by Lowe, L. Lee
Idly he doubleclicked on a last game, then frowned. The screen had gone blank.
Or so it seemed. Reckoning the whole thing was a typical freeze, Jesse was about to soft boot when the screen became a uniform dark purple. His hand hovered over the keyboard. He was curious, but he also wanted to have another look at Nubi—the femur had been in bad condition. Though Nubi could put his weight on the leg now, the healing process would be slow, and Jesse knew he’d have to go back in. It would be foolhardy, of course, to make another attempt so soon. He leaned his elbows on the desk and massaged the knots at the base of his skull. That deathly cold—he shivered, then straightened abruptly. It wasn’t memory that frosted his computer screen, that exhaled a puff of white vapour. He was suddenly afraid.
Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. The words floated in large shimmering 3-D letters across the display, then disappeared, leaving the screen empty once more. Jesse stared at it in disbelief. Macbeth’s words: had he imagined them? Could he be that tired? Or . . . ? Jesse ran a fingertip across the screen. Cold, icy cold. Even his imagination couldn’t possibly produce the thin scraping of frost rapidly melting on his skin. He shivered again and fetched a jumper from the wardrobe. His curiosity was stronger than his fear now. He might not be able to control what was happening to the temperature, but a computer had never yet intimidated him, nor awed him either.
First he tried the mouse, then the keyboard. No response. The screen remained purple, although the colour shimmered into blue at the edges. The oddest system crash he’d ever seen. He could reboot and try again. But if he wanted to fiddle around properly, he would need some time, probably a lot of time. Jesse drummed his fingers lightly on the wooden desktop. He knew himself. Once he began, he might not resurface for hours. Nubi needed attention—and then there was Sarah. He hoped that she’d calmed down enough to talk to him.
A movement on the screen caught Jesse’s attention. Impossible. The computer had locked down. Chin on his knitted hands, he fixed his eyes on the display, as if by fierce concentration alone he could will the computer to yield up its secrets. He didn’t dare touch the keyboard for fear of interrupting what was unfolding before him.
A small sphere had formed in the exact centre of the screen. To begin with it looked like a child’s blue ball, but under Jesse’s scrutiny, land and ocean and clouds appeared, not all at once but slowly, rising from the depths of the display much like one of Finn’s images in the darkroom. It wasn’t the earth. The shape of the continent on the visible hemisphere was wrong. As the object—planet, he assumed—began to revolve, the continent proved to be the sole landmass. Soon the planet was rotating, then spinning, then whirling so fast that Jesse could no longer make out any details on its surface. Uneasily he noticed that it now looked exactly like Peter’s top. One hand stole into his pocket, where he’d been keeping the toy. It felt warm under his fingers and was vibrating slightly. In his palm it seemed the same as usual, except that his skin was tingling by contact with the wood. Jesse glanced back at the laptop screen. Startled, he dropped the top, which bounced off the desk and fell with a thunk to the floor.
It was very hard for him to believe what he’d just witnessed: cradled by a hand, the blue top on the screen had nova’d in a burst of brilliant bluewhite light.
Now the screen was black, and blank. Like the interior of a camera obscura after sunset, or Finn’s darkroom. The room was warm again, and Jesse’s shivering had another source.
Just before Jesse fell asleep that night, he remembered that the continent he’d seen on the display wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Rendered by geographers and later by computer modelling, it had been named Pangaea.
Chapter 15
‘Ready for your first lesson?’ Finn asked.
‘Lesson?’ Jesse looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned. ‘It’s not too wet, is it?’
‘Just a shower. A bit trickier, but you’ll be fine. The thing is, over the next few weeks I’m going to be away a lot, off and on, so I thought we ought use whatever time we can find.’
Jesse glanced down at his jeans, his shoes. ‘I haven’t got any rain gear.’
‘Come down to my office.’
Sarah had been joking only about the chains. The black leather outfit fitted almost perfectly, as if Finn had measured him in his sleep.
‘I feel—’ Jesse stopped, searching for an adequate description. ‘I feel like a sleek black panther.’
‘Feels good though, doesn’t it?’
‘Better than I thought it would. Much better.’
Finn regarded Jesse’s feet sceptically before passing him a pair of boots.
‘Try these on. They’re the only spares I’ve got, but it doesn’t look as if they’ll fit.’
Jesse unlaced one of his trainers. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t manage to screw his foot inside. He was reminded of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.
Finn must have been thinking the same thing.
‘Just as I guessed. Forget the glass slipper. We’ll have to get you some proper manly boots.’
‘I’ve got big feet,’ said Jesse, wriggling his toes in relief.
‘Immaterial. They only start charging extra when your feet approach yeti measurements.’
Jesse was quiet for a moment.
‘Did you buy all this stuff for me?’
Finn shuffled some papers on his desk, his face suddenly inscrutable.
Finn’s money made Jesse uncomfortable. Not because Finn had it. Not because Jesse didn’t like accepting it (though he didn’t). But because Jesse noticed that he minded accepting it less and less.
‘They belonged to Peter?’ Jesse asked, realisation dawning.
‘Yes.’
They looked at each other, then Finn patted Jesse awkwardly on the shoulder.
‘Go on, get ready,’ Finn said. ‘Take the blue helmet by the front door and leave the black-and-silver one for me. I’ll meet you at the garage. I need to make a phone call before we start.’
‘Where are we going? I’m not old enough to drive, you know.’
Finn didn’t succeed in hiding his smile. ‘You’ll see,’ was all he’d say.
Jeans in hand, Jesse headed for the stairs, then remembered that he’d taken his cigarettes from his pocket while changing and left them on Finn’s desk.
‘Sorry, I forgot my—’ Jesse began, as he opened the office door.
Finn was holding a pistol in his hand. Their eyes locked, then Finn sighed and gestured for Jesse to enter.
‘Please shut the door,’ Finn said.
He stowed the gun in a desk drawer before explaining.
‘I wish you hadn’t seen that, but it can’t be helped now.’ He tugged at his beard. ‘I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing with a firearm.’
‘Yeah, you could say that.’
‘I need it for my work.’
‘As a photographer?’ With some difficulty Jesse refrained from a nasty crack about photo shoots.
‘Some of the places I go are dangerous.’ Finn chewed his lower lip for a moment, his eyes on Jesse. ‘OK, it’s obvious you’re not convinced. Let’s just say that photography isn’t my only work.’
‘You mean—’
‘I mean,’ Finn interrupted, ‘that I can’t and won’t talk about it. For a lot of reasons. And I’m relying on you to do the same.’
~~~
Jesse ran swiftly upstairs, two at a time. Outside his room he came face to face with Sarah, who was carrying the satchel she used for dance classes. She averted her gaze and walked on past him, then spun round, her eyes chasing the colour of thunder, her voice accusing.
‘Did my father give you those biking clothes?’
He nodded.
Sarah tightened her lips and strode off. Peter’s Harley gear was the one thing Finn had refused to pack up or give away. Now Jesse was prancing around in it. Well, not prancing . . . he didn’t prance. Not like some, who flaunted themselves at every opportunity. Jesse danced without
taking a single step. The black leather was soft and supple—and just a little savage. Sarah ignored the thistle unfurling in her belly, but not the words her treacherous mind was whispering. Damn him. He had no right to look so good. So perfect. So sexy. She could just imagine what someone like Tondi would say—or do.
Jesse watched her leave.
In his room he tossed his jeans onto the bed and rubbed his hands along the sensuous leather of the trousers, whose warmth reminded him of melting chocolate, or Emmy’s fresh-bathed skin. He’d never clad himself in—and certainly never owned—anything of this calibre. Wearing Peter’s garments didn’t make him feel a trespasser, no matter how much Sarah resented it.
Unable to find the elastic for his hair on the bedside table, Jesse went to check his desk. As he shifted the pad of paper he was using for some notes, he caught a whiff of anise and turned to look if he’d left the window open. This time the lad is lying on a rough cement floor, one eye swollen shut, his face a mass of bruises, blood trickling from his mouth. Help me, he says. You’re the only one who can.
Jesse gasps and takes a step forward.
‘Jesse!’ Finn’s voice bellowed from the downstairs hallway. ‘What’s taking you so long?’
~~~
The Harley was a monster. A dream machine whose power lay not in cc (1450, and no anti-gravity required for lift-off) nor its size nor its in-your-face design, but in its mystique. Even Jesse felt it as Finn showed him how to check out the simple stuff—the T-CLOCK inspection, he called it (tyres, controls, lights, oil, chassis, and kickstand).
‘Always look your bike over carefully before even thinking about starting off. You can avoid big problems, save yourself a lot of grief that way.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe your life.’ Then he gave Jesse a spare key and told him to zip it into a pocket. ‘I duct tape it to a hiding place on the bike when I haven’t got someone riding pillion.’
He ran through a number of other instructions and safety tips, showed Jesse the controls, explained a few basics about engine, clutch, brakes, gears. He was a good teacher, patient and thorough and explicit. Then he verified that Jesse’s helmet was securely fastened, wheeled the bike out of the garage, mounted, waited for Jesse to hop on behind, started the engine, revved it once—hard—for the sheer wicked pleasure of it, saluted the sky with a gloved fist, and they were away.
The rain was light, the tarmac slick and shiny. Their wheels threw up a fine spray which billowed behind them as the Harley sliced through the outskirts of the city, opening a rite of passage into the hills. Surprised that his visor didn’t fog, Jesse found it difficult to gauge how fast they drove. He was warm, though. Moisture simply beaded on Peter’s leathers, which must have been waxed or treated in some way.
Questions buzzed about in Jesse’s head, but he could do little more than hang on tight to Finn’s waist and wait for them to reach their destination. Jesse hadn’t been sure how he would cope with riding body to body, entirely dependent on someone else’s skill. Perhaps it was their protective clothing, but Jesse experienced no discomfort whatsoever—no uneasiness, no shrinking away. At one point, as Finn strafed sharply into the next corner, Jesse tightened his hold and leaned into the big man’s shoulder. Finn shouted something unintelligible back at him, then slowed a bit, took a hand off the handlebar, and gripped Jesse’s where it lay across his own generous midriff. Jesse straightened with a smile, an indecent sense of gratitude filling his throat for a few moments.
After about thirty minutes, they passed a dip in the road, then a cluster of derelict stone buildings, where they turned off into a narrow lane. They were well above the river now—once or twice Jesse had glimpsed its long sinuous curve and the spread of the city, appearing from this distance to cling like a malignant lesion to both sides of a dark blue vein. Even the Old Bridge had been visible. Finn couldn’t maintain his previous speed, for the lane was overgrown and muddy. The rain had just about let up, and above the trees Jesse could see patches of lighter sky behind swiftly driving gunmetal cloud, though no blue as yet. There were puddles in the lane, some deep enough to reach the axles, but Finn was able to dodge the worst potholes. He maintained an even and alert pace, never once skidding or losing traction.
A five-bar gate barricaded the end of the lane. Private, the sign said. No Entry. Finn pulled to a halt and signalled for Jesse to open it. The lane became a grassy track just wide enough for a vehicle. From the ruts and flattened nettles Jesse could tell that a car had passed through here recently. He slid off a little unsteadily, surprised to see the treetops whipping in the breeze. Once Finn had steered the motorbike across the cattlegrid—though no herd was in evidence—Jesse closed the gate and climbed back on board. Finn followed the track as it skirted a ridge and twisted to the right, then entered a densely wooded tract. After about three kilometres, the track forked, then began to steepen uphill. They needed another twenty minutes to reach a small clearing. An ancient Landrover was parked outside a stone cottage. When Jesse dismounted and removed his helmet, he saw that the track ended here.
‘Go and have a look,’ Finn told him, waving towards the rear of the cottage.
Jesse examined the dwelling, which had been built either by a genius or a madman—or was a joint venture. Two-thirds of the walls were natural stone, more pinkish in colour than common in the area and intensifying in places to a deep salmon; the remainder, cement painted a bright sapphire blue. No two windows were of the same size or shape, and all were asymmetrical. And although Jesse counted the outer walls repeatedly, he came up with a different number each time. There were no 90° angles to be found anywhere, and quite a few bulges and curves. The roof surged and recoiled around an off-centre chimney. And Jesse swore that he saw the fender of a steam engine mortared under one of the eaves.
It was magnificent.
Jesse laid his helmet on the motorcycle seat, shook the stiffness out of his shoulders, and walked slowly around the cottage, skirting a large mound of straw bales. He stopped when he reached the back, and gaped.
The entire rear wall of the cottage was an amber-tinted mirrored façade, affording privacy but providing a breathtaking view. The cottage was built into the bank of a large, stream-fed pond—a small upland lake, really. A wooden deck jutted far out over the water, so that its broad teak planks appeared to be floating free like a raft, and on the opposite shore a waterfall plummeted first into a rocky plunge pool, then spilled into the clear depths of the lake itself. Immediately Jesse yearned to strip and throw himself into the water, swim across to the falls. This was something he understood!
Then he realised that they weren’t alone. Under a large garden parasol a man was stretched out in a deckchair, with a tartan woollen rug tucked round him. He threw off the blanket and rose as Jesse walked towards him, held out his arm, and smiled broadly. A long-sleeved jumper hid his tattoos; one sleeve had been truncated and sewn shut.
‘Welcome, Jesse,’ Matthew said.
Finn was approaching from around the other side of the cottage, a big grin on his face.
Inside they sat down to strong black tea. There was a large tin of homemade shortbread, too, and a fire that Matthew lit in the stone fireplace.
‘Whose place is this?’ Jesse asked, after he’d eaten a frightening number of biscuits and had a chance to look round him. The interior was as fascinating as he’d expected, but scantily furnished. They were seated on very simple armchairs and a sofa—straight clean lines, quiet colours. It was the architecture itself that decorated the room.
‘Mine,’ said Matthew. ‘The land belongs to my family, but I built the cottage myself.’
‘Stone by stone,’ said Finn, ‘when Matthew was stronger.’ He looked at Matthew with a question in his eyes.
‘He knows,’ Matthew said. ‘We can talk about it.’
‘You’re looking better. Much better than last time I saw you,’ Finn said.
Matthew and Jesse exchanged glances. Jesse gave an almost imperceptible shake to his head, then turned to stud
y the trees and rocky outcroppings through the great stretch of glass. The surface of the lake reflected the sombre tones of the sky and the rain-darkened trees, except where the waterfall foamed into its lap.
‘I am feeling better,’ Matthew said.
‘A new course of treatment?’
‘Yes.’ Matthew let it go at that.
‘Excellent.’ Finn addressed Jesse. ‘I thought you’d enjoy this place.’
Matthew indicated his missing arm. ‘Finn helped me build the cottage. That’s why he gets squatter’s rights.’
Jesse must have looked confused, since Finn laughed and explained. ‘I use the cottage as kind of retreat, when I need to do some quiet thinking. I get fed up sometimes with the noise and the stink and the crowds. The carnivorous city. And the telephone. Whoever invented the mobile should be butchered in his own laboratory, or at least made to listen to that infernal ringing day and night, till he goes mad from sleep deprivation.’
‘Use your mailbox,’ Matthew said.
Finn smote his head. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’
Jesse was picturing Finn’s spacious house, his complex of rooms in the basement, and the quiet overgrown garden.
‘I can tell what you’re thinking, Jesse. What have I got to complain about?’
Jesse grinned. ‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘Don’t forget that I grew up with the northern wilderness for my backyard. It’s in my blood, which gets too thin on a steady diet of exhaust fumes and neon lights.’
‘One of the reasons you like to take those long exotic assignments?’ Jesse asked, an ironic overtone creeping into his voice.
Finn pulled his pipe, lighter, and tobacco pouch from a pocket. He spent some time filling the bowl, then clamped the stem between his teeth without lighting up. ‘One of them.’
‘Finn does a fair amount of shooting up here,’ Matthew said. ‘Photos, not wildlife.’
Finn removed the pipe from his mouth.
