Jones Catherine Ann - An Unravelling

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First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright Elske Rahill 2019

The moral right of Elske Rahill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (HB): 9781786691002

ISBN (XTPB): 9781786691019

ISBN (E): 9781786690999

Author photo: Hatwig Klappert

Cover painting: My Mother Sitting, 1986 (oil on canvas), Maggi Hambling (b.1945) / Private Collection / Bridgeman Images

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For Bomama

U P HERE THE AIR is weighted with the mulchy tang of slow-drying laundry.

With careful steps the baby is sleeping in the room below Cara moves across the low-ceilinged attic and sets the cafetire on the floor by her desk. Its an architects desk; a wide thing of hollow metal, its drafting board covered in a faint grid. The desk was designed to support clean, calculated marks, but she has defied it with clusters of stones, leaves, shells, photographs of tiny animals enlarged to grotesque detail.

She lifts the sheet off yesterdays work and positions her pages in sequence the burrow scene with its filigree of roots, then the rabbit emerging into the moonlit undergrowth Oh but, no. No. The ears are wrong, and the whiskers too. How did she go on working yesterday without seeing it?

The morning brims up at the rain-sprinkled skylight, turning shapes of freckled white across her drawings, a sudden heat on her face. Its later than she thought. The kids will be up soon. She pulls down the blind and switches on the lamp, filling the space with merciless light.

She gathers the three pages into a pile, spreads them out again and squeezes her eyes shut before looking at them afresh all wrong. Page after page, the rabbits ears are cutesy, limp things; the idea of a bunny and nothing rabbit about it at all. She thought she was on a roll yesterday, but she was just being sloppy. Shes even committed one of them to ink. Stupid girl. Shell have to scrap it all and start again.

Coffee first. Squatting by the cafetire she presses too hurriedly on the plunger, sending a quick little splurt out the spout, and peers under the desk for something to drink from. She has allowed the mugs to collect again mugs and jam jars and ceramic yoghurt pots, silt rings glazed into their floors. Pat is right; theyd have enough mugs if she just kept on top of the housework. She selects the cleanest one a tin camping mug bought on honeymoon in Italy and returns to the desk for sugar. She keeps a stock of it beside her ink pots chunks of blonde crystals filling a small cork jug that once belonged to her grandad.

She pops a piece into the mug and pours, uses the wrong end of a paintbrush to stir.

She blows at the coffee, and sips the relief of caffeine, calories, heat; a promise that this headache will lift.

Look at that mawkish snout! Its like a greeting card. She will have to rethink this project. Drers Young Hare she needs to go back to that; that life inside the stillness, the distillation of a moment. Her grandfather had the print hanging in his studio. A reminder, he said, not to get lost in the page, to stay with the subject. It was the ears she liked best cool envelopes of sound and each fleck of fur alive to the passing light.

With a pen from her dressing-gown pocket she blacks over yesterdays ears. She marks the hump where they should sprout from the narrow skull; a sensitive spot, maybe, for a rabbit. Whiskers too she makes thick sweeps above the eyes and muzzle. It will all be in the whiskers and the ears thats where Little Luke Rabbits personality will lie. The ruined page can be her guide. There must be no stasis; no overworking; just action trembling, bristling, swivelling, sniffing

Caras pen stops. She listens the ugly clacking of magpies far down the garden, the groan of the boiler rumbling through the house, but theres someone here. Her daughter Cara can feel it on her skin and down into her glands the animal signals of her child; a softening of the muscles, warmth surging to her breasts. Megan is there at the foot of the stairs, her breath moistening the air. Then the whine:

Mammeeeya?

Cara holds her breath. There is a chance Megan will give up and go in search of breakfast.

The child lurches up the steps on all fours, hands slap slapping, the thud of one slippered foot, the drag of the other.

Mammmeeeeya? Maaaaaa meeeeeee!

Mammys working, darling.

Mammeeya no but Mammy dont work. I want you.

Go and cuddle Daddy. Say good morning to Daddy, baby. Tell him your mammy is working.

But Mammy no I want you. I want to give you a twiss.

Come and give me a quick kiss then, Megan.

When she reaches the top the child scuttles speedily at her, clambers onto her knee, face alight with a victorious grin.

Good morning, Megan my lovely.

My mammy.

Megans cheeks are very red, her nosetip glazed with dried snot. Cara touches her mouth to the dark, sweat-slicked hair, nuzzles in behind her daughters ear, cheek pressed to burning cheek; breathing her in.

Dood mowning Mammy. Megan raises her chin to receive the kisses, nosing her mother like a purring cat. She draws back and plants a sticky palm on either side of Caras face, kissing one cheek, then the other, then her nose; puts her face into her mothers throat, a hand under the lapel of her robe, and sighs. Cara lifts Megans hand away from her breast, and kisses her fingers. She puts the lid on her pen, pulls the sheet back over her work.

Are your sisters awake?

Megan nods against her chest. DenDen is be doing Lego.

Baby Peggy?

Nope. Baby Peggy is being in her cot. Her be sleeping maybe. She shakes her head, and adds an exaggerated, studied shrug hands turned out, one shoulder hitched to her ear, mouth twisting, nose wrinkled. The idea of maybe is new to her. Maybe, she says again, holding the pose, Baby Peggy be sleeping maybe . Then, as an afterthought, Or needs a feed maybe. Boobies.

The little fingers slip in under her robe again; cold. Cara pulls Megans hand out and makes a pocket around it with both of her palms, blows on it.

Wheres your dressing gown? Is Daddy up?

I hate Daddy.

You dont hate Daddy.

Do.

Come on, I need you to help me find something quickly. Then well have some breakfast.

You smell horwible, Mammy. You need to wash you.

Come on, off you get. Help me. We need to find a picture of a bunny rabbit. Its somewhere in here, I think. So, Im going to lift down the books one by one and you keep looking and when you see a picture of a bunny you say BUNNY! Okay?

Theres a stack of mess against the wall old specs from projects that never happened, her grandfathers illustrated encyclopaedias with strips of paper and twists of yarn stuck in as bookmarks. The hare is in there somewhere, crouched in one of the books, staring with that mute blend of disgruntlement and terror at the blank weight of leather-bound volumes.