The Spiral

by Iain Ryan

  In the afternoon, they shared cigarettes.

  Clover made the coffee, for a change.

  They ate dinner at a nearby restaurant.

  ‘I’m not really into documentation, not like some,’ Christa said over dumplings. ‘I do it, we all have to do it, but this—’ she waved her hand across the restaurant table, ‘—this is better. I want people to think about what I do. I just don’t normally want to talk to people. Or steer the conversation. I don’t want more artist statements. Most people who want to talk to me don’t seem to understand that. I don’t want more control. I hate control. I want less control.’ That was the end of all discussion about what was taking place.

  After dinner, they went to a neighbourhood gallery opening. No one approached Christa directly, they were always introduced. Clover could tell people were afraid of her. It wasn’t how she looked, it was more the array of disconnects her image presented. Christa’s life and work preceded her in every moment: the drugs and gossip, the rituals and orgies, the brutality, the line of disgruntled lovers. The bodies piled up. And yet none of this showed on the person who stood there in the gallery. There was a marked contrast. A disconcerting contrast, Clover thought. Christa’s eyes may have been a little cold to look into, but otherwise she was another tall, stately woman in a room full of them.

  There was an after-party and a back room. People huddled and shouted. They crowded around artists and rocked on their heels, half listening, chewing their jaws. Clover knew the crowd well. A man with cropped hair and a ring on his thumb came close to her ear and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘No, I’m okay.’

  Christa stood nearby. Clover could feel her eyes on her.

  ‘At least let me buy you a drink,’ said the man.

  ‘No one’s buying drinks in here.’

  ‘Well, maybe—’

  ‘You done?’

  He walked away. Christa circled back. ‘Come with me,’ and she took her hand. They found a bathroom stall and Christa handed over a bag of powder. Clover tapped out two lines on the bench above the pedestal, took a five dollar note from her handbag, and snorted it back. She said, ‘Don’t look at me. I always sneeze when I take this stuff.’

  Christa had her turn.

  After a long moment, Clover breathed out. ‘I was wondering if you still partied.’

  ‘People like me never stop altogether,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t need to?’

  ‘Need, want, can’t, won’t. It’s all the same after a few years.’

  Back at the house, they sat in the lounge and talked down the jitters. At the end, Christa made her move as Clover expected. She let the artist kiss her before gently touching Christa’s face and apologising.

  In the morning, Christa sat at the table working. ‘Hello again,’ she said.

  They ate.

  Clover checked her email.

  She took a shower. While she stood in the bathroom flossing, Christa knocked at the door.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Clover.

  The door opened a few inches. Christa had a phone in her hand. ‘Can you drive a car?’

  ‘I can drive an auto. Why?’

  ‘How would you like to come for a ride with me?’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The country. It’ll be good for your piece, I promise.’

  Clover turned back to the mirror. ‘Sure.’

  Christa closed the door.

  Outside, a man in a suit stood on the sidewalk beside a dark SUV. ‘Jeremy, it’s nice to see you again,’ said Christa as she came down the stairs. She carried a long, black bag.

  ‘Always a pleasure, Ms Ellis. I’ve been told you’re driving yourself today?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, but Clover drove. Christa directed her south out of the city. Within the first hour, it began to snow and by the time they reached Champaign, the roads were slick with ice banked up to the gutters.

  ‘It’s going to be a cold winter,’ said Christa. Her phone chimed. She checked it.

  They drove all morning. Christa had Clover turn off the interstate and drive further into the flat country. They came to a small township, a stark place with low-set houses spread apart and all of them back from the road. The town centre had an old stone library, a police station, a gas station, a few stores and not much else. They passed a snow-covered sports field — or a racetrack, it was hard to tell — and beyond the snowfield stood a menacing grey water tower, its bulb-like head propped up on four thin steel legs. ‘That’s it,’ said Christa.

  They parked at the base of the tower. Christa removed her bag from the trunk and stepped across to one of the tower’s legs. A metal ladder ran up the leg to a rickety-looking platform running the perimeter of the basin. ‘I’m going up,’ she said, slipping on a pair of gloves.

  Clover took it in. The tower looked about a hundred feet off the ground. ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘We’ll be fine. Do you not like heights?’

  ‘No,’ said Clover, a lie. ‘I’m more scared of falling. Aren’t you scared of falling?’

  ‘We won’t be up there long. You don’t have to come but I think you should.’

  Christa slung the black bag over her shoulder.

  She started climbing.

  Clover took hold of the ladder and followed. The rungs were dry in the centre and rusted so they gripped to her gloves and shoes but when she was a few feet from the ground, Clover ran her hand along the painted sides of the ladder, and they were like glass. As she went further up, she concentrated on her legs and hands, slowly finding a secure footing for each step before taking another. She was slow.

  Up on the platform, Clover took in the view and the emptiness of it. The black car below, a dot. The narrow stilts holding them in place. The tiny township. The houses and trees huddled together in a white expanse, the roads criss-crossing the snow like ribbons. The sun sat low in the sky now, dim behind grey cloud. Clover willed herself to move, to walk along the platform. She moved around and looked at the tank with its rusted seams and weathered paint. On the other side, she found Christa hunched over a demountable tripod, adjusting the lens on a camera. Christa pointed into the distance where a group of people stood in a snowfield. The area was cordoned off with tape. There was a van and car off to one side. A flickering light.

  Christa’s camera clicked and whirled. ‘Look,’ she said, motioning to the telephoto lens. ‘The police just got here.’

  Clover placed her eye over the camera’s viewfinder. A tall bearded man and a middle-aged woman, both dressed in long dark coats, stood in the snow. Off to one side was a plump looking policewoman, hat in hand, with her partner. There was a photographer as well. They all stood around something in the snow. When it came into view, Clover moved back from the viewfinder.

  ‘Look again,’ said Christa.

  Clover looked. Two young boys lay in the snow. They both had head injuries. Blood haloes in the surrounding white. They looked like mannequins.

  ‘It’s not how you’d think, is it?’ said Christa.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Christa moved back behind the camera and started snapping off photographs. ‘It’s not like my work,’ she said. ‘Something like this is … it’s always so still. There’s that total absence of movement. You can only see it here. You can’t recreate it. Trust me, I’ve tried. And this guy … this guy is nothing if not consistent. He always dumps them in the snow. Always clean. I’m starting to think he’s some sort of minimalist.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  The police car reversed out from the crime scene and onto the road. It came back towards town. Clover watched the car snake through the streets and around the sports field.

  ‘They’re coming to tell us to get down,’ said Christa.

  The camera whirred.

  The police car stopped below. A car door slammed.

  A voice called up.

  ‘You go,’ said Christa. ‘Tell them we were up here taking stills for a
book about Illinois, when we saw the bodies. Or something like that. She won’t give you any trouble.’

  Clover didn’t move.

  Christa turned to her. ‘Don’t tell them who I am, or we’ll be here all day.’

  Clover walked around the tank to the platform opening.

  On the ground, the policewoman called up again. ‘Be careful now, Miss. You can slip and break your neck up there.’

  Clover sat down. She gave the policewoman below a short wave before rubbing her hands together and reaching for the ladder. As she started down and her head dipped below the platform, Clover felt light-headed. She took another few steps lower and stopped.

  She waited.

  Fighting back all her instincts, she looked down past her feet to the ground below. As she did, her hand knocked a splinter of ice free and it fell, giving the height perspective. This wasn’t right. She heard footsteps on the platform above. The whine of a telephoto lens directed at her. Clover hugged herself to the ladder and perched there, suspended in the cold wind far above the ground, everything real and dangerous suddenly, but also rich and deep. It terrified her. It felt like new information, like living and dying at the same time.

  First published in the UK in 2020 by

  ZAFFRE

  An imprint of Bonnier Books UK

  80-81 Wimpole St, London, W1G 9RE

  Owned by Bonnier Books

  Sveavägen 56, Stockholm, Sweden

  Copyright © Iain Ryan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Iain Ryan to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-83877-142-3

  Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk