by Molly Flatt
‘Now, darling,’ her mother said, brandishing the sharpening steel. ‘Louise Parker’s cousin volunteered on a dig in Orkney and she said that it’s magical. I want to hear every last detail.’
17
Sitting alone in the attic on the same old broken wheelie chair, hunched in front of the Mac that had replaced the Gateway, Alex scrolled through images of sports-day races and prize-giving speeches and exam-envelope-opening tableaux. She wasn’t in touch with any of her former classmates from St Joseph’s. She’d barely spoken to them when she was there. An inveterate loner, a vapid fringe-floater, she’d paired up with other misfits only when projects or PE required.
With one exception: an old friend from Fring Primary. Another scholarship girl who had refused, despite Alex’s increasingly sophisticated portfolio of avoidance techniques, to entirely let her go.
It took Alex only a couple of minutes of browsing to find a comment from a name she recognized (‘OMG Major memories!!’) under a photo of the drama block. Julia Bristow had been the meanest of mean girls, a bulimic redhead with a hot brother and a talent for haughty put-downs, but it seemed that time and boredom dissolved all hierarchies, because Julia now appeared to be friends with everyone who had been in their year. It didn’t take Alex long to spot, amongst Julia’s connections, a head-shot of a dark-skinned woman smiling out from the ghost of her younger self. Diya Goldsmith, née Kapur.
Alex send a friend request with a short note: Hi, Diya. Remember me?
The acceptance came back instantly.
Alex Moore!! Of course! Wow, hiiii! :)
How are you?
All good! Living in East London now, coding 4 a creative agency. Supercool :) :)
That’s great
Thanks!! How things change, right? Julia B is divorced w 3 kids in Fring & you’re like St Js official superstar!! They never stop boasting about you in that sodding newsletter! So cool!
Thanks, Diya. Hey, you remember the summer before we went to St J’s? 1995?
There was a pause, then:
Yeah sure
Do you remember that I was supposed to go camping with you and your parents, but then I couldn’t go because I got a bug?
Oh yeah. I was really disappointed! But that bug was pretty serious, wasn’t it?
Another pause.
TBH my mum wondered if it was M.E., but I never really knew.
So you don’t remember me talking to you about it at all? About what it was?
Er not really, no. I don’t think we met up for the whole rest of that hol.
And I didn’t mention it when we got to St J’s? Um well, I’m pretty sure I tried, but TBH you didn’t really want to talk to me at all once we got to St J’s!!
The message window said that Diya was still typing, but although Alex waited for almost a minute, no more text appeared. She was just about to log off when another speech bubble popped up:
Except for that batshit bust-up in the changing rooms.
Alex wheeled back in the chair. Now that she thought about it, she did vaguely remember a Memory from her bad Storyline featuring her and Diya shouting at each other in a square of benches and lockers, wearing nothing but their grotty underwear. She hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time, dismissing it as a typically melodramatic adolescent argument; and now, when she tried to dredge it back up, she felt the dizziness come on so badly that she had to jerk her mind away. She wheeled forward again to find a fresh message on the screen, longer this time:
Actually I’m really glad you got in touch TBH. I’ve thought about what you said back then quite a few times over the years. I always wondered what all that was really about, if there was stuff going on at home or something. I always felt guilty that I didn’t make more effort to find out, but TBH you kind of freaked me out & I didn’t know how to handle it.
Alex grabbed the keyboard:
That’s okay. You were great. But can you tell me what you remember about that fight?
Seriously?
I know, I know. It sounds mad. But the thing is I think I’ve kind of . . . blocked it out. I think that time was really traumatic for me, and I repressed a lot of my memories. That’s partly why I got in touch. You know – for closure. I’d really appreciate if you could give me all the detail you can. Help me get inside the emotions I was feeling at the time. I’m trying to make my peace with it all so I can move on.
A long pause. But Diya was typing, apparently. Then:
OK. If it might help you – sure. Well, I know it was end of the autumn term, just before we broke up, cos we were supposed to do the Xmas stall together, but after we had that fight I ended up partnering with Susie K (bitch!) instead :( We were the last to leave one afternoon after P.E. & I was pissed off with you really because you’d been avoiding me ever since we got to St Js & I felt like you’d kind of left me in the lurch. Anyway we were the last to leave the changing rooms & I think I made some sarky comment about you being a loner & you sort of went mental, started kicking the shit out of the lockers. It was totally not like you. Obvs I asked you WTF was going on and that’s when you said all that crazy stuff.
What crazy stuff?
Seriously???!!!
Please . . .
OK, well I can still remember every word clear as day because it was like some crazy horror film. You said that you had this secret, that you were afraid that someone was going to die & that you didn’t know how to stop it happening.
Alex scooted back so fast that the broken wheel caught and the chair toppled over, depositing her onto the floorboards. Heart leaping, she jumped up, dragged the chair upright and reached for the keyboard:
What secret? Who did I think was going to die? You tell me!! I asked you about it but then you calmed down & clammed up. It really freaked me out. I was going to tell my mum but then I thought it sounded too mad, so I told myself it must have been a horrible joke. Was it a joke?
I wish. I bloody wish.
After a moment, Diya added:
Look, does this have something to do with that viral from that morning TV interview? :/ Wasn’t going to bring it up but Julia B sent everyone a group message. Plus my mum texted me.
Oh.
Hey don’t stress about it, Alex. They’re just jealous. You’re doing something big with your life now. Who cares if you let it all out. Don’t let them fence you in :)
I’m sorry if I freaked you out. Then. Or now.
No worries. Every story’s got 2 sides, right? Anyway we should def go for a cocktail. I was actually thinking of getting in touch myself. Our agency would be a GREAT fit for Eudo.
Alex fobbed Diya off with some dates, then powered down the computer and climbed back down the stairs. Her mother had returned; she could hear her talking on the phone in the kitchen as she opened her bedroom door. She was just about to go in, when something in her mother’s tone made her pause. She tiptoed over to the top of the stairs and crouched beside the bannister.
‘. . . feel like whatever I say might be wrong, but I was worried, seriously worried, Barbara, from the moment I saw her get off that train. Mmm. Yes. No, terribly thin, and she didn’t eat a scrap of lunch. Yes, well exactly, I don’t want her to think I’m not proud. I mean, she’s always been bright, in a way too bright for her own good. And of course I’m delighted she’s finally found her – yes. But that’s it. All this pressure, all the articles and interviews, and now that awful – Well, exactly, Barbara. What’s wrong with normal? We can’t all be extraordinary, can we? That’s the point. And – well, yes, I know. You have, Barbara. And so have I. And it’s not that I don’t admire ambition, I mean look at Tom. And – yes, well, that’s exactly my point. There is a price. And the main thing, Barbara, is that she’s running on empty. She’s burnt-out inside.’
Alex tiptoed back to her room and shut the door, feeling end-weighted ropes begin to grapple the muscles of her mouth, her ankles, her diaphragm. Moments later, she heard a creak from the stairs that led down from the top floor. The shuffle
of footsteps. A knock.
‘Kansas?’ A pause. ‘Kansas, please?’
She crawled under the throw.
She caught the train back to London that evening, despite her mother’s protests. Her father, lumbering out of his study at the last moment to say goodbye, had held her so tightly she thought her ribs might break.
At least once she was back in her own small, bare flat, where everything was bright and disposable and shinily non-adhesive to the past, the dizziness receded a bit. Thankfully, too, MacBrian had stopped inundating her with missed calls. Alex knew she should contact MacBrian now and tell her what she had found. But as she stood at the window, watching the Haggerston kids jump on broken bottles beneath the recycling bins, she began to feel that Iskeull had finally become the place that felt like a dream.
It was clear, now, that she’d never be able to uncover the true meaning of that Storyline, or push past the rot to reconnect with its root Memory. She’d never be strong enough to force her Story out of that wall. Never become the energy-wielding superhero Taran thought she could be. All she could do was lie to the people she loved – pretend pretend pretend – while she waited for it to erode her body and her mind. In the meantime, there was only one way she could undo a tiny bit of the damage she was causing to all those un-Read people in the world.
She could keep Eudo afloat.
She took some painkillers, opened her laptop on the sofa and read back through the past week’s worth of content on the site. Then she opened her email and found, among the 2,748 messages, a conciliatory note from Lenni.
Alex – Looks like there could be a backlash in the works. It was rough for the first 3 days, especially after Waterloogate, but over the weekend we’ve seen a load of members leap to your defence. Consensus seems that both interview and virals show you as ‘refreshingly vulnerable’. Same in the site comments – ‘I know how that feels, she’s a real woman’, etc. Broadsheets have run a couple of op-eds about emotionally open female leadership styles. And – wait for it – Gemma is this close to securing a piece from Helena Pereira. She has a new range to promote, and her people want to ghost a ‘women in the spotlight’ solidarity thing. A small part of me thinks you planned this all along. Do I owe you an apology? – L
In the shower the next morning Alex murmured, ‘Alex Moore, Founder-CEO, Alex Moore, Founder-CEO’ while she washed her hair. She would keep her head down, let Lenni take on Eudo’s public engagements, stop drinking, stop going out. She would delete her social profiles, change her phone number, put a block on gcaseu.org emails. And she would work.
She towel-dried her hair, dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt and dug out an old baseball cap. Forcing down a banana and more Nurofen, she put on her sunglasses, pressed in her earbuds and cued up a ‘Friday Focus’ playlist, then set off along the canal. She made it to the bottom of New North Road without thinking about Iskeull once.
Finn MacEgan was standing beside the hire bikes.
She was running before she’d had time to think. Instinct drove her towards Old Street Tube, where she knew there would be crowds, cameras, police. Then, halfway down the steps to the underpass, she slipped and felt someone catch the top of her arm, grab the other, drag her upright.
‘I’M SORRY!’ he bellowed, pressing her against the wall, her shock buying him time for another line. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.’
‘You alright, love?’ A man in a high-vis vest and paint-splattered boots had paused on the stairs. Finn was bone-white and sweating in a hideous orange jumper, brown trousers and chunky ankle boots. His grey eyes were wide, blue-socketed, pleading. ‘Listen,’ he panted, dropping his hands. ‘Please. Just listen to me.’
Alex took a shuddering breath and straightened her T-shirt. ‘I’m fine,’ she told the man in high-vis, who raised his eyebrows, shook his head and moved on. She remained where she was, reassured by all the bodies swerving past, and eyed the canvas holdall slung over Finn’s shoulder. A documentary she’d once seen about crisis negotiators came to mind. She took off her sunglasses and hooked them onto the front of her T-shirt.
‘Finn,’ she said slowly. ‘I hear what you’re saying. I appreciate the apology. And I’m sorry about your father, truly I am. But I didn’t mean for what happened to happen, you have to believe that. And I’ve tried everything, I really have, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Don’t you think you should just go back – there – and get on with your life?’
‘I don’t have a life there, any more.’ He was shuddering, squinting in the sun. ‘But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for you.’
‘Seriously, guys, take it somewhere else,’ snapped a girl in a topknot and a tiger backpack, jogging down the steps.
‘Please,’ Finn repeated, flinching as a truck belched past. ‘I just want to talk.’
Alex Moore, Founder-CEO, her shower-voice said. Then: You killed his dad.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘One hour. Somewhere public. But if you touch me again, I’ll scream.’
She led him into Shoreditch Grind and told him to find a seat while she went to the counter to get a bottle of water and buy some time. She watched him through the breakfast crowd as the card machine whirred. He looked like an overgrown child, perched on a stool in the window, alternately gazing around the room and looking back at her. Alex was scared, so scared that her fingers fumbled when she tried to key in her PIN. But she couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a tiny thread of relief spinning through the guilt and the anger and the fear.
He knew about the Library. Whatever he was here for, at least she was with someone who knew.
She took her water and pushed her way through the crush. She moved the stool next to his as far back as possible before she climbed on it, still close enough to smell the acrid tang of his sweat. He watched her wrestle with the bottle-top, the tip of his tongue darting between his lips. Alex took a defiant slug and screwed the top back on.
‘I need—’ Finn began, as a hip-hop song blasted out of the speaker on the wall. He cleared his throat, leaned closer. ‘You have to come back,’ he repeated in a hoarse shout.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He swiped at his hair, his hand shaking. ‘I mean, please. For your sake, you have to come back to Iskeull.’
The nest of snakes in her stomach erupted. Faintly she asked, ‘Why? What have I done?’
‘You – what do you mean, what have you done?’
‘Have I—?’ She paused, tried to breathe. ‘Is someone else dead?’
‘No! No. Not that I know of.’
She closed her eyes as the snakes exploded into sherbet, fizzing through her veins. Thank God. Or the Library. Or whatever it was that called the shots in this crazy world. Then she opened her eyes again and narrowed them at him. ‘So why on earth would MacBrian send you to herd me back in?’
A spark of the old fire flashed in his eyes. ‘I don’t take orders from Sorcha MacBrian.’
‘Then why aren’t you still in prison?’
‘Taran got me out. Professor MacGill.’
‘Taran put you up to this?’
A man sat down on the other side of Finn and swiped at his iPad. Finn glanced at the man, then the screen, then turned back and shuffled his stool a couple of inches closer to Alex. ‘No, Taran got me transferred to house arrest. His house. He was supposed to keep me locked in, but I got out. He doesn’t know I’m here. No-one does.’
Alex crossed her arms, afraid that he would see her heart thumping through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. ‘So why the hell would you want me to come back?’
‘Because you’re in danger. You have to realize that they won’t leave you alone until you fix this.’
‘Oh, Christ. Look, you don’t seem to understand. It’s not that I don’t want to fix it. Why doesn’t anyone get that? Do you think it doesn’t bother me, discovering that I’ve killed someone I’ve never even met? Do you think I don’t care that I’m hurting millions of people, just by being alive? Well,
I do. It’s a fucking nightmare. And I wish – I wish there was some way I could get my mutant bloody Story to stop whatever it’s doing, but I can’t, okay? I don’t know how to get it under control.’
‘But it’s you! It’s part of you. How can you not get it under control?’
‘I don’t fucking know!’ Alex slammed her hand down on the counter. The man with the iPad glared at them, then angled his back to block them out. Alex lowered her voice to a hiss. ‘Anyway, isn’t this supposed to be your department? Isn’t this the whole raison de bloody être of your precious bloody tribe, understanding how this shit works?’
Finn ran his shaking hands through his hair again. ‘Sorry. You’re right. And no-one understands what’s happening. Not really. Not even Taran. They’re just fighting among themselves and blaming my father, while the Library gets worse and worse. That’s why you have to come back.’
Alex groaned. ‘Look, if I thought it would help, I would. But I went down into my Story and’ – she swallowed as the bile began to rise – ‘it didn’t work. The rot was too strong. I was too weak. Even if I did return to Iskeull, I don’t see what more I could do.’
‘Try again. Go back down there and try.’
‘I tried, Finn, alright! I tried! And I’ve been trying here too, trying and trying, and it hasn’t helped at all. In fact, it’s made things worse.’
‘Then MacBrian will have you killed.’
There was a moment of silence, in which she could hear the shallow wheeze of his breath. Then ‘Nonsense,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re just trying to scare me. I know about that Covenant thing.’
‘The Covenant was written when nobody believed anything like this could happen. Half of the Readers are on strike, afraid it might happen again, with a different Story. The Stacks are slowing down, the rain is getting worse, crops are failing, we’re running out of fish. The Council is in chaos. The Board’s threatening to intervene.’
‘That still doesn’t mean MacBrian’s going to murder me, for God’s sake!’