Читать книгу Magpie - Sophie Draper - Страница 11

The horse moves with a fast, rhythmic pace, its broad back swaying beneath its rider’s legs. I watch them pass the giant shrubs of rhododendron that block out the light. Their buds are almost pink and the leaves are almost black, gleaming in the cold, steady rain.

They ride on, beyond the gardens. Into the woods. The mist hangs low over the canopy of trees, lingering with the reluctance of the newly deceased floating over a still warm bed.

The reservoir is visible now. Not far. I hear the water lapping and the ducks calling to each other in the reeds. A pheasant hurtles from the banks, a flash of red, shrieking, guttering, the sound bouncing along the shore like stones skipping across the water.

The young man’s head scrapes across the ground, the weight of it dragging on his neck. I can almost feel the pain that must be spreading across his body, his shoulder blades and back. Each thump and drag of his head erupting like fireworks behind his eyes. I feel it as he feels it, as the rider slows the horse to a walk. The lad tries to lift his head, only for it to fall. His body lurches into movement as the horse moves on, pulling upon the rope.

He is like a stick floating on a stream, stones and earth, the lumps in the ground forcing his skull up and down, buffeting him this way and that. Black mud is smeared on his face and his wet clothes cling to his body, sucked in against his frame so that the bones are clearly visible. I see him try to lift one arm – his arms are free, but not his legs. They are tied. The rope red around his bare ankles. The rider shifts his grip, nudging the horse with the heels of his boots again, urging her to move faster along the path beside the reservoir.

The view opens up. The full expanse of water is revealed. A glint of metal pierces the surface not far from the shore. The slender shape is half tipped, draped with soft black weed, as if poised between two realms. It hasn’t appeared for a hundred years, not since the summer of 1918. The last year of the Great War. One cross in a field of crosses, marking the growing dead. That’s what they’d said in the village then, as the women grieved for their men.

The cross is taller than before. A spindle, sharp enough to prick a finger.

My gaze returns to the boy. I see the debris brushing against his cheek, how the clagging scent of the forest makes him want to retch. He tries to cough but the angle is all wrong. His chest must be burning from the effort to breathe, his tongue swollen, his airways blocked, his flesh bloated like rehydrated seaweed. They’re right on the shore, riding over stony mud, and it drags against his flesh. The speed at which they’re moving and the grogginess of his brain means that all he can do is flap his arms uselessly like a drunken swimmer until they fall back above his head and the ground beats and pounds his skull and he’s near faint with the pain of it.

I am consumed by nausea. I feel it as he feels it, everything blackness and confusion. His brain – my brain – stuck inside my skull like the tiny building in a glass globe. Snowflakes, I see thousands of snowflakes fluttering into life, my head fixed but everything else loose and drifting.

The horse’s hooves sink into the mud. Water swirls about the rider’s boots and the boy floats. The rider tugs on the rope and his hair blows across his face and the metal cross shines, dazzling his eyes as he waits for the geese to pass, for the mist to draw breath. For the spire to sink from sight and the sun to rise unseen and the breeze and the birds to settle.

There’s a voice in my head. ‘It shouldn’t have been like this,’ it says. ‘If only the boy had accepted his fate and stayed upon the island. They wouldn’t have had to do this.’

The rain has turned to snow, the snow has turned to hail and stones of ice pitch down against the water. The rider spurs his horse again and again, and she plunges forwards into the lake, deeper. As their bodies begin to disappear, the rider’s face turns back towards the shore. His lips move and I hear his voice, even though he does not speak.

‘Hasn’t it always been like this, Claire? Especially with the young ones.’

Our eyes meet.

‘They just don’t want to die.’

I let out a soft moan and my head rolls to one side. The mattress heaves beneath my body and beads of damp trickle down my skin. The air in the room sweeps cool across my face and I slowly open my eyes, blinking once.

Then I remember.

Joe, my son, has gone.