Chosen Read online

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her?’ Dodie had asked, but of course she knew why he hadn’t. What would have been the point? It would only have given Stella further confirmation of how awful life is, driven her deeper into her despair.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, then?’

  He’d shrugged but she’d read something in his eyes that chilled her.

  ‘I could have coped with it,’ she’d said quietly. ‘Seth, I’m not Stella, I’m not like Stella.’

  ‘I know,’ he’d said, ‘but you’ve got enough on, like with Jake and that.’

  ‘I’ll go to the school, speak to the head.’

  ‘You’ll only make it worse.’ And then he’d cried, great deep sobs in his newly broken voice, face down on the kitchen table. And what could she do but hover and pat, make hot chocolate and soothing noises? She’d secretly rung the school and when, a week or so later, she’d asked him how things were he’d claimed that they’d got better – but maybe he’d been lying, trying not to worry her. Maybe he really did feel lost.

  Breathe in and out. In and out. Wall-to-wall pizza, she’ll promise him, burgers till they come out of your ears. A swimming pool of chocolate if he wants. He can change schools, move into her attic. He doesn’t need this lot. She will keep him safe.

  Her foot is fizzing; surreptitiously she waggles her toes.

  In and out. The sound like waves on a beach. In and out.

  She realizes that John is humming, barely audibly; you have to strain to hear. She looks at Rebecca, at Daniel; their eyes are still closed and their faces are sharp, intense, almost eager as they each join in with their own humming, three different notes so that the sound is a chord vibrating on and on. One hum runs out, another overlaps and takes it over, sometimes three notes, sometimes two and sometimes silence. She feels the vibration in her chest and stomach.

  After a time, she realizes that it’s gone quiet. She opens her eyes to find the three of them looking at her with maddeningly loving smiles. She bleats out a laugh. How long was that? She itches to look at her watch, but senses it is not the thing to do.

  John puts out his hand and lets it rest on the crown of her head. ‘That’s fine,’ he soothes. ‘You were so still. Smooth.’

  ‘You’re a natural,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Beautiful, Sister,’ Daniel says.

  ‘It was . . . nice,’ she says. ‘I actually feel quite peaceful – but what about the wisdom?’

  Daniel chuckles. He is such a kid, just a few clear straggly hairs on his chin.

  ‘Seth should be here soon,’ Dodie says. ‘What time do you have lunch?’

  Rebecca tries to stifle a grin.

  ‘Comfortable?’ John says. ‘Do you need to move?’

  ‘A bit fidgety,’ Dodie admits.

  ‘Let’s do the motions,’ Rebecca says. ‘We can show her the motions, John?’

  ‘Cool,’ says Daniel, jumping to his feet in one lithe movement.

  Dodie stands, her knees creaking. She looks at the door, can’t resist looking at her watch now. Two hours have gone. Two hours? ‘I thought Martha was coming back.’

  ‘She’ll be here. And Seth,’ Rebecca says. She stretches her arms above her head, limbering.

  ‘He’d better bloody well show up.’

  ‘Come on,’ John says, ‘follow.’ The three of them fold over, hands dangling, fingertips almost brushing near the floor and then straighten and twist and move their arms and legs. John stops before the others and presses his fingers into his side, wincing. Dodie gives up trying to follow and watches. Rebecca has the body shape she’d choose if you could choose: long legs, flat stomach, good shoulders, small neat head. She and Daniel move in perfect unison. And stop, upright, hands folded prayer-like to their hearts, eyes closed.

  ‘That’s good,’ Dodie says lamely, having another sneak at her watch.

  ‘Sit,’ John says, and they all sit back in silence for a few moments.

  ‘It’s completely weird that Seth’s even here,’ bursts out of her.

  Rebecca puts her hand on Dodie’s sleeve. ‘It’s not weird, she says, ‘not weird at all.’

  ‘It’s simple,’ Daniel says. ‘He’s been chosen.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘We are all chosen,’ John says.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Our Lord.’ His voice is fat with love.

  ‘But how, I mean who?’

  ‘Ours is not to reason why,’ Daniel says, without a trace of irony.

  ‘Yeah, I get that,’ Dodie says, ‘but I mean how exactly are you chosen?’

  ‘We’re, like, not encouraged to talk,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Why?’

  There is a moment of silence. Rebecca hums. John blinks. ‘Sit down,’ he says.

  Rebecca and Daniel fold themselves down on the meditation stools.

  ‘But look, I’m here to see Seth,’ Dodie says, her voice too loud. ‘I’m not here for any of this. I just want to see my brother and get out of here. And take him with me, preferably.’

  ‘Hey, Sister,’ John says. ‘Cool it. Sit down.’

  ‘I’m not meditating any more,’ she says. She goes to the door and rattles the handle, bangs on it. ‘Martha!’ she calls. ‘Seth?’

  The others close their eyes and start up the humming. She can feel it through the soles of her boots like a kind of swarming. She bangs at the door again and shouts but it feels futile, stupid, like a fly battering itself about inside a glass lampshade. There were always flies in the one in Stella’s bathroom and the glass sphere always amplified their dying hum and they would take days and days to die. The bottom was a dark rubble of little bodies you looked up at from the bath, only tipped out when the light bulb was changed. The mystery was, how did they get in?

  Dodie stands with her ear against the door, straining to hear footsteps. Surely Seth must be here by now? She needs to pee and have a drink and lunch and then a walk: is the sun still shining? To see Seth and get out of here. How can they bear it with no window? The rest of them are only human, they’ll need a break before long. Coffee and a snack would do.

  Time goes. She watches it roll off her watch and spool away into the air, into the hum. Her knees feel shaky with it. She gives in, just for now. There’s nowhere to sit but the meditation stool anyway. She kneels and shuts her eyes, nothing else to do. The humming gets into you, the three notes, no – one, no – two, no – four now, and the fourth coming timidly from herself; she can hear a gap in the chord that must be filled and it lifts you up and sets you outside the everyday and the waiting and why not when there’s nothing else to do?

  And then Martha enters the room. She blinks and smiles at them all, nodding at Dodie as if pleased. Dodie gets up, looks past her – but there’s no Seth.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asks, stumbling up, light-headed.

  Martha doesn’t answer immediately. The others gradually cease the humming, blink and grasp their own left thumbs. It’s a kind of salute, she realizes.

  ‘Eh?’ she says. ‘Where is he?’

  Martha holds out a cordless phone. ‘Here he is to speak to you.’

  Dodie takes the phone, warm from Martha’s hand. She walks towards the wall, turning her back on them all, hoping they’ll take the hint and let her speak to her brother in private, but they don’t leave. Martha says something to them and Rebecca laughs, a snort followed by a donkeyish bray.

  Dodie sticks her other finger in her ear. ‘Seth?’

  ‘Hi, Dode.’ That familiar broken scrape in his voice, but oddly distorted, sort of muffled and warped.

  ‘Where? Where are you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Speak to me, Seth,’ she says. She rests her forehead against the cool plaster of the wall, shuts her eyes, trying to conjure up his face.

  He says something too blurred to hear.

  ‘What? Speak up.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come.’ It’s a poor signal.

  ‘You told me to come!’

  She can just
make out a female voice in the background.

  Seth says, ‘Why did you leave Jake?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Silence.

  ‘I didn’t want to disrupt him. He’s got a cold.’

  ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘Just a cold. Look, I need to speak to you. Face to face.’

  There’s a hissing silence.

  ‘Seth!’ She can feel a smothered bristle of interest from the others in the room. Her eyelids bulge with tears. ‘Seth? Don’t do this to me.’

  ‘Bye,’ he says.

  Sweat blooms in her armpits and on her palms. She swaps the phone to the other hand and wipes her hand on her jeans. ‘I’ve come all this way to see you. Please.’

  But the call is cut off.

  ‘Seth,’ she says, into the buzz. ‘Seth!’

  Martha eases the sweaty phone from her hand. ‘He’ll see you tomorrow,’ she says.

  She glares at Martha. ‘But that’s what you said last night.’

  ‘Stay.’ Rebecca looks to Martha. ‘She can stay here with us? Can’t she, Martha? We’ll take care of her. It’ll be cool.’ She grins at Dodie.

  ‘No. I’m going back to the hotel,’ she says. ‘My stuff’s there. I need to change. I suppose I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll call you a taxi,’ Martha begins – then pauses. ‘But maybe you should think of staying another night? Nearly a hundred bucks there and back?’

  ‘And all the hassle,’ John adds.

  ‘Nicer if you stay,’ Daniel says.

  ‘Do,’ Rebecca urges. ‘I could do with a girl buddy.’ She pulls a face at John and Daniel.

  ‘Stay,’ says John.

  ‘It’s even possible you might see Seth later today,’ Martha says. ‘And what a shame if you’re not here. Imagine how disappointed he’ll be.’

  Dodie looks at them all. Rebecca has the sort of smile you’d need to be inoculated against, a little twitch of her freckled nose. She sighs. What else has she got to do? ‘I suppose that makes sense. Can I use the phone again to tell Rod then?’ she says. ‘They’ll be up now.’

  Martha looks embarrassed. ‘Actually, this phone only handles incoming calls.’

  ‘Another one then?’

  A bell rings dimly, somewhere far off in the building.

  ‘Time to eat.’ Martha smiles. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happy to join us, Dodie?’

  8

  Martha frees them from the room and John and Daniel hurry on, heads down, conversing quiet ly. Daniel flicks a look back at Dodie as they round a corner.

  ‘You OK?’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Knackered. I just don’t understand –’

  Martha puts her finger to her lips.

  ‘And I need to phone Rod,’ Dodie says. But phone calls are not enough, not tangible enough, that thready disembodied voice, it only makes the missing worse. What she needs is Rod’s arms round her, her arms round Jake. And Seth. Need, need, need. It’s exhausting.

  ‘Eat first,’ Martha says. ‘And after you’ve eaten you can speak to Rod. Then maybe you’d like to take in struction? The more you know, the more you’ll understand. And understand Seth’s decision to follow this path.’

  ‘I was thinking more of a nap,’ Dodie says. ‘I’m just so tired.’ She longs so much to be alone. ‘I’ll have a nap this afternoon, if you don’t mind. Maybe you’ve got some magazines or something?’

  Rebecca’s pale eyebrows shoot up. ‘Come on,’ she says, tucking her hand into Dodie’s arm.

  ‘I need to pee,’ Dodie says.

  ‘I’ll leave you,’ Martha says, ‘and see you later on, Dodie.’

  ‘The phone?’ Dodie calls after her, but Martha doesn’t turn, just holds her hand up.

  ‘Come on.’ Rebecca takes Dodie to a long bathroom. On one side there’s a row of washbasins, on the other lavatories – with no cubicles around them. A woman is sitting on one. Rebecca pulls down her trousers and does the same. Dodie accidentally glimpses a colourless puff of hair and looks away quickly. Her urge to urinate disappears. Rebecca finishes, wipes herself briskly with a wisp of paper. ‘You get used to it,’ she says. She runs her hands under a tap.

  Three more women come in. The widdly sounds get to Dodie’s bladder and, blushing, she goes as far away as possible, sits down and lets it out, gets up quick, flushes and washes her hands. No one takes any notice. Rebecca waits for her by the door.

  ‘Why no cubicles?’ Dodie says, when they’re out in the corridor.

  Rebecca shrugs. ‘I know it seems weird at first, but when you think about it, why should there be?’

  ‘For privacy?’

  ‘We’re not meant to, like, talk in the corridors,’ Rebecca says. ‘And there’s no talking in here.’

  She opens a door into a big dining room, a sea of lilac and lavender diners with bad haircuts, and an institutional soupy smell. Dodie follows Rebecca to a short queue by a hatch. She’s the only person in here not in purple of some sort and conspicuous in her boots, jeans and sweater, long hair tangling down her back.

  They sit at the end of a table of strangers, who glance curiously at Dodie, then return their concentration to their food. It’s a bowl of soup, thin, with floating shreds of green, and white squares of tofu lurking at the bottom. There are water jugs and glasses on the table.

  ‘Water?’ Dodie asks, reaching for a glass. The others on the table look up sharply and Rebecca, wincing, puts her finger to her lips and shakes her head. Oh for God’s sake! Dodie pours herself a glass. She eats the soup, very bland, and waits for Rebecca to finish so they can collect their next course – but there is no next course. They take the bowls to another hatch and pass them through.

  ‘Is that it?’ Dodie whispers.

  What about the carrot cake and the wine? What about those luscious muffins? Maybe they get a better meal at night? John and Daniel are waiting outside the door, and Martha catches up with them all. ‘Meditation now,’ she says in a hushed voice.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t want to!’ Dodie says.

  Martha lifts her finger to her lips. ‘Just twenty minutes or so.’

  ‘I just wanted to chill this afternoon,’ Dodie whispers.

  ‘Hey, Dodie, there’s no better way,’ John says.

  ‘Better than a nap,’ Rebecca says. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Scientifically proven,’ Daniel adds.

  ‘But I said I’d phone Rod,’ Dodie says miserably.

  ‘Later. You won’t mind changing your clothes, first?’

  Martha says. ‘Your different style of dress is distracting to the others and, besides, you must be hot? You’d feel more comfortable yourself, more at home with us.’

  ‘Good jeans, though,’ Rebecca says. Martha gives her a sharp look and a blush makes her freckles stand out almost green.

  ‘Yeah, these are good, aren’t they? I think every person must have a best brand for their body shape. I’m a Levi’s person –’

  ‘Hush!’ Martha’s voice is a loud hiss and the echo of Dodie’s words hangs stupidly in the air. Rebecca won’t meet her eyes. ‘Rebecca, you come with us,’ Martha says. She sends John and Daniel off to meditation and sets off at a great lick, round corners and along endless corridors of doors that look identical until eventually she opens one and they step into a lilac room filled with a sweet laundry smell and lined with hanging rails of clothes.

  ‘Trousers or skirt?’ Martha asks.

  ‘Dunno. Trousers.’ They look good on Rebecca with her long, slim legs. Martha selects a pair of floppy cotton trousers and holds them against Dodie to check the length, then finds her a T-shirt of a slightly paler lilac.

  ‘Try them,’ Martha says. The Australian woman, Hannah, puts her head round the door.

  ‘Ha, there you are. He’s asking for you,’ she says to Martha. ‘I’ll take over here.’

  Martha hesitates. She’s breathless and rather pale.

  ‘Where do I get changed?’ Dodie asks.

  ‘Martha. Our Fa
ther is waiting. Or would you rather I . . .’

  ‘No, no.’ Martha is clearly torn. ‘See you later,’ she says, blinking at Dodie and Rebecca, though not at Hannah, as she goes out.

  ‘Going to try them on, then?’ Hannah says. Her eyes are still on the door Martha went out of, and there’s a snarky little smile on her face.

  ‘I don’t particularly want to change,’ Dodie says.

  ‘You really like being a sore thumb?’

  Dodie shrugs. It’s not such a big deal, and she is hot. All the things I do for you! she’ll say to Seth. She steps out of the jeans – should have taken the boots off first; she unzips and hops about ridiculously, while Hannah and Rebecca wait, looking at the floor. She puts on the loose, cool trousers; a little too long after all. Rebecca kneels to roll up the bottoms for her. Dodie peels off her sweater – her favourite green cashmere – and hands it over. She pulls the capacious T-shirt down over her own vest. Of course there is no mirror. Wearing these pyjama-like clothes makes her sleepier than ever.

  Hannah folds the old clothes and stores them on a shelf, alongside her boots.

  ‘You forgot your watch.’

  Dodie’s hand clasps over it. ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. It’s just I always wear it.’

  ‘Imagine if we all wore watches what it would be like here! All the time-junkying.’ Hannah puts her hand out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ticking and bleeping and counting the minutes.’

  Dodie looks to Rebecca for support, but doesn’t get any. Hannah keeps her eyes on the watch until, sulkily, Dodie unbuckles the strap and hands it over.

  ‘Keep it safe, though,’ she says.

  It was a present from Rod when she had Jake: a green strap, a wooden face with numbers he inlaid himself, a proper watch with tiny cogs, not digital. He made it secretly when she was still pregnant. He brought her home from hospital to a house filled with flowers, some bought, but mostly nicked from the Botanics: roses shedding petals, rusty dahlias and huge crunchy hydrangea heads. There was champagne on ice and a fridge full of all her favourite treats, cheeses and anchovies and a coffee cake he’d actually made himself. But the blanket was already descending by then, the sky squashing in on her like a collapsing tent and the baby in the car seat was a stranger, dangerous, with hard gums and a grotesquely pulsing head. She’d sipped champagne and strapped on the watch, but the effort of smiling was a fight against gravity.