Leucophores, iridophores, chromatophores.
There is a hum, a tiny tremor. A pulse percusses at her temples.
The trap of hope opens its black mouth, and she falls in.
28
Ed was away a lot. His recruitment drives were so successful that the site office was moved from Clapstone to a shopfront in Hummock with more passing foot traffic, right in the mall. He and Ned were always up there, having their important meetings; Sam supposed the new space looked more professional. It was better if the investors, whoever they were, saw the model before they saw the town. Clapstone itself was a mess.
The work had started quickly, but then it dragged to a halt. Sacks of cement languished in piles. Weeds began to grow where buildings should have been rising. Holes in the bald plots of land were left unfilled. Between striped safety tape, the trenches filled with mud and then mosquitos. Children played in them, came home crusted with filth, scratching their bites, until a cyclone fence was rented and erected around the perimeter.
Ed only stayed with them on weekends now, and sometimes not even then. He brought back presents from the city: chocolates, wine, even sent a postcard from the Big Lobster. The trips seemed to get further away each time.
Ivy didn’t act like she was missing him; on the contrary, she seemed happier when he was gone. She even liked having Sam around. They watched movies together in the quiet house, trash that could only be watched in the safety of family, laughing until they cried. Her mother’s happiness was like a bird caught in a room, its vitality near panic. Sam knew that it could not last. Neither could her own health. The migraines might not stay as long now, might be coming more sparsely, but they were also getting more intense. The nausea that had dogged her for months might sometimes leave her alone for a week or two, but it would always return eventually. There was no point in complaining about it. There was no point telling her mother about that impossible sea. She let Ivy say she was looking better, getting better. It made her happy to believe it.
Ed returned one Saturday morning, his voice booming through the house. He always came in like this: making phone calls, rearranging things, taking up space. Ned followed him in from the car, carrying boxes, loyal as a shadow. Sam watched Ivy accommodate the two of them, shifting her laundry and her books and her laughter out of the way.
Ed sat himself at the kitchen table beside Sam, helped himself to what was on offer. She watched his well-fed face, his eyes piercing but too small, with sudden dislike.
‘You right?’
He wasn’t a bad person, she reminded herself. He was just trying to help. She wouldn’t have been able to do this without him, wouldn’t have known where to start. He’d made himself essential.
‘Sammy, are you sick?’
She looked up at her mother, grateful for the old name, and gently shook her head.
‘Is it a migraine?’ Ed sat up, and Ned beside him stopped what he was doing to watch.
Sam felt like some exotic bird.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
‘We want you at the meeting tonight,’ said Ned. ‘It’s important.’ He was unpacking one of the boxes, pulling out stacks of envelopes.
‘Let her rest,’ said Ed, placing another box in front of him.
‘No. I’ll come,’ said Sam, fighting back the twisted feeling. Ivy gave her a worried look, but didn’t stop her.
The raffle wheel listed in the hall, creaking a little as she passed. The front bar of the Commercial was empty, but the back room was packed. People lifted their heads when she entered the room, but they didn’t say hello, just stared in the way they had lately, like cattle, with an aggrieved melancholy. Sam immediately wished she had not come.
For one thing, there weren’t enough chairs. She slid down onto the floor behind Ed, where at least she might stare at her phone in peace.
‘Now we’re all here, I’ve got some news,’ he began, standing to address the room.
There was only a discontented murmur in response. Sam looked up, curious. Curdie stood opposite Ed, pushing against the table with his hands, his stocky frame bent forward.
‘We’ve got something to say first,’ he said.
‘All right. You go ahead, mate.’ She noticed the distance he put in the mate. Sam couldn’t see his expression, but he sounded surprised. Ed stepped back, showed them his palms, and sat down again. The plastic chair leg buckled slightly beneath him. By Ed’s side, Ned grasped a small pile of envelopes. From her place by the wall, she had a child’s perspective of everyone’s feet, and his shoes were the same kind as Ed’s, new and polished, too formal for jeans. She wondered who had paid for them.
‘Look, I just –’ Curdie’s voice was shaking, and he cleared his throat before he continued. ‘We all appreciate what you’ve been trying to do for us.’ One worn work boot lifted a heel and pressed down on the other’s toes.
‘Go on,’ said Ed, reaching for his glass of water.
‘We’ve been concerned about the kind of progress we’re making. Or not making, more to the point. And we’re thinking we need some assurances.’ She saw Annette give him an encouraging pat on the knee. Andy’s legs wriggled in her lap, a toddler now. He kicked off one of his frog-shaped shoes and it landed under the table, out of reach.
‘What sort of assurances?’ Ed asked.
‘We need work,’ said Allan. ‘This can’t go on forever. Some of us have kids to feed.’
Ed smiled. ‘You know what I love about this town? You’re able to see past your own limitations. You’ve got to stop thinking about yourselves as workers. You’re a company now, your own bosses. That takes some getting used to.’
Carl rose unsteadily in his chair. ‘We’re not sitting round on our arses while you go traipsing around –’ he began. But then he looked around the room. ‘Oh, what difference does it make,’ he said, his shoulders falling.
Sam leaned forward. Her toes were going numb; the sneakers she wore were too small for her now. Though their anger was directed at Ed, it seemed to slide off him, sink to the floor. She got to her knees, lunging against a sudden pain in her gut that wanted to twist her sideways. The tiny shoe under the table loomed at her, widening its ridiculous cartoon eyes. She reached for it.
Above her, Ed was already talking. ‘Let me tell you my news, would you?’ He patted the table in front of him, and Curdie and Carl sat down again. ‘Far from traipsing around, as you put it, I’ve been securing our funding. It’s good news, if you’ll just listen. There’s real money coming in now. Enough to start paying people.’ Ned lifted the envelopes, shuffled them on the table like cards.
Heads lifted; murmurs changed register. But dissatisfaction had been growing for weeks, like the lantana thicket that had sprung back up in their yard. It couldn’t be cleared away by the wave of a hand. Sam got to her feet, swayed a little, looked for something to lean against. One of her legs had gone to sleep. The tingles shot up through her hip.
‘Salaries?’ asked Jean.
‘Dividends,’ Ed said, reaching for the stack of envelopes. ‘I’ve got cheques here for each of you. If you’ll let me finish.’ He waved the stack in the air.
‘I need to know what I’m going to be building,’ said Allan, and his eyes lifted from the envelopes, sought Sam’s. ‘All of it.’
Ed bared his teeth in a grin. ‘We’ll be laying concrete before Christmas. Course, it will be hot then; I’m happy to hold off until after the summer.’
‘We’re used to the heat,’ Allan said. ‘We just want to get to work.’ There was hesitation in his voice now, and a mixed expression on all of their faces. The air had gone out of them.
Ed passed the cheques around. It wasn’t much, judging by the murmurs. The smiles were too tight. He had misjudged them, Sam realised. He didn’t know these people, not like this, not when they were angry. You had to give them something they could see. The envelopes we
re pressed into pockets, into purses. Her leg tingled painfully.
Sam saw Ed turn to exchange a look with Ned, detected the faintest trace of panic in the younger man’s eyes. She stepped forward, gripped the table for support. The faces before her swam and refocused. They needed something. Maybe she owed them something. She placed one hand on the surface in front of her, and with the other she pushed the tiny shoe across to Andy, who was shocked to stillness by this sudden show of magic.
‘The sea,’ she said. The sick feeling washed up, a tide that threatened to drown her. Every sense was heightened: she could smell the dampness in the carpet, the stale air of the pub, see the shabbiness of the peeling paintwork, the crack in the wall from subsidence, the receding hairlines and weathered faces of the people. She knew these people. They knew her. That had to mean something.
‘The last migraine, I saw.’ Her throat caught on a sourness in the air, some taint of ammonia. She focused her eyes on one still point, and tried to force the swimming in her stomach to go still. All those bodies, laid out like that. It couldn’t happen. It was just a warning.
She closed her eyes. Glimmers swam in the pixelated dark behind her eyelids. The room was silent now. They were waiting. She blinked them open.
‘I saw the cuttlefish,’ she said. ‘The Giant Cuttlefish. You know, like the Big Lobster. That’s what we’re building.’
There were a few noises, but they quickly petered out. Her neighbours all faced her, variously puzzled, grave and thoughtful.
‘Sam.’ Ed’s mouth stretched down. He moved one arm close, uncomfortably so, raised it to touch her shoulder, but let it fall without connecting. ‘This is no time for jokes,’ he said in a whisper. He might as well have shouted; the silence in the room made every syllable clear. No-one was laughing.
She turned on him. ‘I saw it,’ she said. There was no point whispering. She spoke with her full voice. ‘So we have to build it. That’s the point.’
‘We talked about this,’ he said.
‘It’s different,’ she said. ‘The skin, it’s all these different colours. It’s covered in moving lights, or something. So it looks like it’s changing shape all the time.’
That broken eye. Its white limb shattered, and its chalky breath. She blinked, and it was gone. Just a warning.
‘Imagine that,’ said Curdie. It was clear he couldn’t but was trying.
Jill’s mother flashed Sam a kind expression. ‘Let her talk.’
But the silence in the room had thickened now, and Sam had lost her words. She looked from one face to the next, reading their different expressions. Pity and encouragement, embarrassment and impatience and confusion and grief. As clear as day. And submerged in all of those expressions, the same fathomless gleam of hope.
Ed took her aside in the car park. This time his grip on her arm made no attempt to reassure. The fingers dug into the flesh above her elbow. She did not bother to pull away.
‘What was all that about?’ he hissed. ‘You didn’t mention any of this before.’
‘Does it matter?’ she asked.
He looked back at Ned, who was still shaking hands with people. A good diplomat, hard at work. What did he get out of this? Why did he keep coming back? Ed’s grip tugged her closer.
‘You’re not throwing it all away,’ he said. ‘This could ruin everything.’ Sam felt it hit her like a punch. He had no idea what was coming. He hadn’t even noticed that she’d saved him in there. What did he know about ruin? She would tell him about the sea, the bodies, and then he would know.
But she couldn’t do that. She would lose it, then. Discredit herself. She had to present this as inevitable, or he would find a way to get around it.
She made her eyes remote, wrinkled her forehead. ‘It was always there,’ she said. ‘The migraine doesn’t lie.’
Ed frowned. ‘What else are you not telling me?’
On one horizon, the water drew back; the sand was strewn with death. On the other, the land was swallowed. White fog blanketed, and all was gone.
‘Nothing,’ she said. She reached for the car door, but he stopped her.
‘It’s a ridiculous idea,’ he said. ‘It’s tacky.’
‘It’s not tacky,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who saw it. It’s all different colours, like it’s made of light. It’s beautiful, Ed.’ Eyes closed, Sam pushed herself away from the edge and into deeper water. The creature came awake in her memory, flickering and bright and safe, its eye steady. She would change this, and the rest would follow.
‘This whole scheme is going to fall to pieces if people start withdrawing their funds over some ridiculous fish,’ he breathed. His face was so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath. She could smell a hint of rot in it from one bad tooth.
‘They won’t,’ she said. ‘They’re in too deep now. You saw it.’ She pulled her arm away from his grip. He glanced down at his own hand with surprise and released her. She had calmed him, but she had not won.
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Of course,’ she said. She stepped away, stroking the place where the shape of his thumb had printed itself on her elbow. It was only a little sore. ‘Anyway it’s not a fish, it’s a cephalopod.’
‘It’s a dead end. This year’s even worse than last. You know that. They’re dying out.’
‘So it’s symbolic,’ she said. ‘A memorial, like you said.’
He glanced across at Ned again with a strained expression, then lifted a hand to his hair.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. His face had softened, but it was hard to be sure. He looked suddenly tired. ‘I mean I don’t know how to build it, how to sell that to people. The light you’re talking about, I don’t know if that’s even possible. Let alone what it will cost us.’
It was strange to hear him admit a weakness, but she knew that us included her again. ‘It has to be this way,’ she said quietly. Sam swallowed, pinched her wrist. ‘I heard that music,’ she said. ‘When I think about it, I still hear that music.’ She forced herself to look directly into his eyes.
They were turquoise now, and sharp with thinking. There was fear there too; she could almost smell it on him. Fear and a ripple of something else, some glint of another colour under the blue. He looked away, and the acids in her stomach flared. She swallowed.
‘You’re right, kiddo. Of course, it’s all decided, isn’t it. No doubt of that. It’s just logistics. Details. We’ll figure it out. We couldn’t do any of this without you.’ His hand reached for the space between her shoulder blades, and she felt them tense as he pushed her towards the car. The tension travelled up her spine, swimming desperately for home.
Sam settled in, immersed herself in the visual shifts, the lights, waiting for the whirr to kick in. It was like a reward, this time. Soon she would have the evidence she needed. Warnings, not warnings, it didn’t matter. Time was mixed up, that was all; prediction presaged premonition. She set her phone beside the bed, ready to record her thoughts on waking. She was ready to see the world’s next incarnation. Ready for it to flash its skin and glow like opal. Let it hurt as much as it had to; she would know it, own it, every detail. Pain sought and found its meaning. Logistics could follow. She fell into the migraine with a willingness, a joy.
Now there’s white skin, pale white skin against a scratchy blanket. Now freckles, grunts. A young man holding the waist of his pants. The hissing brand of embarrassment. The squirm in her belly like an invasive creature, the insect swarm of shame.
Now music. Nausea now. And nothing more.
The pain left her, but not the churning in her belly. She hid inside the headache as long as she could. Kept her eyes closed, listened to her mother come and go. When she emerged, it was with a sore throat and a brain that felt like tepid jelly. She vomited into something that turned out to be an ice-cream bucket Ivy was holding beside her cheek. She spat out bi
le.
‘You looked like you were going to spew in your sleep,’ Ivy said, wiping the hair across her forehead. ‘I didn’t want you to choke.’
Sam’s smile was feeble. There was nowhere to hide. Ed was sitting at the foot of her bed with his hands clasped together. She drank the anti-nausea powder Ivy gave her, a fog mixed into water. It tasted vile.
‘Well?’ he asked. She saw Ivy shoot him a sharp look. He had ditched the notebook this time, but he was watching her closely. She glanced at the phone beside her bed, tried to shake her head. The smell of her sickness in the room disgusted her. Ivy got up, holding the container, but didn’t leave the room. She couldn’t hide her disappointment. Sam needed a minute alone.
‘Get anything?’ he said.
‘Ed,’ said Ivy, her voice a husk of warning. ‘You’re giving her an ulcer.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Sam. ‘Just give me a second. It’s coming clear.’ She held her forehead in one hand. There was a wrong note in her voice that had to be audible, but there wasn’t time to check it. Ed looked away, distracted or disgusted. Maybe she was imagining it, or maybe it was just the smell of vomit. Sam forced herself to sit up, her stomach lurching. She wouldn’t waste this moment. There was too much to get done.
‘It was the giant cuttlefish,’ she said, ‘It was just like I told you. I got a better look at it this time.’
Ed smiled at her, and very gently shook his head. The look he gave was sad, resigned, perhaps, but also fond.
‘There’s more,’ she said, but he was already getting up to go. Ivy stepped back to let him out, then gazed at Sam for a long moment. ‘Details,’ Sam said, but her voice was nearly gone.
‘We have to get you to the doctor,’ Ivy said at last, and left the room before Sam could protest. She lay back down, feeling as though the bed were a boat rocking on the water. Far out to sea. The rocking would never stop.
Dyschronia Page 19