by Louise Welsh
He called his son’s name, ‘Shug … Shuggie …’, his voice breaching the soft echoes of the building, harsh as a seabird’s cry.
The salvage crew turned to look at Magnus, each one of them a stranger.
Bream said, ‘He’s not here.’
Magnus’s face was raw with hardening rage, his eyes damp with frustration.
‘You told us you’d take us to them.’
Bream held up his hands in apology. ‘I’ll take you to the City Chambers, but first I want to convince you we’re not running a prison.’
The workers had returned to sorting the salvage. They moved slowly, conserving their energy. Occasionally one of them would carry a piece of equipment to the far side of the hall, where half-a-dozen people were busy at a bank of tables. Stacks of manuals sat amongst solar battery packs, coils of wire, fuses, half-dismantled radios, junction boxes and other bits of electronica Stevie could not identify. There was an air of bemused industry about the people tinkering with the equipment. Their workstation might have belonged to a bomb factory, toymaker’s workshop or an art installation.
Stevie nodded towards them. ‘What are they doing?’
Bream shrugged. ‘They’re learning. We all are. The Sweats didn’t discriminate, but sometimes it feels like they wiped out every engineer, doctor, plumber, electrician and anyone else who knew how things worked and left us with accountants, middle management and salespeople. We’re all that remains. We can live as if the industrial revolution never happened, as if microchips were never invented and satellites never launched, or we can try and educate ourselves.’
A rash was flaring on the line of flesh above Magnus’s beard. Magnus scratched it, his bristles rasped.
‘Nothing you’ve said proves these people are here voluntarily.’
Bream reached out an arm and, without looking, caught the sleeve of a passing worker, a slim girl whose ancestors had hailed from somewhere in the Indian subcontinent. It was a random choice, like reaching into a tombola. The girl flinched and almost dropped the box of circuit boards she was carrying. Bream released his grip. ‘Don’t be frightened. I just want you to tell these people, you’re not here against your will.’
The girl cast her eyes to the ground. Her head was swaddled in a blue-and red-striped scarf edged with gold fringes. They tipped forward, shrouding her features. ‘I like being here.’
The provost said, ‘No one forces you to stay?’
‘No.’
‘Nobody hurts you?’
The girl shook her head. The gold fringes on her scarf shivered. Her voice was a whisper. ‘No.’
Stevie put a hand on the girl’s arm. She could feel her trembling beneath her bulky clothing.
‘Why are you so scared?’
The girl raised her head. She looked at Bream, who gave her a nod of encouragement.
‘When I was a baby, everyone died.’ Her voice held the faint trace of a Birmingham accent. ‘The fear got into me and never left.’
There were people on the islands who had not fully recovered from the shock of the Sweats. Candice had been one of them; never quite able to escape the anxiety the pandemic had induced.
Stevie said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘My foster mother called me Blessing.’
‘Where is your foster mother now?’
‘She died in the third wave of the Sweats. After that, I was on my own. I thought the dogs would get me. Then I met some people who told me things were good in Glasgow. They played me the radio broadcast and I followed them here. ’
Stevie glanced at Bream. ‘The third wave?’
‘Last year. It didn’t hit you?’
Stevie shook her head. ‘No.’ There had only been one major outbreak of the virus on the Orkneys. She turned her attention back to Blessing. ‘You’re happy here?’
‘They feed us and keep us warm.’ The girl spoke as if that was all there was to life. ‘The dogs can’t get us.’
Magnus took the box of circuit boards gently from her and set it on the ground. He had lost the easy-going smile that had helped make him a hit with Shug’s pals, but the vulnerability that was the key to his empathy remained.
He crouched level with Blessing. ‘I’m looking for my son. He’s about your age. Slim, with dark hair. His name’s Shuggie, Shug for short. He was travelling with a girl named Willow and a toddler called Evie. Have you seen them?’
Blessing bit her lip and looked at Bream. The provost’s smile plumped his cheeks. It was late in the afternoon, but his face was smooth and hairless as a Roman general’s.
‘You don’t need my permission to speak.’
The girl lowered her head again, avoiding Magnus’s gaze. ‘I didn’t see a toddler, but the other two were here. They didn’t like it. They went away.’
Magnus exhaled. ‘How did they look?’ The girl’s expression was bemused. He scrabbled for the right words. ‘Were they healthy?’
This time Blessing met his eyes. ‘They looked okay, but they didn’t like it here. The girl was angry, the boy was …’ She shrugged, out of her depth. ‘The boy was quiet.’
Magnus looked like he wanted to ask her more questions, but the provost interrupted.
‘Like I told you, no children are being held prisoner in this city.’
Stevie gave the girl an encouraging smile. ‘Did you ever meet someone called Briar? A small kid with sandy hair; a good guitarist.’
Blessing glanced at the Provost again. Stevie looked at him too but if anything had passed between him and the girl, she was too slow to catch it.
Blessing said, ‘I don’t know them.’
‘How about a woman called Belle. She’s pretty, but she lost one of her eyes in an accident.’
The girl knotted her hands. Her voice wavered. ‘I never met any of these people.’
Stevie said, ‘Don’t let Mr Bream dictate what you say. If you’re unhappy here, tell us and we’ll help you.’
Magnus forced a smile. ‘We live on an island. It’s nice there – blue sea, green grass. We have a school. You could learn to read and write.’
The girl’s face puckered. She picked up her box of circuit boards and held it in front of her, shielding her body.
‘There was plenty of grass where I used to live. You can’t eat grass. It makes you sick. I’m happy here.’
Bream touched his fingertips to the girl’s cheek, gently dismissing her. ‘Thank you.’
The sky outside was growing darker as day slipped towards night. Blessing flitted away from them and joined the other salvage workers, slowly moving through the bone-chilling hall.
Magnus’s eyes followed her. ‘She’s too thin …’
‘We have enough to feed everyone, but not enough to get fat.’ Bream risked an arm around Magnus’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go to the City Chambers and see if we can get you reunited with your kids.’
Stevie cast a last look across the dimming hall at the workers, moving like figures in a Lowry landscape. She remembered the well-fed bulk of the bodyguards who had gone in search of Ivan and Briar and thought that Magnus was right. The salvage workers were too thin. She followed the two men towards the exit. Magnus had shrugged free of Bream’s hold. Stevie saw how his jacket hung loose on him and thought that if their journey did not end soon, he would edge from thinness into frailty.
Magnus and Bream passed through the connecting door, into the narrow passage that would lead them outside. Somewhere behind her one of the workers started to cough. Others took up the sound, their throats hacking; the chambers of their bodies resonating in the hollow gallery. The sound recalled the Sweats, the machine-gun rattle that preceded death. Something rose in Stevie’s chest. There was a shout and the sound of coughing collapsed.
She looked back into the hall. The salvage workers were ghosting between the mounds of dead technology, going slowly about their business as if nothing had happened. She could not tell if the chorus had been a protest or a ghoulish joke, but felt that somehow it had been dir
ected at her. The door ahead swung closed. Stevie broke into a trot and ran towards it.
Forty-Seven
The helicopter pilot was a middle-aged man with a face like a brick. He had a skip hat on his head and a cigarette between his lips. Stevie buckled herself into one of the passenger seats. Magnus sat next to her, Bream beside the pilot.
She saw that Magnus was having trouble with his seat belt and leaned over to help.
‘I’m surprised you fly such short journeys.’
She was addressing Bream, but it was the pilot who answered.
‘You’re privileged. What you saw earlier was our maiden flight.’ The engine rattled into life and he raised his voice to make himself heard above its din. ‘We reckoned it was better to do a few short hops before attempting anything more ambitious.’
The pilot pulled on the joystick and the helicopter lurched upwards. It gusted with the wind. Stevie felt her stomach reel queasily with it and remembered how the helicopter had looked in danger of tumbling out of control when it had come in to land. She was squeezing Magnus’s hand, but could not say if he had reached for her, or if she had grabbed him.
The pilot shouted, ‘Hold on to your hats.’
They rose, tremulously at first, then gloriously into the rain-lashed sky. The wind caught them again and she called, ‘Should we be going up in this weather?’
Bream turned his head to look at her, his face the colour of oatmeal.
‘Finn’s been flying these things for over thirty years.’
Finn pushed his hat back on his head. He took the cigarette from between his lips and exhaled through his nose, filling the cab with a second-hand fug of tobacco.
‘I used to hop regular across the North Sea in weather worse than this, taking men backwards and forwards to the rigs. Before that I did a spell in Dubai. Over there it was sandstorms you had to look out for. Too much grit in the mechanism and these things drop like a stone.’
Magnus leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
Stevie looked down at the city. It was a sight she had never thought she would see again; the landscape laid out like a child’s play-set, buildings reduced to the size of Lego; cars smaller than the nail of her thumb. They circled the old Fish Market, the weed-choked car park and derelict shopping mall. She saw the River Clyde snaking beyond the city. There was a gap in the clouds and she caught a glimpse of fields and the sea beyond them. The helicopter settled on its course. The view of countryside was left behind and they were flying over tenement rooftops, tiled with grey slate. They flew above a graveyard, toppled tombstones crowded together on a hillside busy with deer. An ancient cathedral stood in the shade of the hill and close by a turreted, Victorian hospital half-collapsed in on itself, like a neglected wedding cake left to rot.
Stevie turned to Magnus, but he was asleep, his mouth slightly agape. There were flecks of grey amongst the red in his beard that she could not recall noticing before. She heard his chest wheeze and felt an unexpected stab of tenderness.
The helicopter was already descending. There was a square beneath them, its focus an elaborate building Stevie guessed was the City Chambers. Three large objects she could not make sense of stood in a line outside the Chambers. The other roads that formed the square’s perimeter were empty, except for a single car. She wondered if Briar had been captured. Ivan was the type to go quietly, but Stevie could imagine the old woman and the child fighting to the death. The wind buffeted the helicopter and Magnus woke with a start. He rubbed his face with his hands.
‘Did I miss anything?’
‘Nothing worth writing home about.’
The helicopter wobbled a few feet above the ground. Finn hummed a triumphant, military-sounding tune Stevie could not identify. They touched the tarmac, rose into the air again and landed with a jolt.
Finn killed the engine and slapped Bream on the back. He turned to look at Stevie and Magnus, a grin splitting his face.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got ourselves a flying machine.’ He turned back to Bream, his expression serious. ‘Won’t be long before we can take your old lady and your sproglets up for a birl, but there’s a rattle in the guts that I don’t like. I’d rather not take her up again until I’ve had a chance to give the engine another once-over.’
Bream nodded. ‘You’re the expert.’
Stevie had thought the pilot’s accent cockney, but now that the engines were silent she realised it was Australian.
‘You’re a qualified engineer as well as a pilot?’
Finn was lighting another cigarette. He waited until he had inhaled his first pull of nicotine.
‘Qualified pilot. Self-taught engineer.’
Bream said, ‘Finn spent the last year studying books on helicopter design salvaged from the university library.’
Magnus rubbed his face with his hands again, massaging his temples as if he had a headache.
‘Congratulations. But I wish you’d left us out of your trial run.’
Cigarette smoke and misplaced adrenalin narrowed the pilot’s eyes.
‘This is a fucking triumph, mate. You should be over the moon.’
Stevie gave Finn one of her best smiles.
‘He is. We’re looking for our lost kids. We’ve travelled a long way; seen a lot of things we wish we hadn’t seen. It’s made us both jumpy.’
It occurred to her that she had not looked in a mirror for days and that her smile may no longer have the effect it used to.
Finn drew on his cigarette. ‘A lot of kids end up here. Mr Bream’s radio message pulls them in. I hope you find them.’
The provost opened the helicopter door and jumped down onto the tarmac. A blast of cold air rushed into the cab. Magnus patted the pocket of his jacket, checking for his gun. Stevie wondered if they would be asked to surrender their weapons inside the City Chambers and what they would do if they were.
Finn said, ‘I’ve been in the square working on the copter for weeks. Maybe I saw your kids. What do they look like?’
Magnus drew a photograph Stevie did not know he had from his pocket. It was a Polaroid printed from an Instamatic camera. She glimpsed it as he handed it to the pilot – a group shot taken on one of the island’s hillsides. Shug and Willow with Connor and a bunch of other island children. She saw Adil in the middle of the group and felt tears prick her eyes.
Magnus said, ‘That’s a couple of years old. Shug’s the dark-haired boy on the left. Willow’s the brown girl with the curls. She shaved her head recently.’
‘Nice-looking kids.’ The pilot passed the photograph back. ‘I don’t remember them, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t come by. I spend half my life with my head in this old bird’s engine. It helps keep me what passes for sane.’
Finn opened his door, tossed his cigarette out and undid his seat belt, ready to follow it onto the tarmac. Stevie touched his shoulder, keeping him there.
‘They vanished from our island at the same time as a woman called Belle. She’s good-looking, late twenties – tall, with long, blonde hair. She had an accident, it damaged her …’
Finn touched a hand to his left temple. ‘… her eye?’
Magnus pitched forward. ‘You know her?’
‘I don’t know her, but I saw her crossing the square a few days ago. She’s the kind of woman you notice.’ He smiled at Stevie, making it clear that she too was noticeable. ‘She went into the City Chambers. There was something about her that made me think there goes trouble.’
‘Did you see her leave?’
‘No, but like I said, that means shit all. I’ve been focusing my attention on Rachel.’ Stevie and Magnus must have looked bemused because Finn added, ‘That’s what I call the helicopter.’ He looked away. ‘I named her after my wife.’
Finn snatched a walking stick she had not noticed, hooked to a grab handle above the door and swung himself out of the cab. There was an awkward tilt to his movements that suggested smashed hips or broken ve
rtebrae.
Stevie said to Magnus, ‘Keep Bream busy.’
She followed Finn out onto the tarmac. The large objects she had seen from the helicopter were three tanks, queued outside the City Chambers like taxis at a rank. Their guns were muffled beneath khaki covers, but their shape was impossible to camouflage. They angled outwards; proud Nazi salutes.
Tattered Christmas lights were still strung precariously around the perimeter of the square; dead outlines of bells, stars and sprigs of holly tilting with the breeze. Statues of ancient worthies had fallen or been deliberately toppled. They lay on the ground, black and metallic, three times life size. The dead statues looked beyond human, yet it was easy to imagine them creaking awake, their footsteps shaking Glasgow’s foundations.
The hotels, office blocks and restaurants ranked along adjoining streets suggested this had been the centre of the city. The commuters and tourists who must once have busied the square were gone, but the place was still full. Buildings were papered with tattered photographs and pleas for information. The gleaming eyes and smiling mouths that shone across the square were a reminder that death had come for the young as well as the old; the rich, poor and comfortably off. It had not cared what colour people were or whether they had good looks and style. Death did not adhere to a political party. It had taken clever clogs and dunces; the religious, drug-addled and only-at-the-weekend crowd.
One similarity united the lost. Almost all of them were caught in a moment of celebration, a party, wedding, bar mitzvah, communion or graduation, as if the people seeking them had wanted to put their loved ones’ best faces forward. Time and weather had torn at the posters. Some were so stippled that to look at them was to know how it might be to have eye cancer. Others had been mutilated into Dadaist collages: a nose, a staring eye; gaping lips.
Stevie caught up with Finn. What she had taken for the ravages of teenage acne was a web of old scars, pitting his face. He had gone through a windscreen, she guessed, and wondered if his wife had died of the Sweats, as she had assumed, or on some country road, the victim of a corner taken too fast or a moment’s lapse in concentration.