Nameless, p.12
Nameless, page 12
‘It’s our job to keep those left behind on the island safe,’ said Resolve.
‘And to get everyone out if it all goes bad,’ said Sower.
‘Which it won’t,’ said Tend. ‘We’ve planned this since the day the Pack took the city.’
‘We’re pretty sure we’ve considered most ways things could go wrong,’ said Rescuer.
Sure. Most.
How many times had I been sure the cake was cooked then it sank in the middle? And most was far from all.
The conversation continued. Resolve and Daughter remained angry with me until it got lost in the planning. Most of the forty-six people on Sanctuary would leave in groups over the next few days. They’d go to homes on the outskirts of the city and gradually enter it as farmers and tradesmen and inconspicuous people. Innocent. Fitting in. Conquered. Me, Daughter, Resolve, Sower, Plan and Watch would remain on Sanctuary.
The ones left behind to wait and hope and worry. The wife praying for her husband. The children staring at photos of their father. The mother wringing her hands when her son went to war.
The mother staying with her only daughter to protect her as she should have done the rest of her children.
The mother guilty of thinking only of herself.
The resistance was confident. That left just me. The pessimist. Maybe an apt description. From the beginning I’d had a hard time seeing how they could succeed. They had that fire in their blood. I didn’t. Maybe if I did I would be confident too.
But all I could think was that the flames of their revolution were blinding them to all that could go wrong, and surely at every picnic someone needed to check the weather forecast.
Worry did. Looked at the sky and wondered if it might rain. Frowned. Glanced at me. Made me wish I hadn’t opened my mouth, because I’d snatched away a slice of his confidence and nothing shouted failure as certainly as doubt.
You can do it, I would say to my children. Try again. And again. You’ll get there. What had happened to me?
The meeting broke up with plans to meet again the next day. They’d be glad I wasn’t going to that one.
I made myself tea in the kitchen then turned at a heavy tread, not to ascertain who it was but to face Daughter’s anger head on.
‘How could you—’
‘Please don’t be angry,’ I said, tired of recriminations. ‘I’m not going. That’s all that matters.’
I walked away from my tea and around my daughter and out the door. Because I didn’t want to argue again. Not now. Not when change stalked so close. The next few days, the next two weeks, would be hard enough without us being at odds. She and I were one. We were the only ones. We had to stick together.
Few of us like change. Change coming on top of another momentous change that turned your life upside down was even harder. For me, at least. Sanctuary had become my security blanket. The only home I now had. People came and went but the core remained the same: Daughter, Resolve, Sower, Nourish, Rescuer and Tend. I didn’t want to lose them too. Not one. Not again. And if there was the tiniest thing I could do, even if it meant I had to go to the city to fight, I would do it and not give a damn what happened to me.
But I also wanted to find out if my other child still lived. Because if she did, if by some strange twist of fate I’d been given a second chance, I had to take it or I’d never have any peace. It was one thing to say she’d be better off dead but quite another to think that, if I’d acted, she might have been saved.
So my motives for going were both selfish and unselfish. I didn’t want to suffer more loss. I wanted to find out if Eldest still lived. I was willing to give up my life for that.
What about Daughter? She’d be safe but suffer terribly if I died. Didn’t that tip me towards selfish?
Yes, it did. But I never pretended I was perfect, you know that all too well. Who is perfect when it’s all boiled down? Better for Daughter to suffer losing me and go on living. She had Resolve. She might have Eldest. They would get through.
Sometimes we don’t entirely know the reasons why we act. Have you noticed that? I was no different. Emotions a tangled ball of string and the more I pulled the tighter the tangle snarled and not even my best attempts could tease it out. Not in time. Time I didn’t have. Because I’d been shouted down for my attempt to be of some use and now I’d become the woman I didn’t want to be.
War mother.
But I had Daughter. If Eldest still lived they’d bring her to me. Please. Please bring her to me.
I went out the door. Braced as the cold hit me. I’d escape to the forest’s calm oblivion despite the frozen ground and threatening clouds that screamed snow to anyone who chose to listen.
Check the weather before the picnic.
But it remained an intention, for Rescuer called.
I waited for him to come to me. Arms tight about my waist. Wishing for the coat I hadn’t stopped to get in my haste to escape Daughter’s reproach. Rescuer wore his. Slung over his shoulders as if he too had left hastily. But my mind rested on that thought for only a second before moving to his face and the eyes that smiled like a summer sky whose clouds were far away. Yet still faintly guarded. Because I had hurt him. I’d planned to hurt him more.
‘I’m free if you wanted to speak with me.’ He tilted his head to the library, where it was warm. Where we could be alone to speak our private words.
But those words were gone now. Rapunzel had closed the window and coiled her hair tightly at her neck so the prince would know she didn’t need him. So he would know she had a prince already, waiting for her, beyond a fiery grave.
I wanted to sigh. To cry. To laugh hysterically. Instead I smiled, the ultimate concealment. ‘I can’t remember what it was now. Obviously nothing important. Probably just something we’d run out of in the kitchen. I’ll ask Nourish.’
Rescuer read the lie for what it was and a flicker of something crossed his face. Gone before I could see it. Hurt. Impatience. Regret. But he hid as well as I did.
‘I’m sorry about what happened at the meeting. I didn’t intend for them all to attack you the way they did.’
‘Resolve attacked me but I’m used to that. She gets over it fast. I just wish…’
‘That I’d given you time to tell Daughter first?’
‘Yes,’ I shrugged. ‘But it’s done now.’
‘Was it because I told you Eldest might be alive?’
My gaze flickered to him then away. If I’d kept it steady he wouldn’t have known the truth but now he did and I gave another shrug. ‘It was a stupid idea, thoughtless. How could I leave Daughter behind? And as you said, how could Eldest be alive after what they did to her? But…’
‘We’ll try to find the women, Teller. I promise.’
A promise he probably couldn’t keep. Because what was a group of abused women compared to a fight to save an entire population? They’d be last on the list. That was why I wanted to go. To make them first. One woman. One mother. How many hundreds of mothers wondered like I did and prayed like I did that when all this ended, if all this ended, they wouldn’t see their daughters’ names on the list of those killed on the last day because no one saved them?
But this was Rescuer. Brave Rescuer who knew what this meant to me. Maybe he of all people could bring her home.
We stared at each other. Moments passed uncomfortably. Then we spoke at once. Laughed. It was a hammer that smashed the tension. Rescuer indicated I should go first.
‘You’ll be…you’ll be careful in the city, won’t you? All of you. You’ll look after each other?’
‘Of course. The Invader has taken enough of my family so he’s not having me and Twin. And I plan on being there at the end when we can all go home. You and I are going to visit the nearest bar and have a drink to celebrate.’
‘If it all goes to plan, then you can shout us all a glass of their most expensive wine.’
‘It will go to plan,’ said Rescuer.
‘Don’t you dare say it can’t fail,’ I said and there were suddenly tears in my eyes. ‘Don’t you say that, Rescuer. Because even the best plans can fail and if anything goes wrong you’ll all be killed. So don’t say it. Don’t. Because I can’t lose another family.’
Rescuer’s eyes were a sympathetic touch. One filled with wishing.
Wishing I’d made my fear of loss personal.
Wishing I’d said I couldn’t lose him.
Wishing I’d said I cared for him.
Words as impossible as the emotion. Why didn’t he realise that? Stupid. He was stupid. Open. Honest. Caring. Just taking what I gave. Just hoping it could be more.
‘We can fail,’ said Rescuer softly. ‘Going up against the Pack is dangerous. But our plans are good, Teller. I will come back.’ A smile. ‘I intend to meet everyone at that bar. But maybe just water would do because wine…’
I gave him a shove. ‘You old miser.’
‘Damn, right,’ he said, and I laughed.
Rescuer did know me. He knew why I drew back. He knew that I would never step forward into his embrace despite the attraction.
I still loved my husband with all my heart. I always would. And I couldn’t risk loving and losing someone else.
I felt guilty. Because Rescuer wasn’t stupid, he just wanted someone like I’d once had someone and thought he had found her. He’d lost as much as me. Yet he was willing to take the risk of losing again. He was braver than me and I had rejected him.
I stamped my feet. Looked at the sky. ‘I’m going for a walk to warm up. Go inside before you freeze.’
Rescuer slipped the hastily slung coat from his shoulders and slid it leisurely around mine. ‘Take this or you’ll freeze.’
The coat was warm. I should have given it back and got my own but I wanted to get away from him. So I put my arms into the sleeves. Huddled into it as I couldn’t huddle into him. ‘Thank you.’
I turned when I reached the steps to the forest. Rescuer was still there. Watching me. A lone dark figure stark against the dilapidated house beneath low grey clouds. A slight breeze tousled his hair. He lifted his hand and smiled. I returned the smile. Returned the wave. Then ran down the steps and away from him and what he offered so selflessly.
Away from his need.
Later I was glad I’d turned to look at him. Glad of the memory of him and his hope and his selflessness. To remind me that for a few brief moments there was a break in the darkness of my life.
Because soon that darkness would return.
And when it did, nothing would ever dispel it again.
19
23rd July
This morning, for the first time, I’m on the ward assigned to the soldiers wounded in the war. I don’t really want to work there because it’s horrible to see them hurt and I know it’s going to make me sad and angry at the same time and I’ll think about if for days after. But I’m a doctor. It’s what I signed up for.
24th July
Well, I did it and it was hard, yet easy at the same time. I spent the day in the military ward, checking wounds and vitals, and talking to them about how they were going emotionally. The first woman was the worst because she’d lost her legs and I kept trying not to stare at where they used to be. Not because I hadn’t seen stumps before, I’d helped amputate them in my surgical placement. But seeing the person, talking to her, it suddenly became much more real. But I could tell I was making her uncomfortable. So in the end I just asked if they caused her much pain. She laughed and said she felt a lot more pain when she watched them fly off into the distance and thought about how she was going to buy her groceries when she got home. Stupidly, when she said that, I began to cry and it ended with her comforting me and I kept thinking how annoyed she must be that her doctor was so hopeless.
So I made a bit of a mess of the first patient but I still remembered to thank her for her sacrifice. But the words sounded a bit empty by that stage.
The rest were easier. Just wounds that would heal so the soldiers could go on fighting, although one of the men had his mother there and she started a monologue on how we shouldn’t have fought at all then so many people wouldn’t have been killed, that negotiation was always better than war and that our Leader was a fool. I didn’t know what to say so I just repeated something I’d heard our Leader say about honour and what that meant for us as a country, and as a people. The two of them listened, but I’m not sure they were convinced, and when I left I stood in the hallway for a while and thought about what the woman had said. And I knew I needed to find my own beliefs, my own words.
25th July
I was late back tonight because I stayed late with one of my patients, one of the soldiers. I could have stayed longer because he was so easy to talk to but the charge told me to go home. The man had a bullet wound in his shoulder and his arm was in a sling but he was in good spirits. He was due to be discharged in a couple of days. We talked about everything. The war and politics, even the flowers in the hospital garden. On my lunch break I took him for a walk down there and he picked me a bunch. I have them by my bed because they smell so sweet. Did I say he was from one of the northern units? I’d never met a guerrilla before but now I wish I had, especially if they’re all like him.
1st September
It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve been busy. But today I’m crying. Because tonight my life is going to end.
Soldier has to leave. He goes on Saturday. Only one day and he’ll be gone, maybe never to return. His shoulder is completely healed and he’s been recalled to his unit to go back to the war. I don’t want him to go, because he could be killed, and he said he doesn’t want to leave me but has to do his duty. Which makes me completely selfish and I keep reproaching myself for it but I can’t seem to think straight. I love him. He feels the same and the night we told each other we became lovers. And now he’s going and I don’t know what to do. I can’t live without him. I’ll go to him tomorrow. At least we have one more day.
20
I WAS AT home, in my bedroom, Husband in the kitchen making his breakfast, Eldest on the window seat. Hair a mess around her shoulders. Eyes fixed on the glass. On the view beyond. Eldest was a frequent morning visitor. Dragging me from my bed. Whisking open curtains even when the snow piled high on the sills and I complained it was cold. Because she loved the light. She loved the stark mountains and the trees edged with gilt bronze and the pattering rain that splashed the city’s pavements and the river that spiralled grey on its eternal quest. She loved watching the people of the city going about their business.
Eldest’s skin was flushed pink in the warmth of the room. There was a glow about her. It had always been the same and people used to remark on it. Her everyday normal was happy. A contagious love of life that hadn’t changed since the day she was born. A happy baby. A happy child. More content in Husband’s arms than mine. More content in his company. As if his seed had grown her alone and I was only the body necessary for her sustenance.
But now, as I looked back, I realised this glow had been different. I had been a fool not to notice. For the past few weeks she had been like a pot bubbling over with energy and life. But… the past few days that had changed. As if the pot had gone off the boil.
‘What do you think that man in the suit is doing?’ Eldest pointed to the street.
‘How would I know?’ I mumbled and pulled the blanket over my head. ‘You wake up too early, Eldest. Go back to sleep.’
‘But there’s so much to do, Mother. Why would you want to miss half the day sleeping?’
‘Because it’s early and I’m tired.’
Eldest ignored me completely. She usually did. Yet every day I tried.
‘I think the man is on his way to work. I think he works at a bank because he’s hurrying in such an urgent way and men who work at banks all think they’re more important than us.’ She laughed. ‘There’s an old woman waving at me, Mother. It’s Aunty from down the road. Good morning, Aunty, good morning.’
I peered from within my cocoon. She was waving back because that’s what she was like. Why people loved her. It wouldn’t have mattered if the old woman hadn’t been Aunty, she still would have waved. Still would have said good morning. And the recipient of the wave and the greeting would have returned it, because no one was immune to Eldest’s love of life. Not even me.
But then Eldest went silent. A silence that made me stir. I got out of my bed, knelt next to her and looked out over the city. The river was red, reflecting the morning light. The sun climbed later with each day that passed. As summer became autumn. The streets were busy as usual. Men and women in suits and cars streaming by and children on bicycles going to school and not far away a shop was cooking pancakes and the smell of shallots fought with the car exhaust in a daily battle. The shallots would win. I knew I would have to go to that place later and buy a pancake.
But Eldest’s eyes were no longer on the street. They were on a single man who stood immobile in the middle of the small park across from our apartment, at whose far side was the train station for our district. He was gazing up at our window. And Eldest was gazing down at him.
Now I knew who that man was. Knew why his gaze had held Eldest immobile. Why her light had dimmed like a cloth thrown over a lamp.
It was Soldier.
And it was the day he left her.
Soldier lifted his hand. Turned. Walked away through the park’s impossibly green trees, along paths lovingly tended by industrious hands, walked with steps that were brisk and sure. They hesitated only once, when he passed a memorial to soldiers who had died in an earlier war. He glanced at it, then kept on without looking back. Yet…yet I sensed he wanted to. That only the force of his will kept him going. Because he knew if he stopped he would stay and never ever go again.
Eldest watched him until he disappeared into the station. To catch the train that would take him back to the city’s heart and the journey to his army base and war. She kept watching. And when I looked at her there were tears on her cheeks.
