We ought to get back, you say. Nah, Brett says, relax.
A heron unfolds amongst the bulrushes on the far side of the river and storyboards up the bank. The sun sinks between the willows and Brett finishes his smoke and then another. It’s nearly dark and a flight of geese pumps over on old hinges. When he’s had enough he throws the butt over the side and picks up an oar to fend off from the reeds. You put an oar in the water and pull. You turn a few degrees on the spot but something holds you fast under the boat. Brett laughs and puts on a silly voice. ‘We’re bloody well stuck.’ He tries his oar at a couple of different angles but can’t get a purchase. ‘Hey! Cop this,’ he calls and starts undoing his watch, actually Dad’s big watch with the timer gizmos that pre-empts excuses on curfew and endeavour. He makes out he’s going to go over the side and try to push off whatever you’re snagged on. He tosses the watch too hard and it bounces in your fingers in slow motion and skips over the edge of the boat. ‘Wanker!’ he says, ‘he’ll do his nut,’ and he leans across to peer into the water where it splashed. He’s laughing all the time. ‘Hold on,’ he says, ‘this bit can’t be all that deep. I’ll feel along the bottom for it.’
‘Yeah right,’ you say. But he has his shirt off and just pulls a silly face. He goes in feet first on the deep side and the water closes over his head. It only seems to take a moment. He bunches and rolls, then sticks his feet out, wiggling them as he dives. Clown.
He’s going to play one of his tricks. You can hear him thrashing and fooling around. He’ll come up on the other side of the boat. He’ll do something to surprise you. He’ll be weaving through the reeds underneath the boat. That surprise, when he dolphins up on the other side, will be worth more to him than finding the watch. The one idea will eclipse the other. He’ll probably have to go back for it. You step across the boat and look over on the other side, laughing and wobbling. It’s too dark. He doesn’t appear. Silence.
You wait for him to come up but he never does. You keep thinking he’s being silly and hiding somewhere – with his head out of the water but tucked under the rim of the boat. You look all around. The evening is too still and too calm for any sense of menace to intrude. The water isn’t very deep, not there. Brett is mucking about, as he always does.
But he isn’t.
Then that point where you suddenly know something is amiss. The ice point. But still you sit there for a while longer wondering what to do. Then you simply slip off your shoes and climb over the side in a kind of daze. The water is cold and, surprisingly, too deep for you to feel the bottom. You stick your face in it and try to go down. There are broken stems poking up and you can’t get under. The water is dark and cloudy and tastes of earth. You can still taste it. Again and again, diving, grabbing and coming away. Your forearm catches on something metal, you feel it cut. Towards the bottom of the river there are loose clumps that come away in your hands. You want to swim under the boat but you can’t see anything beyond the swirls of muck in front of your eyes and you’re not strong enough to stay down. You feel as far as you can with your feet. Nothing. And then you’re exhausted and can do nothing but hang on the side of the boat, suddenly desolate and too numb to shout out, unable and unwilling to climb back in.
You hear them before they find you. You can’t move. Can’t speak when they keep asking where Brett is. Can’t respond as they go over it all trying to patch it together with their questions.
Brett had snagged somehow on a sharp metal panel in all the junk down there. Got stuck and drowned. It was a daft fluke, not in the deep but in only a few feet of water, holding Dad’s watch. He must have scoured the bottom, probing in the mud for it until his breath ran out and then caught himself up as he tried to turn and swim under the boat. All the while you had been just a few feet away.
Later they would keep saying that it wasn’t your fault. You had done what you could. Brett was the elder one. It was just one of those things, just such a waste. They never said that it could have been different if you had been stronger or more committed or had acted sooner.
The gash left a raised scar along your inner wrist like a pink lizard with a hard head, a twisting tail and two tiny dots for feet on each side where the stitches had been. Eventually, it faded to a silver thread, as though all but the ridge of its spine had sunk beneath the skin.
‘Alive,’ a voice through some kind of speaker, ‘I’ve got him. He’s in here. Give me a hand here.’ Heavy breaths and a pull on the straps of your pack. ‘He’s hurt but he’s alive.’
You yell.
‘Sorry pal. Hang in there, I’ve got you. Just checking you over.’
Consciousness flickering on and off. Wumph wumph of rotors idling, flashlights dancing on masks, bodysuits, American accent, Medipac ticking busily. You know the manual – ‘read out tells field operative…’ smell of charring, patches of burning light on water, fizzing, someone cutting your sleeve. There’s urgency in their voices. You dribbling, sweating, gushing mud. Eyes stinging, closing is no better.
Your body is trembling and your lungs are trying to twitch out of your chest. Shining in your eyes ‘Open up, pal, open up just a second.’ No way.
Stings when you open. Chopper silhouette, new model Squall Fifty-five. Another. Solomon stream you have to work to control. Nothing but pieces, burning small pieces littered everywhere.
‘Tyler, have you got Tyler?’
‘Yup. He says you’re a no good candy-ass dickhead mother – or some such.’
‘Good. Schultz is hurt he’s waiting at the…’
‘Okay, pal, you’re going to be fine.’
Rotors overhead now, accelerating, bones shaking. Masks up close, working. Let them. Lifting, turning, banking, thank God, flying away.
Three
There were thirty-six of them in the room on the first day. When he first signed up it had been a unique opportunity, a shortcut, and with everything else fucked up, a lifeline. Out of the chaos had come a connection, a chance. They told them the usual odds for success were awful, maybe five percent, but because of what they’d signed they were all guaranteed a place somewhere, a career. Even if you failed to make Solomon, you still won.
Against the immediacy of that, the no-brainer of having no other options, the operation itself had seemed a distant probability, an insurance risk. By stages it became a reality. As it approached he got more scared and more intrigued. It mesmerised him. People take performance drugs all the time, make sacrifices to get on, spend years training, years abroad in some hellhole sending money home. Augmentation seemed at the outset a small price for a ticket to the world. More than that, in ways they didn’t yet understand, Solomon would give them new powers. When the American General, Dooley, came to talk to them he said they were a new elite. Later, Brodzky would keep saying that too. There was a buzz about it, a sense of pride, of terror, an adventure. It had seemed remote. Now it was staring at him up close.
They had to be young because it mattered that their brains were still developing. A lot of the other crap was waived but they still got to do Selection. It’s not all hype either; they said you need to want to succeed a lot more than you want to stay physically whole. Most people got some experience first but Rees hit it straight from school. If he hadn’t been a runner and used to maps and blisters he’d have tanked. When running about carrying stupidly heavy loads over cold wet hills didn’t kill him, they started throwing him out of aeroplanes for parachute training. He found out a lot about himself, mainly about knees and ankles but also that he wanted to succeed above all else. The final twist was the programme going over to the Americans. No one was clear what it meant but they said commitments made would be honoured. Delays in negotiations turned days into weeks and then months. They really wanted the technology, not the people. There were Yankee rangers in their exercises and rumours of cherry-picking and cutting numbers. The little team was renamed as American Airborne Liaison, AAL, an acronym which came back from the pub as American Arse Lickers.
To kee
p the secrecy, their small team was moved from headquarters out of the way to a small barracks over the Welsh border in the Brecon Beacons. Nothing was certain. Six dwindled to four.
Rees was in limbo but he told himself he still had the promise of a role elsewhere. It dragged on. That’s why he met Eva.
There were no titles, just first names. They didn’t use rank, and they called nobody Sir. They were encouraged not to look or act like regulars or even as a unit – and they didn’t. Piers was a public school type, he said yuh a lot and swore exquisitely. He was pink with a wave of blonde hair. He had detoured from officer track and more than anyone else underlined how serious a career gambit Solomon could be.
René was tall and black and spoke with a Midlands twang and hard Gs that baffled the Rangers they trained with. He was handsome, dressy, talked about clubbing and women. He read classical books that he left lying around and showed off talking about philosophy and opera.
Lee was amphetamine made human. Compact and twitchy, he even grew stubble at double time. He spoke Scouse on fast forward with pointy gestures. He was frightening, clever and took money from everyone in bets on anything.
One evening, after a long away day of classrooms and psychological tests, Tyler, the ranger looking after them, agreed to a stop off. The Black Lamb was a pub in the middle of nowhere where they could drink with indifferent regulars and forget themselves. Sometimes Rees would run there from the base, seven miles or so over stone-shouldered hills, and return in darkness, drunk, with the team singing their hearts out in the battered Land Rover.
It was already late and Rees was aching to get some air. Lee was trying to convince Tyler to make a night of it and then someone said Rees had missed his run and a whip round had two sides arguing on how much he’d lag behind them if he ran the return. The money eventually went down on three minutes for each pint he drank before he left.
Irritated by Lee’s look of confidence, Rees made it to six. The last one was poured in while his arms were held out and with Piers scrawling on his forehead with lipstick borrowed from the barmaid. He posed for a photo in his shorts and tee shirt and set off into the dark at the first revs of the Land Rover.
For a few moments he could still hear swerving shouts and screaming gear changes tracing the contours of the single track road down the valley but then they were gone over a brow and the whomp of his boots on grass took over.
Within a mile he stopped to douse his head in a stream and wash his face in clear cold water. He followed the path he remembered downhill and made a wide turn across the valley bottom where the last of the light might find him. The worst part of running is the first; we are natural lopers and stopping and starting is what does us. By the second mile he felt stronger and had found his rhythm. We’re designed for this; it’s all you need.
He crested the next hill with a song on his lips. The air was damp with dew and he imagined he could see the path ahead of him shining a little, maybe more than a little.
Out across the flat of the valley bottom there was something glowing, a bright square hanging like a dispossessed window. He pulled up and walked a few paces. If he stared at it his vision tunnelled to a brilliant blob but when he looked away he could make out a figure reaching and stretching in the light in a mime or a strange slow motion dance.
He halted for a much-needed piss, breathing, sweating and then just standing there watching over the stone wall and listening to the puddle fizzing and the white noise of insects. When he looked up the figure had gone but the light remained. Curious, he clambered over the wall and set out towards it at a jog.
At twenty paces he could see it was a white sheet hanging on a frame but, mesmerised by the light, he put his foot in a rabbit hole.
‘Shit! Fuck!’ Close up, he could see it was speckled on the far side and bright white in the centre from a suspended light. The air was filled with flurries of insects like dark snowflakes.
‘What the…’
‘Moss,’ says a female voice behind him, strong and husky at the edges.
‘Moss?’ he turns around. Still nothing. The light, a sort of strip light, is blinding him. All he can see is a huge purple and yellow oval and deep shadow. He feels dizzy.
‘No, MOTHS. They are attracted to the light. Are you all right?’
At that point he falls over.
‘What are you doing here? Ho! What happened to you? You look a complete mess.’ A foreign-sounding voice, Spanish maybe, fussing and gabbling. He sits up and puts his foot straight. The grass feels rough and spiky under his palms and the world is on tumble dry.
‘I’m in a race.’ he says, looking at his watch with a corroborative diligence. ‘Then I saw all this and…’
‘Oh, a race!’ She’s squatting by him, young but mummy-fussing and holding out her hands, hesitant about pulling him up, which bits to grab. ‘I thought we were right out of the way here. What kind of race? ’
‘Well, most of it was drinking…up there, now there’s a running part…over there. For me, that is. The others went in the jeep.’
‘That doesn’t sound very fair. And what’s that on your face? Have you cut yourself? Here, let me see.’ He can feel her hands on his shoulders, turning him.
‘I think they drew some…’
Then she’s laughing this lovely hearty laugh. Her face dark amidst long hair with teeth flashing in what must be ultraviolet light. Then a torch beam dazzles everything out.
‘Ooh, it’s very rude what they’ve written. Don’t go home like that.’
He’d put her around his own age, maybe a year or two more. He puts his hand up to feel it, as though it were in Braille.
Up close she smells warm and sweet. She spells it out. ‘It says A–R–S–E…’ She thinks about rubbing it off but then backs off into darkness again.
‘Huh? No, it’s a…’
‘How much have you drunk? You’re all over the place!’
‘I’ll be alright. Just need to work it off a bit.’ He looks at his watch again. The luminous blobs orbit and settle. It has only been fifteen minutes.
‘Who are these others that left you to get home in this state? Friends of yours?’ He can still hear a smile in that.
‘Yeah, I must look like…especially with all this…but don’t worry. That’s a footpath…there. I know the…’ He’s sitting up straight now. ‘Actually, I’m in Her Majesty’s…armed forces. Soldier. This, would you believe, is a nickname for our unit. All about pride, don’t you think? We sort of…when things get too tricky, for the regulars, er…they call us in. When we’re sober though. Sorry if that sounds a bit up myself. Every now and then you have to let off steam though, don’t you? Live up to the cliché, I suppose. Anyway, now I see that everything is okay, except me, and obviously this…thing…is not a threat to national security…could have been…so I’ll leave you in peace.’ His arms are waving a bit and that might have been a hiccup but there is no other significant movement.
‘Uh huh. Good. Well, shut up. The rest of my team is over there. So behave. Now, do you want something to sober up? I have some coffee which is disgusting but quite strong if you would like some.’
‘Yeah, great, disgusting coffee would be great, why not? Stupid idea anyway, that race.’
Her shadow passes behind the light sheet and she calls over her shoulder while she rummages in some bags and comes back to sit in front of him.
‘It’s not important that you win, is it? Nothing terrible happens?’
‘Nah – pride, a few quid; I’ve probably blown those already.’ She sits down cross-legged and tugs her ankles together in front of her, denim knees splayed out from under her coat and seams glowing like electric filaments in the ultra violet light.
‘Anyway, what are you doing here? Why are you catching moths? Is that what you do for a living? Are you a lepi-dopter-ologist?’
‘A lepidopterist? Well, I’m studying the parasites on a particular moth species. I’m an Agriculture post-grad – working on pest control; I
collect them here so we can understand the levels in the natural population.’
‘Mmm, this a good place then, for moths?’
She checks to see if he’s teasing. He must be sobering up to notice that.
‘For some, yes, usually it is. The pasture here is good for them – and the cattle, believe it or not, are really good for them too.’
‘Oh.’
The coffee is out of a flask and very sweet. They sit facing one another. He can see now and his head has settled. She is gorgeous, smiley, all long dark hair, bright eyes and high cheekbones. A lot of promise under that coat too.
‘And what do you guys do to unwind after a long day – or night of this sort of thing?’ Too drunk to squirm.
‘Unwind? You don’t know our college. More a question of what to do to wind up! It’s not the liveliest place in the world.’
He can hear someone moving out in the field and see torch lights swaying. Some way beyond is another glowing sheet he hadn’t noticed before. A man’s voice calling out; ‘You alright, Eva? About ready?’
She stands up and shouts back. ‘Hi Bryn. Yeah, fine. I’ll be packing up now. Five minutes.’
She sits down again, pauses.
‘So you’re Eva,’ he says. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Rees.’
He puts his hand out. It has to be a good sign when someone smiles like that, so naturally, doesn’t it? By contrast, even pissed, because pissed, he was intently flower-arranging his features. Was it even now and in this light not too late to appeal? Knee-clasping like this she’d have to be getting the biceps too.
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