Suddenly, without warning, the door of the living room flew off its hinges, spun up above the gods’ heads, and exploded into a million splinters, swirling down on them like ash. Simultaneously, fireballs shot to all four corners of the room. Artemis leaped to her feet, to a poised, defensive posture, stool held before her like a lion tamer’s chair. There in the doorway, hair flowing back, streams of flame pouring from her upturned palms, was Hera.
Hera? What was she doing here? She hadn’t been seen in so long that the latest rumor had it that Zeus had found a way of turning her into stone.
Hera advanced on Athena, hurling balls of fire with every step. “Ingrate! Traitor! Jezebel!”
Athena couldn’t have looked less like a Jezebel as she held up her aegis with one hand and wiped the steam from her glasses with the other. Hera’s fiery missiles deflected off the shield and bounced to the walls, where they spluttered and spat. Artemis reflected on the unexpected advantages of having a really severe damp problem.
“Hera,” said Athena from behind the aegis. “It would appear that you are experiencing a transference of personal, internal distress into externally focused wrath. Perhaps it would be more appropriate were we to confront your issues through mutual, respectful discussion?”
With a twitch of an eyebrow, Hera flipped Athena upside down and hung her from the ceiling.
“I hear you,” said Athena.
Now didn’t seem to be quite the right time to point out to Hera all the power she was wasting, so Artemis settled back on her stool to enjoy the show. She hoped it would last. It was a long time since she had seen a fight on this scale. Most of the gods would usually let Athena talk them out of a battle, as her tactical genius meant that she would always win. On the other hand, Hera must have built up a lot of tension sitting alone upstairs for all that time, and she was probably enjoying blowing it off. Maybe that was why she had come down at last; maybe she was just bored. Artemis ducked as a flaming footstool shot over her head, leaving a trail of burning woodworm.
Artemis smiled. She felt a warm glow, and not only from the fire doing its best to consume the soggy walls. She had missed Hera. Nobody did rage like Hera, not even Aphrodite on a bad day. Seeing her performance was like curling up on the sofa in her oldest tracksuit bottoms holding a bowl of ambrosia and watching her favorite film (Clash of the Titans). It was nostalgia so rich she could taste it. And she had almost forgotten what a pure display of power was like, after years and years of rationing. It would almost be worth doing nothing for a few decades if she could put on a show like this at the end of it.
However, she supposed somebody should step in, before Hera burned the entire house down. Not that she would miss it, but they didn’t have any insurance. What was really needed was for Ares to take charge—and just as she thought this, she heard him coming up behind her, bustling with purpose. She watched as he approached Hera and Athena with his maps and his calipers at the ready, a grin of anticipation on his face.
“Ladies,” he said. “Much as I hate to interrupt your conversation . . . Might I interest you both in a small land war in Asia? Winner takes all.”
There was a pause as Hera considered it. Then Athena’s body stopped spinning, the flames began to recede, and Hera’s face entertained that most rare of visitors: a smile.
Across the house, two floors from where Athena, Hera, and Ares were about to seal the fate of two previously peaceful and unremarkable former Soviet republics, Apollo was standing on the threshold of Zeus’s bedroom, blinking into the gloom.
Aside from Hera, no other god had ever been allowed into Zeus’s room. Apollo had had no idea what he was going to find in there. Whether, indeed, he would even find Zeus—at times he had wondered whether the secret that Hera was so keen to guard was that Zeus was dead.
He wasn’t dead. Or at least, Apollo doubted that he was, unless the dead had recently taken to watching television. On the other hand, Zeus—the form that Apollo assumed was Zeus—betrayed no awareness that anyone had come into the room. So maybe it was just a lifeless shell in that bed now, the flickering blue light of the television washing over it, oblivious to the advertisers’ siren calls to spend money it didn’t have.
The bed—a single, metal-frame cot heaped with mildewed blankets—was pushed back against the wall on the far side of a room that was otherwise bare. At the foot of the bed was a low wooden crate, and on that crate stood the TV. Aside from that, there was nothing—not a picture, not a book—just dust motes floating in the static air. The only sound was the voice coming from the television of a falsely cheerful young woman, encouraging her viewers to consider the cost-effective style of stenciling when redecorating their bathrooms.
Apollo took a step toward his father. The bare floorboard beneath his foot yelped, and the shape in the bed shifted, turned its head toward him.
“Is that you?” came a quavering voice.
Apollo didn’t reply. Instead, he walked over to the side of the room where the window should have been. It had been boarded up.
“Have you come for me at last?” called Zeus.
Apollo didn’t like to see sunlight shut out of a room. He took hold of the corner of one of the boards and pulled hard. The rotten wood snapped in his hand. Light poured in now, and Apollo turned to face his father.
“Who is that?” called Zeus, flinching from the sudden influx of light.
“It’s me, Father,” replied Apollo. “Your son Apollo.”
A short pause.
“Are you here to kill me?” said Zeus.
“No, Father,” said Apollo. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“I can’t see you,” said Zeus.
Apollo walked over to the bed and sat down. The only part of his father that was visible was his face, which was as yellowed and creased as the ancient pillowcase it leaned against. His hair had grown long and dirty white, and hung lifelessly by his head, hardened into clumps. His eyes, though, were sharp and fierce and hard, like blue diamonds. They could cut through anything.
“I am here, Father,” said Apollo.
Zeus reached a gaunt, trembling hand from under the blankets and put it on Apollo’s hand. The skin was so pale it was almost gray, stretched so thin over the bulging purple veins that it seemed it might rupture at any moment.
“So,” said Zeus. “Finally you come to visit me. My own son.”
“Yes, Father,” said Apollo.
“My own son,” repeated Zeus. “Which son are you?”
“Apollo.”
“Ah, yes, Apollo. My son. The sun.” Zeus laughed or perhaps coughed. “Have you come to make sure I’m still alive?”
“No, Father.”
“And which one are you again?”
“Apollo.”
“Apollo. The sun. Sun son.”
“Yes. Apollo.”
“And you’re not going to kill me?”
“No.”
“Which one is your mother?” said the hole in the face.
“My mother? Leto,” said Apollo.
“Leto. Ah, yes. She was a nice one. A kind one. She loved me, I think.”
“Yes, she did.”
“Apollo. My son.”
There was a silence.
“What were we talking about?” said Zeus.
“We weren’t talking about anything. I only just got here,” said Apollo.
“Oh,” said Zeus. “I don’t want you. Where is she?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Where is she? Is she coming for me? Where is she?” said Zeus.
“Where is who?”
Zeus’s hand gripped Apollo’s, surprisingly hard, then released it.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Now Zeus plucked at his blankets, pulling them away from himself, revealing the upper half of his body. There was almost none of him left. All of his muscle seemed to have been eaten away, and his skin sagged loosely off his bones.
“Help me,” he said. “I want to get out of bed.”
“Lean on me,” said Apollo, and he helped Zeus to sit up.
Together they maneuvered Zeus’s spindly legs so that they were hanging over the side of the bed, and Apollo pulled him upright. Zeus sat, trembling, as Apollo pulled his arm over his shoulders and propped him up.
“I can stand,” said Zeus.
He said it, and he could.
“Take me to the window,” he said.
Apollo was astonished to see that Zeus could still walk. With every step he seemed to gain a little in energy. His back straightened, and he did not lean so heavily against Apollo’s shoulder. He still shook, though, and was so frail that Apollo felt that, even had he not been a god, he could have lifted him with one hand.
“Look at that,” said Zeus.
Apollo looked out of the window but couldn’t see anything of interest.
“The trees,” said Zeus. “The sky. The clouds. That’s mine. All of it.”
“Yes, it is,” said Apollo.
“I haven’t been outside in a little while,” confided Zeus. “I’m not allowed to.”
“That’s disgraceful,” said Apollo. “If you own the place, you should at least be allowed to go out into it.”
He pulled another rotting board off the window, now opening up a space large enough for someone thin—an old, emaciated god, say—to squeeze himself through.
“This is England, you know,” said Zeus, gazing out the window.
“I know,” said Apollo.
“I’ve lived here . . . not so very long. A few centuries only. A blink in the life of a god. Are you a god?”
“Yes, I am.”
“She told me I’m not a god, but I know the truth.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Apollo.
“She told me that I was mad, that I had to go to bed for a long time. She said that if I stayed outside I would hurt myself, or someone would try to hurt me. She said my own children would try to kill me. Are you here to kill me?”
“No,” said Apollo. Not this time, he thought.
“So I’m waiting until I’m not mad anymore and then she’ll come to get me.”
“Is that all you do, then?” said Apollo. “Lie in bed?”
“And watch television.”
“I’m on television,” said Apollo.
“You are?” said Zeus. “Have you ever been on Doctor Who?”
“No,” said Apollo.
“Oh,” said Zeus. “I like Doctor Who. He’s a god too.”
“I don’t think he is,” said Apollo.
A split second later, Apollo found himself bouncing like a tennis ball off the opposite wall of the room.
“Yes, he is,” said Zeus. “He’s a god.”
“Sorry,” said Apollo from the floor. “Of course he is. I was confusing him with someone else.”
Apollo stood up and removed a few handfuls of dust that had stuck to his clothes. His clothes were not having a good day of it.
“Father,” he said.
“Am I your father?” said Zeus, in some surprise.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Apollo. “Something important. Something that could threaten your security—everyone’s security.”
He walked over to Zeus and put a hand on his arm. The arm was thin, but hard.
“What is it?” said Zeus.
“There’s been a mortal in the house.”
“What? When? Now?”
Zeus looked frantically around him, as if mortals were about to start appearing from between the cracks in the floorboards.
“No,” said Apollo, “I threw her out.”
He gazed out the window in a show of pensiveness.
“But . . . ,” he added after a few moments. “I think she knows too much.”
“Who let her in?” said Zeus.
“Artemis,” said Apollo, turning back to his father. “She deserves to be punished, of course. But as for the mortal . . .”
“What’s her name?” said Zeus.
“Alice,” said Apollo. “Do you want to see her photograph?”
Apollo got his telephone out of his pocket and showed Zeus one of the pictures he had taken of Alice, the one where her face showed most clearly. When he was sure Zeus had got a good look, he took the phone back.
“Of course,” he said, “it’s entirely up to you what you do with this information. I wouldn’t dream of influencing your decision in any way.”
20
AFTERWARD, THE WEATHERMEN would have to go on television to apologize and admit that they had no idea where the storm came from. They insisted that there was nothing on the charts that could have predicted that, on that morning in March, with the forecast for sun, as much rain would fall as in the whole of the rest of the year so far combined. The leader of the opposition called for an inquiry into Met. Office practices, and a few of the papers followed suit, but the notion was soon forgotten after war broke out unexpectedly between two little-known but oil-rich countries to the south of Russia, and America started making noises about getting involved.
Neil hadn’t slept at all that night, just sat in the corridor outside the bedroom where Alice was sleeping. He wanted to go in there and hold her, not sexually, but to wrap himself around her like the shell around a nut.
When she arrived at his flat, Alice was white-faced and near catatonic. She had never been to his flat before and it had been one of those moments he’d dreamed about; each ordinary room would be gilded by her presence while she glided around them voicing her approval, like a princess inspecting a ship. In that daydream, he had cleaned. In that daydream, she was happy. Instead he had just had time to pick up the worn clothes off his grubby carpet and do the washing up before the doorbell had rung and the wraith had appeared.
Being Alice, she had, of course, apologized profusely—for what, he wasn’t sure—but after that he hadn’t been able to get another word out of her. He had sat her in the kitchen and given her tea, which she hadn’t drunk, and then sat her in the living room and put on the TV, which she hadn’t watched, and then brought her a bowl of soup, which she hadn’t eaten but had just looked at in dismay until he realized what pain it caused her to refuse his hospitality and he took it away.
Then he led her to the bedroom—another of those daydream moments, being played out so terribly, terribly wrong—gave her a T-shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in, shut the door quietly behind her, and sat down and waited. He leaned back against the cold wall of the corridor and listened to the silence around him. He wanted to protect her, wanted to find the person who had done this to her and to kick the shit out of him (he was sure it was a him, and fairly sure he knew which him it was). But he hadn’t been in a fight since school, and even then, what he called a fight had generally involved him cowering in the corner of the playground until a bigger boy picked him up and shoved him inside a locker. The thought of his playing the hero and actually winning—well, it was the kind of fantasy that was like the fantasy of bringing Alice to his home. It was the kind of fantasy that would go wrong.
At nine o’clock in the morning, there had still been no signs of life from the bedroom. He didn’t want to wake Alice but he also knew that she wouldn’t want to be late for work, so he eased the door open and took a look inside. Alice was lying on her back in the bed, eyes wide open, and the moment Neil opened the door she said, “I’m not going in.”
“Okay,” said Neil.
“Can I stay here today?” said Alice.
“Of course,” said Neil.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Alice, what happened?”
“Please stay home with me today.”
Neil looked at her for a moment. Lying stil
l in the bed, her face so pale, she looked like a corpse.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll just call the office, let them know I’m not coming in.”
Neil went to leave the room.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Leave the door open.”
Neil went to the kitchen, left a quick message on the voicemail at work, then made two cups of tea and brought them back to his bedroom. Alice was, finally, sleeping. He left one of the cups on the table by the bedside and crept away.
He sat down at the kitchen table and tried to get on with some work. He opened up some site plans and looked at them. Front elevation. Side elevation. Floor plan.
Maybe it was just about the fight? Thinking about the things he had said to her, he felt ill. It was no wonder she was so upset. But then, if it was the fight, why would she have come to his flat? No, it must have been something else, something that happened afterward. Something worse.
He looked at the front elevation again. He picked up a pencil to make a note, but it wasn’t sharp, so he got up and sharpened it into the kitchen sink.
If only she would tell him what was wrong.
He ran the tap, flushing away the pencil shavings, and went back to the table. Front elevation. What had he been going to write on it? Never mind, it would come back to him. He had another look at the side elevation, and then the floor plans. Something wasn’t right. In front of him the familiar combinations of lines and numbers refused to speak to him, withheld their meanings as if written in a foreign alphabet.
The thing was, she had said she was scared. Not hurt or angry: scared. What could possibly have happened to scare her? She would tell him when she was ready. Wouldn’t she?
He turned back to the drawings. Now he knew what was wrong: they were from a project that he had completed the previous summer. Idiot, he told himself. Can’t you get anything right? Go and get those other ones from your bag. Do something. But he didn’t stand up, didn’t put the old drawings away. He just sat and looked at them, the pencil in his hand, suspended above the paper, writing nothing.
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