Infinity

  Sarah was getting pretty slow on her feet, and Mia’s not the best walker in the world, so I reckon they’d both run out of steam fairly quickly. They could be in any of these buildings, or tucked away between piles of rubble.

  I half-walk, half-run through the ruined streets. You can still see that this place would have been beautiful. The stone is pale, almost like honey. It’s got a sort of light of its own, even in the fog.

  I’m in Bath. The place where my dad died, fell off a big church and broke his neck. He was fifteen, younger than I am now. Once I’d read about it in the press cuttings Nan kept, I looked it up on the net, saw pictures. Being here feels like an omen – like I’ve come to a place of death. I don’t want anyone else to die here. I want my girls to be all right.

  I start running more quickly, jumping over potholes and cracks in the road. There are abandoned cars everywhere. They could be in one of them. Do I stop and look in each one?

  This is useless. I’m like a headless chicken.

  I need help. I need other people, people who may have seen them.

  There’s smoke mixing in with the fog, woodsmoke. It smells like every fire we made when we were camping out together and it fills me with memories of food, company, sitting with my arms round Sarah, watching the flames together until our eyelids went heavy. Fire means people. I follow the smell and come out into a big public square, next to a church.

  One half of the church has gone, but the front’s still there, a big doorway and a massive wall of stone dotted with holes where the windows used to be. The area in front is a sea of makeshift tents, a refugee city. There are fires going and people picking their way around or just sitting. I scan the scene. What were Sarah and Mia wearing? Is there any way I can pick them out?

  I start weaving my way through. The ground is wet and filthy. These people are sitting in filth. The whole place stinks. I can’t imagine Sarah stopping here unless she was desperate. But maybe she was …

  I go up to to a woman squatting by a fire, heating some water. Her hands are grey with dirt, her hair’s all matted and stiff. ‘Scuse me,’ I say. ‘Have you seen a woman and a little girl, a toddler?’

  She looks at me and screws up her eyes, like she’s trying to work out if she knows me or not. Then she shakes her head.

  I carry on, looking at faces, stopping here and there to ask about Sarah. People are watching me now. There’s a buzz of talking and I can pick out my name being said. They recognise me. I’ve cursed my so-called fame for so long, but now I can use it. I’ve got an audience, if I can get them to listen …

  I stand in the middle of the crowd and take a deep breath.

  ‘I’m Adam,’ I shout.

  A few people shout back, ‘Hello Adam!’ and there’s a ripple of applause.

  It takes me by surprise. I didn’t expect that. I don’t know what to do, how to react, so I just stand and listen, waiting until the noise dies down.

  ‘I need your help,’ I continue. ‘I’m looking for two people. A woman, not much shorter than me, she’s pregnant’ – I hold my arms out in front of me to illustrate – ‘nearly ready to pop, and a little girl. She’s only two, got curly blonde hair like a little angel. Are they here? Have you seen them? Has anyone seen them?’

  There’s a lot of shaking of heads but then a woman’s voice pipes up.

  ‘There were two like that. They stopped for a minute, but then they went away.’

  I spin round to see who’s speaking, but at that moment a door opens to the main archway in the church and a man comes out. He’s carrying a pair of buckets that steam gently in the cold air. A roar sweeps across the square, and people jump up and charge towards the church. The man sets his buckets down a couple of metres from the door and a queue forms as he starts ladling out something hot onto plates and bowls and anything else people bring him.

  ‘Wait! Wait a minute. Who saw her? Who was it?’

  Whoever it was is lost in the feeding frenzy. I get swept along in the tide. The guy with the buckets seems to belong here, maybe he’ll know something, but I can’t get near enough to ask him. I’m trying to push through to him when my foot steps on something soft. I look down. It’s a blanket. A blue and white stripy blanket, though the blue’s wet and dark and the white’s grey.

  It’s Mia’s.

  She was here.

  I’m in one corner of the square and there’s a road leading out. They either came into the square this way or this is where they left it. I leave the queue and head for the exit. No one minds me trying to go this way and I’m soon out of the crowd and into the side street.

  It’s empty, a long straight cobbled road, with the abbey on one side and a long, high wall on the other. The end of the street’s lost in fog, I can’t see what’s beyond.

  I start running.

  To my right, a branch dangles over the top of the wall, like swollen, knobbly fingers. Trees, I think. Trees in the middle of the city.

  There’s a gate in the wall, an ancient metal thing. I glance through as I run past. A path leads away from it, with trees and bushes either side. I’ve gone twenty or thirty metres before I skid to a halt.

  The place behind the gate. I’ve seen it before, at least I think I have. If I’m right, there should be stones there, too. Gravestones.

  Chapter 45: Sarah

  I’m not alone any more. There are footsteps. I can hear gravel crunching, feel the vibration through the ground. I’m too tired to open my eyes. I haven’t got the strength to lift my head and see who it is.

  ‘What have you done to her, you evil bitch?’

  It’s Saul. He’s back. I force my eyes open. I can see his heavy black boots next to my face. Slowly, I twist round and look up. He’s holding the baby at arm’s length.

  ‘You’re a witch. You’ve hexed her. She’s no good to me and you know it. You knew it all along.’

  I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  ‘Give her to me. Please, Saul. Give me my baby.’

  He reaches forward and I think he’s going to hand her to me, but he lets her drop, like a rag doll.

  ‘No!’

  I forget my pain; I find some energy from somewhere and my hands move to meet her. She nearly slips through my wet, bleeding fingers, but somehow I manage to hold on to her and gather her safely in to my body. She’s naked and very cold.

  ‘Have you got something to wrap her in? Can I have your coat?’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ he spits out. ‘I’ve got your mess all over it anyway. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘She’s freezing. I have to keep her warm.’

  ‘Give her your own coat then.’

  I put the baby carefully on the ground next to me and slide out of my coat. I wrap her up, making sure her hands and feet are tucked in. Only the top of her face is showing; eyes closed, not crying any more. How can she sleep through this, all the noise, being thrown about?

  ‘Hello,’ I whisper. I want her to open her eyes. I want her to see me and I want to see her. She’s so cold now, so still, her eyes so firmly shut. Is it too late for her? Is this her first and last day?

  ‘Is she dying, Saul? Is she dead?’

  I look up at him and there’s pure venom in his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. She’s no good to me,’ he says. ‘You fixed it so she’s no good.’

  ‘I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about …’

  He crouches down beside us.

  ‘Look at your baby, Sarah. Look at your precious girl. She’s no good to me because she has no eyes.’

  It feels like my stomach’s falling away from the rest of me.

  He’s wrong. He’s got to be. I look at her again. She has eyelids. She has eyelashes. I place my thumb above her eye socket and gently pull the skin. There’s no gap between the eyelids. Her lashes mark the line where the gap would be, but it’s solid. I move my thumb down. The area below is smooth, not rounded. There’s no eyeball. Saul’s right. My daughter has no eyes
.

  But her face looks so perfect, round like a little apple. As I hold her, a bit of colour is starting to spread into her cheeks. She’s warming up. Maybe she’s going to be okay.

  ‘I didn’t do anything, Saul. I don’t know what’s happened.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. But it doesn’t matter now. She’s no good to me.’

  ‘What did you want her for? Why did you do what you did?’

  He frowns and looks at me like I’m stupid.

  ‘Her number, Sarah. Her life. There’s nothing better than a newborn number. It makes you feel … alive, really alive. And with Adam as her father, you as her mother, she’d bring me the gift of seeing numbers and who knows what else.’

  ‘You wanted to steal her number. You can steal numbers …’

  ‘Steal is an unpleasant word. I prefer swap.’

  Swapping numbers. Just like Mia. Is he like Mia? Is Mia like him? Are they the same? They can’t be. My daughter can’t be the same as this monster. Can she?

  I thought you wanted Mia,’ I say, dully.

  ‘I did when I thought she had Adam’s blood, but that was another of your lies, another deceit, wasn’t it? But I’m running out of time. Today’s the day, Sarah, so I’ll have to make do … with you.’

  ‘Why today? Why now?’

  ‘My number’s up. I’ve used up one life. I need another one. Now, sit still.’

  He fixes me with his eyes, and the bead of saliva is at the corner of his mouth again. He’s excited, like he was before the baby was born. I’m completely defenceless. There’s nowhere to hide.

  He cups my face. His hands are red and sticky from my blood. He spreads his fingers out so he’s holding my head still, the heel of his hands at my chin, his fingertips in my hair. He moves his face close. Closer. Closer.

  I can see every detail, each pimple and pockmark, each little scar, each pore. I don’t want him near me. I don’t want him touching me. I close my eyes.

  ‘No, no, Sarah,’ he says, and his voice is no more than a whisper. ‘No, no, I’ll need your eyes open.’

  I screw them up tighter.

  ‘Open your eyes. Open them!’

  I’m in pain, defenceless, but not defeated yet. There’s still a remnant of the old Sarah; the Sarah who left home and made a new life for herself; the Sarah who struggled and kept three kids alive through two harsh winters.

  ‘No,’ I say, keeping my eyelids clamped shut. ‘Fuck off, Saul. Fuck off and leave me alone.’

  He snarls like an animal and then moves his hands on my face, pressing his thumbs into the skin above my eyelids, forcing them open. He’s only a few centimetres away.

  ‘Look at me, Sarah. Look at me.’

  His eyes are locked into mine. His pupils are dilated, obscuring his irises. His eyes are just black and white now and however much I want to look away, I can’t. I look into his eyes and it’s like I’m falling. The ground beneath me has disappeared and so have the trees above. Or maybe it’s me. I’m not there any more – I’m somewhere else, somewhere timeless and dark and empty, somewhere lonely and hopeless and cold, so cold.

  There’s a flash of light and a pain as sharp as a hot wire slicing through my head.

  I scream, or perhaps I just think I do. My body jolts and my head slams backwards into the ground.

  Saul lets go of my face and moves away.

  ‘That’ll do,’ he says. ‘Forty-six years. That’ll do nicely. Goodbye, Sarah.’

  I hear leaves scrunching, gravel scraping, but I don’t watch him go. Any energy I had left has gone. I lie where he left me, face flopped against cold, wet leaves. The baby’s lying beside me. I can see the top of her head, her little nose, her eyes, shut as though she were asleep. But she’s not asleep. She’s making a noise. Not crying, now, but gently testing out what her mouth and lungs can do.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  At the sound of my voice, she stops making her noise. She turns her head in my direction and then moves it from side to side. She’s searching for me. She must be hungry.

  I wish I had the strength to gather her in to me. But I don’t. Saul’s taken every scrap. She won’t get any milk from me. It hits me then. I’m going to die. I thought I might the moment I saw Saul’s knife, but now I know it. He’s taken my life. And if I die, the baby will die, too.

  It’s so sad, so desperately sad, but there’s nothing I can do now. Except soothe her the only way I can. My breathing is fast and shallow, but I draw in some air and I sing to her.

  ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ My voice is hardly there, but the baby is quiet now. I like to think that she’s listening. I sing and I watch her for as long as I can, taking in every little detail, and then, as the last of my strength saps away, I close my eyes and keep singing.

  My voice is tiny, a whisper, an echo, and then it’s not there at all. The words are still in my head. I follow them with my mind and they get louder again. But it’s not my voice, it’s someone else’s.

  ‘Upper buv the wowd so high …’

  What a beautiful thing. My baby’s learnt to sing. Perhaps she’s an angel. Perhaps she was sent to take me away from here.

  I want to see her again. Just one more time.

  I force my eyes open. There are two little faces in front of me. Two angels. Only one of them is singing.

  ‘Like a diemond in de sky …’

  ‘Mia.’

  She stops.

  ‘A baybee. Baby twinkle, Mummy,’ she says. She’s crouched down in the leaf mould next to the baby and she’s got her arm round her.

  ‘Yes, Mia. This is our new baby. Your sister.’

  My eyelids are sagging. I’d do anything to stay awake. Anything. But it’s too late.

  ‘Mummy tired,’ Mia says.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur. ‘So tired. I love you, Mia. I love you and I love your sister.’

  Mia leans over and rests her other arm on my leg. Then she lifts her hand up. It’s bright red.

  ‘Mummy poorly,’ she says.

  I don’t want to frighten her.

  ‘Just tired, darling. I’m going to have a little sleep now. I love you, darling.’

  ‘Love you.’

  She leans in again and kisses me.

  My eyes close. Then she does that thing, the thing that Saul did. She opens my right eye with her thumb. She used to do that sometimes when I was asleep in the morning and she wanted me to play with her. It drove me mad, but now we stare eye to eye and I know it’s the last I’ll see of her and it’s so bittersweet it hurts. Bitter because this is goodbye. Sweet because if I could have chosen anyone to spend my last moment with, it would have been Mia.

  ‘Mummy poorly,’ she says again.

  Her eyes are the bluest blue, just like mine. Adam used to say he could lose himself in that blue, and now I lose myself in Mia. The last thing I see are those deep, deep pools. They send their light through me and it brings pain too, but it’s a beautiful pain, a pain which blocks out everything else. Blue’s meant to be a cold colour but this is a different blue – warm, comforting, hopeful. It radiates through me, into my toes and fingertips, my skin, my heart, my lungs, my mind and as I look into Mia’s eyes, she’s bathed in light. A golden glow around her. My golden child.

  ‘Love you, Mummy.’

  ‘Love you, Mia.’

  There’s another noise now, something high-pitched and insistent. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I can’t hold on any longer.

  Chapter 46: Adam

  I’m running towards the gate when I hear a voice, reaching out to me through the fog. It’s a whoop of triumph, a great cry of victory. And it’s coming from the other side of the wall.

  I swing round and through the gateway and then I stop. There’s a line of dark trees by the entrance and a gravel path leading through them. And by the path, through the trees, there are stones. Tall, flat slabs of standing stone. This is the place. I’ve stepped into Sarah’s picture, her dream.

  The noise is louder here
and the whooping has turned into words. ‘Yesssss! Yesssss!’

  I don’t need to see him to know who it is, but soon I catch my first glimpse of him between the trees. He’s running, leaping, dancing even. I ain’t never seen him like this and there’s only one reason why he would be. He done it. He done what he set out to do. He stole the number from my baby and now my baby has only got a few hours left to live.

  I should leave Saul. I should find Sarah, find our child, but as I watch him capering about I can feel the blood boiling in my veins. He’s evil in human flesh. He shouldn’t get away with this. He’s not going to.

  I start running towards him.

  He don’t see me until I’m really close. He’s laughing.

  ‘Adam,’ he says, ‘the proud father!’

  Then he sees the look on my face, and he stops. He don’t have time to draw his gun, because I’m on him. I slam my head against his nose, hear the crack as I make contact.

  He staggers backwards, hands up to his face.

  ‘Adam!’ he splutters. ‘Calm down.’

  But there’s no calming me now, ’cause I seen his number.

  His new number.

  2572075.

  It’s a peaceful death, a warm death full of love and light.

  It’s Sarah’s.

  ‘You bastard!’

  I launch myself at him again, but he’s ready this time. He dodges away and sets off running away from me. I tear after him. He’s not going to get away this time. I’m only a metre or two behind. The anger’s giving me speed I didn’t know I had. My fingertips are touching his jacket. I try to get hold of him but I’m not quite there. And suddenly he leaps up, one foot on the pedestal of a tomb, then springs across the gap to land his other foot on the bottom of a monument. He wraps his arm round the waist of a stone angel and fumbles at his belt, searching for his gun.

  I’ve got no answer for a gun. All I can do is get to him before he fires. I lunge forward and yank at his ankles with both hands. He’s clinging on to the statue with one hand, drawing his revolver with the other. When I heave, his legs come away from their perch and the angel starts to topple. I flinch as the gun goes off. I don’t feel nothing, and now I’m throwing myself out of the way as Saul and the statue plummet down towards me. I roll over, spinning across soft grass, hard stone and grass again. When I stop moving, I lift my head up and peer round.