Cosmogramma by Courttia Newland

Author:Courttia Newland [Courttia Newland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2021-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

19

It was better sleeping together, even though nobody got much rest and their bodies ached each morning. They’d given Iye the back seat but he woke up scared, so they crammed in with him, huddled like nesting birds. Misra always found sleep easy. Iye was his mother’s son and also slept well, but Dapo suffered from insomnia at the best of times, even in his own bed. Since the last motel he’d been unable to close his eyes without thoughts racing, his fear rising. He decided, unofficially, without telling his family, that it might be better to keep watch. They were most active in the night, people said. He couldn’t sleep knowing that might be true.

The rough blanket tickled his chin. He pulled at it. Misra snored and Iye lay across them, feet on Dapo’s legs, head on her lap. They had parked near the undergrowth on the far side of the field, illegally perhaps, but they hadn’t any choice. All accommodation had long been taken. Motorways and back roads alike were full of traffic, no matter the time of day or night. They were lucky enough to find an open gate which led to a path high on muddy hills, the slanted fields and woodland far away from any central roads. The unruly hedgerow seemed large enough to partially consume the Honda and keep it from all but the keenest observers. It wasn’t ideal, yet Dapo disliked the idea of sleeping near others. It made them a target, in his eyes.

He was unused to complete silence. It fell like a shroud across bushes and oaks, broken by the sigh of grass whenever the breeze rose. Behind and above their car hills veered heavenwards, and a dark mass of trees grew upright despite the ninety-degree angle of the upwards-sloping earth. The darkness, this far away from street lights and the illumination of houses, was complete. If he held his breath there was only the sound of his family, an offbeat tick of the engine. A creaking on occasion, possibly crickets. Most of the time there was nothing but the noises of each other. If Dapo could have silenced them, could bear to take that final step, he would. He actually would. The radio spoke of those who had done such things, preferring murder to the uncertain alternative. There were reports of people who had given up running to touch the plants, and that was it. Over. No one knew what happened next, just that they weren’t seen again. They were vanished out of existence. And yet their plant always remained. Family members who had escaped implored that something be done to find their loved ones. Sometimes, days later, even they disappeared. Much as Dapo appreciated the emotions that brought people to either position, nothing he’d heard allowed him to condone the actions of those who had given up, or to imagine himself able to perform that final, killing blow. That was too much. If he could not fight he would run, he’d decided; then settle, wait it out.

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