“Emotional but uplifting. I felt the grief and exhaustion of the mother, but also her need to keep believing and hoping…”

 

I scrape another egg, another tiny life, another fresh beginning away. And I tell myself I’m doing the right thing.

The orgy of caterpillars writhe and squirm all over the meagre swan plants. It’s fascinating, but also revolting. They roll over one another in their greed to lay claim to the last leaves. They butt heads, they chew through leaves, and cause others to fall to the ground as they eat the leaves from underneath each other. It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the greediest, the biggest, the fattest. First in, first served.

Around me is the trail of their destruction. Swan plants once full of life have been chewed down to bare stalks, standing like lone flagpoles, barren of any green flag.

My daughter is on the swing that hangs from the balcony’s rafters. But she’s not swinging, she’s watching the chaos of caterpillars. Her brow wrinkled up like a little old person, and I can tell she is on the edge of a big announcement. I wait patiently for the pearl of her five-year-old wisdom to drop.

“I think they’re stoopid,” she finally proclaims, drawing her o’s out.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because there’s too many. But they still come and lay eggs.”

As if to illustrate her point, a monarch butterfly gracefully flutters around us before choosing a bare swan plant stalk, bereft of any leaves, upon which to lay her precious egg, her tiny life.

“See,” she says with five-year-old satisfaction. “Stoopid.”

She’s right, of course. The butterfly should see there are no leaves on the swan plant to sustain her tiny egg once it hatches. She should also see that there are well over a hundred caterpillars in this area, already competing for food. She should see all that and lay her egg elsewhere, but she doesn’t. She chooses to lay it here. I shake my head at the butterfly’s foolishness.

“Yes. Stoopid,” I concur with my daughter. She’s far smarter than I.

 

I never set out to be a caretaker of caterpillars. It just happened. A few years back, at the plant store, my daughter wanted a small swan plant. She toddled up to me and my husband, her hands clutching the small pot. It had a cute little picture of a monarch butterfly, showing the potential of what could be – if you just bought this plant.

“Yeah, why not,” we said. Not realising that the little plant would be barely enough to feed one caterpillar, let alone the fifty eggs that would be laid on it.

In that first year I couldn’t bear to scrape any of the tiny little white eggs away. They each represented to me the promise of a butterfly. A life. A precious life. I thought I was being compassionate. But now I know I was the stupid one.

That year we ended up buying more than twenty swan plants. Not for their prettiness. But as sacrifices to the ravenous mouths of our caterpillars. “Here, feed,” I would say as I proffered them the sweet, milky leaves they needed. And the plant would be gone, wiped out within a day. They always needed more sacrifices for their insatiable appetites.

#

My daughter and I walk hand in hand to a friend’s house down the street. I have my secateurs with me. It’s a rescue mission of sorts. Here their swan plants grow lush and green, even flowering. They appear untouched by greedy tiny mouths. Butterflies hover, drawn irresistibly to the lush greenness and lay their eggs. But none of those little lives seem to survive, for my friend’s swan plants are a war zone. Torpedoes of wasps grab young lives and praying mantis march through, claiming the rest. There are no survivors. It’s not safe to raise a life here.

My friend lets me cut large branches off her swan plants while our daughters play together. She looks on, sipping her tea thoughtfully, watching me. The plant’s milkiness pools on my secateurs like a mother’s milk.

“Still raising caterpillars then, Angela?”

“Yup. We’ve about a hundred this year. Twenty are already in chrysalis. Just need to try and get the rest along.” Even as I say it, I know some won’t make it. I’m their General in Command, expecting fatalities, but if we can come home with most of our boys alive that’ll be a good thing.

“The wasps always get ours,” my friend says with disinterest. She’s not concerned whether her caterpillars live or die, she’s merely an outsider observing nature at its cruellest. “Take whatever you need. Glad to see you’re doing okay.”

That word…  Okay. It flutters in my head, with wings. Am I okay? 

I turn around to reply, but she’s gone back inside. She doesn’t want to know. Perhaps it’s better not to know.

#

I carry the wilting swan plant branches back home. My daughter skips alongside me, humming a song. I remember it. We used to sing it together. I don’t join in, I don’t feel like singing. But I’m… okay, I tell myself.

My daughter stops skipping, she turns, her face too serious. “Mum, what would happen if we didn’t feed them?”

“They’d die,” I answer truthfully. Although the truth hurts. The whisper of death on my lips feels wrong. I don’t want to talk about death.

“So we help them?”

“Yes, we help where we can.”

My daughter is oblivious to the responsibility on our shoulders. A hundred little lives relying on us to feed them. The power of life and death, a mere swan plant away.

“Mum,” her little brow furrows. She points to my bulging tummy. “Does the baby eat you?”

I can’t help but laugh. The sound takes me by surprise, it’s almost foreign, as if it was a mistake from my mouth. “No darling, the baby eats what I eat.”

“And what if you run out of food? Like the caterpillars. Then would the baby eat you?”

“No. I’m not going to run out of food. The baby won’t eat me, but it grows every day. Do you want to feel?”

She shyly places her hand on my ripe belly and is rewarded with a soft kick.

She smiles and runs off, humming that song again. The song is like a distant memory from happier times.

#

A fresh round of unpaid bills greets me at the letterbox when we get back home.

“Anything for me?” asks my daughter cheerily. Her pigtails bouncing.

“No, all for me, sorry.” I dump them on the hall table with the other unopened bills, so they can make acquaintances. Rent’s due. Electricity’s due. Car repair bill. All still unpaid. Credit card overdue. A letter from Baycorp. Final Demand. Let them all talk to each other, and sort themselves out. I know what they all say without even opening them.

I move to the upstairs balcony where the caterpillars are waiting for me. The last of the swan plants are struggling under their writhing mass. Some of the caterpillars have gone AWOL, they’ve given up and have moved on, looking elsewhere for food, but they won’t find it. Others I can see are finally sated, they’ve had their fill and have been promoted to the next stage where they hang upside down in little “J” shapes waiting to turn into chrysalis. For those, I can breathe a sigh of relief; my job is mostly done. It’s only if their chrysalises fall that I’ll need to carefully pick them up and glue gun them back on.

Here on our little balcony, there are no predators. My caterpillars do not live in a war zone. No torpedoes of wasps. Instead in our little community of caterpillars, the problem is population. The resources have been stripped bare, consumed and pooped out.

My daughter sits on her swing again and watches as I place the newly cut swan plant branches in water bottles, and move some of the caterpillars to their new food. The fresh food seems to perk them up, their little black antennae quivering.

“Will they make it, Mum?” she asks.

“Most will,” I answer honestly. I don’t want to talk about the others. The ones that will curl up and die. Or the chrysalises that grow black with death and no butterfly.

“You’re okay, aren’t you Mum?”

Okay. It’s that word again. But this time it’s a question. Am I okay? My daughter’s looking at me, expecting an answer. I can’t give her the truth.

“Of course,” I lie. “Never better.”

She swings back and forth, watching me.

#

It’s the next day. The budget lady is here. I missed my appointment, and she’s come to my house. I suppose that’s nice in a way, that she cares, but I’d rather she didn’t.

“How are you, Angela?” she asks, and she looks at me: belly swollen, feet swollen, hair unwashed.

“I’m doing fine,” I reply. “I’ve been busy with the caterpillars.”

She gives me a look. Caterpillars are not a normal topic of conversation.

I continue, to try and explain, “We have about a hundred of them this year. Twenty-three in chrysalis at the moment.”

She pushes her glasses back as if she’s trying to see me better.

“But how are you, Angela?” she asks, ignoring my caterpillar comments.

“I’m… okay.” The word falls off my tongue landing oddly. The budget lady looks around. She sees the dirt, disorder, and dust collecting and collating themselves like the unpaid bills on my hall table. She sees the mess I’ve become. She knows I’m not okay.

“How are you, really?” she says. Persisting. Pushing against the walls I’ve built up.

A brick falls down.

“I’m tired.” I pause.

Another brick falls.

“I’m pregnant.”

Another brick breaks loose.

“I’m broke. And I… and I miss him.”

More bricks tumble as I say the words.

I’ve said enough to keep her happy, but I haven’t told her everything. I haven’t told her how sometimes I cry myself to sleep. How I don’t care what I look like anymore. How I wish sometimes the life inside me had not been created because there are too few resources on this swan plant to care for a baby. I’m only a stalk now. I don’t tell her these things, and I don’t cry. I keep those walls up.

“And, Helen, how is she doing?” the budget lady asks.

Helen. My lovely Helen.

“She’s at school. Doing great. A smart cookie. Helps me with the caterpillars.” It’s my attempt to bring the caterpillars back into the conversation, but the budget lady doesn’t take the bait.

“We can help you, Angela. Let us help.” She speaks softly.

I want to yell. I want to say the magic word: okay. That I’m okay, that I’m doing okay, that everything is a-okay. Doesn’t she know I’m okay? I want to tell her to leave, that I don’t need her help, and to get off my property! 

But I can’t.

I’m… struggling.

I need…

help.

“Thank you,”  I finally say. “I… I’d like that.”

A wall of bricks comes crashing down.

#

I’m putting Helen to bed, kissing her goodnight. I’m so tired that I could climb in right beside her soft, little body and sleep for an eternity. Wake me up when it’s all over.

“I miss him, Mum.”

Part of me wants to say, “Who? Who do you miss?” as if I’ve forgotten him already. A distant memory from better times. Is it better to pretend he didn’t exist at all?

“I know. I miss him too.” Every day, I add to myself.

“But he’s in here, isn’t he?” and she puts her hand on my tummy. On the life we created, him and I.

“Yes, and he’s in you as well.” It’s true, I see him in her. In the little slow smiles. In her pearls of wisdom that she drops everywhere. She’s just like her father.

“Will we make it, Mum?” she asks, like she asked about the caterpillars.

Will we make it? I wonder. I think of the budget lady today. Help is coming. Financial help. Food packages. A cleaner. And dare I say it, a counsellor, one for me, and one for Helen. All the help we need. A swan plant in the nick of time.

I smile to make up for the fact that I’ve taken too long to reply, and give the only answer for a five-year-old, “Yes, we’ll make it.”

Helen smiles and hums that song again. Something inside me begins to melt, and as I leave her room I find myself humming along too.

#

It’s a new morning. The life inside me moves. It needs feeding. I need to feed. But first I want to check on the caterpillars. I open the ranch slider, and there they are. Awake, already munching. There are only forty or so left now. The rest are in chrysalises or hanging in little J’s.  It’s a good survival rate. I feel better today. I feel… hopeful.

I’m about to go back inside when I see a flicker of movement. Our first monarch. Freshly emerged. It hangs upside down against the weatherboards, drying its wings. It’s perfect. Two black dots on its wings. A male. And it makes me feel like all my hard work was worth it. I stroke my belly.

Helen, all sleepy-eyed, comes out to the balcony. She comes in close and hugs me.

“It made it!” she exclaims when she catches sight of the butterfly. I smile and pull her in close.

“Yes, it did.”

“But we had to help it,” she adds.

“Yes, it needed a little help.”

“Sometimes we need a little help,” she says, and she hums her sweet song, dropping another pearl of wisdom.

THE END

“I enjoyed the tension, the detail, but especially the humour and the way the under-dog found his own way of winning…”

 

A bag of fencing foils weighs more than you’d think. They look like spindly little things those blades, especially when they’re bunched together, and the foils, well OK they are, but the épées and the sabres, they’ve got some heft to them; you can do some damage with those. So once you chuck them in, plus the other stuff half the kids will forget—like the spare gloves and the wires and a lamé or two—well, that bag weighs a bunch. And when you’re hauling it out of the back of a Ford Escort, and lugging it across a wet car park in the rain, to a run-down school gym you had to pay over the odds to get at short notice, it doesn’t get any lighter.

But that’s what you get for being a coach.

He’s soaked by the time he makes it to the side-access door. The familiar odour of sweat and dust and toilet cleaner hits him as soon as he shoulders his way inside. He heads down the unlit corridor, one hand tracing the wall, until he finds the alcove that leads to the gym. He stops in the darkness, kit bag still slung across his shoulder because it’s less effort than dumping it, groping around for the row of light switches. His fingers run into the panel and he flicks them on—tock, tock, tock, tock—then turns to watch the row of lights thunk towards him from the far end of the gym, each beam snapping down from the rafters with a slight, almost begrudging delay.

He sighs at what he sees—desks and chairs, everywhere.

“Fuck’s sake.”

A perfect grid of them, left out from an exam. He lets the kit bag slide from his shoulder, hitting the floor with a dusty thud, then gets to work. If there’s one thing you need to teach pre-teens to fence, it’s space—a shitload of space. He’s still got over half the desks to clear when Dax sidles into the gym. First one here, head down, fringe in his eyes, toes of his trainers scuffing past each other. He’s a good kid, harebrained and a little on the short side, but God love him, he’s a trier. Just as well. He needs to be. Tonight’ll be a tough one.

Dax mumbles a small hello and then comes over to help without asking if he should. It’s quicker now there’s two of them. Not because there’s less work to do, but just because it goes quicker that way. He makes a point of thanking the kid once they’re done.

“That’s OK, Coach,” Dax says, a little too formally, but it’s what they have to call him.

He gives Dax the nod to go change, then unzips the kit bag and calls after him, “Hey, you got your glove?” holding a spare one aloft.

Dax grins back, “Course I do.”

And just like that, the evening feels a little brighter.

#

Thirty minutes later, they’re all here. A row of kids, in a mishmash of fencing kit, looking at him (well most of them looking at him) to explain what they’ll be doing for the next hour and a half. There’s a gallery of outfits on display—from the baggy Lonsdale joggers to the full starter set by Leon Paul, RRP £655. All kinds of kind. And it’s what you’d expect—most fencing clubs at least try to present as come-one, come-all. The taster session is free, like a half-open door to a bright new future, and the dues won’t cripple anyone to begin with. But sooner or later the kids start dropping out, and it tends to be the ones with the LP threads that stick around. Why? Mostly because learning to advance and retreat down a piste is boring and exhausting and makes you look like an 18th century bitch posing for a portrait; front foot, rear foot. Ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum. It’s a special kind of torture that a lot of kids will only put up with if there’s a tiger mum waiting at home with both barrels loaded full of I-don’t-want-to-hear-about-it. And say what you want, but those wives tend to have well-to-do husbands. The kind that can shell out the best part of a grand for a set of junior whites. So it’s hard to blame the other kids for bailing, especially when they don’t get to swing a sword on someone before lesson three.

All that aside, these kids, the ones he’s left with—twelve out of twenty from the starter course—they’re starting to show some grit. They parry-riposte on instinct. Their footwork is smooth and cross-over free. They know a beat from a balestra. So it’s time to treat them. Time for their first box night.

To have a real fight, you need a box. You need the kit to score the bout: the wires, the lights, the scoring system—aka the ‘box’. It’s not the first time these kids have gone up against each other, just the first time it’ll count. And that makes a difference. You never forget the first time your light flashes green, theirs red, and the raised hand of the referee signalling that yep, you got right of way, and how your opponent nearly always looks down at their chest, totally forgetting in that ‘ah-shit’ moment that the swords aren’t edged. It’s the feeling of triumph, really; sounds cringe, but it is. It’s one of the few reasons he’s still here, coaching in an old gym that smells like Toilet Duck, and wanting good kids like Dax to feel it too. To feel a just sliver of agency in a world that tells them they’re essentially fucked. Doesn’t mean it comes easy though. There’s no hiding with a box, nothing to sugar coat it. Green you win, red you lose. And you never really know how fast you are until the electronics tell you to your face. Of course, the match-ups decide a hell of lot too—it’s one-on-one, knock-out, winner advances to the next round, loser goes home.

He can see that the kids have an idea of what’s coming. They’ve clocked the way the gym’s been set up. They’re peering down the line, sizing each other up, pinning their hopes on an easy starting match-up; anything but going out first.

As it turns out, the hardest match-up was also the easiest to pick. That’s because only two kids chose to learn sabre. So they have to go up against each other. They’ll do one bout in front of everyone then switch back to foil for the rest of the evening. Which two? Dax and Hugo, of course.

Hugo’s a prick.

A coach isn’t supposed to think such things about his students, but it’s true. There’s a rumour going round that one of the younger kids left the starter course after Hugo called him a ‘fucking peasant’—but they could never get to the bottom of that. Of course Hugo’s also best in class. By a long chalk. He’s one of those Leon Paul poster kiddies. The full seven-hundred-pound kit and caboodle. He’s probably got older brothers who fence at private school already. That would explain where he’s picked up this god-awful habit of screaming ‘Et là!’ after every hit. He sure as hell didn’t get it from this coach. And to make matters worse, some of the other kids have started copying him. Not Dax, though. No way he’d lower himself to that kind of circle-jerk. Even so, hate to say it, but Hugo’s better. Way better. Which is what makes this match-up stick in the craw. He’ll wipe the floor with Dax. Five-nil, easy. The kids call that a pantsing. And they’d probably try to make Dax drop trou if it were up to them. Might still.

Best to get it over with.

“OK. Dax, Hugo, you’re up.”

#

Dax is breathing hard behind the wire mesh of his mask.

It’s hot as hell in full fencing gear. You’re four layers deep on top: under-shirt, plastron, jacket, conductive lamé. Three down below: socks, leggings, breeches. Add your glove and your mask and you’re just about ready to hit the Arctic—and then you’re told to prance about like a jackrabbit. Everything feels hotter still inside your mask, the heat of your breath, your vision cut off at the sides, your ears muffled like your head’s wrapped in bandages. Must be how a racehorse feels with the blinkers on.

Dax can’t seem to take his eyes off Hugo. It’s like when someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant. He looks enormous, Herculean. Just standing there, idling on the sidelines, resting his mask on his hip, cracking jokes with the hangers-on, ignoring Coach, letting everyone know that this bout starts, and finishes, exactly when he wants it to.

Dax breaths harder.

It’s all he can hear inside his mask.

The sound of the air whistling in and out of his nose.

#

Coach sighs. The kids are dawdling as usual. Hugo chatting shit; Dax a million miles away.

Time to get things over with.

“Come on you two,” he snaps at them. “Let’s go. I’ll ref it.”

Dax and Hugo finally square up on the piste. They tap blades and nod to each other in a salute that doesn’t last a second longer than it has to. Hugo, a head taller, barely looks at Dax before turning around and walking to his end of the piste. It’s so obvious he’s showing his back to Dax, even though it would be ridiculous to walk away backwards. They both check their wires and then bounce on their toes before dropping into their stances.

Coach gives them the starting signals.

“En garde.”

Swords up.

“Prêt.”

Legs brace.

“Allez!”

Hugo shows zero hesitation.

He all but sprints down the piste towards Dax. His big feet slapping down; front foot, rear foot, front foot, rear foot. Dax is back-peddling, just trying to get away. But he’s running out of space, eating up the piste, and the single worst way to lose a point is to step off the back end. It’s a chickenshit move that the kids on the sidelines will never let him live down. But then Hugo stops on a dime. It’s so unexpected that Dax, in an attempt to reverse his momentum, stumbles forwards and all but drops his head into Hugo’s lap. Hugo brings the tip of his sabre down like the flick of a conductor’s baton and casually bonks Dax on the front of his mask.

Hugo’s light flashes green.

“Et La!”

Hugo says it like such a total prick that Coach almost docks him the point for taunting. He’s even more tempted to do so when he sees Hugo slip off his mask and look around with a duck-lipped smirk all over his face, waiting for the rest of them to clap him on. But honestly, it’s not a red-card offence, and a referee can’t be seen to play favourites.

The point stands.

One – nil, Hugo.

No surprises there.

“Get your mask back on, Hugo.”

Fighting sabre is different. It just is. For one thing, you hold it like a real sword, not like a water pistol. More importantly though—unlike foil or épée, where you can only poke each other—you can slash and stab with a sabre. So it tends to be over quickly and the aggressor usually wins. Coach has got a soft spot for any kid who picks it. Well most of them anyway, but especially a small kid like Dax who only has it harder for his lack of reach. If he can just find the balls to come out guns blazing every single time, he might get out from under this with a face-saving 4 – 1.

Might.

The other thing to know about sabre is that it relies on right of way rules: ties are settled in favour of whoever makes the first move. That leaves a hell of a lot room for interpretation on the referee’s behalf, so Coach could throw a few easy points Dax’s way if he wants to. And part of him does want to. Even if it’s just to see Hugo not get what he wants in life for a change. But he can’t do it. He’s been on the wrong end of more than his fair share of bad reffing calls; he’s seen kids’ spirits crushed by genuinely crooked officiating.

So it’s a no.

Not even for Dax.

Round two.

Same words to kick them off.

En garde. Prêt. Allez.

No charge from Hugo this time. He just stands tall, smooth as a willow at his end of the piste. Then he has the gall to lower his blade and beckon Dax forwards. And so Dax, God love him, does just that—and all but runs onto Hugo’s sword. Hugo sees it coming a mile away, takes one baby-step backwards, slaps aside Dax’s clumsy lunge and then whacks him upside the head like he’s snapping a wet towel across his arse cheeks.

“Et la!”

The crack of the hit echos around the hall. A real head-rattler. The sideline kids go nuts, whooping it up.

Coach can’t help but flinch. At the hit, at the taunt, at the reaction.

It’s a solid hit though. Solid as it comes. Flat counts. This is sabre after all.

Green light, Hugo.

There’s a full-blown strut in his stride.

Two – nil.

#

Dax is really burning now.

It’s not just the heat of the gear any more. It’s the shame of it. That’s two bad hits he’s taken and he knows it. Two ways to get gelded in public. Three off becoming a full-time eunuch. He feels like a kid in a circle of kids all of them yelling ‘fight’ because they want to see blood.

He whips his sabre through the air in frustration as he walks back down the piste, staring hard at the floor.

Get a fucking grip, he tells himself.

But the next two rounds are workman-like.

No need to even talk about them.

Et là!

Et là!

Four – nil.

Panic sets in.

#

For the fifth time in a row, Coach watches Dax and Hugo face off from either end of forty feet—almost certainly for the last time.

Dax shakes his head, mask sliding side to side on his shoulders, bounces on his toes a little harder this time.

Hugo looks on, effortless, light glinting off his pommel as he flicks it this way and that as if he’s got better things to do with his time.

Coach gives them the nod and the words, and they’re off.

This time they both have a full head of steam. One fighting for his life, the other looking to finish it. Right of way’s going be a bitch to call if it comes down to it. Blades raised, they thunder towards each other, unstoppable forces on a direct collision course. Two strides from impact, Hugo brings his rear foot forward and explodes towards Dax in a flying lunge, sword-arm outstretched, body near horizontal, suspended in the air like a high diver about to go vertical.

The point of Hugo’s blade arrows towards Dax’s head.

Sometimes in life it’s not so bad to be short.

Dax drops into the splits and tilts his body off to the side. Hugo’s sabre whistles over the top of Dax’s mask—millimetres off a hit—and at the same time Dax winds up his sword arm, cranking it back like a heavyweight drawing on a haymaker.

Now here’s the other thing about sabre, the blade—well the top half at least—it’s got some wicked bend to it.

As Hugo sails by, Dax lashes him across the back of his leg, leans into it like he’s cracking a whip into the meat of Hugo’s hamstring. The strike sounds like the whap of a carpet beater.

Hugo shrieks—howls—and then his body slams into the floor like a sandbag tossed off the back of a truck.

Dax picks himself up and strolls back towards his end of piste. Just as he passes Hugo he mutters, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Et là, prick.”

Coach has got no choice.

Everybody saw it. The way Dax cranked his arm back. The way he intended to wound.

So he pulls out the black card.

Dax doesn’t turn. He knows it’s coming. Just keeps right on walking, past the end of the piste and towards the locker room, leaving Hugo writhing on the floor with both palms wrapped around his leg.

Technically, a black card means disqualification.

So not a five – nil, after all.

And the way Dax ended that one—well, nobody’s going to call it a pantsing. Not on Dax, anyway.

#

Later, on the ride home, Dax pipes up from the passenger seat, “You mad at me?”

He watches Coach think it over, who then says, “Well, I guess there are worse ways to earn your first black.”

The corners of their eyes meet and then Dax nods and looks away. He leans his head against the window, watches the rain slide down the glass. Something on the radio fills the silence. In the reflection, he sees Coach adjust the position of his hands on the steering wheel, then hears him say, “Felt good though I bet, when you said it back.”

Dax cracks a half-grin.

It did feel good, and so did the hit—but he’s not sure he should say that part out loud. So instead he says, “What the fuck does ‘et là’ even mean?”

Their eyes meet on the full this time.

A moment’s hesitation and then, like a taut thread snapping, they both fall apart laughing.

It’s impossible to tell one laugh from the other.

THE END

“The bleakness gradually and skillfully exposed… left me pondering, which I like at the end of a story.”

 

With each step, Nell feels the coin-sized bit of cold through the hole in her sock. She is in the tiny uncarpeted room where her dad puts all the things he doesn’t need but can’t bring himself to throw out. It is Nell’s favourite room, the room with the books that all look alike, stacked in a pile between bags of her dead sister’s things. Her dad isn’t at all interested in the books. In fact, now she thinks about it Nell can’t recall him looking at them even once.

The books are beautiful and important-looking. She treats them with something approaching reverence, even though they are as utterly mute to her as she herself is to the world. When she takes one from the pile, she only knows it’s the right way up by the pictures. She used to like the pictures best—drawings and photographs of everything you could imagine. But she has looked at them so often she is tired of them. Now she prefers the rows of little figures that appear with them, one after another.

They fascinate her.

One of the little figures looks like two saw teeth joined together; another looks like a saw tooth on its own. One is just a little circle and another is like it but with a bite taken out of it. Two figures have dots floating above their heads. Two have straight tails going down, and they seem to be looking at each other, as if in a mirror. And another two look just like them but the other way up.

Nell likes to draw them on scraps of paper.

w v o c i j p q b d

Sometimes, Nell copies them out, the way they appear in the beautiful books.

e n c y c l o p e d i a

She wonders why there are so many different little figures. And why so many of them lined up together? What do they mean? They must mean something.

Nell’s dad has pieces of paper with figures quite like them; he keeps them in the tut drawer in the kitchen with the dead batteries and used carrier bags. They don’t have any pictures, these pieces of paper, and they don’t have nearly so many figures as the books. There is a lot of white space around them, and if she squints a bit, the figures look like groups of people in the snow.

She takes one of the pieces of paper and copies some of the lines:

c i a l    s e r v i c e s

a    f a l l

t w e l f t h    f l o o

 

Nell has been putting her finger in the hole in her sock and twisting it. Doing so makes it seem as if the hole is no longer there, but when she removes her finger, the hole is all stretched and looks worse. The hole has gone from the size of her thumbnail this morning to more than three times as big. When her dad sees it, he is sure to say:

‘Fuck’s sake, Nell. D’you think I’m made of money?’

He will likely slam a door in his anger and go to the fridge for a beer. But in the time it takes him to drink it, he will cool down, and then he will scoop her up and hold her to him, her head pressed against his prickly beard.

‘I’m so sorry, Nell,’ he’ll say, and bring her hand to his mouth and kiss it.

He always does so after flaring up—especially since they lost Tracy.

 

When her dad is angry with Nell, she thinks of her mum; she thinks of when there was another pair of arms to run to. But her mum is in prison for non-payment of fines, her dad says. And then she beat someone up in prison, so she has to stay there. She has been gone so long, Nell has to think very hard to remember her mum’s face. And the only photograph of her is pale now and colourless, the sun having bleached out her mum’s features since it has stood for so long on the windowsill.

She is looking at the photo when the cat comes and curls up at Nell’s feet. There used to be two cats, Billy Fury and Eddie Cochran. They often fought over their food because there was seldom enough for them both. Then, one day, Eddie Cochran killed Billy Fury. He bled out by the telly from a bite hole in his throat. Now Eddie Cochran eats a whole lot better because half the cats means twice the food.

Sometimes, when Billy Fury and Tracy were still alive, they were all hungry—all four of them. The cats used to steal Nell and Tracy’s food, to snatch it from their plates and hide with it under a bed, and sometimes the girls stole theirs. Sometimes Nell and Tracy would fight over food, even cat food. But being the older of the two, and the biggest, Tracy nearly always won out. And of course, Nell didn’t complain—had no way to complain.

 

Nell nearly jumps out of her skin! There is someone, a woman, at the door. She pokes open the letterbox with her finger and calls for Nell’s dad. She says she is from Southend Social Services. And when she gets no reply, she calls for Nell.

‘Nell? Can you hear me, sweetheart?’ She sounds worried and a bit angry. ‘Look,’ says the woman, ‘it’s really important that I speak to you. Can you open the door for me, sweetheart?’

K a t o m e a t    H e a r t    R e c i

 

Before she went away, the woman pushed something through the letterbox. It is lying on the mat. The piece of paper looks like the others that her dad keeps in the kitchen tut drawer. And then, a minute later, Nell hears the grumble of the lift along the corridor.

Her dad left the front door unlocked once, and Nell slipped out. She got as far as the lift, where a man showed her which button to push. Her dad told him to step away from her and the man stood back, his open hands upturned.

‘Jesus, mate! Keep your fucking hair on!’ he said. ‘I’m only trying to help, yeah?’

‘She don’t need your help, you understand me?’ said her dad, and he took Nell by the wrist and hurried her back to the flat.

‘Where do you think you were going, girl?’ He shook her a bit.

Unable to answer, Nell shrugged.

‘Look, I’m sorry, Nell,’ he said, ‘but there are people out there who might take you away from me. They might come unexpected, like, and carry you off.’

And Nell knew this to be true—people had come and taken her mum away.

‘You mustn’t never leave me, Nell,’ he says. ‘Not never, you hear me?’

A b i d e    w i t h    m e,    f a s t    f a l

 

Nell likes to look out of the living room’s big window. The block where she lives with her dad is one of four arranged about a central square of concrete paths and big triangles of scruffy grass. It is not a complete square; there are gaps at the corners where people come in and out. There are countless other windows in the blocks, just like the one she is looking from. She can see into them, see the people who are living their lives beyond them, and they must be able to see into the window where she is standing—perhaps someone is looking right now.

She likes to gaze up at the almost-square, constantly changing of sky. Sometimes it’s blue, and sometimes grey or white. Sometimes yellow or pink. At night it’s black—and often with the moon making the clouds shine.

There are two trees in the square, which their flat looks down on. They are bare right now because it’s winter. Birds are crowded in them, and their singing rises like the bubbles in her dad’s beer. Nell likes the birds, the trees, the square of sky. They make her wonder how the world can truly be the scary place her dad wants her to believe it is.

Perhaps her dad has good reason to think as he does. His head has been pretty scrambled since Tracy died. Nell sometimes hears him answering the questions in his mind out loud.

She has a photo of her sister. The two girls are together, with the sunny curtainless window behind them. Nell has her chin cupped in her hand. Her sister is poking her tongue out. Nell remembers it was taken two winters back, after Christmas. There are some figures on the back of the photo.

N e l l   +    T r a c y    1 9 7 2

 

Her dad takes medication every day. But not because he is ill. No, not for any illness, he insists. He is grieving, he says.

‘Can’t I grieve in peace? I mean, can I not? What with my girlfriend in prison and having to cope on my own, hold it all together on my own? Can’t I be left to grieve in peace, for fuck’s sake?’

He takes his pills with his beer, which makes him fall asleep halfway through his chow mein. He has slept in his armchair most nights since Tracy’s fall. Nell and Eddie Cochran watch him and wait. The chow mein never goes to waste.

Nell can hear people in the corridor beyond the front door—footsteps and talking in the day, and shouting and arguing and doors being kicked in at night. Some of the voices she has learned to recognize. Nell wonders where the people are going—the owners of these voices. Or where they’ve been? Where, she wonders, do people actually go?

She has only ever left the flat three times—that she can remember. Her dad took her to the doctor once when she burnt her hand on the grill and the scab went green. Another time, soon after the visit to the doctor, he took her out to avoid social services when he got wind that they were coming to the flat. And the third time was two weeks ago, for Tracy’s funeral. Nell and her dad stood with a couple of other people in a big room with tall windows, and those who could sang a song from a small, blue-covered book.

f a s t    f a l l s    t h e    e v e n t i d e

Nell was wearing Tracy’s coat, with the cuffs turned up a bit. Before she left, she put one of the books in her pocket.

Sometimes Nell thinks she might forget the sound of Tracy’s voice. It grows dim and fades away a little each day. Eventually, she will forget it—she knows that much. And they will both be silent forever.

 

Nell forks out the remains of last night’s chow mein for Eddie Cochran and makes herself a sugar sandwich. There is no hot water, so she boils the kettle to wash the coffee scum off the morning’s cups. The square of sky is black now, and the birds are songless in the wiry trees.

The telephone rings. Nell watches it for a while, waiting for it to stop. When it keeps on, she picks up the receiver and holds it to her ear.

‘Mr Stone, is that you? Are you there?’

It sounds like the woman who spoke through the letterbox.

‘Or is that you, Nell, sweetheart? Can you tap on the phone to let me know it’s you?’

But she might be one of the people who want to take her away. There are people out there who might arrive to carry her off when she’s not expecting them. The woman is still talking—‘Can you tap to let me know you’re okay?’—as Nell replaces the receiver.

 

She keeps the photograph of her sister under her mattress, together with a pair of Tracy’s socks, and bits of paper—tin labels, old envelopes, Rizla packets—for drawing the little figures on.

a a r d v a r k

a a r d w o l f

d e a t h    o f    a    c h i

l i b r i u m     c h l o r d i a z a p r

She has discovered that toilet paper is no good, too soft and weak, for copying figures onto. And anyway, she needs toilet paper for clearing up after the cat—when she remembers to.

Eddie Cochran shits all over the flat—under the sideboard, under the beds. It smells bad for a while, until it dries out. And the cat food smells too. And so do the unwashed bedsheets with their overlapping brown stains, worn into holes at the corners. And then there’s the smell of her dad’s roll-ups, which clings in the weave and grain of everything. To be honest, most of the time, Nell doesn’t even notice the stink. Until, that is, she takes a couple of gulps at the open window. Then the air in the flat seems disgusting by comparison, and really thick, like she could lift her feet from the floor and be held suspended in it.

Her dad doesn’t like Nell opening the window—for obvious reasons. But even when it’s cold, she likes to crack it an inch or two. The fresh wind comes from the sea, over the rooftops, and moans like a ghost. But a man’s ghost, not Tracy’s. No, it doesn’t sound like her at all. Though it would be fitting if it did.

 

Nell has one of the beautiful books open on her dirty knees, when bang! There is a massive thump at the front door, and the cat flees into her dad’s bedroom. The door crashes against the hallway wall, and then she hears voices, grown-up voices. The woman again, with a uniformed policeman.

‘Mr Stone? Nell?’

There is nowhere to run to, no way to escape—and nowhere to hide. The beautiful book slides from Nell’s lap.

The woman looks around the flat as if she has mislaid something. While she goes to each room, leaning in at the doors and putting on any of the lights that work, the policeman inspects the window that Tracy fell from. He checks to see how far it will open, whether it has to be pushed hard or would swing wide at even a child’s touch.

The woman searches the fridge and the kitchen cupboards and finds only Special Brew, sugar, stale bread, a misshapen lump of dark yellow butter, and a tin of cat food with a fork standing in it.

‘What do you eat, Nell?’ the woman asks.

Nell points to each item in turn.

‘You eat cat food?’ The woman seems shocked.

Nell has no gesture for ‘yeah, sometimes’, so she just shrugs.

The woman leans to her. ‘I’ve something important to say, Nell, and we could really do with your dad here. Where is he right now, sweetheart?’

Nell mimes riding a horse.

‘Ah, he’s at the bookies.’ The woman speaks over her shoulder to the policeman. ‘He’s a gambler,’ she says. ‘Probably an alcoholic, too.’

‘Why doesn’t she answer you?’ says the policeman. ‘Is she an idiot or something?’

‘She’s mute—since birth.’

The policeman’s lip curls as he looks down at the filthy carpet, at the matted cat hair, trodden-in food, and cigarette burns. He frowns at the big dried black stain by the telly.

‘And does your dad often leave you alone?’

Nell thinks of nodding, but something tells her it would be better not to.

‘Did he leave you alone that day Tracy fell from the window? It’s really important, Nell. Was it just the two of you in the flat that day?’

Nell looks nervously at the policeman and, noticing her discomfort, the woman suggests that he might wait at the front door.

‘The thing is, sweetheart…’ She turns her head to the window. ‘A gentleman has come forward. He lives in the block opposite. He witnessed the incident.’

c i a l    s e r v i c e s

a    f a l l

t w e l f t h    f l o o

But Nell doesn’t like remembering what happened to her sister, doesn’t like recalling Tracy sitting at the open window smoking a roll-up stolen that morning from their dad’s tobacco tin. She doesn’t like remembering Tracy lying crooked and tiny in the scruffy grass between the two wintry trees. And the uncomfortable thought returns—one that came often before Tracy’s death—that half the children means twice the food; means an extra pair of socks, means a warm coat she will grow into, means a bedroom to herself. Nell hopes the woman won’t ask her about any of it.

‘Your dad has said consistently that it was an accident, sweetheart, but…’

Nell shrugs again and turns her gaze to the floor. She wouldn’t say what happened—even if she were able to.

t h e    d a r k n e s s    d e e

She shivers. The night has brought cold with it. Much more than coin-sized cold, she thinks—all-over cold. She climbs onto the settee, her arms tightly crossed, and sits with her legs straight out, her soles towards the woman. The woman’s gaze drops to Nell’s foot. Nell is embarrassed because the woman surely cannot fail to notice the hole in her sock, all stretched as it is. Even though they are a bit big for her, Nell would certainly have changed into Tracy’s socks had she known that this was the day people would come to take her away.

 

THE END