Benighted

by Kit Whitfield

  I look at her, and she tries to smile. “It’s a nice area.”

  “Yes.” Yes. Yes, if you don’t have to catch in the park, I suppose it is.

  She sits on the sofa and holds her son.

  “I guess I should go now.”

  She doesn’t stop me as I rise. As I reach the door, she says, “You will keep phoning me, won’t you?”

  I turn, lean my back against the door. “Do you want me to?”

  Her face creases. “Of course I want you to.”

  “All right. I’ll call you.” I turn around.

  “May?”

  “What?”

  She makes a helpless gesture as I turn back. “Should you—give me your boyfriend’s number? So I know where to call you?”

  “I might not be there.” I should smile at her, give her a hug. Instead, I stand against the door. It’s the most I can give her. “I’ll let you know where I’m staying when I call.”

  Twenty-eight years lie on the floor between us.

  I don’t know which of us it is that’s turned her back on them as I once again face the door and go through it.

  “You can’t just go in there, he’s on the phone,” the man tells me.

  “I need to speak to him.”

  “Can I help you at all?” He has a narrow face, his Adam’s apple stands out like a kink, as if his neck had been broken in half and set wrong. His hair is thin, but he stands in front of me as calm as if he was twice my size. There’s no harshness in his tone.

  “No, I need to speak to Paul Kelsey.” I step back. The dizziness that’s been swirling around me all day rises, and I haven’t any fight left. “It’s all right, I can wait.”

  “You might have to wait a while.” He gestures me to a chair. “Can I get you a cup of coffee, tea, water?”

  My throat closes. There’s no room inside me for water. “No thank you.”

  I stare at the wall. Every now and again Simon, the man who stopped me in the hallway, comes back and checks on me, offers me magazines and cookies. After half an hour, I take a magazine to free myself of his restless hospitality, and push the pages to and fro, half dazzled by the shiny images. Sleek-limbed women in shimmering dresses, page after page of ads. Articles on cleaning your skin, maximizing your assets. It’s been a long time since I’ve held one of these expensive magazines. I try to imagine, if I were beautiful, whether things would be better. I can’t make it fit. Faces break so easily.

  I’ve lost an hour of my life looking at glossy photographs of people I don’t know when I finally hear a voice. “Lola, hi! I never thought I’d see you reading a fashion mag.”

  “It’s not mine.” Paul stands before me, and for a second it’s as if I’ve never seen him before.

  “What are you doing here?” He sits on the chair next to me.

  Simon comes back. He’s relaxed, greets Paul as if they’ve known each other a long time. “Hi, Paul. This lady said she wanted to speak to you?” It’s his responsibility I’m here; he’s checking it out.

  “It’s okay, she’s my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, this is Lola.” He smiles, he thinks he knows me. “Nice to meet you at last.”

  “At last.” I shake the hand he holds out, I remember how to do that. “I mean, nice to meet you, too.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting on the visitor’s chair. You should have said.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Do you want to come into my office?” Paul stands, gestures. I let him escort me into another room. Books on the walls, a box of tissues on the desk, files. He closes the door behind us. “Not that it’s not nice to see you,” he says, “but what’s up?”

  “I—” I sit down. I have to get this buzzing out of my head. “Why didn’t you think I’d read a fashion magazine? Do I look untidy?”

  “Oh God, wrong thing to say. You look great. I just haven’t seen you reading one before. Can I get out of this without offending you somehow?”

  “No. It’s okay. I don’t like them.”

  “What’s up?” He seats himself. “Coffee?”

  “I don’t want anything to drink!”

  “Okay, okay, just being nice.”

  “Paul, can I stay with you?” I have tried to think of ways of leading up to it, of ways to say it. I can’t think of any.

  “What, you mean tonight?”

  “No. I mean for a while.” Time, turn back. I don’t want to have to ask this.

  He frowns. “I guess.” He doesn’t sound as if it’s a big deal. “What’s going on, is your window leaking again?”

  “No. Something’s happened. You—you shouldn’t say yes. You should ask me about it and find out what it involves.”

  “Well, I kind of just did…Hey, are you okay? You seem a bit strained.”

  Having to tell it again is hard work, it’s dragging stones uphill. I go through it again, the death, the man after me. I name no names. I keep it short. He only needs to know the bare minimum, because he’s either going to say yes or he’s not, whatever I say, and I cannot drag the details up one more time.

  “They said I shouldn’t be living in my apartment,” I finish. “But if I stay with you, it’s a risk you should think about.”

  “No.” There’s no way of telling what kind of no that is. “No, that’s okay. You should stay.”

  “What?” I squint at him, raise my hand to rub my eyes and let it droop again before it reaches them. “Aren’t you going to say no? I’m bad luck right now.”

  “You shouldn’t go home.” He comes and sits beside me.

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  He shrugs. “It’s not me anyone’s after. And I’ve dealt with crazy people before. I’m not too worried.”

  “You should be.”

  “I’m more worried about you.” His face takes on a confessional look, there’s a tentativeness in the way he reaches for my hand that’s unfamiliar; it isn’t Paul’s touch. I have to pull back the reflex to push this strange hand away, tell myself that it’s Paul and he’s going to let me stay with him. “If there’s someone after you, I’d be happier knowing where you were.”

  It doesn’t make sense. It’s a thing to say, it’s polite and kind but it doesn’t make sense. I can’t understand why he’s taking this risk. I don’t argue. I should, for his sake, I shouldn’t be endangering him, but I’m too tired. I let him guide me out of the building.

  He asks whether I need to pick up some stuff, and he’s right, I hadn’t thought of that. We go through my building, into my apartment. The key turns in my lock with a small click and I know I won’t hear that sound again.

  I tug things out of drawers, stuff a suitcase without folding, not knowing much of what I take. Paul is hyper; he moves from room to room remembering I need a toothbrush, a hairbrush, things that aren’t in my cupboards. After a while I wander into the bedroom and make him follow me. I reach out for him, kiss him, pull him down with me. I lean and push against him, trying to rub some life into my flesh. He’s far away from me, farther than he’s ever been when we were like this, and I feel very little, but still I’m grateful. When I was younger, we used to talk about “christening” rooms. Even numb and confused as I am, there’s some distant sense of relief that I have someone with whom to give my room its last rites.

  Later, we go to his place. I’ve been here enough that there’s some familiarity as I walk up to his door. It isn’t coming home, but it’s a respite of sorts. He clears a drawer and tells me it’s okay, it was time he tidied anyway, and doesn’t press when I ask to leave the unpacking for a little while.

  In my handbag, there’s a gun. I walked into Weapons, mentioned that I knew Ally Gregory, went from place to place with no air of wrongdoing. I told Paul months ago that if you look like you should be there, no one will stop you. I went into a storeroom, lifted a gun off the wall and put it in my bag, took a box of bullets to go with it. Another time, it would have frightened me to do this, and there was fear in me somewhere, but all I could feel of it wa
s a prickling heat on my arms. Nearer my hands than my heart. I took a gun, ammunition, and moved, quiet as a ghost, back to where I wanted to be. It wasn’t even difficult.

  NINETEEN

  I wake in the middle of the night and find that the mist has cleared, leaving everything outlined in frost. Sounds are etched against the air, objects are stark and so sharply real it almost cuts me to look at them. What I see is corners, doors, places I can’t see around. I can’t see under the bed, I can’t see what’s behind the door, and outside this room there are city streets with corners everywhere I look. There are so many hiding places in the world, and someone who wants to kill me might be in any one of them.

  Seligmann. He was stronger than me even when he was tied down. Now he’s loose and he has a gun. And there were more of him. There were three of them that attacked Marty and me. Three. Maybe others. Faces I wouldn’t recognize.

  Ripples go through me. This isn’t nerves, this is fear. On moon nights, I’ve patrolled, I’ve tracked through the forests, black-barked trees with snaking branches like an army around me. That was in the nighttime. For a moment, I looked away, and now it’s come to this, the whole world has become forest.

  I lie awake a long time.

  Officially no one knows where Bride’s been sent, but this is DORLA, and it only takes me ten minutes of asking people to find out. There weren’t many choices, anyway. If she’s taken a work transfer, it won’t be to the country: outside the cities, lunes go for the livestock, and guarding it is a specialized job. I hear nons have a better time of it in some parts of the country; after all, it’s time-honored. Out in the country, they say the farmers see the use of us. In some parts. In others, locals hunch their backs and put their heads together and don’t speak to nons at all. Cities are full of country nons who couldn’t take it anymore and begged for years to get a transfer. There are areas of the countryside where DORLA members are sent as a punishment. But Bride won’t be there, she wouldn’t know how to play shepherd. She’s a city girl.

  There are two different rumors, one that she’s gone north, the other south, both to cities within a hundred miles of us. I phone both and simply ask to speak to Bride Reilly. The second call finds her.

  “Hello, love.” Her voice is resigned, not unfriendly.

  “Bride.” I sit in my tiny office behind my locked door, and stare ahead of me. Plastic venetian blinds over my window, gray with age, and grime in the strings where my dusting can’t reach. I don’t know what to say to her.

  “So.” Her voice is too bright. “Where are you calling from, pet?”

  I rub my mouth. “From my office. From home.”

  “You’re still there?” The cheerfulness goes out of her; she sounds wary. “I—thought you’d have taken a transfer.”

  “Like you?” I turn my head at the sound of a clatter outside, stand up to look out of the window. Someone’s dropped a bottle. I sit back in my chair, trying not to notice how breakable my knees feel.

  “Well, yes—I’d have thought it was the best thing for all of us. Some bad lune out there gunning for us…” It isn’t confident, it’s subdued. She’s done me no wrong, I know that, but I’m alone here. She’s done something different. She left without telling me. It’s only because Alice Townsend told me that I even knew she was leaving. Bride pulled up stakes and went without a word, left me to look around and find the world suddenly without her. The worst of it is, I can see her point. I can feel how hard it is, the struggle to remember other people, the impulse to elbow and scratch and grab for what I can.

  “It’s okay, Bride.” My throat is sore, and I don’t know if it is okay, but I can’t talk like this. I can’t afford to let a conflict rise. Better to patch up a friendship than let it drop. “You probably did the right thing.”

  There’s a pause. She hesitates before asking, but she’s known me a long time. “How come you stayed, Lolie?”

  I rub my mouth. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not much of a reason, love. Not that I’m nagging, but wouldn’t you rather get out of this bastard’s way?”

  “I can’t. I—I let him scare me before, and I don’t want to run.”

  She doesn’t answer. I’m trying not to resent her running without a word, and she knows it, knows she can’t push this.

  I don’t tell her I’ve screwed up too many times. That Seligmann almost killed Marty and tore all the hope out of him before he was even twenty years old, and I didn’t prevent it. That I was the one who brought Nate down to Seligmann’s cell on the first day. That I wouldn’t even go near Seligmann after it happened, that others went in and drew his fire and all I did was let them, so long as it meant I didn’t have to think about him. I always despised people who martyr themselves. I don’t know why I’m doing it now.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving,” Bride says. “I should have, I know…”

  “How’s Jim?” I cut across her. I don’t want to listen to this.

  “He’s fine.” Her voice is very quiet. “I drove us up, we found somewhere to stay, we’re settled in now.”

  “How’s the new place?”

  “It’s all right. Not a palace, but we can afford it. It could be worse.”

  It could be here. “And you’re working okay?”

  “Oh yes, I’m settling in fine here.”

  Settling in. “Bride,” I say, my voice tightening. “How long do you think you’ll be away?”

  There’s a long silence before she answers. “Well, we’re renting on a short-term basis. We can renew the contract every two months. And all the jobs I’m getting are quite short-term. I’m not worried about it, really.”

  Bride is away in a strange city. She doesn’t know how long before it’ll be safe to return. If it’s months, she—settling in. I shake my head. Surely she’ll be coming back.

  “Hey, hey.” Bride comes in with a strained giggle. “What about that young fellow who answered your phone at midnight? What’s going on there?”

  I close my eyes, let go of the thought that this call would be easier if I was making it from Paul’s apartment. He’s been so good to me. I’ve been eating proper breakfasts every morning because of him. When I wake up shaking in the night, I have something to hold on to. Even if he’s sleeping, it’s better. Just the warmth of his skin, the solidity of him lying curled on his side make the fears seem like themselves, like fears of what may happen, not like living creatures already upon me digging their claws into my back. “Well,” I say. There’s no way I can say all that to anyone. “It’s fine. He’s still around.” If it hadn’t been for Paul, would I have fled to another city?

  “There’s a thing,” she says. She’s happier talking about this. “You’re a desperate liar keeping him a secret from me, you know. I shouldn’t forgive you for that. So what’s he like, this young man of yours? Is he handsome? Do tell me he’s handsome.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “Wonderful!” she crows. There’s a shrill note of relief in her tone. “So, details—big, small, dark, fair…come on, Lolie, don’t be mean.”

  I’m not in the mood, I can’t play. “He’s tall, black hair, blue eyes…Listen, Bride, I should probably be working.”

  “Oh.” She goes quiet like a slapped child. Even in my sore and stiffened state, there’s a pang at the sound. “Look, I’m sorry, Bride. I’m just a little tense right now, and I do have a lot to get through…”

  “Of course.” I’ve never before heard Bride sound submissive.

  We both sit and say nothing. Neither of us hangs up.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going,” Bride says.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I wouldn’t stay if I were you.”

  “I’ll be okay.” I say it quietly, and add nothing to it, and she knows we aren’t going to talk about it.

  “I’ll light a candle for you.” I say nothing. “Tell you what,” she says with a nervous laugh, “I’ll light one for you if you light one for me.” />
  “You can be the good Catholic girl,” I say. “I haven’t been to church for years.”

  “I would,” she says.

  I sit and hold the receiver for a moment. Stained glass, blue against the dull gray sky, incense. Thinking of the candles, a flicker goes through me and I crave them, the pure ivory wax and the soft, orange glow of the flames. But I know I won’t do it. There are too many deathbed conversions in the world. I can’t plea-bargain with God.

  “Tell you what,” I say. “When you go to light one for me, light one for yourself as well, and I’ll pay for it. I’ll buy you a drink when you get back.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice quivers. “Yeah, you do that, love.”

  In that instant, I can’t take it. “I have to hang up now,” I say. “I’d better go.”

  “Do you want to give me your number?” She speaks quickly, as if she thinks I’ll hang up before she can ask.

  I sit still, resting my head against the receiver.

  Bride doesn’t say anything.

  “I’d better not,” I say.

  “Okay, I’ll not give you mine then.” She’s talking quickly. “Better both ways, eh, Lo?”

  “You can call me at work.”

  “Yeah, you too. Well, I mean call me again…”

  “Yeah.” I can’t say anything else. “Bye, Bride.”

  Her good-bye sounds from the receiver as I lay it down, tinny and small and a long way away.

  I sit in the canteen, nursing a cup of coffee. The vending machine spatters and gasps every time you work it, and my paper mug of liquid is not appealing; it’s coffee-flavored water and I can taste the water and the flavor separately as I sip. Still, it’s hot. The drink burns through the cardboard, keeping my fingers awake.

  I’ve caught myself developing habits that I struggle to restrain when I notice them. There are moments when I catch myself thinking that if I can keep from being afraid I’ll be safe. There are moments when I catch myself thinking that if I relax for a second, that will be the second the attack comes. Mostly, there are moments when I catch myself thinking that I should be able to find some state of mind that will get me through this, that if I can just be right in myself, then the blow won’t fall. My mind tugs this way and that like a sackful of mice, and I know I have to stop doing it.