When the nurse came to look at his morphine intake, the machine told her he’d pressed the button 115 times since his last dose.
“Go easy on this stuff, sir,” she said. “It’ll bung you up.”
Patrick didn’t say anything, he just thumbed the gray button a couple of times, confrontationally.
“Unless you want me digging around in your rear end?” she said, and she wiggled her pinkie in the air.
He started grinning and pressing the button as fast as he could.
A little while later, the syringe hissed again. Kate waited for it to take effect, then she broached the subject.
“Don says everyone’s really missing you at home. Maybe they could visit, now you’re settled in?”
There was a wait and Patrick’s eyes lost focus.
“Not a chance,” he said, smiling. He looked around the ward, rolling his head back and forth on the pillow. “So long, geodesic dome—praise be, four walls.”
She told herself it was the morphine speaking.
His lunch arrived: minced lamb with creamy mashed potatoes and finely cut carrots and zucchini. All the stomach’s work done in advance.
“Bellissimo!” he said, and blew a kiss for the nurse. “Dinner!”
“Lunch,” the nurse said. “It’s one o’clock, light outside.”
As she walked away, he pointed at her with his knife: “Attractive, not beautiful.”
Kate watched him put more minced lamb in his mouth, a sheen of watery gravy around his lips. She didn’t want to be at the hospital anymore but neither did she want to go home. Patrick’s left hand held his fork, digging around in the vegetables, while with his right he rhythmically thumbed the gray button. After he’d finished his lunch, the syringe hissed once more. Once it had taken hold, she got out her mobile and dialed the number. She’d had enough of being responsible.
The person who answered was not Albert, which was unusual. A Germanic wwoofer said: “Ha-llo.”
“It’s Kate. Can you get Don please?”
She wondered if Albert was already at the roundhouse. If her brother was not around, it made her feel a little less bad about what she was about to do. Patrick rubbed the crown of his head on the pillow.
“Dad, it’s me.”
Patrick turned to look at her. His hands closed; the IV in his arm strained against the surgical tape.
Don was glad to be the chosen emissary. He drove above the speed limit for most of the way. Within an hour, he was stepping out of the car with a bunch of wildflowers in one hand and a reusable shopping bag of clothes in the other. Kate had said she needed a change of outfit, and he hadn’t asked why. In his trouser pocket, he had a letter from Janet that she had asked him to pass on. This letter, as with all her business letters, was sealed with pink wax that had been stamped so that it looked like a male nipple. Janet was right to assume that otherwise Don would have read it. Walking through the hospital, he passed the smell of vats of watery mashed potato and admired the murals on the walls: waves crashing on Viking ships, a cloud city. He considered the word ward and its connotations of medieval boroughs, administrative districts, dominion, bureaucracy.
Kate was waiting for him outside the double, plastic-lined doors to Patrick’s ward.
“Hey, Pops,” she said, and she kissed him on his cheek and took the bag of clothes. “I’ll let you two have time alone.”
When Don pushed through the double doors he put the hugest smile on—like it had been rigged from behind, like it should have had a credit list: lighting, set design, cinematography, technical support.
Watching Don approach, Patrick felt the cords in his neck tauten. He let go of the ergonomically designed morphine dispenser, which slid off the bed and swung in the air just above the linoleum.
Don said hello to all the nurses.
“Hi, I’m Don. Here for Pat.”
They eyed his beard as a possible source of infection.
It was just after two in the afternoon. The linoleum was patterned with stripes of color—Don walked across blue, yellow, green—then Patrick, with a yell like a weight lifter in the clean-and-jerk, whirled his right arm round, gripping the night bag, the big plastic sack of honey-colored piss and little wisps of smoky blood that he had worked on all through the quiet hours, one and a half liters, and he swung it over his own broken ankle and let go, sending it up in the air, and Don—who had decided, above all else, that when he saw Patrick he must present a positive and hopeful outlook—thought for just a second that maybe it was some kind of welcome, a conciliatory balloon perhaps, and this expression—a golden balloon, for me?—was the one he had on when it hit.
The only thing stopping the roundhouse from being entirely round or, as far as amenities went, a house, were the walls. The Sustainable Built Environment students had left them unfinished, with various potholes and, on the east side, a V-shaped wedge missing, probably a failed window.
The boys had helped stomp-mix the cob (earth, straw, sand, and water), which was now rolled into sticky, grapefruit-sized balls, ready to be slapped into the gaps. Albert’s style was to apply it meticulously, smoothing down each patch in turn. Isaac liked to make a series of well-padded, breast-shaped mounds.
Marina and Freya worked in uneasy silence on the big hole in the east wall. Through the gap, they could see the inside of the roundhouse, about the size and shape of a sumo ring, with a wood burner made from a milk churn in the middle. A cantilevered bench was built into the far side, beneath a pattern of green and blue glass bottles plugged in the walls to let in light.
“So what made you think to come down here?” Marina said.
There were two answers, one of which was Because I don’t want my son to be near you. She decided to give the other one.
“It’s been a bit of a rough time, me and Don.”
This didn’t seem to take Marina by surprise, and she carried on working her patch of wall. “Well, it’s good to be sensitive to that. A bit of headspace makes all the difference. I had noticed you two not quite connecting.”
This claim at intuition irritated Freya, but she let it go. Marina continued shaping the walls, her skills as a potter coming in useful.
“How long will you spend down here?” Marina said.
“A fortnight, I think. Don and I are calling it a holiday. A fortnight’s holiday.”
“Costa Del Mud-hut.”
Freya laughed more than the joke deserved. Albert appeared round the edge of the house.
“Mum, are we going to stay here?”
“Well, I thought it might be a fun place for us to come for a while.”
“How can it be fun?”
“Just for a few days. Me and you versus the wilderness.”
“But I’ve got my own bedroom.”
Freya opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. She had been planning to present the idea to Albert in an exciting way. Marina’s voice came from behind her. “If you think about it, Albert,” she said, “being able to build and survive in your own sustainable housing is likely to be a key skill for whatever lies ahead.”
Freya’s eyes tightened but she stayed silent.
There was a pause while Albert looked at the house. Two layers of extra-heavy draft curtain stood for a doorway. A washing machine window was a porthole. On the turf roof, meadow grasses had grown as tall as the stovepipe.
“Okay then.”
Freya turned to Marina and mouthed the words thank you. Marina nodded and said, “Anytime.”
“Can Eyes stay as well?” Albert said.
Isaac was creating a D cup on the south-facing side.
“Of course he can!” Marina said. “But you must both come and spend some time with me too, so I don’t get lonely.”
“Oh thank you!” Albert said, and he threw his arms round Marina’s waist. She looked at Freya while running her hands through his hair.
Walking back up to the big house, the boys were far quicker than their mothers. So it was that Albert came into the y
ard first, to find his father shedding his power with a pair of kitchen scissors. Don was sitting on a log in the last of the sunshine, shirtless, with a towel round his shoulders. Latvian wwoofers were cross-legged on the gravel beside him, angling an oval mirror up.
Albert stood in front of him and watched the clumps of black, gray and white tumbleweed blowing across the ground. Don offered his son the scissors and Albert just stared. During their upbringing, the beard had been a place of infinite possibility, allowing his father to effortlessly portray wizards, gods, samurais, lions, and the sun. All the role models. When Albert felt shy, he used to sit on his father’s lap and hide behind it.
“This isn’t right,” Albert said.
Isaac was standing behind him, looking worried.
Having trimmed his beard back, Don opened the shaving set: a hard case with the words Hale and Wigmore Hairdressers printed on it in a white serifed font, which had been a hand-me-down from his own father.
“And they say our bourgeois clutter only drags us down,” he said, clicking the latches, letting the spring-loaded mechanism lift the lid.
The velvet-padded interior couched a cutthroat razor with deer-hoof handle, a battery-powered trimmer, a china pot of Gentlemens balm, and a stubby, wood-handled brush, like the one used for egging pastry. Don’s father’s initials, A.D.R., Albert’s namesake, were embroidered in the velvet.
“You can stop now, Dad.”
“Thanks, Alb. But this is something I have to do.”
Albert was having trouble swallowing.
“You’re making a big mistake. Wait till Mum gets here.”
Don attached a plastic grader to the trimmer and proceeded to chirpily buzz his jaw. Albert watched the fizz and spit of gray-black hairs. The tone of the motor changed—struggling—as it met his dense sideburns.
“Where’s Kate? Is she back from hospital? She won’t stand for this.”
Albert yelled her name three times at the top of his lungs. This brought spectators. Arlo emerged from the workshop, sharpening a carving knife flamboyantly. Janet—in rubber dungarees, spattered with pond slime—had been working in the three-tiered permaculture zone.
Albert knelt down to pick up the lopped-off hair, big nestlike chunks of it. Isaac was sitting on the bench now, looking upset. Albert held the clumps tightly as his father took the lid off the Gentlemens balm. It wasn’t just the effeminate way in which he dabbed at the cream that was upsetting, or the long, lingering strokes he made along the length of his jaw, but that now he was humming, a kind of wartime picker-upper—a morale-raising jaunt—nodding his head side to side.
Albert said, “Where’s Kate?” again and ran into the house to look for her. On the hallway wall, above the table with guest and detest books, there was a photo collage showing images of grinning volunteers, ambitious fancy dress and busy classrooms from the community’s golden age. One image showed Kate, age four weeks, naked, hanging from her father’s beard. In the photo, Don was standing smiling with his arms out. Her eyes were wide open, her rugby player’s thighs kicking at the air.
Albert went into the kitchen to look for her. That’s when he saw the note on the round table.
Sitting on a log, now surrounded by his audience, Don pulled the blade out of its hoof. Isaac didn’t like that and he got off the bench and went to find his mother and Freya. Don’s snow-beard of shaving cream made his expression difficult to read and showed the real color of his teeth.
After his visit to the hospital to see Patrick, Don had driven home with all the windows open, breathing loudly through his mouth. His jumper and trousers were in a plastic bag in a rubbish bin in the hospital parking lot along with, as he would never recall, the sealed letter to Patrick from Janet. His beard had glistened the way pastry glistens after an egg-wash. A note from Kate had been pinned under the Volvo’s windshield wipers. When he got home, Don, in only his T-shirt and boxers, couldn’t face telling anyone the news so he left the note out and went immediately upstairs for a shower that kept going long after the water turned cold.
The note: Pops, hope things went well with Patrick. I can’t work at home so I’m going away for a bit. Let me know when you and Mum have sorted things out. Am taking the mobile, if you really need me. Tell Albert—sorry. K
Albert came running back out the house and was now down on his knees, gathering up what hair hadn’t blown away and balling it together. Don, working his crowd, tested the blade—drew blood, laughed, sucked his thumb. He was getting younger by the minute. He told the two Latvians that they had to stand up with the mirror, and they did what he asked.
Don delicately took the first cut, down the left cheek, the cream piling up against the blade, speckled with dark hairs—branches in a snowdrift. There was a badge of fresh flesh blinking in the daylight. Arlo clapped, using the palm of his free hand to beat his chest. Through default, he now had the best beard in the community. The little nick on Don’s thumb was surprisingly bloody and there were drops on the blade and in the shaving cream.
Albert, with his head down, not watching, said: “God.”
Wiping the blade on the edge of the log, Don went again, cleaning up the left cheek. The wwoofers held the big oval mirror awkwardly, like a big check from the lottery. Don’s pale cheek shone. Albert’s pockets were full of his father’s beard.
Isaac held both Freya’s and Marina’s hands as he pulled them into the yard. They stood still for a moment, trying to grasp the situation, then Freya went straight to her son, knowing what this would mean to him. She knelt down, hugged him, and kissed the top of his head. Don started in on the right cheek, his mouth still hidden, any compassion disguised by shaving cream.
“Freya, now you’re here, why don’t you help with this last bit,” he said, stretching his neck out.
“Let me,” Albert said, his voice suddenly loud. He looked up at his father and held out his hand.
“Okay. Anyone else?”
“I said I’ll do it,” Albert said, and he stood up, tufts of beard showing at the pockets of his jogging bottoms.
“You’ve never shaved before, son.”
“So now I learn.”
“I don’t think you should practice on me.”
“Who else can I practice on?”
Don’s cheek twitched, triangles of shaving cream here and there, spots of red.
“Okay,” Don said, “but let your mum supervise.”
Albert wiped his eyes on his sleeves. The rest of the community were still watching, unworried, like they’d come across an impromptu piece of experiential theater.
“It’s very sharp, Albert.” Don handed him the razor.
He turned the blade this way and that, letting it blink in the sun.
“Can you lift his chin for me, Mum?” Albert said.
She raised her husband’s jaw to the angle he used for making important statements.
“I’m going to start here,” Albert said, and he pointed with his free hand at his father’s Adam’s apple. “Nice and deep.”
Don didn’t laugh. Freya stood beside her son and lightly cupped the hand that was holding the blade.
Arlo stopped sharpening his knife. The wwoofers shuffled a few steps back, looking awkward and compromised. Freya guided the blade toward Don’s neck. There was a certain childish brinkmanship about who was going to call this a terrible idea first. Don swallowed and the foam rippled.
With Freya’s hand on his, Albert put the blade into the foam. It was clear Don wanted to say something but didn’t want to move. Their son’s lips disappeared inside his mouth and his eyes welled up. Freya could feel him gripping the blade so hard his knuckles stuck out. There was a high-pitched noise coming from his throat.
She drew back Albert’s hand and peeled away his fingers. Once she’d taken the knife off him, he immediately stepped back and sat down, looking dazed.
“It’s okay, Albert,” Don said.
Freya stood up and moved round the other side of the log to stand behind her husband.<
br />
“I can just finish it myself,” Don said.
She ignored him, placed her thumb on the tip of his chin, and, concentrating, made the first upward stroke, going against the grain of his hair. He did not speak or swallow. Wiping the blade on her sleeve, she continued tidying up. She didn’t recognize him. She didn’t want to.
When she was finished, he rubbed his face with his hands and turned his head from side to side. This got a round of applause.
4. ANIMAL, MINERAL, VEGETABLE
When Kate arrived on Geraint’s doorstep—with a plastic bag and a change of clothes—she had something about her of the convict on day release. Or that’s how she felt, at least, as they brought her in, sat her down at the dining table, made her sweet, milky tea, and asked what she’d like for her first meal, now that she was on the outside.
“We’ve got,” Mervyn, Geraint’s father, said, swinging back the fridge door, “drum roll … streaky bacon!”
Kate explained that, while the community wasn’t vegetarian, actually, she was, although she’d be happy eating anything, and she pointed to the family-size box of Frosties on the counter.
The next day Liz, Geraint’s mother’s, organized a symbolic gas-powered barbecue to clear their fridge of breakfast meats, Iberian chorizo, pork medallions, and handmade lamb burgers. On the patio, topless in April, Mervyn wafted the meat smoke away with a tea tray, carrying himself in the manner of a man who has, at some previous time, worked out.
Liz had a kind of cycle helmet of blond hair, raised from her scalp, sprayed stiff and sturdy-looking. She was fiercely accommodating. Each night she said, “Sleep well, Katherine,” and each morning she paid close attention to which cereal or muesli Kate chose, and then bought lots more of that brand. She never asked what had happened to drive her away from her home, but the implication was that Kate should feel free, at any point, to talk about it. In fact, Kate began to sense she was being treated like someone who had recently been through unspeakable trauma, so she started to wonder if she had.