by Claire North
“Perhaps making new friends is a bit harder, yes.”
“I can’t imagine people refuse to talk to you.”
“They answer the phone, if I call.”
“But don’t call back.”
“Not very much, no.”
“You must have known that would happen, when you took the job?”
“I … It wasn’t a price I minded paying.”
Patrick nodded, stood quickly, pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and pushed his arms into the sleeves, tutting briskly to himself. “Charlie,” he exclaimed. “I am not frightened of you, or your work. Death called me to witness, and I came. Your work brings you to London; London has some fantastic restaurants. Now—let’s get drunk.”
Chapter 33
A bar, squirrel bulbs above polished wooden surfaces, dull-growing yellow filaments, waiters in white clerk’s sleeves, black waistcoats, pristine white tea towels tucked into their belts, never to be used.
A drinks menu, cocktails that sizzled, cocktails that smoked, wine from before the digital age, wine from the mountains, wine from the hot valley floors. Beer brewed by three men in a tiny factory in Hoxton; beer brewed from berries hand-picked by women in Sweden. Charlie looked at the menu and prayed that Patrick was paying, and was unsurprised and relieved when the other man put his card behind the bar.
There wasn’t any music—didn’t need to be. A queue at the door that Patrick bypassed with a smile, crowds pressed in close inside, the chink of glasses, the delight of friends long-parted, their friendship ready to be re-baptised in alcohol. Flirting couples, your eyes are full of colour, there is a golden band around the rim …
“Why are there two pink pompoms on your phone?” asked the woman, all leg and hair, a travelling ozone disaster around every perfectly permed yellow lock.
“Touch them …” said the man, hips forward, shoulders back, his body bowed in expectation.
She touched them.
“You just touched my balls!” he exclaimed, whooping at his own cunning, and she laughed, a high-shrill titter, as if a mad scientist had combined a piccolo with a Gatling gun, each bullet a polished white tooth, a weapon to be fired only when smiling.
Charlie looked away, wondered if it would be rude to leave already, to catch the bus back to Dulwich, the train to Paris, hire a car, get away to somewhere else, go talk to a woman in the mountains or a man by the sea …
Then Patrick saw three of his friends come through the door, and he waved cheerfully and called them over, and they waved back and smiled the same alien, baseline smile that was always on Patrick’s face, and said, “Oh my God, this is the actual Harbinger of Death, it’s just, well I thought you’d be dressed all in black!” and everyone laughed, and Charlie decided that the time had come to get very drunk indeed.
Chapter 34
No, but yeah, but listen to me …
Ms. Young, you can ask your questions at the end of this meeting.
I’ve been asking questions! I’ve written to my MP, to my councillors, I went to the housing office, I went to the fucking library to look at the fucking planning permission …
Ms. Young …
LISTEN TO ME! Please, please just listen to me. You’re gonna tear down our homes, the place where we live, and I get it, you’re skint, you’re skint, you need more cash, basic services and that, but like, there’s nearly two thousand of us, mums and dads and kids and grandparents, and we’re all living there fine, just fine, and like, most of us work nearby or go to school round the corner, and our lives, we built our lives, not just work but like, everything we do, and you’re gonna sell it and I looked and they’re gonna build new homes …
There are obligations to build affordable housing …
Yeah, but Section 106, which is like, what you’re talking about—that was changed so that developers don’t have to and now like, affordable in London is nearly half a million quid, and that’s not affordable, I mean, maybe it is for you, but it’s not for me, I don’t think it’s affordable for any of the flunkies you’ve brought with you …
Ms. Young, if you will not behave in a decorous manner …
You’re killing us. You’re fucking killing us. You’re destroying our lives. And when you’re done, you’re gonna have spent more money on doing it than you made on the sale, and there’ll be less housing for fewer people, and our lives will be done. I don’t know what we’re meant to do. Every time I speak I just get told to talk to another department, and it never ends. No one takes responsibility; no one has a final say. What are we meant to do? What the fuck are we meant to do?
Chapter 35
Voices.
Usually they cleanse, usually they wipe away the weight of the soul, but tonight …
… so look, I’m a woman, yes, I’m a woman and I run a business. I admit, when a woman comes to me, applying for a senior role, I hesitate. I do, I really do, of course, because she might get pregnant, she might meet someone, decide to have a baby, and then that’s maternity leave I’m paying, that’s maternity leave and no guarantee she’ll come back, so now I’ve hired someone to cover her work and just as they’re learning the skills, just as they’re getting useful, she returns but I still have to pay the cost of the cover’s insurance, of their redundancy. I mean if you’re going to pursue work pursue work, but even a woman who says she’s not going to, I look at her and I just think—darling, one day you’ll have a baby, and then you won’t care about my needs, so what use are you to me?
I’m not sure that’s how maternity cover works …
I’m just telling you as someone who runs a business how I feel about this. I’m a job creator, I create jobs …
The problem with asylum seekers—no, hear me out—the problem is that they come over here, and they expect to be looked after. They’re not interested in working, they don’t care about the strain they put on the system, they feel entitled—that’s the word, isn’t it, entitled—to everything the country has to give them, and why? Because they’ve suffered. Well, we’ve all suffered, people in this country are suffering, and they’re more entitled than you are, I hate to say it …
(Charlie.)
That’s bullshit, that’s bullshit, I’m sorry, I have to call bullshit because they’re people, aren’t they, they’re all just people, and as for women, well, by what right do we judge women, I mean all women, and there it is, isn’t it, there it is, all women judged, everyone put into the basket of “you’re going to have a baby so I can’t hire you.” I mean, Jesus, men have penises and they put them in some fucking stupid places
(Charlie.)
and they go off their fucking heads and I’m not like “you’re a man you might be an arsehole so I can’t hire you,” because “you’re a woman so you might have a baby.” I mean what the fuck? What the fuck are we saying to our children, to our daughters, my daughter is never going to get equality because …
(Charlie!)
Charlie jerked, nearly spilling his drink, blinked some semblance of awareness back into his face, saw Patrick, smiling at him wearily over the bar, while around him, Patrick’s friends and acquaintances—somehow grown to seven in number—argued and bickered from atop their stools, hands flying in tight circles as they strove to both express their indignation and avoid hitting each other with their polished fingernails.
Patrick waited as Charlie forced himself back into the room, pulling his mind out of …
… some other place, where rumbled the sound of thunder.
“Are you all right?” Patrick murmured. “You seemed a little lost.”
“No. Sorry—I was … sorry.”
The nearest woman turned to Charlie, a gold choker at her neck, gold rings on her fingers, and said, “What do you think?”
“About …?”
“Migrants.”
“I don’t know if I … What kind of thing do you mean?”
“Do you think we should let them in? I mean, I understand war, of course, I understand how difficult it
must be, but …”
(On the border of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Harbinger of War took another selfie of herself with the tribal leader, before turning to him and his men and saying, “I’m sorry—whose side are you on again?” The soldier waited for her words to be translated, then started back in surprise before at last, pointing with his index finger into her bewildered face, he exclaimed, “Very funny!” and told his men the joke, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.)
“I don’t think it’s simple, I don’t think it’s …”
“Someone has to make decisions, don’t they? Someone has to make a clear, executable choice …”
(In the footsteps of the Harbinger of War comes her master. Today he comes by Honda, that being the only car available for hire at the local airport, and Death sits in the passenger seat and tries to find north on the map, and the world burns where their shadows fall.)
“Leadership should be clear. Leadership doesn’t need complexity.”
(Charlie? Charlie …)
Charlie stood in the men’s toilets, pressed his head against the wall as the Tornado 3000 (“The world’s most powerful and hygienic hand dryer!”) rippled the skin across the back of his hand, pulling and tugging at flesh like waves across the sea. There was ice in the urinals, for reasons he didn’t understand, and hand-moisturising lotion by the sink, and the mirrors in which his tired grey face reflected back at him were tinted bronze, as if attempting to offer an instant tan to its clients. Dried flowers were carefully arranged in white clay pots, a strange, dead mockery of Japanese flower arranging, tied up with silver wire.
Two men came through the door.
… if he can’t do the job then I’m sorry, he’s got to …
… yes, but disabilities, the disability means …
… I’ve got a business to run, I’ve got money to make, I’ve got …
Charlie nearly ran from the toilet, head pounding.
Standing in the street, breathing cold air. The grumbling traffic of Haymarket to the left, waiting to get through the tangle of street lights around Piccadilly Circus. The imperial luxury of St. James’s below, palaces and old nobility, offices owned by Lord Such and Such, son of Lord and Lady Such and Such, men and women who grumbled it was such a burden being aristocracy these days, such a lot of hard work. Hairdressers to the movie stars, tailored suits and polished brass buttons, regalia, private drivers in black caps and white gloves, trouser legs creased down the middle …
Charlie couldn’t breathe. He turned to press his hands against the glass front of the bar, stretching out like a runner, and exhaled slowly through his nose, counting backwards from ten. Then, again, and one more time, when a voice said,
“Charlie?”
He looked up.
A woman—one of Patrick’s friends, he couldn’t remember which—a vanilla-cream trouser suit, jacket slung over one arm, cigarette drooping out of the corner of her mouth, high heels that made her even taller than she already was, hair dyed to hide the onset of grey, mouth pulled back wide into the same habitual, welcoming smile he always saw on Patrick’s face. Only no, more than that—the smile had nuance, it greeted strangers, it appreciated a wry joke, it marvelled at its own foolishness, it flickered in anger, it expressed a whole range of sentiment except, perhaps, pleasure. It was the smile of the consummate businessman, and in that moment, Charlie knew he’d never be able to smile that way.
He straightened, self-conscious, cheeks burning, and tried to force something to match it onto his face, and failed. “I’m sorry, I was just … getting some air.”
“Are you all right—ah, cigarette?” A question, immediately forestalled in case Charlie might want to answer. She held out a cigarette case of embossed gold, two initials—KL—blazoned on the front. Charlie hesitated, for a moment tempted, then shook his head. He’d tried smoking back at college, and it had always made him cough and feel sick, though he’d pretended that, like all Strong Men, he enjoyed it and felt fine. No one had believed him, and out of sympathy his friends had stopped offering.
“I’m … fine, thank you. I’d … I’ll go back inside, maybe say goodbye to Patrick. It’s been a long day, and I’ve got a train …”
He moved to go, but as he did the woman said, “Charlie? I may call you Charlie, mayn’t I?”
He hesitated, turned back, realised that in her heels, she was a few inches taller than he was, and the height of her shoes created strange curves in her body so that her hips came forward, her shoulders tilted back, her chin stuck down again to counteract the overall effect, and like a rippling sine-wave, there was no part of her that wasn’t in some way contorted. It wasn’t an unpleasing effect, but he couldn’t imagine it was a comfortable one to maintain.
“You don’t know me,” she smiled, one hand resting on the top of his shoulder, holding him in place. “But Patrick told me all about you. How long have you been the Harbinger of Death?”
“Bit over a year.”
“That’s not so long. Do you like it?”
“It’s all right.”
“Do you meet the big man much?”
“No.”
“You’re just … how did Patrick put it … the one who goes before?”
“That’s right.”
“Interesting.”
She took another long inhale of cigarette, her hand still latched onto Charlie’s shoulder. Exhaled out of the corner of her mouth, blowing the smoke away from his face, smiled again, crocodile bright. “I’ve got a friend who says she met Death, saw him hold the hand of a cyclist who got hit by a bus. Said he was fearsome and wonderful and terrible and kind and … She’s getting married to some guy in a few weeks’ time, usually I’d say she went for the wrong type, but this one, he’s almost too good for her. He teaches kickboxing and manufactures valves for plastic pipes. I like him. I think they’ll be … very happy together.”
Is this a good thing? Is this a bad? By her voice, it’s hard to tell.
Another exhale, a puff of smoke, stubbing out the remains, is he sure—yes, he’s sure, thanks, he’ll just be off … “And did your boss ask you to stick your nose into the Longview job?”
Her hand, on his shoulder, tighter now. Charlie found it hard to meet her eyes, looked away, hated himself for looking away, looked back, anger coming from somewhere, he wasn’t sure where, something deep inside. “Yes,” he replied, voice hard and flat as slabs beneath his feet. “He did.”
Another pull, another puff, taking her time. “Why do you think he did that?”
“Presumably because something, someone, is dying.”
“The old man?”
“Mr. Young,” he corrected, sharper than he’d meant. “Maybe.”
Again, the smile, now the last pull of the cigarette, drop the stub, stamp it out beneath her shoe, still holding his shoulder, the smile wider. “Bullshit,” she said. “It’s bullshit. I talk the way I find it, it’s how I get by, my time is precious, I don’t have time to waste on meaningless words. Patrick wants to take things softly, he’s always put value on these things, but not me. People call me blunt, and that’s good, I’ll take it, thank you very much. The old man is going to die, and Death gives a fuck—well bullshit to that. Do you know why it’s bullshit? Because all he has to fucking do is move house. Jesus, it’s not like where he lives is fucking Marble Arch anyway—it’s a shitty little flat in a shitty little estate, he should just take the money and go somewhere decent, old folk’s home, maybe, spend the cash on a bit of residential care, and when it runs out, he can sponge off the state like everyone else he’s ever fucking known.”
These words, said without malice, the smile still in place, her hand still on his shoulder, fingers digging into bone. “And that kid of his? What the fuck does she even think she’s doing, living with her grandad? Fuck me, how old is she, get a life, get a fucking mortgage, just get on with it! When I was her age, I was already two promotions up the ladder and accelerating, and I didn’t come from much, I didn’t have the cash, the fa
mily home, but I worked for it, I just worked to make it happen.”
Charlie tried to move away, and she held him tight, weightlifter arms beneath her silk blouse, turning her body to plant it between him and the door. “Capitalism,” she explained softly, “requires that there is a difference in wealth. That’s just how it works. And I don’t say it’s fair, and I don’t say it’s nice, but it’s the best system we’ve got and the wealth that these people have, the money the council is giving them—that’s more wealth than most people could ever fucking dream of, and they’re giving us shit?”
“Us?” stammered Charlie, neck bending to stare up into the woman’s face.
“I run the project,” she replied, casual as a butterfly in spring, a flick of her fingers at the empty air to encapsulate the money, the people, the tools at her command, a little thing, such a little thing. “The estate is mine, I bought it from a council willing to sell, and I’ll sell it to the people, to the grateful people looking to buy. And they will be grateful—there’s a housing crisis in this country, haven’t you heard? At every stage, at every step of the way there will be people getting down on their knees and thanking me for having the vision to make something better; the people I employ, the people who buy the homes, the businesses who come to cater to them, the council for raising the quality of the area, I am …” She hesitated, licking her lips, searching for the words. “I am a developer, and proud of that word. To develop—I make something better from something old. The Longview was a shitty mcshitty bit of old; it was old bricks for old ideas. We’re making something better, and I do genuinely believe that, and if your boss, if Death thinks there’s something worth shoving his nose into, then you tell him to come talk to me in person, in person. I’m not afraid. Fear is the only thing that has ever held humanity back from progress, and I … am a humane person. Do you understand, Charlie, Harbinger of Death? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded, slow, no words coming to take their place.
Her smile, which had never faltered, brightened now into a thing that was almost real. She let go of his shoulder, reached down for her cigarette case, drew another from its shell, popped it between her lips, smiled again, causing the end to bob up and down, and talking with her lips barely moving as she clasped the tube added, “Patrick can get romantic about these things. He thinks we should respect the forces of history and the forces of nature. I have no such fucking stupid ideas.”