Chosen Read online

Dodie gets up and paces about. It’s shocking, it actually hurts to feel these raw emotions when she’s been so tranquil – a beast li ness surging through her: animal, thick and meaty-tasting in her mouth. Martha doesn’t say a word, just watches, until all the energy drains away and Dodie sits down again, slumps, head against her knees, brain swarming, fizzing with a threatened faint.

  ‘Come on, Dodie,’ Martha says after a few moments. ‘Of course I’m not lying.’ She breaks into Dodie’s near-slumber – it’s strangely comfortable doubled over her knees like that, so tired, wrung out with disappointment and frustration, yet for a minute letting it all go.

  ‘Sit up now,’ Martha says, her voice motherly, and Dodie obeys, wobbly, fragile, a bubble that could, that might, break at any moment.

  ‘Go on, drink your tea.’

  ‘Maybe I should just go home,’ Dodie says. ‘I’ve done my best.’ She takes a little sip of the tea, that pale herby taste. She’s probably suffering from caffeine withdrawal.

  ‘Seth will be so sad if you do,’ Martha says, and it’s as if she’s reached right into Dodie’s chest and squeezed her heart. She shuts her eyes, breathes through that sensation; it reminds her of breathing through a birth contraction. ‘Don’t give up on him,’ Martha says, ‘that’s all I’m saying.’

  Dodie studies the worn, pink face. ‘Why do you care? Anyway, I thought separation from the biological family was –’

  ‘I think he needs some sort of closure before –’

  ‘Closure! I come all this way and . . .’ Self-pity wheedles into her voice and she presses her lips together until she can control it. ‘I need to phone Rod, talk it over with him, and if you say I can’t, then I’ll just leave now.’

  ‘Drink your tea,’ Martha says. Dodie picks it up and sips. It’s getting familiar, the bitter overlaying the sweetness. It won’t do her any harm. Maybe she should just walk out. But how? She’d need to be let out.

  ‘Dodie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I, er . . . I spoke to Rod again.’ Martha speaks cautiously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘But I need to speak to him.’

  Martha makes an apologetic face. ‘You also need your sleep.’

  ‘God, you said you’d get me next time. Shit. Fuck.’ The swearing lets off the pressure of frustration but leaves the taint of something false and cheap hanging in the air. There is a long silence.

  Martha makes unsticking sounds in her mouth as if she’s trying to formulate the words before she speaks. ‘Maybe. Look. Dodie, are you really hating this all so much? The community and the meditations?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Dodie says. ‘Not hate. I just . . . I just never signed up for it.’

  ‘No.’ Martha smiles at her, almost shyly. ‘But what about the meditation? What did you feel?’

  Dodie sighs, drinks more tea, thinks. She won’t admit how she’s started to get the idea, understand what they mean about letting go. ‘Anyway, you’ve changed the subject.’

  ‘Just bear with me,’ Martha says.

  Dodie’s eyes go to her wrist again, the lack of a watch makes her realize how often she checks the time, how ruled by it she is. What do they call it? Time-junkying.

  ‘You see, you’re getting glimpses. Starting to see past all the distractions.’

  ‘So?’ Dodie says.

  ‘You’re ready to change.’

  ‘But what if I don’t want to change?’

  ‘Everything perfectly perfect in your life?’

  ‘OK,’ Dodie says, hating her own sulky tone. ‘Was, anyway, before you got your hands on Seth.’

  Martha gives Dodie a long level look, and the colour rises to her cheeks. ‘Change is the one constant, Dodie; on that you can depend,’ she says at last. ‘Nothing stays the same.’

  ‘Well, I know that.’ There’s a tiny leaf floating in the greenish liquid of the tea. Dodie dips her fingertip in to try and fish it out.

  ‘So. Your life has all been hunky-dory?’

  ‘Of course not all hunky-dory, I told you . . . we had a pretty crap childhood. Mum was – but anyway, now she’s dead.’ She picks at the foam in the ripped sofa, pulling flecks of it out, rolling them into pellets between her finger and thumb.

  ‘Better not do that,’ Martha says gently. ‘Go on.’

  ‘And now my life is good, mostly good, as much as you could hope for. There’s Rod. I love him. Though he – he’s going off for a while, travelling.’ Her voice cracks and she stops for a moment, steadies her lips round a sip of the tea. ‘And Seth, of course. And Jake. He’s my life now.’

  ‘But you’re upset?’

  ‘Only because I miss them!’

  ‘Dodie. Listen to me.’ Martha rests her hand on Dodie’s knee. ‘Your need is too strong.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You had an unhappy childhood.’ Martha’s voice sounds terribly sad, and Dodie flicks her a puzzled look.

  ‘Why do you care?’

  Martha removes her hand and Dodie edges away.

  ‘And now you’re clinging with all your might to the notion that you can mend that in a new family with Rod and Jake.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Can you not see something wrong with that?’

  ‘No.’

  Martha sips her tea and hesitates before she speaks. ‘Another approach would be to let it go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The misery.’

  ‘I am, that’s just what I am doing!’

  Martha shakes her head. ‘What you’re doing is clinging to it, basing your life on it. Holding on to Seth and Rod and Jake – even more with Jake – as if they are lifebuoys in the sea, using them –’

  ‘Not using!’ Dodie gets up, goes to the door and, though it’s futile, bangs on it until her fist gets sore, but Martha’s voice goes on.

  ‘Using them to rewrite the story of your life.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What you yearn for, your happiness, is it not dependent on them?’

  Dodie turns, rubbing her knuckles against her mouth. This logic is wrong, she knows it must be wrong, but it sounds so right, her own thoughts and certainties struggle against Martha’s words like birds trapped in handkerchiefs. ‘But that’s normal,’ she insists.

  ‘That doesn’t mean it’s right,’ Martha says mildly, patting the seat beside her and waiting for Dodie to sit again.

  But Dodie stands, flexing and unflexing her fists. What’s she going to do, punch Martha? This is ridiculous.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Martha says. ‘Ignore everything I’ve said. That’s OK. You’re leaving. Go out and live your life just as before. That’s your privilege.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I will.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Silence.

  Martha has folded her hands and seems almost to be in prayer. She clears her throat. ‘As long as you know there’s an alternative,’ she says delicately, ‘that’s all. You could choose to get yourself sorted out. Then you could go back to them strong and whole.’

  ‘You’re making out I’m some kind of basket case!’

  ‘No, no. Just good advice. But Rod did tell me you’ve been ill.’

  Dodie breathes in sharply. ‘He said that?’ She sits down again, knees suddenly weak. She finishes her tea, cool now, and doesn’t know what to do with her hands; scrapes a flake of nail polish into her mouth, picks it from her tooth.

  Martha watches her all the time, sad love shining in her eyes. ‘Want to speak to him?’ she says.

  Dodie looks up, startled. ‘You mean now?’

  Martha nods and takes a different phone from her pocket. Fingers trembling, Dodie tries home, she tries Rod’s mobile, she tries his mother. No one answers. She leaves bleating messages on each answering service, then drops the phone and puts her head on her knees. Waves of frustration roll through her but, oddly, she finds she’s a little detached from them; she can glimpse the separation between the emotion and herself. Maybe she is changing. C
ould it be that this is actually doing her good?

  The door opens and Hannah comes in. She blinks and holds her thumb, but glares at Martha.

  ‘Was someone banging on the door?’ she says.

  Martha frowns, her face darkening as if a shadow has fallen across it.

  ‘Our Father needs you,’ Hannah adds, shortly. ‘Now.’

  ‘I’ll just finish here,’ Martha says, a scrape of irritation in her voice. Again, there is a real bristle in the air. Dodie looks interestedly between them, notices the way they avoid each other’s eyes, how prickly their body language is.

  Martha turns her attention back to Dodie. ‘You can leave if you want,’ she says. Hannah makes as if to object, but Martha glares at her, and continues. ‘But why not give yourself a few more days? And then you’ll get to see Seth. Think of it as a holiday for your spirit. You’ve got a few days before you fly back?’

  ‘What did Rod say anyway?’ Dodie says.

  Martha leans towards Dodie as if to speak confidentially, as if to shut Hannah out. ‘Well, he thinks it might do you good to stay.’

  ‘What?’ Dodie feels the blood rise to her cheeks. ‘Stay?’

  ‘Not for life,’ Hannah chips in drily. ‘Just the rest of the week.’

  ‘He didn’t even want me to come in the first place – but then he did.’ Dodie finishes lamely, remembering that in the end it was his finger that pressed Confirm and finalized the purchase of the ticket.

  ‘He said you needed a break,’ Martha says.

  ‘He said that?’

  Martha nods. ‘Let it go,’ she says, and blinks into Dodie’s eyes, and Dodie does let it all unravel. It all seems too complicated and exhausting and so very far away. At least, for this instant, and this instant is really all there is. She nods, half shrugs.

  ‘Good,’ Hannah says, ‘that’s settled. Martha, you’re letting Our Father down, keeping him waiting.’

  ‘One moment.’

  Dodie hears the gritting of Martha’s teeth.

  ‘Now I’ll take you to your meditation,’ Hannah says, holding out her hand.

  12

  She sits beside John, shuts her eyes and lets go, sinking into the words as if into a warm bath. Can’t think straight any more anyway. The decision to stay is made and that’s a relief, so hard to hold onto the resolve to do anything other than be swept along, soft and easy. It’s wisdom, of course, it’s obvious; of course it hurts to cling to things that will only ever be taken away, the only constant is change, and how restful that thought and how soothing. There are no decisions to be made, not today anyway, she can forget about leaving, just for now, forget about trying to think straight, and who wants to think straight anyway when the universe is made of curves?

  Time goes on like that, loose and formless. But as she sits, something begins to happen in her chest, begins to stir and twitch, like a pupa ripe to hatch. It didn’t click at the time, not consciously, because it wasn’t thinkable, but in the dark recesses it has developed: what if Seth had something to do with Stella’s death? What if he was there? What if he killed her and then fled? The guilt of it made him run, made him come here and now he won’t see her, of course he won’t because he knows that if she looks into his eyes she’ll know. Her heart thumps and the nails serrate her palms and the words that come from the straight line of the mask are inaudible behind the thrumming beat of blood in her ears. No. But it does make sense. It makes a picture, the pieces falling into place with horrible ease.

  That doesn’t mean it’s true.

  Almost falling into place, but one piece is missing, a central piece: Stella told the school he was leaving; Stella wrote the suicide note. Maybe she needed to get him out of the way before she killed herself. Maybe . . . and the maybes start multiplying like bacteria, maybe this and maybe that and maybe, maybe, maybe STOP.

  Let go the edges, the voice is saying. Let go the pain of edges. Let go those destructive thoughts, nothing out there matters, nothing that ever happened matters now.

  The voice coming from behind the mask is Caribbean this time, and warm as black treacle stirred in milk, like someone made for her once, sweet and dark to help her sleep – posset, is it? And surely that couldn’t have been Stella.

  Think of your dearest possession – now let it go.

  She thinks. What? What is her dearest thing? Nothing much; well, the house of course.

  Think of your dearest person – and now, in your imagination, have the courage to let them go.

  NO. Jake. NO. Never.

  She reaches for the pain of separation and it’s there but fainter, her head a swirl of treacle, milk, water, words. And, hard to hold on to a single thought now, it’s there but numbed into a faint umbilical thrum which she can tune into, up the volume, but she realizes with a little flash, she does have a choice, she could let go. People do do that; people actually do let go of children.

  And some time passes, humming and finding the precise vibration to fit within the others, to lock in and block out all but the sweet sensation of space and blankness, the rising wordless chord that seems to lift you up and out until you are it. And there’s another sleep that seems no more than a blinking, something else to eat, sweet porridge or savoury soup, it doesn’t matter. More hurrying in the maze of white corridors. Even that, just following in the almost featureless passages, is restful, decisionless, another kind of letting go. Another meditation. A woman’s voice this time behind the mask, Southern, maybe Texan. Something is trying to bother her but she tunes into the words and is carried away by them.

  And, later – because even if there is no time there is still now and then and later – Martha takes her to a room to talk. Martha is like a mother to her here and it feels good to have a mother who is so warm, like being a child again, mothered properly this time, quietly bewildered at the ways of the grown-up world, but going along with it, and trusting. When she can let herself. Trusting. Trust is such a restful thing. She’s never trusted anyone before and never even noticed the lack.

  ‘And how are you now?’ Martha says. They sit in the little room with the ripped sofa, mugs of tea before them. She’s growing to crave that sweet and bitter taste.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dodie says. ‘I let go, like you said.’

  ‘Not me, Dodie, you. It has to come from you.’

  ‘S’pose.’ Little pellets of foam on the floor where she rolled them before and she doesn’t know how long before. Greedily, she sips the tea.

  ‘What day is it?’ She has to fight upwards to remember her purpose. ‘Mustn’t miss my flight.’

  ‘We won’t let you forget. We’re all so pleased. And Seth is pleased. He’ll see you soon.’

  At the mention of Seth’s name, a shark’s fin rises; odd now to think he’s the reason she’s here. It’s like her brain has come unravelled, a strangely nice sensation. ‘I’ll almost be sorry to go,’ she says, and shivers, frowning.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ Martha says. She smiles at Dodie over the edge of her mug.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Dodie says. ‘Jake –’

  ‘Rod phoned again,’ Martha says, putting down her mug.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He rang back after you left your messages. Everything’s fine.’ She smoothes her skirt over her knees; a small stain there, spilled soup maybe.

  ‘But you should have told me!’

  ‘I would have done, but actually it was Hannah who spoke to him and she deemed it wisest not to disturb you. Anyway, we did agree, didn’t we? About how it upsets you to talk to him.’

  ‘I never agreed anything!’

  ‘Hush,’ Martha says. ‘Just hush.’

  ‘I bet he loved that! I never agreed not to talk to him!’ But the energy required for anger is just too tiring.

  Martha kneels in front of Dodie, takes the mug from her hand, looks into her eyes. Dodie gazes into the pale cottony blue of Martha’s irises and, as she blinks, Dodie’s own eyelids feel heavy, drawn down into a matching blink. Martha begi
ns to hum, a mid-note that begins softly and starts to bloom and when she has to stop to take a breath Dodie finds her own note, a tone higher, and the two of them vibrate like that and it’s magical how calming it is, how it soothes. It’s like something that holds you up and gets inside you all at once but then the flickery lights of faintness begin to play around the periphery of her vision, not good to get so worked up, not on an empty stomach, must have lost pounds, that’s something anyway. The humming stops. The quiet is intense.

  ‘He understood,’ Martha says. She settles back on the sofa. ‘He shares a concern with me.’ She presses her lips together, formulating, it seems, a kind way to say what she has to say.

  ‘What?’ Dodie says.

  ‘Now hold on to your calm. OK?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said he’d been concerned that you are too attached, smotheringly attached – his words – to Jake, and to Seth. You mollycoddle them. Don’t allow them any room to breathe.’

  ‘That’s nonsense!’ But the word mollycoddle zigzags through her like a bolt of lightning.

  ‘Keep calm,’ Martha reminds her. ‘Now. Perhaps that was why Seth left? You still treat him as a baby when he’s a young man, trying to grow up. Perhaps that’s why he’s ambivalent about seeing you?’

  ‘No. That’s not so. I don’t believe that,’ Dodie says, struggling to sound calm.

  ‘Well, Rod thinks the separation is doing Jake good.’

  ‘Rod would never say that!’

  She shakes her head and the room swings from side to side, Martha’s face swaying like a lantern. ‘I don’t believe you. I feel sick.’

  She shuts her eyes. Inside, the furry light-blobs slide and blur. Martha goes to stand behind her, leans over, faint smell of lavender and sweat, and begins to massage her scalp with tiny delicate movements, so gentle and so subtle that it makes her want to cry. ‘It’s OK,’ Martha whispers, ‘let it go now, let it go.’

  Her scalp rises to the touch of Martha’s fingertips, her hair seems to lift and sway like underwater weeds. The calm of the hum returns and, in fact, Martha hums as her fingers move and Dodie sees behind her eyelids a picture of a woman, of herself, with Jake in her arms and Rod in the doorway of his shed, saying, ‘Will you not mollycoddle him?’ And she’s clutching the child so desperately, because, why? Because he banged his finger and he isn’t even hurt; he doesn’t need to be hugged and he struggles to leave her arms. It’s her need, not his. Is it true then that she smothers him? Mollycoddles him and Seth. Martha stops massaging and she feels a pang of loss.