Gwyneth Jones - Life(2005)

by Anonymous Author

  Nevertheless they all agreed to go out on the town together. Anna invited Wolfgang, hoping that he would be the life and soul of the party. She couldn't think of anyone else.

  They met at Ramone's hotel, the Rajah Brooke, a hangout favored by middle-aged US tourists before the annexation, and went to eat in The Plaza, at an eclectic, Chinese-run restaurant called The Jungle Pigeon. It was early, because they wanted to go on somewhere. The Plaza was full of shoppers, heavy aircon, and the smell of too much deodorizer. Ramone jeered at it. "Is this the way you two live? I suppose you never venture into the real Sungai? We might as well be eating prawn sesame toast in some crap Chinese off Piccadilly Gardens."

  "Where are Piccadilly Gardens?" wondered Daz. "I've never heard of them."

  "She means Piccadilly, Manchester," supplied Anna.

  "If you want the Sungai experience," said Spence (trying to keep his temper), "this is it, much as there is one. Up-country is roads and trees, plenty of trees, a few muddy rivers, some ugly mountains. There's no scenery. Not much culture. It could be the Midwest."

  "Huh. Far as I can see, you might as well have stayed at home."

  "I think that's the point. We did stay at home. That's what we've found out."

  Ramone muttered something about Hallmark card sentiment.

  Anna was borne up, after Pasir Pancang, on that dark glimmering tide of perfect, active calm. Things couldn't be better between her and Spence. She was serene about working for Parentis. Transferred Y was in wonderful shape. She wanted the evening to go with a swing and wondered why Wolfgang (in the shirt with the silver and purple butterflies) was being so stiff and stilted. Ramone, bless her, still did not know how to use a pair of chopsticks. The rabid one was going to stay hungry, now the fingerfood was gone, unless she stopped being on her dignity and asked for a fork. Spence and Anna and Wolfgang were fast-working gannets, and Daz soon proved their equal. Wham, wham, wham. . .a heap of sticky, delicious little squid in suo tinto, a mass of slivered chili-fried liver, crispy tempeh, delicious nyonya fish curry, all of it disappeared at speed. Spence had ordered the signature dish, as one must: two of them. The jungle pigeons arrived late, glistening reddish black in pools of anise sauce, arranged with their intact heads tucked under their wings. At this spectacle Ramone broke down and exclaimed in innocent delight, endearing herself to the Pigeon staff.

  "Oh, cool. Aren't they gross! They look like burn victims."

  "You have to eat the head," the waiter told her, grinning mischievously, as he completed a neat, scissoring dismemberment of the first bird. "It's good luck."

  "You can easily get this dish in Manchester, you know," Anna couldn't resist pointing out. "With a smaller pigeon. . . If you like Chinese food, that is."

  "I like Chinese takeaway food." Ramone gave Anna a look, a flash of fierce contact, quickly withdrawn. "So, how's the baby-making going? Cloned anyone famous lately?"

  "What, me personally? I'm not involved in the clinical work. Purely admin this trip."

  Out of the corner of her ear, as it were, she heard Wolfgang sounding unlike himself.

  "You are Sungainese by birth, Ms Avriti? So I've been told?"

  "Yes I am," agreed Daz, quietly.

  "And a Human Rights lawyer, whatever that exactly means. You have family living here?"

  "Oh yes."

  Ramone's muddy blue eyes gleamed. "Infertility's not a disease. Face it Anna, your 'clinical work' is pure money grubbing."

  "If you like. That's definitely what the boss thinks, isn't it Wolfgang?"

  "Poor Asian. He knows no other worthwhile activity. He should be called Ben Franklin."

  "Asian?" Ramone was charmed. "Your boss is called Asian?"

  "Straight up."

  "What's that? Persian ethnic or Christian Hippy?"

  "Hippy, we've decided, because his family name's 'Gaegler' and there are little signs—"

  "Little signs!" At last Wolfgang's crazy infectious laugh, like a hyena with hiccups. "This sad teetotal capitalist has his daddy's photo on the desk. Old Papa is wearing a Grateful Dead tee-shirt, and he is wearing cannabis sativa leaf earrings. Isn't that nice?"

  "Doesn't surprise me," growled Ramone. "There's no fucking distance between the counterculture and the free market, never was. . . Hey, does any one want some cool drugs?"

  She extracted a lipstick from one of her pockets, untwisted the base, and shook out a half dozen turquoise capsules. "Have you heard of this? It's the Alzheimer's drug, regressive recall modulator. Lawy gets it on prescription, for memory lapses, although she doesn't really need it. It's neurological time traveling. You go back to something that happened in your past, and you get a brilliant high from doing this. No one knows why; people who found out just started taking it. It's already illegal here. Want some?"

  "I don't want to go into a coma, right now," said Daz. "I want to dance."

  "Oh, that's okay. You can dance in the regression, it only happens in your head—"

  "What if you remember something horrible?" asked Anna, not remotely tempted.

  "To me, this sounds repellent," said Wolfgang.

  Ramone grinned. "Yeah, there's the chance of a bad trip, like with any psychotropic. It's a risk you have to take. Spence, what about it?"

  Spence glanced at Anna. "Nah. It doesn't appeal. Guess I'm a now sort of person."

  "We ought to be going," said Daz, "I'll see if I can get us straight into the club. Put those things away, for heaven's sake." She went to the pay phones to call the Riverrun, the club they planned to visit, but returned shaking her head. Couldn't get a line.

  "They took my mobile off me at the airport," complained Ramone. "And my video camera. Why do they do that? Tin-pot dictatorship—"

  "Mobile phones are supposed to be anti-Islamic," explained Anna. "I didn't know about camcorders. That's the story, but it doesn't make much sense."

  Daz snorted, if an elegant grown-up lady can snort—betrayed by the wine into impatience with these simpletons. "It's nothing to do with Islam. It's about controlling communication, you dorks. Let's queue at the door. There won't be much of a line."

  As they left the restaurant Spence donned an old Microsoft baseball cap, Wolfgang his Ozzie bush hat. Daz and Anna tied their scarves. Ramone prepared to exit bravely bareheaded. Daz grabbed her, holding out the extra hejab she had wisely brought along. "I knew you'd try it. Don't be stupid, Ro."

  "I won't put that on. I fucking won't."

  "In daylight you can get away with being a tourist. After dark, you wear this.'"

  * * *

  The river of Sungai, which means "river" in Malay, was labeled the Tyan on maps, which probably meant river in some vanished Dyak language. It ran through the city like the Thames, puzzlingly small for its historic role: from the west-end docks, from whence the big old refineries sprawled along the estuary towards the sea, to the new football stadium that marked, roughly, the eastern city limits. The Riverrun Club occupied one of the East Quay go-downs, picturesque ancient warehouses that somehow still escaped the developers. On this tepid, steaming January night the floor was packed at nine pm, because the lights were going out at midnight, the police were coming in to check for stragglers: and you'd better believe it.

  Anna and Spence did not frequent the Riverrun, they couldn't afford to. It was, enduringly, the place to be. Alcohol was freely available, the air-conditioning was chill and dry, the sound and light phenomenally good, the walls of the cavernous hall dusky and naked as the day they were born. Over the dancers' heads clouds of bright gas formed into stars, streaming envelopes of aurora meshed; the river ran around and around its swollen center in silver spangles: the dark and shining elliptical river of our birth. The party swiftly downed their first, included-in-the-door-money drink in strong liquor, and lost each other for a while.

  Anna and Spence met Wolfgang on the way to the loft. He dismissed the three gorgeous Sungainese he was talking to and joined them.

  Inside the Riverrun, until curfew, everythin
g was allowed. It was the modern way of oppression. Do what you like, as long as you accept our rules in daytime, in the real world. "Gee, were they boy-loving boys dressed up as girls, Wolfie?" asked Spence, affecting hickdom. "Or were they girl-loving girls, dressed up as boys dressed as girls?"

  "You are such a clown, Spencer. You would make a fine boy-girl yourself. Did anyone ever tell you? I would hardly be able to keep my hands to myself."

  "Oh, I know it." Spence tossed his head and pouted.

  Spence and Wolfgang always "flirted outrageously," it was their little routine. But it was true, thought Anna, that Spence was looking very sexy. Something about the lineaments of gratified desire? No, not gratified desire: gratified by desire. He was giving off a positive fog of pheromones, and this was Anna's doing. She knew that in his mind he was wearing those pajamas. She seized his hand, fleetingly alarmed, but we can still be brother and sister? Ramone and Daz were already in the loft. The five of them took over one of the knee-high bamboo tables. Wolfgang ordered drinks.

  "Are you going to be at this so-called Pro-Democracy rally, Anna?" demanded Ramone.

  "Me?" She was bemused by the idea. "Oh, no. It's not— "

  "Your business? Yes it fucking is. You take these people's money, don't you?"

  "I work for Parentis."

  "Oh, sure. I forgot. You don't work for the little local crooks, you work for Mr Big. I've been trying to be polite about it, but I don't know how you can defend the art of building synthetic human beings, Anna. Have you no respect for the environment? Don't you know this planet is dying of the disease of human expansionist greed?"

  If she'd been less drunk, Anna would have refused to be drawn. She groaned, dragging her fingers through her sweat-soaked hair, "Ramone, I accept my share of the blame along with everyone else, but we only make babies. I don't believe in the population problem; the problem is distribution of resources. But if there was one, the number of people who resort to HAR and wouldn't have children without it is miniscule. There's no way a few tiny handfuls of 'extra' births impact on 'the environment'."

  "Supposing one of the mad dictators decided to have his best lobotomized-violence bodyguard cloned a billion times in vats in a secret factory. That would impact."

  "Can't stick that one on me. We wouldn't take the job. We don't do out of body gestation, it isn't safe."

  "What about single parents? What about a single, male parent, totally infertile? Would you grow him a baby in a bag, from a cell from his scrotum or something?"

  "This is an incredibly stupid conversation, Ramone. I don't know. I don't know what I'd advise; it never comes up. Parentis doesn't work with single parents."

  "That's disgusting. The bastards. The complete bastards."

  "God," Anna hauled herself to her feet. "I'm not saying whether I agree with what Parentis does or not; I think there are points on both sides. What's it to you? You don't want to have a baby. Look, Ramone, suppose you want a new liver one day? That new liver will be grown from a politically correct culture of your own cells, but no one would have found out how without human cloning techniques. That's what it's about, not mad dictators or vanity-parenting. Medicine. Making people better."

  "Oh, I get it. You're a doctor now, like Mummy. The lady in the white coat."

  "Wolfgang," said Anna, "could you remind me where the toilets are? Ramone don't you dare come with me, you're not invited, you are giving me a migraine."

  Ramone had written another book. It was called The Parable of the Star. It concerned the socially and sexually constructed meaning of celebrity. Bach good, Wagner bad, and so on. She had told them it was an important feminist text, as there deliberately weren't any famous women listed or discussed, and had become extremely annoyed, that afternoon in Nasser apartments, when Daz and Spence and Anna had questioned this approach. The reason she was in such a bad temper had patently nothing to do with women's rights in Sungai. It was because her friends had not read her books, would never dream of reading her books. . . Agreed it was tough that Daz, of all people (ex-super model, ex-docile suburban girlfriend), had become the famous feminist, a speaker at this damned rally, while Ramone was merely someone who'd come an awful long way to heckle. Poor Ramone! But why did she have to be so violent, contentious, and unreasonable?

  Time was, Anna thought, I used to sort-of believe in Ramone Holyrod.

  Time was, she used to sort-of believe in me.

  What had possessed Anna to argue with her about HAR? Partly it was impossible to refuse a fight with Ramone. Partly a mercenary's loyalty. As long as she took their money, as long as she owed them for the time she spent with SURISWATI, she wouldn't be such a hypocrite as to disown Parentis in public.

  Why did Ramone have to turn up, stripping the smoothness from everything, tangling the combed out strands, forcing Anna to say things she didn't mean?

  She leaned against the tiled wall, gazing at the beautiful-girl Sungainese (of both chromosomal sexes) repairing makeup, sharing drugs, adjusting clubbing costumes so porny there'd be nothing for it but the whole chador when they returned to the street. Do I really think I'm a doctor like Mummy? Surely not, no, I'm sure I don't.

  But the woman in the white coat, counseling the Nasabahs. . .

  Another sanctuary opens its gates, privileging me, controlling me—

  Ramone watched Anna go and turned to Spence. "She's pissed off because I'm right."

  Spence downed the end of a huge crystal flower vase of Korean lager. The Riverrun served beer in liters, European style—which was helping the evening along, especially at the speed Wolfgang was setting them up. "I think you just pissed her off. Period."

  "Okay I didn't express myself rationally, but it's the Evil Empire. Turning the consumers themselves into consumer commodities; it's the ultimate move in the most destructive social ethos the world has ever known. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Ghengis Khan was nothing on it. The Black Death was a pimple. You ought to know, Spence. The right to strip-mine this planet, to go through it like fat-boy teenagers robbing a fridge, is written into your Constitution."

  "No it isn't."

  "Yes It Fucking Is!"

  "You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence."

  Ramone giggled, momentarily disarmed. "I hate where I am," she confided, studying the bottom of her own vase. "Sexual Politics is a bust. I'm going to end up like fucking Camille Paglia: pack me up and take me down to the Antiques Roadshow. But how do I get out of it? It's like: step one, get beyond the fucking battle of the sexes and get real. How d'you get beyond step one?"

  Spence had no interest in this conversation. He shrugged, non-committally. Ramone narrowed her eyes.

  "Read any good email lately?"

  "Oh yeah, email. I must let you have our address," he said, without enthusiasm.

  "S'okay. I've got it."

  She'd been giving him these evil, full-of-it glances ever since she arrived at Nasser apartments in her Lonely Planet drag. He'd assumed it was to do with Anna and had felt invulnerable with the Pasir Pacang week under his belt. He suddenly realized she had something different going on, some other form of attack.

  "I'm not making a big thing of it," disclosed Ramone, with openly fake reluctance. "But I'm not here on my own behalf. I'm representing Lawy I'm her secretary, I deal with her mail. The Sungainese have been appealing to her to take up their case. Of course we had to send the replies anonymously—"

  "Is that a fact?"

  "So you see, some of those secret messages you've been passing on were from me!"

  She cackled in triumph.

  Was this true? It had to be true, how else would she have known about the arrangement? Ramone, those poor kids' hope in hell? Hideous thought! But much, much worse: the idea of his secret in her tender care. . . My God. If we get thrown out before she's finished working with SURISWATI, Anna will never, ever forgive me. . .

  Wolfgang was chatting up their waiter; Daz had been accosted by some Sungainese and was talking t
o them. . . I shredded everything. If they go through my hard drive bit by bit, they can't pin anything on me.

  Ramone sighed in satisfaction. "Spence you look terrified. Don't worry. I won't say a word. I won't even let Anna know you were so careless that I found out. So, anyway, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Since you've dropped out of the crypto-capitalist slacker-nerd lark. Are you settling for legalized prostitution?"

  Spence glared. "Nope. I'm also working on making myself a beautiful soul."

  The effect of this sally was startling. She stared at him in furious amaze, as if he'd said your name is Rumpelstiltskin, as if he'd found the only chink in the monster's armor, and abruptly turned away to plunge, uninvited, into the conversation of the group around Daz.

  And la lutte continue, thought Spence. He had known the moment that postcard arrived that Ramone was still a threat. He guessed spiritual beauty was a card she thought she could play, somehow. Well, tough cookie sweet Ramone, because I'm in sexual possession AND I live a pure and holy life. Anna had returned and was sitting quietly drinking with her "this is a time-out" face on. He would leave her in peace. Let Ramone make the bad mistake of coming on to that inviolable silence.

  The loft had the nostalgic decor of a Kuta beach cocktail bar— bamboo pole flooring, palm leaf mats, woven screens, daft Balinese Beach Bum art—everything signifying a romantic retreat, good times, sun and sea and sand. People were smoking dope, people were behaving as if the cruel world outside didn't exist, while down below the slaves of the bass line went on pounding away to one of those complex Sungai DJ dance tracks, Classic English Acid House infused with North West African rhythms, what a melting pot, fractionally recursive, always doubling back, weaving more—