The Undefeated

by Una McCormack

  “Hey,” the driver said, quietly. “What are your plans?”

  “My plans?”

  “Only, I’m not intending to stick around up there, you know. Straight back for me. It’s a long way out and we don’t know when . . .” In the mirror, she saw his eyes lift and dart fearfully at Gale. “They’re coming, you know,” he said quietly. “Coming for us. He won’t be protection.”

  “I don’t expect he will.”

  “You’re not frightened?”

  She thought about that. No, she thought, she wasn’t frightened. The threat was so abstract, so huge—and, to some extent, so unverified—that she had not allowed it to affect her. This, she imagined, was how people on old Earth must have lived with the bomb, or with the thought of catastrophic climate change. What could one do other than what one always did, day by day, and put the coming apocalypse out of one’s mind.

  “Tell me,” she said, genuinely curious, “what makes you think they’ll stop at the periphery?” This was something she had not understood about all these flights. Where did people think they were going? Where did they think they could go, to get away? “What makes you think they won’t just press on?”

  She saw, from his eyes, that he hadn’t thought about that—and the idea suddenly struck him in all its enormity. She saw his face pass from unknowingness to full understanding, and then fear, and then, inevitably, onwards into denial.

  He shook his head. “It won’t come to that,” he said. “The government won’t let it.”

  The government. One could not argue with that, so Monica fell silent. They drove on. Night fell. Monica dozed.

  She woke as they bumped over the bridge that led into town. Outside it was full dark, but Monica knew, as one does at a homecoming, that they were near the place where she had spent her childhood.

  The road was not good, and unlit. They drove slowly, Monica murmuring directions. The lights at the front of the car skimmed the space in front of them, and she found this was enough. The memory of the geography was strong. She knew the lake was there rather than seeing it, a great emptiness to their left, with nothing beyond. Slowly, they inched up what had once been the esplanade, and she guessed from small clues that they were drawing near what had been the hotel. That, at least, had still been standing when she last saw it.

  “You can stop here,” she said, and the driver obeyed. The lights from the side of the car revealed the hotel’s wooden portico, the struts once white, but peeling. There had been red roses painted on this, once upon a time. Could she see them still, or was that wishful thinking?

  Gale was out and dealing with the bags. The driver stayed in his seat and did not turn off the machine. When the luggage was out, Monica paid him, and the driver looked at her anxiously. “I’m not sure about this.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I grew up here. I know the place well.”

  “There’s nothing here! There’s not been anything here.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He sighed. He looked beyond her at the dark entrance. His eyes flicked sideways once again at Gale. He shook his head, but there was no point arguing, so he said his goodbyes, and slowly turned the car. She watched him leave, and, silently, she wished him luck in the days ahead and hoped that the money she had given him would take him to a safe harbour.

  With the lights from the car gone, the world around was suddenly very dark. She heard, rather than saw, Gale fumble in his pockets, and then the light on his handheld came on. He held it up in front of them, casting a strange angular light on his features.

  “Well,” he said. “Here we are.”

  They had been companions for several years now, his presence constant, but suddenly, in this remote place, Monica was conscious, as never before, of being alone with him. She looked up at the front of the hotel. “Let’s start here,” she said. “We can go and find the house in the morning.”

  They went up the steps. The door opened, easily, exactly as she remembered from all those years ago, and she caught her breath at the thought that she was here again, in Torello, the town by the lake, the start of it all. She walked inside, slowly, Gale close behind, holding up the light, moving it from side to side so that Monica caught glimpses of the foyer beyond.

  “This hotel had a superb reputation,” she said. “Small, but very exclusive. People came from the capital to eat in the restaurant. It only seated ten people.”

  “A different world,” Gale said, from behind her.

  “Indeed.” She moved slowly towards the desk. The bell was still there. She wondered what would happen if she rang it.

  She didn’t get the chance. She felt Gale’s hand upon her shoulder, pulling her aside, and then, a split second later, a shot rang out, overhead. Home, she thought; I’m home.

  * * *

  The lights went on. Monica, lying awkwardly on her side, on the floor, heard footsteps come slowly towards them. She turned her head to see who it was, pushing away Gale’s restraining hand.

  An old man looked down at her. He was holding a rifle, and his hands were shaking.

  “Fabien?” she said.

  He stared down. He blinked. “Monnie?”

  She laughed. “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

  He put the gun down, reached out his hand, and helped her to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. I thought the town had been abandoned.”

  “It was, more or less. A few stayed on.” He stopped, and looked at Gale. “Who’s this?”

  Monica collected herself. “Oh, forgive me. This is Gale. Gale, this is Fabien. His father owned the hotel when I was a girl, and he ran the place . . .” She did the sums. He must be seventy-five, at least. “Fabien, have you been here all these years?”

  He laughed, shook his head. “Good God, Monnie, no! There’s been nobody here ten years or more. I came back at the start of the month to see to a few things . . .” He eyed Gale again, more suspiciously this time. Monica didn’t press. Who knew what family secrets Fabien had to attend to? She had come back, after all, hadn’t she?

  “Well,” she said. “Never mind about that. Do you have any rooms?”

  He burst out laughing. “It’s a while since anyone has stayed! But hospitality is hospitality. You’re welcome to spend the night here—there really isn’t anywhere else to stay in town these days.” He looked round at the disarray. “I won’t charge you the full rate.”

  He brushed himself down—he was dapper, rather elegant, with short white hair—and took his place behind the desk, clearly relishing the pretence that this was an ordinary hotel, and that the arrival of a guest was a commonplace occurrence.

  “And how long are you intending to stay, ma’am?” he said.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  He gave her an apologetic look. “I should tell you, Monnie—I’m not going to be here by the end of the week. I’m leaving for the core.”

  “You might want to go sooner if you can,” Monica said. “Meridian Station is nearing crisis. Don’t assume you’ll find a flight, even if you’re able to offer a substantial sum.”

  “I have private means,” he said, with a shrug.

  The rooms were ruins, of course, but he found her one less dishevelled than the rest, with the windows more or less intact, and he even rustled up some clean-ish linen from somewhere. The art of the hotelier, she thought; to find comfort where it was comfortless. Gale took the room beside her, and made himself a bed of sorts from an old mattress, taking down curtains from other rooms to use as covers. Fabien found her supper, too, and they ate together. With a light touch, she caught him up with her life (although he already knew the broad parameters: she had been quite famous at one time), and he filled her in on what he had done with the long years. A move to the core; a small hotel on a pleasant and exclusive island; a seafood restaurant—he seemed to have re-created as much of Torello as he could, and led a largely blameless life.

  “Can I ask what br
ought you here?” he said at last.

  “Family business,” she said, leaving him to make up his own mind about that. Perhaps there was some money locked here that she needed to release before Sienna was lost. She saw him wondering, but he didn’t ask.

  “And how do you intend to get away?”

  She smiled and winked at him. “Private means.”

  Shortly after this, she took her leave and went to bed. He was not there in the morning (neither was Gale), although breakfast had been left out for her: packaged and preserved supplies, but filling and tasty enough. When she was done, she went out.

  Her first sight was the lake, of course, directly opposite the hotel entrance, huge and still and foreboding. She turned her face away. It was the very cusp of spring, a crisp day before the solstice, the sun bright, and the rustle of life startling amidst the ruins. Humans come and go, she thought, running from the mess they’d made, leaving it behind them, but after they’d turned tail and slunk away, life went on.

  She walked out onto the main road, and along the esplanade. There had been no attempt to rebuild—there would not have been the means—and many of the buildings were sad wrecks. From their skeletons, she picked out businesses that she had once known: all closed, and unlikely to be reopened, the money gone elsewhere. When the stores ended, the town houses began, empty and tumbledown, silent and childless when once they had been filled for summer family holidays. A permanent off-season, she thought. Eventually what was left of the walls would fall, and the plants would reclaim the land, and perhaps, one day, when whatever events were about to overtake them were done, and consigned to history, people—human or jenjer—might come back here, and poke around the old stones, and wonder about the lives that had been lived here.

  As the main road became the lane that led up the hill, she stopped walking and turned to take a view of the lake. The water was still and blue. She closed her eyes, and pretended for a moment that the town was still alive with the people she had known as a child, leading that old, glamorous, isolated life, all that she had known, once upon a time. Her mother had not liked it here, comparing the place unfavourably with old Venice. Her mother had talked about old Earth a great deal, regretting this move out to the periphery, regretting the marriage, and, surely, the child. Monica did not visit Venice until much later in life, and found that memory had miscast it. Beneath the reconstructions, she had smelled something stinking, rotten, and decayed. Here . . . She breathed the spring air. It tasted clear and fresh. But then the humans had been long gone.

  She walked on up the road and, at length, came to the walls that marked the boundary of her childhood home. She reached the big gates (they were locked) and looked through the railings at the building beyond. People often said that their childhood homes seemed smaller when they visited them again, but Monica had never been a fanciful child, and had made a career from precision of observation. The house looked much as she remembered, but old, old . . . Overgrown, with bits of the roof down. She tested the gate, but nothing gave, and she felt no desire to break through. Would she see anything to her benefit, scrabbling through the ruins? Everything of substance had been removed years ago, when she and her mother had left. Nothing that mattered remained.

  She turned and walked back down the lane. Just beyond the boundaries of her old home, she found the entrance to a quiet pathway that meandered down from the hills into town, following the contours of the lake. The sun grew steadily warmer, and she felt the makings of a headache. Back at the hotel, however, she girded herself to go and look at the pool. It was empty, of course, containing only puddles and damp leaves, debris, but Gale was there, sitting on a deck chair, his eyes shut. He looked very tired. She wondered whether he had been rationing his medication: she wondered whether that was a thing he was able to do. Strange, these lacunae in her information, like not knowing how a light worked, but trusting that the switch would deliver what you wanted. She pondered what she should do. She could not ask, and he would not say. There was no language in which to discuss these things; no language between human and jenjer.

  She stepped forwards, lightly. Gale opened his eyes. “Do you know,” she said, “that the last time I saw my father, he was in that pool.”

  He didn’t reply. He knew that Monica’s father had died when she was a child, but he didn’t know how, and he would not ask.

  “Are we staying?” he said, anxiously.

  “Yes,” she said. “For a little while.”

  He closed his eyes again. Monica turned and walked back inside. Fabien was standing by the windows, looking out. As Monica approached, he nodded towards Gale.

  “He’s jenjer, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Is that a problem?”

  He shook his head. “Not for me. I’ll be gone the day after tomorrow.” He looked straight at her. “There’ll be just the two of you here.”

  “Gale wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt me.” Even as she said it, she wondered.

  * * *

  That night, she slept like the dead. The next day, waking late and queasy, she remained in the hotel, venturing out only in the afternoon to stand and look out across the lake. Had this been a terrible mistake? She had not put pen to paper—but had she really expected to? Would she ever write anything again? She saw nothing of Gale, but his presence was everywhere: her bed was made, and her clothes, pressed, hung in the wardrobe. That evening, she ate with Fabien, and they listened to news from Meridian Station, where there had been a riot, and shots fired. After a little while, he turned it off. They sat in silence for a while. She watched him pass through numerous agonies about whether or not to press her about her decision to stay behind. In the end, discretion won out, and he found some music from the old days, and they spent the evening listening to it.

  The following afternoon he left. That morning he took her around the building, showing her how everything worked, and revealing his stores of food, enough to keep her and Gale for about a month.

  “There’s nothing fresh,” he said, and again he seemed about to press her to leave, but did not find the words. Only as he prowled around the front of the building, waiting to depart, did he ask her explicitly to come with him.

  “There’ll be nothing coming this way again,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer there’ll be a way out of the capital—”

  “I’m not ready to go yet.”

  “But what are you doing here, Monnie? You’ve seen the house now! It’s a ruin! There’s nothing left!”

  She looked out across the lake. There were memories, of course, but even these she was not quite ready to examine in full, not yet . . . And there was something else, too: that desire to see at first hand what was coming, what changes would come when they arrived . . .

  “I’m worried about leaving you alone,” he said.

  “Gale is here.”

  “That’s partly what I meant.”

  She cut him off with a shake of her head. He muttered something beneath his breath, but clearly he was giving her up as a lost cause. He was gone within the hour, a small swift flyer descending onto the square, taking him up and out within minutes. She wished him luck, wherever he went; wished him a safe harbour, if such a thing were possible. She thought, as she watched his flyer become a small dot in the sky, that he should have stayed. They could have sat here, listening to the old tunes, quite comfortable as the world ended.

  She went back to her room and slept. When she woke, dusk was rapidly approaching. She wandered around the bare rooms, stopping here and there to straighten a picture or wipe away dust. There was no sign of Gale. She sat outside, staring at the pool, a shawl wrapped around her. She was startled from her trance by a quiet cough. She turned and saw Gale, tall and still, standing behind her.

  She tightened the shawl around her.

  “Come inside,” he said. “I’ve made supper.”

  She rose, and followed him into the dining ro
om. He had lit candles. They sat and ate together, as they had done on many flights. Music was playing, which gave them an excuse not to speak. He had done a good job with the food, which was more than palatable, and which was one of the things she had paid for when she bought his bond. She looked out at the pool and thought about her father. Eventually, she said, “There used to be a pharmacy on the main street. A block along from here. That was fifty years ago and there’s hardly anything standing. But who knows what you might find inside?”

  He stood up at once and left. She watched the candles for a while, and then got up herself and went outside. The evening was turning chill, but the night sky and the sharp scent of the early flowers brought back in a sudden rush memory of her childhood, memories of her father and the last summer before his death. Tentatively, she touched these memories, beginning to disinter them and to bring them out into the unforgiving light.

  Two

  SHE TURNED TWELVE AT the end of that summer. By then they were in flight. She recalled a cake with the wrong number of candles, presented as an afterthought somewhere beyond Meridian Station (her mother always relied on someone else to do the date conversions). She could not remember gifts, but she assumed that there were (there were always many gifts, before and after), or the promise of gifts, but she could not remember anything particular. The previous year there had been the tent, her father’s choice; the following year brought rubies, picked out by her mother, and the end of any chance of adventure, at least until the arrival of the famous writer, and their elopement.