Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne)

by Tom Pollock

  ‘And say what?’ Wires uncurled from Pen’s back and shivered their barbs like rattlesnakes, but her tone didn’t change. ‘I sent him there, Glas. I put the idea in his head. I gave him the means. I told him I could get him out – and I believed it too …’ She faltered, and then recovered herself. ‘Even the weapon that killed him was mine: “a spiked steel whip” that I bloody well dropped.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment and the memory of Canada Square rose up in front of her. The mind that she’d been so immersed in was gone. It was incomprehensible. She’d seen Paul’s personality from the inside; it was too big, too complex, to have just vanished like that. It was like hearing that the Atlantic Ocean had dried up. It was absurd.

  ‘I saw the broken glass and I knew something wasn’t right, but I just ignored it.’

  Gutterglass walked around until she was standing directly in front of Pen, her eggshells just inches from Pen’s eyes.

  ‘You asked me the wrong question.’ The statement came on a gust of rubbish-scent.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The other day, in the kitchen: you asked me why I was following Lady Bradley, but the question should have been, “Why does she let me?” After all, Her Ladyship did genuinely love the young prince, for all it was a brief time that she knew him, and he died in a conflict I sent him into under a – well, a massaged pretext.’ The woven drinking-straw muscles in Gutterglass’ face contorted to show how awkward that was.

  Pen snorted. ‘You conned Fil into attacking Reach before he was ready, and you sent Beth into the Crane King’s lair with a weapon that didn’t work: that about the size of it?’

  ‘Approximately,’ Glas conceded.

  ‘Yeah, Beth told me about that.’ She sighed. ‘She also told me that when Fil died, he knew what he was doing, that it was his decision, and however much she hated him for it, in the end, he was right.’

  She pressed her lips together in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. ‘One phrase about you sticks in the memory. I quote: “I trust that devious crap-mannequin about as much as a fairground coconut shy, but every lie she’s ever told seems to be based on faith, and it looks like her faith’s in me now”. And besides, Doctor’ – Pen shrugged – ‘you’re the only one who understands her symptoms. She needs—’

  ‘She needs you!’ The snapped interruption, coming from Gutterglass’ still smiling face, was like a crocodile surging out of calm water.

  Pen felt all the air rush out of her lungs.

  ‘Paul Bradley knew what he was doing when he volunteered too, Miss Khan,’ Gutterglass continued, calm but relentless. ‘And it was his decision. You weren’t the only one who saw that broken glass, nor the only one who gave him the means to be there. We all played our part. Your guilt is your problem; deal with it in your own time. Right now, Our Lady has just lost her father, so you give her what she needs to keep functioning.

  ‘What do you say to her?’ Gutterglass’ voice was incredulous. ‘You’re her best friend, Miss Khan, for Thames’ sake, what do you think you damned well say? You say you love her. You say you love her, and that you’re there for her, and that with your help she’ll get through this, and every other damned cliché that’s saved from being a banal platitude purely by the fact that it happens to be true!’

  Her eyes were ghostly white under the shadows of the trees. ‘And even if it isn’t true, you say it anyway, because she is all we’ve got. And if she falls now because you didn’t hold her up, all the barbed wire in the world won’t protect you from me.’

  Pen eyed her for a long time. ‘You think I’m afraid of you?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I sincerely hope you don’t have to be.’

  Pen didn’t answer but turned and hurried back up the hill towards the tower.

  Gutterglass’ voice carried across the night to her. ‘Miss Khan?’

  Pen paused.

  ‘I’ll be here when you’re done. There’s something I think you should see.’

  *

  Beth sat with her legs dangling over the side of the gantry. Her head rested against one of the tower struts and the steel was mercifully cool on her fevered cheek. She was facing away from Canary Wharf and the night-time city was a blanket of textured darkness spread out before her. Inch by inch, street by street, the rising sun drew that blanket back, steady as a mortuary nurse, revealing the city’s scars.

  Beth watched and felt … nothing at all. She didn’t know how that was possible, but she didn’t. She slumped down a little further. She’d forced herself to climb up here, even though her muscles felt like strings of cooked mozzarella and her hands and feet were slippery with sweat. She’d hoped that the sight of her devastated home might do something to shift the emptiness in her.

  Dad just died. She kept thinking it, over and over. She jabbed herself with it like it was a needle. Dad just died. He was gone, forever, shouldn’t she be crying or something? But she couldn’t. Her heart felt flat and grey as slate. She looked desolately inside herself and found nothing but a chill.

  She was an imposter. She was doing everything wrong. She even – and she knew this thought was nonsensical but she couldn’t shift it – thought she was letting him down.

  A frightening idea occurred to her: maybe she was broken. Permanently broken. Maybe her emotions had snapped like overstretched elastic. Maybe she’d never cry again, or maybe …? Her lumpen pulse quickened for a moment. Maybe her instincts were telling her something else. Maybe he wasn’t really gone forever; maybe there was a way back for him, under the rules of this asylum she’d helped usher into her world. Maybe her body knew something her exhausted mind didn’t and that was why the plumbing in her face was being so uncooperative.

  She held onto that hope for a moment that felt like a thousand years, and then she let it go.

  Somewhere, crammed down in her chest there was … something, a pressure. Maybe tears, maybe screams, maybe laughter; whatever it was, it was buried too deep for her to tell. She tried physically straining her muscles, but she couldn’t bring it up into her throat where she could voice it.

  A clanking sound brought her back to the present. A head wrapped in a black hijab and a wreath of steel wire appeared between her feet, leaning out from the gantry below.

  ‘Hey!’ Pen called up.

  ‘Hey.’

  More clanking, and then Pen settled herself in beside her.

  ‘Took your time,’ Beth said.

  ‘It’s quite the climb,’ Pen replied.

  Beth waved one overheated hand at her. ‘If the girl dying of non-specific urban fever can manage it, you can. What really kept you?’

  Pen chewed her lower lip for a second. ‘I thought you might want some time alone with your dad.’

  ‘You mean the body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s at the bottom of the tower.’ She looked at Pen. ‘I don’t know why people do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Confuse people with their bodies. I mean, look at me. My body’s changed beyond all recognition. It’s brick and slate and asphalt now. Am I those things? Am I brick, Pen?’ She felt a ferocity enter her gaze. The something in her chest shivered for a second, but then was still again.

  ‘No,’ Pen said quietly.

  Beth nodded. ‘You think I blame you.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘It wouldn’t be unreasonable.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘So do you?’

  Beth paused, then she ran a tile-clad finger through the air above Pen’s face, tracing the scars that discoloured her skin.

  ‘Do you blame me for these?’

  Pen hesitated.

  ‘Truthfully, Pen.’

  ‘No. A bit, once, maybe. I honestly don’t know.’

  Beth shrugged. ‘Me too.’

  Pen relaxed slightly, as if in acceptance. She opened her mouth, but it was still several seconds before she spoke again. ‘This is probably the dumbest question in the history of the universe, but how
do you feel?’

  Beth snorted, and car exhaust fumes blew out of her nostrils. ‘Like my dad just died. I mean, I assume. Having no previous experience, maybe this is just how every Wednesday morning feels when you have a city for a body, but I really, really hope not.’

  Pen didn’t say anything, but she put her hand into Beth’s and her arm around Beth’s shoulders and Beth let her.

  ‘He wasn’t ready, Pen,’ Beth said. ‘He was so scared. You saw the way he put away that chocolate. He used to do that at home all the time when he was nervous. You could judge his mood by how happy the guy who ran the sweetshop on the corner looked.’

  ‘I know,’ Pen said.

  ‘I feel like I’ll never go home again,’ Beth said suddenly. She didn’t know what had put those words in her mouth. For an instant the emptiness inside was replaced by sheer, paralysing fear. She felt very fragile, and very small.

  ‘You will,’ Pen said. ‘You are home, B. Home’s with me.’

  Beth tightened her grip on her best friend’s hand and then moved closer. ‘What am I going to do, Pen?’

  ‘Bury him.’

  ‘And then?’

  Pen didn’t answer.

  Beth looked up, and her green eyes lit up the painful sympathy in Pen’s face. ‘Carry on, right? Just carry on – because whatever happens, we only ever have two choices: carry on, or stop. And you can’t stop. You can never stop, because they have another name for that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pen said simply.

  ‘Tell you the truth?’ Beth said. The fear had ebbed away. The emptiness was back. ‘The truth is, I don’t think I feel anything at all.’

  ‘It’s okay, B,’ Pen whispered too, matching Beth, but there was none of Beth’s doubt in her voice. ‘I’ll still be here when you do.’

  Without letting go of Pen’s hand, Beth shifted until she could put her head into her lap. She shut her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. She concentrated on the way that feel of Pen’s hand and Pen’s pulse and Pen’s familiar smell were all telling her this place – halfway up a radio mast above a shattered city – this place was safe and indestructible. She didn’t know if she managed to convince herself, but she closed her eyes, and with the gentle weight of Pen’s hand on the back of her neck, she let exhaustion claim her.

  *

  The sun was high in the sky by the time Pen descended the tower again. She trudged back towards the wood feeling wrung out but alert.

  ‘How is she?’ Gutterglass asked the moment Pen stepped into shadow of the trees.

  The air in the wood smelled of spring, and Pen took a moment to fill her lungs with it before she answered, ‘Angry, but I don’t think she knows it yet.’

  The trash-spirit stepped forward. In the dappled light from the foliage she looked like some kind of nymph from an old story. ‘If she doesn’t know it yet, how do you?’

  ‘She’s Beth Bradley. You bet on angry, you never lose.’ Pen sighed. ‘She’s asleep, Glas, and given everything that’s happened in the last few days, I don’t think I can hold that against her. Now, what did you need to talk to me about?’

  Gutterglass inclined her head and stepped to one side, revealing something that flashed in the green-filtered light.

  Pen swallowed hard.

  A mirror, or at least a large fragment of one, was propped up against the base of a tree. Without another word, Gutterglass produced a test tube, crouched down, tilted her wrist and tipped a clear liquid onto the glass.

  The liquid trickled and ran over the surface of the mirror, but slowly, like oil rather than water. Pen watched the edge of the liquid advance. And behind that edge, with a suddenness that was like a trick of the eye, the glass itself disappeared.

  Pen crouched down in front of the mirror. She saw grass and trees, but no reflection of herself. She held out a hand, and a spring breeze from another city stirred the hairs on her skin.

  She looked up at Gutterglass, who smiled shyly around her bottle-cap teeth.

  ‘I finally cracked it,’ she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Later that day, Pen and Gutterglass, Astral the Blankleit and Ixia the Sodiumite, Petris and his clutch of battered Pavement Priests – all that remained of their little band – stood in a rough circle beneath the radio mast and watched while Beth dug.

  Pen had asked her five times if she could help. She and Gutterglass pleaded and argued with her – they’d pointed out she was too sick, she was in shock, she wasn’t up to it – but Beth held firm. So they watched as she struggled with the rusting spade that Glas’ rats had scavenged for her. Beads of oily sweat zigzagged through the tiny streets on her forehead and dripped into her eyes. Once she dropped the spade and Ixia levitated it up for her, but Beth bared her teeth so suddenly and hostilely that the Sodiumite girl dropped it again. Beth dragged it from the dirt and dug on. She worked for three hours while the sun sank towards the horizon. The two Lampfolk’s filaments were dim as embers and the sun’s last rays refracted through their skins to wash in rainbows over the grave.

  No one said anything until the very end, when Beth turned the last spade of earth back in on top of her father’s body. She bent, gathered a handful of soil and then, because there was nothing else to do with it, let it run back through her fingers onto the mound.

  ‘Goodbye.’ The word came so softly that Pen barely heard it. Beth closed her eyes and every light in every window in the city of her face went out. For a full minute she stood there, a black silhouette of a girl with the wind billowing her hoodie and tugging at her hair, then she turned and staggered out of the circle. Her gait was so unsteady Pen scrambled forward to help her, but Beth stopped her with an outstretched hand.

  ‘I’m okay, Pen. I can handle myself. Besides, you’ve got a date,’ she spoke in a steam-pipe whisper. Pen could see her lips pulling as she tried to smile. ‘You’d better go.’

  She shambled over to one of the tower’s legs, broke out her markers and began to draw. Astral knelt behind her to give her light. Pen knew that by the time the sun rose Paul Bradley’s image would smile out from the steel, better than any eulogy.

  Gutterglass walked over, but seemed to hesitate before offering Pen the glass phial. ‘As I showed you, Miss Khan,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t waste it, and make sure—’ She broke off, and Pen looked up at her.

  ‘Make sure what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Gutterglass said, still watching the phial. ‘Nothing you need to be told, I’m sure.’

  Make sure I come back? she wondered. Was that what you were going to tell me? Do you really think I’m ready to jump ship, Glas?

  Pen curled her fingers around the doorway drug. Carry on, or stop. That’s all you can do. And you can’t stop. They have a name for that.

  The Mistress’ wires uncurled under her and bore her upwards. First grass and trees and then roads and rooftops flowed away under her as she stalked across the city. Behind her, the radio mast, now the world’s tallest gravestone, reared black against a sepia sky. At first she felt dry and airless. She passed through London in a kind of stupor. If she’d been attacked, she would have been all but helpless; her mind was locked back in the moment the falling earth had blotted out Paul’s face.

  In the back of her head, though, in the quiet, a voice was whispering to her. At first she didn’t listen, but it kept on, over and over, and eventually she let herself hear it.

  Crack the window and beyond the sill

  Stands a certain steeplejill.

  It felt like a betrayal of Beth, but she couldn’t stifle the excitement building in her chest. Espel. She squeezed the phial in her right hand; she’d held it all the way here, too scared of it breaking to put it in her pocket. Espel. She even felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth: a real smile – one to welcome the world in, not a shield to keep it out.

  She was going to see Espel.

  She reached Frostfield a little after midnight. She hurried inside, her pulse loud in her ears. When she walked through the bathroom
door and saw a fog of breath already on the mirror, a handprint marked out inside it, it took all her self-control not to just hurl the phial to shatter against the glass. Instead, she carefully unscrewed the cap and, just as Glas had instructed her, stopped the phial with each of her trembling fingers in turn, barely wetting the tips with the doorway drug. This concoction was highly concentrated; she needed only a tiny bit. She had to make it last if she wanted to keep the way open.

  Pen swallowed. She felt like there were fireworks going off inside her ears. Her world shrank until it was just that mirror, and then just that handprint. She laid her own hand against it. The glass tingled against her fingertips where they touched it and then faded to cold mist. Pen closed her eyes, took a breath and pushed her hand forward.

  Warm fingertips met her own.

  The breath held in her throat bubbled out into a delighted laugh and she opened her eyes. The mirrored surface was shrinking away from her palm like water evaporating in a hot pan. Beyond it, in an exact inversion of the Frostfield bathroom, stood a lean blonde girl with tattooed cheeks, a crooked smile and a silver seam stitched in and out of the skin down the very centre of her utterly symmetrical face.

  Pen slipped her fingers through Espel’s and pulled her into her arms. She squeezed her as tightly as she could, breathing in her soap-and-slate smell, cherishing the warmth of her narrow body and the feel of her hair against her cheek.

  They stood like that for a long time, poised on the threshold between the city and its reflection.

  Eventually Espel whispered in her ear, ‘I’m happy to see you too, Countess, and the wire looks great, but the barbs are kind of killing the mood.’

  ‘Oh! Sorry!’ Pen let her go, searching anxiously for signs of broken skin, but she couldn’t see any. Espel pushed her fringe out of her eyes with her left hand. She wore the black hoodie and bandana that was the Faceless’ de facto uniform, and a broad grin. She looked really, really good.

  ‘Wow,’ Espel said slowly, taking Pen in. ‘So that story about how you got your scars was really true, huh?’