Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

He has a tendency to slip the bounds of the real, tangible world around him and enter another place.

Is it happening now

Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.

There is the soil and there is the body and it all comes to nothing.

That muscle between thumb and forefinger is, to her, irresistible. It can be shut and opened like the beak of a bird and all the strength of the grip can be found there, all the power of the grasp. A person’s ability, their reach, their essence can be gleaned. All that they have held, kept, and all they long to grip is there in that place. It is possible, she realises, to find out everything you need to know about a person just by pressing it.

Her mother is never where she says she will be.

she can cure anything but also cause anything.

There is, she has found, great power to be had in silence.

“The branches of the forest are so dense you cannot feel the rain.”

“That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she’d ever met.”

He recalls this sensation, this urge—just—from when he was much younger: the driving need to be with his mother, to be under her gaze, to be by her side, close enough to be able to reach out and touch her, because no one else would do.

She will encourage him to go but she will not watch him leave.

Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as “slipping away” or “peaceful” has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.

Every now and again the voices of people passing by outside catapult odd words into the room, severed from sense, small bubbles of sound released into the silence.

And Hamnet? And Hamnet? Where is he?

Judith’s skills are different from yours but they are skills just the same.