Subvision

by Andrew McEwan

  Scherzo wasn't amused. Without a word, dreamed or not dreamed, he clambered over the rail, determined on this occasion to see it through.

  He dropped like the Thermos.

  And here, beneath the turning steps, was a circular door.

  The door was closed. Orange light outlined it.

  Scherzo opened the door and stepped inside.

  But didn't.

  70

  The altered nature of the components puzzled her. Mackintosh had stated in his report that the satellite's reactor had failed, causing a terminal loss of power, but went only so far in explaining the orbital collapse, the spiralling in to earth. She walked round the wreckage a subsequent time, picking shapes from its sad heap. Shot down was a favoured interpretation. But why and by whom? Who on this planet had the capacity, the intent? Where lay the interest in destroying a harmless communication's satellite? And those components, transmogrified. Not by heat, she felt sure of that.

  Someone paged her, freed her from its gaze, the thing behind the glass possessed of an unnatural, pseudo-organic life.

  She ran to the phone. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Rhiann?’

  ‘Yes - what's up?’

  ‘Come away from the satellite, Rhiann.’

  She turned to stare...

  ‘Rhiann!’

  ‘Sorry, Mack, got to go.’

  So what was this hold it had over her? The glass wasn't thick, serving only to contain any chemical leakage. The reactor had disengaged and burnt up on re-entry, the expected fate of the bulk of the satellite. But for some reason, as yet unexplained, the greater mass had survived.

  That shouldn't happen, Rhiann knew. She touched the glass, felt its warmth. A door slammed in the distance, the sound reverberating through the hangar. She was able to identify from the rushing footsteps the accelerated approach of Mackintosh, whose insistent paging Rhiann had left by the phone, the phone off the hook.

  Stepping back from the glass she had misted with her breath, Rhiann removed her shoes. The heels were steel tipped and might have been designed specifically for the purpose she put them to.

  ‘Rhiann!’

  Goodbye, Mack. Another time.

  FATHER

  That's my girl! She how pretty she looks? I do wish she'd stop shuffling though; makes me nervous, and I can't afford that. Not long to go now. Car's all ready, bridesmaid's stuffed into her dress, mother's stayed off the drink. Yes, so far so good. Oh, happy day! Is this the right tie, do you think? Don't want to fall down on the details, not at this late stage, that'd really screw things up. I should go look for the kid; but if he's anything like me he won't be found. It's only a ten minute drive through the woods. Plenty of time. No rush. Where's my handkerchief? Is that a stain on the carpet? Seems familiar somehow. Strange. Must be about the same age, bride and carpet. When it was sloughing pile she was cutting teeth. Its colour has faded while hers has grown. Beetroot, I reckon, it has that unwashable sheen.

  MOTHER

  Look at him sitting there; you'd think he'd won the lottery or something. What does he get out of this? And here's my baby, off into that monster's arms, never to be heard from again. If only I had strangled her at birth, wrapped the umbilical cord round her tiny gasping throat. But what am I thinking? If anyone needed strangling at birth it's him. Still wearing odd socks I see. The lying two-faced bastard! What did I ever see in him? More fool me. At least she's going somewhere hot for her honeymoon.

  BRIDESMAID

  Bitch! I hope your ovaries swell and you die! You thought I'd refuse; you must have hoped I would, that I'd be too fucking embarrassed to squeeze into this ridiculous dress. Oh, but your mother the lush asked. How could I say no? Fucking whore! I should've drowned you when we were kids. Remember? I tricked you into jumping onto that rock in the river that wasn't a rock but a brown paper bag. You were so gullible then. I laughed so much I wet myself. And there you were, underwater, face all puffed out. You thought I was crying for help, but I wasn't, I was laughing, waiting for the stream of little bubbles to come out of your mouth. I wanted to see what colour you'd turn, blue or green or grey. I was all ready to count the bubbles as they burst at the surface. I could've caught them in a jam jar, like frog-spawn. But you must've had strong lungs because you lasted an awfully long time. You didn't splash, you just stared at nothing. I hated you then and I hate you now. You were always so clever, so polite, so likeable, so good at everything. My own mother preferred you to me. I cried myself to sleep at night wishing I was you. And that knowing glint in your eye after the monk (I'll always think of him as a monk as I thought he'd come for your dead body to bury it in the ground - he had a sack with him to put you in) pulled you out. You shook yourself and smiled. It was years ago but that smile hasn't changed. The monk gave you a footprint and me a toffee-apple. A toffee-apple! You an object of interest and worth, a fossil reflecting your superior mind, and me a sticky treat, a shut-me-up reflecting my fat little cheeks and pug nose. I hope you drop dead.

  FATHER

  And where is Scherzo? And who's this Wilson bloke? Ran off after breakfast, she tells me; does it all the time. Not answer the door to his dead father, he doesn't. Nothing to worry about. He can look after himself. He'll be sitting in a tree somewhere, I suppose, wondering what happened to the world he used to get up to every morning, the world he'd learned to expect, had just begun to understand. And now that world was suddenly erased, transformed, rewritten, his father alive and his sister to marry. She might have told him sooner. Poor lad; must've come as a shock to him, thinking me bones in the desert. Divorces are such catastrophes. If I'd known, maybe me staying around a while, within telephone distance, would have made some difference. But who am I kidding? Too late now. And anyway, it was perfect cover. She liked me dead. It suited her. Always was selfish. Scherzo was much too young to know the truth. And Annie? Annie was pushing nine and had a mind of her own, a mind involved in pure mathematics, embroiled in astrophysics. And look at her now, the bride of brides, a match with my promotion written all over…

  CUT TO:

  Benedict in the shower.

  Hot water ran over his face and body, streamed down his naked sides, pooled round his feet mixed with soap-suds and skin-flakes and hair-balls and mucus. He washed away the river, its colours and flavour, scraping his flesh with coarse bristles until it reddened and became sore to touch. His eyes shut tight against the visible pounding the water discovered new ways of investing its liquid ciphers in Benedict's aching skull. Heat read his skin like fingers Braille. Fingers keyed his muscles, tapped messages onto the vacant screen of his mind. The fear he had lived with for so long enraptured him, held the artist firm within the shower, locked behind steel threads of water. The canvas of his wrapped head was stretched flat and bare, exposed to the knives and brushes and imaginary pigments, there to delineate fantastic landscapes, a painting both harsh and exact, crude and precise in its interpretation of the facts. And those facts, known and unknown, presented in such a fashion as to be themselves fluid, running, mixing, offering different perspectives, forming new alliances of colour and shade, refighting old battles wearing different uniforms, bearing different devices emblazoned on reconstituted shields, screaming the bloody names of different gods to whom they made sacrifice. Always a place of ideas, the shower. Benedict sensed a presence behind him, behind his back, a different lust than any he'd known, that which seared his corporal self, a once distant compulsion drawn near by the wrist action of his mental veneers, those which peeled and those he cut away to reveal the hidden truth of his fractured creation. He tried to open his eyes but couldn't. He spun round in the shower and lost his balance, fell, bruising his spine. The feel of his body was different; smooth, as if he'd scrubbed it of hair, polished it of definition, blunted its angles and softened its edges. Fear loomed over him, tall and hard, and he was blind to it, ignorant beneath it, helpless before it, despite the factual picture he'd constructed, the picture of himself in his head: desper
ate, maddened, inflamed, twisting the shower hose in his hands, preparing to do murder. Benedict wanted to scream but had no voice. He fought the rigid hands pinning him, but lacked their determined strength. His body was weak, that of a woman. The cheek that was smashed by a fist, that of a woman. The flesh that was battered, abused, a woman's. This was his wife he was killing. This was the moment he looped the metal hose round her throat, his throat, and pulled, raising that thrashing body and dropping it violently in the stall, water spraying everywhere, soaking floor and walls, darkening tiles and wood, pumping steam into the already saturated air. This was the precipice he wished to step back from but was unable. This was the monster he'd created. This was Roy Benedict crushing a life. He alone was responsible for this aberration. And he was enjoying it, enjoying the pain. The agony and the ecstasy, they were his. Experienced separately, but his. Rebecca was simply a form, a dumb mound of unthinking nature, something he had conjured from the stiff clay of the river, shaped with thumb and wood. She did not exist. Benedict had no wife. His wife had no illness. It was all inside him. He'd conceived her, her weight and height, sculpting her anew each morning. It was perfectly safe then, to administer this cure.

  MOTHER

  I'll go in my own car, thank-you. Yes, I know the way. I'll be there long before you; don't worry. Everything's fine. God am I glad to get out of that house! He turns up out of nowhere and suddenly it feels like the place isn't my own, that most of the furniture and all of the hard work isn't mine, that none of it belongs to me. What did he ever do to stake such a claim? Paint? Decorate? Not an inch! He never budged from his chair. The first thing he did when he arrived was sit in it and expect a cup of tea, like he'd never been away. Nothing existed for him between that chair and my bed - my bed, where he thrust two children into me, children he abandoned along with his wife, who was pleased to see him go, the eldest blaming me and the youngest his sister's pet. What did that leave me with? The bottle, and Wilson, both of whom I found in a bar, from both of which I took comfort. I wish Wilson was here now. He could've driven me. I could've reached into the glove compartment and settled my nerves; if that's possible. He deserves nothing and he'll get nothing, my prodigal husband. But I must not cry. I don't want him to see me defeated. I'll burn that chair when I get home. Burn that carpet, too, worn and stained by his bleeding feet. As soon as he goes I'll call Wilson and get him to carry the chair outside, the carpet with it, and I'll cover them in petrol and set them alight and watch the past go up in flames. Should have done it years ago. Should never have married the man. That wedding, like this, was a mistake.

  BRIDESMAID

  She looks peculiar, like a clothes-peg in a doily. I'm glad she's wearing a veil. At least my posy's nice. I think I'll stand plucking it all through the ceremony. That ought to get their backs up. Where's the brat? Is it him we're waiting for? Why doesn't somebody go find him? I can hardly breathe. My legs itch. Is he staring at my crotch? Maybe I should stare at his. That would really piss her off, me and her old man on the floor, pulling on each other while she watched. Yes, I like that idea. Don't think he'd go for it somehow. But if I offered to find Scherzo, would he get the hint? We could fuck on her bed, on her whiter than white sheets. Or maybe he'd rather fuck his daughter. Then I could watch the juices spill. Yes, I like that idea, like it a lot. I could hold her down, spit on her while she was raped.

  FATHER

  Commissioner of Gates, perhaps. Or I hear there's a vacancy at Solar Affairs. Either would do. What's blubber bones gawking at? Where's Scherzo? Not long now. We'll just have to leave the boy. His sister doesn't appear concerned, so I guess he's okay. It's his future I'm worried about; it all seems a little too vague. Have to watch out for that. Dangerous to let things go astray. Find him a nice girl, the daughter of some field agent, someone with connections I can trust. Yeah, there's what’s-her-name, one of my own bastard whelps, her mother works down in quality control. Damned if I can remember her name, either. Not that it matters; shouldn't be too difficult to sniff her out. And then relax, put my feet up, let somebody else do the hard work for a change.

  MOTHER

  Now, was it left or right at the crossroads? Since when was this wood so full of trees? Trees: the necessary verticals of a structurally sound environment, as Wilson might put it. Left, I think. Here goes. No road signs, but I can always turn around. I don't want to be late - he'd laugh at me, Little Red Riding Hood. And who's the Big Bad Wolf? And what would Annie say? I need a drink. Oh, Wilson, why aren't you here when I need you? No, right! Right at the crossroads; I should've turned right! Where's reverse gear? Get in there. There isn't room to turn in the road. Or is there? Just, yes, if I'm careful. Don't want to get stuck in a ditch and have to walk to the nearest phone. I mean, who could I call but him? Wilson doesn't own a car and there are no buses through here and it'd be too far for him to walk simply to give me a push, so I'd better not get stuck in the first place or else I'm in trouble and will you stop panicking; you're in control. Relax. Don't let him get to you. Good. Okay, reverse gear; see, where it always was. And behind you, just over the brow of the hill, is the crossroads. Reverse to it, turn up the road you came on, then take a right. Easy. But it can't be that far, surely? Must be the next rise. Not to worry. I hope nothing's coming the other way. I should be there by now. People I don't even know will be milling around shaking their heads and passing judgement. They'll be calling me a terrible mother. They'll get to talking and decide by a majority vote that I got drunk and forgot my own daughter's wedding. Or that I crashed. Too much booze in the system and...serve...her...right. What? This can't be. I hadn't driven so far and I couldn't have missed it. Well - shit! The road looks a bit wider here; I'll have a go. Light a cigarette first, that'll take my mind off the flask. It might even be empty. Okay, nearly there. No - shit! I knew it! I fucking knew it! Now I am stuck. I'm going to have to walk the rest of the way. I'm going to be late and my shoes are going to be dirty and if I cry my face will look a mess. How can I let him do this to me? All the years he's been gone I've held it together, and yet the moment he walks through my door I fall to pieces, the world crumbles around me, I don't know which hand to hold my fork in, I slap Annie so hard she despises me and Scherzo runs away. Like his father did, moments after he was born, as soon as he was satisfied it was a boy. What is it about him that makes me foam at the mouth and mumble incoherently? Must he humiliate me? What did I do wrong? Why must he punish me? Did I make him hit me? Did I chase him from my bed? No, no, he rejected me. I don't deserve this guilt. I'll walk there if it takes all day. I'll show him; he can't dominate my life. I won't let him.

  CUT TO:

  Renny and Morrison.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘No.’

  He poked the dying embers of the fire. ‘I was just thinking,’ he said. ‘If for some reason one of us doesn't make it, you know, to where it is we're going, maybe the other should have something of that person with them.’

  ‘Like a token?’ The tightening in her gut was suspicion. He'd been stirring air into that dead fire too long. What was it he saw in there?

  Morrison's eyes followed the pattern of the stick he dragged through the carbonated remains of other sticks, burnt in their time, ligneous corpses outlining - what? ‘Yes, something like that, something personal, that you personally value, that you feel says something about who and what you are.’

  Quietly, Renny sat up. The cave was dark but she had no difficulty picking out his shape from amid the countless stone and root tangles. He rested on his haunches, Morrison, captivated by the faint glow at his feet, methodically arranging the coals. A much larger stick lay within his easy reach. She hadn't noticed it earlier.

  ‘I've nothing to give,’ she replied. ‘Nothing with me, at least. Anything I had I left in the car. How about you?’ She studied the profile of his skull, the disordered mass of hair at its crown. His shoulders were tight and hunched, his spine curved like a dog's.

  ‘Me neither,�
� he said, gruff.

  So why the suggestion?

  ‘Tom?’ He no longer answered to that name. ‘Hey, Morrison?’ Nor that either; just raked the coals, moved the stick round and round obsessively, building a glowing wall of ashes.

  ‘From here I go on alone,’ the hunched man stated, silently rising. But his head did not graze the roof as before.

  Renny prepared herself mentally for the expected confrontation. She obliterated all thoughts of pity from her mind. The world turned cold, void of compassion. This was to be a harsh game, she realized. No favours could be given as none would be returned, and she had no wish to be on the losing side. It was time to be cruel, not kind.

  While he had yet to face her, yet to stoop further and raise the larger stick intended to crush her, Renny sidled, crouched, ascended a narrow shelf in the cave wall. From this angle she could clearly read the pain of his blackened features, the brow and chin protruding, the nose and lips flattened, the face a crescent moon's. His chest tightened the buttons of his once immaculate white plastic uniform. But it was the fire which commanded her attention. Morrison had raked its embers into a perfect circle on the stony ground, the orange circumference radiating a baleful hue. She felt it pulse through her, felt it compromise her heart, felt it at home in her wiry body as she leapt, the she wolf, lashing at Morrison.

  And then she was through, bearing his token, his strangled cry, as she had torn the scream from his throat.