This Monstrous Thing(47)
“Oliver always got up to stupid things just to be daring, like nicking sweets and sneaking us into places we shouldn’t be. He had to touch everything we were told not to touch. Climb whatever said ‘keep off.’ That sort of thing. It got more serious when we got older. I bailed him out of jail twice. And he was so bleeding impulsive. Once, when we lived in Brussels, Oliver and I went to school, but everyone was mean because they knew what our family did. One boy threw rocks at me in the yard, so Oliver pushed him down a stairway and he broke his collarbone.”
“God’s wounds,” Clémence said. I couldn’t decide if she sounded horrified or impressed.
I tore a chouquette in half but didn’t eat it. “The headmaster asked us what had happened, and Oliver said we’d been acting out the Bible, and he’d been playing God.”
Clémence laughed. “I’m not sure if that’s gallant of him to look out for you, or stupid.”
“Both, I suppose. He was reckless. It’s a miracle he survived as long as he did.” I stopped and took a quick drink, but that deep, permanent ache that came with talking about Oliver had already surfaced strong as ever. At some point, wasn’t this meant to stop hurting so badly?
“Are you all right?” Clémence asked.
“Yeah, it’s just . . .” I scrubbed my hands through my hair. “You know how when you’re a child, you think you’re never going to die? You’ve survived everything so far, so you don’t realize that’s going to stop. I never felt that way. I was always so aware that I wasn’t indestructible—I suppose that’s a side effect of living in the world we did. But it never occurred to me that Oliver might die. He was half of my whole life, and no matter what happened or where we went, no matter how shitty things got, there was always the two of us. I always had him.” The candlelight reflected in the surface of my wine rippled as I worked my fingers around the mug. “And then, the week before we left Paris, Oliver cut his knuckles boxing when a man threw a bottle into the ring. It got infected, and all the travel and the sleeping on cold floors and not having enough to eat really knocked him over. When we got to Lyon, he could hardly stand, he was so ill.”
I remembered it suddenly, clear as water—how pale and shaky he’d been, the slick fever sheen in his eyes, how I’d had to hold him on his feet as we stood in line to get our papers stamped because they wouldn’t let us on the boat if they knew he was sick.
When we were finally on board, Father pulled me aside. He looked very serious. “We’ll be in Geneva in a few hours—Geisler will have a place for us to stay once we get there. But you need to keep Oliver awake until then. He’ll want to sleep, but you can’t let him.”
“You should tell him,” I said, but Father shook his head.
“He won’t listen to me.”
“I don’t think—”
“He’ll listen to you, Alasdair. He always listens to you.” He clapped me once on the shoulder like it was all ordinary, but his fingers went tight just for a moment, and I felt their print in my skin even after he let go. “Keep him warm and keep him awake.”
Oliver was already below deck, curled up against our trunks with a blanket across his knees. When I sat down beside him, he pressed his forehead against my shoulder. His skin was burning. Then, like he’d overheard my conversation with Father, he said, “I’m so tired, Ally.”
My heartbeat jumped, and I said quickly, “Well, stay awake.” He moaned and I added, “Recite something for me.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Rubbish. Tell me something from Paradise Lost.”
I felt him take a long, slow breath. “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?” he murmured, then fell silent. When I looked over, his eyes were closed.
“That’s good,” I said loudly. “Is that Shakespeare?”
He opened his eyes. “That’s Milton, you ninny.”
I knew that, because he was in his phase where he never shut up about Milton, but it seemed the only sure way to rouse him. He was so sick and pale at that point and I couldn’t remember a time I’d seen him that way.
Somewhere, from a distance that felt like another world, I heard Clémence say, “Alasdair, you don’t have to talk about this.”
I wrenched myself back to the present and looked across the table at her. She was watching me like she was afraid I might shatter. “I’d never thought about it,” I said. “Not until that moment on the boat trying to pretend I was just keeping him awake when really I was keeping him alive. And suddenly I realized that someday I might have to live in a world without Oliver. That one of us might die young and it might be him. I’d thought about dying, but never about being left behind, and that was so bleeding terrifying.” I could feel something in me starting to fray, so I put my head in my hands and held it there for a long, deep breath. My throat was tight, but I didn’t cry. I was afraid if I started, I’d never stop.
Clémence’s fingers brushed my arm. “Alasdair.”
I tried my best to rearrange my face into something like calm, but when I looked up at her, I still felt shaky. “I can’t hand Oliver over to Geisler.”