Sequela

by Cleland Smith

  Kester frantically got everything ready for seven, calling the cleaners, arranging dinner with catering, getting the lighting right, arranging the programmes casually on his big screen, making a playlist. Of course she wouldn't come at seven, but he needed to be ready. He booked dinner at nine to give them time for whatever, for her being late.

  At eight o'clock, she arrived. He was lying on the couch, music blaring into his ears, when she came in.

  'Oh,' he said, as she slunk across the room towards him, 'you came.'

  'I got hungry,' she said.

  Kester looked her up and down. He wasn't going to be afraid of her tonight. He was going to show a bit of what she would call 'ambition'. She had changed into the same red catsuit she'd had on that night in the champagne bar.

  'Had to make an appearance at a champagne reception for the Science Ambassador for China,' she said. 'We were there representing the big business end of science in the British Isles.'

  Perhaps it was an excuse. Perhaps she too had been reminded of the champagne bar and that was why it was the first word to her lips. She hadn't mentioned any reception earlier.

  'Fair enough,' Kester said, 'but I wouldn't have minded if you'd dressed up just for me. Can I get you a drink?'

  He pushed himself up and reached over to the cooler bucket at the end of the couch. She didn't bother to answer, so he poured her a glass of champagne and brought it over.

  'Who needs to give an answer when the question is champagne?' She smiled, taking the glass from him.

  Kester laughed.

  'I've ordered dinner for nine,' he said. 'You didn't eat, did you?'

  'Just canapés,' Alexis said. 'For nine? I thought it was just going to be the two of us.'

  She took a seat on the couch opposite, looking pleased with her deliberate misunderstanding.

  Kester had pulled the curtains down on his four-poster to conceal it and make the place look less like a bedsit. However, it just made the thing more solid, more present, and it was constantly in the corner of his eye. Its presence swallowed up her joke.

  'What were you going to do with the food if I didn't show?' Alexis asked.

  Kester shrugged – he hoped it looked as if he hadn't entertained the possibility, as if there had been no doubt that she would turn up, as if it wouldn't have mattered anyway. They sat in silence for a few minutes, then he put on some music, watching her face to see if she approved of his choice: his new favourite band, The Itch. She seemed to, or at least if she didn't like it, she didn't show it.

  'I had some things I wanted to ask you,' Kester said.

  'Here we go.' Alexis cast her eyes up, as if this was a familiar scenario.

  'I see. I guess that answers a few of them.'

  Kester took a sip of his champagne, then decided to continue. What difference would it make?

  'You're married, right?'

  'That's why they call me Mrs Farrell. I know it's a bit old fashioned, but it stops people from getting the wrong idea.'

  'Does he know about what you do?'

  'I take it you aren't asking about my job?' Alexis shifted in her seat. 'Yes, he knows. He knows how things work. We've both lived our professional lives in a world where sex is power. People might not always have worn, but even when I started work in the City we were openly trying to shag the right people to get where we wanted in our careers. He understands that to be seen to be successful I need to be seen to be desirable, and vice versa.'

  'Doesn't he get jealous?'

  'I suppose so. Not that it matters.'

  Alexis took a slug of champagne and sat forward, slowly turning the band of metal on her ring finger.

  'And he lives in the City too?'

  'No – outside London. He took a job out there so that we could raise the children somewhere more "traditional".'

  'And you do? I mean that's where you raise your children?'

  'I can't have children, Kester. I overdid it with the viruses when I was younger – overwore, or whatever they're calling it now.'

  'But that's not the end of it these days. There's personal organ regrowth – you can afford it.'

  'Well, perhaps it's not that. Perhaps it's that I never leave the City any more. Perhaps it's that we have separate lives now. I'm past wanting children.'

  She got up suddenly and poured herself another glass of champagne. Maybe she had been at a reception after all, Kester thought to himself, she did seem a bit tipsy. Ideal.

  'How often do you see him?'

  'Not often. Not for six months now.' Alexis laughed. The hand holding her glass looked stiff, bloodless, as if she had been standing out in the cold. 'If you ever repeat any of this you'll never work in this company again.'

  'I know.'

  'He runs a virus clinic out there, if you can believe it. I don't know what he makes of you.'

  'But I don't see why he'd disapprove of what we're doing. We're making things better – making it safe, beautiful.'

  'The whole idea of disease as a fashion statement…it doesn't go with what he does. He doesn't mind the sex, but he doesn't want to know about my wearing. I'd have to clean up completely if I wanted to go and see him again.'

  Kester watched her. She rubbed her neck where the barest remains of the sores were still evident: small darker patches of scar tissue mottling her skin.

  'You could tell him it was just something that was going round the office.'

  'It was.' She laughed. 'And you. You must have a woman, a man, someone to get jealous.' It was almost a question, the closest she had come to showing an interest in who he was, but her tone was odd.

  'No,' Kester said.

  'No girl?'

  'No. Not been too good at all that lately. The last person I slept with was an old friend I shouldn't have. And to make matters worse I infected her.'

  'By mistake?'

  'After the interview, by mistake. She's pretty pissed off about it.'

  Alexis laughed. 'So what's the problem? She gets a freebie – two freebies from the UK's most desirable up-and-coming virus designer. She was expecting more?'

  'No. She was expecting…less. She doesn't wear. She's an academic through and through.'

  'Like you were?'

  'No, not like me.' Kester stared at the wall as if there was a picture of Dee there. 'Cut her and she bleeds public money.'

  Laughter again. Alexis was relaxing. She seemed satisfied that Dee was no threat.

  'And the others?' Kester asked, reverting to his first line of questioning. 'There are others, right? Here at V?'

  She pushed herself back onto the couch and got comfortable.

  'This is the question – I knew you'd want to know. They all do.' She smiled to herself. 'There, I answered your question without answering the question. Do you see what I did there? Pretty good.'

  'At the moment?'

  'Mostly you.' She let her shoe fall off and pushed her big toe into the rug in front of her in an inappropriately coy gesture.

  Kester laughed. 'Right.'

  'Seriously. I go through phases. I have "favourites" just like the rumours say. Tactical favourites.'

  'Tactical favourites.' Kester lifted the bottle from the cooler and moved over to the couch beside her. He filled both their glasses then lifted his in a toast. 'Well, here's to your new favourite.'

  She lifted her glass and chinked it against his.

  'Are you trying to romance me, Doctor Lowe?'

  'What's the longest anyone has managed to stay your favourite?'

  Alexis shrugged and a thin smile drew her closed lips tight.

  'I'm going to discover the secret,' Kester said. 'I'm going to make sure I stay tactically favourable.'

  'You are ambitious, Doctor. I wish you the best of luck,' Alexis said, taking a drink.

  The door buzzer went.

  'Hungry?' Kester asked.

  'Always,' she replied.

  Chapter 8

  'I'll be gone a while,' Cherry said. 'A few weeks, maybe.'

&nbs
p; She was sitting cross-legged in Tim's runk, waiting to talk to him while he rooted around in his locker. He was trying to avoid her, a feat impossible in such a small space. There were so few things in his locker that his rooting was becoming a bit of a farce.

  'Have you lost something, darling?' she asked him.

  'No.' Tim stopped and looked straight at her. 'You have. I'm looking for your loyalty. You had it last time you were here.'

  'Tim –'

  'I'm sorry. I just can't believe you're going.'

  'I don't have any choice.'

  'We always have a choice, Cherry. Once you realise that your life will leap forward.'

  'Like yours has?'

  Tim's shoulders fell and he looked down, closing his eyes as if in prayer.

  'Sorry,' Cherry said. 'That sounded harsh. I didn't mean it.'

  Tim kept his eyes closed and bowed his head further. As if he was willing it, his runk blossomed and became new to her. They were sitting in a jungle clearing. Roots, snakes, rodent tails and tendrils embraced vines and laid out a tangled geometry along the jungle floor. The vines climbed up, around and between tree trunks, into the grip of boxy creatures. Here, a monkey yanked the tail of a parrot as it snatched an insect from the tongue of a lizard; there a clutch of irregular-shaped eyes stared from behind the waxy backdrop of foliage. Cherry's eyes tripped along a branch until they reached the edge of the runk.

  'I've been practising,' he said into his lap. 'Clive's door, Deepa's – Marlene's going to let me do hers too. I've been sending out planes – all different ones – look.'

  Tim reached behind him and took out a paper plane. The outside was crazed with intricate doodles. When he pulled its wings it opened up to reveal his runk number and a neat hand-written advert. Cherry swallowed. She had been sitting in the middle of his dream, his escape route, ignoring it, oblivious to the remarkable effort that he had put in. She felt sick. She'd always thought of the paintings as the product of boredom. They were amazing, but when you'd seen them so many times you just took them for granted. She didn't answer. She watched as he folded the plane back up and pushed it out into the air. He paused, arm extended, hand splayed, as if he had cast a spell.

  'Here,' Tim said.

  He turned and put a hand up to the top of the back wall of his runk. He eased his fingers over the top, then pulled forward. It wasn't the wall, Cherry realised, it was a large thin canvas. Tim tipped it towards him. The jungle clearing persisted beside and above them, but before them was a window to another time and place, another canvas, a work in progress. It was a stylised image of London painted as from above, a ring burning around it in place of the Green Belt, a symbolic representation of 2017, year of riots, year of London's fiery circumcision. Cherry opened her mouth and waited for words to fill it, but none came.

  'One of my regulars owns a gallery,' Tim said, picking up another flyer and fiddling with it. 'He's invited me to exhibit next month.'

  He held out a flyer to Cherry. It shouted, then whispered: CUT THE CITY'S ART OUT – visions of near past and near future London.

  'Tim, that's amazing!'

  Tim pushed the animal canvas back up so it became the wall again. His tunic was bright white against the jungle background. He looked distinct, looked sure.

  'Espionage isn't the only way out,' he said, a smile creeping onto his face. Her earlier comment had snapped his elastic, but he was starting to spring again. 'But if you have to go, any chance you could do some flyering in the City?' He put on a New York accent. 'They got fat wallets in there!'

  'Tim, you're not even supposed to know I'm going anywhere, never mind what I'm doing.'

  'Is it really only for a few weeks?'

  'No, probably not,' Cherry admitted, sighing. 'They said it would be long term, maybe permanent.'

  'In that case, we should say goodbye properly.'

  Cherry laughed and picked at the hem of her white tunic.

  'Oh come on, babe,' Tim sprang back to full strength and reached across with his lean arms, whipping her tunic up over her face and shoulders.

  Arms trapped above her head, slouched back, cross-legged, Cherry was completely exposed.

  'Ooh, you're like a little peach salad,' Tim said to her with a blushing grin visible through the fabric of her tunic.

  'Lay off it!' Cherry laughed, squiggling, and then squealed with surprise as he ducked down and licked her, quick as a hummingbird. 'You know this is why Marlene calls you Bonobo?'

  'I've never heard her call me that.' He kissed her on the belly and let go of her tunic. 'I'll get you one day, little miss picky.'

  Cherry snorted. 'I'll come around when I can afford to be picky. Right now I'd rather you weren't a member of the I've banged Cherry club.'

  She put her hand out to touch one of the animals on Tim's frieze, then stopped.

  'The minute I'm out of this place, you'll be the first, I promise – if I can't find someone my own age!'

  Tim laughed into his lap.

  'If you ever come back, you mean.'

  Cherry stared out at the room full of runks. She let her eyes dry and blur until she was forced to blink.

  'You know I do want to go,' she said.

  'Of course you do. Your mother, I get it. You want to; you need to. Just don't get caught. And don't forget about us.'

  -o-

  Cherry dumped her small backpack on the path in front of her. Its seams were stretched and the stitches were showing. She took off her light jacket and threaded it through the handle at the top of her backpack. The sun was out, for now; best that her jacket was easy to get to. Turning, she looked back at where she'd come from.

  The outer edge of the Green Belt was lined with residential builds. Some had been built as part of the redevelopment effort and some independently by wealthy London commuters who'd had high hopes of the Green Belt. The former were showing their sixty years badly, both in terms of design and quality and some had already been bought up and flattened to make room for new projects. Beyond them, she could just make out the spires of the Hospital clock tower, lending an oddly venerable shape to the horizon.

  Cherry turned back. Her eyes glanced across the width of the Green Belt, a long stretch of unkempt parkland curving into the distance, spoked with roads and footpaths all leading from the suburbs into London proper. At its inner edge lay the City. She walked.

  The spaces between the outer City buildings had been bricked up, creating an ominous patchwork wall. Looking square at it, even from this distance, you could have been fooled into thinking it had no top, that there was no sky above it. The closer Cherry got to the wall, the fewer trees there were. Those that had survived further in were stunted and leaned in the direction of the prevailing wind. She paused and put on her jacket, turning up the collar. Just then, a backdraft ignited in her mind – the enormity of the riots, the sheer volume of City that had been razed – Tim's depiction of the flaming corridor.

  At the end of the footpath was their local perimeter railway stop, B3, comprising the B3 City checkpoint. Cherry passed through and took a route under the City and out of the other side, riding the tube to Embankment. At Embankment station she bought a sandwich and then walked up onto the Hungerford Footbridge to get a better view.

  The sun was setting and the familiar London landmarks were beginning to light up: St Paul's, the New Eye, the Shard, the Bloom, the Swiss Cheese. All were backdropped by the steeply rising scoop of the City, thousands of lit windows and hundreds of logos all fighting for attention with the cooling bulb of the sun. Halfway across the bridge Cherry found a plaque, rubbed almost clear of its cityscape and labels. She leaned on it, munching on her sandwich, and took out the instructions from her pack. They must be putting her up somewhere – a hotel? She got suddenly excited – she had never stayed in a hotel before. She checked the address:

  Dempsey's

  32 Lambeth Walk

  Ring five times

  Dempsey's Refuge for the Faithful was not far from the Embankment, on
the south side of the river. It was a poorly executed stratification of a Victorian building; a stack of damp shoeboxes on a modest wedding cake. Cherry rang the bell five times as instructed. There was no answer at the intercom, but after a short pause she heard a faint buzz and the door pinged ajar. She pushed it wide cautiously and walked in.

  The hallway was narrow and the paintwork bubbled with damp. Cherry pulled her shoulders in and headed for the stairs. On the top floor was an open section of landing with eight dejected looking doors leading off it. There was no-one to welcome her. All the doors had a number and a hook to one side. Door three had a key hanging on its hook. She lifted it gingerly. It was tagged with a parcel label which was thin and furry with repeated use. 'Woodlock', the label currently said in shaky pencilled capitals. Cherry looked up the corridor, then back down towards the stairwell. There was still nobody there, so she took the key and let herself in.

  The room was basic but clean and, to Cherry's relief, had a large window that looked out onto the street below. Besides that there was a small double bed and a desk and teen-sized swivel chair. A few pieces of yellow foam were escaping the back of the chair pad.

  Closing the door, she saw that a small wet-room with a flip-down sink and toilet had been built into the corner of the room. The two outer walls of the wet room were translucent plastic with a three-stripe pattern across the midriff area. It made the room look like it had had an old-fashioned shower cubicle installed in the corner. In fact, Cherry reflected, that's probably exactly what had been done, with the toilet facilities added later. A cosy arrangement.

  Before putting anything down, Cherry opened the window, checked the desk drawers and smelled the bedclothes. She also ducked down and looked under the bed. She wasn't really certain why, but it seemed a good idea when she was checking everything else. Having locked the door from the inside, she unpacked. Everything from her bag was spread out on the bedclothes within minutes. It didn't take long to take stock: a change of clothes, her instructions, her dog-eared map, the vouchcard, her temporary V pass, and a bottle of water. She took a swig of water and sat down on the bed, feeling its spindly legs shift a little. This small room, its fragile partition walls; she could feel the enormity of the city outside pressing in on them.