She didn’t eat, but sat at the table with me. The chicken was okay, but not up to her usual standard. There was a lot of meat but it was tough, and for once there was a little too much spice. It tasted odd, to be honest. She noticed a look on my face and said she’d gone to a different butcher. We talked a little about her afternoon, but she was feeling much better. She seemed more interested in discussing the way her office reorganization was shaping up.
Afterwards she went through into the lounge and turned the television on, and I set about making coffee and washing up, moving woodenly around the kitchen as if on abandoned rails. As Nancy’s favourite inanity boomed out from the living room I looked around for a bin bag to shovel the remains of my dinner into, but she’d evidently used them all. Sighing with a complete lack of feeling, I opened the back door and went out to put my scraps directly into the bin. There were two sacks already there, both tied with Nancy’s distinctive knot. I undid the nearest and opened it up. Then, just before I pushed the bones off my plate, something in the bag caught my eye.
A patch of darkness amidst the garish wrappers of high calorie comfort foods. An oddly-shaped piece of thick fabric, perhaps. I pulled the edge of the bag back a little further to look, and the light from the kitchen window above fell across the contents of the bag.
The darkness changed to a rich chestnut brown matted with red, and I saw it wasn’t fabric at all.
We moved six months later, after we got engaged. I was glad to move. The flat never felt like home again. Sometimes I go back and stand in that street, remembering the weeks in which I stared out of the window, pointlessly watching the road. I called the courier firm, after a couple of days. I was expecting a stonewall, and knew it was unlikely they’d give an address. But they denied she’d ever worked there at all.
After a couple of years Nancy and I had our first child, and she’ll be eight this November. She has a sister now. Some evenings I’ll leave them with their mother, and go out for a walk. I’ll walk with heavy calm through black streets beneath featureless houses, and sometimes go down to the canal. I sit on the bench and close my eyes, and sometimes I think I can see it. Sometimes I think I can feel the way it was when a hill was there, and meetings were held in secret.
In the end I always stand up slowly, and walk the streets back to the house. The hill has gone and things have changed, and it’s not like that anymore. No matter how long I sit and wait, the cats will never come.
Everybody Goes
I saw a man yesterday. I was coming back from the waste ground with Matt and Joey and we were calling Joey dumb because he’d seen this huge spider and he thought it was a Black Widow or something when it was just, like, a spider, and I saw the man.
We were walking down the road towards the block and laughing and I happened to look up and there was this man down the end of the street, tall, walking up towards us. We turned off the road before he got to us, and I forgot about him.
Anyway, Matt had to go home then because his family eats early and his Mom raises hell if he isn’t back in time to wash up and so I just hung out for a while with Joey and then he went home too. Nothing much happened in the evening.
This morning I got up early because we were going down to the creek for the day and it’s a long walk. I made some sandwiches and put them in a bag, and I grabbed an apple and put that in too. Then I went down to knock on Matt’s door.
His Mom answered and let me in. She’s okay really, and quite nice-looking for a Mom, but she’s kind of strict. She’s the only person in the world who calls me Peter instead of Pete. Matt’s room always looks like it’s just been tidied, which is quite cool actually though it must be a real pain to keep up. At least you know where everything is.
We went down and got Joey. Matt seemed kind of quiet on the way down as if there was something he wanted to tell me, but he didn’t. I figured if he wanted to, sooner or later he would. That’s how it is with best friends. You don’t have to be always talking. The point will come round soon enough.
Joey wasn’t ready so we had to hang round while he finished his breakfast. His Dad’s kind of weird. He sits and reads the paper at the table and grunts at it every now and then. I don’t think I could eat breakfast with someone who did that. I think I would find it disturbing. Must be something you get into when you grow up, I guess.
Anyway, finally Joey was ready and we left the block. The sun was pretty hot already though it was only nine in the morning and I was glad I was only wearing a T-shirt. Matt’s Mom made him wear a sweatshirt in case there was a sudden blizzard or something and I knew he was going to be pretty baked by the end of the day but you can’t tell moms anything.
As we were walking away from the block towards the waste ground I looked back and I saw the man again, standing on the opposite side of the street, looking at the block. He was staring up at the top floor and then I thought he turned and looked at us, but it was difficult to tell because the sun was shining right in my eyes.
We walked and ran through the waste ground, not hanging around much because we’d been there yesterday. We checked on the fort but it was still there. Sometimes other kids come and mess it up but it was okay today.
Matt got Joey a good one with a scrunched-up leaf. He put it on the back of his hand when Joey was looking the other way and then he started staring at it and saying ‘Pete…’ in this really scared voice; and I saw what he was doing and pretended to be scared too and Joey bought it.
‘I told you,’ he says—and he’s backing away—‘I told you there was Black Widows…’ and we could have kept it going but I started laughing. Joey looked confused for a second and then he just grunted as if he was reading his Dad’s paper and so we jumped on him and called him Dad all afternoon.
We didn’t get to the creek till nearly lunchtime, and Matt took his sweatshirt off and tied it round his waist. It’s a couple miles from the block, way past the waste ground and out into the bush. It’s a good creek though. It’s so good we don’t go there too often, like we don’t want to wear it out.
You just walk along the bush, not seeing anything, and then suddenly there you are, and there’s this baby canyon cut into the earth. It gets a little deeper every year, I think, except when there’s no rain. Maybe it gets deeper then too, I don’t know. The sides are about ten feet deep and this year there was rain so there’s plenty of water at the bottom and you have to be careful climbing down because otherwise you can slip and end up in the mud.
Matt went down first. He’s best at climbing, and really quick. He went down first so that if Joey slipped he might not fall all the way in. For me, if Joey slips, he slips, but Matt’s good like that. Probably comes from having such a tidy room.
Joey made it down okay this time, hold the front page, and I went last. The best way to get down is to put your back to the creek, slide your feet down, and then let them go until you’re hanging onto the edge of the canyon with your hands. Then you just have to scuttle. As I was lowering myself down I noticed how far you could see across the plain, looking right along about a foot up from the ground. There’s nothing for miles, nothing but bushes and dust. I think the man was there too, off in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure and then I slipped and nearly ended up in the creek myself, which would have been a real pain and Joey would have gone on about it forever.
We walked along the creek for a while and then came to the ocean. It’s not really the ocean, it’s just a bit where the canyon widens out into almost a circle that’s about 15 feet across. It’s deeper than the rest of the creek, and the water isn’t so clear, but it’s really cool. When you’re down there you can’t see anything but a circle of sky above and you know there’s nothing else for miles around. There’s this old door there that we call our ship and we pull it to one side of the ocean and we all try to get on and float it to the middle. Usually it’s kind of messy and I know Matt and Joey are thinking there’s going to be trouble when their Moms see their clothes, but today we somehow got i
t right and we floated right to the middle with only a little bit of water coming up.
We played our game for a while and then we just sat there for a long time and talked and stuff. I was thinking how good it was to be there and there was a pause and then Joey tried to say something of his own like that. It didn’t come out very well, but we knew what he meant so we told him to shut up and made as if we were going to push him in. Matt pretended he had a spider on his leg just by suddenly looking scared and staring and Joey laughed, and I realised that that’s where jokes come from. It was our own joke, that no-one else would ever understand and that we would never forget however old we got.
Matt looked at me one time, as if he was about to say what was on his mind, but then Joey said something dumb and he didn’t. We just sat there and kept talking about things and moving around so we didn’t get burnt too bad. Once when I looked up at the rim of the canyon I thought maybe there was a head peeking over the side but there probably wasn’t.
Joey has a watch and so we knew when it was four o’clock. Four o’clock is the latest we can leave so that Matt gets back for dinner in time. We walked back towards the waste ground, not running. The sun had tired us out and we weren’t in any hurry to get back because it had been a good afternoon, and they always finish when you split up. You can’t get back to them the next day, especially if you try to do the same thing again.
When we got back to the street we were late and so Matt and Joey ran on ahead. I would have run with them but I saw that the man was standing down the other side of the block, and I wanted to watch him to see what he was going to do. Matt waited back a second after Joey had run and said he’d see me after dinner. Then he ran, and I just hung around for a while.
The man was looking back up at the block again, like he was looking for something. He knew I was hanging around, but he didn’t come over right away, as if he was nervous. I went and sat on the wall and messed about with some stones. I wasn’t in any hurry.
‘Excuse me,’ says this voice, and I looked up to see the man standing over me. The slanting sun was in his eyes and he was shading them with his hand. He had a nice suit on and he was younger than people’s parents are, but not much. ‘You live here, don’t you?’
I nodded, and looked up at his face. He looked familiar.
‘I used to live here too,’ he said, ‘When I was a kid. On the top floor.’ Then he laughed, and I recognised him from the sound. ‘A long time ago now. Came back after all these years to see if it had changed.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Hasn’t much, still looks the same.’ He turned and looked at the block, then back past me towards the waste ground. ‘Guys still playing out there on the ’ground?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘It’s cool. We have a fort there.’
‘And the creek?’
He knew we still played there: he’d been watching. I knew what he really wanted to ask, so I just nodded. The man nodded too, as if he didn’t know what to say next. Or more like he knew what he wanted to say, but didn’t know how to go about it.
‘My name’s Tom Spivey,’ he said, and then stopped. I nodded again. The man laughed, embarrassed. ‘This is going to sound very weird, but…I’ve seen you around today, and yesterday.’ He laughed again, running his hand through his hair, and then finally asked what was on his mind. ‘Your name isn’t Pete, by any chance?’
I looked up into his eyes, then away.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s Jim.’
The man looked confused for a moment, then relieved. He said a couple more things about the block, and then he went away. Back to the city, or wherever.
After dinner I saw Matt out in the back car park, behind the block. We talked about the afternoon some, so he could get warmed up, and then he told me what was on his mind.
His family was moving on. His dad had got a better job somewhere else. They’d be leaving in a week.
We talked a little more and then he went back inside, looking different somehow, as if he’d already gone.
I stayed out, sitting on the wall, thinking about missing people. I wasn’t feeling sad, just tired. Sure I was going to miss Matt. He was my best friend. I’d missed Tom for a while, but then someone else came along. And then someone else, and someone else. There’s always new people. They come, and then they go. Maybe Matt would return some day. Sometimes they do come back. But everybody goes.
Dying
‘It could be anything,’ Chen said.
He held the grainy hardcopy at arm’s length and squinted at the irregularly shaped object in the centre. ‘Christ, it could be human.’
‘On the sidewalk?’ Miranda tilted her head at him as she shrugged her coat on. She was excited and not bothering to hide it. ‘Where were you brought up?’
‘In the real world, rich kid. Trust me, stranger things have happened. I think it’s a fake. What’s with the black and white shit? No pun intended. Why not a colour jpeg? And why no mpeg?’ By now he too was bundling his jacket on, enthusiasm getting the better of him.
‘I don’t know. That’s what we’ve got,’ I said. ‘And what we’re going after. Let’s move.’
Eight minutes after the email we were out of the door. A government car was waiting outside.
The car broadcast carComm siren all the way, and other road users were automatically shunted aside. It would take only 15 minutes to make the ’port, but even that seemed far too long. That would make it nearly half an hour after the contact, an hour since the find, before we even left the country. Miranda chatted breezily with the driver, not listening to his answers. Chen emailed the jpeg through to Central and got half a division of image analysts working on it. I stared out of the window at the passing grey, drumming my hands on my knees.
Maybe this time, I thought, as always.
Maybe this time.
I can’t blame Chen for going on the way he does. I’m just as bad. Pessimism is a defence, a protection against the certainty that after a flurry of excitement we’ll be coming home empty-handed. Again. As the years go by, and even the hoaxes get fewer and farther between, it’s hard to keep the flame burning. Miranda’s good for us that way. She’s younger, new on the job. She still believes, and that keeps us going through the long periods we spend watching the in-tray, hands hovering over the phones, waiting for no-one to call. She doesn’t know that a few years ago we’d get a call once a month, not a couple of times a year. She doesn’t realise it’s not that time is running out, but that it’s already gone. Even the hoaxers are losing interest. I know this, but I must still have a little faith tucked away somewhere. Chen too, though in his case perhaps it’s not just faith.
Miranda wrenched herself round in her seat. ‘If you don’t stop drumming I’ll have to kill you. I’ll regret it for a while, but I will have no choice.’
I took the phone from Chen and called our destination. They were already on standby and waiting for us, though we wouldn’t be there until four at the earliest. As I’d known they would be. I was just calling for something to do. The guy I talked to on the video phone looked tense and expectant, and there were a couple of soldiers milling restlessly behind him. I wondered how they were going to kill the time until we got there.
Finally the car pulled to a halt outside the international terminal. As a waiting official led us towards the entrance, Chen murmured.
‘Didn’t hear back from forensic yet.’
‘Must be a good fake,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ We looked at each other for a moment, smiled tightly and hurried across the concourse.
They’d held the MegaMall for us, and it rose as soon as we were inside. We stood by the window, watching the city fall away below us, and that kept us occupied for a while. The Mall took about twenty minutes to get up to 30,000 feet, then started its steady progress forward.
As soon as we were over the ocean we turned away from the view.
‘Christ,’ said Miranda. ‘Now what do we do?’
‘We
shop. We stroll. We mingle with passing holidaymakers and exchange pleasantries.’
‘Do we fuck,’ Chen said. ‘We drink coffee and smoke heavily. This way.’
The middle levels of the Mall were crowded, and it took a while to make our way to an escalator to the higher galleries. A man juggling oranges passed us on the way up. The oranges appeared to be on fire. Chen stared belligerently at him.
‘Street theatre, compliments of the airline,’ I said. ‘Very popular.’
‘Not with me it isn’t.’
‘How long is this going to take?’ Miranda asked. She was craning her neck and looking down across the Mall atrium. About a thousand people flocked and wandered around the lower tiers.
‘Two hours.’
‘Shit.’ She glanced at me, looking drawn. I shrugged. This was only her second callout, and already she was beginning to understand. However quickly we moved, it wasn’t fast enough.
We found a coffee bar with a balcony. We sat in silence for the most part, though Miranda and I talked a little about how the arrangements would go once we got there. I didn’t have to do that kind of thing with Chen. He knew. He sat a little apart, staring straight ahead, and waited out the flight. I knew what he’d be thinking.
Five years ago, when pretty drunk, Chen and I sat down with some old maps and tried to work out where a genuine sighting would most likely come from. We’d taken into account the way the Cities had developed, climactic conditions, previous populations, everything that might be relevant and a few things which probably weren’t. In the end we’d honed in on what used to be called the Congo, now just another region of AfriCity. Since then there’d been nothing from the region, and we’d sort of forgotten about it. Now that’s where we were going. In a way I wished Miranda would go away for a while, do some shopping or something. But only briefly, and only because of that night. I was glad Miranda was there. She deserved to be as much as we did.
More Tomorrow: And Other Stories Page 44
