Chapter 27 #2
She shook her head. She didn’t just look physically beaten up. She looked like she’d been struggling with the impossible inside her head so hard that it had had left her exhausted and run out with not much else left to give.
How did the eye happen? I said.
She hunched her shoulders like she was trying to slough off the answer to that.
She didn’t know I’d seen her, she said. And when I ran over to get the babies, to see if she was hurt, to get them out of the bed and away from her, she tried to stop me.
She was thinking again by that time. She was her good self, her real self, enough to be ashamed.
I didn’t want to be taking them, but I had to and she was shouting that I was always spying on her and that I should take my hands off the babies, and then she hit me with the tray I brought her lunch on.
She hit you with the tray? I said.
It was just the first thing that came to hand, she said.
And then she scratched my face trying to grab and stop me as I scooped the babies away.
And then she just collapsed, like all the bones in her body went soft and bendy all at once.
Then there was a lot of crying. Then sleep.
Then more crying because her breasts were full, and the babies were crying too because they were hungry and the goat milk wasn’t enough and it’s been like that since it happened.
She’s teary and feeding like it’s a grudge and I think everything that happened, everything that Russian fucker did to her was enough to break anyone’s spirit.
The miracle is that she didn’t let it for such a long time.
Cat looked like she was going to tear up again, but she wiped her face angrily and set her jaw.
But what she did to the baby, what she knows she did, what she is now terrified she is capable of doing?
Well, that, Mouse, that is what has broken her.
For now. She broke herself, even though it’s not her fault, and maybe she can mend herself, and maybe we can help her mend.
But she is broken right now, by having seen herself cross that line, to be a danger to the babies.
And now… we don’t have enough goats. In fact we have one less than we used to.
You don’t know she’s a danger, I said. Not for sure. She could be OK if we…
I do know, Mouse, she said.
No, I said. Cat. That’s just a fear, I mean it’s a reasonable one but it’s not certain.
It was suddenly very important that Cat was wrong in her certainty, because if she was right and Freya was done with the babies, my failing to bring back more goats to milk was going to kill them.
You can’t know you’re right! I insisted and it sounded weak even as I said it.
She reached out and gripped my upper arm, staring fiercely up into my face.
I can, Mouse, she said. I can and I do know, because I nearly did it. I nearly did the exact same thing.
You nearly hurt the babies? I said. I don’t believe you! That’s…
I nearly hurt you, Mouse, she said.
And now, finally, the tears that had been dammed up behind her eyes began to leak out and ribbon down her cheek. But it was just her face crying. Her voice remained steady as the sun in the sky.
You don’t remember because you were the baby.
I was the scared kid, and much younger than Freya, and there was only us and the goats, and you just wouldn’t stop crying, ever.
And your face was hot and red and throbbing and I didn’t know it was your teeth coming in.
I thought I’d broken you. By mistake. By doing something wrong, or not doing something I should have known to do.
That my mum would have known. And I was scared and exhausted and alone and I got angry and I grabbed you by both arms, just like I’m doing now and I shouted at you, Mouse.
I shouted so loud it was like a hit, like I was hitting you, and I wanted to shake you so hard, I wanted to shake you until you stopped because I couldn’t think what else to do and I think no sleep for days had made me a little mad.
A lot mad, in fact. Like Freya is now, not totally mad, but mad enough to be a danger, I was so, so close to doing what she did…
But you didn’t, I said.
I was close enough that it makes no difference, she said. Close enough to understand her. To have a clue about how she would be feeling about what she let herself do. OK?
There was a long silence.
Now, what happened to the goat? she said.
I opened my mouth to reply, but she shook her head.
No. Tell me while I look at your hand, she said. Let’s get you inside where it’s clean.
I caught an arrow, I said.
That stopped her.
Whose arrow? she said.
Storm’s, I said, looking over in the direction of the library bunker. But she wasn’t trying to shoot me. She was trying to hit the dog.
Dog? She said. What dog?
It’s a long story, I said. But it’s also how we lost the goat.
Cat was appalled by the sight of my hand when we unwrapped it, so much so that she didn’t really seem to take in the details of our disastrous trip into Stitch Country, and made me tell it again from the beginning once she had satisfied herself that the wound was as clean as we could make it.
It took a while, but we didn’t see Storm until I told the story twice and went out to check on the babies, to find her sitting with them both in her lap, awake and happy and drinking goat milk bottles. She looked up at us. Cat glanced towards the library bunker.
She’s asleep, Storm said. She’ll be OK in the morning.
Even at the time that sounded like a lie, or maybe hope that desperate just always sounds like a lie.
Did you tell her about the Russians? Cat said.
No, she said. She wouldn’t have taken it well.
Good, said Cat. That’s good. Are you OK?
I’m fine. And really sorry I lost the goat, Storm said looking at me. We’re going to need it. I don’t think she can…
Worry about that in the morning, Cat said, shaking her head, kind but itchy-twitchy at the same time.
I knew what she was doing. She was already trying to fix everything, stacking all the worries in the right order in her head, being methodical so she wouldn’t panic at the size of the pile, figuring out which one needed dealing with first and then planning to take them off one by one until the pile was gone, or if not gone reduced to something that she could stand back and look at and believe we could conquer in time.
I know that’s what she was doing because it’s how she taught me to deal with things.
They called it triage in First Aid and Safety for Dummies and triaging was what Cat was doing right then.
It wasn’t something I could do better than her, so I let her do it, knowing that it would calm her and that her choices would be better than mine.
I leaned back on the bench, closed my eyes, and tried to ignore the mad itching in my bandaged hand.
I felt a weight lean against my leg and found Digger’s head with my good hand.
I buried my fingers in her fur and for a moment allowed myself to enjoy the relief of getting home and being back with Cat.
Touching the dog didn’t help the itching but it did root me back in what seemed to be, at the time, the safe soil of home ground.
We still had a pile of worries, but somewhere out there, if I opened my eyes, I knew I’d see Cat figuring it all out, and that would be good.
What are you smiling about? Storm’s voice cut into my moment of relief, sharp-edged and flinty with accusation. I didn’t open my eyes. Determined not to let her spoil it.
I’m happy, I said. Happy to be home.
She snorted and started to say something.
Storm! said Cat. Just for once try and…
I’m sorry, said Storm.
It wasn’t the fact that she’d apologised for something that made me open my eyes in surprise, it was the speed with which she corrected herself and how her voice sounded as she did it, as unfamiliar as the words coming out of her mouth.
She sounded rushed and panicked and so much smaller than she usually did.
And she even looked smaller and somehow different too as her gaze flicked back and forth between Cat and me.
There was something in that flailing look of a person drowning and looking for something they might be able to hold onto and save themself.
I’m just scared, she said.
I didn’t have to look at Cat to know we would both be looking as surprised as each other. This was not something we’d ever heard from Storm.
Did you tell her about them? she said to me.
We’ll worry about that in the morning, Cat said.
They were heading north—I began but Cat put her hand on my arm.
She’s scared for Freya, she said. What she might do to herself. Not the Russians you saw.
Storm just nodded. Head down. Cat had triaged her problems too.
We’ll work it out. Together. All of us, said Cat. We won’t let her come to any harm. I promise you.
Storm nodded, trying to believe her. She even managed what was, in the circumstances, a small brave smile. It was a moment of shared kindness and it left a warm glow that lasted all of the ten seconds that passed until another voice said:
Russians? You saw Russians?
We all looked round to see what appeared to be the shadow-eyed ghost of Freya leaning on the door frame, staring back at us, horror-struck.