The Radical (Unity Vol.1)

by Lynch, S. M.

  Camille chose my attire well (a violet skirt suit) and miraculously everything fitted perfectly. It felt as if what few creative people remained in the world all sat in that place, saying goodbye to the owner of one of the last bridal couture houses. The funeral guests’ whispers, rustling and breathing was deafening; the house of worship was that full. Even the sun had broken out, shining through the ancient stained-glass windows so that magnificent rainbows fell across Eve’s casket at the front.

  A protestant minister oversaw the service and seemed overwhelmed to see so many in his church. No hymns were sung – but there was one lengthy reading from the bible about love: 1 Corinthians 13, vv1-13.

  A tear crept into the corner of my eye and I failed to hold it back. The words moved me greatly. I had never heard anything biblical recited in such impressive surroundings before and the acoustics inside seemed to reverberate and accentuate its meaning.

  I sensed Eve was sending a message from beyond the grave. A sense of dread washed over me and I knew something terrible must have happened to Tom for Eve to have been separated from him. He was obviously a man of substance and decency and Eve would not have let him go easily.

  When it came to the eulogy, Camille took to the pulpit with a typed bit of paper in her hands:

  ‘Friends of Eve… I hope that my words express what we’re all feeling today. Sad, but thankful. As you know, she didn’t have much family. Her only remaining relative is Seraphina, sitting at the front there, her great-niece.’

  I sank in my seat. Thanks Camille.

  ‘Despite her lack of blood relatives, she always felt that the people who came through the doors of her shop became members of her family. Eve wasn’t married herself, but she loved the idea of marriage and provided many of her customers with sage advice. She would go the extra mile to get to know her customers personally and would know soon enough what kind of gown would suit a lady within minutes of meeting them.’

  I noticed a woman sitting by my side, nodding in agreement with everything Camille said. The eulogy continued, ‘The only thing I feel sad about today is that I wish I’d known Eve longer. The past 20 years under her tutelage have been remarkable, but another 20 wouldn’t have gone amiss. Despite this, we should celebrate Eve’s long life. She was eternally happy, sometimes temperamental, but always of good humor!’

  A few laughs were raised among the congregation.

  ‘Many people who knew her as a young woman have passed, and one thing I’ve always wondered is, what was she like? I would love to have known her then. She was still so vibrant in later life, who knows what prowess she had back then as a younger woman? I imagine she began life fighting, as she certainly went out fighting, refusing to give in to old age until she ultimately had to.

  ‘She wasn’t someone who boasted about her abilities. She didn’t go to a renowned design school or study underneath one of the world’s greats. She was a self-taught oddity, someone who was born to be great, someone who had an eye for detail. She had an extraordinarily steady hand, a generous heart and a god-given way with a sewing machine. She knew exactly how important a woman’s wedding day was. She got it right every time. She touched so many people’s lives and that is what she called her life’s work. Working with her was like embarking on the greatest ride of your life, never wanting to get off. I only have one thing left to say… thank you for being you, Eve.’

  With that, Camille wiped a few tears from her eyes and was helped from the stand by a member of her staff. Then everyone got up to applaud.

  A shudder ripped through my body and tears fell without shame. Grief swamped me and I couldn’t move. What was I to Eve? Just her great-niece. Just someone who harassed her late at night with calls about my worthless, spent existence. I felt if I stood up, I would fall straight back down. This interference in the way I lived and survived was unacceptable. I was beginning to feel.

  How did she dedicate her life to the institution of marriage when she herself had once found such great love, only to lose it? I could see so many gaps in Eve’s story. I had so many questions still to be answered.

  When the congregation emptied, Camille and I were the only ones left behind. Without words, she helped me up and we walked away in knowing silence.

  Eve’s wicker casket was quietly interred without pomp or ceremony. Camille and I were the only ones in attendance, along with a couple of members of the bridal house. I wanted to bawl my eyes out but I restrained myself, simply allowing silent tears to wash away the make-up that was fast sliding off my face. Camille’s words swam around my mind and I tried to maintain some dignity and grace, but anyone present would have seen my body convulsing and my shoulders unable to stay upright.

  A street party on the Shambles was the wake. Pianists, violinists, fiddlers, guitarists and trumpeters played upbeat music. Dozens of tables were piled with cakes and sandwiches. Camille noticed my shocked look and explained, ‘I know and what’s even more amazing is that Eve organized everything herself a few months ago.’

  As soon as we got to the shop Camille was dragged away to attend to some matter and I sat alone on the doorstep, surveying the scene. Hundreds of women and men larked about, dancing to the music and drinking the abundance of cheap wine that someone had brought along by the caseload. It was not like a funeral had just taken place. This was totally indulgent – and was Eve’s doing for sure. I watched the people and wished I shared some of their carefree ways. As I veered into thought, all feeling of fear or trepidation about what the future held evaporated. I felt only sadness.

  Sat picking at my plate of food, I still wondered what could have possibly happened to tear Tom and Eve apart. Whatever occurred must have affected Eve greatly, only she obviously never showed it. The conjecture was hurting my brain so much I could barely concentrate on anything else. I had been naïve in thinking I knew everything about a woman who had lived 80 years.

  ‘Seraph!’ It was Camille, standing behind me at the door, holding a large envelope in her hand.

  ‘What?’

  I noticed she looked pensive.

  ‘I just received a recorded delivery… it must be the will,’ she revealed, her eyes foretelling some revelation I probably didn’t want to hear. ‘Let’s go inside and read it together.’

  In Camille’s office, she held the papers in her hands. She had already read through them herself, dabbing a few tears from her eyes while she absorbed it all.

  ‘Well?’ I demanded, waiting impatiently.

  ‘The shop she left to me,’ she said, scanning the pages, ‘she also gave some to charity and the rest she left to you…’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Yes, everything.’

  I felt totally unable to move. One cold, solitary drop fell from my eye without any encouragement or provocation. Camille covered my hand with her own but it didn’t offer any comfort.

  Eve remembered me.

  ‘…it amounts to 2.5 million ED.’

  That figure seemed like crazy talk. I looked her in the eye and she nodded. It was true.

  ‘I don’t understand… how she could have had so much wealth and have stayed in this shit hole!’

  I was almost screeching. Camille shot me a look and I threw her an apologizing one in return.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You do know. You just won’t tell me.’

  Damn I needed liquor.

  ‘She left you this letter,’ Camille held it out in front of me.

  The envelope was luxurious, made from some sort of thick recycled paper, fastened shut with a strange wax seal. I handled it carefully.

  I watched Camille going through the rest and she explained, ‘The lawyers are already working on getting you the funds… according to this accompanying note.’

  Confused and still disbelieving, I felt a little numb… as if money and bricks and mortar, and security for the rest of our lives, was no recompense for the fact that Eve was actually gone.

  I’d had no time to prepare for her loss, y
et she had gone about organizing her will and that mad wake outside. No-one could have realized how her death would affect them, least of all me.

  I wanted to know more, to learn everything, to have more than just a load of money and an inexplicably annoying love letter suggesting a family torn apart! Remembering the paper in my hands, I realized, there has to be more in here. Thinking quickly, I turned to Camille.

  ‘Are you gonna be okay? It’s just that, I think I might go up to the flat and read this letter. I think I might need to be alone to do that.’

  ‘Of course, you go up.’

  The shop assistants came rushing in with bottles of bootleg liquor and I noticed the wake had turned into a full-on party out on the street. As they engulfed Camille and beckoned her to join them, I looked on as she nodded in reply to each person who asked whether she had been given the shop. It seemed no surprise to the staff that she had been left in charge.

  Suddenly it occurred that I didn’t want anyone to know about my windfall, and as soon as the notion crept into my mind, Camille returned to the office.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone… if you feel like it later, come and enjoy the party with us. Eve would have wanted you to.’

  With that, Camille went to the door, turned back, smiled and was gone. I went upstairs, lifting my legs as if they weighed several tons each.

  My heart was pumping, I was sweating and feeling extremely nervous. I knew the contents of the letter might be difficult to stomach. I poured a shot of disgusting sherry into a glass and sat on the sofa. I felt like the moment had to be savored and I didn’t want to rush it.

  However, one figure kept whirling around my head. 2.5million. 2.5million. 2.5million. That kind of figure could buy as much property and security as I could ever need, any lifestyle I could envisage. It just didn’t seem right somehow.

  Everyone hopes that one day they might hit the jackpot. In that moment, I resented the responsibility. I hadn’t earned it. Those daydreams about winning the lottery were always broken by the thought that I loved my job.

  The desire not to rush the situation was being overshadowed by the promise of revelations. I tried taking deep breaths, but that didn’t work, so I lay back and attempted to picture myself on some far-flung tropical island.

  Calm and serenity.

  Another drink later and I decided I was good to go. I carefully pulled open the seal on the envelope, not wanting to tear even a millimeter, such was its importance. I pulled out the contents and discovered several sheets of thin, almost weightless writing paper.

  Okay, this is probably about to get weird...

  However, I found most of the pages were blank. Only the first page had anything scrawled on it – a few words and only one message:

  “Go back to New York straight after the funeral. Answers await you there. Eve x”

  PART TWO

  Vis Unita Fortior

  CHAPTER 12

  Guilt ate away at me as I rode the train back to Manchester; I hadn’t said a proper goodbye to Camille. It was just that Eve’s words seemed to be telling me to get back to New York as a matter of urgency. I guess a part of me also wanted to be out of my aunt’s lair too.

  I didn’t want to return to that city. I hated it for holding Eve captive, though it had been the unassuming centre of UNITY ’s activities. I needed a change of scenery, having been so shaken by Eve’s revelations.

  Camille was strange and yet, I felt an affinity with her close to what I had with Eve. I expect part of me didn’t want to say goodbye because it might have meant more tears, more apologies, and awkward promises we might not be able to keep. If it was meant to be, we would see one another again. Right then, I had only one thing on my mind.

  My safety and the emissaries tracking me weren’t a worry. If they got me, so what? Camille would just bail me out, right? I wasn’t thinking about anything but finally screwing over Officium. I could almost taste it. Eve’s story had given me the edge, I felt sure of it. I had the greatest impetus of all knowing they had ruined her life. I wanted revenge. Before it was a puzzle, now it was personal. I simply needed to get back home, because that’s what Eve had told me to do. If anyone had been given the gift of foresight, it was her. Even in death, I was treating her like she was the only person I could trust. Yet I knew the resistance would somehow be looking after me, too.

  It was 5:17pm when I jumped off the train, only to discover all transatlantic flights had been cancelled. The news networks confirmed a freak hurricane was loitering around the East Atlantic and nothing and nobody would be going anywhere fast.

  These storms are becoming more frequent, I thought, but this was just my luck.

  Checking into one of those dreadful chain hotels again was out of the question, so it seemed my only option was to wait it out in the lounge until the situation changed.

  When it got to 9pm, though, I was losing the will to live. I had my xGen booted up and was trying to hide the content from other psychotic travelers, who all looked as crazed as I felt. It was definitely time to head to a bar, where I could find a corner to hide in.

  I found an imitation, old-fashioned pub tucked away in a quiet nook of the airport, where I ordered a coffee and some kind of questionable meat pie from the selection screen at the side of my booth. It entered my head that my trip had ended up costing me a bomb – the airfare, all those expensive meals. That was when a little voice told me to shut the fuck up. I was an heiress. Nevertheless, it didn’t escape me that eating out in England had become an expense few people ‒ and I really mean few – could afford. For some, the meat pie was a week’s wages.

  The place was dank and dingy, with a lurking clientele and synth-jazz blaring in the background – it was just the right kind of establishment in which to disappear.

  Within minutes, I heard a low rumbling and a green light flickered above the hatch next to me. I retrieved my order from inside and a deep sense of relish settled in my veins while the smell of pastry crust and baked meat filled the air. What lowlifes were in there with me looked up with envy so I started downing my food, willing the storm to pass so I could be on my way.

  Two coffees later, however, I was losing my mind. If I rested my head on the table in front, my eyes began falling. If I remained awake, I saw people staring at me and shifting into multiples. I knew I was still battling a level of exhaustion that was unnatural and my mind was starting to play tricks. I had also just buried my aunt. It was no use. I would have to check into some godforsaken hotel again.

  I swiped my U-Card at the door to pay my bill but as I left, a man caught my eye for a brief moment. He was entering just as I was walking out. Like me, he wasn’t anything like that pub’s usual clientele. The people in there were thin and wan, living off beer and scraps, possibly only moving from their seats to answer the call of nature, or secure some shady international transaction.

  This man entering as I was leaving was a huge specimen of man, no doubt someone living on the edge of what Officium deemed excusable, so not so different to me. His dark-brown eyes caught me off guard. He seemed familiar somehow, but I was seeing three of him. I needed to put my head down on a pillow, even if that pillow was only an inch thick and smelt like bleach. However, I couldn’t help but notice him watching me leave. He obviously knew my face, but then most people seemed to share that expression. I sensed there was something he wanted to ask me when he opened his mouth to say, ‘Excuse–’

  I was away quickly and turning towards the hotel, too tired, too spent to care whether he was someone I might consider a mark or not. His voice echoed behind me as I crashed on a painfully uncomfortable bed, fully clothed, exhaustion sweeping over me so hard I didn’t know what had hit me.

  The next day I contemplated heading back to York, but the thought of that bridal house made me feel a little ill. I dreaded the things that had taken place within its walls; the times Eve had probably cried for her old life to return. A son or daughter or pet running round the place at one point, thei
r ghosts haunting her as she was left behind, alone. Camille was much more than a confidante to my aunt. She was more a sister. If I hadn’t heard Camille fucking some woman during the night I spent in Eve’s quarters, I might have thought my aunt and she had something more between them.

  It was clear that Camille was just a woman of physical need and even in the wake of her best friend’s death, she had felt the urge to fulfill it. For me, that urge was quashed decades before. Ulrich and I were once lovers, I suppose. Well, we fucked. He arrived at my apartment, took his clothes off and screwed me into oblivion, before we exchanged pleasantries and he left. That was the only way I could cope with it. He ended up wanting more but I told him I didn’t have room in my life for that – and the disappointment in his eyes is what deterred me from seeking anything like that again. It had gotten to the point where I only fucked for quick release, or if I wanted something from someone.

  I spent hours laid on that bland hotel bed trying to arrange my thoughts but it was difficult to make sense of everything I had learned about Eve. My parent’s deaths had to be linked to the cause, there was no other explanation. But how, why? It was all too much to absorb and would mean admitting everything I had ever perceived about Mom and Dad was wrong.

  When I had eaten everything from the mini-bar, I decided there was nothing for it. Reality check. I took out my xGen. Despite providing 2YB, it still ran very slowly with the amount of crap I kept stored on it. The guy who made it for me shouldn’t have given me so much space I guess, because I never deleted a single thing in case it came in handy for future use.

  The number of messages in my various inboxes was insane. I answered some of the ones from Eve’s accountants and lawyers, avoiding anything work-related. My mind was still foggy enough to put me off dealing with any of that. I was non compos mentis. Perhaps my boss would give me some leave, I mean I was grieving, but that was not what really bothered me. What did more than anything else was the fact that my aunt had been married and never told me. She may have had kids.