Bone Lines

by Stephanie Bretherton

  Gradually, the cycles grow shorter and stronger, breath squeezed in at the throat, making a hiss as it emerges. Rising, turn by turn, into a growl that forms from the root where birth begins, calling for new life to replace what they will take. In and out, through nostrils now drawn up into a snarl. Preparing to put aside pity. Praying that they are worthy enough to play the part of the beast. Knowing that they must.

  The heat builds and the breath creates new sight. The path is envisioned, success is foreseen, gifts are requested, gratitude given. When the cycle recedes to a natural end, he or she who has seen most clearly the animal they must pursue leads the way. The others trust, because no matter how mistily, they have shared the same dream.

  Yes, she will breathe this agony away. Then she will stand up again and walk. She will rise up and roar like the bear and keep on walking until she falls out of life itself.

  13

  Hampstead Heath could save your life, thought Eloise, and not only on a day as glorious as this. If you came up here in the autumn rain with some rope and a black mood, this hallowed ground would not permit such desecration. Before you could find the hidden spot or tie the noose, a dog might bark and shake its coat of mud and smile at you. And even if that were not enough to make you think again, surely the branch would break and a sodden carpet of soil and leaves would cushion your fall?

  If there was anything in her life akin to regular church attendance, for Eloise it was her Sunday morning run to the Gospel Oak entrance of the heath and then a sprint up Parliament Hill. This initial exertion was followed by a more leisurely power walk in a wide loop around the ponds, before a gentle jog back home. Of all the city’s green spaces, the heath was special to Eloise. A fertile oasis offering both expansive views of the metropolis, and along its more secluded trails, a means to leave London behind altogether. To forget its proximity.

  Before winding through the woods, Eloise stopped for her customary tribute to the panorama from the top of the hill. It was a clear day and reaching up above the leafier neighbourhoods the urban skyline drew a jagged sketch of cohabitation and commerce, hope and hubris. A flock of metal cranes bowed their heads and prayed quietly towards St Paul’s, taking their Sabbath rest from the city’s state of constant construction.

  The heath had always welcomed a diversity of visitors, but today a curious gathering caught Eloise’s eye, if only because a few of their number seemed to be looking pointedly back at her. She could not imagine why. They stood without speaking, in a ring, holding hands. Not the usual preparations for a picnic. Eloise puffed hard and bent forward, hands to her upper thighs, but she kept a discreet sideways watch, intrigued. It was no surprise to see group activity up here; revelry, nature-worship, self-improvement rituals, discreet assignations, memorials, sponsored walks, the latest fads in keeping fit. It all happened on Hampstead Heath.

  However, this crowd did not have the aura of neo-hippies or keen adventurers into self-discovery. Indeed there was something distinctly conservative and sober about them. Praying for a lost friend who had loved this place, perhaps? But the gathering came across as neither celebratory nor inclined to heartfelt mourning and its participants appeared untroubled by any readable emotion. Almost robotic.

  It was for this reason that they looked out of place, Eloise realised. They had chosen to gather here in this haven of nature, preserved by and for the city dweller, and yet they felt wholly unnatural to it. Despite the reverent poses they were oblivious to their surroundings, neither noticing, nor honouring, nor enjoying them. As if they were here by necessity, out of duty perhaps, or on some deadly serious mission. Each wore a variation on the theme of beige, but several had a subtle detail of red or maroon, in the form of a pocket handkerchief, a ribbon, a headscarf, or a belt. Then Eloise noticed that one among their rank, a long strip of a fellow she could see only from the back, was wearing a roll of thick brown packing tape looped around that same red belt. Odd, she thought. But hey, each to their own.

  When more of the group turned their heads from the circle to stare at her she felt an unpleasant twist in her diaphragm, still pumping from the run up to the summit. Normally from here Eloise would switch into a fast walking pace to better take in every seasonal detail but instead she coughed, turned away and decided to pick up her pace again, at least until her path diverted out of view.

  A few minutes on and she felt comfortable enough to ease out of her jog and let her heart rate settle, to let her senses relax into a softer awareness of everything around her. To allow the sun to seep through her skin and into her bones. She had forgotten the gang on the hill, more or less, but their peculiar congregation had revived an old meditation on the rituals of community, of hope, grief and loss.

  The many ways in which humanity coped with suffering and how that pain might be reduced or eliminated were familiar reflections for Eloise, but lately she’d found herself wondering whether suffering was somehow a fundamental force of the life experience, a spur to the forming of bonds, to compassion and ultimately to growth. Should all suffering (and the forging of character from the effort to overcome it) always be eliminated? How different a person might her father have been, for example, without the burdens that he had to bear?

  Eloise wanted to explore this theme further but felt it could be a difficult conversation to have with her colleagues. Especially those working on cures for childhood illnesses, or pain management. For who would not move heaven and earth so that a blind child might see, or a paraplegic could walk again? But since forming the outline of her book about Sarah, she had discovered a new kind of discourse, an alternative means to contemplating the difficult questions. As she selected a favourite pathway, one she knew so well it required no conscious navigation, she began making mental notes for another of her private ‘love letters’ to Darwin.

  Before she could form any coherent arguments on her theme, Eloise was distracted by a last waltz of white butterflies making the most of the late summer sun and beckoning her from the paved track towards an overgrown trail. As she weaved further into the woodland, the heath began to work on her in its own particular way. The peaty tang of the soil, the ripening perfume of the ferns. Soon she abandoned the contrivance of her secret correspondence and released her thoughts to find their own emerging twists and turns. She embraced a different kind of dialogue, engaging now with the vitality of her surroundings rather than with one long dead.

  How much longer would those butterflies live, she wondered? Their primary cause to fly must have been fulfilled through mating by now. Yes, there was still some nectar, a last round of pollination for some species, but otherwise did they dance today purely out of joy? Their genome remained the same whether in caterpillar, chrysalis or butterfly form, so did they remember anything of their former lives? Could they recall the struggle to change?

  Eloise understood that metamorphosis was less about how something looked and more about how it lived – perhaps to feed in a different way, absolutely to seek others of its kind, to reproduce and carry on this remarkable code. It was not merely shape that shifted, but behaviour. It was a response to a new set of needs and the process of transforming into something capable of meeting those. In that sense, a poetic soul might consider this as much a metaphysical phenomenon as a biological one.

  Finally she came upon her ‘fairy glen’, a hollow of ancient trees that leaned towards each other in slow conversation, like misplaced characters from Tolkien, or refugees from the felling of a primeval forest. As she touched their time-wrought gnarls and knots and stood under a halo of vibrant green, Eloise felt something stir within and it was easy to see how nature, fantasy and imagination had become so intertwined in the human psyche, especially for the more innocent of minds. To understand how shamanic tradition had emerged from an instinct to worship and to wonder, and a desire to enter more deeply into that wonder. (From there so easily to shift to fear and superstition, and on to organising, monetising and controlling all that unruly ‘magic’.)

  On the
other hand, she could understand why some felt something was lost when everything was seen purely from a reductive and mechanistic point of view, even if for her this essential process had brought only a deeper appreciation. But, she wondered, could there ever be a new synthesis, some kind of rapprochement or a ‘third way’ for those who felt left behind? Perhaps not to be found in the wilder fringes of pseudoscience and its proliferation of cults (some no better, if not worse, than the major religions to Eloise) but maybe a more measured yet fulfilling embrace of the bigger picture, and the health and happiness of whatever ingredients made up the human soul? For what was magic or miracle after all but something with the ability to alter the state of something else, be that a flame, a catalyst or an enzyme? The negative ions in fresh air, a beautiful view, the care and company of friends, a sense of value and purpose.

  ‘Oh… hello.’

  ‘Hello. Gorgeous day!’

  Her reverie was disturbed by a young couple who had also chosen to go off-path and wend their way towards a more secluded spot. They seemed surprised to find her there but smiled even so. Eloise moved on through the woodland, and thought for a moment that they might have been following behind her, perhaps trusting her knowledge of the glades more than their own (to her bemusement she was so often stopped and asked for directions, wherever she was in the world) but it wasn’t them. It wasn’t anybody, although she was sure she’d heard the twig-snap and leaf-rustle of a meaningful footfall. A dog no doubt, pursuing a scent too far, worrying its owner to distraction. But nobody called out or summoned their wayward pet to heel. The sounds had been too weighty for a squirrel hopping around in a tangled bank or a crow dancing in the undergrowth. Perhaps a badger, though unlikely. A fox then, surely? The scavenging urban variety had lost not only its fear (and health) but its nocturnal restrictions too.

  She stopped as if to examine some wildflowers but used the moment to glance behind her and around her. It was silly of course, but Eloise wondered whether one or two of that strange, silent gathering from the top of the hill had somehow caught up with her, were shadowing her. No. Of course not. Why would they? No. She would not allow any paranoia to pollute her affection for this place. Although her new vigilance had reignited a recent yet persistent desire to bring a companion up here sometime, to share all of this with someone else who might appreciate the potency of ‘Dr Heath’.

  And now another of her captive memories had slipped its bonds. She recalled how delighted she’d been to discover a young Londoner as enamoured as she with this urban illusion of wilderness, even if his affection had been shaped by a history of forbidden teenage bacchanalia more than bucolic appreciation. One night they had consummated their mutual passion – for each other and for the heath – in a secret spot he knew about. A place she felt unable to revisit these days, either out of embarrassment or the denial of how much she missed him. She was not sure which sentiment was worse.

  Oh, stop it, Eloise. She would no longer indulge such useless nostalgia. Maybe it really was time for that dog. (Ah, but then he had been a dog lover too, once suggesting that they rescue a few together, desperately imagining a future that they both knew she could not offer him.) Where was all this longing coming from, for the fictional salvation of that discarded love, that missed opportunity? It was hardly helpful and she didn’t need any of it. While Eloise didn’t get to see her closest network as often as any of her friends might like, as busy and spread out as they all now were, she kept in touch via digital means and these deep connections were sufficient. More than that, the ‘self’ was sufficient. And the work she was doing was everything.

  And yet. Eloise was aware of her tendency to seclude herself beyond what was healthy. So maybe she should consider inviting KC to join her up here one day? Their current condition of ‘compatible colleagues’ owed much to continued assurances – from both KC and Eugene – that Sarah was going nowhere, and also to Eloise putting aside the notion that KC was under orders to do anything to relocate the bones. She had confronted him about his supposed secret meetings with Eugene, about his clandestine negotiations with his backers.

  ‘OK,’ he had said, reacting more calmly than she’d anticipated, ‘I can understand how the way our collaboration came about and some of the stuff that happened early on might have spooked you all. But please trust me, all I want now, all we want now is to make some real progress here and to share everything that we find. It might not mean a hell of a lot right now, but with my hand on my heart I can promise you that much. And you know what, Eloise, good for Rory for watching your back and all… but you do realise the guy has a thing for you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, of course he hasn’t.’ (But she knew of course that he had, harmless as it was.)

  ‘But, hey, who can blame him?’ KC had added, with his sideways smile.

  So, no. Maybe she shouldn’t invite KC up here after all. Maybe that would be tempting fate too far? The heath had a way of bringing out the romantic in her, which could be risky to her relationship with him in more ways than the carnal. Indeed, KC had already called her out on her inclination for the fanciful.

  A solar flare having enhanced the borealis to a spectacular degree, the pair had flicked through a social media slide show from around the various northern latitudes over a shared coffee break. Eloise had mused aloud about what Sarah might have made of it and how, for all their understanding of the earth’s protective magnetic shield, this extraordinary light show of charged particles had an eeriness about it that ‘touched the human spirit’, stimulating an innate desire to praise the wonders of such a finely tuned universe. She had gone so far as to ask whether such phenomena might manifest, in part, in order to inspire the observer.

  ‘What?’ KC had replied, in an incredulous tone that took a sharp departure from his customary diplomacy. ‘You mean that cold, mechanical set of physical laws that would crush your supposed “observer” to dust outside of the fragile system that allows it to live? Or the nuclear explosions that enable complex planetary life to occur but which would fry or let freeze that same life the minute it stepped out of the Goldilocks zone? Come on, Eloise. Be careful of falling for the woo woo. Magical thinking isn’t gonna get us very far in this field. And better make sure that your “baloney detection kit” is in good order there, Dr Kluft, ’cos I reckon you get too easily drawn into the wilder theories sometimes.’

  To quote Carl Sagan against her was cruel and this had stung. Not only because she now felt diminished in KC’s estimation but because she’d endured enough of being dismissed in this way, in both her work and her love life. That this poetic aspect of her personality, this tendency to be open to potential without believing in anything until persuaded by empirical proof, must always make her somehow ‘less’ when she felt it might be the door to ‘more’.

  She had responded. ‘But there has to be a balance, KC? There’s a fine line between what many reject as magical thinking and the openness that we need. Without which so many of our great steps forward could not have happened at all, or were far too delayed… The freedom of the imagination, KC! Of simply asking the question “what if?” I’m sorry, but I’m with Einstein when it comes to valuing the imagination. What was it he said? That “imagination is more important than knowledge”… yes, that’s right, something about it embracing the world, stimulating progress, even evolution? No, sorry, but I won’t apologise for a mind that’s open to potential, KC, or for projecting that same sense of wonder on to Sarah. Because if we’re going to get the public interested in this and behind this kind of work, then it needs to be relatable?’

  An entente cordiale had soon resettled but the exchange had ramped up her wariness of him again, hardened her suspicions that they might not be such ‘kindred spirits’ after all. (Not enough for an alliance of the heart, anyway.) Indeed, Eloise had been tempted to wonder whether KC might be capable of turning any perceived ‘weakness’ against her if their working partnership ever had cause to be prised apart.

  No, bette
r not KC then. Her chosen companion for hiking the heath should be someone close, yes, but not in danger of coming too close. Or adversarial, if push came to shove.

  Anna? She lived near enough. But as much as she loved her old medical school compatriot, their conversations about what each was discovering and what each was duelling with, Eloise knew that Anna’s now toddling baby would only slow them down, or the pushchair limit them to the path more travelled.

  What about John, then? (And there it is again, that bloody rustling.)

  As Eloise pressed on more purposefully away from those unseen noises, she contemplated her relationship with her fellow Samaritan. He was so often an unlikely source of inspiration, the grit that forms the pearl. She recalled something John had shared the other night about a supposedly ‘scientific’ experiment conducted ‘in some teaching hospital or other’ to investigate the efficacy of prayer.

  The very idea of it had seemed oxymoronic to Eloise, but he had assured her both of the study’s credentials and of some provocative results. Apparently, the observations suggested that beneficial intentions from a group of volunteers (whether religiously inspired or not) had produced quicker and more effective wound healing in another group of volunteers (unknowing recipients of the ‘prayers’) compared to a control group (who had not been prayed for at all). She had questioned the criteria, argued that people healed at different rates for a variety of reasons, but John insisted that all this had been accounted for. Eloise resolved to do some digging, doubtful of the conclusions or that such results could be reliably repeated, but nonetheless intrigued.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, what IS that?