Being Here (13 page)

She laughs, then continues.

‘I used to have conversations like this when I was young. Just after the war, sitting in smoky bars. The meaning of life, the possibility of an existence beyond this one. I suppose, given what we had just lived through, it was understandable. But, God, we were all so earnest, like we were the only ones who'd ever thought such things throughout the course of human history. Such trite things. Predictable and unoriginal. And now, at the end, I come back to the banal. “I don't know. I hope so. Maybe. But maybe not. Toss a coin.” I envy you, Leah. I envy your faith, your certainty.'

It isn't that. It isn't that at all. How do I explain? I have lived with God all my years. He was the milk from my mother's breast. Faith and certainty? It was the air I breathed. The root of my being. But dig long enough, mine to the heart of certainty, and there is always a core of doubt, nestling like a stone in the fruit of faith. I have spent years resisting the urge to examine my belief too closely. Because I am scared of what I'll find.

I wonder why I don't tell Lucy my story. Now I have offended Carly, there is a good chance it will remain forever buried. I don't think she will return. Why should she? What profit is there for her? I am old and I am rude. All I have to offer is a story she never wanted. I have nothing she needs. I have nothing she wants.

And then I understand. It is simple.

I cannot tell Lucy because I need my story to live a little while longer. When I die I want it to have an existence beyond me. Lucy cannot offer it time. Carly can. It is her mind that will host it. It will bury itself there and each breath she takes will give it sustenance. Even if the recording fades, if it lies somewhere unregarded, or is broken, Adam and I will live on in memory.

Carly was to be my book.

And I have ripped it to pieces.

History repeats itself.

I am tired and need sleep, a small death at the end of each day's life. Lucy summons Jane, who is on night shift this week. She helps me to my room and prepares me for bed. I used to be ashamed of this help. Now I am too tired even for that.

Carly will not come back.

‘Now you sleep well, my dear,' says Jane. She tucks me in. ‘Dream of that man of yours. That Adam.'

I do.

CHAPTER 10

T
HE DREAM IS AS
sharp as memory.

It
is
memory.

I pick up Pagan and carry him to the back of the shed. His weight makes the muscles in my arms bunch and cramp, but I do not drop him. The world is made of water. Sometimes, lightning casts everything in silver. The farm is monochrome. My dream is monochrome. Except for the splashes of red that badge my dress and stain my fingers.

I find a shovel from the barn. I dig. Eventually, I tuck my dog down and blanket him with mud. Then I kneel at his sodden grave. Adam wipes my hair from my eyes. He doesn't say anything. I try to pray, but have no words. They stop in my throat. After a while, Adam leaves.

I do not know how much time passes. I am empty and cannot feel the rain on my skin. Lightning flashes, but I do not really notice. Thunder makes the ground pulse, but I do not really notice. My head is bowed. Time passes.

When Adam puts his hand on my face I turn my eyes to his. He is not wet. His hair shines, even in the darkness, as do his eyes. They flash silver in the storm.

‘Come see, Leah,' he says.

‘What?' I say.

‘Come see.'

He takes me by the hand and raises me to my feet. He twines his fingers inside mine, leads me from the grave. I follow.

Inside the barn, the air is solid. It smells of rain and death. Adam leads me through the darkness. We stop just beyond the hulks of old farm machinery, rusted mementoes of a dying era. Though the dark is hard against the eyes, I see pale patches on the floor.

They are lined in rows, ghostly rectangles. I kneel on the floor and bend towards them. Pages. Curled and damp. Hundreds of them, some in soggy clumps. Others fluttering limply at their edges, stirred by the storm.

‘I collected them,' says Adam. He kneels beside me. ‘I don't know if I got them all. Probably not. The wind was vicious. Still is. You wouldn't believe how far some of them had flown. I found one or two at the edges of the orchard. Soaking wet. I …' I touch him on the arm, though I don't look up from the drift of paper before me. He stops talking. My mind is in a strange place. It wrestles with the image of a dog, a blinding flash of light and the smell of burning death. Yet it also considers the pages laid before me, the jumble of story, wet and curled. There is a beginning here. It snakes with the promise of vitality from an ending. Life comes from death. One story ends and another begins. It is too much to reflect on and I am too young. I touch a sheet. The tip of my finger tingles.

There is another small explosion of light on the edge of my vision.

Adam has found my secret store of candles. They were tucked beneath sacking, a few stubs of cold wax, a half-empty box of matches and a chipped saucer. The flame writhes against the draughts, battles against the night. It steadies and when it does, the darkness has been pushed back a few meagre centimetres. It is enough.

Print marches across white space. Words resolve themselves. ‘I know I found the opening page,' says Adam. ‘It's here somewhere.' He searches through the mottled pages, gently lifts a sheet to avoid damaging it, puts it carefully back on the barn floor, picks his way through a carpet of story, wary where he places his feet. He mutters in disappointment, continues his search. I reach out and take a page – any page – from the pile before me. The candle's flame swirls and the print dances from light to shadow. When it rests, I read.

The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The
master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the
copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind
him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was
said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared;
the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver;
while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was,
he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master,
basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at
his own temerity:

‘Please, sir, I want some more.'

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned
very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on
the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for
support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed
with wonder; the boys with fear.

‘What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.

‘Please, sir,' replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.'

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the
ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud
for the beadle.

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when
Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement,
and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,

‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist
has asked for more!'

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on
every countenance.

‘For more!' said Mr. Limbkins. ‘Compose yourself,
Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand
that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper
allotted by the dietary?'

‘He did, sir,' replied Bumble.

‘That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the
white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.'

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's
opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver
was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was
next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering
a reward of five pounds to anybody who would
take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other
words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to
any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any
trade, business, or calling.

‘I never was more convinced of anything in my
life,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he
knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning:

‘I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than
I am that that boy will come to be hung.'

I lower the page.

The boy was reckless with misery. He was reckless with misery before asking for more. I want to know why. I want to know the history. And the prophecy. The boy will be hung. It is an arrow to the future, sharp and pointed in its urgency. I must know Oliver. I must walk at his side.

‘Got it!' says Adam. He steps into my circle of light, a page in his hand. He presses it on me, an offering, a gift. His face is lit, not just by the wash of candlelight, but also by his smile. He glows from within.

I take the page and study it. It is damp. Water stains are forming. It looks diseased and old. But the words survive. I place it carefully away from the others. I do not even have to speak. Adam knows. I stand and we move among the piles, searching for order.

It takes many hours and all my remaining candle stubs, but we succeed. At some stage the storm passes. At some point the night passes. When the book is complete, dawn is struggling through the walls of the barn. Birds sing in the new beginning.

Pages 221 to 234 are missing. I never find them. Though I read the book many times over the years, in many different editions, I resisted the urge to fill that gap. Always I would skip those fourteen pages.

I am too tired to start reading and I am old enough to know the miracle of story is now fixed. It is asleep and waiting for my eyes to kiss it to life, like all those stories from my childhood. I am asleep as well, curled on the floor in Adam's arms. He strokes my face and I feel the warmth of his body as a blanket.

My last thought is a strange one.

I don't think of Pagan. I don't think of mother, alone in her gloomy bedroom, watched over by a grim God. I don't even think of Oliver and his reckless misery.

I think of Adam, insubstantial as a dream.

And I ponder how something that exists only in my imagination can radiate heat and stroke my face and pick up pages from a torn book. My dog is dead and gone. He is no longer of this world. But at the moment of his death something else has stirred and come to life. Adam is here. Really here.