Dreams of Leaving Read Online Free PDF Page B

silvery drool spilled from the corner of his mouth and ran down George’s sleeve. Moses grinned.
    â€˜Thank you, Moses,’ George said. ‘Thank you very much.’
    He carried Moses downstairs. He opened the kitchen door and groped one-handed for the light. The window jumped back, turned blue. The mist a bandage on the sky. The sun would soon bleed through.
    He changed Moses on the kitchen table then set him in the high-chair while he made breakfast. Baked beans, toast and tea for him. Porridge with brown sugar, blended banana and a bottle of milk for Moses.
    â€˜All your favourites, Moses,’ he said. ‘A real feast.’
    Where would his next meal come from? What would it be? Who would be holding him? George squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, tilted his head back. His mind bustled with questions, a thousand voices babbling at once. He looked down at Moses, ran his hand through the widow’s peak. The hair stood up in a dark crest then fell forwards in wisps on to the baby’s forehead.
    Remember these final moments.
    The night ebbing. Trees rising out of the sky – dark islands, jagged coastlines.
    Daylight beginning to heat the crimson roses in the kitchen window.
    The taut click of the electric clock. The knocking of a waterpipe. The shudder of the fridge.
    His nerves tightened and Moses, sensing tension, pushed the teat away from his mouth.
    â€˜It’s all right, Moses. Everything’s all right. Here.’ His soothing voice as he touched the bottle to Moses’s lower lip. Moses began to suck again, his eyes drifting out of focus.
    Later there would be no way to bring this close again or make it seem real. Memory is a museum. Events mounted on pedestals, faces in Perspex boxes, emotions behind looped red ropes. Everything temperature-controlled, sealed off, out of reach. Looking only. No touching. That alone is distancing enough but sometimes, after a difficult journey, you arrive at the bottom of the steps, those grand stone steps with lions sprawled on either side, and you look up and the museum is closed. New hours, renovation work, an obscure public holiday. There is nothing for it. You turn away. Later in George’s life there would be times when he doubted whether he had actually ever had a son.
    The church clock struck six. George eased the back door shut, winced as the loose glass rattled. He moved across the damp grass, a suitcase in one hand, the basket in the other and Moses, snug in a one-piece suit, lying peacefully in the crook of his right arm. Nervousness turned his belly on a spit but he no longer feared anything. Now he was outside and under way, now he felt his plan begin to stir, to breathe, to come alive, he passed through fear into excitement. His eyes flicked from side to side, missing nothing. The row of marigolds, mist frosting their warm orange glow. The top of the fence a giant saw-blade. The hinges on the garden gate coiled like springs and burgundy with rust. The way he was looking around he might have been leaving the village himself. Seeing it for the last time. The one thought that had sustained him for the past six months now lifted him again. Moses was leaving New Egypt. Leaving the place where apathy lay like a fine dust over everything. Where people gave up, broke down, turned their faces to the wall. Where lips had forgotten how to smile and danger wore a blue uniform with silver buttons. Absurd. Pathetic. Criminal.
    He glanced down. Moses lay still, but his eyes seemed lit from the inside. That’s because he knows something good is happening, George thought. Babies always know.
    Mist clung to the world like a new dense air, like sweat on skin. The gate didn’t creak for once. No lights in any of their neighbours’ houses. The inanimate was on their side. They had accomplices everywhere. It was going to work.
    George slipped across the lane that wound behind their house. He cleared the stile. Ahead of him now stretched