The Offering Page 16

‘Are you all right?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ she said.

  ‘Only lately you seem sort of – tired again.’ I didn’t know which word to use. I said: ‘Are you tired?’

  She said she was fine, that she got a bit tired sometimes but she was fine. Then she looked at me and, for what seemed like the first time in weeks, really saw me. ‘I hope you’re not worrying about me.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and I smiled quickly at her, but suddenly I couldn’t breathe. ‘Just so long as you’re okay.’

  ‘I’ve never been better,’ she said, and to begin with I was so relieved I thought I would cry, but then my stomach began churning again.

  When we came back up the track she seemed thankful the walk was over; her movements were loose, she laughed at Elijah trying to get a leaf off his nose. But the feeling wore off when she realized we were home, and she became awkward and quiet again and her smile got stiff. Where does she want to be, then? Not here, and not somewhere else either.

  4 November

  Dear God,

  Today they cut down the tall pine tree. I don’t know how she held the chainsaw and didn’t cry. I cried with rage. We have done something terrible. Already this place is not as we found it. The Tree of Life has been cut down. Or perhaps it is not the Tree of Life after all but the Tree of Knowledge. But if that is the case, then what have we learnt?

  I step into the girl. ‘Don’t leave me,’ I say.

  The girl’s heart is beating hard and slow. She knows she has to speak.

  ‘Can’t you cut one of the other trees down?’ she says. The man’s eyes are furious. It has to be that tree because it is too close to the house, he says, and it might fall in a storm. ‘The tree is alive!’ the girl says. But he isn’t listening.

  He shouts to the woman and she puts the saucepan of mince on the side of the stove and takes off her pinny. I see for the first time that he likes the woman watching him when he is angry; that if she were not there he might not be angry at all.

  Elijah, the girl and I stand on the wall by the dairy and watch. The girl keeps her hand on Elijah’s collar.

  The chainsaw chugs into life and peters out. The man rips the cord again and again. As the motor catches, rooks reel away, cawing, into the still white air. Elijah flattens his ears. I don’t know how my mother stands so close to the noise. I feel the first bite into the trunk. I see the tree shudder. He is wiggling the saw, bending it backwards and forwards in the wood. He doesn’t need to do that.

  His face is red, his mouth a gash. I loathe him. He roars louder than the chainsaw. The chain screams lower as it bites into the wood and higher as it comes away again. For a long time nothing seems to happen. Then the pine yawns, it tilts; there is a splintering sound and a crash, and when I look again there is great stillness and a space in the trees where the sky comes in. The girl did not look away at all. Now she is perfectly still except for her chest, which is rising and falling.

  The woman holds the trunk while he cuts. Her face is red. She sits on it, then wraps her arms around it, but whatever she does the tree still moves. He shouts: ‘Hold it STEADY! Come ON!’ I think perhaps he is mad. The closer the woman gets to the saw, the sicker I feel. Suddenly the girl is running down to them. He tells her to stand back. The girl’s hands grip the knife inside her pocket and I feel its coldness.

  For the rest of the day the sound the tree made when it fell stays in our heads and the stillness it leaves stays in the garden.

  5 November

  Dear God,

  In the garden there are piles of stones that look like skulls; where there used to be trees there is sky; the earth is rent, we have exposed its insides. Of all the things we have done I think this is the worst.

  Now there are gaps, places where the colour has vanished, holes in the ground and the earth and the sky. We have lifted off the colour and now see the bare paper beneath. Are we covering something over or revealing what was underneath? What was underneath was nothing: what we found underneath was white; in the stones of the ground, in the heart of trees, in the space where the trees stood. The heart of things is only whiteness. Inside the darkest hole, beneath the deepest root, it’s there, gleaming. We scrape away, chisel back, burrow down – and we are blinded by light.

  6 November

  Dear God,

  My mother is disappearing. She gazes at nothing, is silent, falls asleep. Each time she sleeps I feel sick and sit by her chair till she wakes. It’s no good doing anything while she sleeps because I can’t concentrate.

  There was something wrong with my head today. The sky was like steel and the wind seemed to have sand in it. I didn’t want to go downstairs and find out how she was, so I made You come three times in bed, then took a sandwich and went down to the stream and separated thirty-five crayfish.

  It doesn’t seem to be doing any good, separating them, because each day there are just as many murderers as there are victims. I think I will have to keep on killing them for ever because they don’t stop eating each other. The dam I made to keep the hollow crayfish away from the feeders isn’t working either. Some of the shells have slipped and now there is just a waterfall. It occurred to me for the first time today that I might have it wrong: that maybe the crayfish are mating, not killing each other, or maybe they are ferrying sick relatives around like ants do. In which case I have been killing the heroes instead of the villains; in which case there were never any villains to kill at all.

  This evening we read about Moses, how without blood it is impossible to be forgiven:

  For when every commandment according to the law had been spoken by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of the young bulls and of the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled the book itself and all the people, saying: ‘This is the blood of the covenant that God has laid in charge upon you,’ and he sprinkled the tent and all the vessels of the public service likewise with the blood. Yes, nearly all things are cleansed with blood according to the Law, and unless blood is poured out no forgiveness takes place.

  What have we done wrong, God? Why won’t You forgive us? Even if You don’t tell me I am going to keep writing to You. It is an act of faith. But it is also because I don’t have anyone else to write to.

  7 November

  Dear God,

  It is too cold to be outside now. The sky throws a strange light onto the land. It is gloomy, yet bright enough to make my eyes water. All day long the sun shines fiercely through a blanket of grey. It is like being underwater. Things feel as if they have been wound down so much that they have almost stopped.

  This morning they cut down three more trees. He said the wood would last all winter. I didn’t want to see the trees fall and took jam sandwiches down to the kennel. I made as many as I could when he was out bringing up the wood.

  The sky was icy beyond the kennel door. A hard wind was blowing and there were little bits of hail in it. I ate the sandwiches and gave Elijah the crusts. I was going to make You come but in the end I didn’t think even that would make me feel better, so I curled up in the hay with Elijah and listened to him chewing his bit of wood.

  On the way back to the house I noticed that the millstone had split. I asked Mum if she had seen it. She came to look.

  ‘Well, I never,’ she said, ‘it must have been the frost last night.’

  After dinner I went and looked at the stone again. It had split in a straight line, right along the stain.

  8 November

  Dear God,

  They are arguing again.

  ‘You won’t adapt!’ she is saying.

  ‘I’m doing my best!’ he shouts back.

  I am huddled beneath the blankets in my bed. I had my fingers in my ears but now I am writing.

  I just heard my father say we would have to think about selling the farm. I thought of going back to the town and then my brain wouldn’t let me think of it any more.

  Please let us stay in this place. It is ours! You gave it to us, remember?
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br />   9 November

  Dear God,

  I had a dream last night. I saw a stone raised up in a high place. The place was flat, level with the sky. The sky was pale and white and so was the stone. The stone was stained red.

  I remembered the dream when I was kneeling by the stream, killing crayfish. I was taking them from the pool and putting them on the stone. The blood was on my hands and the blood was on the stone. I separated the victim from the rider, released the victim, and took the rider’s life. I did it again, and a third time, and then I sat back. I looked at the stone and I looked at the knife. I stood up and I felt dizzy. Suddenly it was obvious. Suddenly I knew what to do.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. Then I began to walk back to the house. I stumbled and got up again. Sweat was coming down from underneath my hair though the wind was cold.

  Without Blood

  Lucas is reading:

  17 November

  Dear God,

  I have waited a whole week and he still has not found work. I cannot do it again. Please let it be enough.

  He frowns. ‘What are we to make of that?’

  I am silent.

  He inhales. ‘There is the drawing of the mouse, then this.’

  18 November

  Dear God,

  I can hear Dad snoring along the landing. The night is icy the other side of the pane. I couldn’t eat dinner tonight. Mum thinks I have some sort of bug. I don’t want to sleep in case I see the mouse again.

  19 November

  God –

  You heard me! Your law is perfect. Your law is true. He came into the kitchen whistling. He looked as if he had been running. He had found work on the other side of the river. He said: ‘I knew it would turn up!’ He had a bunch of flowers for Mum and fresh mussels. Mum’s eyes filled. She cooked the mussels with wild garlic and butter and they laughed at dinner and her face looked like it used to. His was shining with cider.

  Now I am in the long field. The air is cold as fire and the sky is blue. I have saved them. I cannot believe it. All around the land is full of colour, it is quiet and at ease. It has been wound and set ticking.

  ‘What happened between this journal entry’ – he turns the page – ‘and this one? Why is the intervening page coloured with biro? – coloured so densely I can hardly see the paper.’

  I consider Lucas, but am glad to say that he is not appearing in any strange guise today; he is behaving himself – or maybe it is my mind.

  After our last session I asked myself whom I felt he was embodying so strangely, what I was ‘projecting’ – that’s the word therapists like to use, isn’t it? Though it seemed rather apt in this instance because, as I said, at that moment the room seemed to be nothing more than a shadow show or a film played on an old projector; there was something unreal, something of the replica about it. What I don’t understand – if I was projecting an idea – is the fact that my antagonist, with whom I appeared to be engaged in a struggle, was cosmic; the figure godlike.

  Do I see myself subconsciously as a god? If I do it is laughable, as most of the time I feel so powerless as to render myself meaningless. But ‘project’ has another meaning too, doesn’t it? To forecast or predict. Does this suggest, then, that the weird epiphany heralds something to come? And then there is the fact that Lucas seemed to feel whatever I was feeling too …

  ‘Well?’

  ‘What?’ I say, startled by his voice.

  ‘What happened between this journal entry,’ he holds up the xerox, ‘and this one? Why is this page coloured in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  We sit there for quite a long time, he eyeing me.

  ‘Let’s get you up on the couch.’

  I lie down and begin to count backwards. My stomach is unsettled but I submit completely; there is no other way out. And the way out isn’t out, as he reminds me; it’s through. The problem is, I don’t know how far there is still to go, or how bad it will get before we reach the other side.

  ‘We’re going to go back to that missing day, Madeline,’ he is saying, ‘we’re going to recover what you were thinking when you drew the mouse. I’ll be with you, you don’t have to go back alone, but I can’t lead the way, you have to do that …’

  The room fades, the numbers descend and I am swimming through darkness. I sink down, down, down deeper still. The light moves above me. This time it is higher than I remember it being and when I hear the voice it is blurred. The voice says: ‘Where are you, Madeline?’

  It is a long time before I answer and when I do the voice doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like the girl.

  ‘In the barn,’ the girl says.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking.’

  ‘What’s the barn like, Madeline?’

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘From the outside it’s all you can see.’

  ‘The dark is all you can see?’

  ‘From the inside the world is white.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The world is blind.’

  A pause.

  ‘Are you outside the barn or inside it, Madeline?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Outside or inside the barn?’

  ‘Inside.’

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘At the corners, where the light falls, big weeds grow through the floor. Further away they are smaller.’

  ‘What else can you see?’

  ‘Streaks of red and brown, curved blades, big metal hoops. The light is shining through the little weeds by the door. The weeds are shaking. The sky is flying. The sky is frightened. It doesn’t recognize me.’

  ‘Are you … frightened, Madeline?’

  ‘Things happened here. You can still hear the sounds.’

  ‘In the barn?’

  ‘There are things here but no names any more.’

  ‘There are no words in the barn?’

  I brush something away from my face.

  ‘What are you doing now, Madeline?’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you like the barn, Madeline?’

  ‘No … You can think things here.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Sharp things. You can touch them too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Silence.

  ‘Tell me what else you can see, Madeline.’

  ‘There’s a trap.’

  ‘What sort of trap?’

  ‘A trap to catch mice in. My father takes them over the fields and lets them go.’

  ‘Do you touch the trap?’

  ‘Yes. And there is—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  A long way off someone groans.

  ‘You’re quite safe, Madeline. This is a safe place. Nothing is wrong here. Can you tell me what’s happening?’

  ‘The mouse is smaller … It is smaller than I thought.’

  ‘Where is the mouse?’

  A groan.

  ‘It is brown and white. I pick up the trap and it runs round and round.’

  ‘What do you do with the mouse, Madeline?’

  ‘I take it to my mother. She is helping my father in the garden. I say I will take it down the field and let it out.’

  ‘You’re doing well, Madeline, this is important. Let’s keep going. Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m walking to the stream. Elijah is yapping at the mouse.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘The wind is blowing. It’s like water. There is rain in it.’

  ‘What do you feel, Madeline?’

  ‘The sky is a shoal of fish. I am swimming with it.’

  ‘But what are you feeling, Madeline?’

  ‘The garden is watching. I am running from it.’

  ‘But what do you feel, Madeline? Are you afraid, are you confused, are you angry?’

  ‘The trees are creaking. They are bend
ing. Their tops are swaying.’

  ‘Don’t you feel anything at all, Madeline?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘I feel everything.’

  A short silence.

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘At the stream. It has begun to rain. I can hear it in the trees. I look back but no one is following.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I tell Elijah to wait at the edge of the trees. He whines but stays where he is. I go further into the trees and kneel by the stone.’

  I hear the groaning again.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘It’s all right, Madeline, it’s no one. What are you doing now?’

  ‘I have the knife.’

  ‘Oh yes, I see.’

  I wipe my face hard. ‘I can feel the mouse in the cage.’

  ‘Breathe slowly, Madeline. You’re safe here. Nothing can hurt you.’

  I shake my head fast. ‘The mouse is stronger than me! How can such a little thing be so strong? The mouse is angry! I have to make myself angrier. I have to make my movements hard! I must be a machine! I set my jaw, I make my hands stone. The harder it scrabbles, the harder I make myself! I wish I could drown it, but there has to be blood.’

  ‘Why, Madeline, why must there be blood?’

  ‘It’s the law.’

  ‘Which law is that?’

  Silence.

  ‘What do you do next?’

  ‘I take off my jumper. I open the trap and take the mouse in my jumper. It is lighter than air. It struggles, and then it doesn’t. It wriggles frantically and then it is still. I am more scared than that mouse.’

  ‘I know you’re scared, Madeline. You’re being very brave. What do you do with the mouse?’

  ‘I press it onto the stone. I am pressing too tightly for it to move. I feel its heart beating. It is beating the world in and out. The whole world is beating in this mouse. The whole world is talking to me.’

  There is humming in my ears, a hand on my shoulder. ‘Breathe slowly, Madeline.’

  ‘The mouse’s eyes bulge. It makes a high-pitched noise. It sounds as if it’s happy. The blade bites the stone with a gravelly sound. Something is running over my hand. Get it off, get it off, get it off!’

  A scratch on my arm. ‘Is that better?’