Page 44 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

I’m rubbing the lifeless body with the towel, cleaning and drying it and trying to chafe it back to life.

and somewhere in there I must have missed what Cat had been busy with because the little body has a pair of the stainless clamps we found in Stitch Country a lifetime ago attached to it, clamping the cord that is coming out of its belly button and they are as cold and lifeless and ungainly as the baby is.

and the cold steel is hanging against the little wisp of penis so I guess it’s a dead boy baby but that doesn’t matter any more because everyone is the same once they’re gone.

and then I am in the kitchen at my special warming station. I’m proud of how I thought of and then made this, the angled sheet of steel reflecting the fire’s warmth onto the table which I have laid clean towels on.

I discard the wet towel and wrap the body in warm dry cloth

and I’m trying not to breathe too fast or knock the cold steel clamp loose because then the baby will bleed out and stay dead,

and half my head is saying don’t be a fool Mouse you can’t hurt it because it’s already gone,

and the other part is just doing what we practised because doing is better than admitting the truth

and I’m putting the little hat I made from the old sock-end on the small head, noticing the baby hair that is unexpectedly thick, and the finer hair that also covers his ears and even stretches over his shoulders, healthy looking hair that now will never grow longer.

and the hat doesn’t look funny and sweet like I thought it might.

it looks like the wool cap on the head of the Russian that I killed

and now I’m thinking we should bury this baby properly, not like the man we rolled into a scrape in the ground

but my hands are gently opening the mouth which means feeling the chin bones hinged like a bird it’s so small and I take the corner of one of my pointlessly clean cloths and clear gunk from his mouth and I roll him onto his side and his little head lolls towards his downward shoulder

but I read about that in midwifery and I have a rolled bit of towel ready that I slide under his head, and I look at the unmoving face as I give him another brisk bit of rubbing

and I think it’s just like the books say

it’s not so scary seeing dead people

at least it’s not if they’re ones you haven’t killed yourself, it’s just like they’re sleeping but then can you be sleeping if you’ve never been awake at all, so dead is just dead in the end?

and now I hear someone say

I’m sorry

And I again realise the mystery voice reacting to the shock of another unthinkable death is me because I can hear the others shouting urgently at each other in the next room and then my hands, those hands with a life of their own they’re feeling the birdcage chest and feeling no flutter inside but I know what to do – I do know what to do we’ve practised this and it’s two things and one – the most important one – is not to give up and the other is five inflation breaths but not too big because this dead baby is so small I could burst its lungs if I gave a full Mouse-size breath and I’ve lifted the body carefully making sure the loose head doesn’t fall off and I’m gently huffing ghost breaths into the mouth and nose because that’s what my big mouth covers and I only realise I made a mistake I forgot something important I didn’t clean out the nose like I’m meant to when I’m on the fourth breath but then it’s too late much too late

because the dead baby sneezes and coughs gunk on my chin as I prepare to give it the futile fifth and final breath and I freeze and stare at the tiny face as it screws itself up in disgust and then one eye opens like a pirate in a picture book and then the other one joins it and time really does

stop

as he looks at me and I look at him

I don’t know what he’s thinking but just then in that first sight there is everything and my heart does something like those old rockets the dead world used to fire at the stars must have done – it kicks itself loose of the earth and soars free of gravity free of fear free of sadness but the sky I’m falling into is those eyes looking back into mine, eyes that have seen nothing yet but are still wiser and older than me and though it makes no sense at all my first thought at this first sight of each other is this

Oh. There you are.

and it’s not surprise or relief or newness. It’s recognition. Like I had always known him. Like I always would know him. And the relief lasted all of that one beat out of time, which was nevertheless a perfect thing, and then three more things happened.

I thought: You’re OK.

And then, before I had time to enjoy that thought, the next one barrelled in right on its heels and it was: And now I spend the rest of my life worrying about you.

But that felt OK. That felt right. That felt like a weight I was born to carry.

And then he started to cry, creaking like an old door.