A Song for Issy Bradley (35 page)

“Maybe she should see a counselor.”

“No. It’s not …” He can’t put his hope into words or explain his faith that if they just carry on and keep to the path, Claire will pick herself up, dust herself off, and rejoin their trek to salvation. “If you take something to pieces it’s harder to stick it back together.”

“What does that mean? You can’t take people to pieces.”

“It’s time for you to go to bed.”

“But, Dad, Mum’s upstairs. And no one’s helping her.” Zipporah pauses. “She’s ill, and it—it reminds me of Issy.”

Ian puts his arms around her. “Everything will be OK,” he says.

A
T NIGHT
,
AFTER
the children have gone to sleep, he has started to talk to Claire. Sometimes she doesn’t say anything, other times she says things he doesn’t understand. Last night he told her about the pass-along cards.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of them,” he said. She said something that sounded like “Rumpelstiltskin.” When he asked what she meant she said, “Spin the straw into gold, Ian,” and he didn’t want to ask again in case it didn’t make any sense at all.

Tonight, the plate of rubbery pasta is still on the floor; he can’t tell whether any of it has been eaten—she may have had a mouthful or two. He nudges the plate to one side and sits on the floor next to the bed. The bed is becoming Claire’s bed but it’s not hers, it’s Issy’s, and he feels a thump of frustration at her refusal to vacate it.

He tells her he visited Brother Anderson again and starts to explain what it was like sitting in the hospital, then stops, uncertain as to whether he is being insensitive. He remembers falling asleep in the car but he decides it’s best not to mention it. He wants to say something about her appearance downstairs in front of President Carmichael and Brother Stevens but he doesn’t know how to broach it, and since there’s no point in asking about her day, he quickly runs out of things to say. While he searches for more words, he realizes she hasn’t moved at all since he sat down next to the bed. He tries to mimic her stillness. The tension it takes is surprising. His neck hurts after a few seconds and it occurs to him for the first time that she may blame him; she may not see the bigger picture, may not recognize that what has happened must be the Lord’s will, and regrets and what-ifs are futile.

“Are you angry with me?”

Finally her head moves. “You blessed her to live. And she didn’t.”

Her words hurt. “Sometimes live means
‘live unto the Lord,’
Claire.” The words don’t taste right, they sound half baked and inadequate.

“Sometimes to live means to die—is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what it says in the scriptures.” He can hear weakness when he says it and he is worried that her anger may be stronger than his conviction.

“I don’t blame just you,” she says.

“You mustn’t blame Heavenly Father.”

“Well, I do.”

“Please don’t,” he begs. He would rather she blamed him than God. Her eternal salvation isn’t dependent on faith in Ian Bradley.

“And I blame myself.”

“That’s ridiculous, Claire. It’s not your fault.”

“I went
shopping
. I cooked sausage rolls and played musical chairs while she was dying. She was upstairs. All by herself.”

He hears the approaching tears in the wobble of her voice and he extends his hand and slides it under the covers, feeling about until he finds one of hers. It is limp and unresponsive, but he holds it anyway.

“You said … you said that …” She tries to swallow a sob, but it jumps straight back out of her mouth. “You, you said she’d get better, when you gave her the blessing. You said she’d get better if I had enough faith, you said it. But I didn’t have enough faith. I knew she was dying.”

“That’s OK,” he says. “You knew.
‘To some is given the word of knowledge’
—that’s what it says in the scriptures; you knew before I did. That’s OK. It’s no one’s
fault
.”

“What’s the point of blessings then, Ian? What’s the point?”

He is about to answer when he realizes her question is about more than blessings. “You know the point of everything,” he says. “To come to Earth and gain a body. To be tested and found worthy.”
She sighs and closes her eyes. He squeezes her hand. “It’s—it’s been weeks, Claire. You can’t stay here forever. It’ll be Christmas before we know it. The children need you.”

She opens her eyes. “Do you think this life is a short time?” she asks.

“Oh yes,” he says. “The blink of an eye.”

“A very short time?”

“Yes.”

“So when someone dies it seems like a long time to the people left behind, but it isn’t a long time at all.”

“That’s right.” He knew she would understand eventually. He squeezes her hand again. “It’s just moments.”

“You’d be OK if
anyone
died, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” he says with more confidence than he feels. “With the Lord’s help and an eternal perspective I’d be OK. But it’s unlikely that anyone else will die soon. Is that what you’re worried about? Is that what all this is about? Statistically it’s very unlikely. I can work it out if you like, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“No, no, it’s OK.” She pulls her hand away from his and reaches out to touch his face. “You’re all right, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he lies, turning to kiss her palm. She doesn’t move her hand so he grasps it and rubs it against his cheek. “I mean, I miss you.” He laughs—it sounds like something he should say on the telephone or write on the back of a postcard. “I’d like it if you’d come back. Any time soon would be good.” He tries to smile, to offer some encouragement. “But I’m all right. Everyone’s all right.”

“And you’ll be all right no matter what happens, won’t you?” Although he is beginning to realize the answer to her question is no, he doesn’t want to disappoint her. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

He looks at her bare face. Her skin is oily and gray. She smells of sweat and bed, but he doesn’t care. These past weeks have been so lonely. Her hand is a stroke of consolation and a reminder of sex. He turns his head to kiss her palm again and she just watches, so he kisses the heel of her hand and then her wrist. She doesn’t turn away
as he edges closer on his knees, already thinking about undoing his belt, about squeezing into the bottom bunk, squeezing into her. She isn’t saying no with her eyes. She isn’t saying anything. He leans under the roof of the bunk and kisses her cheek. It feels slick and buttery. He lets go of her arm. It drops onto the pillow. He places his hands over her breasts. They are smaller. She is thinner. He gets up and closes the door. Then he hurries back to the bed and peels Issy’s duvet away.

Claire’s nightie is bunched around her waist and he can see the poke of her hips through her Temple garments. One of Issy’s teddies lies in the bed beside her. He places the little white bear on the floor and then he grasps the roll of Claire’s nightie and slides it up to her armpits. He does the same with her garment top.

Her belly is crisscrossed by silvery stretch marks. She usually covers herself with her hands if he tries to look too closely, despite his insistence that he doesn’t care about the snags that lace her skin, but she doesn’t cover herself today. She’s the only woman he has ever seen naked and, even now, he is sometimes struck by the fact that he is allowed to look at all of her and experiences a burst of gratitude as he removes her clothes. He pushes his hands along the bumps of her ribs until he reaches her breasts. They seem sad, punctured. He covers each breast with a hand and pumps, as if he might reinflate her, but when he lets go they shrink back into slack pockets.

If he can make her feel something else, he thinks, something besides her grief—if he can just wake her up a bit. They’ve never gone this long without sex. Even after the children, things were always back to normal within a month, and it’s not as if he can take care of it himself.

He stands and unfastens his belt. He lets his trousers fall and kicks them off, steps out of his garment bottoms and folds them carefully. He doesn’t bother removing his shirt or his socks. He kneels back down, he’ll stop if she gives him the slightest sign, but she just lies there, bleached and cadaverous, arms flung back against
the pillow. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her garment bottoms and pulls them all the way down. She smells briny and sour. He folds the garment bottoms. Then he parts her legs and climbs onto the bunk. He leans over her, on all fours, taking care not to bang his head on the slats. She looks past him with empty eyes. There are goose bumps on her arms and he can see the knot of bone where her humerus and ulna lock. There is something about the lay of her limbs that reminds him of chicken wings and he is startled by a sudden remembrance of his mother, each Sunday morning before church, holding an inert, raw bird under the kitchen tap as she rinsed its insides.

He closes his eyes and kisses Claire’s jaw and her neck. He doesn’t try her lips. Her skin salts his mouth and as soon as he’s inside her, he knows he isn’t going to last long enough to wake her up or make her feel much of anything. The warmth surrounding his penis, the friction of her indifference—it’s too much. He stops moving, holds his breath for a moment, tries to retrieve the image of his mother holding a decapitated chicken, but it’s no use.

“Sorry … sorry … uh, uh … sorry.” He pants his apology into the hollow where her neck meets her shoulder and it blows back at him, hot and wet.

He climbs off, one hand cupped around his seeping penis, the other supporting his weight.

“Sorry,” he says again.

He hurries to the bedroom door and opens it carefully. The landing is empty and he steps quickly into the bathroom. When he has washed himself in the sink he picks up a washcloth, runs it under the hot tap, and tiptoes back to the bedroom. He kneels on the floor and wipes the trickle of semen from between her legs. She looks straight up at the roof of the bunk. He isn’t sure whether she is shocked or just vacant. She didn’t ask him to stop. But she didn’t say he could.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just, I’m …” She isn’t listening properly. “I didn’t think to—are you—have you been taking your pill?”

He waits for a moment, scared, then hopeful. Another baby might bring her back to herself. Issy can never be replaced, never. But another child might raise Claire from the bed.

She doesn’t reply and he can see that she has used up all her evening words. He puts the washcloth down on the carpet and gently slides her legs back into her garment bottoms. He tugs her top and nightie back down and then he lifts Issy’s bear off the floor and places it beside her.

“I love you,” he says.

When he picks up the washcloth it is already cold and a sluggish trail of semen glistens across its folds.

Assembly is always best when Mrs. Slade does it. She asks lots of questions and everyone thrusts their hands up and makes little bursting noises in the hope that she will pick them. Today she is holding a bag and it looks like she is going to do something fun.

“What night is it tonight?”

There’s a sound like wings as more than a hundred arms part the air.

“Yes, Kyle?”

“Halloween!”

“That’s right. Halloween’s usually in half-term, isn’t it? But not this year.”

Mrs. Slade talks about Halloween. She gets a funny mask out of her bag and asks for a volunteer to wear it. Then she produces a pumpkin-shaped bucket and talks about trick-or-treating safely with big brothers and sisters or mums and dads.

Jacob has never been trick-or-treating. Two years ago, when he was really small, Sister Stevens did a Halloween party in the parking lot at church and it was completely ace. It was called Trunk or Treat because car boots in America are called “trunks.” All the children walked from car to car saying, “Trunk or treat?” and the
trunks
were open like mouths and full of
candy
, which means sweets. Last year there wasn’t a party because Halloween was on a Sunday.

Today is Monday—Family Home Evening. Jacob will suggest that they all go trick-or-treating later, after Dad has given the lesson.
There are some old costumes in the wardrobe that Mum made for dressing up and World Book Day. He can wear one of them and maybe it will be all right for Zippy to take him out, just once around the houses that ring the park.

“Who knows what the day after Halloween is called?” Mrs. Slade asks. Hands shoot up again. “Yes, Abigail.”

“The first of November?”

“That’s certainly true, but I’m thinking of something else. The day after Halloween is called All Saints’ Day. And the day after that, the second of November, is All Souls’ Day. It’s a day when everyone used to pray for the souls of people who’d recently died. They used to believe that everyone who died wandered about the Earth until All Souls’ Day, when they finally moved on to the next world.”
All Souls’ Day
—Jacob’s never heard of it, never. It must be one of those things they do at school that they don’t do at church, like Advent, Lent, and Harvest. Sometimes it’s hard to work out how all the different bits of both worlds fit together. Once, he thought that the word “penis” was part of church because he’d never heard anyone at school say it—they said “dick” and “willy.” He asked Mum about it and she laughed and said he could say “willy” too, if he liked.

“All Souls’ Day.” He whispers the words to himself so he doesn’t forget them: “All Souls’ Day. All Souls’ Day. All Souls.”
All
Souls—that means Issy too, doesn’t it? All Souls’ Day, when people who’ve died move on to the next world … 
or come back to this one
.

A
T
N
EWS TIME
Mrs. Slade asks everyone to write about What I Did at Half-Term. George Hindle writes, “I went to the Norf Pole and saw 100 pengwins.” Jessie writes about the cinema. Jacob writes:

Underneath the words he draws a side view of a staircase with him sitting on the top. Mrs. Slade says it’s an unusual thing to have
done during the holidays and she asks if he would mind telling her what he was waiting for.