Bethany by Anita Mason

not understand the rules of the group, and did not know she did not understand. I was sure something bad was going to happen.
    We climbed into the Mini, where there was a prolonged performance over the correct siting of Ben, the tent and the sleeping bag. As we set off, Miranda came swinging down the road. Ben opened the back window.
    â€˜I’m going to Bethany with Alex, and Esther’s dead,’ he crowed.
    Ben did not play much with Simon’s children: he attached himself to Alex. She helped him put up his tent in the garden and he retired there, with a torch and book, apprehensive but determined, at nine o’clock, with instructions from Alex to come indoors if he felt cold or frightened. He did not.
    His advent had already made a noticeable difference to Sarah and Lily. They were noisier and had become almost self-assertive. In the morning they came into our bedroom, a thing they had never done before, perhaps thinking Ben would be there. Sarah was trailing a pull-along toy dog on wheels, and I realised with surprise that it was the first time I had seen any of those children with a toy. I saw the change in them with dismay, and waited for someone to comment on it, but no one did.
    The atmosphere in the house did not seem to have improved since the previous day. Pete and Coral avoided each other, Simon was remote, and even Dao’s luminosity seemed dimmed. The only happy people appeared to be Ben and Alex, who were clearing nettles from the path into the woods, and eventhat came to an abrupt end when Ben tripped over a stone and fell headlong into a patch of nettles still awaiting the knife. He wept bitterly, and Alex cuddled him and applied dock leaves. They were in a private world, I thought. That day they formed an indivisible unit. Alex did not want to talk to me, any more than Ben wanted to play with the three adoring little girls who watched him from a distance and tried vainly to attract his attention. They shared something, an aloneless, that set them apart from everyone else.
    Seeing the gulf widening between Alex and the rest of the group, I tried once or twice to point out to her that her behaviour was unsociable, but she did not seem to understand me. She said her responsibility was to Ben, who was a guest, and that anyway the rest of the group were quite happily going about their own business and what was I worrying about? I was not at all sure. It was so intangible. I knew a visitor to the house would see nothing wrong. I, with subtler sight, saw things terribly wrong, but perhaps my sight had become so subtle it was seeing things that weren’t there?
    Ben did not want his lunch. It was salad, with a lot of raw carrots and turnips. He ate some bread and margarine, and went outside as soon as he had finished it. Alex washed his plate.
    In the afternoon they cut more nettles and went for a walk in the woods. Alex was going to take him home after supper.
    Supper was bean soup with a stock made from nettles. There were a few nettle leaves floating in it. Ben studied them carefully.
    â€˜What is this?’ he inquired at last.
    â€˜It’s nettle soup,’ said Dao, without her usual smile.
    â€˜
Nettles
?’ repeated Ben incredulously.
    Alex and I hastened to explain to him that the nettles couldn’t sting you when they’d been cooked, but he pushed his bowl away and burst into tears. Sarah and Lily looked at him with interest, then at their own soup with doubt, and seemedon the point of doing the same, but, catching Dao’s eye, thought better of it.
    Alex comforted him, dried his tears, and said she would find him something else to eat in the kitchen.
    â€˜Please do not,’ said Dao. I had never heard her voice so cold.
    â€˜He must have something to eat,’ said Alex. ‘He didn’t have any lunch.’
    â€˜I do not do it for these,’ said Dao. She always referred to her own children as ‘these’: normally I found it charming.