The Monster's Wife(76)

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve found kindling.”

He looked at her curiously, then put down his bundle of driftwood and scanned the rock face.

“Good.”

After that, they worked side by side, reaping grass and twigs from clefts in the sandstone. The man clambered higher and snapped off dried branches from ledges. When they had as much as they could hold, they carried it back to the cave. Oona found dry, flat stones and gathered them into her skirt. She brought them in and set them down, laying out a rough circle.

When she’d finished the makeshift hearth, the man laid out the larger pieces of driftwood, setting aside the damp bits, nestling the kindling inside it. He took two pieces of flint and struck them together until a spark hit the kindling. It started to smoke. Oona blew soft breaths, willing the embers to grow. A stick of driftwood caught and the yellow flames licked up, casting shadows around the cave, making strange shapes from their bodies as they knelt to warm their hands.

Oona looked at the man’s profile in the firelight. His lips were finely shaped and half hidden by his beard. His hood had fallen back and she could see the scars that ran jaggedly over his shaven head. His wide blue eyes were fixed on the fire. She touched his arm.

“What is your name?”

“Adam.” He said the word without looking at her.

“There’s a man in the Bible called Adam.”

Her cheeks grew hot, remembering the name Victor had called her by. Eve. She looked away from Adam at the walls speckled with crosses. A person had put them here, some lonely hermit chalking the walls, muttering prayers to himself; or a madwoman, grinding the Xs with her blunt knife and shouting loud to keep the Devil at bay. Prayers and cries had echoed through the tunnels of this cave once. And they would have to sleep here side by side.

“Are you the man that was coming for me?” She couldn’t say ‘my husband’. It sounded too strange.

He didn’t seem to hear her, but kept on staring into the fire. She remembered the purse with the knife and poison, Victor’s words: he’s a murderer.

“What happened there?” His voice was sharp.

She looked down to where he was pointing and saw the cluster of bruises spreading over her thighs. They’d darkened into sooty fingerprints. “Victor did that.”

“He hurt you.”

She said nothing.

He took her chin in his hand. “Look at me. Did the doctor do that?”

“Why should I confide in you when you won’t in me?” The tears ran down her face and splashed his hand.

He closed his fingers on them and she watched the salty water catch in the creases of his palm, then stood up so abruptly that she cringed back, thinking he might hit her.

Instead, he turned and ran at the wall of the cave, smacking his head against the cold stone, punching the hundred mad crosses carved there again and again, a low cry croaking up from his chest. His blood stained the wall. Oona hid her head, hands pressed to her ears. All she could hear were Victor’s words: if you do not kill him, he will kill you.





67


On the floor of the cave there was a large rock. Oona saw herself pick it up. She would feel the heft of it in her hands, the crevices inside it salty and damp. Her arms would strain as she lifted it above her head. When she brought it down on his soft nape, she would be released and when he slumped to the floor, she would have done as Victor wished.

The rock sat on the cave floor, waiting for her. Adam stood facing the wall, blood running from where he’d cut himself. Pale hairs gleamed against the golden skin on his neck.

She took a step closer. She should be bending, picking up the rock. The hair at his nape silvery white, like a child’s hair. Why weren’t her hands on the stone? He turned around and their eyes met. How blue his were. The blue of the sea roughened with winter ice. He brushed her fingers with his own before walking back to the fire.

She followed him and sat down, her hands clutching her knees, the hard rock digging into her haunches. She stared into the fire, feeling its heat like a reprimand for what she’d almost done. When Adam crouched low to pick up scraps of kindling that had blown loose, she saw the rock, the blood and imagined him dead. She shivered, thinking of the body growing cold, being alone in the cave.

Victor’s words echoed in her head – he will kill you. If it was true, why was he waiting? She watched him throw the dry grass onto the fire, tug his shirt off and wipe his cut forehead. His chest was covered with lines that ran from his neck and arms, meeting in the middle of his chest like knots of fishing net. Some were faint and white, some puckered and crimson. She scratched the place between her breasts where the stitches of her own scar prickled.

“Don’t scratch.” His tone was harsh. Maybe he knew what she’d been thinking of doing to him. Her hand dropped into her lap.

He looked down at his chest, scowling at the blackthorn branches of wounded skin. “Do these frighten you?”

She hugged her arms around herself.

“You have them too.” He reached for the neck of her dress.

She grabbed his hand hard. “Don’t touch me.” She squeezed his bones, crushing down, so easy to break.

He wrapped his fingers around hers. For a moment they arm-wrestled. She felt the sweat blushing to the surface of her skin, a film of it forming between them. Then he gained the advantage and pulled her to him, placing her fingers on the plum furrow where his arm joined his chest. He forced her fingertip along the scar so that she could feel how smooth it was. She tried to wrench her hand back, but he held it hard.