Disquiet

by Julia Leigh

  When she had finished her speech Grandmother folded her hands in her lap, one over the other like a pair of gloves. Then the hands flew up as her audience suddenly departed.

  Another day a light rain dimpled the lake. Marcus and the boy were nestled in the canoe, paddling in concert. The boy gazed across the water and asked, ‘What’s over there?’

  ‘Over where?’

  He pointed to the forest. ‘There.’

  ‘Forest. Miles and miles of forest. Hansel and Gretel forest. Sorry,’ Marcus corrected himself, ‘death-combat forest or whatever you prefer to call it. Full of wild boars. And then, the mountain. The village. Villages, I suppose.’

  The boy just nodded. They continued to paddle, not bothered by the rain.

  A short time later Marcus ventured, ‘Andy, you haven’t seen my phone have you?’

  ‘What phone?’

  ‘I lost it last week.’ He faked a light-hearted sigh. ‘Oh well. I’m sure it will just… turn up. Has this happened to you?’ He placed his paddle across the canoe and turned to face the boy. ‘Sometimes I just… lose things, they vanish. And then a few days later – voilè – they show up right there, under my nose. Strange. But what a relief.’ He leant forward so that they were eye to eye. ‘It’s important to me to find that phone. A special friend of mine can only reach me on that number.’ He sat back and resumed paddling. One stroke, two stroke.

  Over his shoulder he added, ‘You know, I’m always very grateful when things show up. Very grateful.’

  Days later an elaborate piece of garden furniture, a rattan throne, had been planted in the lawn corridor. The back of the throne was curved and high so that whoever sat in it was less mighty than the throne itself. The sun was at its peak, pinpointing every shadow. The priest solemnly approached the throne and after he had made himself comfortable he sat for a while without speaking. He raised the fingers of one hand.

  ‘What God has given us, he can also take away,’ he said, making a graceful arc with the hand. ‘He is the beauty of childhood; He is the fullness of years. He knows that our love for Alice was not in vain.’ He nodded his head. ‘Blessed is He for the gift He gave us in her. We know that, in everything, He works for the good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. We must give thanks to Him – not for taking our Alice from us – but for granting her a place with all the saints…’

  There came a low hissing sound which gave him pause. He continued, ‘We must bury Alice so that we can entrust her to God’s eternal care.’

  The guttural hissing grew louder and louder.

  Discomfited, the priest raised his voice. ‘So that she will live for ever in the joy and peace of His presence.’

  Suddenly Sophie leapt to her feet and began attacking him. As she battered him with her fists he struggled to keep speaking.

  ‘The Prophet Isaiah speaks of the time which is to come!’ he shouted. ‘Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days! Or an old man who does not live out his years!! He who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth!! A youth!!! And he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed!! Accursed!!’

  She beat him to the ground.

  The following morning Marcus took a load of his dirty shirts down to the laundry. It was a large room, almost a bunker, where solid metal troughs, hundreds of years old, ran alongside the very latest machines, the sort said to operate at the press of a button. The twins were packing away the gauzy muslin wraps, the baby-booties, all the small soft garments now redundant. One twin held up a little white jumpsuit and – she couldn’t help herself – wiggled its weightless arm, space-walked it over to the cardboard box. Jumped it inside. And after that, each time they came across a jumpsuit the twins would make it animate. Marcus watched this pantomime from the doorway; he didn’t try to stop them. And only when they accidentally caught a glimpse of him did he raise his voice, say, ‘That’s enough,’ and he didn’t say this out of a belated sense of propriety, or in anger, but rather in an attempt to stave off an apology. Alone, he finished the job with reverence.

  The woman and the children, accompanied by Sophie and her bundle, were having an outdoor lunch below the great oak. Their picnic blanket was not far from the new little grave which had been covered with a square of bright green artificial grass. Neat heaps of dirt, some sprouting weeds, bordered this plastic grass. The woman was spooning a second helping of grated celeriac onto the side of the girl’s china plate. There were no annoying flies; a pair of butterflies staggered overhead, conjoined at the abdomen. Ida stood nearby, ready to be summoned should the need arise. The boy was wandering around with an imaginary pistol in hand and when his mother called him over – ‘Eat something’ – he waved this pistol carelessly over each member of the picnic before training it on himself, pulling the trigger and blowing out his brains so that instead of simply sitting down he collapsed in a heap. It was such fun that he was resurrected and did it again: put the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger, fell down. His sister and mother studiously ignored him. After a while he was resurrected once more. Sophie tired of the miracles and checked on her bundle in the white wicker bassinet; she lifted it out and brought it to her chest. The boy stared fixedly at Sophie until she looked down and noticed a little clump of fine dark hair sticking to her cream cashmere jumper. It didn’t seem to bother her, this moulting, and she brushed off the hair as easily as she would bread-crumbs. The boy turned away and from the corner of his eye he caught sight of a deer which had wandered out from the line of trees, a fawn with spindle legs and oversized ears, a spotted coat and striped little tail. The first thing he did was lunge across and grab the girl, shove his hand over her mouth. He twisted her head in the direction of the newcomer. ‘See, shh, be quiet.’ When he felt her limp obeisance he released his grip and they all watched the fawn take uncertain steps on the thick soft lawn. For some unknown reason the animal turned to face them. The gaze held and held and in that gaze was wonder.

  A strange thing happened: the bundle made a loud drawn-out squeak.

  The fawn started and ambled away.

  Sophie was fussing around; the others were appalled by the foul smell. The children held their noses.

  This time it was Josette who lowered herself onto the rattan throne on the lawn, sitting straight and choosing not to use the backrest. She had come from the village and was wearing blue jeans and a cotton shirt, gold hoop earrings. Everything about her manner was clear and direct without being officious.

  ‘Forgive me for intruding at this juncture,’ she said. ‘But as the representative of the State I must tell you that sufficient days have passed and you must now bury the baby or return the body to the morgue. These are the regulations.’ She paused. ‘The body is decomposing. The smell – the smell is a sign. Return the corpse to the earth. The skin will blister and fall away, the organs will bloat. Liquefy. Leak. Even the little ones leak. Millions of microbes inside the body will feast from within. And there may be coffin flies. It doesn’t take long to be worn down to the bone. The bones, they will outlast you. And one day they too will – crumble. Everything will be transformed: this is what happens. The earth is thriving. All you can do now is be gentle with yourself. The child’s life is – done. The child is no longer suffering. She will remain in your thoughts. I do not believe in any soul, God is not the mystery, but I say – open your heart to those around you. Do not miss this chance. That’s all.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘I hope we have reached an understanding.’

  One afternoon Marcus and the woman sat side by side in the summer pavilion; they were on the floor, backs straight against the wall, knees braced chinward. They had come here to seek respite from a burst of heavy rain but the rain had long since subsided. With the end of a twig the woman traced an invisible pattern into the stone.

  ‘Every night I beg her to bury the baby,’ said Marcus. ‘And she always says it’s not the right time. That’s what she says, “Not yet, it’s not the rig
ht time.” ’

  The woman gave this some consideration. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. They looked into the garden. She added, ‘Do you like the children? Are you fond of them?’

  ‘They’re wonderful,’ he replied.

  ‘Would you…’ She made her pattern more intricate. Then she set down the twig and turned to face him. Her eyes were bright. ‘Would you, and Sophie, like to… would you like to have them?’

  ‘Have them?’

  She stared at him. ‘You could have them. Be their guardians.’ Her voice came wholly from her chest, unexpectedly, the way it once did, only once, when she was a schoolgirl singing in a choir: unstoppered.

  He recoiled a fraction. ‘No, no, we couldn’t,’ he said, not meeting her gaze. Shook his head. ‘No, Olivia, it’s too great a gift. No, we couldn’t accept.’

  She studied him closely; he kept his eyes on the alps of his knees. She waited for a question or a word of comfort but neither was forthcoming. Eventually she turned away and looked once more into the garden, out beyond the lotus pond. Everything held steady there.

  They continued to sit side by side in a hopeless silence.

  ‘My murder,’ she said. ‘I volunteered and that is what is unbearable.’

  The rain picked up, pelted the lawn. Her brother touched her shoulder to indicate he had heard her.

  At night the boy readied his escape. He had a small torch clenched between his teeth and was hard at work expertly organising provisions. His sister lay dead to the world. The contents to be packed were laid out on his bed: clothes, some small packages wrapped in foil, Marcus’s phone. A kitchen knife. When he had finished his own pack he turned to the girl’s. He heard a noise and froze – but it was only a mouse or a moth and the moment of danger was fleeting. Soon both packs were safely stashed behind the silk curtains that fell to the floor. He climbed onto his bed and touched Violet’s breasts; he stood on tiptoes and gave the portrait a long fond kiss goodbye.

  The woman made her own preparations. In the bathroom she stood naked before a mirror lit by a band of showgirl lightbulbs. Using her left hand she painstakingly tidied her eyebrows with the aid of a pair of tweezers. There was a glass ledge below the mirror which held a blue velvet make-up case and her bottle of heart-stopper, the digitalis. More than once she had trouble gripping the fine hairs, nipping the skin, and it took multiple attempts to pluck out each solitary hair. Not a muscle twitched though her eyes began to smart with tears. A rash of little red bumps formed under her eyebrows.

  She studied the tip of her chin and plucked out two errant whiskers. She tilted back her head and searched for hairs growing in her nostrils. A hair sprouting from her right nipple came away.

  She rubbed her face with a rose-scented moisturiser. She massaged the right side of her neck where the cast weighed heavy.

  She sat on the edge of the bath and passed a soapy wet flannel over her calves. With a disposable razor she shaved her legs in long upward strokes, overlapping the strokes so as not to miss a hair. Despite her care she nicked herself on the right heel and her blood showed red and bright. She opened her legs and attended to her wiry bikini line. Hoisting the cast above her head she worked in the downy nook of her right underarm; it was hard going and she had to rest from time to time. The left underarm proved more difficult. At first she stretched her elbow up to the ceiling and tried to scoop down inside the nook with her left hand. When this didn’t work she shifted the razor to the fingertips of her right hand and with great patience manoeuvred the razor-head from there.

  After she had rinsed out the flannel she used it to wipe the soapy residue from her smooth soft skin. She looked at her fresh-shaven legs, the leg-bags, as if keenly aware of the minute difference between ‘her’ and ‘there’. Back before the mirror she found that her reflection had remained faithful; she tested this by slowly pressing her lips together and seemed satisfied when the familiar stranger did the same.

  The next morning Sophie was up early and walking in the garden, the bundle cradled in her arms. Her progress was slow, almost cautious; at each step she pressed down her heel and then unrolled the length of her foot in a wave-like movement that would not, could not, provoke any seismic shift. Behind her trailed a set of near-perfect foot-prints broken in the dew. A solitary blackbird sang out to confirm all existence and waited until there came an answering song.

  The children were also awake, down by the water. Both were wearing their backpacks, the full load. The boy had rolled his jeans up over his knees and was standing at the lake’s edge, sliding the canoe into the shallows. When he had it stable and buoyant he told his sister to climb inside. This she did, momentarily handing Pinky over for protection.

  ‘Ida will know,’ she said.

  ‘Will not.’ A gentle rebuff.

  ‘Will so.’ Said quietly. Head down, reclaiming her doll.

  He scrambled into the canoe, catching his foot on the side and nearly stumbling headfirst over the prow. But he settled onto his captain’s bench and, digging the paddle into the soft lake bed, he managed to turn the canoe so that they faced the forest, the mountain. This boy in a canoe on a lake before a forest below a mountain. Now begin the journey. He took a deep breath; he struck out. Splash, that paddle dragged through the water.

  On land, standing behind a bank of blue hydrangeas, Sophie watched them go. Goodbye, goodbye: all the children go. When he had well and truly left the shore, the boy turned around for one last look over his shoulder, the gesture that marks the moment when leaving becomes arriving. He saw Sophie and she, likewise, saw him. After a moment she gave a little wave. Quickly he turned back toward the mountain. She watched the children go.

  It was hard work, wielding the paddle. Steering was no easy business; the canoe tacked like a sailboat. Wobbled. A blister had already broken out on his palm.

  ‘Andy?’ said the girl, in her quietest voice.

  He heard her but did not respond. He concentrated on paddling. One stroke, then the next. One stroke after the other. He fixed his eyes on his destination. At last he seemed to find a rhythm, left stroke, right stroke, and soon they were making a beeline toward the distant forest.

  ‘Andy?’ repeated the girl. He didn’t answer: eyes on the prize, no time for distraction.

  She tried again, louder this time. ‘Andy?’

  ‘What!’

  Undertone. ‘My feet are wet.’

  Turning, he saw her feet resting in water. Somewhere, somehow, the canoe had sprung a leak. A leak. The boy did not panic; the canoe was taking on water; the boy remained calm. He would need to bail. To plug the leak. So he rustled under his bench and found a skeet of sorts, a small plastic bucket used to hold fish, and he leant over and started to empty out the lake. The girl lifted her feet, hugging her knees to her chest. Stay still. The lake sought its level. He bailed faster and faster. The girl wanted to help and so doing she accidentally knocked the paddle overboard. No, too late, it was out of his reach.

  He waved his arms over his head, a wild semaphore. He called for help. The girl sat very still, was silent. Sophie was watching. He waved his arms again. He shouted. He could see her; she could see him. She did not move: Sophie was not coming to their aid. Now the world was undone.

  And the world began again. This new boy seemed much like his predecessor – resolute and uncomplaining. So he bailed.

  The woman approached the lake, taking her morning stroll. When she saw the listing canoe she began to run, to speed toward the shore, rushing blindly past the bank of hydrangeas, past Sophie, unseen though not hidden, right to the water’s edge, the very precipice. Halt.

  A small and puzzled frown crossed her brow. O. Her skin goose-pimpled, even her pupils dilated. Then, very slowly, as if working against a magnetic force, she lifted one foot and let fall her shoe. Let fall the other. She unpicked the knot of her sling. She shed her dress. Stepping forward, she incrementally immersed herself in the icy water, the lake close like a glove. Vile baptism.

  She coul
d hardly swim. Her cast was heavy and disabling. She stuck her head above the water and scrabbled like a dog. She kept going; she scrabbled and pawed and went under and came back up, she scrabbled and pawed. O it was icy cold. There were bottomless deeps beneath her. The canoe was taking on water; there were the children; she did not panic.

  She pushed a clump of hair away from her mouth. Swallowed the lake, spat it out. She kept going. Distance played its favourite trick, egged her on.

  A sharp pain in her right shoulder caused her to wince. It became difficult to breathe – how relentless, the breath. At last she had to stop. She turned onto her back, arms and legs outstretched, and opened her chest to the sky. The water filled her ears; her tiny earbones vibrated with the tripped-up thud of her heart. At that moment she was acutely alive. When her breath had settled she rolled over and resumed her swim.

  She kept going. For hours, or was it for days? Time – there was no time, never had been – what a joke. She swam over the mountain. When the villagers saw her, this woman, scrabbling and pawing at the stony ground, filthy and near naked, with long strips of weed in her hair, her hands and knees bloodied, wearing a strange thick plaster on one arm, they gathered their children into their skirts and made them watch. See! The expression on the village children’s faces was one of horrified wonder.