But I ask anyway. ‘Did you have children?’
‘No.’ She looks at her hands. ‘Not yet.’
‘And did Maud never speak?’
‘She was chatty enough at one time.’
‘And what happened?’
She hesitates, drinks from her mug. ‘It’s not my story to tell.’
‘I’ll wait for Maud’s version, then, shall I?’
She looks at me to see that I’m joking and she laughs. She’s inclined to cover her face – I feel the impulse in her hand – but instead she turns away, and I see how the laughter lightens her and how young she is.
I’m wondering which of us will be first to let go of the other’s hand and get on with what needs doing. Then we hear the cart on the drive. It’s moving faster than it should. We’re halfway across the yard when the horse comes round the side of the house, dragging the cart at a speed that tilts it on to its outer wheels at the turn. The geese scatter. The jackdaws flap from the stable roof, making their harsh noise. Deirdre pulls sharply on the reins and the horse rears up.
Aleksy is slumped beside her. Deirdre’s shouting, ‘He’s hit, they shot him, he’s losing blood.’ We’re all over him, trying to help him down – Deirdre above him on the cart, Abigail lifting his legs, me pulling at him, taking the weight. And Aleksy’s thumping me, pummelling my shoulder. ‘Not me. The boy. See to the boy.’ I pull away and he stumbles to the ground, cursing in Polish.
I get on the cart and fling the cardboard boxes aside. And there’s Simon in a foetal crouch. He rocks from side to side, humming to himself.
‘What is it, Si? Where’d they get you?’
Abigail is beside me, straightening Simon’s legs, feeling for damage, touching his arms and fingers.
I lift his hand gently from the side of his head. There’s a gash above the ear, muddied and bleeding – not a bullet wound.
‘Is it your head, Si? Does it hurt anywhere else?’
He’s crammed with words that won’t come out.
I carry him into the kitchen, following the trail of Aleksy’s blood. Aleksy is sideways on a kitchen chair, his good arm clinging to the back. Deirdre has cut the shirt sleeve from the injured arm. For a moment the wound is bright and open like a mouth, blood pulsing out of it. She’s knotted a tea towel above and winds it tight with a spoon. Abigail has pushed aside jars of jam to make space on the table for her sewing box. She pulls out pin cushions and reels of thread. She has a sheet over her shoulder. Maud comes up from the cellar with a bottle of brandy. They’ve got stuff stored away I don’t even know about. The kettle’s already rattling on the stove.
I sit Simon on a chair and crouch to look at him. There’s no colour in his face. The external bleeding isn’t much but I’m worried about the knock to his skull. Behind him, Aleksy’s doing a lot of grunting. Maud and Abigail hold him still while Deirdre sews him up. Simon keeps twisting round to look, so I give up and turn his chair the other way.
When I start cleaning the wound Simon says ‘ow’ and puts his hand up but he doesn’t take his eyes off the main attraction. ‘I said ow.’
‘I heard you, but I’ve got to make sure it’s clean before I put a bandage on.’
Aleksy asks Deirdre if she’s done this before.
‘With a horse, once, I did,’ she says.
‘Well remember, please, that I am not a horse.’
I explode at them. ‘Christ, you two, what were you thinking, taking Simon?’
‘He was on the cart,’ Deirdre says. ‘He was playing in the boxes. We were a mile away before we knew.’
Aleksy grunts. ‘Stop talking and sew, you psycho bitch horse doctor.’
Simon giggles.
I ask him what’s funny and he shrugs. ‘He called her a cycle horse witch doctor.’
‘Tell me what happened today. Who attacked you?’
‘Yellow people,’ he says.
Yellow people? And they threw stones at you?’
‘Sticks and stones will break your bones.’
‘And fired a gun?’
‘It was loud.’
‘Were you scared?’
‘I hid in my house.’
‘You would have been safer back here, you know, in a real house with stone walls. You can build your house in the dining room if you like. Do you want to do that?’
‘OK.’
‘Did the stones hit your house and knock it down?’
‘I looked out the door.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘When Aleksy…’
‘When Aleksy was shot?’
He nods. ‘And…’
‘He started making all that noise.’
‘Yes.’
Abigail comes with the brandy and a strip torn from her sheet for a bandage and leaves them beside me on the table.
‘I’m going to put some alcohol on this, Simon,’ I tell him. ‘It might sting.’
He pulls away, shaking his head.
‘I’ve got to. It’s so it won’t get infected.’
He looks at me now. ‘But Jangle says…’
‘What? What does he say?’
‘Jangle says I’m inf… inf…’
‘You’re not infected, Simon. I got sick and now I’m better. But you’re fine.’
‘Not that.’ He’s annoyed with me for getting it wrong. ‘Jangle says I’m inf…isible.’
‘Invisible? How does he make that out?’ I’m laughing and I can see he doesn’t like it. I reach for the brandy bottle. ‘Is it a game,’ I ask him, ‘some game you and Django play?’
This doesn’t help. He’s struggling to say no, or not a game, or to call me naughty for laughing.
‘Just hold still,’ I tell him. I put a corner of the bandage to the mouth of the brandy bottle, up-end it, stand it back on the table and dab the wound.
‘Ow ow, I said ow.’
‘Are you invisible all the time, or only some of the time?’
‘All the time, Jangle says.’
‘And are you invisible to everyone? Can I see you? Can Django see you? What about Abigail?’
I can tell these are annoyingly stupid questions.
‘You can’t mmm….’
There’s a b word buzzing in his throat. His eyes bulge and he does his vomit face. I take Abigail’s bandage and begin winding it about his head.
‘…mmmbeat me.’
I stop what I’m doing, hold his head and look into his face. ‘No one’s going to beat you, Simon. Did someone say they would? Did Django?’
‘No. You…’
‘I can’t, I get it. And I won’t beat you. Whatever you do. No one will. I promise.’
‘No one. Ever. Jangle says.’
I split the end of the bandage to tie it round his head. It bothers me that he’s talking like this. No one’s ever hit him, as far as I know.
Deirdre has finished with Aleksy, so I take Simon by the hand to join them. Aleksy’s still clinging to his chair. He’s pale and sweaty and breathing hard. Maud comes from the stove with a warm flannel and wipes his face.
‘You all right?’ I ask him.
‘Better than ever.’
‘Simon says you were attacked by yellow people.’
Aleksy nods. ‘Fluorescent jackets.’
‘Like a uniform,’ Deirdre says. ‘An army.’
‘What if they’re just people,’ Abigail says, ‘like us, and these jackets are just what they had?’
‘That’s what I tell her. Listen to Abigail, Deedee. These people find a warehouse somewhere. Nice waterproof jackets hanging on hooks. Who cares what they look like?’
‘Dozens of them? All the same?’
‘Dozens! Who says dozens?’
‘I saw at least a dozen.’
‘Not so many. I saw maybe five.’
‘They were among the trees.’
‘Exactly. Trees, shadows, patches of sunlight enough to blind you. You see someone here and then here. Same few people, scurrying about.’