Wild Abandon

3. TREATMENT

Saturday

“Dad, time to arise.”

“Mmm.”

“Open your eyes.”

“What time is it?”

“Late. Terribly late.”

“What time exactly?”

“Nearly double figures.”

“Albert, your father’s tired.”

“Your wife has been awake for hours.”

“Okay.”

“You said you’d let me try on the Soviet Hat.”

“Did I?”

“Last night while we were in the woods, you promised.”

“I think we’re going to see Uncle Patrick in hospital today. Why don’t you write him a nice get-well card?”

Kate was in the waiting room. Her father had given her one of the community’s two mobile phones. Thirty-six unread messages and sixty missed calls. The calls dated back to the previous summer. The messages were mostly from unknown numbers trying to contact people who had left months ago.

Friends, this is Nova — the “Finn with the Grin”! Now in Mumbai — working for an NGO. If you want to visit, my floor’s comfortable!;-) Miss you!

Don’t know if Jake’s still there — but if he is: PENBLWYDD HAPUS I TI, CARIAD! Dan x

Frey, hope you’re feeling better. Sorry to hear things have been difficult. If you want to talk — I’m here. Be brave. xx

Solstice Approacheth! Swiss Andy here. Best wishes from La Senda, intentional community in Santiago de la Compostela, Spain. Thinking of you all, and of Arlo’s paella (better than here!!) Ax

The message that had just come in read:

Morning K, we all very eager to visit PAT. Call me as soon as you can. V proud of you. Love DAD

• • •

They had erected a bear-hugger around Patrick — a kind of paper duvet — into which they blew hot air with a fan. They fed him warm fluids, injected directly through the stomach wall and with two IVs, one in each arm. He was given oxygen while student doctors watched. He could not remember the last time he felt so cared for. The focus of years of study! Monitored by four machines!

“What makes Patrick a priority?” the doctor asked.

One of the students, a small girl with dedicated eyebrows, stepped forward.

“Here,” she said, pointing. “The skin over his ankle is dying.”

When he woke again, in the ward, hours later, he had metal scaffolding built around his ankle with struts that joined on to plates in his bones. His foot was bandaged and raised above the bed, held in a blue sling. The TV hovered in the air above him, held by a metal arm. He looked around confused, then, recognizing Kate sitting beside him, relaxed a little. She took his hand and squeezed it.

It didn’t take long for a nurse to arrive with a tray: a glass of lemonade, a straw, and a plate covered with a plastic dome. “Luncheon, sire,” she said, and pulled the lid off with a flourish. Patrick watched the cloud of steam rise up and spread out across the low ceiling. Cod in parsley sauce, mash, peas. She bowed and walked out. He stared at the colorful food for a while, then tried the lemonade.

“Patrick, I’m so sorry. Do you remember what happened?”

His voice was muted and coming from his throat. “Some.”

“I came with you in the ambulance. The others will be here soon.”

He sucked the straw until it rasped. “When?” he said, treble returning to his voice, looking more awake now. His leg shifted in its sling.

“They’ll visit this afternoon.”

“When?” He tried to sit up but couldn’t. He looked around for a clock.

“It’s one-fifteen now. They’ll be here about three.”

“No,” he said, louder. His hands pushed against the sheets, but he couldn’t prop himself up. He made a low growl as he struggled.

“What’s wrong? Don’t get agitated.”

“Tell them not to come,” he said, gripping the bed’s metal safety bars, his head turning this way and that, his voice spiking, mucus rattling in his chest.

“They’re your friends, Patrick. They’re worried about you.”

He clawed at the tubes on his wrist, trying to peel off the surgical tape.

“I’ll get someone.” Kate stood up.

“Hoh,” he yelled, sounding like a tennis umpire, his slung leg swinging as he knocked the tray of food off his bed, the plastic plate clattering, the bladeless knife and a snot of mushy peas on the linoleum, the cod fillet sliding into the gangway.

“You have reached the forefront of human development.”

This was one of the new ways that her brother answered the phone.

“Hi, can you get Dad please.”

“Where are you? With your boyfriend, I bet.”

“You know where I am. I’m at the hospital.”

“Tell your boyfriend I am a terrific marksman.”

“Fine, Al, I’m calling you from the boudoir. Get Dad please.”

“As I suspected.”

“You need to get that grip I was suggesting you get. Get Dad.”

She listened to him put the phone down and disappear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Kate! I’ve been trying to call. So good to hear you. How is he?”

“He’s okay. Been to theater. The operation went well.”

“Good — we’re getting a convoy ready. The hamper to end all hampers. Sherry onions.”

“He’s awake now and he’s asked that nobody visits him.”

“Arlo’s made fresh wild garlic pesto. Albert made a card.”

“He went schiz. He doesn’t want you to visit. The nurse asked if you could wait a day or so.”

She could hear her father breathing elaborately into the handset. The same noise that had come from the hall after the letter had arrived letting them know they’d not got planning permission for the yurt village.

“Righty,” he said.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Not your fault.”

In the background, she heard her brother saying something about the Soviet Hat and then the sound of him running upstairs.

There was a syringe full of morphine hanging up next to his bed and a rubbery gray button, shaped like a tiny mushroom, that he could press with his thumb when he wanted a dose. The button was on a plastic box, designed to sit comfortably in the hand. It allowed him one shot every half an hour.

They let Kate stay at his bedside, beyond normal visiting hours, because of his erratic behavior. They were on an eight-bed ward with blue curtains that kept everyone segregated. The man in the bed opposite was having his dressing changed. Half his head had been shaved and there was a long, scimitar-shaped scar on his scalp, ridged with dense scabs. Kate could hear the sound of someone’s iron lung wheezing in and out, which reminded her of her father’s breathing at the end of the line.

Patrick woke for a rerun of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He used his gray morphine dispenser button to buzz in every time he knew the answer. Eventually the syringe hissed. He passed out again as the credits rolled.

“Everything that goes in, stays in.”

Don and Albert were standing in the yard in thin sunlight. They had coats and scarves on and could see their own breath. Don was wearing his Personal Instrument and explaining that he had built the device based on a 1985 design by the Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. When Don was eighteen years old, before he met Freya and Janet, he was traveling through Eastern Europe and reading Kafka’s The Castle when he came across Wodiczko’s Cold War art-technology and decided to make his own replica. Now, many years later, it was an infamous part of the community’s curriculum. Kate had been through it, and so had two dozen or so young people over the years; he typically approached someone after their thirteenth birthday, but for Albert, he made an exception.

“Life is about avoiding bad information and amplifying the good.”

If his son could only develop the critical faculty to help him choose not to be influenced by Marina, there would be no need to take him away to the roundhouse. Don called this lesson “the Human Filter,” but it was more was commonly known as “the Soviet Hat.”

Freya was round the side of the house, chopping wood with a regular thok. Marina and Isaac were out in the pottery shed. Janet was on a bench in front of the schoolroom, wearing fingerless gloves, writing Patrick a letter on a spiral-bound notepad.

“The idea is to help develop your innately discerning intellect,” he said, speaking loudly enough for his wife to hear. “What should we listen to and what should we ignore?”

It was an especially pertinent question, since Patrick’s accident had stemmed, in Don’s opinion, from an inability to weed out, pun intended, certain untrustworthy internal voices. Don wore a pair of large, on-ear headphones, a red beanie, and black gloves, all of which were connected by wires. There was a small directional microphone on the front of the hat.

“Firstly, I decide what I want to hear by looking at it. The microphone will only pick up noises coming from that direction. Now if I choose to, I can hear your mother chopping wood,” he said, and he looked to the side of the house.

“I can already hear her,” Albert said.

Don aimed his forehead toward Albert’s mouth. “Say that again?”

“I said I can hear her.”

“Okay, and if I want to hear you, I look at you.”

Janet looked up, frowned, flexed her notepad, and kept on writing.

“Secondly, I get to decide whether I want to hear high- or low-pitched sounds. If I open this hand,” Don said, waving his right hand, “I can hear birdsong and whistling. If I open my left, I can hear bassy sounds like car engines. And if I open both, everything. It’s all controlled by light sensors in the palms of the gloves.”

“What it’s for?” Albert said, his voice coming to his dad clipped and thin.

The chopping sound slowed.

“It’s an example of how we sometimes take for granted the way in which the world influences us. Everything we see, hear, read, taste, smell even, affects us in ways we can’t fully comprehend.” The chopping stopped. “Some things are worth listening to, some things not. Think of all these inputs as ingredients in the recipe that will go to make you — Albert Riley — the delicious fluffy man-cake that we all hope you will rise to.”

The chopping started again, faster now. Don moved his hands around, opening and closing his palms as though practicing tai chi. Janet got up and went inside.

“ ’Kay, Dad. Can I have a go now?”

Don gave the helmet and headphones to Albert, who slipped them onto his small head. Then he put on the gloves.

“Now, tell me what happens when you have both hands shut?” Don said.

“I go deaf.”

Albert looked up at the sky and across at the workshop and down at the floor. Then he looked at his father, whose mouth was silently moving, so Albert opened both palms.

“… be careful with it, Alb, it’s valuable.”

“You said you made it yourself.”

“You don’t have to pay money for something for it to be valuable.”

Albert walked round the side of the house, choosing only to hear low frequencies as he passed his mother. Holding the ax in two hands, she turned to watch them go down the shallow, woodchipped steps through the kitchen garden. They passed the polytunnels and went into the woods, Don trailing him all the while, saying “Be delicate,” which Albert was selecting not to hear.

Down by the river, the high pitch was the wind through the trees and the low pitch was the trunks aching. Then, later, the high was a chaffinch and the low was his father: “Before you choose something, you have to ask yourself: Do I trust this source of information? How intelligent is it? What are its motives and history?”

They walked on, in stops and starts, Albert led by his ears. There was a rumbling sound. Don could hear it without the Personal Instrument on. He tapped Albert on the shoulder and pointed to where it was coming from: uphill, toward The Bulwark. Albert turned and held his hands up, open, as though at gunpoint. He made directly for the sound, ignoring the path and clambering over brambles that snagged his jeans. The snarl of something up on the hill. Albert felt like Superman hearing danger. Tracked by his father, he hiked up to the crumbly, moss-blotched stone wall at the edge of the woods. Picking a spot where the stones had tumbled, he climbed over into the long grass at the base of Llanmadoc hill. They heard the churning of a generator or a fleet of zeppelins.

“It’s come early, Dad. End times. Marina said the date was movable.”

They picked a route through the heather, on a steady incline that led to The Bulwark: the remains of an old Iron Age fort, one of the highest points in Gower, dotted with scraggy sheep. They saw, just at the lip of the hill, a head popping into view and then dropping down. It happened again. A head appeared, disappeared. And again, along with the sound of motors rising and falling.

“Chain saws,” Albert said, and he carried on up the slope.

“We shouldn’t go too far. Most important life decisions are domestic.”

Albert kept the microphone aimed at the sound. “Combine harvesters. Modified for battle.”

Just then, three quad bikes popped up over the lip of the hill and pegged it down across the rough ground, kicking dirt behind them. They were driven by three men, their bums lifted into the air and their knees bent. Sheep turned to run. The quads’ exhausts produced sheep-shaped puffs. Albert had his right hand, his bass hand, open and held in the air, a high five awaiting completion as he walked toward them through bracken, the noise in his headphones like the grinding of tectonic plates.

The three quads weaved in and out of one another as they moved down the track of flattened grass. As they got closer, it became clear that they were boys, not men, and only a couple of years older than Albert. The quads were three-quarter size. The boys stopped in front of Albert and Don, skidding as though they’d been practicing it. Albert held up both hands to hear everything, but resembled someone surrendering.

One of the boys pointed at Albert and said something that couldn’t be heard over the motor noise. The boy had a kiss-curl pasted flat against his forehead. His hair was stiff with gel and shiny like an exoskeleton. He was wearing a fresh-looking green hoodie and cartoony skate trainers tied with fluffy bows, but everything was spotted with mud. The impression was of a countryside tough kid undermined by his own affluence. The other two boys had styled themselves on him, but each with a key marker of individuality. One had a Jacksonville Jaguars American football jacket, the other a rash of badges across his chest. None of them wore a helmet.

“What’s that?” the boy said again, yelling this time.

“Soviet technology,” Albert said.

“Can I have a go?”

“Yes,” Albert said.

“No, it’s very valuable,” Don said.

“You can try Quadzilla,” the boy said, and he hopped off his bike.

“The thing is, it’s antique,” Don said.

“Go on,” the boy said, stepping toward Albert with his palm out. “Giss a go.”

Don turned his back to the boys and spoke directly, quietly, into the microphone on Albert’s forehead: “Now remember what I said about choosing inputs to follow and those to reject.”

He had his bass hand closed so his father’s voice sounded unimpressive. Albert took the hat and gloves off. He stepped forward and handed over the Personal Instrument.

“There’s a few things you have to understand before you try it,” Don said. “Hold on a minute.”

The boy started putting on the gear, snapping on the gloves dramatically then doing the Saturday Night Fever dance. Don winced as the boy slid the red hat over his slick, reflective hair. Finally, the boy squeezed on the headphones. Don felt that he recognized these lads somehow.

“Sweet!” the boy said. “What does it do?”

“Be very careful,” Don said.

Albert stepped up to Quadzilla. He climbed on and could reach the footrests.

“Albert, step down from there right now,” Don said.

“What are these for?” the boy said, clapping his hands together. “Is it a metal detector?”

As Don moved to stop the boy damaging the light sensors in the gloves, Albert revved the quad and jerked forward, laughing. Don turned to see his son twist the throttle again and slowly move downhill.

“Okay, that’s far enough!”

Albert practiced cornering left and right. He came back up the field and did a wide loop around where his father was standing. Don turned to the boy, who was not listening, and said: “It’s an art piece about how you experience the world.”

The boy turned to his friends, still on their quads, and did an impression of a scratch DJ.

“It’s about choosing what to take in,” Don said, “rather than just being passive, absorbing whatever comes your way.”

“I can’t hear you,” the boy said, his eyes closed, raving, reaching for lasers, his mates cracking up.

Albert started picking up speed, bouncing across the meadow, leaving a dark trail of flattened flowers. Birds abandoned a phone line.

“Do you live in The Rave House?” one of the boy’s friends asked.

“We’re from the community.”

The boy wearing the Personal Instrument pointed his head toward Albert in the distance, opened his right hand, his treble hand, and could make out, above the engine noise, a long Hoooooooo! They watched Albert disappear over the brow of the hill, up to The Bulwark.

They waited for Albert to reappear. The sheep relaxed.

The boy mimed clay pigeon shooting. After a while, he took off the hat and gloves.

Don sat on the back of the quad, one hand around the boy’s waist and the other holding the Personal Instrument to his chest. The boy was bony beneath the hoodie, and when Don gripped on tight, he could feel his ribs. They chugged across open ground, spraying mud behind them in long arcs, taking a straight line toward the brow of the hill. Two to each quad, four of them tracking his son across the meadow.

Don smelt the gel and examined the boy’s pale scalp between the swipes of hair. The quad struggled under Don’s weight and he kept slipping off the back of the seat so he had to half-stand, his knees bent.

Albert’s track ran in a winding sine wave, occasionally scuffed to mud where he’d turned too sharply. The boys yelled directions at one another. “Take the gap road!”

“Cut him off!” They were excited.

The land rose and fell in concentric circles. When Don walked here he liked to acknowledge each peak and trough of the original Iron Age fort: escarpment, moat, ramparts, ward, inner wall, inner courtyard, and, finally, the principal stronghold: the donjon. They passed a National Trust sign that Don had read many times: Off-road vehicles are causing damage to these ancient earthworks.

Clinging to the back of the quad bike, the engine over-revving as the wheels came off the ground, Don did not consider the donjon. He had only the image of his son’s broken body, the wheels of an overturned off-road vehicle spinning in sunlight. He thought of these three lads saying he’d got what he deserved and the phrase be active, Albert, make choices rotating in his head.

There were many more tracks along The Bulwark and it became difficult to tell which one was his son’s. They came to a stop on the donjon. A pile of stones marked the highest point. It was a clear day and they could see the Worm’s Head rearing in the west and a jigsaw of wetland to the north. They waited. The sun started to dip behind Rhossili Downs. They felt the air get colder.

“What’s his mobile number?”

“He doesn’t have one. We use a landline.”

Just then there was the sound from somewhere of Albert’s horn bleating and getting replies from the sheep. They revved and started off, following a walkers’ path that cut across the side of the hill. They found Albert on a steep camber, driving carefully over the knots of molehills and heather. He glanced back at them, then accelerated.

“Albert Riley!” Don yelled.

“It’s okay,” the boy said.

They kept following. When they got out on to open ground, Albert started winding back and forth across the field. The other quads caught up and plaited in and out as well. Albert was a natural.

“Stop right now, Albert!”

The boy with the hair slowed to a stop. “You’re too heavy,” he said, and waited for Don to step off.

Don watched them disappear out of sight and a few minutes later come back round, having swapped drivers. Albert was now riding on the back, his arms round the boy’s Jaguars jacket. Don watched as they did long loops.

He listened for the sound of his son’s screams. He thought about putting the Personal Instrument back on, but didn’t. Eventually, when the quads were going back up the incline for the fifth time, one of them ran out of gas and rolled to a stop. They stepped off the bikes and stood in a circle, talking. Albert was in the middle. Only then did Don recall once being in the car with Patrick, stopping off in Parkmill to score weed. These lads were the delivery boys.

He started running.

“What is it like living in The Rave House?”

“Pretty amazing.”

“What stuff have you seen?”

“Like what?”

“Like clusterfucks,” the boy in the Jaguars jacket said.

“And space docking,” the boy with the badges said.

“Um, I once saw a cow giving birth. There was a man with his arm in a cow, up to the shoulder. When the calf came out it couldn’t walk and it kept falling over like a goddamn drunk.”

They laughed for a bit, their breath making clouds. Albert felt glad. He looked across at his dad, who was small and out of breath, burrs attached to his trousers, stomping uphill toward them.

“Okay. What else?”

“Sometimes people walk around with tops off, even women,” Albert said.

“Alright.”

“What are they like?”

“The tits?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re like … um … they’re like when a balloon has been behind the sofa for a few weeks.”

“Yug!” the main boy said, and clutched his throat.

The other two boys laughed. They really liked that.

“What about hypnosis?”

“Oh yeah — that happens. Last night a man lost his mind so we chased him.”

“What about the parties?”

“And have you seen people shagging?”

“Yeah, there was a couple doing it in my bed.”

“Were you in it?”

“Oui.”

“Man!”

“Holy! Did you do her?”

“I just watched.”

“Holy shit.”

“Fucking,” said Badges.

“What school are you in?” Albert asked.

“Bishopston.”

Albert took note. Then he said: “I can also kill goats. It’s easy. My mum taught me. If you come round to mine, you can try it.”

“To The Rave House? I won’t be allowed,” Jaguars said.

“Your dad said you ’aven’t got your own phone?”

“I know,” Albert said. “Lame.”

“Oh man.”

“What’s your number?” Albert said. “I’ll remember it. I’ve got a good memory.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Oh seven eight six oh. Five two three. Six two three.”

“Right. Oh seven eight six oh. Five two three. Six two three. Got it.”

“Good.”

Albert mouthed the number again, but with his eyes closed. Don arrived, huffing.

Don said: “You’re destroying ancient earthworks.” They just looked at him. He grabbed his son by the wrist and walked him back down the slope. Looking behind, Albert saw the boys squinting after him. They watched Albert go and, after a while, started to walk their quads home.

Albert was too busy repeating the phone number under his breath to be angry with his father.

“Dad, I want you to remember something, okay?”

Don was distracted, toying with the Personal Instrument, wiping little bits of hair gel off the inside of the beanie. Albert tugged on his sleeve.

“You have to listen to me,” Albert said.

“I’m listening.”

“I need you to remember five numbers.”

“Okay, what are they?”

“Remember oh seven eight six oh.”

“Oh seven eight six oh.”

“Got it?”

“Got it.”

Walking back to the big house, Albert chanted “Five two three six two three” to the melody from “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Albert felt that, although the Soviet Hat itself, after the years he had spent jealously watching others use it and anticipating its powers, had been a bit of a letdown, the day’s experiences overall had been unparalleled. He had mud all over his clothes and face, which was excellent. He jumped on molehills as he went along — hopscotch-style — and instead of five gold rings it was “Five! Two! Three!”

Don had taken his coat off and had a heart-shaped sweat spot on the back of his shirt. Checking his mobile, he saw two missed calls from Kate and a message.

Pat is improving but still not ready for visitors. I will get bus home. Kxx.

Albert sang all the way back to the house. Skipping into the porch, he grabbed the notepad from the wall beneath the phone and ran back to find his father, who was on the bench outside, writing a text message with his index finger.

“Alright, Dad. What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“The number.”

“Oh.”

Albert wrote down a zero. “Then what?”

It was dark when Kate got off the bus at Llanmadoc, so she walked using the phone as a torch. As she came up through the bottom of the garden, she could see the kitchen light on. She was tired and the last thing she wanted was to have people listen attentively to her. She took her shoes off before walking on the gravel and pushed carefully through the front door. The hall was empty but she heard adult voices, restrained and intent, in the kitchen. She stepped on the edges of the stairs where they didn’t creak, then slipped down the corridor and into her room, quietly closing the door. Leaving the lights off, she sat on her bed in silence. She hadn’t slept since the night before last.

That’s when a voice spoke to her.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

It came from under the bed.

She clicked on her bedside lamp, sat back on the mattress, and rubbed her eyes with her palms. The voice spoke again.

“Bad things happen when you go away.”

“Albert, I need to go to sleep. How long have you been under there?”

“It’s hard to tell.”

There was a light feline scratching sound at the bed frame’s wooden slats.

“Dad says that Patrick’s sick, mentally. Mentally sick, dude! Marina says his accident was the sort of thing we should come to expect as we get closer. I heard he’ll have metal in his legs, which is way better than bone. By the way, I smell insane.” His index finger appeared from underneath the bed, smudged with gray and black. “Try my belly gunk.”

“Stop, Albert.”

“Try it,” he said, the finger waggling. “Yum.”

“I’m serious.”

“Tummy fudge.”

“Go and have a shower then.”

“Not without you, dear sister.”

“Albert, please, leave me alone. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve missed you. Tell me you won’t go away again.”

He slid out from under the bed and sat with his back well postured against the fireplace grate. He had spots of mud on his face and a string of cobwebby dust in his hair, like a streak of gray; it scared Kate to think of her brother not young.

“Check this,” he said, and he pulled up the sleeves of his jumper. He rubbed his right hand quickly up and down his left forearm. Little balls of condensed dirt and mud and dead skin formed like the residue when rubbing out pencil marks. “It’s the same all over my body.”

Her brother seemed wired somehow. She wondered if he’d gained access to some black-market Jelly Sweets.

“Why are you covered in mud?”

He seemed to think for a while.

“I did it deliberately because I wanted to have a reason to spend time with you.”

“Oh good God, I hope that’s not true.”

“The more time you spend away, the worse I get, so they say.”

“Fuck off, Al. Seriously.”

“Tick,” he said, and he stood up.

“Albert, look, I’m not being mean but we can’t have showers together anymore.”

“Ya wee radge!” he said, twirling a full circle on his heels. “I’m completely innocent. Tock.”

She wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “It’s not your fault. I’m just changing and I’m older and I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

“Appropriate. My God, who are you?”

“It’s my fault.”

“You have a boyfriend and he’s a complete asshole,” he said, clapping.

She put her head in her hands. He came toward her and, while smelling her scalp, said: “I’m getting the fragrance of hospitals and old age. If you don’t have a shower with me then I’m never going to wash.”

“Come on, Al. I’m tired.”

Looking up, she pulled the gray out of his hair, taking years off him.

“Will you at least watch me shower?”

She hesitated.

“Will you at least be in the same room?”

Kate sat on the bench-cum-cupboard that ran along the back wall of the bathroom with her legs pulled up underneath her and her left palm raised to shield her vision.

“What’s happened to you?” Albert said.

“Please hurry up.”

“It’s your boyfriend’s fault you’ve turned like this. I would like to destroy him.”

Albert pulled off his clothes and hummed what he thought of as stripper music—“New York, New York”—throwing his T-shirt at Kate, yanking off both trainers, wafting the rich, stewed-cabbage smell toward her. He pushed down his boxers and kicked them at the wall.

“Ta-da,” he said, standing there naked, his hands in the air.

She examined the seam between the sheets of floral wallpaper.

“Darn you, spatchcock. Just talk to me, okay? You don’t have to watch.”

She heard water hit porcelain, then the shower curtain pulled across.

“So, sister. I’ve been learning some new things.”

She turned round and watched the ghost of his shape move behind the curtain, occasionally glimpsing a pink hand above the shower rail.

“Although I told you that the twenty-first of December is the most likely end date, Marina said it’s not as simple as that. It could come early or late — we have to stay vigilant.”

Kate listened to his voice change pitch and volume as he moved in and out of the water.

“You’re an idiot.”

“It won’t be the end for all of us — just the ones who aren’t on the high-score table, which is most people. Some get selected and some rejected.”

She heard him jump as he said rejected and his feet slapped on the porcelain.

“You should probably try to get a grip,” she said. “I’m not saying a whole grip — just a thumb and forefinger.”

“I am guided by my own powers, but doubled,” he said, and she could see that behind the curtain he was lifting up his biceps, making a Mr. Universe pose.

“Where were Mum and Dad while you were being brainwashed?”

“I wash my own brain.”

She watched the gray blob morph and bulge behind the curtain. There was a fizz of particles above the rail, like when you drop soluble aspirin into water. She liked to imagine him dissolving.

“I think it’s gonna be like snow,” he said. “It’ll look just like normal snow, falling on everything, making everything white, but then when it melts, there’ll only be me and you and Mum and Dad and Marina and Isaac and maybe Janet and Arlo left, and everyone else will have gone, washed down the drain, and it doesn’t matter if they try to ride away on quad bikes because they will never escape.”

Kate frowned. She heard him scrubbing at something. The air around her was starting to white out. The room was warming. The water stopped and she watched Albert’s shape behind the curtain, a freak-show specimen waiting to be revealed.

“You know,” she said, “every few years someone predicts the world’s end. In medieval times they thought it would end, but it didn’t. At college, we studied a cult who killed themselves because they thought that would help them survive the apocalypse, but they just died, thirty of them, all in single beds with their arms across their chests.”

“You promised to teach me everything you learn.” Then he called her something in Catalan.

He was standing still. She could see his fuzzy silhouette.

“You’ll be a teenager soon, Alb, and you shouldn’t have to waste time listening to idiots like Marina when you should be having fun. Patrick escaped for a reason.” She hadn’t thought about what she was going to say. “And things are changing with Mum and Dad. Something is happening, has happened. Albert? You should be out there having fun. You need to make some new friends. Meet people your own age.”

She saw the shape halve, folding in on itself. A gray round shape at the bottom of the shower.

“I don’t have anything in common with people my own age,” he said.

She tried laughing. It sounded stagy in the bathroom’s acoustics. She stepped up to the curtain and, listening, could only hear the showerhead dribbling, the gap between each drip getting bigger and bigger until it stopped.

“But you get along with everyone,” she said.

She pulled back the curtain.

He was folded up on the floor of the shower, his skin shiny, shampoo still in his hair, his forehead touching the plughole, a boulder, the teeth of his spine sticking out through his back. The soles of his feet, she saw, still dirty, a bouquet of verrucas on his right heel. He stayed there, unmoving, starting to shiver.

“Albert, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset. Why do you spoil everything?”

“Albert, don’t say that. I haven’t slept.”

She felt tightness at the back of her throat.

“Are you crying?” he said, still balled up, his voice muffled. “You’d better not be crying.”

She folded her arms across her chest.

“No way,” he said, and he unfolded from the boulder position and stood up. “That’s not right.”

With her on the bathroom floor and him raised in the shower cubicle, they were the same height. Water ran off the tips of his fingers. He was completely hairless. A tear hung off the end of her chin. Albert put his hand underneath to catch it.

“It’s me that should be crying. I’m younger than you.”

He caught the tear and rubbed it under his armpit.

“Why wouldn’t you have a shower with me? Why are you so stupid?”

He caught another tear and wiped it on his hair.

He caught another and ate it.

Sunday

In the car on the way to dropping her at the hospital, her father seemed small-eyed and drawn, his cheeks loose.

“I want you to tell Patrick that we miss him,” Don said.

“Okay.”

He was wearing navy jogging bottoms and his “driving socks,” which had rubber grips on the soles.

“Tell him it’s not the same now he’s gone.”

Kate flicked the direction tabs on the dashboard heater. Don changed lanes twice along Mumbles Road, though there were no other cars.

“His energy, his ideas, the discussions we used to have, even the fights, I miss having someone to fight with.”

“Are you okay, Dad?”

“I’m tired.” Don checked all three mirrors but didn’t change lanes.

“What’s going on with you and Mum?”

“She and Albert are going to spend a couple of weeks down at the roundhouse, we’ve decided. Give Albert some space from Marina.”

“Why don’t you just do something about her?”

Kate examined her father’s profile while he kept his eyes on the road. He had a small nodule of gray — she hoped it was porridge — trapped behind the bars of his mustache.

“It’s more important that Albert learn to understand his own mind, rather than have us force our beliefs on him.”

“But he’s eleven.”

“We think a fortnight’s holiday at the roundhouse will help.”

“You think or Mum thinks?”

“We do. It’s an experiment.”

The workshop contained a disc sander, band saw, two wooden counters, and a shadow-board with half the tools missing. A storage room at the far end had become Marina and Isaac’s bedroom, and when Freya knocked and went in, she found them, with Albert, playing cards on a single bed.

“This is a nice surprise!” Marina said.

They were playing cheat. Freya said hello and sat at the end of the mattress to watch.

“We’re discovering that your son is an exquisite liar,” Marina said.

“Here’s the face I use,” Albert said, and he showed his mother his honest face.

The concrete floor had, at its center, a rug the color of bandages. Light came through a single high window. They played a hand and Isaac yelled “You’re lying!” at his mother, but she was telling the truth.

Above Marina’s bed there was an image in a clip-frame, a panoramic photo of deep space that had what looked like two phosphorescent eyes at its center. A thin handwritten label ran the length of the frame: Chandra Telescope 2001, The Centre of the Milky Way: Sagittarius A*. What do you see? The two eyes glared at the opposite wall, which was decorated with Polaroids of Isaac.

“Cheat!” Albert said. “Massive cheat!”

Isaac looked down, made a face, then picked up the deck.

“Do you want to play, Mum? I bet you’re terrible.”

“I was actually popping in just to update you on Patrick,” Freya said. “The good news is he’s on the mend, but the bad news is the doctors don’t think he’s quite ready for visitors.”

“But Kate’s been to see him,” Albert said.

“Well, they don’t want him to be overwhelmed.”

“But she is overwhelming.”

“Maybe he just needs a few days to get his bearings,” Marina said, speaking quietly to Albert, holding his shoulder. “He must be feeling confused.”

Albert conceded with a frown.

“But I thought of something fun we could do instead, since it’s sunny,” Freya said. “How would you guys like to build a house out of mud?”

The syringe hissed. Kate watched the fluid snake toward his arm. Eventually his fingers went slack and uncurled. The plastic box stayed in his palm, tipping on its keel. He came in and out like this, fading to unconsciousness, then eventually drifting back in. Half an hour later, his eyes opened and he rolled his head toward her on his pillow.

“Ah Katie,” he said. “How’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s okay. We have fun.”

“At your age, you should be single. Where’s Janet?” he said. His lips were dry and ill-defined, seeming to fade into his skin.

“At home. Why do you ask?”

“You should leave Blaen-y-Llyn and do something with your life. Meet men. Have sex. How old are you?”

His voice sounded croaky.

“Seventeen,” she said.

“I thought you were older,” he said. “You have to leave as soon as you can. Don’t lose your entire life.”

His thumb continued pressing the gray morphine dispenser button, like someone absently clicking the lid of a pen.

“I think my parents are breaking up.”

She saw his Adam’s apple nod. “Well, that’s for the best. Your mother could do better.”

Kate concentrated on remembering when Patrick had been likable. She remembered the dawning of her vegetarianism when she was ten. It had been dark and raining — everyone was outside in the garden, with many different kinds of scissors, committing genocide on the slug population. She had learned that slugs could climb trees—that they could bungee down on lengths of mucus—and it was unacceptable to her to kill a creature who had that kind of ambition. When Patrick found her she was standing in the rain, crying, arms out like a scarecrow, a slug moving surprisingly fast up her forearm. Patrick had dimmed his head torch, knelt in front of her, plucked the slug off, attached it to his upper lip, and spoken with a French accent: “Come with me, mademoiselle. En Fronce we treat zee mollusc with respect.” He carried her away from the sound of the scissors, down to the edge of the woods. She managed to both sob and laugh. Plucking his mustache off, she set it free by a nettle patch. They stayed to watch its long slither to freedom.

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 yard 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.

“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.