Page 85 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

You’re saying she wanted to hurt the baby? I said.

What she wanted was to get that baby away from her, she said She wasn’t thinking about whether it would injure itself or if she’d injure it. She just wanted to be free of it in that moment. And it was such a big feeling there was no room in her for any other thoughts. And that’s why we need the goat milk. Because she is at the end of herself with the babies.

You can’t be sure, I said.

I can, Mouse, she said. She won’t even mean to, but she’s dangerous to them and she’ll hurt them. And it’s not even her fault. And it’s not ours. But the Deal we made with her, I don’t think there was any way round it. I mean, she’d have died if she tried to stop being pregnant because the babies were too big. Maybe in the old days they could have done it. And if she’d had the babies without our helping, without the book and all the stuff we had, I think they’d all have died, all three of them. But just because what happened was the only choice doesn’t mean it wasn’t a cruel and inhuman one too. And now she is a threat to the babies, even if she doesn’t mean it. It’s gone too far.

Just let me go back and find the goats in Stitch Country, I said. That’ll help.

I don’t think we have time, she said. We can’t make her feed against her will.

Well, I said, looking down at the two bodies curled into each other like a pair of commas. Maybe we should, just until I find enough goats.

She shook her head. She didn’t just look physically beaten up. She looked like she’d been struggling with the impossible inside her head so hard that it had had left her exhausted and run out with not much else left to give.

How did the eye happen? I said.

She hunched her shoulders like she was trying to slough off the answer to that.

She didn’t know I’d seen her, she said. And when I ran over to get the babies, to see if she was hurt, to get them out of the bed and away from her, she tried to stop me. She was thinking again by that time. She was her good self, her real self, enough to be ashamed. I didn’t want to be taking them, but I had to and she was shouting that I was always spying on her and that I should take my hands off the babies, and then she hit me with the tray I brought her lunch on.

She hit you with the tray? I said.

It was just the first thing that came to hand, she said. And then she scratched my face trying to grab and stop me as I scooped the babies away. And then she just collapsed, like all the bones in her body went soft and bendy all at once. Then there was a lot of crying. Then sleep. Then more crying because her breasts were full, and the babies were crying too because they were hungry and the goat milk wasn’t enough and it’s been like that since it happened. She’s teary and feeding like it’s a grudge and I think everything that happened, everything that Russian fucker did to her was enough to break anyone’s spirit. The miracle is that she didn’t let it for such a long time.

Cat looked like she was going to tear up again, but she wiped her face angrily and set her jaw.

But what she did to the baby, what she knows she did, what she is now terrified she is capable of doing? Well, that, Mouse, that is what has broken her. For now. She broke herself, even though it’s not her fault, and maybe she can mend herself, and maybe we can help her mend. But she is broken right now, by having seen herself cross that line, to be a danger to the babies. And now… we don’t have enough goats. In fact we have one less than we used to.

You don’t know she’s a danger, I said. Not for sure. She could be OK if we…

I do know, Mouse, she said.

No, I said. Cat. That’s just a fear, I mean it’s a reasonable one but it’s not certain.

It was suddenly very important that Cat was wrong in her certainty, because if she was right and Freya was done with the babies, my failing to bring back more goats to milk was going to kill them.

You can’t know you’re right! I insisted and it sounded weak even as I said it.

She reached out and gripped my upper arm, staring fiercely up into my face.

I can, Mouse, she said. I can and I do know, because I nearly did it. I nearly did the exact same thing.

You nearly hurt the babies? I said. I don’t believe you! That’s…

I nearly hurt you, Mouse, she said.

And now, finally, the tears that had been dammed up behind her eyes began to leak out and ribbon down her cheek. But it was just her face crying. Her voice remained steady as the sun in the sky.

You don’t remember because you were the baby. I was the scared kid, and much younger than Freya, and there was only us and the goats, and you just wouldn’t stop crying, ever. And your face was hot and red and throbbing and I didn’t know it was your teeth coming in. I thought I’d broken you. By mistake. By doing something wrong, or not doing something I should have known to do. That my mum would have known. And I was scared and exhausted and alone and I got angry and I grabbed you by both arms, just like I’m doing now and I shouted at you, Mouse. I shouted so loud it was like a hit, like I was hitting you, and I wanted to shake you so hard, I wanted to shake you until you stopped because I couldn’t think what else to do and I think no sleep for days had made me a little mad. A lot mad, in fact. Like Freya is now, not totally mad, but mad enough to be a danger, I was so, so close to doing what she did…

But you didn’t, I said.

I was close enough that it makes no difference, she said. Close enough to understand her. To have a clue about how she would be feeling about what she let herself do. OK?

There was a long silence.

Now, what happened to the goat? she said.