Boneland (8 page)

He had heard the stories of the Beginning and the songs and the steps of the dance; and he knew the way. He had to go to the Mother while his legs could walk and dance, to bring the stone that had the life to make the blade to cut the rock to free the woman to make the child to learn the dance to keep the world. If he did not, there would be no other.

He took a fire stick and went from Ludcruck to where the sun rose at its longest.

He walked for one day, he walked for two days, he walked for three days into the further land. But he did not come to where the Mother lay. He walked past torrent beds, which led him by the cobbles of her rolled bones. He walked for four days. He walked for seven. He walked for nine. And he came to the Mother.

Her flanks were covered with scrub. He went to where he had come with the old man; but the marks of their taking had grown dead. No blades lay in that stone.

He sang and danced and told the stories of the Beginning; and he sat and dreamed. Then he took a piece of her weathered skin, and drove it, smashing away the dead flesh, maggot-cleansing the Mother, for three days till he came to the white bone. He saw the living blades within, the blades that she had grown in the Beginning, the life that came from the start of things, and he sang to the Mother that the bone should not break, telling the stories as he worked, so she would know that he sang true.

The bone came free. It was as much as he could bear.

He sang to the Mother, to make her sleep and feel no hurt. He gathered the splinters of his work from the taking and buried them by her ribs. He lifted the bone upon his shoulder and set out under the weight. His shoulder tore, but he went on. His arms were numb; his hands did not hold. Sweat and thirst made his mind a cloud, and blood came from his eyes, but he followed the torrent beds down, and in a time he could not tell he came to the Bearstone above Ludcruck, and dropped into the cleft.

‘Why am I scared of you?’ said Colin.

‘God knows,’ said Meg. ‘Do you?’

‘Now I’ve found her everything should be right again.’

‘“Again”? When was that?’

‘Before I lost her.’

‘Remind me. Who is “her”?’

‘You don’t need reminding,’ said Colin. ‘You mean repeat. What you don’t know is she’s my twin. She tells me.’

‘Ah now. Twin. What’s her name?’

‘I can’t access the data. She went before—’

‘Before you were thirteen.’

‘But she’s real. She is. She is real.’

‘What did your parents say?’ said Meg.

‘I can’t access them.’

‘Why not?’

Colin shook his head. ‘They were deleted.’

‘Your parents were killed. Air crash.’

‘Sierra Papa Lima Tango Victor.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. But you were twelve years old.’

‘Flight one-six-five. Was I?’

‘Yes. What do you remember of your adolescence?’

‘School. Holidays. University.’

‘Who paid for it all?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Aren’t you interested, Colin?’

‘What happened to my sister?’

‘Colin. I’ve tracked the records. Has it never occurred to you to do the same?’

‘No.’

‘You have no surviving family.’

‘There’s my sister. I lost her. My sister. I’ve been looking; searching; for years; even in the stars.’

‘Where did you spend those holidays?’

‘Here, on the Edge. Down Hocker Lane.’

‘Who did you stay with?’

‘An old man. And his wife. They were small farmers.’

‘How did you come to be there?’ said Meg.

‘I loved them.’

‘Then what?’

‘He died. And she died six years after I’d got my doctorate and was at the telescope, and the farm had to be sold. It was tarted up and gentrified, and I went to Church Quarry and built the Bergli. I don’t go down Hocker Lane. It’s too dreadful.’

‘Where were you when the amnesia began?’

‘It must have been at the farm.’

‘And your sister? Where was she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you remember her being at the farm?’

‘Sometimes. I can’t be sure. Bits.’

‘According to the records, Elizabeth Mossock, of Hocker Lane, was your legal guardian, and the couple adopted you when you were twelve. Did they ever mention a sister?’

‘No,’ said Colin. ‘But I used to ask them.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘Nothing. Every time I asked they changed the subject. It seemed to upset them, though they tried not to show it. They wouldn’t talk about her.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Meg.

‘But they must have known, mustn’t they? They could have told me. They could have said.’

‘Oh, supple your kidneys. Let’s not add paranoia, Colin. Now. Listen. Hear me. I’m not asking you to accept this; only to consider it. What you’ve been describing is well recorded in the literature. It’s known as Missing Twin Syndrome. It creates the illusion of another self. It can be pathological, but it often has a physical reality, where one embryo has absorbed the other, or aborted it. Does that possibility ring any bells for you?’

‘Cuckoo,’ said Colin. ‘
Cuculus canorus
, long-tailed, rather sharp-winged; in flight sometimes confused with sparrowhawk,
Accipiter nisus
, or even kestrel,
Falco tinnunculus
, commonly windhover.’

‘You are not a bird,’ said Meg.

‘Then where’s my twin?’ said Colin. ‘Where’s my sister? Give her back. Where is she?’

‘Good question.’

‘Don’t ditch me, Meg.’

‘I shan’t.’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘It’s a poser,’ said Meg. ‘Now you’re presenting juvenile psychopathy. That’s greedy. But getting you sectioned isn’t an option. Yet. So how’s about inviting me to dinner? A girl needs a break sometimes.’

‘I’d like that very much,’ said Colin.

‘You’re on,’ said Meg.

When his legs could walk and his hands could hold and his fingers speak he went from the lodge the length of three days’ hunting down beside the river towards the Flatlands, to the earth where the hammers grew.

He searched about the bank until he found two that were firm. One was white and black, the other yellow and grey. He pulled them from the mud and moved them in his hand. They were ripe to be taught their ways.

The hammer rocks were as hard as the Motherbone, but not so hard that they bruised or flawed the blow. They were not as fine as the bone, but glittered packed night, and stars that would fly as they hit and worked. He took them and climbed back to the hills.

He rested, shaping his thought; and the next day he went and sat in Ludcruck between the walls of making. In each hand he held a hammer stone and sang to them the story of the world and how they came to be. He told them their names and how the spirits had grown them in the earth. He told them the Motherbone that they must strike without wound and how his hand would help and his fingers teach. He moved them to find how they would turn, and to make them know how they would sit and take knowledge from his palm. He moved them so that his fingers knew to guide, and he sang for learning from the old, for them to give his eye their skill, to hit with wisdom and to guide his song. This was the last bone that he could carry from the Mother. If the blades he brought from it should break or he not cut, the woman would be kept in Ludcruck at the rock veil and the world would end.

When he had told and done he set the hammers down and fetched the Motherbone. He laid it by them and sat through the night, and he and all were singing in one dream.

At dawn he drank and fed and shat. He breathed in and a little out and breathed and breathed again. He felt the spirits wake. He took the hammer that was white and black and with it tapped the bone. He took the yellow and grey. He tapped. The one knew the way to the blades, and the other how to free them.

His palm held, his fingers told, his eye grew strong, his hand lifted, the spirits came, and all cried down upon the bone. It sang hurt and joy. It sang birth and making.

The hand lifted and bore again. Hammer and hand and eye and bone spoke, and the maker spirits in the walls answered and shaped their spirit blades of spirit bone. He was of them and they of him and Ludcruck rang.

On through the day he hit, and the blades rose towards him from the marrow. He rested, drank, and hit again. But though his eye was strong, his hand began to lose its thought. His fingers slurred. The voice of the bone was dulled, the hammer deaf; the spirits paused and watched. He lifted, havered, struck. The bone shattered and the blades were gone.

Pain sat all in him. His eye told his hand, but his hand did not hear. He went to the lodge, and it was cold.

He woke and felt to know that he was dead. His groin was warm. He touched his eyes. It was day. He rolled onto his knees, pushed and stood against the pain, holding the pole of the lodge. He went out to Ludcruck.

The hammers glinted, but the shards of the Mother lay spent. He gathered them and searched their veins. He saw that they were old and he had chosen wrong. Brown lines of blood that could not live again ran deep. His eye had not heard. The world was lost through him.

He turned the last piece. It was no bigger than two hands. The brown ran through all the weight that he had brought; but ended here. In this one fist there was no flaw. He took the white and black, and tapped. The bone answered, and it was another song, deep where he could not see. He took the yellow and grey. He tapped. He took the white and black again and worked down into the bone. He stopped and tapped with yellow and grey.

He went on, unfettering the rock. Something lay within. It was close, though he could not see. He came upon it as he would a hare. Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.

At his most gentle touch the bone split and stole the dawn. He covered his face and looked between his fingers. In the last hope of the Mother lay a rod of light. Its ridges were crests of blades worked by other hands, hands from the Beginning, waiting in the bone. He lifted it. The Mother had given. The spirits laughed.

He took the blades and trimmed their crests, strengthened their edges with pressing and soft blows. He went down into Ludcruck, his mind hard against pain, past the nooks of the dead, along the seam of grit, by the clamour of beasts, down the cliff to the great cave and the Stone above the shining waters. He sat by the Stone, moving his thought, and then he danced until the moon lifted in him, brought pictures to his tongue and shone across the wall to the gap. He followed, twisting at the crack. The waters were near. He stretched. He touched the nipple in the rock.

He shifted back and raised his lamp. The swelling of the veil was more than he could pass as the woman pushed, but there was a groove beneath. He lay flat and crawled under the belly, though he could scarcely go. His arm, head and shoulder led him through, and the lamp showed the space beyond.

He stood, and looked back. Now he saw the breast. From here he could cut the veil. He set the lamp where it would light the work, and he took a blade and put it to the rock where the nipple thrust. And then he cut, guiding his hand with song.

He carved the breast, and when it was clear he followed the throat to open the mouth so that the woman could breathe. He marked the eyes so that they might see the way, and shaped the head so that it would turn. Then he worked the other breast for milk to flow.

He curved the belly full of life and cut the slot wide to bring the birth. He shaped one arm to hold to the breasts, another to hold the young moon, and legs to stand and to be cranes to fly to carry the spirit across the land.

And when that was done he rested and lay deep in Ludcruck by the waters until he had the strength to climb, back from the cave, by the clamour of the beasts, along the seam of grit, past the nooks of the dead, into the day and the loud crag.

The woman was free; and she would come to him.

‘Hi,’ said Meg. ‘Am I too early?’

‘No. No. Not at all,’ said Colin. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Bert dropped me off. I hoped we might go for a walk.’

‘Of course,’ said Colin.

‘I’d like you to show me the Edge.’

‘That could last for ever,’ said Colin. ‘But we can take a stroll, if you like.’

‘Strolling is what I do best.’

‘Splendid. I’ll just pop the lamb in the oven. Oh, thoughtless of me. I didn’t ask. Are you vegetarian?’

‘Carnivore,’ said Meg. ‘And I like my lamb pink.’

‘Good.’ He unhooked his plain gown from behind the door and put it on. ‘Allow me.’

They left the quarry and walked through the woods.

‘Of course,’ said Colin, ‘you have to bear in mind that all this is eighteenth-century landscaping. Before, it was called a “dreary common”.’

‘Well, it isn’t now,’ said Meg. ‘Hush.’

‘Sor—’

‘Ah?’

‘—ry.’

They walked without speaking. Colin led the way down into a deep hollow. The floor was uneven and they skirted mud. The sides were cut straight, herringbone patterned by picks. It was another old quarry, huge and grassy. At the end Meg stopped. Pines stood above on the rim, and their roots had teased down and split the rock with life. The stone was pure, without blemish or grain, but near the bottom of the wall was a bed of red marl. The clay had weathered out, leaving a shelf. Meg reached up and took some in her hand and worked it on her palm, spitting to make it soft. Then she lifted her finger and drew it across Colin’s forehead and on his cheekbones and along his nose. He could not see what she was doing, but the marks were careful and even, matching either side. Her brow was furrowed, her finger light, precise. She looked, smiled and put her arm through his as they went out of the quarry, by a cut gap along a path, with a cleft on each side, to a broad way, and ahead was treeless sky.

‘Wow. What’s this? Where are we?’ said Meg.

‘Stormy Point.’

The ground was sand and quartz pebbles: loose pebbles lying and pebbles in the rock. Stone thrust out. Below, the scarp was tumbled with boulders to the land beneath. The brindled fields stretched to the hills. Meg sat on a rock to see, but Colin shook his head.

‘Not here. Not now. Keep moving.’

‘Why?’ said Meg.

‘There are things to show you, and I don’t want to overcook the lamb.’