The Book of Rapture Read Online Free Page B

halts. Fury hangs in the air. Soli keeps saying, ‘It’s going to be all right,’ in a silky mother tone but it doesn’t come out right, it just winds her little brothers up. Who gave her permission to be so knowing in this place?
    ‘Mummy-stealer!’ Tidge shouts. ‘Stop using that voice.’
    ‘It’s going to be all right.’
    ‘But the doorknob?’ Mouse fires at her, rat tat tat. ‘And this room? And the kick?’ He’s the expert at questions and you’re always encouraging it except when a migraine’s coming and then he has to stop. ‘Everything is so not okay,’ he flings. ‘I saw your face when that key came. You had no idea what it means and no idea what’s next. There was this flinch, in your eye, it told me. It was like a music counter going tic tic tic.’
    ‘Everything will be okay,’ she soothes again.
    Mouse storms off to the room’s cupboard and curls inside, his notebook a teddy to his chest. His brother props his elbows at the window and stares out. Your girl is abandoned. She’s failed and she so rarely does that, she’s your high achiever who likes everything to be just right. She curls on her side on the bed. The flinch in her eye going tic tic tic.
However irritated you may feel, never speak harshly.

19
    Eventually Soli unwraps her limbs and coaxes Tidge back to her. Finally he comes. She lies with him, her arm a seatbelt over his torso. She holds and holds until he’s soothed into the release of sleep, then gingerly extracts herself and pads to the cupboard.
    ‘Come on, you. It’s late.’
    Mouse glares. Owl-awake. ‘I’m keeping guard. Someone has to. Thank God you’ve got me in this place. A bit of gratefulness wouldn’t go astray. Like, thanks, Mouse, for watching over us.’
    No way is he getting back into that bed. You know why. There’s no grown-up to insist and it’s a room he doesn’t trust, ditto a sister with a secret and a brother too accepting, who’s fallen too easily into sleep. The moon outside is a sliver of a thumbnail. As bright as a bone. He’s staying up with it, all night if he must. It’s in the set of his mouth. Your worrier. Always thinking too much, everything cutting so deep. Too glary in his head is the enormity of navigating his way through life, he finds it so hard to shut off the fear. You’re anxious about the teenager he’ll become with all that complicated energy bottled up.
    Your entire life, as a mother, is about anticipation. Of accidents, trip-ups, abductions, disasters. Second-guessing that walk to the corner shop, the crossing of the road, the swim at the beach, and God help them if they ever get near a motorbike.You’ll never stop the hovering. Motl says you have to, you must learn to let go. You retort that he doesn’t worry enough.
I alone dare not seek rest. The ordinances of heaven are inexplicable but I will not dare to follow my friends and leave my post.

20
    Tidge is vastly asleep, dangling a leg off the bed and taunting his brother with his effortless flop. Soli told him to trust and that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s always the one who falls instantly into sleep. Motl says it’s the mark of a contented soul.
    Mouse writes with a staccato pen.
         Look at him. God. Typical! SUCH a believer. NEVER thinking ENOUGH .
        Unlike him. And you. All the thinking haranguing you awake, night after night.
    Soli’s now curled tight and troubled in unsmooth sleep. That strange-tired finally won. You long to brush the hair from her forehead and unfold all her folded bits, long to stretch her beautiful limbs back into lightness. No child should ever sleep so … condensed. Her eyes suddenly shine like marbles in the dark, she’s awake. She looks around, trying to work out where she is. Sees Mouse. Remembers.
    ‘I need a cuddle,’ he says, quick, even though he’s still annoyed at that mother voice she stole. But you know him. A magnet of need is pulling him into skin and warmth, any he can get. She’ll do.