More Than Human

But I never touch the gladness

May not touch the gladness

Beauty, oh beauty of touchness

Spread like a leaf, nothing between me and the sky but

light,

Rain touches me

Wind touches me

Leaves, other leaves, touch and touch me…

She made music without words for a long moment and was silent, making music without sound, watching the raindrops fall in the glowing noon.

Harshly, ‘What are you doing?’

Evelyn started and turned. Alicia stood behind her, her face strangely tight. ‘What are you doing?’ she repeated.

Evelyn made a vague gesture towards the window, tried to speak.

‘Well?’

Evelyn made the gesture again. ‘Out there,’ she said. ‘I – I -’ She slipped off the window seat and stood. She stood as tall as she could. Her face was hot.

‘Button up your collar,’ said Alicia. ‘What is it, Evelyn? Tell me!’

‘I’m trying to,’ said Evelyn, soft and urgent. She buttoned her collar and her hands fell to her waist. She pressed herself, hard. Alicia stepped near and pushed the hands away. ‘Don’t do that. What was that… what you were doing? Were you talking?’

‘Talking, yes. Not you, though. Not Father.’

‘There isn’t anyone else.’

‘There is,’ said Evelyn. Suddenly breathless, she said, ‘Touch me, Alicia.’

‘Touch you?’

‘Yes, I… want you to. Just…’ She held out her arms. Alicia backed away.

‘We don’t touch one another,’ she said, as gently as she could through her shock. ‘What is it, Evelyn? Aren’t you well?’

‘Yes,’ said Evelyn. ‘No. I don’t know.’ She turned to the window. ‘It isn’t raining. It’s dark here. There’s so much sun, so much – I want the sun on me, like a bath, warm all over.’

‘Silly. Then it would be all light in your bath… We don’t talk about bathing, dear.’

Evelyn picked up a cushion from the window seat. She put her arms around it and with all her strength hugged it to her breast.

‘Evelyn! Stop that!’

Evelyn whirled and looked at her sister in a way she had never used before. He mouth twisted. She squeezed her eyes tight closed and when she opened them, tears fell. ‘I want to,’ she cried, ‘I want to!’

‘Evelyn!’ Alicia whispered. Wide-eyed, she backed away to the door. ‘I shall have to tell Father.’

Evelyn nodded, and drew her arms even tighter around the cushion.

When he came to the brook, the idiot squatted down beside it and stared. A leaf danced past, stopped and curtsied, then made its way through the pickets and disappeared in the low gap the holly had made for it.

He had never thought deductively before and perhaps his effort to follow the leaf was not thought-born. Yet he did, only to find that the pickets were set in a concrete cha

It was a different result from that of any other attack. It is doubtful whether he realized that this difference meant that the iron here had rusted and was therefore weaker; it simply gave hope because it was different.

He sat down on the bottom of the brook and in water up to his armpits, he placed a foot on each side of the picket which had rattled. He got his hands on it again, took a deep breath and pulled with all his strength. A stain of red rose in the water and whirled downstream. He leaned forward, then back with a tremendous jerk. The rusted underwater segment snapped. He hurtled backward, striking his head stingingly on the edge of the cha

Again he was dimly aware of the inexorable fact that will alone was not enough; that pressure alone upon the barrier would not make it yield. He moved to the next picket and tried to break it as he had the one before. It would not move, nor would the one on the other side.

At last he rested. He looked up hopelessly at the fifteen-foot top of the fence with its close-set, outcurving fangs and its hungry rows of broken glass. Something hurt him; he moved and fumbled and found himself with the eleven-inch piece of iron he had broken away. He sat with it in his hands, staring stupidly at the fence.

Touch me, touch me. It was that, and a great swelling of emotion behind it; it was a hunger, a demand, a flood of sweetness and of need. The call had never ceased, but this was something different. It was as if the call were a carrier and this a signal suddenly impressed upon it.

When it happened that thread within him, bridging his two selves, trembled and swelled. Falteringly, it began to conduct. Fragments and flickerings of i

He sat in the water, close by the fence, and with the piece of iron he began to rub against the picket just under the cross-member.

It began to rain. It rained all day and all night and half the next day.

‘She was here,’ said Alicia. Her face was flushed.

Mr Kew circled the room, his deep-set eyes alight. He ran his whip through his fingers. There were four lashes. Alicia said, remembering, ‘And she wanted me to touch her. She asked me to.’

‘She’ll be touched,’ he said. ‘Evil, evil,’ he muttered. ‘Evil can’t be filtered out,’ he chanted, ‘I thought it could, I thought it could. You’re evil, Alicia, as you know, because a woman touched you, for years she handled you. But not Evelyn… it’s in the blood and the blood must be let. Where is she, do you think?’

‘Perhaps outdoors… the pool, that will be it. She likes the pool. I’ll go with you.’

He looked at her, her hot face, bright eyes. ‘This is for me to do. Stay here!’

‘Please…’

He whirled the heavy-handled whip. ‘You too, Alicia?’

She half turned from him, biting into a huge excitement. ‘Later,’ he growled. He ran out.

Alicia stood a moment trembling, then plunged to the window. She saw her father outside, striding purposefully away. Her hands spread and curled against the sash. Her lips writhed apart and she uttered a strange wordless bleat.

When Evelyn reached the pool, she was out of breath. Something – an invisible smoke, a magic – lay over the water. She took it in hungrily, and was filled with a sense of nearness. Whether it was a thing which was near or an event, she did not know; but it was near and she welcomed it. Her nostrils arched and trembled. She ran to the water’s edge and reached out towards it.

There was a boiling in the upstream end, and up from under the holly stems he came. He thrashed to the bank and lay there gasping, looking up at her. He was wide and flat, covered with scratches. His hands were puffy and water-wrinkled; he was gaunt and worn. Shreds of clothing clung to him here and there, covering him not at all.

She leaned over him, spellbound, and from her came the call – floods of it, loneliness and expectancy and hunger, gladness and sympathy. There was a great amazement in her but no shock and no surprise. She had been aware of him for days and he of her, and now their silent radiations reached out to each other, mixed and mingled and meshed. Silently they lived in each other and then she bent and touched him, touched his face and shaggy hair.