Chosen Read online

  ‘Well, the police –’

  ‘So he knows? I gave them this number, but I said I’d tell him.’

  ‘He doesn’t know how she died,’ Martha reassures her. ‘Something like that, best it comes from you.’ She has one of those sympathetic faces that always look familiar: pleasant and unthreatening.

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell him,’ she says. They sit in silence for a minute. ‘But this is all so weird. His head teacher said he’d gone to a relative in America. No one would tell me anything when I rang.’

  Martha chuckles. ‘But you see, we are all relatives here, relatives in the Lord.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dodie looks down at her fingernails. Relatives in America, she thinks, how stupid, how stupid of her to be so literal. ‘But, it’s just that Seth never would have done that, left like that, without at least telling me. We’ve always been like this.’ She holds up two crossed fingers.

  ‘People can be surprising,’ Martha says. ‘Don’t fret. Look, why not put your feet up? I’ll bring you an early dinner. Don’t look so downhearted,’ she adds. ‘You will see Seth.’

  ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘Got a photo of your little one?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Dodie picks up and riffles through her bag. ‘Can I use your phone? I need to ring Rod and this’ – she pulls her mobile out – ‘won’t work over here, some network problem thingy.’

  ‘I’ll bring you one, when I bring the dinner.’

  Dodie switches on her mobile and opens her gallery. ‘There.’ Jake’s grinning face snags at her heart. She tilts the screen so Martha can see. ‘Here he is, with his first ice cream – and that’s Rod’ – she hesitates – ‘my boyfriend.’ Seth is behind them in the picture, caught accidentally, unselfconsciously. Her three favourite humans in one tiny, lit-up square.

  ‘Sweet.’ Martha chuckles. ‘Jake, I mean!’ She stands up. ‘Rest now.’

  Dodie puts her finger on Jake’s face. The tip of it obscures his whole head. What is he doing now? Wink and Blink and a Nod one night, it’s a lullaby; maybe Aunt Regina sang it to her once, certainly not Stella, and she’ll sing it to Jake if she can think of the words, sailed out on wooden shoe, into a river of crystal light and into a sea of blue, funny how it floats back, flows, when it’s been dammed up for so long, where are you going la la la la an old man asks the three . . .

  Dodie blinks. Her mouth is full of fur, her phone is by her feet, a lamp shines in a flowery corner.

  ‘Better?’ a voice says. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’

  It’s evening; she looks at her watch. A couple of hours have vanished.

  ‘All OK,’ Martha soothes. ‘No rush. You take your time.’

  Dodie scrubs at her eyes. ‘I have to talk to Rod.’

  ‘On the table.’ Dodie turns to see the phone there. The tea things have been cleared and there are knives and forks set out; all that and she didn’t hear a thing. Martha goes to the little stove; there’s the clank of a spoon in a pan, a deliciously spicy savoury smell.

  ‘I’ve just got to fetch some bread – if you want bread?’

  ‘Please.’

  She waits for Martha to leave and dials the home number, remembering the UK code. The phone rings. She pictures it on top of the fridge, pictures her kitchen with Stella’s rosewood table crammed in so you can barely squeeze round it to get to the fridge – and already marked by a hot-cup ring. Stella would spin in her grave, if she were in a grave. Ashes. They’ve yet to scatter them. They’re in the airing cupboard, safe under all the towels and sheets. Wait till Seth’s back. Make a trip of it, a picnic, oh, shut up. The phone rings.

  ‘It’s me!’ Dodie says, when she hears Rod’s voice.

  ‘Good timing, we’ve just got in.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Out. So, where are you?’

  ‘At the church, sort of, only it’s not like a church, in what they call the parlour.’ She lowers her voice. ‘A sort of psychotically twee apartment for visitors.’

  Rod grunts.

  ‘Like your mum on acid,’ she tries, hoping to amuse him, but there’s a beat of silence.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘Seth?’

  ‘Haven’t seen him yet. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘He’s right here. Still in his buggy. Jake, want to speak to Mummy? Say hello to Mummy.’

  She feels in her belly the swoop of the phone down to Jake’s ear. ‘Jakey?’

  She hears his breath. Shuts her eyes. Sees his puzzled face.

  ‘Say hello to Mummy,’ Rod says.

  ‘Hello, Jake,’ Dodie says.

  But he starts to cry. Rod comes on. ‘That’s foxed him,’ he says, through the wails.

  ‘Give him some juice and a fig roll,’ Dodie says.

  ‘It’s lunchtime.’

  ‘Give him banana on toast –’

  ‘I know what to give him, thank you.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Her voice thins. ‘Wish I was there.’

  ‘I’d better sort him out.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Don’t be daft; he’s fine. Ring when you’ve seen Seth. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Bye.’

  And he’s gone. She drops the phone and bunches over, arms wrapped round herself, round the twingeing of a phantom umbilicus. Thousands of miles away, Jake is crying for her and there’s nothing she can do.

  ‘All right?’ Martha comes back in, a long crusty loaf under her arm. She inspects the pan. ‘This is done.’

  ‘Smells good.’

  ‘Red pepper goulash,’ Martha says. ‘Wine?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Californian.’ She pours two generous glasses of red. ‘Cheers.’ She raises her glass. ‘Once again, welcome. And tuck in.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Dodie tucks her hair behind her ears and takes a sip of the wine; a bit sweet but still reviving. Reassured that at least they aren’t teetotal, she forks up slivers of red in a sticky sauce: rich, earthy; tomatoes, paprika.

  ‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘Where’s everybody else?’

  ‘We like to welcome guests in here – more of a personal touch.’

  ‘But I’d like to see where Seth stays.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘I need some water.’ She starts to stand.

  ‘No, no.’ Martha is up and filling a glass from a fizzy bottle before Dodie can open her mouth to object. She hasn’t been looked after like this since . . . well, ever. She swigs back half the glass.

  ‘I don’t even know how Seth came to be here,’ she says.

  Martha dabs her mouth on a napkin. ‘I expect he ran into a Relative.’

  ‘In Sheffield?’

  Martha laughs. ‘We get everywhere! I’m sure he’ll fill you in tomorrow.’ They eat and chat and Dodie finds her tongue running away with her – it must be the wine or the jet lag or Martha’s kindly face – telling her all about Jake, how clever he is, so advanced for his age, so beautiful and funny. She tells her about Rod wanting to leave, about the shock of finding Stella’s body. Martha leans forward as she listens to this, her eyes bright and curious. Dodie talks about Seth, how brilliant he is but how he used to get bullied at school, just for being outside the crowd, just for being himself. ‘He hates football, drama’s more his thing, he’s really sweet and funny – well, you’ll know that.’ Dodie’s voice cracks and she bites her knuckle.

  ‘You’ll see him tomorrow,’ Martha says.

  Dodie takes another forkful, chews, forces the food past the sudden blockage in her throat. Shame there’s no TV or radio or music or anything, just the personal sounds of mastication and swallowing.

  ‘Do you have children?’ she asks Martha, to break the silence.

  There’s a minute flaring in Martha’s eyes, then she withdraws a little and shakes her head.

  ‘But you must have some family? Biological, I mean,’ Dodie adds.

  Martha nods.

  ‘Do you see them?’

&
nbsp; ‘Now and then.’

  ‘But not much? God, I could never ever in a million years contemplate leaving Jake,’ Dodie says. ‘It’s nearly killing me just leaving for a week. Seth is the only reason I’d ever leave him. Maybe I should have brought him with me. I was feeling kind of torn. Wish I had.’ Has he stopped crying yet? How’s his cold? She never even asked. Has he eaten his lunch? Is he napping? Or will Rod have him in the workshop with all the splintery wood, the dangerous tools?

  ‘Oh, Seth,’ she says, her voice beginning to slur. ‘I just need to see that’s he’s all right then I’ll go home.’

  ‘Seth’s fine.’

  ‘I just need to see that. For myself.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Martha puts her fork down and stands up. ‘He’s lucky to have a sister like you. Get off to bed now. God bless,’ she says and, as Dodie passes on her way to the bathroom, she prints a kiss against her brow.

  7

  She floats up through a dream, rags and scrags of voices, the chink of cup against saucer – and Martha is standing beside the bed, smiling, holding out a cup of tea.

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Fine.’ Dodie hauls herself up against the pillows, blinking away the cling of dreams. ‘I haven’t slept so deeply since . . . I don’t know.’ But then she frowns, remembering something. ‘Was that other woman in here last night? Hannah?’

  ‘No,’ Martha says.

  ‘I thought I woke up in the night and there she was, staring.’

  ‘A dream,’ Martha says. She puts the tea down and goes out of the room. Dodie lies staring at the ceiling, remembering the feeling of a face close to hers, the benign smell of breath. Her eyes had opened but in the dark she couldn’t see. She’d put her hand up, and there had been nothing there. Maybe it was a dream, then? Though unlike any dream she’s had before.

  She sits up against the lavish pillows and sips her tea. Martha puts her head round the door. ‘Just take your time now,’ she says. ‘We’ve got cereal and muffins.’ There’s a soft shine in her eyes, loving, almost like a mother – not Stella but a proper mother. It slams into Dodie anew each time she wakes that she has no mother now. Stella Marianne has gone. Up in smoke. This stranger, Martha, has already been nicer to her, kinder to her, than Stella ever was.

  The tea is weak and barely warm, but at least it’s wet. Dodie drinks it quickly, showers, dresses and brushes her hair. The muffin is amazing, warm, banana-flavoured and studded with chunks of melting chocolate. You could never lose weight in a place like this. Can’t ring home yet; they’ll be asleep, Jake in his cot with the rosy light. He would love to taste a bit of muffin, cram his mouth full with his chubby fist. May as well have another; what’s one extra muffin in a lifetime?

  ‘You set?’ Martha says.

  The day is bright and cool and Dodie drinks in the fresh, faintly pine-scented air. The trees glow crimson and yellow-gold.

  ‘Beautiful day,’ she says. ‘Maybe Seth will take a walk with me, show me round.’

  They stand for a moment soaking up the blue, watching sunlit birds fold shadows beneath their wings. They walk round to a door where Martha punches in a number and steps aside to let Dodie in. No chintzy flounces here. It’s a bare entrance hall, wooden floor, white walls, monastic. They walk swiftly through a maze of identical corridors, plain white walls, white painted doors, no numbers or signs. Restful – but how would you ever find your way?

  ‘It’s very quiet,’ Dodie whispers.

  ‘The Brothers and Sisters are out at work, or in meditation.’

  ‘People go out to work?’

  ‘Of course!’

  Reassured, Dodie follows her through a double door and down a short flight of steps. That second muffin sits like concrete in her stomach – definitely a mistake. At last Martha stops, presses a number into another keypad, opens the door. Dodie pushes eagerly inside, expecting Seth – but instead there are three strangers, all dressed in lilac, all with cropped hair.

  ‘This is Dodie,’ Martha says.

  ‘Hi Dodie,’ says a tall, freckled young woman. ‘Welcome to Soul-Life. I’m Rebecca.’ Her accent is English too, her hair red and clumpy, wanting to curl if it was only long enough. ‘This is Daniel.’ She indicates an oriental-looking guy with blue-black hair that sticks up straight from his face as if he has his finger in a socket.

  He nods his head at her and blinks. ‘Welcome to the Church of Soul-Life.’

  ‘Hi, I’m John.’ A wiry, heavily stubbled guy with a navy cross tattooed on his neck holds out a hand and wrings hers tightly. He grins, revealing a missing front tooth. ‘We’re here to greet you, make you feel at home.’ His head is shaved to reveal the prehistoric-looking plates of his oddly shaped skull, but his accent is surprisingly soft and cultured – Southern, maybe. He’s older than the others and looks frail.

  ‘Rebecca, John and Daniel will be your buddies for the rest of your stay. See you later.’ Martha gives Dodie a nod and blinks at the others and they all blink back before she lets herself out.

  ‘But what about Seth?’ Dodie asks, but Martha has gone. ‘I’m here to see Seth,’ she explains to the other three. ‘My brother.’

  ‘Perhaps Martha’s gone to get him?’ Rebecca suggests, darting her eyes at John.

  Dodie huffs and puffs with frustration. But what can she do? ‘What’s all the blinking in aid of?’ she asks.

  Rebecca’s nose wrinkles as she smiles. Her eyes are gooseberry green with a clear brown fleck like a floating tea leaf in the left one. ‘It’s just part of what we do,’ she says. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘But I’m not staying.’

  ‘No?’ Rebecca smiles, head tilted.

  ‘We’re about to meditate,’ John says. ‘Care to join us?’

  ‘Are we locked in?’ Dodie goes to the door. ‘I’m going to drag Seth out for a hike, it’s beautiful out – have you been outside?’

  ‘Martha will bring him, or fetch you,’ Daniel says. He has a sharp chin, a small dimple in one cheek as he smiles at her. She feels like a dog waiting at the door.

  ‘Have you seen him today?’

  ‘Seth?’ Rebecca asks. She frowns. ‘No, actually I haven’t seen him for a while.’

  ‘Where is he then?’

  Rebecca shrugs her shoulders. ‘Different meditation group? Anyway, you might as well, like, join us while you wait.’ Rebecca fetches two low wooden stools.

  ‘How long have you lot been here?’ Dodie asks.

  ‘John’s been here longest,’ Rebecca says. There’s a silence and Dodie catches an amused glance zipping between John and Daniel.

  ‘So, where are you all from?’

  ‘What matters is that we’re here,’ John says. ‘See, Dodie, for us this is what is real. This’ – he holds a finger up – ‘instant. The past – irrelevant. Gone.’ He slices off the past with his hand.

  ‘No it hasn’t.’

  ‘You going to join us?’ John has scars on the back of his hands, blurred self-inflicted tattoos on the back of his fingers. They haven’t gone.

  ‘Come on, Dodie,’ Daniel says and flickers his dimple. ‘It’s a gas.’

  Dodie sighs, shrugs, nods. Why not? She went to a meditation class as therapy after Jake’s birth. It was supposed to help her out of the depression – even that word makes her shiver, the memory of the sky fallen and clinging like a dirty blanket.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘But Seth?’

  ‘Leave it to Martha,’ Daniel says.

  Rebecca shows Dodie how to kneel on the meditation stool, legs tucked beneath her. Surprisingly comfortable, though her boots feel hard and clumsy. The rest of them are wearing flat espadrilles in purple or grubby white.

  ‘Meditated before?’ Rebecca asks.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘First relax,’ John says, ‘and sit. Just sit. Collect yourself. We call it collecting. Do not move. If you feel a sensation in your body, an itch, a pain, do not indulge it, watch it only and realize that’s all it is. A brief, phy
sical sensation. Look at it and let it go. And after a while, you’ll hear the wisdom.’

  ‘Wisdom?’

  John smiles and the darkness shows behind his missing tooth. What were you? she wonders: drug dealer? Hell’s Angel? He’s clean but has a deeply ingrained look of dissolution that can never be scrubbed out. He sits facing them and shuts his eyes, his face a knot of concentration.

  Daniel’s face is composed in a slight smile. He is beautiful, in the simple cleanness of the lines, the skin, the slick black eyebrows, and he’s young, maybe not much older than Seth. Perhaps he knows Seth?

  Rebecca nods at her and closes her eyes. Her lashes are fair, her eyebrows almost invisible, the first hints of lines at the corners of her eyes. There’s a dint in her nose where she used to wear a stud and several in her ears. Dodie sighs and closes her own eyes. In the meditation class with a teacher talking her through the stages she’d been fine, safe in the breathing presence of others, but at home it never worked and she’d given up quickly, horrified by a glimpse of the churning chaos inside her head.

  Now, she listens to the silence. Soon there’ll be footsteps in the corridor and it will be Martha and Seth, or maybe Martha to take her to Seth and what will she say . . . Oh, don’t think about that now. Snuffly breathing from John; very, very faintly a bird outside, sounds like a blackbird, do they have the same sort of blackbirds here? She hears her own breath, feels the flow of it, in and out. Once she gets Seth out into the fresh autumn – fall – day, she’ll tell him about Stella. (Will he be wearing lilac too? He’ll need a coat.) How will he take it? Will he shed more tears than she did? Don’t think about that now. The Lost, Martha told her, have become the Chosen. But Seth wasn’t lost. Though she remembers the day, a few months ago now, when he barged into the kitchen and kicked the fridge.

  ‘Hey!’ she’d said. His face had been red, his breathing fast. ‘Come on . . .’ She’d gone to put her hand on his arm but he’d flinched away from her. And then she’d noticed that the redness on his face was bruising and that he’d been crying. That was when he admitted to her that he’d been bullied, for years, by the same lads, the football team, who called him a poof and a ponce, tore up his physics notes, stole his PE kit . . . And then scolded by Stella when he got back without these things.