Chapter 20
If not you, who?
This is how I saw the bear. We’d kept ourselves out of sight in the Bunker for two days since we’d seen the smoke in the sky with one of us, Cat or I, creeping out at dawn and midday and dusk to climb the Tower and scan the terrain between us and the distant ridge with the binoculars.
We were looking for more fires, more smoke, more Russians.
It was a futile task really, because anyone could creep up on us easily without ever having to come out from under the canopy of trees that blanketed the landscape.
I scoured the arc of countryside between me and where the distant fire had marked the sky with its plume of smoke, but I didn’t have much hope of seeing anyone travelling towards us.
Trees and vegetation had swallowed whole villages and small towns, toppling walls, bursting through roofs and then hiding them beneath clouds of leaves and if I couldn’t see the remains of villages or towns, I had little hope of seeing something as tiny as a person or a horse unless they lit another fire. Which, unhelpfully, they didn’t.
Cat agreed with me that it was an impossible thing to do, trying to spot us being crept up on.
But she insisted we locked in and hid nonetheless.
Hiding from something we couldn’t see was a sort of torture, like having an itch you couldn’t quite reach around to scratch.
It got worse the more you thought about it, but you couldn’t help thinking about it all the time.
Also, I don’t like being locked in when I can’t see out.
I never minded being in the tank, for example, because I could always see out of it.
Cat was worse than me and got instant claustrophobia in there which was how it became my special place and not hers.
Which brings me back to the bear and how it was me who saw it: Cat and I had decided we could go out of the Bunker as long as we kept close, stayed hidden and were careful not to make any noises that might attract attention.
We still thought that fire might as easily have been a lightning strike as meaning what Freya feared it did, but as Cat pointed out it if it was Russians, it was a big world and they could easily have passed, missing us even though they might have come close by.
Or maybe they had been going north, already past us, heading away, and anyway we couldn’t sit in the Bunker for ever.
We agreed we’d stay alert and sort of slowly ease back into our normal routine, keeping our eyes open and, most importantly, keeping the dogs inside since they were the one thing that could range beyond our control and betray us.
I had made a better collar for the new dog and one for Digger on the first day we locked in, but I didn’t trust him not to bark, so we’d only taken Digger outside to do her business, and kept him tied at the back of the room where the floor was cracked and gravelly and the dog-pee could soak away.
I cleaned up after him and made sure he ate as much of the rabbit meat we fed Digger as she did.
The girls thought that a dog peeing inside was bad enough, but Freya especially objected to the smell of his dogshit even though I threw it outside as soon as I saw it.
Which was only twice. I think he was embarrassed to have to shit in such a public way, if a dog can be embarrassed.
He had such a haunted look of shame as he did it that I felt bad for him.
You should get rid of him, said Freya.
I’m not going to kill him, I said.
I’ll do it, she said. Give me a knife and I’ll do it while he’s sleeping. He won’t hurt.
She looked at me. She was smiling to try and make it seem better, but her smile hung uncertainly on her face and made it worse.
I know you don’t want to hurt him, she said. You’re soft, Mouse. But the dogs are dangerous. The dogs will give us away.
Not if we keep them inside, I said.
The dogshit smells like the worst thing in the world, she said. I want to be sick as soon as I smell it. You have no idea how bad it is. They’re bad for the babies too. Dogs are bad things. Not clean. We don’t need them.
I looked at Cat who was sewing her rain cape, keeping out of this for the moment.
You should get rid of them both. I tell you, the dogs will betray you. Especially that Digger—
I’m not killing a dog, I said. And I’m not going to let you do it either. And especially not just because you don’t like a smell.
She sat and stared at me. I can see her clearly in my mind even now.
We were all sitting round the kitchen table.
Storm bouncing a baby on her knee and making faces at it, looking younger than she normally did.
Happy even. Freya was leaning back in her chair with one hand holding a baby strapped to her front and the other slowly rotating the little peeling knife round and round.
Her eyes were even flatter than normal. And even though there was a candle on the table between us, by some trick of the light they didn’t reflect the flame at all.
They were just like little black pools of contempt.
And suddenly the only thing moving in the room was that knife going round and round in her hand catching the reflection of the candle flame.
Digger will betray you, she said. I know things.
I exchanged a look with Cat.
You don’t know much about dogs, I said. Digger’s a good dog. Storm was right. Not her fault the Russian captured her. Wasn’t her choice, was it?
“Don’t tell me what Storm thinks, she said. She’s my sister.
Her eyes bored holes in my face. She grunted in disgust at what she was seeing.
You’re soft, she said. And you don’t know anything.
Stop it, said Storm quietly.
He doesn’t know anything, said Freya. He thinks the dogs like him because they’re nice. He’s too soft to realise they just tolerate him because he feeds them. And he’s not just stupid enough to be fooled by two dogs, he thinks like a baby. He is like a big soft baby.
Cat was fast, as I said. I didn’t even see her begin to move.
All I saw was a blur and Freya’s hand was empty, and then snatching for the knife that Cat had plucked from it, too slow to stop her as she reversed the blade, and chunked it into the tabletop next to the candle, which wobbled with the impact.
The only babies here are those two, and you, she said. Because even though you’re a mother you’re not grown up enough to know the difference between kind and soft. And that makes you the stupid one too. Mouse saved you. Both of you. Me too. Mouse is kind. Not soft.
I didn’t ask to be a mother, said Freya. And I didn’t ask him to save us—
And there it is, said Storm. There it is.
Cat and I watched the two sisters locked in a glare with each other.
In some ways they looked like copies of one another.
Both their faces were set like still water when it hardens up in winter, but only one of them leaked silent tears.
Even at the time I thought they were streaking their way through the grime on the wrong cheeks.
Storm wiped them away with an irritable smear of her coat sleeve.
It’s the kindness that she can’t forgive, she said.
And even though she was still looking at her sister, I knew she was talking to me.
She can’t forgive that, any more than she can forgive me for not being the one he picked she said.
Freya reached over the table and slapped her hard. Storm just took it. Barely broke eye contact for the microsecond the blow took to twist her head off centre.
Both babies started crying.
Hey! Cat said, already halfway out of her chair.
Do it again if you like. It’s OK, said Storm, still looking at her sister. If it makes anything better, if it makes you feel better do it again.
There was a pause, as if Freya was weighing up a dare.
Do it all night, said Storm. Go on. Keep doing it until you’re better…
Freya slapped her again. I could see a tear fly sideways in the candlelight. Storm barely blinked. Cat lunged for Freya’s hand but Storm was faster, catching Cat’s in mid-air and holding it there.
You can hit me as much as you like, and as long as you like, said Storm. You can do it until whatever mean thing gripping you has gone, and the real you comes back.
Freya slapped at her again but this time I was fast like Cat and stopped the hand a finger’s width from Storm’s face.
Stop it, I said. Just stop it.
Or what? Freya spat.
I could feel her arm wriggling like a river eel, trying to get free.
Or nothing, I said. I’m not threatening you. I’m too soft for that, remember? I’m just telling you. It’s time to stop this.
Her elbow wrenched back and forth as her dark eyes burned into mine. I didn’t feel frightened. I didn’t feel threatened. I just felt sad in a way that made me feel very very tired. I nodded towards Storm.
You don’t hit her. She’s your only-one, right?
Something clouded across her eyes. She shook her head. Trying to clear it away.
You only get one-only one, I said. You look after them. You don’t hit them.
She just stared at me, like her willpower was trying to bore its way through that cloud that surrounded her.
Only-one? she said in a sneery way that made it sound weak and childish.The babies wailed louder and louder. She shook her head in disgust.
You are soft, she said quietly.
But her arm went limp and I let it go. We all watched her as she slowly looked around, glaring at each one of us in turn, doing some kind of calculation in her head and deciding the answer wasn’t nearly enough.
Then she just shrugged and got up and walked off into the place in the shadows where her bed was.
Storm just sat there, slumped defiantly into herself. I mean, I don’t know if you can slump defiantly. Maybe you can’t. But she still got very close to it.
I pulled the knife out of the table and stood up.
What are you going to do? said Cat.
Put the dogs in the far bunker, I said. Beyond the library.
Because it’ll keep them out of her hair? she said.
Because it has a lock, I said, tossing her the knife.