Whether Violent or Natural, page 15
‘But you did, daddy. You did.’ It is the truth and we both know it, though I can tell Crevan doesn’t want to acknowledge it as such, doesn’t want to admit out loud to having wanted to kill me for a moment there. So he’s an ingrate, so what? I’ve quite forgiven him now, quite forgotten what came to pass, quite prepared myself to accept his penance, which I dare say will amount to several days of being fussed over and cosseted, several days of him not being able to look on me except with rueful, hangdog expression. So I shall be magnanimous. I shall be kind. I shall be good. I shall remind him in the days to come that I didn’t take this out on him even though I could have, even though I would have been well within my rights to do so, and he shall be grateful and grovelling and beholden to me for ever and ever, amen. ‘But never mind that now,’ I say. ‘Because I don’t mind it a bit. How’s your poorly leg? That’s much, much more important. Let me take a look.’
It takes very little to coax him into place. At my encouragement, Crevan unbuttons his trousers and lets them fall to his ankles. Then he steps gingerly out of the crumpled pile and settles himself down just like before when he first got snared; his back against the sofa and his pale legs splayed out in front of him. I kneel at his side and carefully pull away the old, greying bandages, unwinding round and round and round. I notice the smell at once, like ammonia. Crevan says nothing, peering at the lesions circling his thigh where the barbed wire cut him, gently pressing his fingertips to the surrounding skin. The wound is weeping incarnadine; too painful even to look at, its brazen colour made all the worse by the frail pallidity of his surrounding flesh.
‘What do you think?’
He’s asking me even though he knows more about this than I do. And I know why. He doesn’t want to look. I can hear the edge of fear in his voice, the trembling yearning that I will tell him I think it’s fine, that I think the wound is healing well, that I think he’s on the mend and everything’s going to be all right. But he isn’t and I don’t. It’s plain for anyone to see that his leg is in a frightful state, plain for anyone to smell that he’s on the turn, already beginning to rot. Well, I can’t say that to him, not without having to spend the next three hours talking him out of his funk, out of his fear, bringing him round to the fact that there’s very little we can do.
‘I’ve heard it can be ever so hard to tell with these sorts of things sometimes,’ I say, as though I know what I’m talking about.
Crevan clicks his tongue. ‘We should make a record. There are some acetate sheets and things next door. Would you get them?’
I leave him where he is, sitting slack like a dropped rag doll with parsnip legs, and go to collect what he tells me is needed from the various boxes and containers all neatly stowed away on the shelves in the storeroom. It doesn’t take me long to find everything – acetate, cellulose film, a pen. By the time I return, Crevan’s finished cleaning out the wound and the smell of ammonia is stronger than ever, bad enough that I have to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose. But I am very good and do not recoil or retch, do not do anything to alarm him. I am as methodical and businesslike as can be. Following his instructions, I bind his thigh with cellulose film and try not to think how much it is like wrapping up leftovers to put away in the fridge and eat later. Concentrate, Kitty Kat. This is for Crevan’s sake, remember.
He tells me to layer one of the clear acetate sheets over the top of the cellulose film and then, very slow, very steady-handed, use the pen to trace around the edges of each lesion. When I am done, I unfurl the acetate and hold it up so Crevan can admire my handiwork.
‘Is that right, daddy?’
‘Yes. Thank you, Kit. That’s very helpful. Now we have a record of what the injury looks like. Tomorrow we’ll make another tracing – and the next day and so on. Then we can compare what the injury looks like in a week’s time with what it looks like now. We’ll be able to monitor the progress as the wound heals.’
If we’re lucky, that is; if it heals at all, that is. I do not say this. Instead, I print the time and date in one corner of the acetate, in my best handwriting, and cross to the galley kitchen to stick the tracing on the fridge door with a magnet. Then I return to Crevan to help him redress the injury, wrapping fresh bandages around his thigh. At last, the smell abates. Crevan gets unsteadily to his feet. I throw him his discarded trousers, which he pulls on a bit at a time and in ungainly fashion, shifting from leg to leg, easing the fabric up over the bandages inch by inch.
Fly buttoned, he groans heavily and then promptly collapses into the sofa, as though he has at last met his match in this final and smallest of tasks, and been utterly defeated. He is perfectly still, head thrown back, eyes closed, one hand gripping the armrest. There is not the faintest of flickering movements in his features; no flinch, no grimace, no shuddering juddering spasm or shiver or twitch. And yet I can see it all the same: the pain crashing over him, through him, the sharp jolts tearing back and forth between brain and thigh, the spreading, burning ache that hungers to devour him entire. How like Crevan to suffer in silence, how like Crevan to think this is what he deserves, how like Crevan not to ask or hope for relief. It’s all needless, quite mindlessly, moronically needless. I make loud tut and sigh then fetch him the little that’s required: a blister pack of ibuprofen, a glass of water. I thrust both into his hands.
Then, to soothe him further, I step to the galley kitchen once more. Hot, sweet tea; that will set him right. The blend is of my own devising: nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cardamom, cloves, star anise, and a few other things besides, all in their right proportions, all designed to clear the head and calm the spirits. I brew it strong and potent, pour it out into two cups and stir them both with amber honey. One for Crevan, one for me. I breathe in the fragrant steam, savour it, feel the spice hit humid on my tongue, on the back of my throat, the soft hum that sets up at the base and pitch of my skull. I stir and stir, the metal spoon clink-clink-clinking like chimes in the wind.
By the time I am done, Crevan has had six little pain pills and all the water. Good boy, all better now. I bring over the tea, press a cup into Crevan’s hands. He nods his thanks and nurses the hot ceramic against his stomach. Then I clamber on to the cushions beside him, twisting about so I can tuck my naked, bluing toes into the warm crevice between the seat of Crevan’s trousers and the seat of the sofa. How delicious it is to be scooped up here with him, huddled together between the armrests. I watch him, admiring the sharp blade of his nose in profile. Drink up, drink up. I down my tea in greedy gulps, not minding how it scalds the roof of my mouth, the length of my gullet. But Crevan is more cautious. He blows on his tea, and takes only a few slow sips and sups. Even so, I’m sure I see the tension start to ease from behind his brow and fade as the pain begins to ebb, begins to deaden and numb. It will be gone soon, diminished to no more than a faint twinge – if only he is patient, if only he stops dwelling on it. I must distract him, draw him out of himself. I remove a foot from its cubbyhole and thrust it into his lap.
‘Play with me,’ I say.
Crevan indulges on automatic, settling his teacup on the floor and taking my heel in his hand. Then he begins, pinching my big toe between his index finger and thumb. ‘This little piggy went to market,’ he says, making my toe wiggle back and forth, just like he’s supposed to. After the littlest piggy goes wee-wee-wee all the way home, I too put down my cup and we play ‘Round and Round the Garden’, ‘Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake’ and ‘Pease Porridge Hot’. For a moment, everything is just as normal, just as it was before, but when I start on ‘A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea’, Crevan holds up his hands and says he needs to pause and drink the rest of his tea before it gets too cold. And now I’m stuck, because I can’t insist that he carry on playing when I already insisted before that he have the tea. So I must just be good and let him drink up and not show that I’m annoyed. I nod and smile and swing around so I can sit with my back straight and my hands tucked beneath me and kick my legs up and down against the side of the sofa.
‘Aren’t you tired, Kit?’
‘Nope. Not at all. Not one little bit.’
‘It’s long past bedtime.’
‘I don’t care. I’m en-oh-tee not tired.’ I swing my legs quicker and quicker, just to prove it. I’m awake, I’m awake, I’m awake.
‘We’ve let our routine slide these last few days. It’s not good.’
I stop kicking my legs. It’s the first time since we dug her grave that either of us has spoken aloud – however obliquely – of the drowned woman, and I wish Crevan wouldn’t, wish he would just leave well enough alone. Because he’s invoked her now. Even without a whisper of her name (whatever that may be), she’s been summoned – I can practically see her looming over us, a dreadful spectre with rictus grin, hair dripping, dirt smeared on her hands, her face, her feet. And we’d been doing so well.
‘Is that why you don’t want to go to bed, Kit? Been having bad dreams?’
‘No. Nuh-uh. Not me.’ It’s not a lie, not exactly. I’ve had hardly any dreams since Crevan pulled the drowned woman out of the sea, and fewer yet since she died – since I killed her – but then I’ve hardly slept, so there hasn’t been much chance for dreaming, whether sweet or acrid foul. I just lie rigid on my mattress and try not to look down at her empty bunk. But my mind plays tricks on me, sometimes making me think that she is lying there still – no matter how I remind myself that she isn’t there any more, that her body is rotting in the ground out in the island wilds and far from the den – so I have to check, every once in a while, to see what’s really true. And then it’s worse somehow, the bunk being empty when I was expecting ... when I was expecting ... I don’t know what. Her body returned, undead. The time erased, unlived. The deed undone. ‘No,’ I say again. ‘I haven’t been having no dreams, not one.’
Crevan’s look is all disbelief, but there’s nothing he can do or say to prove otherwise. He stares into his cup, swirl-swilling the tea around, around, around until it becomes a whirlpool in miniature. ‘It’s important, you know, to keep a structure. There’s good reason for it. You have to exercise and take your supplements. You have to get enough sleep. It’s easier if you have a routine. That means going to bed at the right time, even if you aren’t tired.’
I don’t argue. I don’t point out that he makes us go to bed at just the wrong time, that he’s the one who’s made everything topsy-turvy, establishing this carnival order whereby we sleep when the sun is out and rise only with the moon. I don’t say that routine is for the rat-race, routine is for the before-times. I don’t say that if there’s any good to come out of the end of the world, it’s the sudden redundancy of the alarm clock. What good is keeping time? It will tick by all the same, whether we watch it or not, whether we measure it out or not. And we have no events to attend, no acquaintances to meet, no appointments to be punctual for. There are no demands on our time at all beyond what is required to live: to eat, to cleanse, to sleep. Why then may we not do these as and when we wish, as and when the need arises or grows most acute? Why may we not let our daily instincts and urges dictate our patterns, rather than the other way around? It’s arse-wise, is what it is. But Crevan always has been insistent upon it. We are not as the beasts, Kitty Kat, is what he means to say. We are not as the fox or the crow. We are not wild things to do as we wish and when. Which is all well and good – if that’s what Crevan needs to believe, then that’s his business. If it helps him get through the day, then I’m not going to criticise. But he has no right to project his odd dictums on to me as well. Whatever he may think, I am not under his dominion, not part of his domain. I’ll be wild if I want. I’ll be as the beasts are. I’ll be as the fox and the crow. Caw, caw, caw.
‘Do you ever think about what it’s really like out there?’
It takes me by surprise, takes me aback, takes me unawares. The question is a paper-cut, is scalding water come sputtering from the cold tap. I can’t believe he’s asking; can’t believe he’d dare when I’ve been so nice to him. I screw up my eyes and wrinkle my nose, feigning ignorance and playing the dummy. Scratching my head and looking as best I can like I can’t tell up from down, left from right, bad from good. I’ll get him to clarify, ask questions that carry with them an implication of the limits, an indication of just how far this discussion can go so that he’ll know – without me having to say outright and shaming him – that the boundaries are looming.
‘Out there in the storm, you mean?’ I ask.
‘Out on the mainland. Out in the real world.’ He does not meet my eyes and his voice is quiet. He knows; knows that he’s crossed the line, broken the rules. Else he’d be confident with me, else he’d be calm, else he’d be easy as ever and not rigid stiff like a new bristling brush. I must be firm with him now, cut him off before he can go any further, bring him back from the brink, turn him around on the banks of the Rubicon.
‘There’s nothing to think about.’
Crevan pauses at that, holding his tea still for a long moment before finally draining the what-must-now-be-tepid dregs in one big gulp. ‘You’re right. Sorry. Forget it.’
If only I could, if only it were so simple. ‘Consider it done,’ I say all the same. ‘Done and over with. Done and dusted.’
Silence falls between us. The issue may be closed, the thorny moment sidestepped; but we are not quite out of danger yet, not out of the woods. We cannot leave things like this, cannot let this hairline fracture between us settle and grow and yawn into a gaping chasm. But it is Crevan who must build the bridge, who must stitch the wound together; Crevan who must show his obeisance to me, to me, to me. I shall sit here quietly – not budging, not fidgeting – and wait for his gesture of goodwill, his offering of peace.
‘Do you think the storm did come?’ he asks at long, long last.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, squeezing his arm at the crook so that he will know he is forgiven, that his olive branch – such as it is – has been accepted. ‘If it has, probably it will blow itself out soon enough. Probably if we go to bed now like you want, then it will all be over by the time we wake up again. How does that sound? Would you like that?’
‘Yes, Kit. Very much.’
I put Crevan to bed. He comes meekly, slowly, limping-ly, allowing me to lead him by the hand; a frazzled, overtired child reluctantly glad that there is, in the end, an adult in charge, someone else to call the shots, to lay down the law, to enforce the order of the day, to make sure that all the little humdrum necessities do not get missed. So often it is the other way around; Crevan saying what we must do and when. It’s only fair that I get a turn now, only right that Crevan should have the chance to prove himself amenable and compliant. He’s in a bad way, poor baby. The least I can do is relieve him of the drudge, drear, drab responsibility of being the one to make all of the decisions – for a little while, anyway; until he’s more cheered, until he’s feeling more like himself, until he’s up to playing daddy once more.
Or until ... No, stop. Don’t think of it. Not even for a second, not even for a moment. It doesn’t bear contemplation – leastways, I cannot bear contemplating it, not without it settling its gross bulk upon my shoulders to buckle my spine and crumple me down to the ground, clamping clammy hands over my eyes, my nose and mouth ... no, no, don’t think of it, don’t dare. We cross the living room and pass the dividing screen. I am careful to make no comment upon the empty bunk, careful not to pause and stop and glance and check, careful not to give any credence to the ghost image my mind’s eye casts out on to the mattress, thin and empty, definitely empty, no doubt about it, so no point in looking. Quick, through the door and into the safety of the master bedroom, Crevan’s room, sombre as ever, save for all the little goblin men who smile out at us from the doors of the cedar wardrobe, frolicking happily amongst the carved vines and leaves. Crevan climbs into bed, fully clothed, and I pull the covers up over his shoulders. Then I hop up into the space beside him, scooting backwards to sit against the headboard. I stroke Crevan’s hair, smoothing down the red-gold wisps, soothing the fine furrows in his pale brow.
‘I could use a doctor, Kit.’
‘You’re the only doctor here. Or as good as. Leastways, the only one we’ve got.’
He tips his head a fraction to the left, a fraction to the right. No, that says. Not what I meant, that says. ‘That’s just first aid. A real doctor can do a lot more.’
I frown. ‘There aren’t no real doctors. Maybe once. But not any more. Not here. Not now.’
He is silent for a moment, worrying at his beautiful lip with his beautiful teeth; fearful that I am right, fearful that I am wrong. ‘Backbiters are doctors,’ he says at last, offering up this morsel as though it is news, as though it might be something I’d never known, never thought of for myself.
‘Backbiters are still evil. Nasty dangerous beasties. Everyone knows that. You’ve said so often enough yourself.’
‘I never said ... They aren’t evil, Kit. Just trying to help. And there are good backbiters. Ones who understand infection. Ones who are ... working very hard to get bacterial infections under control.’
‘It’s too, too late for that,’ I say at once. I know this game, I know how to play. ‘That horse has long, long gone. Long-ago bolted, long-ago died. They can flog it all they like. Won’t do no good, no good at all.’
‘They could help me, Kit.’
I stare. This is not how it’s supposed to go. What is he playing at? What does he mean by it? Pushing me like this? ‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ I venture, when I finally find my tongue once more. ‘You’re too tired for this, silly. Beautiful you need to get your beautiful sleep. When you wake up, everything will be better. You’ll see. Because it’s all right. I’m here. And I can help take your mind off things. I can ... ’ I cast around, trying to think of something halfway useful, halfway helpful. Then I hit upon it. ‘I can tell you a bedtime story! Would you like that?’
