Burntcoat

by Sarah Hall

  We found we could live together, in some ways thrive. There was still food at the restaurant and I’d always kept reasonable stock in the flat – old habits from a remote childhood. Naomi’s weekly shops had been almost sacred. On Saturdays she cleared the boot of the car. She spent at least an hour loading the trolley, calculating costs, asking me to check the yellow-label bin, which I would do as quickly as I could. In the cottage garden were potatoes, leeks, radishes; the apples on the tree were small and sour, but with enough sugar we could bake them. Meals were always planned. You were good at moderation too; the first years of repatriation had been very hard, you told me, with your mother finishing shirts, taking laundry and shifts in factories – an extended family to support.

  Halit understands ‘yok’, that’s what my father always said. We can’t have.

  Such things are put into a person early, like religion. Only a few months before, I’d watched you fillet an entire salmon in the restaurant, removing thin wafers of outer silver, picking off the last few scales like sequins on the tip of the knife. The blade clicking against the bone architecture. I wondered what it would be like, once we were released from confinement. What kind of couple would we be? Forged, I thought, and strong.

  Only a few vendors were working in the market, chancing prosecution if they exceeded hours. Rostam had sourced dried goods instead of flowers: figs, dates, cans of fruit. Next to the stalls, down a narrow alley, was a small bakery. In the mornings it opened, quickly sold what had been made, then pulled the shutters. I would go early while you slept, collect a loaf and run back home, carrying it warm under my arm. There was a new way of moving in the city, fleet, covered.

  When it became known the bakery was still operating, more people began to come. One morning I arrived thinking I’d be the first, but the queue was already halfway along the alley. I took my place at the end. The door was not yet open, the smell of yeast and dough drifted from the ovens. People were standing apart, silently, glancing up and checking each other, swaying and adjusting their position, like nervous cattle. The eyes above masks and scarves were tense, avoidant. I sent you a message – Stay in bed, all OK, back soon.

  A few minutes later, a man arrived. He was tall, dressed like an academic in a sports jacket, a big soft cap, and round, heavy-framed glasses. His face was bare, except for the smoke of grey stubble. He went straight to the bakery doors, swore, and glanced along the queue, then made an appeal to the first customer:

  My wife isn’t well, I need to get home.

  The woman shook her head, stepped back. He tutted and tried again, and the next person in line protested, told him to wait.

  Everyone has a sob story, mate.

  The man ground his heel as he pivoted away and walked down the alley along the queue. He passed me by, aggressively close. Under his breath he was counting, as if every person in line was offensive. After a few moments, I glanced back. He was standing in the middle of the alley, jutting out.

  The shutters rattled up and the bakery door opened. The woman serving was taking payment from customers first, then bagging up the bread inside and bringing it out. One loaf per person. The queue moved forward and stopped. I could hear the man talking loudly on his phone.

  Don’t be stupid, I said no. No!

  Then, to no one in particular, he called out.

  How long is this supposed to take?

  The alley was still dim, the sun not yet high enough to enter. There was the crackle of bad energy in the air.

  We’re all supposed to just take it, are we?

  Heads half-turned and then turned back. No one said anything.

  I heard the man walking forward, his soles scuffing. His elbow clipped my arm. He seemed to be leaving, but then he paused near the door again. A young Asian woman was at the head of the queue. She’d paid and was waiting for her order.

  Jeen, he said. That you? I didn’t see you properly.

  She nodded, said something quietly, looked down. He tried to talk to her, maybe she’d been his student, but she was clearly embarrassed, her body recoiling. Weeks of isolation had taken their toll; people were angry and afraid, the social norms had disappeared. The bakery assistant came out with a bag.

  Look, he said, I’ll give you twenty quid for it.

  The young woman took the bread.

  No, I can’t.

  Come on, he insisted, you can queue up again, surely. What else have you got to do?

  She made to leave but he raised an arm, blocked her way in the narrow alley. He took money out of his pocket.

  Here’s forty, then.

  She shook her head.

  I can’t take it.

  Money; with its dirt and germs.

  Can you just leave her alone, someone in front of me called out. The man wove his head round.

  Oh, fuck off, I know her, he spat. We’re friends. We all say no, don’t we – no, no, no! Her country said no we haven’t made this fucking bug for the rest of the world!

  The young woman flinched away, tried to walk round him, but he caught and held her shoulders. He pulled open the pocket of her coat, stuffed the money inside.

  Don’t, the woman said, shrugging under his hand. Don’t touch me, please.

  The queue was breaking apart. Another woman walked away down the alley and the bakery door shut. I could feel something coming. My heart was thudding and there was a cold trickling feeling from my spleen. I took several steps forward, then stopped.

  Just give it to me, Jeen. I’ve paid you now.

  The man lunged for the bread, missed. The young woman hunched over, mantling what she held. He tried again and they tussled pathetically.

  Stop, she shouted, her voice rising. Please stop!

  He was not being rough but had her held firm by the coat, authoritatively, as a parent would a naughty child. People were circling the pair, trying to reason with the man, preparing to intervene. I was close and I didn’t think. I moved in, pushed him hard on the chest. He stepped backwards and released the woman’s coat. I’ve imagined what I might have said since, should have said, perhaps, but at the time I said nothing. The man’s face was contorted; he’d given himself permission in this ugly new world. I hit him. My fist landed with force, but my wrist wasn’t stern behind it. The face was puttyish and soft, with the dull edge of teeth. I felt something inside my hand click. His head seemed not to move much but the hat came off and he staggered back. He made a noise, incredulous or accepting of damage. It took a moment for blood to arrive. His mouth was deeply split, and as he curled back his lips, like a horse’s flehmen response, red pooled beside the gum and smeared across the enamel. He bent over and spat.

  The alleyway was quiet, braced for whatever would come next. The young woman glanced at me and took her chance to leave. My forearm began filling with pain. I opened my fingers and a hot spike travelled up the tendon. The man was looking up at me, running scenarios.

  Bidge, he managed to say.

  I was dizzy and unharnessed – could feel myself stepping in again, not stopping until he was limp on the pavement. Bloody saliva spooled from his mouth. He spat again. I made myself walk down the alley and away.

  I went quickly back to Burntcoat, holding my arm against my chest. I let myself in through the studio door and sat on the bench. I was winded and weak after the rush of adrenaline. A sound like the sea was inside my head. You must have heard me. After a few minutes you came downstairs.

  Edith?

  I couldn’t speak and you looked at me quizzically.

  Shall I go back up? Shall I go to the bed?

  Your head was tilted, the smile uncertain.

  I’ve hurt my hand, I said. I can’t move it.

  You noticed me nursing the wrist then, came and sat next to me on the bench.

  How?

  You put a hand on my back, cupped the elbow of my arm without touching the injury. You touched my cheek.

  Are you shivering? You’re cold.

  Yes. It was a shock.

  Ca
n you bend it? Turn it over, let me see.

  I moved the arm, rotated it to show the knuckles. They were already swollen and red, and the skin on the tall middle bone was raked off.

  Amına koyayım. Edith. Did anyone try to hurt you?

  No. It was me. I’m sorry. I don’t have the bread.

  You pulled me against your shoulder, kept me held.

  Who did you hit?

  I don’t know, a man.

  What?

  He didn’t hurt me.

  Look at your hand! We should go to the hospital.

  We can’t. I think it’s just sprained.

  You wanted a description, asked several times how you could recognise him, where he might be. Your body was solid with frustration; I’d not seen you so agitated.

  It should have been me.

  I took your hand with my good one, and your fingers curled tightly through mine.

  It’s all right, Halit.

  No. Tamam. This is enough.

  On Christmas Eve, as Naomi and I were sitting by the fire, I heard the sound of a car driving over the moor. There was snow in the valley, beginning to bank in the ditches. I’d been taking the sedative and was starting to feel better. Naomi was crocheting, pulling the threads over, hooking them – purple and green, purple and green, the movement relaxing to watch.

  The engine was unmistakable, its keen, guttural production.

  That’s him, I said.

  Naomi kept crocheting.

  Are you sure?

  I went to the cottage window, saw headlights lifting into the dusk, disappearing, and reappearing over the next brow.

  Yes.

  The panic felt small and frail, not really mine, uselessly flitting around like a moth.

  All right, she said.

  She was calm; not calm, but Naomi. She put the yarn and the square of material away in her sewing bag and stood. She had on the old gown and her hair was unbound. She did not take a coat from the peg or rush to find boots.

  You stay here.

  She opened the drawer of the dresser, then slipped something into her pocket. She released the latch, opened the front door and closed it gently behind her. Like a coward, I ran upstairs, shut off the bedroom light and half-closed the curtains. I watched Ali’s car round the last bend of the lane. Naomi stood in the patch of window light, waiting. Her feet were bare on the thick rime of frost. In front of her, the twilight landscape bled together. Only the gorse had true definition on the horizon.

  The car pulled up outside the cottage. Even behind the bedroom window I could hear loud music playing on its stereo. Music to wind him up. Ali waited until the song finished before he switched off the engine and got out. He pulled on his jacket. I heard his voice, the familiar droll confidence.

  Nice to see you, Naomi. Is your daughter here, by any chance?

  Edith’s gone out.

  Her voice was toneless. I peered down. She looked ragged, wild-haired, like a vagrant. Ali laughed sarcastically at her.

  Right, course she has. Don’t suppose you can make me a cup of tea. It was a hell of a drive.

  No, Alistair, I can’t make you a cup of tea.

  There was a short silence.

  Oh, OK. Then how about a piss, Naomi. Can I piss in your toilet, because I’ve been six hours in the car and this isn’t much of a welcome.

  No.

  There was another silence. Their breaths smoked in the half-dark. Naomi’s hair rose off her shoulders in the breeze; her feet looked tortured on the ice.

  You know I spent a night in the cells because of her. Getting called a wife-batterer. Getting a light shone in my eyes every hour and using a stinking bog covered in twenty men’s shit. The least you can do is let me use your nice clean bathroom, Naomi.

  Behind glass, behind the barbiturate, it was easy to apprehend him. His base technique, his game of provocation. He would raise the stakes until he got a reaction.

  Naomi did not repeat herself. They stood facing each other in the excruciating winter quiet, until Ali broke and shook his head.

  I know she’s in there, you spastic cow. She’s sent out her dippy bint of a mother to do her dirty work.

  His voice was lower and sharper now; he’d been castled and was furious. He cocked his head, looked at Naomi from a different angle. I couldn’t see her full face but I knew its incapacity, the glass wall everything slid off. She was hard to abuse. She was neurally elliptical, would say only what she wanted to. She put her hand in the pocket of her gown. For a second I thought, it’s a knife, she’s about to kill him. It will be logical, practical, like cutting butter to spread on toast. But she withdrew a stack of folded money, her Christmas gift to me. She held it up, not away from her body but close to her breast.

  What, he said, some kind of bribe? Are you buying your daughter back?

  No. It’s petrol money.

  Ali shook his head and glared at her.

  Naomi. It’s Christmas fucking Eve. Where do you think I’m going to go now?

  She remained poised, the money offered like feed to a resistant animal that would eventually come. Her gown was terrible-looking, its velvet coarsened and worn, almost mythical. Ali’s coat was made of sable panels, the orange hazard on the back redundant.

  I should have gone down, intervened, put a stop to it, but I didn’t. Ali must have known I was there, watching, but he didn’t call out. He wanted a fight, and Naomi was enough for his purpose, better in some ways, a new partner – one he suspected of both weakness and potential he couldn’t measure. All the times he’d tested her, trying to find the angles, spark the kindling, but she was retardant.

  Ali unzipped his fly, took out his cock and let go an arc of piss that steamed in the cold air. It splattered on the ground around Naomi’s feet, hit the hem of her robe. He held the soft fat shaft with one hand, proudly out from his body. She did not flinch or step back. When he was done, he reached and took the money. They blurred together for a moment, their voices inaudible, like conspirators. It was too awful. I turned to put on a jumper and made my way downstairs. I pulled on my boots and unlatched the front door. The Escort was leaving; the engine gunned as Ali reversed round, its tail lights two red eyes drawing back over the moor. I don’t know if he saw me.

  After a moment, Naomi came inside. There was no injury but her face was pale, with two garish marks of colour in her cheeks. She smelled of cold air and, faintly, the wheaty odour of urine. I wanted to hug her but she was already moving past into the bathroom. I heard the rattle of the plug chain and water running in the sink, the tap squealing shut. Beyond the front door, the white ground had been turned over and stained yellow, a wild patch where some form of contest and defeat had occurred. I shut and latched the door. There didn’t seem to be a real threat any more.

  When Naomi came out of the bathroom she was still wearing the gown, and it was dripping from the bottom. It was hard to look at her.

  Are you all right?

  Yes, she said. Are you hungry?

  Not really.

  I am.

  We sat at the kitchen table, with bowls in front of us. Naomi lowered her spoon into the soup, lifted and sipped. There was the faintest tremor to the silver oval, to the hand holding it.

  I forgot to put in salt again, she said.

  No, it’s nice. It’s good.

  I tried to eat. The bread pulped and reformed in my mouth and I couldn’t swallow. I felt my face collapsing and the first spasms hit.

  Naomi looked up at the sound.

  What is it? she said. Does your tummy still hurt?

  My forehead bloomed with pain. I clenched my eyes shut and felt my fingers digging into the piece of bread, balling it tight.

  Edith? Edith.

  The spoon clinked in Naomi’s bowl. She took the roll gently out of my hand and held my wrist. Her response was automatic.

  He could have hurt you. You could have died.

  Something surged against my chest, rose through me uncontrollably, fighting to get out. My bo
dy shook. I couldn’t stop the noise, the stream of tears. I was eight, it was Christmas; she hadn’t collapsed in the street, she was smiling, her eyes quick and expressive as I showed her the doll’s house in the toyshop.

  No, she said. He was just angry you left him. I told him the hotel at Scotch Corner would be open. Would you like something else to eat?

  I shook my head, mucus streaming from my nose and mouth.

  When I calmed, she lifted her hand away. She picked up my bowl and emptied the soup back into the pan, lit the flames underneath to reheat it.

  After the incident, you wanted to empty the storeroom at the restaurant. There was fish in the freezer, which would soon expire, and bulk-sized dried goods. There were now more reports of looting and violence, chaos at hospitals. In the city, two armed men had been shot by soldiers near a food bank. The virus was still transmitting. Kendra’s messages had stopped – she was sick too. It would be better to make a final trip, you said, and withdraw completely.

  We talked about giving supplies away.

  What do you think?

  Maybe. No, fuck them.

  Another value system had arrived. You were angry, trusted neither the people nor the leaders – a familiar depressing feeling. Some calculation was being made by the government, about the number of infections, the breaking of the wave. Until then, we would have to endure.