The End of the Day

by Claire North

  “That’s no good. The people I work for …”

  “He knows.” Charlie gestured with the tips of his fingers at Stanczak. “You could save yourself a lot of time, and ask him.”

  Surprised, Nelson looked round to his colleague. Stanczak pushed his lips out in a kind of facial shrug, shifted a little in his seat, didn’t unfold his crossed legs, didn’t put his near-empty glass back down. “These questions … always mean something different to different people,” he mused at last.

  Nelson’s face crinkled into a scowl. He turned back on Charlie, faster now, halfway to his feet. “We can make things difficult for you …”

  “Deport me, if you want. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “You think your country will have you back?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you live with yourself? How do you do that?”

  “I am the Harbinger,” Charlie replied. “I honour the living.”

  For a moment, he thought that Nelson might hit him, and wasn’t sure why. He’d seen the look before, seen it come from nowhere, from a human experience that hadn’t yet been explained to him. But Stanczak got to his feet before the younger man could move, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, said, “I think we’ve said all that needs saying here.”

  Nelson, a rubber band waiting to snap, poised for a moment on that moment of tension. Relaxed. His head rolled down. He nodded at nothing much, and let Stanczak lead him away.

  The next day, a black Toyota followed them all the way to the state line.

  If Robinson noticed, he didn’t say, and Charlie felt no need to remark on it.

  Chapter 88

  In a land of freedom …

  … in a land of mighty rivers rolling inexorably to the sea …

  A dead armadillo on the side of the road.

  Charlie was surprised, but Robinson wasn’t.

  “You should see Kansas,” he mused. “A man could feast off roadkill in them parts.”

  Billboards.

  Divorce lawyers for men only.

  Vasectomies.

  Weigh stations for the lorries ploughing up and down the road, checking that they weren’t carrying too much without paying their fee, tyres ripping up tarmac.

  Mobile homes, dragged along at 70 mph.

  Shattered, tattered limbs of torn-up black rubber strewing the side of the highway.

  Bridges named for soldiers dead in war. Private, sergeant. A trooper, dead too young, his name now guarding an overpass in the middle of empty green.

  A set of traffic lights through a town whose name Charlie missed.

  As they waited, a train rumbled by, yellow carts, blue writing. It moved at about 30 mph, and for nearly twenty minutes they rumbled beside it, trying to find the end. Charlie wondered how long it was, couldn’t imagine it being less than a mile.

  Robinson said: “Do you take trains much?”

  “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “In Britain? I mean, I know you’ve got like, the metro …”

  “There are a lot of trains in Britain.”

  “For anyone to take?”

  “Yes. Assuming there aren’t the wrong kind of leaves on the line.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s … it’s a British thing.”

  “Like British humour?”

  “Like that.”

  “America used to be the land of trains, you know.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You been round the world?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What do you think of it? Of America, I mean?”

  “I think … it’s very beautiful.”

  Robinson’s lips twitched, words suppressed, and they kept on driving.

  Chapter 89

  “Defender of democracy, that’s what we are; when the shit hits the fan, who do you call, you call America …”

  “The peoples of the free world … ?!”

  “Climate justice means that the burden for the carbon-neutral programme should not have to fall upon developing nations …”

  Tick tick tick

  “New baby born every second in the state of …”

  “Our good friends and allies, Saudi Arabia …”

  “American values, American freedoms …”

  “Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq …”

  “Where were you for Crimea? Where were you for Rwanda? Where were you in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where were you at Srebrenica?!”

  “One day set foot on Mars.”

  Tick tick tick tick

  “National Service will teach those kids what it means to be citizens, citizenship should be earned …”

  “What about the women?”

  “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust …”

  “For poor, read: black.”

  Tick tick tick TICK TICK TICK

  “Of course I mean Christian values, America is a Christian nation!”

  “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

  An evening, sitting on the coast of the Atlantic in North Carolina, watching a storm.

  Inland, maybe thirty miles away, pink and yellow lightning forked down to the earth, a far-off rumble of distant drums, faint, washed out by the sea.

  Over the ocean, moon-white lightning danced through the clouds, casting the shadow of itself against the overhung sky.

  Robinson drank beer in a surfers’ bar down the beach.

  Charlie sat on the sand, and listened to the waves, and watched the storm.

  “Yeah. I’m with the Klan.”

  Robinson had fluctuated as to whether he wanted to meet this man, sitting on the porch of his wooden house, legs crossed, sunglasses huge, folded round his face. “The KKK?” he hissed. “You’re giving what to the KKK?”

  “French chocolate.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Charlie shrugged. “It’s just my job.”

  After much agonising, Robinson had come, figuring, perhaps, that he would be more comfortable in the company of Death’s servant than alone, waiting in the car at the end of the drive.

  The old man, bald beneath his straw hat, white ironed shirt and pale green shorts, leather sandals on his feet, had watched them all the way up the mud path to his door, waiting, and when they’d got near, a dog on a chain had started barking and howling from the side of the house, where it was lashed to a hosepipe, and his daughter and granddaughter had come outside to see what the fuss was about, and now stood there, arms folded, glaring.

  “Harbinger of Death, you say?” He made a hiss-pop sound between his teeth, puffed out his cheeks, then smiled. “Well, it’s good that Death sends these courtesies, I suppose. And would you be Harbinger of War, or no?”

  “No, sir,” mumbled Robinson, standing a little behind Charlie, glancing up at the high branches of the sun-soaked, heat-cracked trees as if fearful of being spotted in these parts by friends or strangers. “I’m just … catching a lift.”

  “Death gives lifts now, do he?”

  “I do,” corrected Charlie, handing over his bag of chocolate. The old man answered with his eyebrows and opened up the package, his face splitting into a triumphant grin when he saw what was inside.

  “Hey—Daisy, Magda, he brought chocolate!”

  “Don’t want it,” grumbled the girl, pink dress, blonde ponytail, hiding behind her red-faced mother, still glowering at Charlie as the dog barked and bounced.

  “Don’t be like that, sweetheart, it’s the good stuff, it’s the best stuff, you won’t have tasted anything like this before. Now come here and try a bite, don’t be foolish. Come here. Come here!”

  Pushed a little by her mother, the girl came forward, angling herself to keep as much of her grandfather’s chair as possible between her and Charlie, and took the chocolate, shoving it into her mouth and running away before she had a
chance to chew.

  The old man, slower, ate a piece, then another, closing his eyes to savour the taste, humming and umming in appreciation before declaring, “Boy, that is the stuff, that just hits the spot. You know, back in the day, I was posted to Berlin, back with the boys, and that town, that place … but the coffee and the chocolate, I always remembered that, always stuck in my mind.”

  “I’m glad to have brought you some.”

  “But he’s not the Harbinger of War?” added the man, shooting another glance at Robinson.

  “No, sir. The Harbinger of War is a woman.”

  “You don’t say? Maybe that’s right. The things menfolk will do for their ladies, you know? Hey, you guys wanna stick around, have a drink?”

  “Thank you, but …”

  “Magda! Hey, Magda, get these boys a drink.”

  “We’ve got a long way to go …”

  “A lemonade. You’ll have a lemonade, right? I mean, you are the Harbinger of Death, ain’t you supposed to be courteous and that?”

  “I … A lemonade would be very nice, thank you.”

  “Magda, lemonade and like, some of those cookies, you know the ones, the best … You like cookies? Sure you like cookies. Daisy, be a sweetheart and grab a coupla extra chairs will you? Bless you. Here—sit, sit!”

  They obeyed, and drank lemonade as the sun drifted over the trees.

  “Figured you’d be the Harbinger of War, what with the way this country’s going,” mused the man, as his family flanked his wicker chair, and they drank lemonade together. “Racial war is only a matter of time, and it’s the job of the Klan to make sure folk are ready for it. Because the nigger, when he fight, he gonna fight like a dog, and folk are complicit, they’re complicit in their own destruction here. Well not me. I got a beautiful daughter, I got a beautiful granddaughter, who I love, and I gotta protect them from what’s coming. But I guess if you’re from Death, not War, that’s something too. Funny, though, funny. I always figured it’d be War.”

  Charlie said nothing. Robinson’s feet, shoulders, back, all angled away from the man, his head down, said nothing.

  “You been long in these parts?”

  “No, but I’ve visited before,” Charlie replied.

  “You seen the way things are going? The white man, he’s being oppressed. The blacks have got everything sewn up, they got the schools, they got the colleges, they got the jobs, they got the benefits, they’re just living off the state now, living off the thing that the white man build. You just look, you’ll see it, I promise you.”

  “I … haven’t seen it, so far.”

  “You look. It’s there.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t believe that.”

  The man tutted, and shook his head, and his grandchild glared. “Boy, you gotta open your eyes. If you read the Bible, you’ll see, only way it coulda happened is if … in the Bible … if humans bred with monkeys, I mean, that’s what we’re saying here, that’s …”

  A pain in the side of Charlie’s head; he rocked forward, grasping, eyes squeezing shut.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  A ringing in his ears, eyes staring into his through the darkness. He squeezed his own eyes shut until they hurt, and still the faces were staring.

  “Son—you okay? Magda, get the boy some water, will you, he’s come over peculiar.”

  Slowly, slowly, the pain fading. He opened his eyes again, the world too bright beyond, forced himself to relax, one finger at a time, put the lemonade glass down. Magda gave him a glass of water with ice in it, which he drank, slow and grateful. Robinson watched him, silent.

  “You not used to the heat?”

  “I’m … I’m fine. Sorry. I sometimes … I’m fine.”

  “You should go inside if you’re not used to the heat. I imagine in Britain you don’t get much sun.”

  “I’m … It’s not that. I’m … I’m fine. I think. Maybe we should go. Thank you for the lemonade, and your hospitality.”

  They stood up, Robinson moving quickly towards the car. The old man watched them, then blurted, “You know … the Klan’s still going strong. People say that we’re not, but we are. Magda’s been making new member outfits all the time, and Daisy, she’s real good with the sewing machine. We’re still to be reckoned with. We still matter. You know that, don’t you?”

  Charlie smiled faintly, and didn’t reply. Robinson was already marching down the path, fists tight at his sides.

  A few paces more, then the man called after him, and there was fear in his voice.

  “Day before yesterday, I got this pain in my belly, like this pain it were … Hospital’s a long drive, though, a long drive, and my pa, he died when he were … but we’re strong. We’re all strong. We gotta be, for the people we love.”

  Charlie stopped, turned back, saw the old man in his wicker chair, the two women either side, backs straight, eyebrows drawn. He thought about waving, and didn’t, and walked away.

  In the car, Robinson silent, knuckles white where he held the steering wheel.

  They stopped at a shopping mall on the side of the road, and Robinson prowled through the garden store, the hunting store, the outdoor-survival mega-mall, before finally realising he didn’t have enough money to buy a coffee.

  Charlie bought coffee, without a word.

  They drove on.

  At last Robinson said: “He might have killed people. He might have fucking lynched people.”

  “Possibly.”

  “And you gave him chocolate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because soon he will die.”

  “But he’s scum, he’s a fucking bastard, he’s a fucking racist, he’s …”

  “Once he was a child, and now he is an old man, who looked at the world and chose to be mad, and frightened, and see other people as … as rats. As … as less than human. My job,” a pounding headache, he forced out the words, “is to see everyone as human. Even him. When a man kills another, Death comes. We all see him in a different way, we all see … something of ourselves, but Death comes anyway. He comes. He is coming. Seeing is all.”

  Robinson said nothing.

  The road.

  Always: the road.

  Chapter 90

  A dinner party in Wilmington.

  He didn’t want to go, but the woman he brought Russian vodka to—“Ah, my childhood! You brought me my youth again!”—was, in her own words, “Three or four days from the long goodnight but no one believes me when I tell them, you stick around, you make them understand that this time, it’s real.”

  Charlie said, “I’m not sure …”

  But she raised one yellow, shrunken hand and barked, “Don’t be ridiculous! It is eight p.m., there is dinner waiting, my sons and nieces and nephews are all downstairs, I love all of them, you must meet them, stay, eat! I insist, I insist that you stay and eat, I won’t hear of you going another step without sitting down at my table!” Then she grinned and reached in closer to whisper in his ear. “Don’t tell the in-laws, but I’m leaving most of it to charity. They’re all fine as they are, but urban literacy rates need so much work.”

  Charlie stared, surprised, into her bright, mischievous blue eyes, and wondered why Death came for her, of all the people who were dying that night.

  (Death came to honour her, for she had built her world from nothing, made an empire where others would have dug a grave. When the college had said no, no, business was not for gals like her, she had done it anyway; when her husband had said babe, babe, I love you, but I just don’t get that feelin’ in bed with you any more, she had thrown him out and he had been astonished, when the divorce came through, to find that he had no more and no less than his just deserts. And when the world turned and time moved on, she had sat in her mansion by the river, and considered the future, and decided that it would be very different from the past. And on this subject, Death is inclined to agree.)

  “My kids,” she chuckled with a little, bone-thin
shrug. “They’ve had love, milk, education and a decent starter package out of me. In this country, you can do anything, and I did. The rest is theirs to make, they just don’t know it yet! Go meet them—have some dinner. I insist.”

  In the face of her insistence, it would have been rude to refuse.

  Her joyful laughter followed them down the hall.

  Tick tick tick goes the grandfather clock, and around the dinner table the voices say:

  “Oh my God, the Harbinger of Death, that is just like so … so … you know!”

  “I’m just saying that if we are to uphold Christian values then we have to consider the value of the unborn child …”

  “I know it’s not politically correct, but someone’s gotta say what everyone is thinking!”

  “… it’s just so, like, you must … it must be amazing, like so totally … totally real.”

  “The free market is democracy! Well, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Health insurance is so important, I mean, I know that I’m sounding like a boring old man here, but actually, when I look at my contract I think …”

  “And you have a girlfriend? Oh my God, and she must be like ‘I’m dating the Harbinger of Death’ and I bet she’s beautiful, is she beautiful?”

  “Yes. She also teaches chemistry …”

  “Oh God, she’s a teacher? I always wanted to be a teacher, but you know, it just didn’t work out that way …”

  “Hybrid technology, actually, with hybrid technology I think the debate on fossil fuels is …”

  “Aid just supports corrupt regimes, it doesn’t make any difference—if you’re paying for an economy then that economy isn’t working!”

  “Charlie, you’ll know about this. In England, you guys don’t pay for hospitals, but like, the death rate is really high, isn’t it?”

  “Actually I don’t think it’s—”

  “There’s these death committees, where they literally sit there and decide who’s gonna die.”

  “That’s not how it …”

  “Oh my God, I’m just like, yeah, I can pay for it, you can’t, so what, you gonna sue me?”