Nowhere: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod

by Ian R. MacLeod

  You swing your fists down and you see your face go slack with the pleasure of it. There’s an erection bobbing stupidly between your legs and you both come but coming isn’t important. You hate yourself so much that it’s hard to stop, even when he starts to kick and wriggle beneath you. You hate. You hate everything. You take it out on yourself. He fights you with thin, weak arms. The resistance is only moth wings and you can taste the power and the horror, the salt and the metal until something finally brims

  over and

  You lie back, breathing. There’s blood on your knuckles, blood on the bed board. He turns and curses you softly through split lips, saying You Don’t Know When To Stop, You Stupid Bitch. And you stare at the lips and the puffing eye and wonder if this time there might be scars. And then, somehow, you both sleep

  It’s hard to remember the Swap back in the morning. There’s Just the hot pain of the shower and seeing the Amex card on the cabinet beside the snowscene toy and lifting the card by instinct as you shoulder your handbag. And suddenly you’re back in his car and he’s offering to drive you anywhere, just anywhere. The well-loved cuddly toy is still staring at you from the bottom of the dash. It’s a shock when you look down at your own hands and when you try to say where you want to go your mouth feels as though it’s filled with sharp stones

  The car carries you off. The city is flat in the early light, like a black and white photo on a tin tray

  His hands are easy on the wheel. He’s a regular guy, talking about his family as he drives. He’s even using what sound like their real names Just to show that he’s not afraid. His wife used to do Personnel and his eldest is called Tina. Tina’s ten and dyslexic - the shit they had to take down at the school to convince them she wasn’t just stupid. Haley’s the other and she’s only four. Tina’s a fine kid, but Haley’s the real looker, almost like that little kid in the Poltergeist movies who died. You know, cute. She’ll get the boys crazy when she grows tits and an ass, might as well face it. A Dad has to admit his kids are gonna have a sex life

  He nods down at the dash. That thing there you’re look­ing at, he says, that cuddly toy, is Bib-Bob. Haley’s pride and joy, and even now she’s reached four Bib-Bob has to come everywhere. Jesus, she loves that toy, chews it till it’s filthy and then screams murder when it goes in the wash

  And you’re dead right, he grins, this regular guy. Dad­dy’s deep in the dog house for driving off this weekend for a conference with Bib-Bob still in the car

  You pick the famous Bib-Bob up. And you smile a crooked smile with your crooked face. And Bib-Bob feels soft and light as something alive. But the man stops smiling as he drives and tells you to Put That Fucking Thing Down. And that’s just what you pretend to do as you bend close to dash and slide Bib-Bob into your handbag, down there with the Amex card

  He wants to drop you off close to where you need to be. Nothing’s too much trouble. But you investigate your face again in the sun visor mirror and touch the puffiness and the scabs. Somehow that makes him angry. He stops the car anywhere and throws you out and drives off. But it doesn’t matter. When you dust yourself down, hitch your bag and check where you are, you realize you’re nearly there anyway

  Ronno’s dealing early. He handles the franchise for people like you, people who need some kind of ladder to climb out of the night. And you’ve got more than enough cash for the score. Ronno hands it over and doesn’t ask about your face. He knows; he’s seen it all before. Walking back to your big room in the old house that you used to share with Stephanie before Stephanie got busted, feeling the bruises tug at your arms, the score doesn’t matter any more. It’s often this way. Now that you’ve got it, tucked beside Bib-Bob in your bag and wrapped in tissue, it loses the pull

  You pass a scrap of wasteland filled with sunlight and tall purple flowers and fairies of dandelion seeds drifting. You pause for a moment and there’s a click of balance where everything but the light and the flowers is nowhere. It makes you wonder how it all happened. Did you start trading your body because you needed the score . . . or did you need the score because you were trading? But when you get back to the rotting house and up the stairs and across the loose beam and wodge some fresh newspaper into the broken panes you lie down on the stained mattress

  And your fingers hurry with the paper

  And it feels as good as ever. As good as you could ever imagine

  As the loose haze fills out you take Bib-Bob from your bag and hold him to your aching face. Well-loved. He smells of fresh rain and childhood spit. He soothes your pain with soft and tiny arms, giving out some of the love that’s been poured into him. And then you dream and Bib-Bob’s big as the world and everything is nestled safe within him

  It’s already late afternoon when you awake. Bib-Bob soaks up the tears on the grubby cushion beside you, smiling with his little stitch mouth, sharing the secret of dreams you can’t understand or even remember

  There are voices downstairs. You check your face in the broken mirror and wash it in the stale water in the basin. You’re starting to look like the Elephant Man. Not caring what they think, you stumble down to join the others. But no one says a word. They’ve all been there, on the wrong side of a Swap. You get inside a body that’s filled with the wrong juice and you don’t stand a chance. There are some smokes around and the atmosphere’s good. Tony’s on a special high, he’s sold one of those odd pictures he does to a guy he met as a pickup. The guy’s loaded and says he has talent. He wants him to move in, help with an exhibition. And Judi’s Dad’s written from Germany. The letter got here somehow, just like magic. And here it is. She holds the crumpled pages to her face and you think of the famous Bib-Bob upstairs in your room, just waiting to be loved

  But the dark falls quickly. Before you know, the smokes have all gone and everyone’s quiet and thinking about what’s to come. There’s only one way through the night, and that leads to the back of somewhere else, a street that goes nowhere both ways

  You put on the robot clothes, and frown at your face and do what you can with what makeup you’ve got, which isn’t a great deal. Everyone leaves alone and takes their own way to the place, through their own dreads and possibilities. There’s no one to talk to now that everyone is just meat, the competition

  The black air hurts like a toothache. You’ve got Bib-Bob in your bag and somehow just thinking about him makes you want to cry

  But you keep your face as smooth and even as the puffiness allows and hang back in the shadows, letting the night kick into gear

  The meat walks the kerb, cooing to the brakelights, the opening doors. You know there’s no big limo, no clean and friendly face. The pickups are as much meat as you are, their skin is shrinkwrap, the blade slides behind their smile. So you step into the light and try to move your body like it’s something fresh and real and the famous Bib-Bob’s at your side in the bag you lifted three days before and Bib-Bob feels like some kind of protection. Already, you’re longing for the score and you know the night won’t end until you get it

  The kerb is a cool dive. The streetlights spark and shine. Your face in the car windows as the brakelights whisper. You try to smile and pout but your skin feels dead. Your tongue searches your cheek and it’s like puffy mushrooms. You see what they see reflected in the glass and the tyres scream the wet road as they pull away. You’re the Elephant Man. In the makeup of a clown

  Then one does slow and the face inside sees your face and smiles. He knows he understands. The brakelights grin, the car door opens. And you realize that he likes what he sees and he wants to do more, that he wants the taste of salt and metal. So you stumble back into the darkness and run down the street that leads both ways nowhere

  There’s a taxi. For Hire. The driver slows and says Jesus I Nearly Ran You Down but he can’t see you in the dark and he takes you as if you’re a normal fare. But when you climb out at the hotel the light catches your face and he screws his up in disgust like a paper bag. You throw the money at him and wonder where
he gets all that righteous anger from, pimping lifts here in the city

  There’s music in the foyer like peach ice cream. Men buried in deep chairs, deep in drink and newspapers. You’ve pulled a scarf from under Bib-Bob in your bag and you’ve got it around your face like a Russian peasant

  You take a risk and go straight to the desk. The clerk’s got his nose buried in a computer screen and you move so quietly on your heels that he doesn’t hear you. The carpet is soft as Bib-Bob. You scan the pigeonholes behind and find the room number from last night. He must be out; the key is on its hook. You know where he’ll be cruising for someone like you who isn’t

  You clear your throat and the clerk looks up without looking. And you ask for the key and he simply gives it you. You take the lift where the music pours loud and creamy. No one else gets in. You’re glad it’s just you and Bib-Bob, just you and him alone

  Nothing about this is easy. If it wasn’t for Bib-Bob at your side you’d turn and run. Walking the corridor is another cold dive and the key barely fits like it’s only just been made

  The room. Looks bigger. The maid has wiped the blood off the headboard. The bed looks as if it’s never been slept in, let alone

  The Swap appliance. The lead to the marbled socket that also feeds the teasmade. It’s tea or Swap and there’s no competition. You take Bib-Bob out and the Amex card as well. Bib-Bob smells like Christmas and childhood. The Amex smells like the polished floor of a bank just after opening. You hug Bib-Bob tight. You gaze at him. He smiles back with his well-loved eyes, with his half-unstitched mouth. Bib-Bob soaks up all the world’s tears and hurt. He’s nothing but love

  The Swap appliance. A little LCD you hadn’t noticed before says Ready To Enter. You run the Amex through the slot and a credit bleep comes quickly. You kiss Bib-Bob’s little face and you sit him on the Swap box facing you. He falls off it. You kiss him and sit him down again. And then you stand with your hand over the other box, like ifs Name That Tune but you’re the only contestant, unless you count Bib-Bob

  And you wait for the buzz

  And you smile at Bib-Bob. And you wait for the slam

  And he comes back to his room a couple of hours later with someone else like you that he didn’t even have to buy. But there’s a body on the floor and the whole scene’s blown. The thing is breathing and the eyes are wide but there’s nothing inside. The pickup has hysterics. He slaps her around a bit to make her stop then he sends her away with enough money

  He rings the Company. He’s a Company man. They have shares in this hotel. And it’s a good Company

  And he’s a good employee

  And it could happen to anyone

  So they take the body to a hospital, and the Company has shares in that too. They hook up the life supports for a while before they turn them off again. The thing is just lifeless junk. The sort that gets cleaned out of the gutter every day

  And

  Long before that, the conference has ended and he’s back at home, parking in the twilight drive amid the Scots pines and the brown rooftops where swallows wheel. The lights are in the windows and children are in his arms. He’s every hero. He’s the voyager returning home from the quest. He’s Ulysses. He’s Frodo Baggins. He’s Parsifal. And the kitchen smells of burnt toast and cinnamon. He kisses his wife as though she’s freshly baked from the oven and What Do We Have Here In These Cases. Goodies for you and you and you. Tina and Haley clap and yell at jigsaws and snowscene balls and his wife preens You Shouldn’t Have with a microdot bottle of exorbitant perfume. And lookee what we have here at the bottom of the case. The famous Bib-Bob himself

  Haley’s in tears with her arms out gimme-gimme tight to have the famous Bib-Bob even though she’s getting a little old and had forgotten all about him whilst Daddy was away. There’s snot on her upper lip and she wipes it away with Bib-Bob’s ear. Then she swings him by the leg and does a Bib-Bob’s-come-home war dance all around downstairs. She slams Bib-Bob on the dining room table and rattles him along the banister rails

  Then Haley sits down in the warm laughter of the kitchen. She sniffs Bib-Bob, pressing him to her face and wondering why he smells of nothing more than old sheets. Wondering why he feels so loose and ugly. Bib-Bob used to be famous, great and wise. Bib-Bob used to stand astride the world. Bib-Bob’s been away and Bib-Bob’s come home. But nothing ever stays quite the same. Wrinkling her pretty nose, turning her eyes wide and bright to the swirling snowscene, she lets Bib-Bob fall to the floor

  Afterword

  “Experimental fiction”—in fact experimental art of any kind—has never appealed to me. To label something as experimental inevitably suggests a hit-or-miss approach, a throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks kind of attitude which, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t belong in any finished piece, be it in fiction, film, art or music. On the other hand, I regard the idea of experimenting as a writer to be a crucial part of keeping myself interested and productive. In fact, I often try to remind myself to do it more. Attempting a new voice, a new style, a new approach or setting, are very often ways of turning an old idea (and most ideas are old ones) into something fresh, or getting an existing project out of a rut. The trick, of course, is to try things out in a free way, but with as much conviction as you can muster, and push on for as long as you can manage, then take a breather and a few steps back to decide whether whatever you’ve attempted actually works. In that sense, I suppose you could even say that all fiction—indeed, all art—is a kind of experiment, and that experiment continues through project after project, and day after day. When it came to Well-Loved, which was one of my earliest published stories, the experiment in terms of voice—the use of the “you”, the second person, the present tense, and the dropping the full stops at the end of paragraphs—came together from a variety of sources, but primarily and as a response to watching the Neil Jordan movie Mona Lisa, in which Bob Hoskins plays a taxi driver besotted by a prostitute played by Cathy Tyson. And which created an urgent need to write. I think I also managed to shock myself with the violence involved in the central scene, which again you might almost call an experiment. It would be harder now, I suppose, to try out so many fresh things, and surprise myself in the same way. Even harder, I think, to bring them all together in such a brisk way, and to turn what might otherwise be an experiment into something that works. Sure, I’m much more experienced now, and can see and plan ahead and avoid certain pitfalls, but for everything I’ve gained in that way, there’s always something else I’ve lost.

  THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY

  The trees of Farside are incredible. Fireash and oak. Greenbloom and maple. Shot through with every colour of autumn as late afternoon sunlight blazes over the Seven Mountains’ white peaks. He’d never seen such beauty as this when he was alive.

  The virtual Bentley takes the bridge over the next gorge at a tyrescream, then speeds on through crimson and gold. Another few miles, and he’s following the coastal road beside the Westering Ocean. The sands are burnished, the rocks silver-threaded. Every new vista a fabulous creation. Then ahead, just as purple glower sweeps in from his rear-view over those dragon-haunted mountains, come the silhouette lights of a vast castle, high up on a ridge. It’s the only habitation he’s seen in hours.

  This has to be it.

  Northover lets the rise of the hill pull at the Bentley’s impetus as its headlights sweep the driveway trees. Another turn, another glimpse of a headland, and there’s Elsinore again, rising dark and sheer.

  He tries to refuse the offer to carry his luggage made by the neat little creature that emerges into the lamplit courtyard to greet him with clipboard, sharp shoes and lemony smile. He’s encountered many chimeras by now. The shop assistants, the street cleaners, the crew on the steamer ferry that brought him here. All substantially humanoid, and invariably polite, although amended as necessary to perform their tasks, and far stranger to his mind than the truly dead.

  He follows a stairway up through rough-hewn stone. The thing’s n
ame is Kasaya. Ah, now. The east wing. I think you’ll find what we have here more than adequate. If not… Well, you must promise to let me know. And this is called the Willow Room. And do enjoy your stay…

  Northover wanders. Northover touches. Northover breathes. The interior of this large high-ceilinged suite with its crackling applewood fire and narrow, deep-set windows is done out in an elegantly understated arts-and-craftsy style. Amongst her many attributes, Thea Lorentz always did have excellent taste.

  What’s struck him most about Farside since he jerked into new existence on the bed in the cabin of that ship bound for New Erin is how unremittingly real everything seems. But the slick feel of this patterned silk bedthrow… The spiky roughness of the teasels in the flower display… He’s given up telling himself that everything he’s experiencing is just some clever construct. The thing about it, the thing that makes it all so impossibly overwhelming, is that he’s here as well. Dead, but alive. The evidence of his corpse doubtless already incinerated, but his consciousness—the singularity of his existence, what philosophers once called “the conscious I”, and theologians the soul, along with his memories and personality, the whole sense of self which had once inhabited pale jelly in his skull—transferred.

  The bathroom is no surprise to him now. The dead do so many things the living do, so why not piss and shit as well? He strips and stands in the shower’s warm blaze. He soaps, rinses. Reminds himself of what he must do, and say. He’d been warned that he’d soon become attracted to the blatant glories of this world, along with the new, young man’s body he now inhabits. Better just to accept it that rather than fight. All that matters is that he holds to the core of his resolve.

  He towels himself dry. He pulls back on his watch—seemingly a Rolex, but a steel model, neatly unostentatious—and winds it carefully. He dresses. Hangs up his clothes in a walnut-panelled wardrobe that smells faintly of mothballs, and hears a knock at the door just as he slides his case beneath the bed.