Always

by Nicola Griffith

  I RERAN IN slow motion a scene of Kick dropping from a ninth-story window in what was meant to be London’s financial district but looked more like Chicago. Her face had been digitally erased and replaced by the star’s, but I would have recognized anywhere those shoulders and tight waist, the way she turned like an eel thrown through the air, as though she had all the time in the world.

  I paused the film, and called my mother. She answered on the second ring. The sound quality was awful. I could hear traffic.

  “Where are you?” I said.

  “Just about to get into the car to drive to Redmond.”

  “What’s on the agenda today?”

  “More of the same. Security concerns. Details on limited source code sharing. Licensing.” Noise. Movement: the car.

  “Yes,” I said. Traffic noise, cutting in and out as she started to move. She’d be sitting in the back, her driver in the front. “When you move back to Norway, won’t you have to drive yourself?”

  Pause. “Aud? Are you all right?”

  “Mor, when did you know?” Mor. Mother.

  Noise. “Aud?”

  But I knew the answer: you never knew. Love wasn’t a state change. Romance might be, and lust, and like, but they were just the preconditions. Love was the choice you made; day in, day out. I could choose no.

  “Never mind. The night the police took me to Harborview. I assume you pulled some strings to keep my name from news reports.”

  Traffic noise. “Yes.”

  “I assume this was just reflex. I assume you wouldn’t mind if I correct the press’s lack of information?”

  “No.” Noise. Muffled conversation. A suddenly better connection: she had asked the driver to pull over, so that we stayed on one cell. “You are an adult. You must feel free to tell them anything you think necessary. As always, though, I recommend caution.” Pause. “Are you all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Silence.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It’s just . . . There’s been some fallout for a woman who isn’t . . . I just want to make sure that no one else suffers who doesn’t have to.”

  “I see. Aud, I’m busy for the next two hours, but would you like to join me for dinner?”

  “And Eric?”

  A longer silence. “No. Just you and me. You can tell me what you’ve been up to for the last couple of days, and we can talk some more about the newspapers. I might be able to be of some help.”

  “Dinner, yes.” Help, no.

  MINDY LEPTKE had a large corner cubicle, with a window view. She looked like a stoat: small and bright-eyed and probably vicious when cornered.

  “I usually get the quirky stories, the ones where no one gets hurt and there’s some heartwarming moral at the end that makes everyone feel good while they swallow their last mouthful of coffee.”

  I wondered how many of her readers that morning had paused, coffee hot in their mouths—did it taste just a little odd?—and got up to spit in the sink.

  “But I persuaded the editor to let me go for it this time.” She tapped the issue of the Seattle Times with the page-three headline, “TV Pilot Poisoner, ” and its lurid tale of vomit and madness, followed the next day by an update on chemical analysis of the drugs, and a no-holds-barred graphics sidebar of just what happened to brain cells under that kind of toxic load.

  “Excellent piece,” I said.

  She nodded in satisfaction. “Espresso sales were down for nearly sixty hours.” She looked at the clock, no doubt wanting to go home. Everyone else had.

  “But you didn’t get all of it.”

  She shrugged. “You never do.”

  “I want you to do a follow-up,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “What about a political exposé, tying together Seattle real estate developers, the influence of foreign governments on the media”—I hoped my mother would forgive me—“the film industry, and corrupt city and county councillors?”

  “Your proof? No, wait, don’t tell me. You want me to find that, right?”

  “No. I will.”

  “Right.” She rolled her eyes. When I didn’t wither under her cynicism, she said, “What’s your interest in the matter?”

  “I was one of the people who drank the coffee that day. Those people drugged me.”

  “They drugged a lot of people.”

  “I own the warehouse where it happened.”

  She turned to her keyboard. Tap tap tap. “And you are?”

  “Aud Torvingen.”

  “Torvingen . . . Torvingen . . . Not seeing your name.” She fished a spiral notebook from the bag hanging over the back of her chair, flipped back a few pages, flipped forward one or two. “Nope. Some corporation owns the warehouse.”

  “I own the corporation.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. We can come back to that.” She picked up a blue plastic pencil and twisted it until the lead popped out. “You say you drank the coffee prepared by Film Food?”

  She didn’t have to check for that name. It was a good name, no more and no less than it had to be. Did Dornan make fun of it in front of Kick? “The coffee. Yes. I did.”

  “How come you’re not on my list? I have sources both in the SPD and Harborview.”

  “My mother is Else Torvingen, the Norwegian ambassador to the U.K.” I gave her a second to absorb that. “She has been in town just a few days.” Only a handful more to go.

  “I see.” Now her pencil was poised. I wondered why she didn’t use a voice recorder. “And your name again is Aud Torvingen?”

  “Yes.” I spelled it for her.

  “And you’re saying your name was deliberately withheld from the media? ” As though CNN had been camping on my doorstep.

  “No. Not in the sense that there was any particular reason for doing so. It’s more of a reflex action.” Tighten. Control. Assess. My mother’s PR mantra, or one of them. Another was: Drown them in unnecessary detail. “You see, if you grow up with a diplomat as a parent, they do everything they can to protect you from even a whiff of scandal, even if you’ve done nothing wrong, because your name is inevitably linked to theirs, and then theirs to their government. Diplomacy is all about low profile.” War with smiles and firm handshakes. “But in this case there’s no reason to keep it secret. I didn’t do anything illegal or unethical. Nor did my mother or the Norwegian government. I was a—” In this context there was no avoiding the word, and I’d said I would get her back her reputation. “I was a random victim. As was Victoria Kuiper, the proprietor of Film Food.”

  “They withheld her name as well?”

  “No. That’s the point. She and her company were named. You named her.”

  “It sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “But none of this was her fault, although it would be easy for most readers to infer otherwise. Her business is suffering. I want you to write something about that—about how it wasn’t her fault.” She wasn’t writing anything down. “You could set the record straight.”

  “No one would care.”

  “Make them. You could talk about her stunt career. You could write about her wonderful food.”

  She was looking at her watch. It was almost six o’clock.

  “How do you feel about heights?”

  She shrugged.

  “Stand on your desk.”

  “What?”

  “I want to help you understand something.”

  “By standing on my desk.”

  “Humor me.” I stood and pushed aside her mouse and telephone and a few sheets of paper. “I’ll help you up.” I held out my hand and looked as though it were the most normal thing in the world to ask someone to do.

  She stood. “What about my shoes?”

  They had broad, two-inch heels. Stable enough. “Leave them on. But put the pad down. Sit on the desk first, that’s right, then scoot over, get your feet under you, I’ll balance you, then . . . up you go.
”

  She stood there, swaying. She might have fallen if it were not for my hand on her hip, anchoring her. A pillowed hip, utterly unlike Kick’s.

  “You are less than three feet off the ground. Feels farther, doesn’t it? A long, long way down. Perhaps you can feel your stomach churning just a little.” The power of suggestion. “Now imagine it’s a hundred feet. Kick Kuiper was the first woman to take a hundred-foot dive for film. That’s thirty or forty times higher than this. Higher than the whole building. Look out of the window. Imagine it.” The swaying got worse. “Now imagine the wind rushing. And imagine you’re wearing high-heels and a thong bikini.” I had to use both hands to keep her steady. “And now imagine you’re not just standing there, but that you have to walk to the very edge, and look down, and jump.”

  “Let me down.”

  “All right.”

  “Let me down right now.”

  “Take my hand. And the other one. Sit down slowly.” She sank to her haunches. Sat. Pushed her feet out in front of her. Eased off the desk. Sat in her chair.

  “Now imagine you did all that, you jumped, you fell forward, face-first. A hundred feet. Falling for about four seconds.” I nodded at the big clock on the far wall. We watched four seconds pass. “It feels like a long time, but there’s just time to close your eyes and breathe a prayer. And then you hit. And then you realize you’re alive. You did it. You broke the record, and you’re alive. And everyone’s clapping you on the back. And fifteen million people in darkened movie theaters will watch you take that fall and feel their hearts slam under their ribs, then grin with relief when you walk away. And you’re going to get a big check for it. And then imagine one day you can’t do that anymore, but you love the movies so much you start from the beginning in some other field, and you work—day in, day out— clawing your way back into people’s good graces, doing your best to ignore the fact that they pity you, that you could do their jobs six times better than they could, if only you didn’t have a hip held together with a dozen steel pins, ignoring the fact that it hardly pays, and that cutting tomatoes is just not the same as falling through the air like a stooping eagle. And then imagine that some fool takes even that away.”

  She started writing. After a minute, she slowed and looked up. I could see the cynicism reasserting itself. “Human interest isn’t enough. Before I start in on the work, the hours of backbreaking, mind-numbing work, asking people questions, searching archives, combing the Web, bring me something.”

  “If I bring you proof you’ll write about Kick?”

  “Bring me proof of government corruption and I’ll write about anything you want.”

  MY MOTHER and I turned to face the elevator door. I pressed the button for the lobby. I’m having dinner with him tomorrow. Today, now. Tonight.

  She raised her eyebrows, nodded at my thumb, which had turned white against the steel button. I let go. “The newspaper woman I saw today was less than cooperative,” I said.

  “Ah.”

  The bell dinged. My mother got out first. We headed for the hotel’s oyster bar.

  “Journalists,” she said. “Very annoying. Particularly photographers.”

  “Yes.”

  “One understands how they get punched so often.”

  We found a seat at the bar. The bartender brought us menus. My mother ordered a glass of cabernet. I chose champagne.

  “I have never punched a person,” she said as our drinks arrived. “I don’t believe I’ve ever punched anything.”

  I shook pictures of Kick and Dornan from my mind, kept my place in the menu with my finger, and looked up. “Never?”

  “No.”

  “But . . .” If my mother said Never, she meant not even a cushion when she was a child. I sipped my champagne. My mouth bubbled, as it had last night. “Would you like to?”

  “Now?”

  I pushed my champagne away. “There’s probably a bag in the gym.”

  She slugged back her wine and stood, prepared for battle in her cream silk sweater, taupe linen pants, and delicate evening sandals.

  In the gym, a woman with hair pulled back and ears sticking out was yanking at the handles of a lat machine as though trying to pull the legs off her boss; a young, slightly overweight man knelt on all fours on a blue yoga mat, morphing from cat to cow and back again. His back was very flexible. In the best hotel gym tradition, everyone ignored everyone else.

  The bag was a heavy boxing bag, and my stomach squeezed: it was the same brand as the one I’d used for my class. This was my mother, I told myself. I was just teaching her to punch. It would not end in blood and death and the feeling that I’d done more harm than good.

  The bag looked brand-new. I checked the hook and chain, nonetheless, ran my hands over the casing. Smooth and soft. Acceptable for her beginner’s hands.

  I had a sudden flash of Kick’s small hands. I like her very much.

  “If you’re going to hit with both hands, you’d better take off your wedding ring.” She touched it, then twisted it off and put it in her pocket. No tan line. Maybe you’ll find out tonight. “And your shoes.” Her sandals were low-heeled, but I didn’t know enough about her balance to be sure. She slipped them off. She seemed more comfortable in bare feet than most of my class had. I held my hands up, curled my fists. She copied me inexpertly. “Imagine the pads at the base of your fingers are an iron bar. Don’t clench too hard. All tension should be in the wrist. Okay?”

  “Okay.” The whiteness around her knuckles eased.

  “There are seven basics to learn about striking. One, strike from a firm base. Two, most of your power comes from the torque generated by—” She was shaking her head. “What?”

  “Show me.”

  “All right.” Different rules for my mother. “Hold the bag for me like this.” I showed her how to get behind it and brace it against her shoulder. “Ready?” She nodded seriously. I hit it, hard. I like her. She moved back half a step. I hit it with the other hand. I like her. She set her feet and her face. I let fly with a right-left-right combination. I like her very much.

  My mother’s serious expression smoothed, replaced by a bland mask. I didn’t have to turn around to know that Yoga Boy and Bat Ears were watching.

  “Show me again,” she said. And I obliged with a left-right-left. “Do I have to make that noise?”

  “What noise?”

  “That ‘ush’ sound. Sometimes a ‘hut.’ ”

  Ush. Hut. Well. “Make whatever sound you like. Anything. Just as long as it pumps air from the deep part of your lungs.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  I looked at my fists, the pinking knuckles. As we swapped places I started worrying about her spraining a wrist, breaking a finger, crushing a knuckle. Not being able to get her wedding ring back on. “Start gently.”

  She assumed the same position I had, took a moment, then punched. Coordinated, but too careful to be graceful.

  “Again. Try the other hand.”

  She stepped into it, and connected squarely, but the bag didn’t move.

  “Stop being careful now.”

  She hit the bag. She was only two inches shorter than me, and despite having gained ten pounds or so in recent years, she was strong. I had seen her wallop a tennis ball hard enough to smash an opponent’s teeth out. She should have made me stagger.

  “Again,” I said. “Remember to breathe.”

  She hit the bag, and huffed as though trying to blow out the candles on a birthday cake. Tidy, controlled, self-contained.

  “Don’t think about those people watching you.” I said it loud enough for the man and the woman to hear. The woman’s ears turned beet red. She looked like Mickey Mouse after a gallon of Thunderbird.

  “Comics,” I said. It was faintly embarrassing talking about this to my mother. It felt more personal than talking about sex.

  “Comics?”

  “Comic sounds.” I gestured for her to swap places. “When Spider-Man hits the Green Goblin. Prete
nd that’s you. Blam!” Thump. “Pow!” Thud. “Whap!” Movement would carry me through. My blood pumped. “It’s not you standing there, not a recently married career diplomat in the gym of the Fairmont. You’re on the wild fjell. You’re a troll, or the Hulk smashing the farmhouse.” Thump, thud. “A golem destroying an SS Panzer division.”

  Her eyes kindled. I braced the bag.

  “Norway fighting the Danes.”

  “Ha,” she said, “Hothead Paisan!” and walloped the bag. I staggered back. She crowed and thumped it again. “That surprised you!”

  The whole of the next ten minutes surprised me. After Hothead Paisan, it was characters from newspaper strips, then TV cartoons. She began to laugh like a berserker, sending me staggering back six inches every time she hit the bag, sending Bat Ears and Yoga Boy sniffing from the gym in high dudgeon. We took turns, running through all the Loony Tunes characters, then the Wacky Races—she was particularly fond of the Slag Brothers and their clubs—and ending with Roadrunner. Every time her fist thumped meatily into the bag, she seemed to expand, glow more brightly.

  Her knuckles were glowing, too. “Time to stop,” I said. “Your hands will hurt if you don’t ice them soon.”

  She looked at the bag, slitty-eyed as a cat by a mouse hole.

  “And I’m getting hungry.” My muscles hummed, coursing with oxygen. If someone cut me now, the blood that splashed on the floor would be crimson.

  WE HAD prairie fires—tequila shots with nine drops of Tabasco—and oysters on the half shell, followed by more shots. She clenched her fists and stuck them in the crushed ice where the shellfish had nestled.

  I remembered our first night in Seattle, Dornan looking at the last oyster. For once I’d be prepared to fight you for it.

  “So,” I said. “Hothead Paisan?”

  “That surprised you.”

  “It did.”

  “Eric has all the comics. He has a roomful of comics. Comics spin-offs from TV shows, too. He’s partial to the strong-woman genre. Xena, Warrior Princess. Buffy.”

  All the ones where the troll doesn’t win in the end. Mostly. “Are there any Norwegian comics?”

  “Do you know, I’m not sure. But Eric would know.”