Midnight Lamp

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘They’re not doing badly,’ said Sage. ‘I think the lack of a centre helps.’

  ‘If they had a Tour they’d be in trouble.’

  How could they not be haunted by a sense of imminent disaster? They had seen the Green Revolution break out in England, in a blitzkreig of fearsome righteous destruction: bad news in a natural desert, inhabited by some of the spoiltest brats in the known universe, and several millions of their disaffected poor, all with free access to lethal weapons… But the Deconstruction Tour had not come from a blue sky. If the hot chaos of Los Angeles had eco-warriors they were muted, still well under control; invisible on the news programmes.

  ‘Mm… D’you remember the crash, Ax? We were in a VIP lounge at Gatwick, on our way to, was it Africa Live or Hard Fun? Can’t recall just now. The markets were in freefall, realtime on NASDAQ tv. We were cheering. We thought it was hilarious.’

  Yeah, thought Ax, without rancour. My mega-commercial friend, you never thought it could touch you. ‘I don’t remember where I was, but I’m sure I was cheering too. We had no idea, did we?’

  They watched the rivers of light, with the nostalgia that hurts like mourning.

  ‘Sage? What d’you want out of life?’

  ‘Since we can never get back there?’

  ‘Since we can’t get back there.’

  The haze had thickened, folding the city in a cloud of ochre shadow. ‘I want to live,’ said Sage, ‘Just to live, with you and Fiorinda, chop wood and draw water. I’d like children, if possible. And a garden, oh, and a pool with fish. I like fish.’

  ‘The only thing that worries me is the fish,’ said Ax, after a pause for thought. ‘I think I can provide the rest, though I can’t promise you her children. But I’ve a feeling I’m not going to have a settled life. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I can’t leave this struggle: I’m in too deep.’

  ‘Hahaha. I figured that out, babe, a long while ago… Shit, are you pissed off with me because of the bike? Private transport hypocrisy?’

  Ax laughed. ‘No!’

  They disposed of their soda cans thoughtfully, and rode on.

  Fiorinda’s brunch with Kathryn was at the Bullocks Wilshire Department store, a splendid 1920s landmark, in the nearest you get to a historical centre of LA. Harry Lopez arrived to join them, as they were winding up… He wanted to talk to Fiorinda about additional dialogue. Things people had said off the record, authentic native English, if she could help him, he’d be immensely—

  That bad, huh?, thought Fiorinda. She knew there wasn’t going to be another test. The lasers had spoken and she was out, no matter what Robert Redford thought. Not that she cared, but it was annoying having Harry be kind to her.

  ‘I’m a member of a collective, you know. I’ll be censored.’

  Harry’s face fell. ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I think I can get clearance for some of the memorable lines.’ She sucked the dregs of her mango smoothie. ‘You should make more of my frocks. I’ll help you with that. My party frocks were vital cultural icons.’

  Kathryn caught her eye, and they both started to giggle.

  ‘What?’ said Harry. ‘Why do girls giggle? Teeheehee. It’s like kindergarten.’

  ‘It’s meant to scare you,’ explained Fiorinda. ‘Does it work?’

  ‘I’m leaving now. I’ll fax you the latest marked-up script, Fio.’

  ‘Oh, no! Don’t fax me the whole—’ But the golden boy was gone.

  ‘Do you like him?’ asked Fiorinda, when they’d stopped laughing.

  ‘Harry’s had things very easy’ (Kathryn explained, as if this was a disability). ‘But he’s not just out for himself. He cares. That’s important to me.’

  ‘Yeah, mm.’

  ‘I like him.’ Kathryn, shrugged, her little eyes wry. ‘But I hear you: and don’t worry about me, Fio. I’m not stupid.’

  Fiorinda left shortly after Harry. At her final destination she parked the Rugrat on the street, as she didn’t want to be videoed entering the secluded parking lot; and disabled the security. The car shivered in protest. ‘Sssh. If I don’t do this, someone will look at you funny and you’ll start yelling, you know you will. If my plan works, fine. If not, no one must ever, ever know. I’ll be back soon.’

  Her mouth was dry, her hands were shaking… She was wearing her sunshine yellow dress, with her hair tied up in yellow ribbons, and her best make-up. She knew she looked good, better still she looked like Fiorinda, foreign celebrity, with an album high in the charts, and featuring in Harry Lopez’s new virtual movie.

  She could not tell if the physical session went well or badly but she didn’t panic, even when it was painful and invasive. Then the terrifying interview. The consulting-doctor, a slim and elegant middle-aged woman, started by complimenting her warmly on Yellow Girl—

  ‘There’s something you should know,’ said Fiorinda, when she’d been given hope, and warned against disappointment. ‘I’m good for this consultation, but I can’t pay for the treatment except by endorsement publicity. I’ll do as much of that as you like, if we can come to an agreement.’

  ‘Would that be conditional on a successful result?’ said the doctor, at once.

  ‘Up to you. I don’t mind doing it up front, but you’d be taking a risk. I suppose it depends how confident you are.’

  They talked it over. The doctor was businesslike and kind, she made it very smooth. In the end she said, ‘Now all you need is a second appointment. But before I see you again, I want you to gain fifteen pounds.’

  Fiorinda stared in horror. ‘How many? You’re kidding.’

  ‘Fiorinda, er, Ms Slater, that’s not excessive for your height and build. We talked about the problem of re-establishing your menstrual cycle—’

  ‘Look, I know I should weigh more than I do and I’m working on it, but I’m naturally thin. I have birdbones. I cannot put on fifteen pounds. I just can’t.’

  ‘Call in and make the appointment, when you’ve gained weight.’

  ‘Ten.’

  The doctor shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not a bargaining situation.’

  Fiorinda went back to the Rugrat, shut herself in and cried. Well, fuck you, smug doctor-lady. There are other clinics. Now I know my beautiful plan works, I can find someone who isn’t so fucking snotty and unreasonable… She dried her eyes. It got through to her that the snotty and unreasonable doctor-lady had given her hope. It’s possible. I could have a baby.

  She stared through the windscreen, overwhelmed.

  Next thing, she was in the Silver Mule, the coffee shop in Silverlode: no clear memory of the drive up to the hills, her head spinning between joy and terror, in front of her a large and complicated ice cream in a blue glass dish. Which she was determined to eat, before she went up to the cabin. What would she tell them? Nothing, yet. Nothing until her blood had stopped churning. Ideally nothing until somehow she appeared before them, proudly holding her baby in her arms, wrapped in a lacy shawl: but that was probably impractical. She was sorely tempted to call them now, and confess she couldn’t quite drive, but she wasn’t going to do that. Get a grip. Don’t drown, choose life, hahaha.

  Forget the nightmare, choose this reality. Chin on her hand she smiled at nothing. The shop was quiet, but not empty. Middle-aged tourist couples, a woman with a baby (well, hello young lovers…). An evening crowd starting to gather in front of the tiny stage. The Silver Mule was evidently a hang-out for the free-thinking natives of these forested hills. Never call them Counterculturals, (perish the thought) but they like renewable energy, they vote for Green causes, and they don’t like foreign wars. Or taxes or gun control, let it be said. The management had a Civil Flag hanging at the door, like a peace and green badge of allegiance; instead of the ubiquitous normal stars and stripes. Which wasn’t that unusual, of course. One could imagine Fred Eiffrich approving the sentiments, though he was stuck with Old Glory.

  One of the younger bearded, funky men by the stage was staring intently.
Point that somewhere else, she thought, I’m on my break, and anyway, I’m not supposed to talk to you lot. She looked away, and saw Fergal Kearney in his Celtic mantle leaning by the counter: smiling at her with terrible kinship, not out of place at all. The joy and fear swirling in her head rose to a roar. Connections locking together, understanding amounting to certainty that she had found something and it was hers, had to be hers alone, and this was the way to shelter, this was the liberation.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she said to the ice cream, and went out to her car.

  Sage and Ax parlayed a little with the guards at the cabin gates, and rode the bike up to the house. They showered, changed their clothes and discovered that Fiorinda had left a silent message on Ax’s phone saying she was on her way. When they tried to call her, her phone was switched off. They weren’t worried, much: that was typical Fiorinda. They were scared because she was on her own, but they had their overprotectiveness under control.

  They took a couple of beers, Ax having accepted the fait accompli on mild alcohol, to the room that faced the pool: switched off the aircon and opened the glass doors. Pine-scented air flowed in, like hot, clear syrup. It was five in the afternoon but still over forty degrees out there. The heat pleased them. It made them feel rich. Ax put Yellow Girl on the audio ambience. Sage stretched out on a massive leather and hessian couch, Ax sitting on the floor beside it; they talked, about this California experience, about what a prat Jordan was being back in England, (but Sage refused to be drawn on this subject)—-

  ‘How d’you feel about her not being in the movie?’ asked Sage.

  ‘I’m not heartbroken,’ confessed Ax. ‘As long as she’s okay about it.’

  It was pure superstition, considering the kind of thing other images and versions of their babe got up to, on websites of the free world, but neither of them liked the idea of Digital Artists having a virtual Fiorinda on file.

  ‘Ax?’

  Ax tipped his head back, and looked up with a smile. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m crazy about you,’ said Sage, addressing the ceiling. ‘In case you don’t know, in case you’d like to know. And that’s purely without the drug.’

  In the days when the three way love affair was on the rocks they’d done far too much synthetic oxytocin: sinking their differences in ruthlessly jacked-up tender devotion hormones. Fiorinda had hated that—

  ‘I’m in love with you, too.’ said Ax. ‘I don’t care if there’s no sex. I love you ridiculously, anyway, my big cat.’

  Sage kept his eyes on the ceiling. ‘No sex? Dunno about that. How’s your’s?’

  Ax set down his empty beer bottle. He got up on the couch, they lay facing each other, breathing slow… There’s grey in your hair, my guitar-man. You’ve lived hard, driven yourself harder than any of us, you lunatic. Ax traced the outline of Sage’s beautiful mouth, with a calloused fingertip.

  ‘Is it true you’d never done anything sexual with another bloke, before me?’

  ‘Ooh, I remember this conversation, Mr Chameleon. Why does it matter, Ax? You’ve done other blokes. Fiorinda has been fairly omniverous.’

  ‘It’s not important. I’m just curious. You slept with her last night?’

  ‘Shared her bed. No fucking, give me credit, I would not—’

  ‘Hey, don’t be like that. I’m disgustingly jealous, but…was it good?’

  ‘Mixed. Awkward when we lay down, but in the night, when she woke up and hugged me, really, arms and legs, God, that was sweet.’

  They began to kiss, a shocking joy after so long.

  ‘Kiss not fuck.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Immediately they plunged deeper, soul-kissing, Sage folding Ax so close, hard on hard, making them both laugh, making tears sting their eyes. The weight of Sage’s mighty arms gone, but the same big cat embrace, fucking wonderful.

  ‘Being realistic,’ Ax said, ‘we better stop, or we won’t. Can we just lie here?’

  ‘I could cope with that.’

  They fell asleep. The shadows closed over the pool. Sage woke from deep, soft oblivion, to hear Fiorinda’s voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  She was sitting in one of the blowsy, glossy armchairs, poised and flawless in her yellow dress, beautifully made-up, smiling from a great distance.

  ‘Hi sweetheart,’ said Ax, sleepily, sitting up.

  She was smiling, but something was very wrong.

  ‘I came to tell you I’m going away for a few days and I’ll take the Rat if you don’t mind. Allie knows, I’ve called her.’

  ‘Going away?’ repeated Ax, dumbfounded.

  ‘What, right now?’ said Sage.

  ‘I’ve nothing scheduled, why not? D’you realise how long it is since I did anything on my own? Like today, Sage made sure he saw me to the restaurant, Kathryn made sure she saw me to my car. I want us to start again, to be lovers again, but before that I need to do something, to regroup. I’m not in a bad state anymore, I’ve done my share of the promotion, this is a good time.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sage. ‘Lets talk about it. Where are you going?’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Fiorinda, reasonably. ‘I need you not to know.’

  She was calm, she was adamant. She had packed her bags while they were sleeping. They followed her out to the Rugrat, in the dying heat. She kissed them both and drove away.

  ‘We shouldn’t have touched each other,’ said Ax, savagely. ‘This is because she came in and found us, like that.’

  ‘Ax, that’s crazy, I’m sure it’s not that. We should have seen this coming. We shouldn’t have tried to keep her on a leash. She’s working something out, and I trust her. I wouldn’t have let her go if I didn’t think—’

  ‘Oh yeah? How were you going to stop her?’

  Ax headed back into the cabin, Sage hurrying after: found his phone and replayed the message. I’ll be with you soon… I love you very much, Ax, and I don’t want you to worry about me any more.

  She was gone, as if she’d never been here.

  They thought they were dreaming.

  Wow. That was a tour de force. The ice cream would have to wait, she bought herself a drink instead. And now for the unfinished business.

  ‘Hi, I’m Fiorinda Slater. Mind if I join you?’

  The Silver Mule became its evening self: a roar of conversation, a clientele who all knew each other, an alt.folk singer-guitarist with the dork’s job of providing token entertainment. Fiorinda stayed with her first friends, pretty sure she was right to do so, though not at all sure which of the many things she perceived was actually happening. The hand and forearm raising her glass were burned black, charcoal sticks, with white, calcined lines around the wrist and knuckle joints: she was playing with fire. Fergal Kearney, who was supposed to be protecting her, stayed the background with a smile of lordly malevolence that made her flesh creep, and she was afraid she wasn’t the only person who could see through the mask. But it was okay. She was sober, she had more sense than to get drunk when so spaced, and she knew what she was doing.

  Act as if you fear nothing, it’s the only way.

  until they try to burn me…

  Her friends wanted to take her somewhere else. She agreed, though she didn’t like it when three of them travelled in the Rugrat, inside her purdah. The drive was long, and full of strange intimations. When she finally parked she could hear the sea, and thought she was back on the Baja. Then she remembered she was with enemies, and snapped into focus. In the time it took her passengers to get out of the car she’d restored the Rat’s security. Conceal, immobilise she said quietly, touching the dashpad. Be a good rat, wait here, I’ll come back.

  Dark streets lined with palms. An odd little blue-painted wooden bungalow in a flowery garden, like something in a fantasy game. Her Silverlode friends left; they were handing her on, further up the line. Fiorinda stayed up late, talking with some more new friends, getting a picture that would have made her hair stand on end, except that there were disa
ppointing signs and it was all tangled up with the turmoil in her head. She woke in a strange room, in her underwear, under a quilt that smelled of rose oil and cat’s piss. She’d left her bags in the Rugrat, she had to put her yellow dress on again before she could go looking for a bathroom (there was a robe she could have borrowed, but she didn’t fancy it). No shoes. She vaguely remembered leaving them in the car. It didn’t matter, her feet were hard as nails. She found a funky bathroom (toilet didn’t flush), and went downstairs, noting again the futile, hippy-dippy décor and doubting her moment of clarity. They asked her for her keys, so they could fetch her bags, ah, so she was being handed on again, further up the line again… She didn’t trust them. She knew this sort, they might kill the Rugrat, as Direct Action against Personal Transport Hypocrisy. An AI car doesn’t have keys, but she just said no.

  ‘I don’t want my bags. Fuck’em. I’ll come as I stand.’

  Then they produced the shackles, home-made iron handcuffs, strung with bones and feathers. She told them it wasn’t necessary, she was coming along of her own free will: but the cuffs were a dealbreaker, so she accepted that; and realised a strange thing. She didn’t have her saltbox with her. It was in her shoulder bag, in the Rugrat. Her talisman had often been further away, it didn’t have to be in reach of her hand. But this felt different, schematic: she had left it behind. She looked uneasily at the cuffs, understanding at last what the saltbox did, and why it had been given to her, long ago.

  She remembered an icecream on a blue glass dish: but too bad. Later, ice cream. First she must go along with these people, and with her father, who was grinning in triumph there, though she hoped no one else could see him.

  The Rugrat was deploying its conceal feature, mirroring the surfaces around it so it was functionally invisible. It knew when the hostiles arrived, and stood a few metres away, saying things. If a hare crouched in a furrow hopes not to be seen by the hounds, then it did the same. One hostile had a radiophone, for secure communication: a clear threat, so the Rat caught and recorded words it couldn’t understand: We’ve found the AI car. It’s camouflaged, we detected it by its e/m. They described the location. Leave it alone, said the voice at the other end. That suits us fine. The Rugrat watched them go, experiencing an analogue of proud relief, and an analogue of trust. I’ll wait here. She’ll come back for me. The scouring, sandy wind blew and the cool nights passed. But she didn’t come.