Dark Eden

sharpest and gentlest of us all, walked silently next to me, watching everything.

    We ran into our shelters and felt inside our skin bags and storage logs for things for John to take with him: blackglass, spearheads, rope, skins, a net, some dried meat. There was no one else taking charge so I did my best to organize things, keeping an eye on Gerry all the time to make sure he left John alone and didn’t pester him when he needed to be able to think.
    ‘Let him be, Gerry. He knows you love him, but he can’t look after you as well as himself just now . . . Come on, Roger, you can spare him a couple of decent spearheads, for Gela’s sake . . . Tom, can you see if there’s some more string over there that he could take? Janny dear, I know you’re sad, but can you just wrap up that meat in a clean bit of skin?’
    Meanwhile my pretty sister Jade stood helplessly and watched as we brought things to her son and he bundled them up together, as if she was waiting for instructions on how a mother should behave.
    We said goodbye to him. Gerry hugged him. Jeff hugged him. Old Roger hugged him. I hugged him and told him to take care and be patient and not do anything else that would cause upset to Family. And meanwhile, I said, we’d work on Council to change its ruling, and let him come back again. After all, Council were the ones who kept telling us we had to keep whole Family together.
    ‘It won’t go on forever, John,’ I told him. ‘You’ve upset everyone
badly
badly, but when people have calmed down a bit, we can look at it all again, and try and find another way through.’
    He didn’t anwer me. He didn’t speak at all. He shouldered his bundle, picked up the fire-bark with its smouldering embers, turned and and nodded to us, and then set off along a little path that went between Batwing and Fishcreek clearings and out into forest. (He didn’t want to have to walk through someone else’s group area.)
    ‘Take care, John,’ I called after him. ‘And don’t give up. We’ll sort something out.’
    He stopped, turned one more time and raised one hand in a little half-wave, and then carried on.
    Suddenly Bella screamed.
    She’d been hiding in her shelter all this time while we’d been getting things ready for him, and no one had noticed her come out.
    ‘John!’ she cried out, ‘John! Wait for me!’
    She ran after him, sobbing, and grabbed hold of his arm, begging him to let her go with him.
    ‘Don’t leave me, my sweet boy! Don’t leave me!’
    No one had ever seen her like that, her of all people. For not only in Redlantern but all across Family, we relied on her to be one of those that keep calm and sensible and in control when other folk were getting upset.
    ‘I don’t want to lose you, John, my darling,’ she wailed, with tears pouring down her face. ‘I want to go on caring for you, my baby. This is all my fault.’
    John didn’t say anything. He was pale, he was sunk into himself and, though he submitted himself to her clinging kisses, his face was turned away from her to the path ahead, as if he was simply waiting for the moment when this distraction was removed from him and he could continue on his way.
    ‘John, my sweetheart,’ Bella tried again, pawing at him, running her hand down his chest and his belly, like she was his lover and they were about to have a slip, ‘John, my dear sweet darling. I love you. I love you better than if you were my own child. I love you better than if you were my man. Let me come and look after you, my darling. Let me come with you and hold you and keep you warm.’
    None of us really knew what to do, or what to think. She never talked like that. She was always sensible sensible. She was always reasonable and restrained. But when I went after her, and took her hands and tried gently to release her grip on John, she just shook me angrily away.
    ‘Let me come and look after you,’ she pleaded with him. ‘
Please
, John. Please, my pretty darling.
Please!
’
    She kissed him again, and then rubbed her hand against the front of his wrap, like she was trying to make him hard.
    He flinched and pushed her hand away.
    ‘No, Bella,’ I said, ‘that’s not fair. That’s not helping. Try and think of John and the position he’s in.’
    ‘I
am
thinking of John. No one thinks of him more than me. He knows that. I love him better than his own mum. What has Jade ever done for this boy of hers, that cold leopard-woman with her sweet empty