Читать книгу The Last Family in England - Matt Haig - Страница 29

whimper

Above the wind outside, a high-pitched whimper was coming from Charlotte’s room. And a smell. The familiar fragrance of Adam’s naked feet. I watched, through bleary eyes, as they stopped in front of me. His toes twitched. Some sort of decision was clearly being made at the other end of his pyjamas.

He leaned towards Charlotte’s door.

‘Lottie?’ he whispered.

No answer.

‘Charlotte, sweetheart. Are you OK?’

Another whimper.

He gently pushed her door open. She was sitting up in bed, clutching a corner of duvet. The scent in the room was familiar. It had been there the night when Grandma Margaret had babysat and threatened her with a wooden spoon (which I am sure would have been used without my intervention). It was there when Hal had screamed at her and told her, in a primal moment of sibling rage, that he would come into her room in the middle of the night and throw her out of the window. And it was there when she had discovered, not so very long ago, the first traces of blood in her knickers and been too frightened and embarrassed to tell anybody. Apart from me.

But now, if possible, the scent was even stronger.

‘Oh, Charlotte, baby,’ said Adam, sitting next to her on the bed. ‘Come on, don’t cry.’

Charlotte’s arms rested heavy on her lap and, although we were close by, she seemed to be completely on her own. Transported to a separate world of sorrow.

Adam felt this too and realised words wouldn’t be enough to bring her back. He wanted to comfort her. Touch her, hold her.

He hesitated. Rubbed his face, tired.

There were less areas he could go for now. Since her body had started to swell her towards womanhood, he’d been very careful. Although this was a particularly difficult problem to identify with, I did sense his anxiety as he sat next to her, his hand hovering above her knee, trying to remember where her neutral zones were.

Eventually, he went for an arm around her shoulders. It was awkward, at first, and we half-expected Charlotte to flinch away. She didn’t. Instead, her head reluctantly fell onto Adam’s chest as she began to convulse with grief.

‘Grandpa,’ the word was muffled, but the despair in her voice, and her scent, was all too clear.

‘I know, Lottie,’ said Adam.

I had a feeling of complete powerlessness. There was absolutely nothing I could do to amend the situation, or even to make them feel better. The Pact does not equip you for those moments. The moments when pain is present without danger.

But still, I wanted to help.

I cared for them, that was the thing.

Until that moment – watching Charlotte as she buried herself in Adam’s pyjama jacket, trying to make everything go away – my concern for the Family had neatly translated as adherence to the Pact. Yet there I was, outside the scene I was smelling, unable to have any influence.

But no: these are thoughts I am having now, sniffing back. At the time, I did not doubt the Pact. I felt confused, sure, and wanted to make things better. There was no disloyalty though. I was still learning; there were things I didn’t know. I didn’t fully understand the dual nature of pain, that as well as tearing Families apart it could also bring them closer together.

And of course, even knowing what I know now, even after having committed those horrific deeds, there would still be nothing I could do. Nothing to stop the sad-smells.

‘What’s happening?’

It was Kate. Realising her question needed no answer, she too moved into the room and sat on the bed. Charlotte, immediately comforted by her presence, lifted herself up from Adam’s chest to snuggle herself into her mother’s.

‘Why do people have to die?’ asked Charlotte, drying her face with her hand. ‘It’s so unfair.’

Kate swallowed her own grief and glanced at Adam. ‘I am sure that wherever Grandpa is now, he is looking down on us all, right as we speak.’

‘No, he’s not,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’s gone for ever. We’re all going to go for ever. There’s nothing else.’

Faced with this new realisation, Charlotte looked as though she was on the verge of being sick. Both parents hugged her now, while Hal could be heard leaving his bed to head for the bathroom. There were pissing sounds, quickly drowned out by the loud flush of toilet water.

Moments later he was also sitting on his sister’s bed.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t cry. He didn’t join in the huddle of grief next to him. In fact, to the untrained nose he may have seemed too tired for any emotion at all. But as I went over and sniffed him, as I tried to cancel out the scent of his boxer shorts, I could detect a deep and stifling sadness smell as heavy as the others’.

His parents continued to comfort his sister.

‘Come on, Charlotte, you’ve got to be strong.’

‘You’ve got to make Grandpa proud.’

Eventually, and with one hand still resting on his daughter’s back, Adam turned to Hal and asked if he was OK.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he responded. ‘I’m really fine.’

The last ‘fine’ was almost inaudible as a heavy gust of wind pushed against the window. Hal smiled, resilient, but in his eyes there was something else. Something which wouldn’t be hugged away. Something which suggested the darkness and growing threat of the world outside, beyond the Family.

Beyond my protection.