253

by Geoff Ryman

  Eva asks questions of herself vaguely, as if about someone else: did she marry him out of pity? Did such supreme ugliness carry a kind of sexual jolt?

  Eva once was very pretty. She is dimly aware that somehow, over the years, she has become ugly too.

  What she is doing or thinking

  In her own way, Eva has rebelled. She is going to the Royal Festival Hall to buy two concert tickets, not for David, of course, who never goes to such things, but for herself and her daughter Harriet.

  Three days ago, on Sunday, Eva looked out of their apartment window and saw David and Harriet walking. Harriet slouched until she was almost hunchbacked, wearing boy’s clothes, unironed and grubby. David followed her with little pestering steps, eyes glaring at her face. Harriet is fifteen.

  Eva is vague about this point too, but something in her said: not Harriet; not her too.

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  54

  MISS BILLIE HOLIDAY

  Outward appearance

  Short hair, black trousers and a fluffy fake fur coat. Pink-cheeked, freckles, clear-framed spectacles, AIDS ribbon. Keeps smiling and shaking her head.

  Inside information

  Her mother was a singer and named her daughter after a jazz great. Billie works in accounts at British Telecom.

  What she is doing or thinking

  She imagines herself in the pub, telling the following true story:

  The computer tells us we have this telephone number and no one has ever paid a bill on it? So I go through all the records, back to when we kept things in writing. There’s no record of any payment.

  So I ring the number to check that it works. I hear a dialling tone. It rings and rings, but no one answers. I try ringing at 6 PM, I stay for the late shift and ring at 10 PM. Never any answer.

  So I look up the address: 172, Tottenham Court Road. We send out the first threatening letter. ‘Payment must be received in 7 days or legal proceedings will be taken.’ No answer. We cut off the connection.

  We send out a court summons. And another. We send a notice of conviction. They don’t pay the fine. Finally, we send in the bailiffs. The bailiffs can’t find 172, Tottenham Court Road.

  Then we get an angry call from Camden Council about causing a traffic hazard.

  We were billing a traffic signal box. It has a telephone number so we can modem timing instructions. I was trying to talk to a traffic light.

  Can you imagine if it answered?

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  55

  SERGEANT HARRY FREER

  Outward appearance

  Worn, middle-aged man with a blunt but pleasant face: round cheeks, round nose, slight overbite, small rather blue lips. Thinning salt and pepper hair combed in strands over bald top. Black overcoat, black shoes, blue shirt collar.

  Inside information

  On his way to work at Lambeth Police Station.

  What he is doing or thinking

  For four years Sgt Freer pursued a local graffiti sprayer. He’d defaced walls all over Lambeth and Vauxhall—the primary school on Baylis, St Michael’s School, the ambulance building. Nowhere was safe. People felt threatened, intimidated. Finally, cameras videoed the culprit and he was identified on Crimewatch by a local schoolteacher.

  As soon as he saw the young man in court (22, unemployed) Sgt Freer had a strange reaction. He felt personally threatened, shaken by the sentence. He hated the thought of the lad going to prison. How different really were his bright sprayed swirls from most hoardings? Sgt Freer had no words for his feelings. He kept a report on the case with a photograph of the young lad paper-clipped to its cover. His name was Tom Gleadal. No previous convictions, no qualifications.

  Last night his wife picked up the photograph from the floor and asked, ‘When was this taken?’

  ‘Just before the trial,’ Sgt Freer replied.

  His wife looked confused. ‘Was it before you met me? I don’t remember it, that’s all.’ She passed it to him, and he saw.

  He and Tom Gleadal have nearly the same face: the round nose, the round cheeks, the overbite.

  ‘It’s me in my artist days,’ he answered.

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  56

  MR SAVI GUPTA

  Outward appearance

  Fleshy Indian man in loose brown shirt and camel-coloured overcoat. Slightly bouffant hair with waves. Holds a rolled, unread newspaper. Sits sprawled and relaxed, like a laundry basket of expensive clothes.

  Inside information

  Manager of Emil’s Window Displays, a shop selling mannequins. Its front window is crammed with sexless, bald effigies, mostly of children.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Savi is amusing himself by imagining what the other passengers would look like if they had been born as the opposite sex.

  Passenger 50 transforms into a much prettier person, petite with a retroussé nose, the kind of bad girl that produces a naughty tickle. Passenger 51 becomes a nasty customer, the kind of male relative Mr Gupta most hates dealing with: obdurate, religious. Passenger 52 turns into a heavy-cheeked labourer, with broad features and bigger hands wearing two layers of clothes and reading The Sun instead of a letter. Passenger 53 becomes a neat, prim, disappointed man with a lined face. Passenger 54 is much improved for being male. Her pink-cheeked jollity would suit an athletic, boyish frame. She would still wear an AIDS ribbon. And the policeman, well, he becomes a frumpy housewife in pastel clothes that are meant to make her look more feminine.

  Savi’s family were turfed out of Uganda so long ago that he cannot remember, and he runs an unlikely business by accident of inheritance located for no discernible reason on Waterloo Road in London. For him, all fate is arbitrary. His white-faced, sexless dummies await him. He gets off as always at Lambeth North.

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  57

  MS MAGGIE ROLT

  Outward appearance

  Short slightly ringleted hair, strong features, bright red lipstick, burgundy suit, crepe blouse, sexy shoes. Soft and voluminous black coat. Hugs a copy of The Big Issue to her breast. Rubs her forehead.

  Inside information

  Investment analyst for Adventure Capital just opposite Waterloo Station. Chiswick homeowner, ambitious daughter, worthy aunt, gurglesome babysitter and MBA.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Thinking of Pascal, the Big Issue salesman. Pascal is large, bronze, dignified and a few years older than she. How did he end up in a doorway at Waterloo Station?

  One morning, in exchange for thin coin, Maggie asked him. His answers at first were distant. He was from Switzerland. For years, he took Europeans on tours of Florida, which is why he speaks with an American accent.

  He began to ask her about her work and recommend particular articles. Finally, she said, ‘This is silly. Let’s meet for lunch and talk.’ He insisted on going to the cheap Indian across the road, and paying. That moved her. He was still distant. ‘I paint landscapes,’ he said, making direct eye contact with his Tandoori. ‘When I have the money for canvases.’ Where does he live? ‘I have no family here,’ was his only answer. Something came loose inside her, and she wanted to say then, ‘You can come and live with me.’

  That is what she intends to say to him this morning. But something in her large black coat, the Adventure prospectus, the red jacket is rearing up. Even in rehearsal, the words skitter sideways as if avoiding a gaze.

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  58

  MR RICHARD MAYO

  Outward appearance

  Frizzy-haired, greying man in tweed jacket, tie and jumper. Sits focussing on something on the other side of the dark windows.

  Inside information

  An EFL teacher at Bruenwalt International College. He joined the staff in the early ’80s when the campus was located outside London and still taught humanities. Now ensconced in an old hospital, Bruenwalt sel
ls three-month diplomas in textile marketing, accounts computing, business English et al.

  What he is doing or thinking

  He’s scared. His face no longer fits; he is a ’70s left-over in a school full of young, bouncy Filipinos, Brazilians, Americans who do not identify with him.

  He recently sat on an interview board for a new post. George, a contract teacher he likes, was up against the Head of Department’s favourite, an MBA with a rodent’s cute, sharp face.

  His Head lied. He said George had been fired from his last job. Last night, Richard rang George’s old employer. Far from being fired, he had been asked to stay, but moved to London to be with his wife.

  So how does Richard say to his boss: you slandered someone? Does he say, smiling carefully, uh, you were wrong about George? Only to be told, that would have made no difference to the board’s final choice? Does he tell George and violate confidentiality? Rocking the boat loses jobs.

  Richard thinks of his divorce, the children grown up. He snatches up his battered brown briefcase to get off at Waterloo and thinks: fuck it.

  He’ll take it to the Director if he has to.

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  59

  MR IGOR KLIMOV

  Outward appearance

  Huge, moustached, pink-cheeked, middle-aged. Dusty jeans, tartan shirt under short leather jacket, work boots. Sits holding a large plastic bottle of Diet Tonic. Smiles dimly.

  Inside information

  Russian visitor working illegally in Britain. Until yesterday worked with his mate Dimi for a Lebanese builder. The Lebanese worries constantly, keeps checking, keeps changing his mind. This leads to fights. Igor speaks English badly; so does the Lebanese. There was shouting. Poor Dimi, who Igor will admit has all the brains, was left out of the conversation. Dimi started drawing on plywood to communicate, which made the Lebanese even more angry. He said he would be happy to have Dimi but not Igor.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Igor is drinking gin and tonic. He takes a swig of tonic and trades it with Dimi for the bottle of gin. In his current state this makes him feel sophisticated. It is several steps up from potato-derived fermentations.

  They have been drinking all night. What else is there to do? Igor has a wife whom he loves dearly. He doesn’t want any of the women in the clubs, but he can speak English and chat them up. Dimi is athletic, tiny with a prick as long as his forearm, hates his bitch of a wife but can talk to no one, which leaves him in clubs hopping up and down in frustration.

  Igor loves Dimi. Dimi is his only friend, his partner. The gin and the tonic mingle sizzling in his mouth. As long as Dimi can’t speak English, he’ll need Igor.

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  60

  MR DIMITRI BELINKOV

  Outward appearance

  Small, slim but muscular. Short brown hair, jeans, duffel-coat, missing teeth. Trades with his neighbour a bottle of gin for a bottle of tonic.

  Inside information

  A Russian visitor working illegally as a labourer with Igor Klimov. Mr Belinkov is a qualified engineer who once worked for the Army. In Russia, Igor merely supplies the brawn. Here, he has another role to play. He speaks the English and sticks to Dimi. Dimi understands enough English to know their last employer, Mr Haviri, would have kept him on without Igor.

  The two of them once drove to Afghanistan to buy shirts. They drank all the way. You could sell the shirts back home at half the normal price and still pay for the trip. And the drink.

  What he is doing or thinking

  That Igor is a leech. Dimi laughs to see the huge stupid peasant who has succeeded in sticking to him and taking half his money. It is Dimi who solves the problems, works out dimensions, thinks of new ways to do the same job more simply.

  He laughs because what else can you do? At the factory back home, the orders dried up. The Bosses gave the partnership a six-month holiday—with no pay.

  Dimi once played football, he had ambitions to be a professional sportsman. He studied engineering. He had hopes. Now he is a spectacle, without respect, drunk on an early morning train. The faces of the other passengers pass him in a swirl and Dimi has no idea what to do, which way Out might be.

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  61

  MR MICHAEL JEROME

  Outward appearance

  Tall black man in charcoal clothes and thick-soled shoes. He slumps against the partition, glaring at the drunks next to him.

  Inside information

  Works as a bus driver at Waterloo depot. Suffering from severe sleep deprivation.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Michael has lived in the same flat in Camden Town for fourteen years. It is right on Camden Road on a corner over a shoe shop. Everything should be fine. But what happens? The shoe shop puts in a burglar alarm, doesn’t it, they have so many thieves. Right outside his bedroom window. So Michael and his wife wake up night after night with the bloody alarm ringing. And nobody comes. They just leave it.

  So it’s four in the morning. The thing has gone off once before that night. He rings up the police who say they can’t do anything if the person with the key won’t wake up and come around. Finally, they get the owner in but he slips away before there can be words. Everything settles down, it’s all quiet and Michael just about gets to sleep when the alarm goes off again.

  Something snapped. Michael went to his tool box and leaned out of his window and hit the bloody thing with a hammer. He banged and banged and finally knocked the thing off the wall. They’ll know it’s him, but they should have fixed it.

  Michael snuggles down into himself and dreams of caressing the smooth flesh of his wife, ample like clouds in heaven. He sinks down into deep and cushioned sleep.

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  62

  MRS MARY AL-MASUD

  Outward appearance

  Mid-fifties, old-fashioned East Ender viewed through a lens of money. Cream-coloured coiffed hair, pleated skirt, sky blue shoes. Wide watery eyes and a child’s sigh.

  Inside information

  A bigamist. A Kuwaiti businessman simply made Mary his second wife. They met at a Star Trek convention. He was dressed as Spock. She kept the ears as a souvenir.

  Her neighbours firebombed her house. She now lives in Bayswater with the other wife, whom she quite likes if only she spoke English. Mary brought with her eight cats and her dog, Muffin.

  She fills her days. She takes opera singing lessons. The other wife listens politely as Mary performs ‘Baubles Bangles and Beads’ and ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. Now going to the Multi-Use Resource Centre near Lambeth North where she does work for the Asian Women’s Group who seem not entirely sure why she is there.

  Mary walks through life as if on water. Her husband, who loves magic and fantasy, finds this delightful.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Muffin thinks he’s a cat. Nobody other than Mary seems to care. Muffin’s hair is starting to fall out. He doesn’t bark but tries to miaow. This results in a kind of extended coughing fit.

  Her husband’s relatives seem to think there is something amusing about it. Mary has tried talking to the ladies in the Asian Women’s Group, but couldn’t quite make herself understood. She is most concerned Muffin should fall in love with a cat, and…you know.

  Someone might firebomb the house again.

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  63

  OLIVER MASKEY

  Outward appearance

  Small sixteen-year-old. The usual backwards baseball cap and baggy trousers, but instead of trainers he wears tiny, tight climbing shoes.

  Inside information

  Oliver is a thief. His mum is too. She has special big knickers. She gets past detectors by switching bags or lining them with foil. A friend of the family, Jake, organizes teams of underage lads who break into offices, force open computers and leave with the chi
ps. If they’re caught, the lads are too young to convict. Oliver helps out. He’s on his way to the Elephant to spend some cash on games.

  What he is doing or thinking

  He’s just realized that the woman sitting opposite saw him on last night’s job. Slowly Oliver slips off the baseball cap: he was wearing it then. The woman chews on her hair, stares ahead, and he realizes she’s out of it.

  Poor cow, she’s still scared. Don’t you think we’re scared too? Why do you think we shit all over the floor? Oliver wonders if she found it, what she thought. She could be his sister. Come on, come on, come on, he tells the train.

  At Lambeth North, the doors are on her side. Oliver waits until the last moment before darting through them. On the platform, he’s safe. The woman sits with her back to him and runs a shivery hand across her face.