“Hey there…” Luke wanders in, Hermes dressing gown agape. “How about some breakfast?”
He’s not expecting me to make it, of course. He opens cupboards. He leans into the fridge. He pats, absently, at the dogs. “Ah! You fed them. And you’ve already done your work?”
“Same as every other day.”
“That’s… Good.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Don’t you want to know anything more?”
“More?”
“Yes. More. I mean, about what I do.”
“Sure.” He reaches for the big frying pan on its hook, and I try not to cringe. “But the few times I’ve asked, you’ve acted like it’s none of my business. Which…” He cracks some eggs. Fat sizzles. “It probably isn’t.”
“Are you from Belgium? I mean, no one’s really from Belgium, are they?”
“How about Rene Magritte? Cesar Frank? Audrey Hepburn? Then there’s the guy who invented Bakelite, and tons of great soccer players. Not to mention, although I know they’re fictional, good old Tin Tin and Hercule Poirot.”
“You don’t even have an accent.”
“Thanks…” He slots in some bread to make toast. Puts the butter in the microwave to warm it slightly. “…for complementing me on my excellent English in that slightly roundabout way. And you know how, sometimes, when we’re making love, you like me to talk to you in French?”
“But I don’t understand what you’re saying. For all I know, you’re just quoting songs.”
With delicate precision, he flips the eggs. “There are a lot of things I’m not understanding right now.” His eye travel toward the sink, where the Sabatier knife I used to cut up that meat for the dogs lies in a pink pool.
“Who are you, Luke?”
“Who am I?”
“And who were you speaking to last night on Bea Comyn’s boat?”
“Oh.” He gives a relieved, so-this-is-what-this-is-about nod. “You mean Claude! He’s a fascinating guy, a South African, and an ecological rights lawyer who also happens to know a lot about wine. But that’s all I know about him, although I’ll concede he was very good looking.”
“Nothing to do with copper mining in the People’s Democratic Republic of the Congo?”
“What? In the where?”
“You heard. The Congo. Famous for its political instability and wasted natural resources. The place you Belgians occupied when your King Leopold was arrogant and stupid enough to think he could build himself an African empire.”
“Is this some old colonial guilt trip you’re suddenly expecting me to be feeling?” He butters his toast. Then mine. He doesn’t even seem that bothered. “In which case, I think you Brits have a fair bit to answer for, too.”
“That’s…” I take a mental step back. My ears, my teeth, are tingling. White flecks dance before my eyes. “Probably true. Frankly, I’ve got a hangover, and I’ve had a bad morning on the trading floor.”
“Let me guess.” Luke catches a dribble of egg yoke before it escapes his mouth. “Something to do with the Congo? Isn’t there a warlord who just got killed out there? Last chance for something like stability and prosperity. Of course, when it comes to these places, we’ve all heard it a million times before. I’m sorry if it messed with your investments, Samuel, but you’ll get over it—bounce back. I mean, look at this place and all that you’ve achieved. Frankly, you’re an amazing guy, and if you want to share more of what you do, just say the word. Maybe we could even make a positive difference somewhere instead of just making money. I’m not saying that would be easy, but you never know.”
I suppose I should be surprised that he’s found the time to catch up on the feeds this morning, let alone notice an obscure item about the Congo, but somehow I’m not. After all, he takes an interest in the world, and has a quick, able mind. It was one of the things I first liked about him. That, and his inherent kindness and compassion. But now everything, the way he looks and how he breathes and holds his fork, and the considerate way I know he’s going to treat me today because he understands I’m frayed and upset, just makes me feel impossibly sad.
“Look, Luke—why don’t we go for a long walk?”
“Didn’t we do that yesterday?”
“Sure. But it’s a fine, beautiful morning, and there won’t be many more.”
Everything is gunshot sharp. Our, and the dogs’, breath plumes, and the clouds are like concrete; a hard, grey roof over the world. Luke is slightly puzzled, but predictably, cheerily compliant, when I insist we repeat yesterday’s hike to that high viewpoint. Watching the powerful, innocent sway of his body—and how, of course, his backpack is a great deal heavier than mine—makes me decide that, now it’s too late, I probably do love him after all.
We climb. And climb. The dogs vanish, then re-emerge. The view from the overlook is more sombre today. Reminds me of those dark Gothic paintings by Casper David Friedrich. The Wanderer. Monastery Graveyard in the Snow. Perhaps I should try to acquire one when all this is finished, although I can’t see it replacing the Pollack in the kitchen, and I’m not sure where else it would go. Perhaps I need a new house as well.
Luke unrolls the rug on the rock platform. Pours the wine—it’s mulled, today, dark red and softly steaming. Sets out our meal. He touches my arm as we settle down.
“Better, now?”
“Yes, thanks. Much, much better.”
He kisses me lingeringly on the lips. A last, sweet farewell. There’s a rich venison stew, with rice dotted with porcini mushrooms and caraway seeds. I watch as he eats, and study the dark horizons for the flash of a sniper’s scope. But that won’t be needed. No. Not now. The hunch, the premonition, the binary negative, will be fulfilled. And I will be welcomed, open-armed, to rejoin the group. The prodigal returned.
“You’ve scarcely touched your food, Samuel. Haven’t even tried the wine.”
“Oh? No.”
“I thought you liked me to make mulled wine for our picnics when it’s cold.”
“I do.”
“Well, cheers, then.”
Still, I just watch him drink. “Just the hangover, I guess.”
“Absolutely. And it is pretty strong stuff.”
My hand is steady as I pour the contents of my cup into his. And, dutifully, jauntily, reddening his lips, he knocks it back. Then pours himself some more. “As long as you’re prepared to put up with the consequences. You know what I’m like when I’m drunk.”
“I think I can deal with that.”
Then we fall silent, and the wind sighs softly through the trees like the sound of emptiness itself, and Luke finishes the wine and most of the food, and clears up the stuff.
“Where are the dogs?”
“Fuck knows.”
He goes to the edge of the platform and gives a whistling call. I hadn’t planned on exactly this—in truth, I haven’t planned anything at all. I’d simply known that a moment such as this would come. I pick up a log that lies near the rug, heft its weight in my hands, and move quietly toward him as he stands looking out over the drop.
There’s no reason why he should glance back. But, though some weird sixth sense, and just as I raise the log to strike him, he does.
“Jesus, Samuel!”
“I was…” I’m still holding the log, maybe expecting the kind of clifftop tussle you used to see in old films, but Luke steps quickly sideways and away from me, his eyes wide with sudden fear.
“Look…” The dropped log rolls between us. “It was just a silly joke.”
“But it wasn’t, wasn’t it? You really need to see someone. Your behaviour isn’t… normal. And I don’t mean just now.”
“Of course I’m not normal. Why the fuck should I be normal?”
“I’m leaving. I can’t stand this. You should get treatment, Samuel. Seriously. I mean it. And you need to think hard about what you’re doing with your life, and the kind of people you hang out with.”
“Fuck off, t
hen. And take the fucking Maserati as well.”
“I will—I’ve got to get out of this place somehow! But I’ll leave it for you to pick up at the airport so you can keep it with all the rest of your precious toys. I seriously, seriously, don’t want your money, and I never bloody did!”
With that, he grabs his backpack, and runs, crashes, off down the slope into the forest. Leaving me alone.
I slump down for a timeless period. The clouds, the landscape, the sighing wind, have all fallen darker and colder, although I have no real idea how late the day has grown. I stand up. Collect myself. Feel the tingle of blood in my fingers and chest and lungs. I really do feel better, now that this thing that the group intuited is finally gone. Not even a false reading as it turns out, but merely a falsely read one. The death of nothing more serious than love.
I make my way back down the way we came. Toward my changed life, my empty home. But these things happen. Relationships end. Time, the world, my group, moves on. Then something twists my right boot as I set it down in my regular stride, maybe a raised root or a frozen rut, and I’m tumbling sideways before I can catch my balance, and even then, as the trees tilt and the sky comes up, I’m reassuring myself that the slope I’m falling down can’t be that severe. But the jolts and shocks continue for far longer than seems reasonable. Then comes a sudden, grinding, halt.
Ah. Yes. I’d like to try to sit up, but, even before my body’s worked out what exactly the problem is, it tells me that sitting up isn’t a good idea. Not that the main problem is my left elbow, although it hurts like hell, or this dripping cut on the palm of my hand. Nor even how terribly cold I feel, although that’s something to be put away for future reference: a symptom of some greater malaise. Then, when I finally manage to raise my head and look down at myself, I see that my left leg is canted sideways over a deadfall branch just below the knee, with something white jutting out through a spreading red tear in the fabric of my hiking pants, and the pain, as it it’s always been there, and waiting for this precise moment, comes roaring in.
I pass out. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Anyway, things become less clear. The day is darkening already—no doubt about it—and bitterly cold. Then, heavens, I hear a soft creaking amid the surrounding undergrowth, and I think for a moment that Luke’s returned. But no. Of course. It’s Joe, Adolph and Mao.
They sniff, circle, and back away from me with semi-playful growls as it begins to snow.
Afterword
I’m always telling myself that I should read more fiction, especially genre fiction, along with decent non-fiction, and waste less of my time listening to dumb newscasts about the latest political mess, or reading magazines and newspapers. That, and watching football on TV, or (worse still, but a bit of an addiction) listening to radio shows and podcasts about football. Nevertheless, I can point to several occasions when a news story has been at the root of an idea for a story, and “The Wisdom of the Group” is probably the clearest example of them all. It was, I think, a fairly brief thought-piece in the Guardian which mentioned researchers had suggested that combining the guesses and predictions of a certain group of so-called “super-predictors” produced statistically significant results. Now, statistically significant in scientific terms doesn’t necessarily mean that much—merely something that shows up as a small but repeatable blip in the figures—but my thoughts immediately went a whole lot further, and imagined a situation where these super-predictors had, effectively, acquired the sort of powers normally associated with the occult. From there, and at least by my standards, the story developed fairly easily. I even set upon a writer whose style and approach I thought would useful to follow. Not, I think, in the relatively slavish way I did with “The Crane Method”, but more as a sort-of basic colour chart; that writer being Robert Silverberg, whose best work I have admired for many decades, and represents to me, in a broader sense, the scale of ambition and scope the SF genre should and could be capable of, even if if generally falls lamentably short.
WELL-LOVED
Every city has a place like this. It lies at the back of everywhere else, where long streets lead nowhere both ways. It’s mostly night here: there are rags of it left in the alleys even at midday. But it’s where you have to earn and chance your living
Voices are circling the darkness, the lips and the hips, the words that bring the brakelights, the face to the wind-screen, the open car door. You taste hunger and fear. You don’t feel ready but you know you need to sell. No point waiting for that big limo, the clean and friendly face. They never take the trade here, and when they do they aren’t real. They touch your skin as if it’s shrinkwrap. You see the steel edge of pain slide behind their smile
Stepping to the kerb is like diving into a vat of something cool. You know the way you walk says now and me. The big leather handbag you lifted two days before bumps your side. For no reason, it feels like protection. You hear engine breath and see all the others, names you can place with needs like your own. But now they are nothing but meat, competition. There are streetlights but no stars, and looking up is like falling, like giving way. You wonder if you’ve taken too much, or if it’s not enough. Next time, you tell yourself, everything will be fine, everything will be immaculate. And you focus on that and imagine that now is that time
A car slows. Your car. You don’t doubt for an instant that this is the one. Smile at the window. Already, you’re drawing yourself in, clicking on the robot, pulling away from thought. There’s short talk of money, but you slide in beside him anyway and you’re alone. He’s got a hotel room. He wants the whole night. He says things about you, the way you look and smell, taking his hand off the wheel to touch as he drives
The city slides by like coloured rain. You can’t stop staring at the child’s toy at the bottom of the dash. A thing without much face apart from eyes and floppy little arms with half the fur chewed away. Could be a teddy, a rabbit, a fox. Well-loved, the phrase is. You can’t stop staring
The hotel room, pink and baby blue. Trying not to look, you admire as though he made it himself. There’s a Swap appliance in the comer. There always is. The rental company logo on the side. The power line goes to the same marbled socket as the teasmade. Maybe it’s a choice, tea or Swap. But he fixed you a real drink from the paybar instead and it’s vodka
The glass has a crack in it. Trying not to look, clicking on the robot. There’s a plastic snowscene toy on the bedside cabinet. He picks it up and turns it in his hands as he sits easy on the bed. You wonder, although it breaks every rule, about his wife, his kids. He hitches up the knees of his suit trousers so as not to spoil the crease. His legs are quite brown in the gap above his sock. You comment admiringly on his tan with the right kind of smile clicked into place. You finish your drink and he gets you another, and you start to think that maybe this one is kind, this one understands. The whole luggage of hope spills out and you’re dragging it around the room with your figure and your smile. And when you sense he’s anxious to start you ask What’s It To Be and you feel his doubt. There’s even a moment when you hope he’s not going to want to Swap
But
Let’s Swap, he says. It comes out like it’s a great, new idea. And that’s how you take it: freshly minted for this baby pink and blue room, for this special occasion
He runs his Amex card through the slot on the Swap appliance and you notice how his eyes and his hands are solid sure. There’s an awkward wait until the credit beeps through, then you stand with your hands over the two Swap boxes like the contestants in Name That Tune. And you wonder if its worth repeating that same old joke as he starts on it anyway. You both start to laugh, and you begin to get the buzz of the Swap Then the slam of it
And you’re in his body
The flood of being inside someone else
You’re inside, looking out at your own face and you can feel how the dampness of his excited skin sticks against suit and shirt. His mouth tastes faintly of rancid walnuts and his big hands move lighte
r and easier than you’d imagined. You stare back at yourself. It’s so much dearer than a mirror; you can see the faint smudge of mascara where you must have rubbed your eye. You decide your eyebrows are too thick and the pores too deep and wide. He smiles at you with your lips, out of your eyes. His hands are already exploring the newness of your body, running down and up. Then he pulls you close. And there’s no hurry. But you start to do it anyway
When you come with his body into your own its like the cold dive of stepping to the kerb. And you feel pity for men, just as you feel pity for women. You fall back on the sheets into the smell of his sweat and you gaze at your face across the pillow as the eyes drift shut and he sleeps inside your body for a while. It’s hard to imagine the dreams that come to him in your brain, but your face looks sweetly blissful now, asleep, the way you never see it. You look even younger than you are. You think of your sister who died, your mother and the smell of cooking in the Sunday garden. You lean over so gently and kiss your lips with lips of stubble and the eyes blink open and he stares back at you. He stretches and growls and tries to look sexy in his borrowed woman’s body as though what you see and feel matters
But
He gives up and lies restlessly still. The hotel is silent and each car on the dual carriageway outside is a separate noise, a separate identity. The eyes stare wide at the ceiling. You wonder what he wants but you’re afraid to ask in the phlegmy growl of your borrowed voice
You’re afraid to ask
But he says it anyway
He says it with your lips your voice your throat
He says Hit me
Now that it’s out and the need is suddenly huge you realize that the sex before was just a veil to pull over it. You bunch his hands that felt so light before and feel them swing like lead. You can feel it. The power. He wants the taste of metal and salt. You straddle your breasts, jutting your suntanned knees against thin arms
Nowhere: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod Page 39
