The Monster's Wife(82)
“I feared for you before, but now I believe you’ll survive long after I’m gone.”
She bit into her half, her throat thick before she even swallowed, her heart heavy with what he had said, the sense that soon it would all be over.
74
Peat was stacked in one corner of the byre. As night drew in on them, they gathered up the dried sods along with tangles of spilled hay and piled them on the circle of ash. Oona watched Adam strike stones until they sparked, his large hands cupping the flame to the tinder and making the peat start to smoke. When the first flame licked up, she went to him and took his hand. She did not know whether they would sleep, but more than sleep, she wanted to feel him warm and naked against her again, to take comfort in him.
She slipped her hands under his shirt, running her fingers over the puckered scars. She looked up at his face. His eyes were moist. She pulled him close and kissed the tears away, hearing a sob catch in his throat. He held her tight and kissed her, his tongue meeting hers, their breath growing faster, their strange hearts keeping time with each other.
A twig snapped. They fell from each other. He pressed his finger to his lips and tiptoed to the byre door. She peered round him and saw the silhouettes of a dozen or people or so in the twilit field. Perhaps they had been there for a long time, watching. Or they had spent the day following the small signs she and Adam had left in their wake without knowing it. Whichever way, they were there now, their breath riming the air, each step drawing the net tighter.
“Stay.”
She shook her head. But before she could stop him, Adam was off and out, a pale outline in the dusk. The shadows chased him up the hill. She heard him cry foreign words into the night. Like the jack hare, his shape whittled down and vanished from view.
She peered into the empty field, alone with the vicious beating of May’s heart. Her legs tensed, ready to run after him. Stay, he’d said. She heard her own voice murmuring as if it was someone else speaking. Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Adam was tall and strong. He could snap a man’s neck like a wishbone. But there were a lot of them and Victor was wily and knew things before other people dreamt they might happen. She turned and stared into the fire. Between the flames, there were sharp tongues whispering death. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. She turned round and ran through the door.
Her feet flew out from under her. Someone grunted. A knee pressed into her back. She smelled bitter chemicals and wine and cologne. Victor. He knelt into her spine, pressing the breath from her, crushing her into the ground. Her fingers scrabbled weakly in grass and dung. Her vision blurred. Something was in front of her, a pale thing, cupped in a palm. A smooth stone from the beach, the kind you might use to beat sheets and shirts in the burn.
“The most ancient tool of all.” His breath was on her neck. “Cavemen used them, Eve…and you dropped a rock like this one on the beach when you…when you were engaged in that terrible act of Selbstmord, of self-annihilation, trying to wash away your original sins, your Biblical sins in the sea, the great sea that forgives all, cleanses all things. An elemental force, like lightning, something to dowse the spark I put in you. All my ingenuity in making you and my genius so near to being wasted.”
Spots of pale light danced on the stone. Her chest burned. For thine is the kingdom...
“A prayer?” He spoke softly. “Dear Eve, have you learnt nothing from your work with me? Do prayers seem to you to be as useful as science, as the great experiments we did? This is a brave new world we have created, you and I. And in it, Oona, God is dead! There is nothing up there except for the stars…those blazing stars that are millions of miles away and down here there is only us.” His lips pressed the back of her neck.
She flailed behind her, nails catching his breeks and scoring them. He grabbed her wrist and pressed down hard on her bones.
“Please don’t struggle so. It breaks my heart to see you waste your greatness on that…creature.”
Whimpering, she tried to pull her hand away. “If he’s a creature, so am I.”
“True,” his voice had an edge to it now. “To the primitives on this island, you are abominations. They have Adam, tied hand and foot. They are nought but savages and they will hang him up and burn him for their amusement while the moon is high, as in some ancient ritual. You are worth more than that, even if you do not know it. You are the only thing, perhaps, the only thing I have ever done right. Which is why I must…please understand…you must be out of their way when they kill him. You must…” She thought she heard him whisper Amen.
The cool force of the beach stone struck like a storm wave falling. Her thoughts swam down the current of the burn and out to sea.
75
Song woke her, the strident trills of birds singing out of tune. She needed to make water and now she’d have to inch out of the covers and cross the freezing floor without waking Granny, who sometimes slept late on a Sunday. She’d lay fresh peat sods on the fire to boil the water for their meat because the bannocks in the cupboard were stale. The light pinched her eyes. It was cloudy-bright, as if Granny had forgotten to pull the curtains closed, and the birds were too loud, singing inside the croft.