by Louise Welsh
Magnus looked at Stevie. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Stevie ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it behind her ears in a calm way that did not quite hide her fear.
‘No point hanging around.’
‘Wait.’ The old woman who had been tending to dying Grace rose to her feet. Her face was pale and wrinkled, but age had not touched her fine bone structure, her sharp cheekbones. Magnus felt a shiver of déjà vu. A single tear ran down the woman’s cheek. Her voice was clear. ‘No one gets far without a gun these days.’
Magnus said, ‘We’ll have to do our best.’
The old woman bent stiffly to her knees. Magnus thought she was going to resume her prayer but she dragged a rifle and a pistol from beneath the couch and placed them by her dead companion’s body.
‘Grace would have wanted these to go to a good home.’ She pulled herself upright with the aid of one of the couch’s arms. ‘There’s not much ammo, so you’ll have to get more or go easy. I find that if you shoot the lead dog it can keep the rest of the pack at bay, depending on whether they’re rabid or not.’ She made a face. ‘There’s a lot of rabies these days. I imagine it came through the Chunnel.’
Stevie took the weapons from the woman. She weighed the rifle in her hand and passed the pistol to Magnus. ‘Thank you.’
‘De nada, as we used to say.’ The woman met his eyes and Magnus realised that he had spent hours in the dark watching her face appear in close-ups on a screen twenty-feet high. Her hair had been darker then, cropped just as short, but in a more sophisticated style.
He said, ‘I remember you, from before.’
The woman’s smile dazzled years from her face. She covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes in mock self-deprecation.
‘Vanity is the last thing to die.’ She put a hand on the still sobbing Briar’s head. ‘It’s all dust now, but there’s some consolation in knowing my films still exist, even if only in a few people’s memories. I’m not going to spoil things by asking which ones you saw.’
It was an invitation, but the substance of films escaped Magnus and there was something dreadful about the sight of the woman grinning at him from across the fresh corpse.
Briar pulled free of the actress’s touch and joined them by the window, wiping away tears. ‘Ask them, Ivan.’
The old man draped an arm around the small figure, pulling the child close and putting his lips to his/her cheek in a way that made Magnus uneasy.
‘If we could increase our numbers we might be able to begin forming a credible opposition. Natalie and I are too old to become commandos, but we have a lot of valuable experience between us.’ Ivan looked fondly at the guitarist. ‘Briar’s young and untried, but willing to learn.’ His eyes met Magnus’s. ‘We would make good comrades.’
Stevie slung the rifle the old woman had given her over her shoulder. ‘We can’t turn back now.’
Ivan nodded, as if her answer was inevitable.
Briar had put an arm around Ivan’s waist and was leaning against him, hip to thigh. He/she seemed younger in the old man’s embrace.
‘You could come back, once you’ve found your kids. They could join us too.’ Briar’s words came out in a rush. ‘We saved you.’
Ivan returned Briar’s hug. ‘They don’t owe us anything.’ He looked from Stevie to Magnus. ‘Don’t mistake Bream for a movie villain or a deranged psychopath. He’s not Hitler or Stalin, conniving for the greater glory of himself or some messianic ideology. Bream sincerely believes he’s acting for the good of the community. His solution to the city’s labour problems may trouble him, but he’s willing to shoulder an uneasy conscience in order to do what he believes is right …’
Magnus’s voice was tight. ‘So your advice is to give up?’
The old man stroked a hand through Briar’s long hair.
‘Let me finish. Bream has two weaknesses and two corresponding fears. Much as he believes in what he’s doing, Bream would rather the nature of his workforce wasn’t too widely known.’
Stevie said, ‘Word gets around. If the city’s as small as you say it is, people will already know he’s using slave labour.’
Ivan gave his small, sad smile. ‘People know what they want to know. Most of them will convince themselves the system benefits the slaves. Bream is leader of the city by popular consent. It’s in his interest to keep people in the dark. And when it comes to uncomfortable truths, in the dark’s exactly where most people want to stay.’
Stevie said, ‘Are you suggesting we threaten to expose him?’
Ivan snorted. ‘Threaten Bream with exposure and you’ll wake up dead.’
Magnus said, ‘You said he wasn’t a psychopath.’
‘Everything’s relative.’ Ivan dragged a hand across his face. His features drooped further, then moulded back into shape. ‘The city’s approaching a crucial stage. Bream’s determined to convert salvage into new resources. He’s making progress. His workers—’
‘Slaves,’ Stevie corrected him.
Ivan stumbled over the word. ‘His slaves have succeeded in reclaiming valuable assets but, despite his radio broadcasts, he hasn’t attracted new settlers in the numbers he’d hoped.’
Magnus thought of the desolate countryside they had driven through. He recalled Lord Ramsey’s men and the brethren tearing each other apart in Dounthrapple’s Merkat Square.
‘Maybe there aren’t as many survivors as he thought.’
Ivan sucked in his cheeks. His thin face and white beard gave him a goatish aspect.
‘Could be. But Bream fears he’s open to attack. He’s got assets and not enough personnel to protect them. It’s made him prone to paranoia.’
Briar’s grin was bold. ‘That’s why he threw us out. He didn’t like Ivan and me being friends. It made him paranoid.’
Magnus looked at the small body, hugged so close to the old man’s they were almost entwined and felt unexpected kinship with Bream.
Stevie said, ‘What do you mean he threw you out?’
Ivan winced. ‘We disagreed on how to run things.’
Briar talked over the old man. ‘Ivan was Bream’s deputy. I was working in the recycling plant when he found me and recognised my potential. Ivan made me his assistant, but Bream didn’t like it. They quarrelled and we had to run away. Natalie and Grace came with us.’
Natalie had been brushing her dead friend’s hair. She paused in her task.
‘Old prejudices reassert themselves in times of trouble. People in the New Corporation wouldn’t accept that Ivan and Briar are in love.’
Magnus resisted the urge to take the small figure by the shoulders and prise them free of the old man’s grasp.
‘How old are you?’
The child threw him a defiant look.
‘What difference does it make?’
Magnus nodded towards Ivan. ‘He’s taking advantage of you. You’re too young to realise it, but he knows.’
Ivan put his hand on the curve of Briar’s skull, almost cradling the child’s head.
‘Our age difference would have been considered a problem before the Sweats but—’
Magnus’s voice was ice. ‘You would have been put in jail.’
Natalie said, ‘Oh for God’s sake.’
Ivan released his hold on Briar’s head and raised his hand in the air, silencing her. His voice was gently reasonable.
‘Relationships like ours were forbidden, but the Sweats put everything into perspective. What does the difference in our ages matter? We’re both alive in a world full of the dead. I help keep Briar safe and Briar makes my life worth living.’ He squeezed the guitarist’s shoulder. ‘Tell them your story.’
Briar twisted his/her head away.
Ivan said, ‘Don’t be shy. It might help them understand.’
The old man’s gentle coaxing invoked old tabloid reports of minicabs cruising darkened streets and charmed teenagers climbing from the windows of children’s homes; vodka bottles, pills and friends-to-be
-kind-to.
Magnus said, ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
Briar disentangled his/her body from the old man’s and sank cross-legged to the floor. Ivan followed suit, using the child’s shoulder to steady himself. He drew his knees up with the aid of his hands. Ivan’s old head looked ghastly on top of his thin body. As if he had transplanted himself into the corpse of a teenager, but been unable to alter his face.
Natalie began brushing Grace’s hair again. She hummed to the dead woman in a light, wavering voice. There was a brittle edge to the melody that suggested her teeth were clenched. Magnus wanted to tell her to shut up. He stayed on his feet, too angry to join the storytelling circle on the floor.
Briar’s voice was low. ‘I used to live with some kids in the railway arches down by the river. I lived somewhere before that, but I don’t remember where. The arches were cold and damp. The rats wouldn’t leave us alone. Sometimes they brought the dogs with them. Rats and dogs hate each other, but they travel together. We’d collect stones and fight them off with catapults and slings.’ A boast entered Briar’s voice. ‘I killed more dogs than anyone. Wham!’ The guitarist shot a clenched fist into the air, miming a punch. ‘Once I killed a lion or a tiger; a big cat with teeth like a trap. I sent a rock between its eyes and it dropped like a stone. I ate its heart to get its power. We ate the dogs too, so we could grow strong and fierce like them.’
Now the tale had begun Briar’s mood was reckless, his/her grin wild. ‘After I ate the lion’s heart, I could feel it alive inside me. I ran faster. My teeth were sharper.’
Ivan sucked in a long, whistling breath. ‘They were feral children, abandoned and half-savage.’
Briar looked at him. ‘I was whole savage, couldn’t hardly speak except in tunnel-talk.’
The sound of howling came from the mall below. Natalie’s song died, the hairbrush lay still in her hand.
Ivan touched Briar’s hand. ‘Tell them how you ended up in the recycling plant.’
Briar’s smile faded. He/she looked towards the sound of the dogs.
‘Some men came. We hid, but they knew we were there. They lit a fire and started to cook dog stew. The men sang songs while they waited, songs we didn’t know. We were scared as puppies, but the smell of the stew and the heat of the flames called us. We sneaked close enough to hear their songs and steal warmth from the fire. We could hear the men chewing the meat, crunching the bones. We crept closer. The men spoke our tunnel language. They offered us food and talked, while we filled our bellies. They said they knew a place where we would always be warm and well fed. There were women waiting for us there; kind women whose children had died and who wanted new sons and daughters. Some of the kids said the men were child snatchers. They gobbled their stew and ran away, but when the sun came up, four of us followed the strangers into the city.
‘It was exciting at first. We marched across town, singing our tunnel songs. We travelled further from our den than any of us had travelled before, but we weren’t afraid. The men had guns. When dog packs came for us they shot the king dog and the rest went running. We cheered and the men gave us sweets to eat.’ Briar paused. ‘I knew what my new mother would look like. I could see her face. She had clean, blonde hair that smelt good and a smile that made you feel happy. No one showed me a picture, but I knew that was how she would be.’
Shug had gone through a phase, when he was around eight years old, of suggesting women Magnus might marry. Nothing had come of it. The women the boy liked had tended to be too motherly for Magnus’s tastes and the women Magnus fancied were never the mothering kind.
He looked at Briar. ‘I’m guessing she didn’t exist?’
‘I think maybe she does, somewhere. But the men didn’t take me to her. ‘They led us to a big building full of stuff. There were different men there, three of them. They didn’t smile or give us nice things to eat. They took us to piles of salvage and showed us what to pick out. They said that if we did as we were told, we’d be fed. We tried to leave and they beat us until all we wanted was for them to stop.’ Briar stalled again.
Ivan put a hand on the child’s arm. ‘There was more, wasn’t there?’ Briar looked away. The old man said, ‘You need to tell them, if they’re to understand.’
Briar stared out into the middle distance, somewhere beyond the control room of the mall. The rosebud lips were pursed, the shrapnel teeth hidden.
‘It made the men angry that I was different. At first they only called me names, tripped me up and gave me tangles of razor wire to separate.’ Briar opened his/her tattooed hands to reveal a crosshatch of white scars, thin as threadworms. ‘I wanted to make them like me so I smiled and did as I was told, but it only made them hate me more. There were other kids there too, not just our tunnel squad. One night the men set up a boxing ring and made us fight. I knew the other kids would hurt me, but I thought my friends would only pretend.’ Briar looked at his/her hands again. ‘My friends had learned to hate me too. They beat me until all I had was pain. After that they hurt me even when there was no one there to watch. There were other things too.’
Magnus had a premonition of what Briar was about to tell them. He closed his eyes, as if not seeing the child would lessen his dread.
‘One of the men liked to get me on my own. He told me I was pretty and promised to protect me, but then he hurt me more than all the others.’ Briar looked at the adults. ‘Ivan saved me. He took me away from the salvage centre. He washed me, dressed my wounds and when they were healed he found me a guitar to play. Ivan gave me my freedom. I would have loved him anyway, but I love him more because he rescued me.’
Ivan took Briar’s hand in his. He raised it to his lips and kissed the tattooed cross in the centre of the child’s palm. ‘I love you too.’
The sight of the old man’s lips against the guitarist’s scarred hand burned in Magnus’s craw.
‘Briar’s a child. You haven’t saved anyone. All you’ve done is swap one type of abuse for another. You’re a criminal and if it was up to me …’ Magnus was about to say he would like to see Ivan hanged, but an image of poor Adil, swinging on his rope, visited him and he choked on his words. ‘… If it was up to me you’d be locked up.’ Magnus took Briar by the shoulder and pulled him/her upright, beyond the old man’s grasp. ‘You’re coming with us.’ Ivan made a lunge for the child. Briar struggled to get free, but Magnus was stronger than both of them. ‘You’ve been taken advantage of so many times you can’t tell kindness from abuse.’ The child kicked and bucked, swearing and calling for Ivan. Magnus gripped a hand under each of Briar’s armpits. ‘You’ll thank us for this one day.’
No one had ever put a gun to Magnus’s head before, but the sudden cold shaft of metal against his cheek was horribly familiar. He froze, still clutching Briar.
Natalie said, ‘Let him go.’
Magnus released his grip and the child ran sobbing to the rifle resting on the filing cabinet by the door.
Stevie unslung her new rifle from her back and aimed it at the woman, but Natalie’s finger was snug against the trigger of her revolver, the gun’s muzzle pushed against Magnus’s cheek.
Magnus raised his hands in the air. His bladder was full. He turned his eyes and looked at the woman without moving his head.
‘This isn’t a movie and they aren’t star-crossed lovers. One of them is a child. The other’s an old man, a paedophile.’
The actress’s voice was dangerously calm. She pressed the gun into Magnus’s face, forcing his nose to one side, distorting his features.
‘I’ve had my fill of moralisers. I lost friends – good friends – to people like you. You’ve no idea what it was like. Ugly old whores coming out of the woodwork, complaining they were interfered with decades ago, when everyone knew they were star-fuckers and that the “abuse” they were whining about was the most significant moment of their pathetic lives.’
Stevie lowered her weapon. ‘We’ve got the message. He’ll think before he sp
eaks in future. Let him go and we’ll be on our way.’
Briar’s face was flushed. He/she put the sight of the rifle to his/her eye and aimed it at Magnus. The weapon made the child look younger. Natalie’s hands trembled, but Briar’s were steady with intent.
Magnus closed his eyes, shutting the guns out. ‘Why don’t you come back to Orkney with us? There are other children there. We’ve got a school. You could learn to read and write.’
Briar’s voice was flat and cold as the tundra. ‘Your children have run away. They hate you.’
A tear slid from Magnus’s eye. It skated the gun barrel pressed against his face and made its way down his cheek.
‘They don’t hate us. They’ve just lost their way.’
Ivan struggled to his feet. He placed a hand on Natalie’s shoulder.
‘We’ve had enough of death for one day.’ The actress did not move, but when the old man reached out and took the gun from her, she offered no resistance. Magnus opened his eyes. Briar was still aiming the rifle at him. Ivan held up a hand, self-consciously saintly. ‘Let them go in peace.’
For all her gentleness Magnus’s mother had been clear on the guises the Devil could adopt. Her insistence that the De’il could masquerade as a religious minister or even Christ himself had bemused Magnus when he was a boy. Now he understood.
Stevie gripped his arm. ‘We’re leaving.’
She pulled Magnus towards the door. Briar’s rifle followed them; a weathervane steered by the breeze.
Magnus let himself be led like a lairy boyfriend being dragged from a nightclub. He trained his eyes on Ivan.
‘That child will despise you when it grows up.’
Ivan’s voice was calm. ‘The way your son despises you?’
The keys were in the lock. Stevie turned them and pushed Magnus into the corridor beyond. He caught a last glimpse of the child, already back in the old man’s embrace; the elderly actress with her arms around them both. Their three bodies fitted together, snug as a puzzle carved from one stone. The door slammed and they were gone.