“Aye, you’re not wrong there. Are you ‘aving some of this bifter then?”
“Oh go on, seein’ as you rolled one.”
“Good girl; bring a couple o’ them toffee doughnuts out an’ all, before the rozzers finish ‘em off.”
At the Maximum Acid Beat office Emmy is surprised to find Sean does most of his work on an IBM Selectric nearly as old as her own typewriter, yet space age by comparison. A metal globe studded with type danced across the paper at incredible speed; turning, tilting and printing faster even than the eye could see. Sean would periodically whip out a ball and throw in another for a different typeface, which Emmy had to admit was a neat trick; he was still buggered if the electric ran out though. A process camera of similar vintage haunted the darkroom where Sean would develop shots from old 120 film, and to his credit he did get results for his pains. Emmy’s Stone Lenin picture was a case in point; a snap she’d fired off happened to be at a lucky angle and the statue bathed in the eye watering intensity of sunrise over an Indian Ocean island all jacked up on heavy contrast and saturation was licensed as a poster. It ended up on a million bedsit walls and they split the royalties.
Today, Sean is closeted within his office, reading correspondence. Occasionally he will buzz through to the intercom on Helen’s desk.
“Chuck Blazer, I shit you not; got to be an eight.” Helen sighs.
“Yes, very good Sean. Keep them to yourself.” Emmy catches her eye with a questioning look.
“Porn star name of the day; Sean likes to award marks out of ten.” Later Emmy is summoned through to Sean’s office, where he has a sizeable stack of complaints to show her.
“They’re all from readers. Most don’t like American English, many feel more than three semicolons per sentence becomes disorientating, several claim they can’t read it because your typewriter’s rubbish and one or two, I suspect, just don’t like you because you’re young and female.” Emmy’s heart sinks.
“Does this mean you’ll be letting me go?”
“Why ever would I do that? Didn’t you hear what I just said? They’re READING it, woman! Reading it and re-reading it and spending probably the best part of a week stringing a few incoherent and objectionable sentences together. Advertisers love readers; space around your new regular column is flying off the shelves. Just carry on being yourself, and I’m sure in time you’ll annoy practically everyone.” Emmy left the office trying to work out if she’d just been praised or insulted. Fuck it; she had a column! She’d almost missed that part.
The Operators Cab of the Pineapple Express
And it was Evening on the Same Day
“What is it?” Marc had never seen anything so brazenly mechanical.
“He is William. As to what William is, he is a Burroughs Standard typewriter from the mid twentieth century; an outrageous rarity.” Emmy noisily touch-typed as she spoke, eyes fixed on a spiral bound notebook. Reb scored a case of ribbons for the machine in a yard sale once, and Emmy lived in hope of another lucky find; she’d even made her poor sister drive back to see if the seller knew where they had come from, but no joy. Marc is lying on the low bunk, noodling softly on a nylon strung Spanish guitar. His head is tilted towards Emmy and there is a trio of candles just beyond her; flickering illumination dances between her fingers and the extended skeletal talons of the machine she feeds. He sees the fire and it is all around her, but dares not consume her; she fans the flames with concert piano precision arched wrists, and he is picking out a scale in time. Their fingertips, fractions of an inch connecting flesh to artifice, are running together, overshooting, catching up their rhythms match, and then; it clicks.
As her words fall to the page the partners take the floor and they dance; a barely perceptible rise in tempo, a time change and accents rattle in keystrokes and downstrokes. For every paragraph there is a fresh movement, a variation on a theme, another riddle in beats and bars and they jam and she’s writing from the heart now; creative engines focussed on tiny percussive hammers leaving her pencilled notes a fading dream from which she is awakening…
As Emmy stuffs typewritten vellum into a dog eared manila envelope she can’t help but wonder; what exactly just happened? She feels strangely sated and in need of a cigarette, but she was all out. She’d ask Marc but he was now asleep, guitar still in his hands. She was certain he was narcoleptic, the boy could nap on a wire in a whirlwind; Reb was a heavy sleeper, but at least she said goodnight first. He murmured something that may have been her name as she took his guitar and placed it carefully upright in a corner. Emmy checked the time, and reckoned it late enough for bed; it wasn’t like he took up much room on the wide bunk, and it was warmer in the steel shell of the cab with somebody sharing.
A clockwork alarm rattles its way across the dashboard of a once great maglev locomotive before falling off the end.
“You know what the guys are going to think.” Emmy wags a finger at Marc.
“The guys are not our mum and dad; let them think.”
“They’re really going to take the piss.”
“Well that will be your problem, not mine, as I have to take my new column into work and approve a headshot. Enjoy your day; they’re rarely up before noon so you’ve a while yet.” She pauses with her hand halfway to the door “Can you smell sausages?” Marc takes a look outside. This morning the lads have yet to smoke themselves to a standstill, and the yard hosts a brace of occupied deck chairs; a frying pan sizzles over a small barbeque.
“Pay up” instructs Ehsan to Big, making the appropriate hand gesture; the drummer produces a silver round. Marc is so affronted he doesn’t even attempt to correct their misconception.
“Did you just have a bet on whether I was straight?” Big aims a stern finger at his comrade.
“Mate; the bet was whether you were even a bloke. I still say a prosthesis was involved.”
“Dude! You’ve seen me naked! We went skinny dipping in Lake Attabad not three weeks ago!” Big narrows his eyes, and a cigarillo slides from one side of his jaw to the other.
“I saw something that morning; can’t rightly say what I saw.”
“I saw Bernie” volunteers Ehsan. “Surprisingly firm for a woman of her age, I thought.” All three drift into a shared reverie at this point and Emmy leaves the yard with as much dignity as she can muster, given the necessity of singing Land of Hope & Glory for an audience of three big dogs, two recycling operatives and a rock band with mommy issues.
Bernadette scores Marc and Emmy a short slot on Making Mojo, an industry vlog aimed at working musicians. The piece is titled ‘Why do space rock bands even have guitarists?’; Emmy presents Marc with a standard beginners instrument on which he demonstrates how to produce fifteen weird noises which sound nothing like a guitar, with the help of everyday household items.
Reviewing the rushes for the umpteenth time, Bernie knows there’s gold in them thar hills. These kids have chemistry off the scale, an ‘are they or aren’t they?’ vibe which draws you into their body language as you search for clues; an unpleasant chill runs through her stomach as she realises what potentially lies in store for something this bankable. The space rock circuit was dangerous, sure; illegality was practically a byword in a culture defined by relaxed attitudes to land usage. Bernie was quite literally born in the wagon of a travelling show; the Boswells had been around Britain and beyond since the time of the English Civil War and Bernie operated at the interface of trav’ler[******] and underground culture, but although there was big money to be made it wasn’t big enough to attract the real bastards. They ran the mainstream which controlled everything you saw and heard, and they could have you killed in broad daylight. A lesser manager would lose their shit if a band followed up a smash like Golden Machine with a kiss of death like Bomb Parliament, but Bernadette and the lads understood one another; ‘this far and no further’ was their entire career plan.
Up on the Mezzanine in the Pineapple Express
A Weekday Evening
; A verbally abusive game of snooker can faintly be heard at the far end of the carriage; Ehsan is calling Bigs’ parentage into question, and Emmy muses on the long tradition of the Roast in her homeland. Now she’d been in Britain a while, it already seemed faintly ridiculous to make a safe space for insults; here it was just how they talked. You could say it was OK because Brits weren’t armed, but they absolutely were; Marc and the lads were country boys with country ways and enough rifles and shotguns between them to take Calais, and although nobody knew the first thing about baseball, everyone seemed to own a bat. She noticed the British were unfailingly polite towards strangers; insults appeared to be a display of trust by which they reinforced friendships. They were funny because laughter is how our brain rewards us for spotting a contradiction.
Marc switches off the large multicoloured guitar amplifier and lays down his instrument. Emmy is transfixed by the imposing bulk of the amp and the unfamiliar, evocative logo stencilled across its’ facia.
“I feel like it’s looking at me. What’s a Terraformer?”
“Terraformers are megastructures used by the Outer Infantry to prepare asteroids for colonisation; this amp has a couple of bass speakers underneath and when you switch them on the ground shakes.”
“It sounds great; why don’t you ever take it out on stage?” Marc shrugs.
“It was left to me by a relative; I was about eleven or twelve and he knew I’d been taking guitar lessons. It was all black then; Big and Ehsan did the psychedelic paint when we started the band. I don’t know why but it’s never felt like mine, more like I’m minding it and the real owner will be along later; we only used it once, and that recording became the basis for the Golden Machine release. Can’t tell you how spooked I was; that summer, everyone wanted a piece of us. Personally I blame the Terraformer; there’s dark juju in there.” Emmy feels a chill as she realises she hasn’t taken her eyes from the machine the whole time Marc has been talking. She tears her gaze away and catches sight of a photo pinned up amongst the ticket stubs and postcards.
“Do you have a sister?” Mark grins
“Everyone thinks that; it’s my mum. She was young when she had me; I’ve worked out the dates and I’m definitely the reason they got married, but they seem happy and I have a little brother so it turned out alright.”
“What’s your dad do?”
“Dad’s a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Navy Space Fleet, he’s also a Duke since Granddad died; Mum was already a Lady and I’m sort of a Marquess.” Emmy laughs.
“Marc the Marquess does sound like a drag act. I wouldn’t have had you down for a Navy brat; you must have seen some places.”
“Oh, we were never posted with Dad; he’d be home every few months to take us huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’, all the good father son stuff. He had such a reverence for the land; even when we dug potatoes he’d thank the dirt out of respect. He taught us to never take more than we needed and to use everything we took, and he told us we had a good government, but governments can go bad so keep your guns handy.”
“What does he think of the band?”
“He likes us paying our own way and doesn’t care if we live in a train to do it; says if you can just stay out of debt and hand over your taxes you’ll be doing better than most.”
“He never wanted you to follow in his footsteps?” Marc shakes his head.
“Dad says he joined up for the same reason everyone does; absolutely no idea what else to do with his life. He loves it though; always seems different before he’s off. He becomes really focussed, almost intense; comes home knackered and sleeps for a couple of days. He’s way older than Mum by the way, but she fusses around like she’s ninety so it evens out. I have a funny Auntie, a couple of uncles and a scary Grandma who lives in a big house full of armour and servants; good old fashioned nuclear family really. What are your folks like?”
“I was raised by my sister. Mum died giving birth to me, and Dad never got over it; he went five years later in a hospice, but by that time my sister was thirteen so she applied for parental responsibility.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be; I never knew them and my sister did a good job. The sacrifices she made are only beginning to sink in; every now and then I think ‘Christ; at my age Reb was shift supervisor, picking me up from sleepovers and washing my soccer kit!’ I’ve everything to thank her for.”
“Did you say she runs a restaurant?”
“Manages it for the parent company but yeah, calls the shots pretty much.”
“Cool; let me know if she wants a signed guitar for the wall.”
“Well I definitely want one!” Marc shakes his head resolutely.
“Dead guitars are thankfully in short supply; until you get more punters through your cab than the restaurant, it’s a no.” This was a side to Marc she’d not seen before; it bordered on the uncanny.
“People think of you as some kind of fragile pixie prince but you’re a total whore on the quiet, aren’t you?” Marc smiles.
“Hate the game girlfrien’, not the playa.” Emmy pelts him with a cushion.
“Marc Dolan, I am shocked! You are a cunning worldly wolf in space cadet’s clothing!” He holds up his hands, laughing.
“In my defence I truly have not been well, but I’ve had a good couple of months and it’s getting better.” Emmy is reloading with cushions.
“What is? Explain yourself or be Maced and fed to the dogs!” Marc gives it a try; he knows he’s going to tell her something which is slightly untrue in many ways, but it’s hard to articulate the experience within anyone else’s frames of reference. He’s never had words to describe his difficulties; it must of necessity be allegorical.
“You know when there’s background noise and you can’t hear conversation? It like that but with all the senses; people are hard to see against their surroundings, and it’s frightening because you don’t know if you’ll wake up one morning and everything will be fuzz and static forever.”
“What changed?” There is a pause.
“It’s going to sound like emotional blackmail.”
“Try me; I work for Sean Siemens so I’m used to whiny men.”
“You’re always in the light, Emmy; even when it’s dark I see you. I see everything in your light, and I’m learning why; it’s a mechanism I can use. I’m only sixteen years old and I’m not going to let this be all there is.”
She doesn’t know what to say, so she hugs him. Emmy is not a tactile woman; she has a history of awkward embraces, missed high fives and bump nosed kisses. She’s never felt right in her own skin, but now her jangling epidermis calms and dead air briefly reigns in fizzing neurons. Her veins run warm with anaesthetic, and their clinch draws momentarily tighter; it’s a short happy fall into a fuzzier existence, and then they release one another.
“What you wanna do now?” asks Marc; Emmy thinks hard.
“I want to be one of those reporters you see on the BVC, being incredibly brave with bombs going off and soldiers shouting; I’d be great at doing all that!” Marc breaks into a fit of giggles, and is pelted with soft furnishings again “I don’t think it’s asking much! Not if a prick like you can be a rock star!”
“I meant what d’you want to do this evening!” he protests, still laughing “and stop hitting me with cushions!”
“Oh.” Emmy lays down her weapons and considers her options; all are pretty good, and some involve the night bakery “I’d like to get slightly stoned and watch the horror channel while you and your mates call each other names.” Marc looks out towards the far end of the carriage.
“I know where there’s telly, grass and wankers; follow me!”
Cramphorn House, North East Lincolnshire
2245 A.D
There are lands and estates on both sides of Marc Dolan’s family but it’s his younger brother who knows the business. Ever since Roy could count he’d accounted; his earliest memory was sitting on his grandmothers’ knee as she ran a pencil down l
ines and columns. She showed him what the numbers meant; how they could represent a loaf of bread, or a house, or a lifetime of labour. Schooled at the Joan Robinson Economic Comp, he understood the columns had to balance for everyone, his grandmother and the worker alike; he understood the wealth of an organisation represented insurance for all of them, not a piggy bank to be dipped into whenever anyone felt like it.
Roy’s own pursuits are inexpensive, requiring little more than a pen and paper and some peace and quiet; he has an interest in what is popularly known as the Edge of Numbers. It was discovered some time ago numbers are not infinite; oh, you can jot down larger and longer collections of Arabic squiggles, but beyond a certain point mathematics ceases to exist. A number like eight hundred bazillion gazillion seems legit, but so does pyrite in a mountain stream until you try to spend it.
He’s found an anomaly; hardly unusual, but this bogey was in Block Time. He checked and re-checked; it was, for want of a better word, a skid in the numbers, almost as if something temporal had landed hard out of nowhere. Could this be what the Friars are looking for?
The Big Cock Fayre
Deep in the West Country of England
2245 A.D.
This, thought Emmy, was exactly the sort of thing Reb was always saying about the English; it could so easily have been called the West of England Game and Landfowl Show, but that would have been a missed opportunity to these people. The Sunbury sisters had never gotten around to tracing their ancestry, but Emmy was beginning to hope she was French. Sean impressed her with his ability to repeat the phrase perfectly straight faced while clarification was sought; he must have practiced in front of a mirror. Emmy struggled to contain her own mirth as she could clearly see Helen seated behind their supreme leader, biting her knuckles and quaking silently. She tried it from another angle; it was turning into a contest to see who would crack first.
The Only War Page 17