by Claire North
The old man, with great effort, laid his free hand on Death’s own, and squeezed back. “I wondered when I’d see you again, my friend. There were many times when I thought … but you came for someone else, not for me. I didn’t know if that was because of what we’d done, what we’d seen together, whether you wanted someone to witness, to remember.”
People will remember, Death replied quietly. I remember everything, but I have a Harbinger too, and he remembers as the mortals do, and he remembers for the living.
The old man craned his head to see Charlie, who moved round to be better in his view. He smiled at Charlie, who tried to smile back, then the man’s gaze returned to Death.
“Do you think they’re waiting for me?” he asked.
I don’t know.
“I always thought they would be.”
Then that’s what matters.
“This man … together …” He pointed at Death, but looked at Charlie. “I never told, and he swore he never would. But you should know. You should know because … the living must know. You had to live. You had to live, even if it meant betraying your people, even if it meant … I lived by closing the doors. They went into the chamber and together we closed the doors, didn’t we? We always closed the doors.”
Charlie bit his lip, looked at the man, looked at Death, then knelt down by the man’s side and added his own hands to the tangle of flesh folded across his knee. Charlie’s fingers were hot, the only warm thing in that grasp, a beating heart. “You lived, Isaak,” he whispered. “You lived.”
The old man smiled, and the smile stayed on his face forever.
Chapter 108
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name …
Om mani padme hum …
Allah, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate …
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses …
Let us worship the supreme light of the sun, the god of all things …
Om mani padme hum …
On earth as it is in heaven …
There is no god but God …
Lead us towards peace, guide our footsteps towards peace …
May he rebuild Jerusalem …
Grant us grace, kindness and mercy in Your eyes …
For ever and ever …
Amen.
Chapter 109
After.
After the silence.
Death said: I’m going to stay here a while, until the carer comes. Do you want to stay?
Charlie replied, “Thank you, but no.”
Death nodded, head on one side. You are … very important to me, Charlie. I do hope you understand that.
“I do. Thank you.”
When you get home, once you’ve had a bit of a rest … we should talk about this new travel directive. We have to be scrupulous about these things.
“Of course.”
Then, almost as an afterthought: A woman called Emmi has been trying to get in touch. She threatened to kill a rabbit. I’m not sure what that would have achieved—something to do with blood and invocation or something of that sort—but she was very insistent. Milton Keynes flew her out here.
“Emmi’s here?”
Oh—yes.
“In New York?”
Yes.
For a moment, Charlie’s face broke into something that might have been the beginning of a laugh, and which Death misunderstood, adding hastily, Don’t worry about it. These things … one must do what is proper, mustn’t one?
“I … Thank you.”
I’ll stay here a while, until someone comes. Where will you be?
“I think … I’m going to go and make a phone call.”
And then?
“Then …” Charlie thought about it for a moment.
Only a moment.
“Then,” he said, “I shall listen to the music. For a little while.”
Death nodded and smiled, and Charlie walked away.
And the world turned.
War peers through the binoculars at the South China Sea, well wrapped up despite the high summer sun, and says, “Oh I can’t ever tell! It’s just another bloody damn bit of rock, if you ask me!”
“But sir, if you look closely,” said the captain, “you will see that our people have put a flag on it.”
“Oh!” War chuckles, patting his rolling belly within his coat. “Well, that’s something different, isn’t it?”
And the world turned.
In a mirrored hall in southern England, Famine wiped sweat from her glistening face, and rolling up her yoga mat exclaimed, “Milk is basically pus. You’re drinking the pus of a cow. I mean if the ancestors …”
“Well this is what I’ve been saying …”
“… just on berries and nuts …”
“Exactly! I mean, they didn’t have all this stuff we have, we evolved to be able to live in the forests and the mountains, we evolved on a diet of very basic foods, vegans think they know what they’re talking about but even vegans …”
“I’ve always felt that veganism was just a cover for lack of moral nerve …”
And the world turned.
Pestilence said, “So … detoxing exactly what?”
“All the negative toxins that build up in your body.”
“Such as?”
“Well, there’s the food-borne toxins, and the airborne toxins, and there’s toxins in the water …”
“I see!”
“And our programme will help expel them from your body …”
“And the hosepipe up the bum?”
“To flush your colon.”
“Of toxins?”
“Exactly! Exactly that! I’m so glad you understand. You … you do understand, don’t you?”
Pestilence rolled back in his great office chair, a dozen little mechanisms adjusting with a pneumatic whisper to accommodate his form. “Isn’t the modern age wonderful?” he mused. “Isn’t science simply amazing?”
And the world …
… turns.
“The shedding of these assets is of course a vital step towards the reactualisation of our financial base …”
Patrick Fuller, looking down on the city from a tower block in Manhattan.
Behind him, people talk, but he knows where the words are heading, what the numbers mean.
“The opportunity cost is actually greater if you look at figure five …”
Talk talk talk talk. Jabber jabber, as if the conclusion isn’t inevitable. As if the future isn’t already there to be seen.
One day, he muses, as the presentation rolls, one day the world will be a more honest place. One day people will just say what they mean, and business will be conducted properly.
One day, he too will build Jerusalem.
He raises his eyes to shield them from the setting sun, and watches until the last pinprick of light has vanished below the horizon.
And the world …
… always has …
… always will …
… turns.
Emmi said: “I came to America you’re so fucking stupid I can’t believe what happened to you I can’t believe it I came to America that’s why when you rang no one answered I was here I made them tell me where you were and they didn’t know and I called the embassy and they didn’t know and no one knew so I came and what happened to you what the fuck happened you’re in such a state I can’t believe you’re even standing you’re so stupid you’re so stupid I love you I love you you’re such a fucking idiot.”
And Charlie held her, so tight he thought she might just be sucked into him, become a piece of his soul. She held him rather more gingerly, for fear of breaking something, but even that was meaning enough.
Somewhere in the past, Charlie thought he saw another version of himself, less bruised, less battered, who would have felt the need to speak, to babble words to cover himself, protect him, her, everyone from something, maybe from a thing he might do, or a promise he might break or …
But that was then, and this was now, and everything changed, and everything changed.
She held him, and he held her, and there they remained a little while longer, as the world turned.
Chapter 110
“Watch a bit of the news in the morning, you know, while having Coco Pops …”
“… well I’m phoning in because I think it’s important that people like me, we make our voices heard.”
“The way Brexit is being depicted—why can’t we find the positives?”
“Ooooohhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm!!!!”
“Oh my God, it’s such an honour, such an honour, I’m just … I want to thank my mother!”
“So for this strike we go stick down, like this, and the reason we do this is ’cos it’s the final part of the low block on the …”
“Aerobic and anaerobic respiration. Can anyone tell me the difference?”
“So these cysts … they’re harmless, right?”
“… listening to the sounds of nature, and all around me, I just felt it, in that moment, I felt my place in the world, and I want to share that experience with you now …”
“It was our privilege to give these weapons to the martyrs of Gaza.”
“With IPv6 and the advent of HTML5, we can expect to see a phased redundancy within the next seven years …”
“I don’t mind being tracked. I like that Google knows me, it’s more helpful that way.”
“Oooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …”
“We will not be releasing any further updates to the operating system in the foreseeable future …”
“Now the kids have gone, we’re looking at downsizing a bit.”
“Online piracy isn’t just an insult, it’s a fundamental threat to art …”
“We’ll get back to you in ten working days!”
“Ooohhhhhhmmmmmmmm!”
“Do you want fries with that?”
“It’ll be all right in the end.”
By Claire North
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Touch
The Sudden Appearance of Hope
The End of the Day
THE GAMESHOUSE NOVELLAS
The Serpent (e-only)
The Thief (e-only)
The Master (e-only)
MATTHEW SWIFT NOVELS
(writing as Kate Griffin)
A Madness of Angels
The Midnight Mayor
The Neon Court
The Minority Council
MAGICALS ANONYMOUS NOVELS
(writing as Kate Griffin)
Stray Souls
The Glass God
Copyrights
“Barbara-Ann” written by Fred Fassert, performed by The Regents, produced by Louis Cicchetti (Gee Records, 1961)
“Sorry Sorry” and “Beng Beng Beng” composed by Femi Keti, from the album Shoki Shoki, produced by Sodi (Decca/Barclay/Universal, 1999)
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” written by Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, Marcelo Peixoto and Rafael Lopes, performed by Nirvana from the album Nevermind, produced by Butch Vig (DGC Records/Universal International, 1991)
Karl Marx (translated by Martin Nicolaus), Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (London: Penguin, 1993)
Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (translated by Thomas P. Whitney), The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956, Parts 1 & 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1974)
Excerpt from section 1 of Decree Number 4 1984 by Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria
Training and Development Handbook for the Department of Work and Pensions, last revised February 2015
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