The Translation of the Bones (15 page)

And afterward, what then? A ferry into furtive exile. Jumble sales and council offices and tricks in the backs of cars for cash. And the fisher-boy, perhaps the father of a brood, thinking from time to time of his lost daughter. When he was out there, on his own, on the lonely sea. Cold rain on his skin and his small boat pitching; like all fishermen he had never learned to swim.

But would he think; would he remember? Would he taste Fidelma’s kisses in the rain? She had been beautiful herself then; lithe and slender as the fish he hunted, skin as white as buttermilk and soft as flower petals. And look what she was now. A mountain of loose flesh, a huge great wobbling heap of blubber, something seen on a butcher’s slab in nightmares, quivering and overflowing, fold on fold and layer on layer; the girl she once was now encased in fat, imprisoned and so deeply changed that she might never have been. Flesh that smelled of mold and grease, not meadowsweet and grass. Breasts like the swollen udders of abandoned cows, spread-nippled, thick-veined, bulging.

Yet this monstrous blooming did not mean that hunger had been sated. No, not at all. Hidden in the caverns of the hulk there was that place still yearning, and the terror, and the knowledge that it would never now be filled. No mouth would ever kiss Fidelma’s, no man encircled by her eager body cry with pleasure when he came. The only loving she would know again was lovemaking in dreams. And she did feel love in dreams. So intense the feelings, and so real, that the climax washed her up onto the stony shores of wakefulness and left her weeping for lost pleasure and for helplessness, for sadness that it had only been a dream.

On Wednesday evening Kiti Mendoza’s Auntie Rita had already started cooking for the picnic. She was planning leche flan and coconut cake, adobo, dumplings to be eaten cold, skewers of fried chicken. Would it be possible to roast a suckling pig on one of those baby barbecues? Lumpia were good party food, but could they be reheated? She was looking forward to the day. Whatever about that crucifix—and the truth was she couldn’t care less about it one way or another—it was a good reason for a party. And Rita could do with one. A thankless and a tiring life she had, cleaning rooms in a hotel, hoarding the pennies she made to send back home. This distraction was very welcome, this excuse to gather friends together from their scattered community, to cook properly for a change, to share real food. Today she had tasted the promise of summer in the air, the long winter was over at last and she was pleased.

Felix Morrison spiraled in and out of sleep like a sycamore seed caught in a gust of wind. He hovered between sleep and wakefulness as he hovered on the threshold between holiday and term time. He had been counting the days and they had gone so slowly. Tomorrow he would be home. But only twenty-one days later, he would be back at school. In a moment of clarity, in the dead hours of that Wednesday night, Felix saw the years stretching ahead of him like an endless seesaw on which he would never find his balance. He would spend his whole life tossed between looking forward in excitement and looking forward in plain dread.

Was he quite alone, a minute ant in a giant universe, with this sicky feeling? Or did all the other boys now snuffling and sighing in their beds beside him share it too? How would he ever know? Unimaginable it was to strut up to, for instance, Pommeridge, who was the dormitory head, and say: now tell me, Pommeridge, do you live in the present? Or are you always straining for the future?

Could he ask his mother? Tell me how to live today? Just possibly, yes, he could but there might be a danger then that she would ask him why he was afraid. And that would not be good. He did not want to make her sad with that. Ever since he was a little boy, Felix had tried to shield his mother from upset. Which was why he never told her how he cried at night in school. Although, actually, he was quite sure she felt the same for him. Quite probably she cried at night as well, but she would never say so. They were brave for one another, that’s just how it was; the way the world worked, maybe, or maybe it was something else.

Maundy Thursday. Father Diamond woke with a sick feeling, as if some sour thing were squatting in his guts. He knew immediately what day it was. Maundy Thursday. The syllables tolled like a death knell. Holy Thursday was the correct new term, but Father Diamond still thought of the day as Maundy. Because he was on his own he was excused some of the customary duties of a parish priest. But there was still so much to do. What for? For an empty church with the altars stripped, for darkness and for nothing.

Mrs. Armitage got out of bed with a glad heart. These mornings of bright daylight were still surprise enough to be a wonderful new present, the possession of which gave pleasure every time you thought about it. Opening the window, she sensed the air had changed. After a long winter, spring could be a ditherer, putting one foot forward and then withdrawing it, like a shy child unsure whether to join in with the game. Even when fine, the days of March and early April could hold a taint of winter but today the light was clear. In her tidy garden, forsythia in full bloom was sunshine captured and distilled and the birds were singing as if their little lungs would burst. Honestly, she thought, this is more than just a change of season; it is the whole world breathing a great sigh of relief. Winter has at last let go, Lent is almost over, it will soon be Easter Sunday, Fraser is coming home.

The most delicious smell in the world—fresh toast—was wafting in through the bedroom window from the kitchen below. Larry was up already, making breakfast. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday: five whole days unbroken by work, holidays, holy days, with Larry. On Easter Sunday Stewart and his girlfriend would come over; Mrs. Armitage would buy the lamb today. A leg was the traditional thing but she always said you got more value from a shoulder. Better texture, better taste. She had the eggs already. Larry would have bought one for her and hidden it behind his shirts in his side of the cupboard. They always gave up sweets and chocolate for Lent, and things with added sugar, and although neither she nor Larry really had that much of a sweet tooth to be honest, it was nice to look forward to the Easter eggs. She would keep one by for Fraser.

She had a lot to do today. The shopping for the holiday
weekend, as she absolutely didn’t hold with doing it on Good Friday, even though, apparently, the shops would all be open. She’d pop in to see Mr. Kalinowski and poor Phelim; Antoinette, if she had time. She must make sure that Father D had not forgotten Joan, who would want Communion. And she needed to be sure the house was sparkling clean. It’s an animal instinct, she said to herself, to sweep out the burrow in spring. Larry, bless him, would do the windows, if she asked him. This new gift of daylight didn’t half show up flyspecks, smears and fingerprints on glass! An image of the soul in the sight of heaven? You’re quite the poet in your old age, she told herself and laughed. But first she had the church to do. Although she cleaned it every Thursday, this Thursday was special. Come to think of it, with a small detour, she could go there via the baker’s. Pick up some hot cross buns for Father Diamond to eat tomorrow. Father Diamond was shrinking before her eyes, becoming paler and thinner by the week, and he hadn’t enough to lose in the beginning. That sharp-faced housekeeper of his evidently didn’t feed him. Probably she didn’t make the effort when he was on his own; she favored Father O’Connor.

Azin Qureshi woke to the first squawk of his alarm clock and hit the off switch hard before the noise irrevocably disturbed his wife. She had the day off but he was working as usual and was then on call for the whole weekend. Not that it mattered—his family had no particular plans in any case and would probably do what they always did at weekends: watch television, go shopping, go to football practice. His
sons would have their friends round and the house would fill with the sound of small boys playing on Nintendos. Jenny claimed her Saturdays as time all to herself; after a hectic working week she certainly deserved a few hours off, a pedicure, her dance class, coffee with a girlfriend. She’d asked people round to supper, Azin now remembered, but as she had recently discovered a service that delivered food to your house all ready to heat up, she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking. The food was good but not so slick that you couldn’t pretend it was homemade.

When he was a child, bank-holiday weekends had seemed very long and very quiet. Azin could recall a time when shops were shut for days on end, as well as every Sunday. Now, he thought, it was left to a few fanatics in the Scottish Highlands to protest that Sundays should be special. Sabbatarians? Or were those Orthodox Jews? Muslims made it easier—or harder—for themselves by making every day a day of prayer. Fridays, though, had particular significance, now he came to think about it. Good Friday. Azin had forgotten how it got its name. He made a mental note to look it up; it was the sort of thing he should be able to tell his sons.

Meanwhile there was today to deal with. A meeting with the Mental Health Trust, the review of an American psychiatrist’s book on depressive illness that he had promised to the
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last week, his notes for a talk at a conference in May, his clinic at the hospital in the afternoon. Patient after patient, the sad, the lonely and the old, those bare forked beings bent beneath the weight of disappointment, disillusion, hopelessness and loss. Azin closed his eyes for a moment and saw them in procession, today’s and
yesterday’s and those who were still to come, straggling in a long line through the years, like pilgrims winding round steep mountain paths, except that they had no common goal. What was it that they would count as cure? Relief from the pain of being human and alone—and no psychiatrist in the world could offer that.

Azin got out of bed. Jenny, with her back to him, on the other side, was lying so still that he knew she was awake and waiting until he left the room. Then she’d burrow deeper into the tangle of bedclothes and keep the day at bay a little longer. She was not one for conversation first thing in the morning. Azin glanced at her bright blond head a little wistfully. It would be nice if she turned over, opened her eyes, and smiled, and stretched her arms up to him; if she would draw him into her warm softness, welcome him inside her without need for words. But she did not move, and he put on his dressing gown and went downstairs to make breakfast for the boys.

Mary-Margaret told her mother at breakfast that she had champagne in her veins instead of blood. Fidelma laughed. They were eating eggy-bread and bacon. Have you ever had champagne? she asked. Mary-Margaret had not, but she knew that it was fizzy. She was simply trying to give her mother a sense of her excitement; she should have saved her breath. But Fidelma’s scorn only temporarily tamped down the rising joy. She felt it surge and bubble, her heart was beating fast, her head was light and full of air. Shall I get Father Diamond to bring the Sacrament to you? she asked her mother. Get away, Fidelma said.

After breakfast Mary-Margaret collected her kit together: duster, an awl for scraping out the candle wax, a J-cloth, Pledge. I’m going to do the church, she told Fidelma. Then I’ll do the shopping. Is there anything you want me to get? Not that it’s the end of the world if I forget stuff. The corner shop is open all the time. Mentally she made a note to stock up for Fidelma. She didn’t expect to be around much after this weekend. There’d be interviews and television, apart from anything else. But she’d have to take care of her mother, come what may. She is my cross, she thought. Fidelma reminded her that they had run out of margarine.

On her way down Falcon Road to church Mary-Margaret made plans. The right dress, for a start. How was she meant to be the bride of Christ in Oxfam jeans? She’d have a look on her way back, after the church, before it was time for Shamso.

Felix Morrison, in the front seat of his mother’s car on his way home to London, was lapped in warmth and safety. His trunk was in the boot and the old ice-cream container he had scrounged from the school kitchen for his minibeasts was securely wedged in with it. There’s a boy in my year who lives in Scotland, he said to his mother. And he has another name for wood lice. Slaters. Don’t you think that’s funny? Two names for the exact same thing in the same language? I mean it’s not like he’s speaking Scottish!