The New World by Andrew Motion Read Free Book Online Page A

single long rope; the child’s was worked into two smaller plaits that slid over her shoulders and swayed in the half-light.
    Then the child stepped forward into the deeper darkness of the prison and toward our friend. I lost sight of her as she did this, but knew she had found him when I heard a grunt of pain—because she had kicked him or punched him. The mother chuckled, and when her daughter returned she nodded her head as a sign of approval.
    I thought it would be our turn for some kind of insult next, but after piping a question to her mother, the child took from her two small bowls I had not previously noticed, and walked toward us very carefully, stopping a yard away; then she put them down on the ground without spilling a drop, before scuttling back to the doorway again and picking up the empty bowl we had left there.
    I leaned closer to see what she had given us, but even this slight movement was too much for the child. She suddenly seized her mother by the hand and dragged her away from us over the threshold—at which our door banged shut, the locking-pole rasped into place, and the patter of their footsteps quickly faded. Although I was very hungry, and thirsty enough to have swallowed a whole barrel of water, I sat so still I might have been stunned; the turgid air of our prison swilled around us again, and the sour stink of our friend.
    “They’ve gone,” I said after a little while, which was only to state the obvious.
    “What is it?” Natty tipped onto her hands and knees and bent to sniff one of the bowls like a dog. “Water,” she said cautiously. “And this…” She dipped one of her fingers into the second bowl. “This is porridge.”
    “Porridge?” I almost smiled again. “Surely you mean gruel?”
    Natty sucked her finger-end. “Acorns. They think we’re pigs.” Then she sucked her fingers again. “No, corn. Corn. Here.”
    She was pointing to the water-bowl, meaning I should drink from it first. “After you,” I told her, as if we were sitting at a table at home and minding our manners. As if, I thought in a flash, we were husband and wife.
    Natty lifted the bowl to her lips and took two or three slow gulps, which made the saliva seep into my own mouth; then she passed it to me. The dusty liquid squeezed through my lips, over my parched tongue and sank heavily down my throat. I had never tasted anything so sweet; it almost knocked me unconscious.
    “Jim,” I heard Natty say, which I thought meant she wanted more for herself. But when I gave her the bowl she climbed to her feet and disappeared toward our friend. I heard him swallow once, and felt the pang of not having helped a stranger myself; then she came back to my side and we shared the second bowl together.
    She was right; it was corn, pulverized into a paste with some water added and foul-tasting as glue—but delicious all the same. When I had eaten a few mouthfuls, and Natty as well, I made amends for my neglect a moment before by taking the rest to our friend, and feeding him with my fingers; he was not able to swallow, and the mixture remained to harden on his lips.
    I did not mention this when I came back to Natty, only placed the empty bowl beside its pair and sat down beside her again. Another idea had occurred to me, which made me think the child and her mother were not angels after all. They had given us food to keep us alive—but not out of kindness. They had fed us like pigs for slaughter, so they could kill us whenever they chose.

CHAPTER 9
Black Cloud
    When exactly does day become night? On the marshes at home I used to watch sunlight dropping from yellow to gold, from gold to purple, from purple to charcoal, all the time thinking that darkness would come soon—then glanced around to find it had fallen already. I had missed the moment of change!
    In our new world the differences were more clear-cut. One minute the sun glared on the horizon, and a second later it had vanished completely. The darkness that