He might be her brother but he’s not--- Then Richard stirred, thrust his leg further across his sister’s stomach. Something slipped from the bottom of his nappy, something slender, pink. He’s got a tail! Stephen whooped. Don’t be nasty, Stephen, his mother snapped. His father stepped from the shadows. It’s nothing to worry about. We’ll soon get it--- He broke off, silenced by a gorgon glare from his wife. Olivia swept up carrycot and contents and disappeared upstairs. Finn placed a dry hand on top of Stephen’s head. Not to worry, old son. Things’ll sort themselves out.
But they never did, not as far as Stephen was concerned. He saw his mother less, even though she was around the house more. It was as if they occupied different worlds, she upstairs in twin world, him below with dad and TV and TV dinners, meat-free, it went without saying. Gradually, his father seemed to withdraw. Finn was physically present, too diligent a parent to neglect his son, but increasingly silent, inching to the sides and rear of rooms, into the shadows.
From time to time Finn would speak. He always answered when Stephen asked a question, but the effort seemed to cost him, so Stephen tried to limit himself to the important things. Like How long are they staying? Where did they come from, the twins? Can’t we send them back?
The latter prompted a smile, as rare as a winter butterfly, to flit across Finn Webster’s horsey face. His reply: It’ll work out, old son, you’ll see. That, or a variant of the same, until it became a mantra without meaning. Sometimes Finn would elaborate somewhat. It’ll be better when they’re done teething. Or, Your mum will have more time for us when the twins start school.
But it never did get better. The twins cut their teeth without so much as a whimper. One day Olivia simply appeared on the stairs with them, toddlers now, teeth in place and walking, more or less. Amelia could happily totter about on her own initiative but Richard had to be cajoled off all fours. He walked, it seemed, because his sister wanted him to. They were slower to talk. They seemed bright enough, poking their noses in everywhere, always together, inseparable.
It’s because they’re twins, Finn ventured one evening. They talk to one another and that’s enough for them at this stage. That’ll change when they start nursery school.
But it never really changed because they never did start school. Which for some reason meant that Stephen’s education had to stop. One day Olivia appeared in the living room – one of the early sightings of the headscarf, Stephen recalled – planted herself in front of the TV her husband and son were half-watching, and announced:
I’ve decided to home-school the twins.
Eventually, Finn felt obliged to ask why,
Amelia has special needs.
There were children with special needs at Stephen’s school. Not in his class, obviously, but able to mix with everyone else at playtime and assembly. Clearly, there was nothing to prevent special needs kids going to normal school like, well, normal kids.
But it emerged over the coming weeks that Amelia’s needs were so special that they necessitated leaving London and moving, in the space of what Stephen remembered as only a few days, to Yorkshire. He remembered his other friend Jackson asking, Do they have schools in Yorkshire? He remembered laughing, replying, I expect I’ll soon find out. But of course he never did. Because if Stephen went to school it would very likely come out that he had a sister and a brother who were not in school and someone in authority would want to know why and before you knew it Amelia would be taken away and put in an institution.
Is that what you want? Is it, Stephen?
No, mum. When in truth he could not have cared less.
Stephen had never detected anything special about his so-called sister. Not that he spent much time with her, obviously, but when he did encounter her Amelia behaved normally enough. She spoke when spoken to, and spoke quite well. She just preferred being silent. She moved about normally, even gracefully, although her preferred position was apparently sitting – silently – by a window, looking out. Stephen had once asked Amelia what she was looking at. She answered Nothing, as if that was the point.
In many ways Richard was the special twin. He too spoke when prompted, albeit he seemed to begrudge it more, but he seemed to lack all physical coordination, charging about the stone farmhouse, bumping into things, knocking them over. He always apologised if anything got broken but, again, his heart wasn’t in it.
To look at, Amelia and Richard were the most dissimilar twins imaginable: Amelia blonde and slim, Richard thickset, hulking, dark. Stephen had blundered in on them, once, back when the family first moved north, as Olivia was bathing them in an old tin bath before the kitchen fire. Even at four or five (Stephen had never heard mention of birthdates) Richard took up three-quarters of the available space. Even at that age his shoulders had definition, the beginnings of muscles. The bones of his back, Stephen remembered, were especially prominent. Whether or not the boy’s vestigial tail had been dealt with, Stephen had not noticed, because---
--- because Amelia stood up when Stephen blundered in. She turned towards him, almost in greeting. In the instant before Olivia shrouded her in a rough grey bathsheet, Stephen glimpsed her raspberry pink nipples. His mother was shouting at him: Get out! Get out this minute! But Stephen had not moved, held by Amelia’s knowing smile. His sticky dreams had started soon after.
Even now, years later, the image caused uncomfortable, shamefaced stirrings. He had no rational feelings, one way or another, for his adoptive sister. If anything, he resented her. But not all feelings are rational.
This day – the day his father felt not well – Stephen began by resenting the twins (why should the twins have blackberries just because... why should he do the fetching and carrying?) and ended up mentally thanking them for freeing him from the oppressive farmhouse and letting him wander out in the unfettered breeze, the sharp autumn daylight. Thanks to the twins and their fad for blackberries all the brambles in sight of the farmhouse had already been stripped bare. If Stephen was to fulfill his task – do what he was told – he must wander further afield, beyond the boundaries set by his father on behalf of his mother, whether he wanted to or not, out where the dreaded they might see him. The twins had been promised blackberries – the twins loved blackberries – and what the twins wanted the twins must have.
The Webster smallholding occupied a bowl in the landscape, encircled by higher land where Stephen never ventured. Their entire eight acres was contained within the bowl, cultivation stretching partway up the sides – bushes, sunflowers, semi-wild plants – but nowhere reaching the top. The sides were not steep, the vegetation by no means impassable, yet together they had kept Stephen penned in as surely as an iron cage. Until today, and the urgent quest for blackberries.
Today, keeping a watchful eye over his shoulder towards the house, Stephen picked his way carefully through the greenery, striving to keep stems and branches unbroken, to give the impression that no one, especially him, had passed this way. Once on bare earth, he scampered for the top, legs pumping, arms wildly swaying. The last few feet he simply threw himself forward, over the rim of the bowl and into a world completely yellow.
Bright, sunlit yellow, a sea of it rolling away on every side, boundless and blinding. It was several long moments before Stephen realised that what he was looking at was a vast crop of individual plants, each about eighteen inches tall, each covered with dozens of quatrefoil flowers. As he lay there, breathless, he saw an entire world of insects working away at each plant, some on the earth below, some toiling up and down the stems, others patrolling the petals. The choicest task, the province of the insect elite, was the heart of each flower, a cluster of five protruding pod-like growths. Stephen watched a bee exploring the pods with delirious rapture. He decided he didn’t like the bee or its rapture. So he flicked it hard in the head with his fingernail and stood up.
And there it was. They –
At first Stephen thought it must be a scarecrow. He
had read a book about scarecrows once, back in London, and had pictured them angular, skewed against the sunlight, just like the one here today. But then this one moved. Planted its feet a metre apart, lifted its arm, waved, and said: “Ow!”
Not ow as in ouch, more ow as in know, a hybrid exclamation, probably peculiar to Yorkshire, Stephen thought.
“Ow!” The figure called again. “Lad!”
Me? Stephen wondered, instinctively touching his chest. Of course he means me. Who else was there in this endless rolling prairie? He stumbled hesitantly forward. The man strode towards him with long, urgent paces. As he came closer Stephen made out corduroy trousers, a colour somewhere between aubergine and mustard; a waterproof jacket, mid-grey; big red hands, veins knotted like mooring rope; below the shapeless hat cheekbones worn white by the wind and a nose like a flint axe. And the shotgun, obviously, double barrels swaying as he strode, resembling nothing so much as the nostrils of a pig questing for food.
“You the lad from Oughterthwaite?” the man asked when close enough to speak without shouting.
“London,” Stephen corrected him.
“Aye – Lunnen.” The man nodded enthusiastically. He cocked his head, chin jerking left. “You