Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  ‘Wot’s this, then?’ e goes, shoving this poor half-starved doggy-cur at me I’d let loose in the kitchen n told to elp isself. Sigs sticks his hoity nose in the air n e goes, ‘Well, Melanie, I found this one rattling his fingers on the kitchen cupboards.’

  ‘Oh, oh, hoity-oinky oinky-toity,’ I says. ‘Is Lordship bought a pound of pork, e’d ave it fer is dinna, But the pound o pork picks up is fork – “Your Lordship is fer dinna!”’

  Nuther time e finds this birdy thing plucking its feathers orf in is bed, n e really went mad. Groink. ‘What’s this doin here,’ e screams, stamping about the place. ‘I ates birds, I ATES fuckin birds!’ e goes. They musta give im a fright once. Well, e’d a bin crosser if’ n e knew – that was one o Dag’s spies got shot down. Groink. Oink. Yeah, I does a bit for Dag – not as I’d tell my Sigs that, e ates that sort of thing. Makes me promise that I’ll have nothin to do with the resistance, but me, I don mind lying in a good cause.

  One thing’s true all right – it’s gettin’ dangerous oinky-out there. King Conor, e’s doin is best t’finish off the alfmen. Even my ol uman, e’s nearly copped it more’n once. Groink. Face like that, e got less chance’n I ave! E oinky-got caught up by Conor’s men, oinky-oinky, yus – stripped and searched, n they only let im go inna end cause the gibbets was all full up that day. Oh, yus, you got a harelip, you’re up to ang. They ave these public killings – butcherins, they call it. Only real umans c’n be executed, see. Sigs, e’s always on and on at me not t’go out, oinky-stay in, oinky-don do this, oinky-don do that. Scared I’ll get done, an I will too, groink, course I will! But watcha do, sit at ome when folks need elp? My Sigs, e loves me n I loves im, too, but e’s a selfish little git and I wouldn’t ave is little soul, not for all the money is sister sends im!

  Course e tries to make out e’s all equal rights, men an alfmen, oinky-all together, but, groink! I’ll believe that when e puts up a fight. Groink. I reckon e’s like a lot of em, they’d rather be tortured under Conor than ruled by alfmen. Stooopid monkeys. It’s their turn next! You ear these stories. This fella who used to be a general ad bird’s eyes, this other one as the back teeth of a goat. Back teeth’s a good un – you can’t oinky-see em! Course, it might be true, I mean it might be true. But as likely all made up, groink, so’s Conor as an excuse to chop oo e feels like.

  There was another pogrom coupla days ago and I nearly cashed in me chips. Oinky-aye – I was out onna street wiv this bloke – bigwig, big name, sent by Dag. I keeps tellin em Sigs is no good, give im time I says. But they wants im. E’s a big man once, they think e should be again.

  Anyow, we was caught in this pogrom. Groink. This bloke I was with reckoned e was hundred per cent uman, but oo knows these days? You got a mole on yer back, yer an alfman. We wuz walkin along – bang! There wuz gunfire. There was folk rushin about, runnin, screamin. Stalls agoin over, fruit and veg, meat in the dust, dogs abarking, dogs a-shoutin! An screamin n shoutin n brayin n gruntin-oinky-oinky, n everywhere those orange splashes.

  That’s the pogrom police. Other soldiers, they wears the colour o the ground, but this lot, it ain’t their job t’blend in, see. They want t’scare yer. Groink. It works, n’all. I tell yer, if I sees so much as an orange in the fruit bowl it sets me heart a-banging. So me and this fella, we runs roun keeping low, outta sight, while the soldiers is getting their ands on anyone wi too much fur, or ose nose was too wet. Old pig like I am, orta be an easy target, but oinky-old Mels, no one notices the oinky-likes of me. They jus think, poor old woman, she’s gonna die soon anyhow. Even but I was catching an eye or two, an I ad to duck outta sight behind a orse cart, an I coulda got ad, but the soldier wot saw me found a prettier littel pig t’poke. This fella a Dags – Armatage was is name – e jumps down, pulls me out and we made it the las fifty metres to our door. Oink! We pushes in through the door and straight off, there’s Sigs yelling down, ‘Melanie! Mel!’ E’s leaning over, gun in is and. E looks at me pantin away n e sez, ‘Melanie, you stupid cow…’

  ‘I’m a pig,’ I grunts. But I’d ad a shock. I thought I oinky-was gonna get me apple sauce that time, I did. Groink.

  ‘Do you wanna get picked up by those bastards?’

  ‘I don wanna stay sat in onna sofa like certain dunderheads I know.’ I sits meself down on the stairs, waitin fer me heart to stop dancin in me.

  ‘Pretty Molly went and strayed

  N Dunderhead saw red.

  Pretty Molly, she got laid

  While Dunder made the bed.’

  I told im.

  ‘Pretty Molly got bloody shot,’ e growls, all cross. E ates that one, cause o course e never gets laid isself. E’d bin moanin at me al mornin about it, and I said, ‘Get yersel out an you might find a nice girl.’ But e was right. Face like that, e ad no chance. Unless he went for a nice alfman girl, but e ain’t that much in favour of equal rights.

  Then me guest shows is face roun the corner of the stairs, and Sigs scowls like a dog. E sticks is face right out over the railings fer this bloke Armatage to see. Umans! I never knew a animal so vain about its looks.

  ‘Got your eyeful?’ e grunts. Then e turns is back and trots back to is sofa like it was the only friend e as in the ole wide world.

  6

  siggy

  It was a young bloke, quite good-looking just to rub the salt in. I turned my back, but I could hear Mel taking him up the stairs. I was furious. We’d agreed – no people back at the house. If she wanted to throw money away, who cares? But I didn’t want her little bits of crap littering the place up.

  She’s gonna give me a heart attack one of these days. She’s always taking risks. They’ve put a gibbet up in the market, rows of beams and girders built into the brickwork. It was obviously a long-term structure. That’s where they hang the corpses from, upside down by one foot, just like we used to do in the lift shaft. I can see part of that street from my window. Every day when I get up, first thing, I get my binoculars and look for the new additions. One day I’m gonna see Melanie there dripping blood on the cobbles.

  The thing is, Melanie’s just made for chopping as far as the Orangers were concerned. She isn’t just a pig. She’s old, ugly and useless. Every day you see people a hundred times more presentable than she is hanging by their trotters. The secret police stop and search anyone they feel like – just stop you and strip you, to make sure you’re human under your clothes. It happened to me once. They beat me black and blue just for being ugly. So I don’t go out much if I can help it, but I keep an eye on things as far as I can from the window, and I see some sights, I can tell you. There was this gorgeous girl the other day – I thought they were just getting her things off to get an eyeful – probably they were. But off came her knickers and what do you think? She had this charming little pig’s tail at the base of her spine. It looked pretty sexy, from what I could see through the bins. She was standing there with her arms hanging by her sides, not even bothering to cover her breasts. She knew it was all up. It wasn’t so sexy once you saw her face. She looked terrified. I saw her hanging up a couple of days later on the gibbet with all the others.

  From my place on the sofa I could hear Melanie and the human muttering away in the kitchen. I stared at the screen and fumed. Human beings! What good ever came of them?

  I heard Melanie saying, ‘Cuppa tea, oinky-tea?’

  Tea! I could have screamed. We had a couple of ounces. Tea was a total luxury, especially since the war. Cherry smuggled us a handful. What was Melanie doing offering this human tea for?

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, tears started to trickle down my face. Don’t ask me why. It was happening quite a bit these days.

  I heard Melanie and the unwelcome guest come out into the sitting room. I got up to go but Melanie stopped me.

  ‘I brung this’n to talk t’yer.’

  I tried to ignore the human. I could feel his eyes on my ruined face. Well, I was about to ruin his if he wasn’t careful. I swallowed my tears and tried to speak calmly. ‘You’re g
oing to have to stop going out,’ I told her. ‘Do you wanna get killed? Do you wanna get me killed?’

  All the time the stranger stood there staring. ‘Last of the Volsons,’ he said.

  ‘How does he know that? How does he bloody know who I am?’ I demanded. She had no right telling anyone that! I took a couple of steps towards her. I could have struck her I was so angry.

  Melanie just stared. I thought, what is this? What was she up to now? You couldn’t read anything from her face. One of the animal things about Melanie – she has no expressions. She’d make a real good poker player if she felt like it.

  ‘Why make it a secret?’ said the stranger. He was trying not to stare at me. I put my face towards him. ‘Take a good look,’ I told him. ‘Not seen anything like that before, have you? Comes of having your face fixed by a pig.’

  I said that to hurt Melanie.

  ‘It’s the face of a hero,’ the man said.

  I started in surprise. I stared at him. I scowled. All I’d done was survive. What kind of a hero was that? It was all crap, anyway.

  The stranger put out his hand. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, Sigmund Volson. We all remember your father and the hopes he raised before he was betrayed.’

  ‘All gone now,’ I shrugged.

  But the man shook his head. ‘I’ve been sent here by Dag.’

  I shook my head. The name was vaguely familiar. Melanie stamped her foot. ‘The resistance!’ she sang. ‘The resistance. Groink! Dag Aggerman, e’s our leader. Keep tellin yer, keep tellin yer, Sigs!’

  It was true – she did keep telling me. And I kept ignoring her. What was the point?

  ‘Couple of dogs with pop guns,’ I sneered.

  The stranger shook his head. ‘Dag is the leader of the dog people. He’s a great man,’ he told me. And he smiled wryly.

  Man? Halfman! I just laughed. Leader of the resistance? The people’s friend, a sodding dog? Don’t tell me. Men and halfmen had been at each other’s throats since the first brewing. I looked closely at the stranger for traces of dog. Maybe his tongue was spotted.

  ‘I’d thought you were a human,’ I told him.

  ‘I am. Pure blood. That was why I was sent.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘An alliance with the halfmen,’ insisted the man. ‘It’s the way forward. We can stop Conor together. Life for the halfmen under their leaders has been better than life for humans under theirs.’

  ‘We’m more civilised than you umans,’ said Melanie smugly. She was always teasing me about our barbarity. Well, I couldn’t deny it, could I?

  ‘Men and halfmen are joining forces at last. Your father thought he could unite the people and defeat the halfmen before breaking out of London. But we have to all join together: men, halfmen, everyone.’

  I shrugged. It was useless. ‘Conor’s too strong. Maybe Ragnor’ll get him in the end, if he gets too far.’

  ‘Ragnor’s time is over. They’ve only kept us trapped by keeping us at each other’s throats. They don’t rule the rest of the county, let alone the country. It’s just city states now – London, Birmingham, Glasgow. The other towns are as against Ragnor as we are. It’s time, Volson.’

  Now that was interesting, if it was true. But not interesting enough. ‘Conor’s too strong,’ I repeated.

  ‘Conor can’t win this war,’ said the man. ‘The other cities are organising against him. They’re arming us. The halfmen are strong and getting stronger. Conor’s taken on too much, too soon. His trade lines are already too thin. Soon, he’ll be having trouble supplying his own troops.’

  The two of them were staring at me, all dribbly and excited, like a pair of schoolchildren asking for a lollipop. Well, I was fresh out of sweets. I waved a hand in the air. ‘Do what you want. Don’t bring me into it.’

  ‘You are in it. Odin gave you the knife.’

  ‘Odin! Some cyborg from Ragnor.’

  The young man looked defiant. ‘Dag Aggerman believes it. So do I.’

  ‘What possible difference could what you believe make to anyone?’

  The stranger stood there looking. Suddenly I felt like crying again. Hadn’t I had enough? Wasn’t it time I was left alone?

  ‘You were given the knife. You’re a hero! And you have experience. You know how to organise people; you did this kind of work under Val. You’re a general, a leader. Look…’ The stranger was getting passionate. He really believed in this crap. ‘The halfmen are united under Dag, but we need a human, someone people can gather round. We need you. You’re a Volson! That means so much. You escaped Conor, you defeated the Pig! Everyone knows the story of how you fought him jaw to jaw. We need you.’

  ‘We need yer, Sigs,’ repeated Melanie. I just stared at her. She knew what a wreck I was these days. Just because I knew someone who filled the larder, she needn’t think I was a leader of men, let alone halfmen.

  ‘My people need you an so do yours,’ she said. And she looked at me with those big catty eyes.

  Well, she keeps surprising me, Melanie. Now she had her belly full, her brain came on. Now she was a fighter for the resistance!

  I blinked back my tears and shook my head. ‘Humans and halfmen – it’d never work,’ I said.

  Melanie just spread her arms and shook her head. She didn’t need to say anything. It meant, what about you and me, Sigs?

  I’d had enough. I said, ‘No.’ I pushed my way past them.

  The stranger called out, ‘Think about it!’ as I left the flat. I just wanted to bawl my eyes out. I ran down the stairs out onto the street. Who did they think they were? Asking for my father’s dreams to be brought back to life by dogs and pigs! Fuck you, I thought. Yeah – fuck you!

  7

  signy

  It’s spring. I can see the powdery colour of bluebells coming into flower under the trees. Soon the leaves will be too thick to see the ground, so I make the most of this flush of wild-flowers. I spend hours at my window with my nose pressed up close soaking up the blue. I ask Conor to bring me bunches of them, or roots to grow on the window sill. I fill my rooms with growing things – bluebells, primroses, daffs, tulips. If I bury my head deep into them I can smell the outside. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the wind which I haven’t felt on my skin for over four years.

  Cherry is out, I’m on my own. I’m on my own mostly. The endless hours spent on my own creep by like the hours of eternity.

  It reminds me of a story my father once told me. In a great flat desert there’s a huge mountain, the highest in the world. It stands there immense and unconquerable. Once every thousand years, a little brown bird flies across the desert and lands on the topmost peak of the mountain. It wipes its bill briefly on the stone, one-two, one-two, and then it flies away for another thousand years. When the bird has ground the mountain down as flat as the desert all around with its bill, then one second of eternity will have passed by.

  One second of my imprisonment.

  I’m alone, but I’m not isolated. Cherry flies to and fro with endless news. Conor tells me his lies. He wants me to have his child, a son and heir to carry his mantle. He imagines I should be proud to be chosen to be his queen. He makes promises about the day I shall leave my prison in triumph. To hear him you’d think it was his only wish, the one single thing he spends his days and nights working towards, but I’ve almost abandoned the idea of ever getting out of here. It suits him to keep me trapped. I’m at his disposal. His little whore, ready and waiting.

  I take precautions against this child of his. I’m certain I should vomit it up if I ever became pregnant by him. A little pill every day keeps me safe. Cherry brings them to me.

  There… see? A little bird flies across the windowpane, and my heart jumps. Is it her? She’s been gone two days, flying across the battlefields to the east where Conor is fighting his way towards Ipswich. Already his territory is big enough for him to call it a kingdom, and himself the king. In this matter at least he tells me the truth. But they are fighting back. The peopl
e of the other cities, and the halfmen too. No one, animal or human, could be so stupid as to want to be ruled by my husband. The whole world is up for the fight. Only my brother sits at home and does nothing.

  No sign of the little brown bird. I turn and go to lie on my bed, although I’m not tired. I stare at the ceiling. I have a little place I like to look at just above my bed to the right. Mostly I just stare at it, but sometimes I think of the things that part of the ceiling watches, down here on the bed. My eyes feel comfortable there. I stare and stare and wait for a little tap, tap, tap at the windowpane. Come on, Cherry – hurry up! I’m so lonely.

  Cherry comes at last as dusk is falling. I feed her and listen to her news of war, of people near and far. We talk and laugh and cry a little. She’s tired, but I can’t let her sleep. I think I shall die if she goes to sleep! Cherry doesn’t mind. She loves me, what for I can’t imagine. Perhaps her makers told her to.

  Later, during the long night, I pull my withered legs in and curl up close to the radiator while Cherry tells me other tales. I sip hot wine, and I listen to her voice, stirring me and lulling me.

  ‘Here is one who lives in a tank year on year. Her only sight of the open is over the trees behind her prison. Here is one whose only friend is a creature with no shape and no soul. Hers is a heart where love and hate live side by side until they merge and become one. Hers is a soul who will fall in love for the sake of revenge.’

  The wind is up, beating the sides of the water tower. Inside it’s snug and warm. Cherry sweetly tells me the story I like to hear the most – my own. She knows what I think and feel before I know myself.

  ‘At first her heart was open and raw for anyone to see, but gradually she learned to keep her tears in. When the tyrant came to see her, she learned to smile and be pleased. Of course…’ And Cherry leans forward closely to watch my face as she stirs spice into the tale. ‘… of course she knew by now that she had gone mad, and not in ignorance either. Yes, yes, Signy’s plan was to pretend to be sane. This was her madness.’