The Quarantined City

by James Everington

  Now, he thinks, pulling out the slip of paper Jaques had given him, let’s see if this was made up.

  He heads towards the address where Boursier apparently lives.

  ~

  “Come in then,” Georgia says. “I would say I’ll open a bottle but hey, way ahead of you. Where have you been? Fellows?”

  Fellows doesn’t reply as he walks into Georgia’s flat; he’s still feeling a sense of both anti-climax and unreal excitement. Has he really just met Boursier, after all these months of rumour?

  “Are you okay?” Georgia says. “Here, take this.” She hands him a glass of wine. “Fellows, hello? You know that quiet sensitive schtick isn’t going to work on me, right?”

  “I met him today,” Fellows says. “Met Boursier.”

  “Woah,” says Georgia. “Well c’mon then, drink up and tell me about it. It can’t be that bad. Was he a twat? I bet he was a twat. You should never meet your idols you know...”

  Fellows sits down, takes a big gulp of the wine, which is warm as if Georgia hasn’t bothered chilling it before she opened it. His hands leave a black smudge on the glass like evidence. He stares at it blankly.

  “C’mon,” Georgia says, “tell me. Was he some weird pretentious type? Or someone famous from the unity government in disguise or... shit.” Her face falls. “He isn’t real is he?” she says in a flatter voice.

  This finally rouses Fellows.

  “What?”

  “Boursier, he’s not really real. When you saw him he was your spit wasn’t he? Your doppelgänger. And you realised those stories...”

  “Georgia what are you talking about? He didn’t look anything like me.”

  “What? Oh.” She laughs, takes a big gulp from her glass. “Then tell me, you twat! Fuck’s sake.”

  “And I told you I don’t write anymore.”

  “Okay, okay. So what did he look like then?”

  “Average, really... nondescript.”

  “You sure you’re not writing again, with that descriptive flair?”

  “Piss off,” he says, finally laughing. Georgia is almost exactly what he needed; she doesn’t change. “But seriously, it was like there was nothing about him to describe. No distinguishing features. He just seemed to shrink into the background. He’d make a great spy.” He’s making light of how unnerving the encounter seems in retrospect, how it feels like after a few days he might not remember Boursier at all. Already it is slipping from him.

  “Can’t you ever just give a straight answer? Did he have black hair and a curly moustache? Bald as a coot and bad teeth?”

  Fellows laughs and shakes his head.

  “Okay, well what did you two talk about? Can you remember that?”

  Fellows empties his glass and puts it down on the table.

  “There are a few things I need to tell you first Georgia,” he says, somewhat nervously. “Fill me up will you?” He pauses, then plunges in: “First, there’s something in my house...”

  ~

  They’ve nearly emptied the second bottle by the time he finishes. He has told her all of it—the ghost, the way he is sure Boursier’s stories are changing the quarantined city in ways only he notices, even his humiliation at the hands of Leianna. Georgia didn’t interrupt once and when he falls silent her face is different to how he has ever seen it before.

  “Well?” he says anxiously when she doesn’t speak. “Going to call me a twat?”

  “Why do you think I spend all day in my flat?” Georgia says, not meeting his eye. “I never used to be like this, when I was with her. Not until I met you.”

  “What? I don’t...”

  “I even get the wine delivered you know. Food and booze, brought by some crippled kid who has to struggle up all these flights of stairs—he’s scared of the lift—and I give him double what it’s worth.”

  “Why?” Fellows says quietly. Georgia gets up from the bowed sofa and looks out at the night falling over the city, isolating it further. The moon is the other side of the low clouds and it is like a dome of darkness is gradually contracting with them in its centre.

  “Last time I went outside,” Georgia says, “it was different. The city, the streets. Too wide, too big. I went to try and find her place, you know, to get some of my things back, and I couldn’t find it. I’d walked there a thousand times, but I couldn’t find it. And the people I asked for directions were dressed oddly, and looked at me like I was speaking a different language. I gave up and just wanted to get back home—it took me hours, Fellows, I couldn’t even retrace my route. I thought I’d never get back.”

  Fellows knows better than to say out loud that his friend has no doubt staggered drunkenly about for hours before. For what else could it be? He’s never seen the city change as much as Georgia describes and something in him shrinks from thinking that it could be altered to such a degree.

  “Is it different each time?” he says. “Or is it... set in its new...”

  “I don’t know, do I? I’ve not gone out again.” Georgia laughs with no humour. “When I look out from here it all looks as I remember. But if I went out... who knows? Too scared to find out I suppose. And what’s so special out there anyway? So yeah I believe you.”

  “Good, I...”

  “You still might be going crazy about the ghost though,” Georgia says with something like her normal smile. “Even I’m not crazy enough to have seen ghosts.”

  “Just the one,” Fellows says. “But that’s the reason you see. Why I wanted to find Boursier.”

  “What? I don’t get it.”

  “I went to his place; it’s not far from here, an apartment above a liquor shop...”

  “Good man.”

  “He invited me up and it was completely lacking in personality, like he’d just moved in, despite all the dust. Just a bed, a desk, some books...”

  “And your place is much different, Fellows?”

  “I said I’d read his stories, trying to get a reaction, but he didn’t seem bothered. A writer who doesn’t want validation? Now that’s odd. So I told him what I thought, that reading his stories was changing things and he... he shrugged.”

  “He shrugged? Like he already knew?”

  “Or like it was unimportant,” Fellows says. He is aware he isn’t really describing the encounter very well, but his memories of it are hazy, the particulars blurred. “I didn’t know how to react, so I just blurted it out. How I wanted him to write me a story, to get rid of the ghost in my house...”

  “Wait, what?”

  “That’s why I wanted to find him.”

  “That sounds like a bad idea Fellows. Even by your standards.” Georgia sighs. “But what do I know about ghosts? So what did he say? Will he do it?”

  “He said... he said he already had.”

  Fellows pulls out one of the manuscripts he bought from The Echo Bookshop and has been carrying around all day.

  “This is one of the stories I bought yesterday.”

  “But how could he...?”

  Fellows shrugs hopelessly.

  “I’m scared Georgia. Not that it won’t work, but that it’s a trick and it changes...” He gestures towards the black veil of the window. What if it is hiding a different city to that they know should be there? “But,” he says, “I don’t think it works if someone else reads the story. Or at least it’s not nearly as strong.”

  “Oh no, Fellows...” Georgia begins.

  “Can you read it for me Georgia?” Fellows says. “First?”

  He holds out the story to her, and looking like it might stain her hand, Georgia takes it.

  It is entitled A Lack Of Demons.

  PART FOUR

  A LACK OF DEMONS

  “I don’t think you should read this,” Georgia says.

  Fellows is barely through the door to Georgia’s apartment before she is waving the manuscript in his face.

  “Christ, what’s got into you?” he says, his tiredness making him irritable. He has waited as long as he could befo
re coming, knowing Georgia is not an early riser, and indeed she has answered the door in her dressing gown. Maybe that is why she is so abrupt with him but given the morning he has had—kicked out of the Carousel!—Fellows doesn’t too much care.

  “You’ve read it? When?” Fellows says, trying to take the sheafs of paper from Georgia’s hand—she moves them out of his reach.

  “Last night after you left. But look, Fellows...”

  “Then it didn’t work when you read it.”

  “Huh?” Georgia sits on the familiar, sagging sofa and gestures for Fellows to do the same.

  “The ghost was there this morning,” he says as he does so, not looking at her.

  “Look,” Georgia says, taking his hand—he knows she must be serious by the gesture; she is normally so careful not to risk false signals after the way he’d come onto her the night the quarantine had been declared.

  “Why read it?” she continues. “It’s not a spell; Boursier isn’t a magician. Why do you want to change things out there?” She gestures towards the window, the effect of which is lessened by the fact that the curtain is still tightly drawn. But Fellows knows what she means—why risk changing any more of the city which is, despite the quarantine, still a decent place to live? Georgia moans about not being able to get decent wine except for silly money from the blackmarket, but she is not one of the protesters.

  “But Georgia,” he says, “you won’t notice any changes. You think we’ve always driven on the left; you think my cat’s always been called Mogwai.”

  “But that’s worse, don’t you see? That’s like it’s changing me.” Despite her evident hangover Georgia’s eyes are intense on his under the disheveled line of her fringe. “Of course it could be you’re just fucking crazy. Twat.” She looks away from him and he can see she is struggling with a feeling of unease.

  He has told her about the ghost but wasn’t able to explain why it affected him so much. Why the thought of it wanting to touch him scares the hell out of him; it seems to him such a touch will lead to a rupture as fundamental as that caused by Boursier’s stories. Why he thinks such a thing, when the damned ghost is barely even there he doesn’t know; the ghostly child has so little effect on the world around it even George—Mogwai—can’t sense it.

  “I’m going to read the story, Georgia,” he says quietly.

  “Fine,” she says tightly, giving it to him. “But you’re not reading it here.”

  “Fair enough.”

  There’s a silence such as there never normally is between them, broken only by the sound of accordion music and shouting from the streets and alleys of the old town below.

  “Something to drink?” Fellows says eventually.

  “Bit early,” Georgia says, “even for me.” Her voice is without its usual sparkle and she is refusing to meet his eye.

  “Did you like it?” Fellows says. “The story?”

  “No,” Georgia says. “No. It didn’t make any... It was like déjà vu, you know? But of stuff that wasn’t real.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “No, I mean... There might have been ghosts or spirits in it, but that’s not what I mean. It’s not set anywhere real...”

  “I know, I know, you don’t like escapism,” Fellows says.

  “No, I like my fiction to be set right here.” She waves her hand towards the window, but doesn’t look at it. “But don’t worry, it has got some exorcist chap in it, so it will no doubt do the trick for you. Not that I believe in it all, mind. But if I did.”

  “Sure, if you did,” Fellows says, relieved that the weird tension between them seems to be lifting. He yawns; without his usual coffee he feels lethargic, feels the threat of a headache hanging over him like storm clouds in the sky.

  “Christ,” Georgia says, “you’ll set me off. Look, piss off out of here will you, I’m not even awake. I’m not even dressed.” The fact that he doesn’t know where he can go must show on Fellows’ face, for Georgia giggles at him. “You’ll be fine, it’s not even raining anymore. At least the fishing boats will be able to get out again... Hey, it wasn’t raining in Boursier’s story either—spooky.”

  “Piss off,” Fellows laughs.

  “No, seriously though, come back later, Fellows. I’ve got something special being delivered. By my best friend the lame kid. So do piss off, but come back this afternoon, okay?”

  “You could always come with me,” Fellows says, “we could sit by the docks, have those spicy potatoes and watch...”

  “I... I can’t Fellows. No. I’m not... No.” When she looks down, when her voice goes so quiet, he wonders how much he actually knows Georgia and how much just her act. He thinks of her lost on the dark streets of the city, convinced they had changed around her, and he thinks of taking her hand and leading her home.

  “So what is this special something?” he says aloud.

  “A surprise. You’ll see. Now seriously Fellows, piss off.”

  ~

  His day had not started well.

  In the shuddering lift with nothing to distract himself Fellows tries to fight back the nausea he feels; he remembers seeing the ghost when he woke that morning, its eyes of solid white almost level with his. Its straining body had been held upright by dirty hands gripping his bed frame. Just centimetres away. When it had let go with one hand to reach towards Fellows, its other arm had not been able to support its weight and it had collapsed to the dusty wooden floorboards. Fellows assumes he had run from the room at that point, fled from the house, although he can’t remember doing so, or dressing or grabbing the Boursier stories on the way out. His next memory is of walking the streets of the old town, the winter sky above him as clear as the boy’s eyes, blankly watching. He’d felt like he was seeing himself from without—hurrying head down and clutching his bag under his arm—like a story in the wrong tense. He was deeper into the old town’s narrow streets than he normally went, well beyond Georgia’s apartment, and drawing looks from its inhabitants both suspicious and appraising. Nevertheless he had not turned round, as if eager to get somewhere—but beyond the old town was just the crumbling cliffs of the west bay and the high wall that separated the civic park and the Enclave from the rest of the city. Anyone who lived in the old town but worked in the Enclave had to take the long way round.

  Fellows must have turned round himself, for the next thing he remembers he was crossing the square towards the Carousel. Still facing the same direction, as if the quarantined city was a sphere or Möbius strip, and you could arrive back where you started from just by walking in a straight line.

  He glances up at Georgia’s apartment as he walks away from her building, but the curtain is still closed. He thinks of her, disorientated and wandering the streets of her own city for hours until she finally found her way back. Was that what he had been like this morning? But Georgia is an alcoholic (he supposes he should face up to that) whereas he had been in shock from seeing the ghost so close. He had been lost in his fears and got turned round and ended up back near the Carousel. That was all.

  Fellows had stared at the Carousel uncertainly; its windows opaque in the dull morning light. It will be fine, he thought, you’ll just have your usual coffee and pastry, read whatever nonsense the protestors have got up to in the paper, then you can go and see if Georgia has read the story or not. A Lack Of Demons—his life, after today. He crossed the small, deserted square and went inside the café.

  He was immediately aware that Leianna was back at work, and he saw by the way her posture stiffened that she had noticed him in one of the unpolished mirrors on the café’s walls. She didn’t turn to face him, and after a second Fellows headed past her towards the counter. It can’t have been too bad then, he thought, the Guardia can’t have given them too much trouble if she’s here and working. And he hadn’t wanted to create trouble for them (except maybe that stuck up prick Jaques), just to stop the idiots reading, memorising scripts, and who knew what other craziness in their efforts to lift the quarantine. Idiots, he th
ought, placing his usual order with Gregor behind the counter.

  He took his paper and found somewhere to sit, pretending to read but really waiting nervously for Leianna to bring his coffee. It will be fine, he thought again, they probably just asked her a few questions and that was it, we’ll probably have a laugh about it and...

  She brushed close to him as she placed the pastry in front of him, but only so she could whisper “you’re a fucking bastard,” in his ear as she did so. He remembered the things she had whispered to him in the grand house in the Enclave yesterday, and her later claims that it was all just scripted. He looked up to study the angry scowl of her face for further evidence of acting, that she liked him underneath. Her face was pale except for the dark smudges beneath her eyes; her gaze seemed held together only by contempt for him. He looked guiltily away and he remembered how he had looked away from the ghost’s eyes too, and that he had the same feeling of guilt, as absurd as that was.

  “I’ll just get your coffee, sir,” she said as she moved away, too loudly and satirically for people not to notice. She walked back to the counter and the interior of the café was hushed apart from the rustling of the newspaper in Fellows’s hands. A pause in the script, the audience waiting to see what she would say when she returned.

  The sudden noise of a car backfiring somewhere in the city, and the angry heckling of the gulls in response, seemed very loud.

  Leianna returned with his coffee, placing it in front of him without a word. Almost involuntarily, driven to it by the continuing silence, Fellows murmured her name as she was turning away.

  “What?” she said, and it was so quiet her voice was audible even to those in the back seats of the café.

  “About yesterday...” Fellows said, barely more than a mumble.

  “Yesterday, what happened yesterday?” Leianna said, her voice becoming louder and more brittle. “Oh yes, I was stuck in some windowless room for hours. They didn’t call it a cell, but it was. I was questioned, when I’d not broken the law! It was dark when I got home, my son was frantic, he’d tried to take his medication himself but couldn’t get the cap off. And all because some fucking idiot who wanted to get inside my single-parent knickers...”