Lament for the Afterlife

by Lisa L. Hannett

  She can’t say, now, what it was called; the name is buried somewhere under the many years that have layered theirselves in her memory, a great wad of time smothering details from way back when. But there were rivers in that flat colourful world, lots of them, or at least one big river, and guys on tugboats fighting over fallen trees. Ruby never understood why they all wanted the dead ones, logs shorn of their branches and bobbing to nowhere, when the shores bristled with so much live green. Maybe they didn’t want to kill what had grown for so long? No, she thinks, that couldn’t be it. There was one sailor, a scruffy actor with a knitted cap hiding his ’wind—actually, come to think of it, none of the characters had ’winds in that show, but not all of them wore hats. Must be they came from up north or out west, Ruby thinks. Some country where the greys’ magic was off kilter, where their bombs went awry, where the fallout didn’t bother survivors all that much. At least, not so obviously as it does here. It’s grey magic that hauls words out of skull-darkness, she thinks. Grey magic that leaves folks so open, so vulnerable, so maimed. No way could those ’windless actors have come from round here, she thinks. No one round these parts has the discipline to keep their thoughts so tight to theirselves.

  Anyway, this sailor. What was his name? Flotsam? Wrecker? No, no. She tastes it on the tip of her tongue, the copper and rust of it… . Relic. Yes, that’s it. Relic chopped down trees with a gas-powered saw and had a stout little boat that didn’t go very fast, but sure carried a lot of treasure in each episode. Leather shoes and gold trinkets and ancient caches of blown-glass; hoard after hoard of valuables Ruby would kill to sell at her night market stall. And the guys found piles of it, just by sifting through trash that’d washed up on the beach. The whole thing was that far-fetched, really, and the costumes were completely stupid, all brightly-checked shirts and alarm-yellow pants—rubber pants, no less, and rubber boots, precious rubber that could’ve been put to much better use. But Gramp had loved the fantasy of it all, the romance of water and pine.

  And Ruby had loved Gramp, so every night she watched Relic along with him, careful not to knock his drink as she climbed onto his lap. In wheezes of laughter, the tar smell of his grog mixed with the herb of his smoke, ruffling her scribble-fine hair. Their basement apartment less dank, less cold, for that hour or two before bed. She’d cried when Gramp said she’d grown too big for snugs during show-time, when he pushed her away as she tried to get back up; when he shoved her to the floor, where she sat between his feet, shuddering against bony shins while Relic ransacked a marooned trawler on screen. Years later she’d sobbed when Gramp lost the strength to resist her, though she’d long given up trying to get that close. By then, her old Gramp was far too frail to support the weight of a fourteen-year-old girl.

  Those show reels were the first things Ruby ever sold, once Gramp had gone the way of Mamie and Pap. The profit skimmed her pocket, out much faster than in, before landing in a skingirl’s palm. A fair trade, Ruby still thinks. A few bucks for such well-made skirts. A few bucks and a perfectly reasonable fit. Ruby promised herself she’d stop skinning once she earned enough to buy—not rent, buy—a berth at the night markets. And she did stop, she did, then sublet her apartment and bartered her corset and unstitched her gear, bought a rickety hut on the market’s main drag, and used all that lovely crimson to make bunting for the front of her stall.

  For years she hawked dumpster gems, a clean and honest living; but it made good business sense, she thought, once her hair had turned from coal to ash, to open her legs again, earn a bit extra by helping soldiers come to terms, so to speak, with their ghosts. For the right price, with her back turned, with faded strands streaming down to her arse, she could play grey, she could act, she could sneak into the makeshift storeroom where she’d stowed a small cot, she could pinch the men invited to feign sleep upon it, she could pretend to be invisible and hide behind the stock, or, if her arthritis wasn’t throbbing, she could crawl under the low bed, slit out, and let the silent men fuck theirselves empty without ever showing her face.

  She could, and did. For a good while. Longer than she’d planned, yet only long enough to save up for a second kiosk and two nanny goats to raise in it. These days, Ruby’s colouring is more snow than ash; far too pale to pass for grey, even if she wanted to, even if callers squinted between thrusts. Now she’s best known for her edibles—tubers and cheese are always on special—but plenty of other wares crossed her polished counter while she was getting the hang of milking, churning, separating cream. Reasonable, useful goods: needles and thread, combs and lockets, shells and holsters, as-new mirrors and porcelain dolls for the little ones. Not so long ago, she’d tried her hand at apotropaics, charm-bags and rollin’-bones and the like, but was soon fed up to the teeth with complaints. These trinkets never worked the way they were supposed to, always breaking what needed fixing, rashing skin that wanted calming, spotlighting what should’ve been hid. If anyone accused old Ruby of being grey, she could’ve just pointed to the long line of dissatisfied customers outside her place to prove magic wasn’t and never would be her thing.

  Less than a month back, she still had luck-buyers come raging, their dirty mouths all a-yawning with ire, great noisy holes gaping in their ugly mugs as they shouted for their money back. The lot of them looked so much like Gramp’s slow-burning filmstrips, Ruby got a bit misty, remembering. She turned away to wipe her eyes on the sly—only fools show emotion when coin’s at stake—and there he was. Standing off to the side, away from the heated rabble, ratty and gaunt as the sailor she’d seen hundreds of times projected on Gramp’s whitewashed wall: her old favourite, her own personal Relic.

  Across the way, a new booth’s gone up. The woman running it calls herself Belle. Folk laugh and flutter when they hear the name, as if it means something special, as if everyone knows something Ruby doesn’t. Sticks in her craw, the way they all laugh and flutter, the way they visit the pretty stall-owner night after night, the way they leave her out of the joke.

  “What’s so funny there? She selling grog under the counter? She lacing her bannock with glass? You ever bought something like that from her, Relic?”

  The boy merely shrugs, keeps scrubbing the planks that make up the floor of her shop. Most people are careless with their ’winds, letting hints drop then leaving them where they fell, littering the ground with worthless opinions, half-baked ideas, stupid nothings Ruby knows no one wants to see. If they were important, thoughts worth keeping, folk would reel them in close, make sure every last cross and dot was soaked back into the flesh, returned to the dark place where such thinkings are stored. But most people, Ruby thinks, are stupid. Even now, even after all these lean years, too many careless jerks expect to simply get back what they’ve frittered away. As if the world owes them. As if bleeding and breathing makes them special somehow, makes them deserve more than they’re willing to earn. Skeins of mind-drivel constantly clog the drain in her goats’ pen; sharp retorts burr the countertop, letters snapped off in anger and primed to hook into the softs of her unwary hand. By closing time, there’d be a fleece of forgettings on the floorboards if it wasn’t for the boy.

  Cleaning from true-dark ’til daybright, Relic keeps hisself to hisself, thoughts held firm as the bristle-toughs in his speckled paw. He doesn’t come round every night, but when he does he works hard, he’s quiet, and he’s willing to slog for much less than he’s worth: a jangle of copper pennies and a bag full of grub. Got enough secrets in him to burn down a house, Ruby thinks, but she doesn’t pry, even when he won’t take his hood off around her, even when he won’t offer a name. It’s not Relic, that’s for certain—Ruby’s older now than Gramp ever got, but she hasn’t gone that loopy—she can still tell what is and what isn’t. Got to call him something, though, and he didn’t take too kindly to Spot.

  “Thieving wench,” Ruby says, cinching the ties on her cardigan, pulling the wool close, as though Belle’s set to come steal it, too. First it was Ruby’s customers—all those chuckling f
olk used to visit her stall quite regular, but not so much now Belle’s come along—and now the bitch’s burgling her wares.

  “She is—isn’t she, Relic?”

  “Can’t say,” the boy replies, scattering sand and grit on the footpath, getting back down on his knees to scour the boards raw. Head low, he moves with slow determination, mumbling under his breath, keeping out of the shadows as he scuffles from the front of the shop toward the storeroom.

  With a sigh, Ruby stares across at Belle’s busy stand, at the tables piled high with veg and dairy. “Where’s that barrow-load of carrots I dug,” she asks, spying the dirty orange pyramid stacked atop Belle’s counter. “I rolled it right there.” She points at the narrow walkway connecting her shop and the goats’ little barn. “Right there, Relic.”

  “Haven’t seen them, ma’am.”

  “And what about those curds I bagged earlier?” Now Belle’s got a string of plump cheesecloth sacks hanging across the transom, white-belly bright against the darkness, while Ruby’s own stocks are suddenly low. Took all afternoon, tying those damp bundles for draining and curing, with her knuckles aching the whole time. There must’ve been at least a dozen, she thinks. At least ten. No less than five. There’s no way she could’ve sold them already—Ruby’s got standards, after all, and won’t peddle her wares prematurely—and her purse is just as saggy as it was when she upped-awnings for business tonight.

  “She’s got no dirt to speak of, no nannies to give her milk—so tell me I’m wrong about this, boy. Go on.” As Ruby leans over to fuss with the veg bins, her sharp hipbones jam into the counter. The vibration looses a small avalanche of onions, and though she tries, she’s too stiff to catch them before they skitter onto the ground. Pain jolts through to her spine as she fumbles at turnip and potato crates, attempting to straighten. Sweat-slicked palms find little purchase on the plastic-lined bins; her back muscles are good and cricked.

  “Don’t just leave me kinked here,” she says through gritted teeth. “Help me up.”

  The boy rushes to her side, but stands there gaping a while before acting. He’s a bit touched, is Relic. Grey-struck by the looks of him, gets the jitters worse than Gramp ever did, though the old man had gone and done six tours before the greys nabbed his shooting arm and a fair chunk of his noggin to boot. “Caught a piece of the fucker before he scampered,” Gramp used to boast whenever the ragtags of his platoon came by to soak up the old man’s pension in grog. It drove Ruby nuts, the way he’d carry on then, flopping out that dried hunk of meat he wore on a thong round his neck—cock-shaped, she always thought, but she never shared the insight with Gramp. She kept her ’wind under wraps whenever such things sprang to mind, cocks and dicks and hangdogs and the like. Let him think it was the grey’s trigger finger he’d snagged for a souvenir. Let him think it was proof. Let him crow while he had the spirit for it. Let him say the greys weren’t invulnerable, they weren’t always so clever, not if Carson Teller had managed to bag one. Let him laugh at his own expense even while flushing with pride. Let him think the greys were losing ground, losing faith. Let him think they’d abandon their territory, the hills and stones they seemed to love so much, the plains and valleys they were endlessly trying to steal back, fighting dirty, their grey juices spilling, flowing into the red. Let him think troops of young fools were killing the fuckers piece by piece, coming home with trophies to prove it. No harm if an old man airs his delusions every now and again, Ruby thought. Let him believe whatever he wants.

  “You should probably lie down,” Relic says once Ruby’s semi-upright and clinging to the counter for balance.

  “Worst thing I could do right about now,” she snipes, Belles in her ’wind ringing round and round her head. Across the way, the young wench is rubbing her greedy hands together, eyeing Ruby’s produce through gaps in the passing crowds. Untying her apron, Belle’s making a move for the door of her stall. She’s bound to come stealthing over soon as Ruby’s horizontal, out of sight, heedless of shadows and the greys lurking in them—for all that Gramp might’ve wore a cock round his wizened neck, Ruby knows they greys are out there, she knows that much. Someone keeps tunnelling beneath her city; someone keeps blasting mighty big holes in the ground. Shelling and crushing the pretty buildings, the clever designs—someone’s making most places unfit for anyone to live in, anyone at all, on this or that side of the fight. They’re determined, those murdering someones, bent on staking their claim—even if that stake destroys everything on its way to being stuck.

  Lords of the boneyard, that’s what the greys want to be. Masters of rubble and ruin.

  Just so long as they get rid of us in the process, Ruby thinks, telling Relic to grab her that stool over there, that’s it, and drag it on over here. Eliminate the competition, no matter the cost; that’s the way it always has and always will be. Ruby groans as she settles her arse on the unforgiving seat. She’s not a sympathiser—no, she’s red through and through—but watching Bella slink back into her shiny new shop, seeing the sticky-fingered bitch setting out Ruby’s own hand-rolled cheeses at discount prices, she can’t help but imagine how the greys must feel.

  It’s only natural, she thinks. An instinct like any other. The undeniable urge to protect what’s yours.

  “Forget the sweeping-up for a sec,” she says as Relic goes to fetch the broom. “I got a more pressing job for you. A little errand I need you to run.”

  Perched uncomfortably on her stool, Ruby directs Relic to the storeroom. “There’s a cloth sack hanging from a hook on the back of the door,” she says. “A long, skinny one—yep, that’s it. Grab yourself two or three plastic bags from inside it; get ones with real sturdy handles.”

  Simple boy that he is, Relic does as he’s told. A good start, she thinks, brushing away her ’wind before he can see its tattle-tale thoughts of dough and clay, how they’re malleable until fired up. “Fill them all,” she says. “Choose your favourites: beets, onions, rutabagas. Whatever you like, son. I’d do it myself but—” She gestures at the state she’s in, crooked and hard-breathing, sweat damping her pits and spine as pain pulses from her lower back down. “Pack in as much as you can carry, so long as the bags don’t split. Can’t do nothing for it if your pay goes rolling on down the street.”

  Relic stops on the other side of the counter, empty bags resting on the display of fine food Ruby’s grown. Looking in at her, the boy’s shoulders slump. One of the straps of the pack he never takes off—not even when on hands and knees scraping shit off the floor—slips down his arm, sagging like the little frown he’s now wearing.

  “These are for me,” he says. He’s got a nice way of shaping his words, does Relic, for all that he’s a bit slow. Everything that comes out his mouth is careful, well-chewed; he doesn’t just spit out the first things that come to mind. Brow furrowed, he starts packing radishes and parsnips, avoiding the zucchinis Ruby sells at a premium.

  “Take some, if you want them,” she says, and Relic’s palsied hands grope and fumble the precious green squash.

  “This is too generous, ma’am.” Again, he stops. Smearing a streak of dirt across his spotted cheeks, he cocks his head and says, “Too much for menial labour. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but—” He stuffs two red onions into a bag. “What’s the deal?”

  “When will you learn to call me Ruby?” She smiles pretty, with lips closed to cover the gaps in her teeth. Might be he’s not so dumb, she thinks. He’s got a good work ethic, this boy: he knows he won’t get something for nothing.

  “Take your pay,” she says, when it’s clear he won’t keep going without her say-so. “Then I’ll tell you what it’s worth. If you don’t think one matches the other, well.” She shrugs. “It’s been nice working with you these past couple weeks, all the same.”

  Ruby recognises the look Relic’s wearing now; the calculating, figuring-out look. Balancing having a regular gig against doing something he may be less than keen on doing; weighing up the pluses and minuses. Many of the b
oy’s nights are spent in her shop, but not all, not every last one. Young lad like him’s bound to pick up work here, there and everywhere—but nothing beats a steady income. No doubt Ruby could’ve been living in a bungalow by now if she’d kept strutting around in red skirts, inviting hard-ons back to Gramp’s tiny apartment. No doubt her Relic could likewise set himself up all right, running glass for the ’makers or bending over, as she once did, for the lonely. But such a seeking kind of life wears a person down too fast, turns the hair from coal to ash long before its time, makes a lovely girl look like a haggard old woman.

  Slow and steady’s the way to go, Ruby knows. Slow and steady.

  While Relic takes his due, Ruby’s gaze drifts past his skinny form to the street beyond. This is what she’s worked for all these years, this prime location, this familiar view. Near Hack’s Blade Emporium in the ground floor of a confederation hotel; the Hot Pot next door steaming up the laneway with gusts of mushroom soup air; Chachi’s scrap metal spread out on tables and tartan blankets, nuts and bolts and rear-view mirrors—all a discerning cabbie might need for minor repairs; the bauble shop hung round with plastic-bead curtains, selling crystals and incense and other grey-repellents, shit that doesn’t work any better than Ruby’s handmade gris-gris did; and smelling divine, like warm bannock and pide, Antje’s bakery down the road opens once a week, twice if there’s a good yield, if grey shelling and burrowing doesn’t destroy the season’s harvest. On either side of her own modest stall, there’s a couple of scavengers—Purveyors of Antiquities, they call theirselves, but everyone knows that’s just a fancy way of saying they add a bit of polish and sparkle to everyday crap and pretend it’s rare as diamonds. Lanterns swing from awnings and valances and rickshaw shades; on tall poles lined up and down the main drag, flambeaux add to the glow, dripping as much oil as light. Everything—from rooftops to counters to fast-moving boots—is filmed with soot and orphaned ’winds, scuffed with dirt from so many passing feet. Everything, that is, except Belle’s brand-spanking new stall. Its timber struts and screen door, its yellow bunting and lace draperies, its dainty tables and steel platters covered in irresistible goods—veg and cheeses pinched from Ruby’s very own stocks—well, it’s all smugly a-shine, isn’t it, all taunting-bright and gloating, like a perfect full-toothed smile.