away. It’s heartbreaking. They’re growing up. It morphs into punching, Mouse attacking with a terrifying force and nowthey’re rolling on the floor and kicking and hitting like two lion cubs and now the giggling comes, the change, just like that.
‘Let’s hide from her,’ Tidge says suddenly.
Mouse looks at him sharp. Well, well, he can’t say he disapproves. Perhaps his big brother’s not completely lost to him yet.
Tidge surprises you sometimes with the shock of his nastiness. There’s a side of him that doesn’t know tenderness. He can’t do a soft tickle, a loving stroke; yet complex little Mouse brims with sensual touch. The contradictions in all of them. They never stop wrong-footing you, there’s always a next stage just as you think you’ve got them worked out.
Everyone goes about his business at the beginning of the day and sells his soul: he either frees it, or causes it to perish.
72
Soli’s back twenty minutes to the dot. Her eyes are sparkling, she’s lit. ‘Guys?’
An abandoned quiet.
‘Hello?’
The voice of a little girl. She stares at the key in her hand. Shakes her head, quickly, as if she’s trying to shake sense back into it. Runs to the bathroom, screeches aside the shower curtain. Runs out of the room moaning, ‘No, no, come back.’
An explosion of giggling from under the bed.
‘Get out.’
A furious, tear-brimmed voice.
She drags up Mouse, knows exactly whose fault this is. Her fingernails dig in hurting and deep. ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again, you … brat.’ She shakes him viciously and he starts to yell but stops.
Because of something new in her.
Something exhausted, and old, and pushed to the brink.
Leave not a stain in thine honour.
73
It takes half an hour of apologies, half an hour of head massages and foot rubs to get to the crucial question: ‘So what did you get?’ Soli raises her eyebrows and retrieves a snowy white laundry sack she’d dropped by the door with a beautiful C embroidered upon it as golden as egg yolk. She pulls out a bottle of champagne.
‘Ta da!’
‘Hang on,’ Mouse says dubiously, ‘there’s only half a glass in there. And no food.’
With a cheeky grin their sister lifts the bottle to her lips and luxuriantly swigs then she hands it across to her brothers and they drink too and she smiles like a cat with the warmest sill of sun and shakes out her hair and turns into someone looser and sillier, her eyes again lit, and your heart tightens to see it. Because she’s got her old face back, all her freshness is suddenly in the room, her huge life force. She’s so vivid-hearted, and it’s been lost under all the strain, but now it’s returned and you stand there watching with your fingertips pressed trembling at your mouth. At your effortlessly lovely girl back, blazing light.
Tidge finds his brother’s hand, he’s not shrugged off. ‘It’s Mum, dude,’ he whispers.
‘You look gorgeous, sis,’ Mouse throws across and Soli swoops him into a cuddle which turns into a swirl.
‘You next.’ She chuckles affectionately, floating him, gently,to the ground. ‘But only half an hour. Any longer and it’s too stressful, for everyone left,’ and she kicks Tidge playfully on the butt.
Is it true that our destiny is to turn into light itself?
74
But Mouse. Something’s slunk away in him, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
‘I’m happy just to stay here, guys. Unless … someone wants to come too.’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Maybe.’ Oh, love. The nub of him. He’s grown extremely comfortable with his boundary of ‘no’ that he’s surrounded himself with over the years. Someone’s always going to help him out and that thinking has built up like a shell now encasing him; fear has become a leash on his life. You’ve facilitated it. So of course he’s happy right now to sit tight, safe, while everyone else figures out what to do next. But now this. A sister all pushy before him, his
‘Let’s hide from her,’ Tidge says suddenly.
Mouse looks at him sharp. Well, well, he can’t say he disapproves. Perhaps his big brother’s not completely lost to him yet.
Tidge surprises you sometimes with the shock of his nastiness. There’s a side of him that doesn’t know tenderness. He can’t do a soft tickle, a loving stroke; yet complex little Mouse brims with sensual touch. The contradictions in all of them. They never stop wrong-footing you, there’s always a next stage just as you think you’ve got them worked out.
Everyone goes about his business at the beginning of the day and sells his soul: he either frees it, or causes it to perish.
72
Soli’s back twenty minutes to the dot. Her eyes are sparkling, she’s lit. ‘Guys?’
An abandoned quiet.
‘Hello?’
The voice of a little girl. She stares at the key in her hand. Shakes her head, quickly, as if she’s trying to shake sense back into it. Runs to the bathroom, screeches aside the shower curtain. Runs out of the room moaning, ‘No, no, come back.’
An explosion of giggling from under the bed.
‘Get out.’
A furious, tear-brimmed voice.
She drags up Mouse, knows exactly whose fault this is. Her fingernails dig in hurting and deep. ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again, you … brat.’ She shakes him viciously and he starts to yell but stops.
Because of something new in her.
Something exhausted, and old, and pushed to the brink.
Leave not a stain in thine honour.
73
It takes half an hour of apologies, half an hour of head massages and foot rubs to get to the crucial question: ‘So what did you get?’ Soli raises her eyebrows and retrieves a snowy white laundry sack she’d dropped by the door with a beautiful C embroidered upon it as golden as egg yolk. She pulls out a bottle of champagne.
‘Ta da!’
‘Hang on,’ Mouse says dubiously, ‘there’s only half a glass in there. And no food.’
With a cheeky grin their sister lifts the bottle to her lips and luxuriantly swigs then she hands it across to her brothers and they drink too and she smiles like a cat with the warmest sill of sun and shakes out her hair and turns into someone looser and sillier, her eyes again lit, and your heart tightens to see it. Because she’s got her old face back, all her freshness is suddenly in the room, her huge life force. She’s so vivid-hearted, and it’s been lost under all the strain, but now it’s returned and you stand there watching with your fingertips pressed trembling at your mouth. At your effortlessly lovely girl back, blazing light.
Tidge finds his brother’s hand, he’s not shrugged off. ‘It’s Mum, dude,’ he whispers.
‘You look gorgeous, sis,’ Mouse throws across and Soli swoops him into a cuddle which turns into a swirl.
‘You next.’ She chuckles affectionately, floating him, gently,to the ground. ‘But only half an hour. Any longer and it’s too stressful, for everyone left,’ and she kicks Tidge playfully on the butt.
Is it true that our destiny is to turn into light itself?
74
But Mouse. Something’s slunk away in him, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
‘I’m happy just to stay here, guys. Unless … someone wants to come too.’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Maybe.’ Oh, love. The nub of him. He’s grown extremely comfortable with his boundary of ‘no’ that he’s surrounded himself with over the years. Someone’s always going to help him out and that thinking has built up like a shell now encasing him; fear has become a leash on his life. You’ve facilitated it. So of course he’s happy right now to sit tight, safe, while everyone else figures out what to do next. But now this. A sister all pushy before him, his
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