‘You don’t mind?’ she stopped to ask, her cheeks momentarily flushed and a sting of doubt in her eyes — a flash of insecurity that was easy to miss, unless you’re paying close attention.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘No, of course not.’

  She moved her hands as she spoke. Small, excited motions that grew larger each time he smiled or nodded his head. When he asked a question, she was eager to answer, her voice becoming more animated and her body turning, so that she was walking with her back to the unfolding path, the elegant features of her face just for him. Watching her move, watching her speak, Alexander was quite certain Mary wasn’t like this with anyone else.

  After a few minutes of walking together, they came to a fence. It was high and made of metal, with thick, green plastic-coated posts butting against the path at regular intervals. On the other side, little girls were running and chasing each other. Underneath a tree, close to the fence, two sat together, talking. Alexander and Mary slowed as they passed.

  ‘Do you think they know?’ Alexander asked, rubbing his fingers over the back of Mary’s hand as he held it.

  She turned her face to the children on the other side of the fence and shook her head. ‘How could they?’ she said, her voice low and monotone.

  Still holding her hand, Alexander moved closer to the fenceline. Underneath the tree, the two girls realised they were being watched and raised their heads to look at him.

  ‘Come on, Alex,’ Mary said, staying where she was and tugging his hand.

  His face was at the wire now and the girls stood up and edged towards him.

  ‘Alex,’ Mary urged, ‘it’s boring, come on.’

  He shook his head. ‘Just wait,’ he said softly, ‘see what they do.’

  Her lip quivered as if she wanted to say something else. She didn’t, and instead joined him at the fence.

  One of the girls had a peculiar red mark on her cheek. As she got closer, they saw the rest of her face was similarly blemished. The other, who approached more cautiously, tucked behind her companion and clutching at the fabric of her smock, had brown hair and plump cheeks. Both sides of the fence were silent as four sets of eyes blinked and darted.

  Mary squeezed Alexander’s hand and inclined her head at the shorter and fatter of the two girls. ‘Look,’ she whispered to him, ‘she’s holding something.’

  In the child’s hand was a hairbrush. Half of its teeth were missing and the wooden handle was warped and looked as though, at some point, it had been chewed or sucked on. A dirty shred of fabric was wrapped around it and held in place by a green ribbon.

  ‘What on Earth is that?’ Mary said, laughing, her voice suddenly increasing in volume and making the girls jump. The one with the hairbrush tucked herself more thoroughly behind her friend.

  At Mary’s side, Alexander studied the children. What are they thinking? he wondered, curious as to whether or not their mental processes resembled, in any way, his own as a child, or if, limited by their base state as they were, the inner workings of their brains would be entirely unrecognisable to him. Before he had a chance to express any of this, one of the girls let out a yelp and scurried back towards the tree. A stick in her hand, Mary had poked her through the fence. The other girl, the one with the hairbrush, remained, frozen and confused, as Mary went to use the stick again.

  ‘Don’t, Mary,’ Alexander said, laying a hand on her arm.

  She paused what she was doing and looked at him. ‘I want to see what she’s holding,’ she explained and jabbed the stick at the child. It missed her hand, where the hairbrush was, and instead hit her arm. The girl cried out, her face crinkling.

  Again, Alexander told Mary to stop. ‘They’re children,’ he said and tried to pry the stick out of her hands. ‘You’ll traumatise them.’

  Shrugging him off, Mary laughed. ‘Traumatise?’ She pulled a face. ‘Poking them with a stick is hardly going to traumatise them.’

  ‘It might,’ Alexander replied.

  Stick still in hand, she narrowed her eyes. ‘They will have forgotten about it in a couple of minutes. They’re simply not capable of it. They’re just—’ Mary shoved the stick at the girl again, ‘swine.’

  Fed up of being poked, the girl ran away from the fence.

  Alexander shook his head. ‘You don’t know that,’ he said.

  Fun over, Mary tossed the stick into a bush. ‘What, and you do?’ she smirked. ‘You’re not here cleaning up after them every day.’

  ‘I’m not saying I am,’ he shrugged. ‘But, I think the way we treat them leaves its mark.’

  Mary laughed and wiped her hands together to knock off the bits of bark that had stuck to her palms. When Alexander didn’t join in her laughter, she stopped and said, ‘You’re being serious?’

  Alexander was silent.

  Mary laughed again. ‘There’s nothing to leave a mark on, Alex.’

  To this Alexander shook his head. ‘Not so,’ he replied. ‘Not from what I’ve seen. There’s more to them than we think.’

  ‘What do you mean, what you’ve seen?’ All of a sudden, she moved closer to him. Smile spiralling and eyes quizzical and bright, her expression reminded him of mischief and of how they once used to share all their ridiculous, juvenile secrets with each other.

  ‘Well,’ Alexander said with a smile, ‘you know how I’ve been coming back at the weekends?’

  More mischief and Mary laughed. ‘Yes, I did notice that.’

  ‘I’ve been coming back to make some observations,’ he continued, ‘on one of the sub-homos.’

  A smile still on her lips, suspended pink and slightly parted, she didn’t say anything, only watched him as he searched her face for a reaction.

  ‘The one from Christmas,’ he explained. ‘The sub-homo from Christmas that I took care of and…’ His words grew slower and her smile slipped away. Eventually, there was nothing left in either case.

  ‘A sub-homo?’ Mary asked, voice soft. ‘You’ve been coming back at the weekends for a sub-homo?’ A curl of her hair had fallen forward and it caressed her cheek.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Well, no. Not at all. I mean I do, but— That makes it sound—’

  ‘Sound like what?’ The curl was still against her cheek. A sudden swipe and she stuffed it behind her ear, her thumb rushing to conceal a tear that had formed in the corner of her eye as she did. ‘Sound like you come home for a sub-homo?’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘I thought you came home for me.’

  Her words seemed to melt, warping at the edges until they collapsed into themselves, small and sliding into an oblivion of crushing, wide-eyed, devastated silence. Alexander was standing right in front of her and she waited for him to say something, to kill her worst fears and happily prove her foolish, but all he gave her was silence.

  Say something, Alexander.

  Squeezing her lips shut, Mary wrung her hands together, pinching the skin between her thumb and forefinger. She seized a breath and held it in her lungs until her cheeks flushed. Alexander could see the hurt in her eyes. He could feel it. Glassy and wide, they seemed as though they might shatter.

  Say something.

  He couldn’t.

  When she finally released the air from her lungs, her cheeks were wet.

  ‘I thought you came home for me,’ she said again. Every word was laced with pain. The pain of old scars being ripped open.

  Slowing his breathing, Alexander drew his hand over his brow. ‘Mary—’

  Overhead, the Sun was shining.

  ‘I have work,’ Mary said, shaking as she dabbed the corners of her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. ‘I—’

  He could have said something to make it right, to repair the damage and stop the knife from shredding the wound any further than it already had — you know the words, just say them — but he didn’t. Instead, he let his hand drop to his side as she hurried away from him.

  He waited until she had disappeared from view before he made his own way back along the path. Looking at the children on the other side of the fence, he laughed to think that, only a few moments before, he had considered the workings of their brains unrecognisable. Now, alone on the path, his head in his hands, he realised he didn’t even recognise his own thoughts. I’m an imbecile. He didn’t even know who or what he was. He only knew he never meant to hurt her.

  Thirty-Eight

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  Filly’s eyes widened as she put her finger to her lips. Underneath the tree, Cherub hugged Rosie tighter to her chest and waited for her friend to come back.

  After the horrible lady with the stick had left, the man had paced back and forth along the path, his hands on the sides of his face, mumbling to himself under his breath. At first, the girls had been too scared to move. There had been crying, and the last thing that they wanted was for another stick to be launched in their direction.

  ‘Why are they so sad?’ Cherub had asked the other girl, as they watched from behind the trunk of the tree.

  Filly had just shaken her head. When the lady walked away, she had snuck closer to the fence for a better look.

  Adults are always sad, Cherub thought, remembering how upset Nanny had been the previous evening when the girls were eating their dinner. Everyone had been given second helpings and as much bread as they liked. Cherub had eaten too much and her tummy had hurt in the night. Perhaps they all eat too much. That would explain why she had heard Nanny crying when everyone was supposed to be sleeping.

  The man was gone now. The hem of her smock clumped up inside her fist, Filly hurried back to the tree. Cherub pulled her close. ‘Did he see you?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Filly said. ‘He just left.’

  Cherub nodded, not knowing what more to say. The girls’ entertainment was limited and so they took it wherever it could be found. Elsewhere in the garden, the other girls were lining up by the door. Nanny was there, one hand on her hip, guiding them inside.

  Cherub saw and nudged her friend. ‘It’s time for bed already?’

  At the front of the queue, one of the girls, Jessica, pushed another into a bush. As she fell her smock caught on a twig and she landed on her bottom. Immediate tears and Jessica’s tribe shrieked with laughter.

  Filly looked on, her face serious. ‘It’s not late enough,’ she said. Covering her eyes with her hand, she tilted her chin to the sky. The Sun was overhead. Following her gaze, Cherub also looked up. The Sun was very bright.

  ‘Don’t look at it directly,’ Filly said, reaching to cover her friend’s eyes with her hand.

  Cherub nodded. It had hurt to look. How that meant it wasn’t late enough she didn’t understand.

  ‘Come on.’ Filly tugged Cherub’s elbow. ‘Let’s see.’

  Nanny shook her head when she saw them at the back of the line. ‘Where were you two?’ she asked, frowning as she walked over to them. Cherub pointed to the tree at the other end of the garden. Nanny tutted and shook her head again. ‘I was calling you. Anyway—’ she paused and stepped to one side to allow the line to move forward, ‘it’s a special day today. You need to come inside.’

  Cherub nodded. Next to her, Filly pulled a face. ‘But it’s not the end of the day.’

  Nanny sighed. ‘I just said today is special, child. There’ll be time to play again afterwards.’

  A man, so it turned out, wanted to see them. He was waiting indoors, although the light from the outside made it difficult to see him when Cherub and Filly first walked through the door. Inside it was dark and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust.

  ‘Stand here, girls,’ Nanny said, placing her hands on their shoulders and shepherding them to the side of the room with the beds. Other girls were already there. Upon seeing them, Jessica stuck out her tongue. Cherub tucked the fabric of her dress around Rosie and looked away. Opposite, on the other side of the room, were the younger girls. They had been told to sit on the floor, their little legs crossed and their hands in their laps as they waited for their next instruction.

  Nanny addressed the man. ‘That’s all of them,’ she said. Dressed in a white coat, he was standing close to the wall and had not yet said anything. He looked up now, his eyes lifting from the journal he was writing in.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said and nodded at the white-haired woman. Nanny retreated to the far corner of the room.

  The man put the lid on his pen and tucked it into the pocket of his coat. When he turned to the girls by the beds, he was smiling. ‘Today,’ he began, casting his brown eyes over the girls’ faces, ‘is your graduation day.’ Cherub turned to Filly. Her face was expressionless. ‘So, what does that mean?’ the man asked. Shuffling and a couple of girls leant forward to see him better. ‘It means,’ he continued, ‘that I will expect the very best of behaviour from you all.’ His voice was firm, yet gentle. ‘You will follow me to another room and there we will conduct the ceremony.’

  With a smile he nodded at the children, who, as if informed by some occult means, immediately stepped away from the beds and formed a line in front of him. Filly tugged the fabric of Cherub’s smock, pulling her into the queue in front of her.

  The door to the room opened and on the other side were two women.

  ‘It’s her!’ Cherub hissed, turning, wild eyed, to her friend. Just outside the door was the lady who had poked them with the stick. She had her arms folded over her chest and didn’t seem to notice the girls as they passed in front of her. At her side was an older lady with shoulder-length blonde hair.

  Filly squeezed her lips together and nudged Cherub to keep her moving forward. The line was getting away from them and something told her now wasn’t a good time to stand out.

  They had never been to this room before. In fact, the girls, as far as their young minds could remember, had never really been anywhere, save for the distance between their beds, the bathroom and the garden outside. It was a big room — or at least bigger than they were used to — with a cold floor and, despite it still being daytime, curtains drawn over all the windows. Cherub and Filly were at the back of the line and the lady with the blonde hair ushered them into the room before closing the doors behind them. The man was ahead, near the front of the line, stick lady at his side.

  ‘Girls,’ the man said, smiling as he straightened the sleeves of his coat. ‘I will call you each forward, one at a time. As I mentioned in the other room, I expect good behaviour. So remember, low voices and stay in line. We don’t want anyone getting upset.’

  Cherub strained her neck to look for Jessica. She was further ahead in the line, fiddling with her hair of the girl in front of her. No one gets upset. Clearly the man didn’t know Jessica.

  A girl called Willow was at the front of the queue. When he called her forward, gesturing to her with his hand, the man asked for her name. After she had mumbled it to him, her fists tightly gripping the sides of her dress, stick lady rummaged through a pile of papers that were stacked on a table next to them, retrieving one to give to the man. Behind her, Cherub felt Filly lean forward to peer over her shoulder. Willow looked frightened. She had a round face and a habit of biting her fingernails. She was biting them now. The man didn’t say anything as he looked at the paper.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, looking up at the girl after a period of silence, ‘please step onto the scales for me, Willow.’ He pointed to the thing on the floor next to the table. Willow did as he said and he looked at the scales as she stood, quiet, waiting for him to tell her what to do next.

  ‘Can you see?’ Filly whispered into Cherub’s ear.

  She shook her head. ‘Not good,’ she said, standing on her tiptoes to see over the shoulder of the girl in front. Next to them, the lady with the blonde hair moved along the line, watching the girls as she walked, presumably to make sure they were behaving.

  The man asked Willow to do some other things. He had a long pole with numbers written on it and asked the girl to stand next to it before writing something down on the paper that stick lady had given to him. He also wrapped a length of what looked like some sort of ribbon around various parts of her body, nodding his head and mumbling to himself, before once again returning to the paper with his pen. After a few minutes, it seemed as though he was finished. Willow stood still at his side, her fingers in her mouth.

  ‘Willow,’ the man said, making sure to look at her, ‘well done.’ Despite the eye contact, his voice was unemotional. The child didn’t say anything. The man pointed to the far right corner of the room. ‘You may go wait there until we’re finished.’ She did as he said and scurried as far into the corner of the room as she could. Stick lady walked with her for part of the way, before returning to the man’s side.

  And that was how it went. The man called the next girl forward and, once stick lady had given him a piece of paper, measured, analysed and recorded. Some girls were told to go stand with Willow. Others were instructed to wait opposite, in the far left corner of the room. Before too long, the whole event turned into a game of ‘whose team would you rather be on?’, and once Jessica was called forward and assigned, everyone prayed that it would be the left. When the girl who followed her was told to stand on the right side, Jessica and the others on the left started whooping with laughter. The girl, it so happened, was the one who Jessica had pushed into the bush less than an hour before.

  There was tittering in the line and the lady with the blonde hair put her finger to her lips and encouraged the girls to be quiet. ‘Come now, children,’ she whispered, smiling underneath her finger. The way she said it was nice and so the girls listened.

  Cherub turned around to look at Filly. She put her face close to her friend’s and whispered, ‘Left or right?’

  Filly considered and nodded to the girls on the right. ‘Anywhere that’s away from her,’ she said. Cherub agreed. It would be nice not to get chewed on by Jessica for a change.

  Cherub and Filly were the last two girls in the line. When the man nodded at her, calling her forward with his hand, Cherub wished she had been last, so she could have watched Filly go first. Filly is smart. Filly always knows how to do it best. If she could have seen Filly do it and get told to stand on the right, she could have copied.