The Book of Rapture by Nikki Gemmell Page A

that.
And God will say, ‘Taste ye your own doings.’

40
    The doorknob. The rattling. Back.
    ‘Okay,’ Soli whispers, ‘okay We could face them down but…’
    Tidge takes over: ‘we’re kids not super-heroes and this is real life.’
    The nerve-rash Mouse gets is claiming his face. ‘The bathroom’s scaring me like crazy, guys,’ he warns. ‘What went on, before, in the bath, it’s got scratches like something was trying to get out and, and …’ He can’t go on.
    ‘Didn’t,’ Tidge concludes. Neither has been to the loo all morning in fact.
    ‘The bed,’ Soli commands. They scramble under it. She drags down the duvet to cover the gap between the mattress and floor and Mouse finds his brother’s hand and they wait with trembly breaths.
    Footsteps. Hesitating. Changing direction. Heading to the bed. Closer. Closer. They stop. The cover’s grabbed. Tugged. Your daughter yanks back. The boys are now gripping each other so tight Mouse’s fingernails are digging into Tidge’s palms and there is blood in tiny sickles. Tidge can feel its sticky wet—
    ‘ Why do you lot always have to make everything so difficult?’
    The duvet’s dropped. Three little faces peer out. Burst into laughter.
    It’s B.
    B! They are safe, they are safe and you sink to your kneeswith relief unfurling in your chest. Motl’s protégé, surrogate son, closest friend.
    ‘Um, sorry, guys,’ says your daughter, ‘love you lots but there’s something I’ve got to do.’
    She dashes to the bathroom.
    ‘Hurry up!’ Mouse wails, then Tidge.
    ‘La la la,’ she sings back.
Whatever one expects, things turn out otherwise.

41
    The family cook, from long ago. When people like that were allowed. When you lived in your sparkly suburb, when Project Indigo consumed your life. But after the servants were long gone B kept bobbing up out of the blue, banging on the door of Salt Cottage and hollering for any grown-up to scat and yes yes, yada yada, the carrots would be mixed in with the bolognese sauce and the kids would be in bed by eight. And you knew he’d be teaching them to turn eyelids inside out and do the alphabet in burps, but Motl and you obeyed for they adored him, his stories and tickles and teasing and jokes, and it was a blessed circuit-break; a release, from the intensity of parenthood, for a couple of hours at least. He always outstayed his welcome and never went home when he should, as if he was always trying to slip into your family, as if there was nothing else. His mantra is that there are only three ways to live now: to participate, flee, or transcend. And he chooses to transcend. ‘With kids. Any I can get.’
    And now, and now, it is time to surrender to trust.
    Because B is Motl’s unmovable choice in this. The unlikely saviour: ‘Have some faith, Mrs, have some faith.’ But you’re just not sure about this man now embedded in your kids’ life.
    Yet in that pale space right now, well, everything is upended, and you can only smile at that. Your children are suddenly in a dear white balloon of a room all hazy with a lemony light and the sun is bursting through clouds like tent ropes fromheaven and life is good, so good, in this place. Certainty has spread through all three of them like parachutes floating them, gently, to the ground. Soli is renewed. Radiant. She hates not knowing, just like you; everything, always, has to be under control and now B is here and he’s a thread to her parents and everything is okay and she can hand over responsibility and her face is ironed out.
Examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good.

42
    ‘ Why should I trust him?’ you interrogated Motl once. ‘Give me one reason.’
    He propped his fingertips under his chin. ‘Because, Mrs, he’s extremely clever. He’s able to flit between many worlds. And we’re damned lucky he’s on our side.’
    ‘That’s what you say.’
    ‘I’m as close to a father as he’ll get. He doesn’t have one. His dad said to