The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [29]
. . . under no circumstances entrust the least of hopes . . . changeable whims . . . estrange you from your fellows . . . took from me my peace of mind, my native country, my wives . . .
It was still dark when Margaret awoke. She lay still for a moment, eyes open and dry, holding the upper edge of the bed clothes, discerning before she moved the soft grey outlines of her room.
The world is a room full of heavy furniture. Eventually you are allowed to leave.
She felt her own Silent Watcher lying there inside her.That was what she called it, the thing that watched it all happen, that wanted her to live and sometimes let that be known, but could do nothing about it. It observed only, from deep behind her eyes. It had watched her husband’s wet eyes as they bore down on her and had watched that time he made her eat rotten meat, already blue and green and stinking, iridescent with decay. It had watched and remembered that, and watched when he locked her in the outhouse. And watched when she took to spending days in the parish church and liked the calm safety in there.
She raised herself out of bed and released a quiet flow into her chamber pot. She walked over to her basin of water and broke its frail covering of ice. She undid the strings at her neck and lifted off her night-gown. She stood then naked and unable to see herself in the gloom, her body a shadow that held her from the floor. She picked up cold water and dropped it over her head and neck. It fell on her like blades. She loved the winter, the purity of its punishment, and the purity of being awake before the rest, a single candle burning. Her husband had been always there, doubling her, filling the lucid emptiness, and he could never stand the cold, swearing and stamping, whacking the fire to a blaze with the poker, drinking, eating, laughing with his red mouth, and hot as a wasp’s tail at night, alone, stinging, stinging.
She patted herself dry. Her skin was smooth and numb. She put her nightdress on again. Holding the table edge, she lowered herself onto her knees to pray. The small wooden cross was a certain black form against the grey bloom of the wall. She fixed her eyes on it. She began.
Matthew Allen lifted his head and looked out at the morning. Beyond the blue lawn the trees were there. Their fine twigs, at this distance, made a russet mist. He looked back down at his page of calculations.
They added up to something, and that was with a very modest number of predicted orders. He smiled. He looked up again and saw a fox trotting silently across the lawn, its low body slung from its spine, its narrow head angled to the ground. How light it was in its movements, and quick, all travel and purpose.
John woke in a rage, knowing exactly where he was. He rolled out of bed, thumping his bare feet on the floorboards. He relieved himself into his chamber pot, clearing his throat and spitting also through the froth. He shunted it back under the bed with his toe against the warm china.
He rubbed his face in cold water from the jug, rubbed away at the dream still smeared across his thoughts. A girl with dark, unruly hair. She had secrets to tell him that he would understand. Her eyes glittered. His penis had stiffened as she brought her moist lips to his ear and whispered, words he could not now remember detonating softly inside his mind, urgent, full of meaning. Something to do with a place she could show him if he would just follow her. He’d wanted so much to know what she was saying that he’d woken up, tense, tumescent, straining to follow. He opened his eyes now so as not to see the intimate dark shine of her eyes and feel her hair minutely touching him. He wetted down his own hair, then quickly dressed. Fully clothed, he sat back down on his bed.What could he do now? Where could he go? Just out. That would be enough. He had a key after all. He could wait in his room until after breakfast, cadge some bread from the kitchen girls, and head out and away.
William Stockdale