Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  I break a piece of bread off, chew it very slowly. It tastes of morning, dry and plain and clean. The morning stretches very long and wide. I’ve never seen such space before. There are always walls in England. Corridors.

  I reach both arms out, as far as they will go. They don’t touch anything. I laugh out loud, get up from my rock and run. I haven’t run for years. Not since I was small. It makes my body shake. I stop. I’m out of breath.

  I think I lived here once, long ago, when I was very small. Lived here with St Joseph. They had a Bible in St Joseph’s library with coloured pictures in it. The pictures looked like here. The ground was rough and stony. There wasn’t any grass. Just a few small bushes, not green like English bushes, but grey and plain like I am. One picture showed St Joseph. He was standing by a bush. His eyes looked straight at me.

  I remember walking with him through the quiet brown peaceful pictures. He used to hold my hand. St Joseph’s not a Jew. He doesn’t live in Israel. There are no bombs or sirens here. No fighting or policemen. No noise at all. Just peace.

  I look up at the sky. The clouds are like lace petticoats cut off from a wedding dress. I’ve seen those clouds before. On the plane. They must have flown on here. They didn’t like Las Vegas and there wasn’t room for them. The sky is full of buildings there, and lights.

  The balloons may fly here, too, the New Year’s Eve balloons. I’ve never seen so many all at once. I tried to count them, but I only got to twenty, and there were thousands floating past me. They flew up, up, up, so far, they were like confetti in the sky. You have balloons at parties. If they fly on here, I’ll catch them, have a party all alone.

  I’ve never been alone before. I like it. It means they trust you and you’re not on any pills. I don’t think I need pills now. I feel very quiet and white inside, not grey. The mountains make you quiet. I think they’re sleeping.

  I’m tired myself. You couldn’t sleep at Scotty’s. They did have beds, but only three or four, and there were people in them, girls as well as men.

  I stretch out on the ground. It’s rough and hard. I like that. It makes me feel that someone’s holding me with strong brown arms.

  I look up at the mountains. They’re talking in their sleep. I strain my ears to hear.

  “Enjoy,” they say. “Enjoy.”

  Sand. I’ve never sat on sand before. I didn’t see the sea until I was nearly thirty-nine. And then we had to stay up on the promenade. Sea is dangerous. There isn’t any sea here. This sand was mountains once. The ranger told me that. Great solid stony mountains. But wind and rain ground them down like nutmegs. I know what nutmeg is. We had it on rice pudding at St Joseph’s. You don’t see it any more. The rice pudding comes in tins.

  Everything keeps changing, even here. There was a lake here once, but the water all dried up. And two hundred million years ago, Death Valley moved to here from somewhere else. I didn’t know land moved. The ranger said it did. He said mountains walked about, and lands and oceans crashed like cars, and bits of them broke off and flew around.

  I think he said two hundred million years. I may have got the numbers wrong. There wasn’t room for all the millions in my head. It made me quite excited. He told me about floods and storms and earthquakes, but it wasn’t like the Reverend. The world wasn’t ending. It was only just beginning and there wasn’t any sin.

  I like the ranger. I think he’s quite important. He wears a uniform with a special badge and tie. He came to fetch me in his jeep. He said Hi, his name was Bernie, and Angelique and Carole were unwell, so he was looking after George. I asked him what was wrong with them and he laughed and said nothing that sleep and Alka Seltzer couldn’t cure. He drove me through the park. I don’t think it’s a park because there were no trees or grass or benches and we hardly saw another car at all.

  He told me lots of names. I stored them in my mind. I’m better now, so there’s more room in my mind. The names were nice. Wild Rose Canyon. Warm Spring Canyon. Hidden Valley. Jubilee. Reverend Mother had a Jubilee. It was the only day she smiled. I liked that name the best. He said Jubilee was full of flowers in springtime. It feels like springtime now. The sky is blue.

  I put my hands flat down on the sand. It’s rippled like the sea; seems to move in waves. Bernie says the land still moves. It keeps shifting under us and even great big mountains twitch and fidget. He said you couldn’t feel it, but it goes on all the time. He said in another million years, Death Valley might not be here at all.

  I hope it stays. I like it. And I think it likes me, too. Most places don’t. They’d prefer it if I left.

  This is my real holiday, the first one I’ve ever had. I won it. Norah Toomey won it. It said so in that letter in gold print. Ten days in Death Valley. Not Las Vegas. This is the first day. I’ve still got nine.

  There’s always sand on holidays. A beach. This beach isn’t flat like the one at Littlehampton, but goes up and down in hills. Some of them are high, as if God had built a sand-castle. Others are just curves like the one I’m lying on.

  I fill my hands with sand, let it trickle through my fingers. It’s very fine and pale, as if the hills have burnt to ash. Some of it is blowing up like smoke. I can’t see any wind. The mountains are still there, though they’ve walked away a little and look more blue than brown.

  It’s afternoon, and warm. I’ve had my dinner. Sandwiches and cake. The ranger gave them to me with some real dates from a date tree. I’ve still got all the stones. He said he had some calls to make, but if I liked, he’d leave me at the sand dunes with a picnic. If I liked. I kept repeating it. He didn’t ask if George liked. George was told.

  I didn’t eat the cake. You’re not allowed to eat too much in deserts. You have to save the food, and ration water. The bighorn sheep who’ve lived here for thousands and thousands of years nibble just the tops of plants. They never stuff and gobble like the people in Las Vegas do. They’d die if they did that, because there’d be nothing left to feed them. The land would die as well.

  I’m happy in the desert. I never eat a lot. That’s why I belong here, like the sheep. That cake was far too big. I ate the peace instead, took bites out of the clouds, filled myself with space. I’ll give the cake to Bernie. He’s fetching me at four. He trusts me, left me on my own without a nurse. He didn’t give me rules, or tell me not to do things, or warn me he’d be watching me. Nobody is watching.

  I don’t feel frightened. I don’t even feel alone. I can see the tracks and trails of things. Small and creeping things. Lizards, spiders, and something called a circus beetle. I like that name.

  I peer down at the trails. They look like the embroidery the nuns did at St Joseph’s. Crawling stitch, running stitch, chains of legs and feelers.

  The ranger showed me footprints. A pack-rat and a kitfox. I don’t know what they are and he said I wouldn’t see them. They live in holes and burrows, come out just at night when it’s quiet and safe and cool. That would suit me too. I like the cool, and nobody could see me in the dark.

  I get up from the ground, follow two tiny tyre-marks in the sand. They’re not real tyres. You don’t have cars up here. Only shadows. Dark blue shadows, the same colour as the mountains. I feel very high. I can almost touch the mountains with my hands. They look very worn and twisted. I think the land has suffered quite a lot. I can see the purple bruise-marks and the scars. The ranger said great earthquakes bent and broke it, and then wind and rain kept wearing it away. It’s too tired and old to grow things, too weak to hold up trees.

  Once, it was all green. So long ago, my head hurts when I think of it. There’s still some water left, but it’s mostly salt, like tears. We saw it earlier. The ranger stopped to show me. He told me it was lower than the ocean, one of the lowest places in the world. I don’t think I heard him right because it still felt high, like heaven, and God was very close. There were two of everything. The clouds and sky and mountains were shining in the sun and shining in the water. There was white snow on the mountains and white salt on
the ground and both were all mixed up with the clouds. White clouds. There was a cloud across my own face in the pool. I felt us float together.

  The salt looked just like water. Salt can kill things. If you pour it on a snail, it shrivels up. Bernie said some pioneers had died here, long ago, and the salt embalmed their bodies. I asked him what embalmed was and he said it meant their corpses didn’t smell. I’d like to be embalmed.

  I listen to the silence. At Beechgrove, they keep talking and playing radios. And in Las Vegas, it’s never quiet at all, not even in the night. It’s so quiet here, you can hear the silence breathing in and out.

  There’s more room for it to breathe. The sky is very tall here, so there’s more space in between. The space goes right back to when everything was sea. You can’t go back at Beechgrove. It’s one day at a time there, the day which Sister chalks up on the board. The other days are dead. There’s no room in your head for them. The drugs take all the room. Here, they’re still alive. You can feel them all around you and they’re stored up in the rocks. Bernie said the rocks are like a calendar.

  I walk very slowly, up a hill and down again. It’s hard to walk on sand. It keeps moving with you, pulling at your shoes. I’d love to take them off, but I don’t think that’s allowed. My shoes make tracks themselves. I turn back and stare at them. I’m a big brown creeping thing which lives in a brown burrow in the shade.

  I walk on again, hoping someone else will find my trail, wonder what I am. There are other marks shining in the sand. A name. Someone’s traced the letters with a stick. I spell them out. MY.

  My heart is beating very hard. Mary. Al’s mother couldn’t come here. She’s far too ill and weak. There’s no one here, nobody at all. Our Lady must have written it. I walk all round the letters. They’re very straight and clear.

  I pick the stick up. I want to write my own name next to hers. I start the N, and stop. I wish I had another name, a king’s name like George, or a pretty name like Carole. “Norah,” I say softly. “Norah Toomey.” No one laughs. I say it louder. “NORAH TOOMEY.” I can hear the mountains whispering it themselves. I think they like the name. It sounds better than it ever has before.

  I write it, all of it, put a fat tail on the y. It takes me a long time. When I’ve finished, the Mary looks quite small. I’m bigger than Our Lady, even neater. I’m getting good at writing.

  I kneel down, trace a J. J for Joseph. I make his name the biggest, huge letters guarding mine. The sand is blowing slightly, grains from Joseph falling on my N. Pale like pollen. I take a stick and draw a circle round us. Not Mary, she’s outside.

  I want to dance. I’ve never danced, not ever in my life. I think my mother danced. Danced all night in a room which smelt of flowers, in a white silk dress and scarlet shoes. I glance around. No one’s looking, except the sky and mountains. They won’t mind. They like me being here.

  I take a step, a hop. Dancing isn’t easy. My legs feel strange. Too heavy. I sit down, undo my laces. I’m not wearing any socks.

  My feet have yellow gristle on the soles. Carole’s feet are soft and white like the bread in Bernie’s sandwiches.

  I try again. I’m lighter. My feet are clouds. I’m dancing like the white clouds on the pool. I stretch my arms, make waves.

  “Norah!”

  Someone’s shouting. Bernie. I force my shoes back on, hide the stick. You’re not allowed to dance, or write on sand.

  “I … I’m coming.” I’m out of breath. I don’t think he can hear me. He’s only a black speck, a circus beetle crawling up towards me. I run down as he walks up. We meet.

  “Hi,” he says and smiles. He isn’t cross at all. His feet are very big, make a deep ridged trail beside my own. Two by two. Two by two. I’m a creature with a mate now.

  George is in the jeep. He never talks. The ranger talks instead. He told me what a jeep is. He’s clever like Miss Barratt in the library.

  “Like to see Keane Wonder Mine?” he asks. He keeps asking would I like things. No one has before.

  “Yes, please,” I say. I don’t know what it is.

  We drive along together. I’m sitting in the front. George is in the back. Important people always sit in front. I think the ranger likes me. He passes me a sweet. “Take two,” he says, and smiles. George gets one.

  The mountains follow us. They’re always there, however far you drive. They have shadows on them now. But the sky is very blue still.

  We turn off the road onto a rough and stony track. The van bounces on the stones. George shakes like a sack. It’s only four o’clock, but the moon is out. Just a tiny moon, a young one, newly born. It’s shining one side and the sun the other. You don’t see that in England, so it may be a miracle. That Reverend said expect a miracle.

  The rocks are bare and dry. Some of them have fallen, broken into pieces on the road. There’s not one blade of grass, not one patch of shade. I’m glad it’s not the summer. Bernie said it’s so hot here in summer that if you eat a jelly, it melts on your spoon before you’ve even got it to your mouth. He called it jello with an o. I’d like to eat a jello with an o. The dry rocks make me thirsty.

  Bernie stops the car. “We have to walk the last bit. It’s kinda steep. Can you manage, Norah?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Of course.” He didn’t even ask George. George stays in the jeep.

  Back home, I never walk much, except up and down the corridors, but Bernie said I’m good at it. He said I had strong legs. He talks to me a lot. Not many people bother.

  We climb the stony path. I can’t see anything except more brown rock and a lot of rusty iron and rotting wood.

  Bernie shades his eyes, looks round. “This is where the mill was. See the old machinery? The mine is further up. Eighty years ago, they were crushing eighteen thousand tons of rock a month. Imagine the noise! Twenty huge machines grinding great jagged lumps of gold ore into powder.”

  I listen. It’s so silent now I can hear a lizard chewing. Powdered gold. I’d rather have the sand.

  “WONDER,” says the sign. Underneath is a pile of broken bottles, an empty oil can, a piece of twisted piping. Perhaps people danced here once, barefoot in the gold-dust.

  We climb some more. The mountains climb with us, always higher.

  “They’re the Funerals,” says Bernie.

  “Pardon?”

  “The Funeral Mountains.”

  I shiver in the sun. Everything has died here. Gold and men. Machines.

  Bernie stops, turns round. “It’s too far to the mine, Norah, and we ought to check on George. Anyway, there’s nothing much to see – just a heap of wood left, half a rotting bedstead and a pile of rusty cans.”

  His face looks sad. He says men lived there once. Men with dreams, who lived on cans of beans.

  We stand in silence. Dreams are always sad.

  Bernie helps me down. “All gold mines in Death Valley had short lives. I guess it’s like Las Vegas. You pour cash in, in the hope you’ll get more out. But mostly you go bust.”

  He bends down, picks up something glinting at his feet. An empty sardine tin. “Some sharp guys sold mining stock when all they had was a few holes in the ground without a trace of ore in them.” He drops the tin, steers me down the slope again. My feet keep sliding. Everything is brown.

  I trip on something – half a broken chamber pot without its handle, blue roses round the rim. I pick it up, wipe the dirt off with my handkerchief. Someone rich owned that, used it every night. Las Vegas may be ruined soon, the Gold Rush just a pile of marble toilets, broken into bits. Golden taps shining in the rubble. It’s desert underneath the Strip. I saw it pushing through. Just a patch of it where they’d pulled a building down. Sand and stones instead of gold. No meadows. No casinos.

  I look back to the mill. Bare brown rock, a few grey thorny bushes. Bare brown silence.

  The jeep disturbs the silence. Bernie starts the engine, slams the doors. We bump off down the track. It’s cooler now, much cooler. The light is fading. The hill
s are stony, seem to close us in. Some are shaped like faces, faces without noses or with empty holes for eyes. All are pale. And tired.

  We drive in silence. There are no cars on the road, no birds in the sky. The little thorny bushes look like hedgehogs. Sleeping hedgehogs. The mountains have dark rings around their necks, as if a giant has tried to strangle them.

  The road begins to struggle. The hills are steeper now, and it’s panting up and down them. We’ve reached the snow, small patches of it, icing on the brown. Suddenly, everything is high. And very grand. The mountains spread right out each side, so far my eyes can’t reach. I’ve never seen such space before. I can feel the space inside me, huge and clean.

  The sun is going down. It’s like an orange ball, balanced on the mountains. The sky is gold behind it. On the other side, it’s pink. Soft pink on the snow. It’s time to eat again; eat pink and gold and orange. I can feel them slipping down my throat, shining through my body. I’m licking the gold sky, spooning in pink snow. I start to sing, silently, inside.

  George is just a bundle. I think he’s gone to sleep. He sleeps a lot. Many patients do. I’m not a patient any more. I haven’t any germs left. There are no germs in Death Valley.

  The road is flatter now and very straight. Bernie swings sharp left. The sign says “Rhyolite”.

  “This was the real big strike, Norah. A guy called Shorty Harris first found gold here. Know how he celebrated? With the world’s greatest eggnog. Yeah – no kidding. He wired the LA railroad for a carload of whisky and another full of eggs. When the train steamed in, he and his buddies smashed the whisky barrels open with their axes, threw in the eggs, shells and all, stirred it with their shovels – and – whoopee!”

  Everyone drinks whisky here. I’ve never tried it. I’d like an egg, though. Soft-boiled in an egg cup. You can get egg cups in Las Vegas with your name on, or with legs. We don’t have eggs at Beechgrove, and we’ve missed most of our free breakfasts at the Gold Rush. Carole likes to sleep late. She’s sleeping now. I miss her. I hope she hasn’t forgotten who I am. I’ve got some things for her. A stone which shines. A beetle. A piece of pickleweed. I’d like to save this sky for her, put it in a matchbox.