The Children of Men (35 page)

In the shed Julian lay so still that at first he thought she was sleeping. But her eyes were open and she still had them fixed on her child. The air was rich with the pungent sweetness of wood smoke, but the fire had gone out. Theo put down the basket and, taking the bottle of water, unscrewed the top. He knelt down beside her.

She looked into his eyes and said: “Miriam’s dead, isn’t she?” When Theo made no reply, she said: “She died getting this for me.”

He held the bottle to her lips. “Then drink it and be thankful.”

But she turned her head away, releasing her hold on the child so that if he hadn’t caught the baby he would have rolled from her body. She lay still as if too exhausted for paroxysms of grief, but the tears gushed in a stream over her face and he could hear a low, almost musical moaning, like the keening of a universal grief. She was mourning for Miriam as she had never yet mourned the father of her child.

He bent and held her in his arms, clumsily because of the baby between them, trying to enfold them both. He said: “Remember the baby. The baby needs you. Remember what Miriam would have wanted.”

She didn’t speak but she nodded and again took the child from him. He put the bottle of water to her lips.

He took out the three tins from the basket. From one the label had fallen off; the tin felt heavy but there was no knowing what was inside. The second was labelled
PEACHES IN SYRUP
. The third was a tin of baked beans in tomato sauce. For these and a bottle of water Miriam had died. But he knew that was too simple. Miriam had died because she was one of the small band who knew the truth about the child.

The tin-opener was an old type, partly rusted, the cutting edge blunted. But it was adequate. He rasped open the tin, then wrenched back the lid and, cradling Julian’s head in his right arm, began feeding her the beans on the middle finger of his left hand. She sucked at it avidly. The process of feeding her was an act of love. Neither spoke.

After five minutes, when the can was half empty, she said: “Now it’s your turn.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Of course you’re hungry.”

His knuckles were too large for his fingers to reach the bottom of the tin, so it was her turn to feed him. Sitting up with the cradled child resting in her lap, she inserted her small right hand and fed him.

He said: “They taste wonderful.”

When the tin was empty she gave a little sigh, then lay back, gathering the child to her breast. He stretched himself beside her.

She said: “How did Miriam die?”

It was a question he knew that she would ask. He couldn’t lie to her. “She was strangled. It must have been very quick. Perhaps she didn’t even see them. I don’t think she had time for terror or pain.”

Julian said: “It could have lasted a second, two seconds, perhaps more. We can’t live those seconds for her. We can’t know what she felt, the terror, the pain. You could feel a lifetime’s pain and terror in two seconds.”

He said: “My darling, it’s over for her now. She’s beyond their reach for ever. Miriam, Gascoigne, Luke, they’re all beyond the Council’s reach. Every time a victim dies it’s a small defeat for tyranny.”

She said: “That’s too easy a comfort.” And then, after a silence: “They won’t try to separate us, will they?”

“Nothing and no one will separate us, not life nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor anything that is of the heavens nor anything that is of the earth.”

She laid her hand against his cheek. “Oh, my darling, you can’t promise that. But I like to hear you say it.” After a moment she asked: “Why don’t they come?” But there was no anguish in the question, only a gentle bewilderment.

He reached out and took her hand, winding his fingers round the hot, distorted flesh amazed that he had once found it repulsive. He stroked it but he didn’t answer. They lay motionless side by side. Theo was aware of the strong smell of the sawn wood and the dead fire, of the oblong of sunlight like a green veil, of the silence, windless, birdless, of her heartbeats and his own. They were wrapped in an intensity of listening which was miraculously devoid of anxiety. Was this what the victims of torture felt when they passed through the extremity of pain into peace? He thought: I have done what I set out to do. The child is born as she wanted. This is our place, our moment of time, and, whatever they do to us, it can never be taken away.

It was Julian who broke the silence: “Theo, I think they’re here. They’ve come.”

He had heard nothing but he got up and said: “Wait very quietly. Don’t move.”

Turning his back so that she couldn’t see, he took the revolver from his pocket and inserted the bullet. Then he went out to meet them.

Xan was alone. He looked like a woodman with his old corduroy trousers, open-necked shirt and heavy sweater. But woodmen do not come armed; there was the bulge of a holster under the sweater. And no woodman had stood blazing with such confidence, such an arrogance of power. Glittering on his left hand was the wedding ring of England.

He said: “So it is true.”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Where is she?”

Theo didn’t answer. Xan said: “I don’t need to ask. I know where she is. But is she well?”

“She’s well. She’s asleep. We have a few minutes before she wakes.”

Xan threw back his shoulders and gave a gasp of relief like an exhausted swimmer emerging to shake the water from his eyes.

For a moment he breathed hard; then he said calmly: “I can wait to see her. I don’t want to frighten her. I’ve come with an ambulance, helicopter, doctors, midwives. I’ve brought everything she needs. This child will be born in comfort and safety. The mother will be treated like the miracle she is; she has to know that. If she trusts you, then you can be the one to tell her. Reassure her, calm her, let her know she has nothing to fear from me.”

“She has everything to fear. Where is Rolf?”

“Dead.”

“And Gascoigne?”

“Dead.”

“And I’ve seen Miriam’s body. So no one is alive who knows the truth about this child. You’ve disposed of them all.”

Xan said calmly: “Except you.” When Theo didn’t reply he went on: “I don’t plan to kill you, I don’t want to kill you. I need you. But we have to talk now before I see her. I have to know how far I can rely on you. You can help me with her, with what I have to do.”

Theo said: “Tell me what you have to do.”

“Isn’t it obvious? If it’s a boy and he’s fertile, he’ll be the father of the new race. If he produces sperm, fertile sperm, at thirteen—at twelve maybe—our female Omegas will only be thirty-eight. We can breed from them, from other selected women. We may be able to breed again from the woman herself.”

“The father of her child is dead.”

“I know. We got the truth from Rolf. But if there was one fertile male there can be others. We’ll redouble the testing programme. We’ve been getting careless. We’ll test everyone, the epileptic, deformed—every male in the country. And the child may be a male—a fertile male. He’ll be our best hope. The hope of the world.”

“And Julian?”

Xan laughed. “I’ll probably marry her. Anyway, she’ll be looked after. Go back to her now. Wake her. Tell her I’m here but on my own. Reassure her. Tell her you’ll be helping me to care for her. Good God, Theo, do you realize what power is in our hands? Come back on the Council, be my lieutenant. You can have anything you want.”

“No.”

There was a pause. Xan asked: “Do you remember the bridge at Woolcombe?” The question wasn’t a sentimental appeal to an old loyalty or the tie of blood, nor a reminder of kindness given and taken. Xan had in that moment simply remembered and he smiled with the pleasure of it.

Theo said: “I remember everything that happened at Woolcombe.”

“I don’t want to kill you.”

“You’re going to have to, Xan. You may have to kill her too.”

He reached for his own gun. Xan laughed as he saw it.

“I know it isn’t loaded. You told the old people that, remember? You wouldn’t have let Rolf get away if you’d had a loaded gun.”

“How did you expect me to stop him? Shoot her husband in front of her eyes?”

“Her husband? I didn’t realize that she cared greatly about her husband. That isn’t the picture he so obligingly gave us before he died. You don’t imagine you’re in love with her, do you? Don’t romanticize her. She may be the most important woman in the world but she isn’t the Virgin Mary. The child she is carrying is still the child of a whore.”

Their eyes met. Theo thought: What is he waiting for? Does he find that he can’t shoot me in cold blood, as I find I can’t shoot him? Time passed, second after interminable second. Then Xan stretched his arm and took aim. And it was in that split second of time that the child cried, a high mewing wail, like a cry of protest. Theo heard Xan’s bullet hiss harmlessly through the sleeve of his jacket. He knew that in that half-second he couldn’t have seen what afterwards he so clearly remembered: Xan’s face transfigured with joy and triumph; couldn’t have heard his great shout of affirmation, like the shout on the bridge at Woolcombe. But it was with that remembered shout in his ears that he shot Xan through the heart.

After the two shots he was aware only of a great silence. When he and Miriam had pushed the car into the lake, the peaceful forest had become a screaming jungle, a cacophony of wild shrieks, crashing boughs and agitated bird-calls which had faded only with the last trembling ripple. But now there was nothing. It seemed to him that he walked towards Xan’s body like an actor in a slow-motion film, hands buffeting the air, feet high-stepping, hardly seeming to touch the ground; space stretching into infinity so that Xan’s body was a distant goal towards which he
made his arduous way held in suspended time. And then, like a kick in the brain, reality took hold again and he was simultaneously aware of his own body’s quick motion, of every small creature moving among the trees, every leaf of grass felt through the soles of his shoes, of the air moving against his face, aware most keenly of all of Xan lying at his feet. He was lying on his back, arms spread, as if taking his ease beside the Windrush. His face looked peaceful, unsurprised, as if he were feigning death but, kneeling, Theo saw that his eyes were two dull pebbles, once sea-washed but now left for ever lifeless by the last receding tide. He took the ring from Xan’s finger, then stood upright and waited.

They came very quietly, moving out of the forest, first Carl Inglebach, then Martin Woolvington, then the two women. Behind them, keeping a careful distance, were six Grenadiers. They moved to within four feet of the body, then paused. Theo held up the ring, then deliberately placed it on his finger and held the back of his hand towards them.

He said: “The Warden of England is dead and the child is born. Listen.”

It came again, that piteous but imperative mew of the new-born. They began moving towards the wood-shed but he barred the path and said: “Wait. I must ask his mother first.”

Inside the shed Julian was sitting bolt upright, the child held tight against her breast, his open mouth now suckling, now moving against her skin. As Theo came up to her he saw the desperate fear in her eyes lightening to joyous relief. She let the child rest on her lap and held out her arms to him.

She said with a sob: “There were two shots. I didn’t know whether I should see you or him.”

For a moment he held her shaking body against his. He said: “The Warden of England is dead. The Council is here. Will you see them, show them your child?”

She said: “For a little while. Theo, what will happen now?”

Terror for him had for a moment drained her of courage and strength and for the first time since the birth he saw her vulnerable and afraid. He whispered to her, his lips against her hair.

“We’ll take you to hospital, to somewhere quiet. You’ll be looked after. I won’t let you be disturbed. You won’t need to be there long and we’ll be together. I shan’t leave you ever. Whatever happens, we shall be together.”

He released her and went outside. They were standing in a semicircle waiting for him, their eyes fixed on his face.

“You can come in now. Not the Grenadiers, just the Council. She’s tired, she needs to rest.”

Woolvington said: “We have an ambulance further down the lane. We can call up the paramedics, carry her there. The helicopter is about a mile away, outside the village.”

Theo said: “We won’t risk the helicopter. Call up the stretcher-bearers. And get the Warden’s body moved. I don’t want her to see it.”

As two Grenadiers immediately came forward and began dragging at the corpse, Theo said: “Use some reverence. Remember what he was only minutes ago. You wouldn’t have dared lay a hand on him then.”

He turned and led the Council into the wood-shed. It seemed to him that they came tentatively, reluctantly, first the two women, then Woolvington and Carl. Woolvington didn’t approach Julian but took a stand at her head as if he were a sentry on guard. The two women knelt, less, Theo thought, in homage than from a need to be close to the child. They looked at Julian as if seeking consent. She smiled and held out the baby. Murmuring, weeping, shaken with tears and laughter, they put out their hands and touched his head, his cheeks, his waving arms. Harriet held out a finger and the baby grasped it in a surprising grip. She laughed and Julian, looking up, said to Theo: “Miriam told me the new-born can grip like that. It doesn’t last very long.”

The women didn’t reply. They were crying and smiling, making their silly happy sounds of welcome and discovery. It seemed to Theo a joyous, female camaraderie. He looked up at Carl, astonished that the man had been able to make the journey, was still managing to stay on his feet. Carl looked down at the child with his dying eyes and spoke his Nunc Dimittis. “So it begins again.”

Theo thought: It begins again, with jealousy, with treachery, with violence, with murder, with this ring on my finger. He looked down at the great sapphire in its glitter of diamonds, at the ruby cross, twisting the ring, aware of its weight. Placing it on his hand had been instinctive and yet deliberate, a gesture to assert authority and ensure protection. He had known that the Grenadiers would come armed. The sight of that shining symbol on his finger would at least make them pause, give him time to speak. Did he need to wear it now? He had all Xan’s power within his grasp, that and more. With Carl dying, the Council was
leaderless. For a time at least he must take Xan’s place. There were evils to be remedied; but they must take their turn. He couldn’t do everything at once, there had to be priorities. Was that what Xan had found? And was this sudden intoxication of power what Xan had known every day of his life? The sense that everything was possible to him, that what he wanted would be done, that what he hated would be abolished, that the world could be fashioned according to his will. He drew the ring from his finger, then paused and pushed it back. There would be time later to decide whether, and for how long, he needed it.