her a glass of water. Jake stands beside her, gnawing on a biscuit. His fingers flex against her knee the way they did when he was tiny and breastfeeding, a kind of kneading. She tries Rod’s mobile and gets the message: Sorry, but this phone is not currently in use. She finds international directory enquiries and rings his mother’s number. Jeannie answers quickly, in her neat, clipped voice:

  ‘Jean Stewart speaking.’

  Dodie’s mouth has gone so dry she has to take a sip of water before she can speak.

  ‘Hello there?’ Jeannie says.

  ‘It’s Dodie.’

  Jeannie takes a breath. ‘Dodie, well hello there, dear.’ The voice warms. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dodie says. She smiles wryly at Rebecca.

  ‘Are you still in America?’

  ‘Yeah, me and Jake.’

  ‘I am glad you rang,’ Jeannie says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I do hope we can stay in touch? I hope you’ll let me continue to see my grandson?’

  ‘Er . . .’ Dodie begins, and then she understands. ‘Yes,’ she says, falsely bright, ‘of course.’

  ‘It’s been such fun getting to know the wee fellow.’

  ‘I’ll bring him to visit,’ Dodie says.

  ‘I am sorry about my son, dear; ashamed of him to tell you the truth. And I don’t know about this new lassie. He’s just, oh I don’t know, he’s got no sticking power. No sense of responsibility.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I gave him a piece of my mind, you know. I said, When are you going to grow up and be a man?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Dodie says, quickly. ‘Talk to you again soon.’ She cuts off the call.

  So. That’s that, then. Rod has really left her for someone else. Inside her chest there’s a sharp sensation, like the give of the final filament of fraying rope, and then she drops. But sh
e doesn’t drop far. After everything she’s been through, this doesn’t seem that much. She goes to stand with her face to the ocean. The glass is smeared with a blossomy frieze of handprints at Jake’s height. The red-stained waves silently heave and flop. Someone is walking a dog in the distance. There’s a tree in the sand, a whole tree, washed up as driftwood, silvery in the dusk.

  Seth has found the remote and is flicking through the channels on a vast flat-screen TV; each hopping blurt and blare of sound makes Dodie jump. Jake gawps at the screen. ‘Let’s find a cartoon,’ Seth says.

  ‘Rod’s left me,’ Dodie says, as she turns. She scoops up Jake and holds him, warm and solid in her arms.

  ‘Shit,’ Seth says.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ she says. ‘Honest.’

  ‘Sure?’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Yeah?’ Seth waits to be reassured by her smile, and goes back to the TV.

  Dodie’s stomach growls. Her jeans are falling off her wonderfully, there’s space between her thighs. She’ll have to go shopping for new clothes. Skinny, at last. Will she be able to stay like that? She hitches Jake onto her hip and he snuggles his face against her neck.

  ‘We must eat,’ she says.

  ‘Can we send out for pizza?’ Seth asks.

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘I could handle a drink – like a drink, drink.’ Rebecca puts the gathered manuscript on a shelf out of Jake’s reach.

  Dodie wanders round the house, murmuring nonsense to Jake, who submits to her nuzzling his neck and inhaling his smell, giggling at the tickle of her breath. The massive fridge, she finds, is full of cheese and cake, wine and cream and dozens of pots of organic infant food – though Jake’s been on normal food for ages. She takes a bottle of wine and carries it through, just as Seth shouts: ‘Dodie! Holy shit! Look!’

  The screen is filled with Our Father’s face. Dodie puts Jake down and sinks onto the sofa to watch a helicopter-eye view of flames and firefighters. An excited newscaster, wind flapping her hair, talks into her microphone: ‘Tragedy strikes in upstate New York. The religious cult known as the Church of Soul-Life disintegrates after the death of leader Alan Robertson. Many of the followers appear to have entered into a suicide pact. This community has recently been the subject of an IRS crackdown as well as numerous lawsuits from families who claim their kids have been brainwashed into abandoning their families . . .’