HOPE . . . because that's all there ever is.

by James Crow

  HOPE

  …Because that’s all there ever is

  James Crow

  Contents

  In the beginning

  I. Tick

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  II. Tock

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  About the Author

  HOPE copyright © 2018 James Crow

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher: JAMES.CROWAUTHOR@OUTLOOK.COM

  First published 2018

  for the folks

  for showing not telling

  ~}~

  This is the last time I will braid Master’s curls. I take care, stroking each loop into place. The muscles across his back are lumpy, a sign that he is readying. When I caress them, he exhales a grateful whisper. I swallow his pride and my heart opens, a perfect flower. I am so fortunate.

  The rocker creaks as he pushes from it – a beautiful sound I shall miss. I find his hand and we venture outside, bracing as the chill nips our flesh. It’s an exquisite autumn day; everything wilting, dying off, rotting down; the earthy aroma lifts my toes from the lawn.

  A sparrow flutters to my shoulder; its tiny claws tickle my skin; a tickle that makes me smile. As we cross the hilltop, more sparrows flit around us like interested butterflies. We make the short walk to the copse where our pit awaits me. Master lifts the wooden hatch and the rich scent of decay waters my eyes. The soup of life. It is part of me, I am part of it, and together we shall be. I am so fortunate.

  Mushrooms have always grown big near the pit. This morning they’re as big as upturned bowls. Master moves a strand of hair from my eye. His touch is all-loving. His greatness brings me gooseflesh. He will love me, soon.

  We return to the house beneath a cloud of sparrows, pausing here and there to admire the symmetry of death among dipping bramble and shrivelled heather. ‘Do you feel them, my Elizabeth? Do you feel them inside?’

  ‘I do.’ I reach for his hand. Oh, how I love him so.

  We visit every room, make gentle marks in the dust, touch memories and give thanks. I ache for his love. I hope it comes soon.

  In the underground store, Sister Charity’s commode chair is a delight, always a favourite ornament. Master made it for her after he’d taken her legs. It’s black and curly with big wheels at the sides and a little one at the front and a long handle for steering. Sister Charity awaits me in the pit. That’s not her given name. Master renamed her. I wonder if she uses her real name in death. We shall see.

  I want to ask for love but hold my patience. He pulls me to, as if he hears my yearning, and the pit sings to me through him. My pit, my soul, an apprenticeship of digging in all climes with my spade and my pick and the wooden sandals I’d carved from oak. Three years to complete, and with space for a thousand or more servants.

  He lifts me into his arms. I find the pulse in his neck and press my lips to it. He carries me into the ante-chamber where my yellow dress awaits; the only cloth I ever owned. He gave me the dress on the day the pit inspector was due. He also gave me the name Elizabeth that day. I was to playact for the inspector and get him gone as quick as any rat can go.

  Master taught me how to sham, a heart-thudding affair. A grand falsehood not to be enjoyed, he told me, but that advice was difficult to heed. I was also warned the inspector would not be wearing a veil, such as I’m used to when Master’s disciples visit. It was hard not to stare as the inspector handed me a silver whistle. He had eyes, and a nose, and a mouth and a round pink chin. Most unsettling.

  I was to stand at the open window next to the ablutions, and on hearing the inspector’s whistle I should blow mine, loud and sharp for the count of five, and then pull the chain. I listened to the flush of water travel the pipes beneath the yard and disappear into the copse, my heart poised to leap at the next whistle. A laugh escaped me. This went on awhile, and amid my laughter the number of sparrows gathering on the copse’s skirt was becoming a worry, so I wished them away and they rattled into the air and swirled a quick ribbon of defiance. The next whistle broke and my heart duly leapt. I flushed and whistled hard and scratched at the yellow dress until I heard five short toots – the signal my task was over. I doused my bright face with water and hurried outside.

  The smiling inspector patted my head as we passed on the yard. You may keep the whistle, he said. Master told me he’d bleated that the pit was too deep, but some coin in the palm had bought approval. I felt so enlivened that day. Master took me down the pit and loved me and our hearts became one.

  Next morn we smashed the pit’s concrete base to allow more capacity as rot seeped to earth. I liked to imagine myself seeping into decay, pale stringy worms twisting into the soil. Alison helped with the concrete smashing. Alison was an egg thief. Master caught her up a tree and we ate the eggs she’d planned to sell. He shackled her with chains and lowered her down beside me. She was grasping her nakedness and whimpering. As we broke up the floor, she said she would help me escape. I told Master and he dealt with her.

  He picks up my yellow dress and leads me upstairs to the hall. I realise I’m trembling. We’re headed to the pit, of course we are. There could be no other place for a last love. I worry at the lack of sparrows as we wander over there, hand in hand, but I needn’t have. The trees and bushes around the pit are full of them, silent and waiting. As he lays me down, my folded dress for a pillow, I hear a solitary chirp. I close my eyes and the sparrows unite in voice as he loves me, their playful singing rising with enchanting resonance, and for a while I’m lost in the essence. I am so fortunate. My soul is His, no will to burden. Life is a joyous thing, the anticipation of death a wonder.

  We return to the house and Master bathes me for the final time. He gives me horse powders for numbing and we sit together in the rocker and stroke each other. My stomach gurgles but I’m not really hungry. My last biscuit was three days ago. I’m living off my flesh now – perfect food for a perfect death for the perfect child. My toes are burning. Ripples travel warmly up my legs. My heart is jumping this way and that. He said it might, to begin with.

  From the hook on the wall he takes down his white robe and covers his form. He ties it at the breast and smiles at me before slipping the yellow dress over me and lifting me into his arms once more. He carries me into the yellow room and walks the circle of fourteen chairs, where the fourteen disciples in suits are rigid and neat and each wears a white veil. We pause at each and hands are touched to me. They are faceless, none as proud as Master, but I feel what they have and I’m grateful.

  The eyes on the yellow banners waver in time with the ripples within me and follow us around the room. On the second circle the suited men jab pins at my legs, but I can’t feel a thing. On the third circle the suited men are rippling too.

  Master places me on the central table and lifts my feet into the scoops. Our eyes meet, he unties the robe and it drops away. He gently slides me to him. His eyes close and a golden light appears behind his head. His head go
es back, and my stomach rises as he grows inside me. My life is about to end. I see the pit. I smell the pit. He will carry me straight there. He promised me that. His form pulses and with each pulse my stomach stretches until it stretches too far.

  When it comes, I see nothing but pale stringy worms.

  There is only one Supreme Being: and he’s an unstoppable beast.

  Bethany Black

  Your opinion is loud, your silence is louder.

  Muse

  I feel the bone pile shift, and I know why: I can smell her, I can smell them all.

  I am so fortunate.

  Loch Rowe, Scottish Borders

  1

  Pete’s dusting the phone in the reception hut. He’s thinking about the big mushrooms near where the pipes run. Mushrooms as big as plates and they taste meaty, like steak. He thinks they were probably feeding off of antique shit from an old cesspit. Mushrooms grown from old human shit were technically made of shit, and he ate them. Tasty shit, though. This makes Pete chuckle until another thought arrives: if human shit made the shrooms, does that make him a cannibal of sorts?

  The phone is dust-free and shining. Pete folds the duster away under the counter, goes through the rear door into his cabin, stirs a teaspoon of speed into a cup of water and chugs it down. He goes outside to the balcony overlooking the loch, grasps the rail and lets the amphetamine cruise. It’s one of those perfect autumn days, crisp and fresh with sunshine, a light breeze lifting off the loch below. The vein in Pete’s neck thumps nicely.

  Building a new home among the ruins of the old place is Phase Two of Project Pete and time is getting on. He’d singlehandedly fixed up ten old cabins around the loch, built five new ones, expanded his own cabin from caretaker living space to maintenance and reception, as well as a home for himself (for the now). He’d beaten a fancy path around the loch, installed two septic tanks and a spring-fed water system, and created a family-fun communal area along with jetty and paddle boats, all in three years and three months. Peter Harding, sole driver, whizz-kid extraordinaire (he always smiles at that), goes back inside, puts on his wax jacket, licks a finger and takes another dab of speed.

  Moss and lichen are taking to the old ruin. Pete likes this. The patterns look like flowers painted onto the stone with thickened oils. Set well back from the brow of the hill, the ruin is surrounded by woodland on three sides. Jagged half-walls and the charred remains of ceiling beams creep with vine, bramble and ivy trails. Across the old yard, the yellow JCB is where he’d left it earlier, ready to rip away at bramble bushes taller than the digger itself, a job he’s walked away from three times in three hours, the last time to dust the phone. His paints come to mind, a flicker of yellow, calling out to be painted – the yellow digger, perhaps. He turns to head back to the house but manages to stop himself this time. There’s a job to do and time won’t wait. Parched tramlines had developed across the yard during the unusually hot summer. Pete assumes these are sewage pipes, running from the ruin to an old cesspit hidden somewhere among the trees and overgrown thicket. It needs investigating; the first job on a new build is always the shittiest.

  Locating the pit should be easy enough, just a bastard of a job, ripping bramble out. Checking the pit for usefulness is not something he’s looking forward to. The simpler option of blocking the pit off and sinking a tank nearby is favourite at this point, but still, he has to find it first. Or breakfast on a mushroom? He almost succumbs, but the speed is taking hunger away. He climbs into the digger and fires it up.

  2

  It only took half an hour to walk around the small loch, or sometimes an hour depending on her mood. Right now, Ali’s mood was bright but heavy, a clear split in her mind like a two-sided mirror. George would arrive tonight if he could get away early, tomorrow if he couldn’t, or maybe the day after, or the day after, or even the week after if he got called away somewhere else. Good old fucking George.

  She shouted to Beth to come away from the water’s edge. Beth had been ditzy since she woke this morning, excited to see her dad, and that was another reason for the bright/heavy mood – keeping Beth away from school. George was keen on that idea, said she needed peace and quiet. But Ali knew her daughter also needed interaction with those her own age.

  Ali suspected Asperger’s or autism or whatever it was. Well, George didn’t think so; Beth’s just a little slow. She’ll catch up. Beth was a late developer, granted, but certainly a little special. Ali was her mother, after all, and only mothers know the true depths of their children. It just happens Beth’s a late child: late for using a potty, late with her teeth sprouting, late saying Mama. Always late. You’ll be late for your own funeral. They’d had the period talk when Beth was nine. Beth’s cousin had been nine when nature decided to open the gates, and a friend’s daughter had been on the cusp of ten when she started, so the time seemed right for having a chat about monthlies, but still, at almost sixteen, Bethany Black remained late.

  ‘Fourteen!’ Beth arrived at her mother’s side with a spring in her step and a twirl of the yellow dress she’d found in the cabin’s playbox. It was plain and neat and a good fit. She did look sweet.

  ‘Fourteen what, pumpkin?’

  ‘Mushrooms, in your basket.’ Beth’s eyes shone, eyes that said: If you count, you will find there to be fourteen.

  Ali wrapped an arm around Beth’s shoulder. ‘Shall we go up the hill, ask Peter if we can pick some big ones?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Beth said. ‘Daddy would love them.’

  ‘And Daddy deserves a treat,’ Ali said, and supposed she meant it. This was her chance to convince George to leave the bank and retire while he still had his health and she still had her sanity. They had enough money in numerous accounts to feed the whole of Africa for a decade, a fact that disgusted her.

  Beth skipped along the loch-side path and Ali followed, enjoying the feeling of freedom her daughter exuded, a freedom she wished for herself and her distant husband, a freedom she felt might be within her grasp as soon as George decided to show up. This would be his first real holiday in ten years, or was it twelve? George had travelled the world but not with his family. They had visited Florida for six weeks when Beth was little but after that any holidays were taken minus George. George had to work, had deals to seal, ideas to promote, important people to appease, big money to earn and big bonuses to collect. George was not the man she married. When she was being truthful with herself she knew that George was just a greedy self-serving prick.

  The rumble of machinery became apparent halfway up the hill. Beth exclaimed that it might be a prowling mechanical dragon and ran ahead. At the top of the hill, Ali rounded the reception hut. Beth was staring across the field at a yellow digger at work near the old ruin. Peter was in the digger’s cab, his carrot hair ablaze in the sunlight, the digger’s bucket dragging out brambles. ‘It is a dragon,’ Beth said.

  ‘Peter’s obviously busy. We’ll make do with the mushrooms we have.’

  Beth shrugged her off when she took hold of her elbow. ‘I’m watching.’

  Peter had spotted them, he was waving. Ali waved back. Peter ran the digger in again, the bucket lifted, and even from this distance the squeals and strains of the thicket could be heard, a noise that scratched at Ali’s spine.

  ‘I need a lie down.’ Ali handed the basket to Beth, the urge to get away overwhelming. ‘Ask Peter nicely and I’m sure he’ll let you pick some big ones.’

  Beth’s eyebrows were permanently raised, eyes enduringly bright. Kids at school called her a retard, and worse. ‘I’m always nice,’ she said and Ali’s heart tugged a little. She watched her daughter in the yellow dress cross the entrance road and head towards the yellow dragon. She’d be safe with Peter, they seemed to get on, and anyway, despite his rugged good looks and muscled body, Ali had the feeling he was gay. Ali returned to their cabin in head-down haste; the need to feel the razorblade between her fingers. She had the itch, and it was clawing to be out.

  3

  T
he girl had knelt in the grass some thirty feet away, a basket at her knees, and has not taken her eyes off him and the digger. He thrusts the bucket forward, lifts it and the brambles give with squeaks and snaps. He pulls away, drags the debris off to one side, dumps it, and the girl seems to bounce when he rolls the digger back in.

  Pete had got to know the Blacks, as any friendly site manager would. But most women give Pete the creeps and Alison Black is no exception. She has a plain face, likes to pick flowers and mushrooms, and water the hanging baskets, but there’s a nervousness behind her smile that makes her face appear grey and false. Pete thinks he should paint that face. The daughter is pretty and sometimes loud. The mother made a point of telling Pete she had permission from school for an extended holiday. The girl looked fine to Pete, didn’t look ill. The bill had been paid cash up front – six months’ rent with the option to stay on. Adding mystery to mystery, the girl’s father would apparently be joining them any day. Pete has an inkling that all is not right with the Black family.

  The gap he’s created in the thicket is about ten feet wide and runs back for at least twice that distance. The undergrowth is lower here, thinning out. He rolls the digger into the gap, glancing at the kneeling girl before he loses sight of her. Her dark hair is in pigtails. She reminds him of a little Indian girl in a childhood picture book. And she has that face she always has – a face that looks excited or happy. Pete imagines painting her portrait and sticking a clown’s nose on her. He chuckles inside, stops the digger at the lower thicket, and stands up in the cab to look over the top. There’s a circular clearing of tall grass beyond the brambles. He reverses the digger and sees the girl, now standing, with her smiling face, basket on her arm. He smiles back, lowers the bucket and runs it home. There’s a thud and the cab judders. He pulls out, kills the engine and climbs down.