One more for the not-a-coincidence file?
The question of what to do – or if I should do anything at all – remained. Then my gaze fell on the hotel notepaper again and I realised I actually had decided what to do.
“Google, don’t fail me now,” I muttered, turning to the laptop.
A minute later, I was fuming as I scrolled through a multitude of links to church groups and fellowships. When you’re not religious yourself, it doesn’t occur to you that words like eternal make some people want to pray.
So should I take that as a hint? Since we were filing things under not-a-coincidence, and I’d just been told what I’d been told.
I took time to consider it and decided that there was nothing even remotely liturgical about this card or the tag attached to it, or the two pieces of paper that had come with it. All the Eternity Clubs on my laptop screen were groups of people. This Eternity Club had rooms, at least forty-seven, maybe even more.
Yahoo gave me the same results; so did all the others. Disappointed, I went to my homepage just to have something other than a list of prayer groups in front of me. I smiled at the cute animal of the day but I didn’t feel it. Maybe if I changed the background to a lighter colour, I thought, it might lift my spirits. But as I was about to move the cursor, I saw something I’d used more times than I could count.
I clicked on the box under Search For Things To Do In London Today/Tonight and typed The Eternity Club.
The image that appeared on my screen didn’t last even five seconds before it flipped to 404: Page Not Found. But that was okay. It had lasted long enough for me to see the address was in Soho. Not surprising; most private clubs were.
* * *
I slipped my laptop and, after a moment’s thought, the power lead, into a shoulder bag and made sure all the windows were locked before I left the house. Tim was still puttering around in the front yard. I considered asking him to let me know if any angry strangers came around asking for me and then decided against it. I’d have to come up with a reason and I don’t like telling stupid lies; worse, the truth sounded like a stupid lie. So I just tried to look busy as I hurried off to the bus stop.
But since there wasn’t really any hurry, I took the number 29 bus southbound toward central London. Depending on the time of day, it can take anywhere between forty minutes to something over an hour to get from my neighbourhood to the edge of Soho. I sat on the upper level and stared out the window at nothing in particular. And then for no reason at all, I remembered I hadn’t called my Macmillan nurse back.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and turned it back on. As soon as I did, it rang, and it was that number. Reject? No, Michael Parris’s fake daughter had probably already left a dozen messages on my voicemail. Maybe I could get rid of her once and for all.
“What,” I said, trying to sound both bored and badass.
“Look, you’re holding property that just doesn’t belong to you,” she said, doing her best impression of a reasonable person. “Suppose I had something that belonged to you. Wouldn’t you want to get it back?”
“I don’t know that I’ve got anything that belongs to you,” I said. “I don’t even know your name. Your real name,” I add as she starts to say something.
“It’s Michaela. My friends call me Mike.”
I caught a very slight hesitation between the first two words. Maybe that means nothing or maybe she had to stop and think of something that would go with the nickname Mike. “Nice try,” I told her and hung up. Immediately, I dialled my Macmillan nurse. Naturally, I got her voicemail. I left a message. The moment I hung up, the phone rang again.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded before I could even say hello. “That card means nothing to you. You can’t use it for anything.”
“But you can?” I said.
She stumbled and stuttered.
“Tell me what it’s for and I’ll consider mailing it to you,” I said.
“It’s – it’s private,” she said. “I can’t divulge that information. You’re not – it’s not—”
“Okay, let’s try something easier,” I said. “Who’s Karen?”
“Why are you being such an asshole?” she demanded.
I hung up again, not because I was offended but because it was a good question and I didn’t have an answer.
I turned my phone off so I could think undisturbed. Why was I being such an asshole?
It didn’t take very long for the answer to come to me: cancer, of course. This was a weird little episode in which I had randomly acquired some measure of control and it was completely unrelated to cancer or my suddenly foreshortened lifespan.
Okay, I was taking my problems out on someone else. But it served her right; she was lying about who she was to get her hands on the late Michael Parris’s mail. And let’s not forget she had threatened me. With the circus, but still. She could have offered me a reward instead. A hundred pounds – even just fifty – and I’d have sent the goddam envelope to her by overnight mail.
Well… after I found out what the Eternity Club was. And that would depend on what it was.
* * *
I found a table in a cafe near a power outlet and plugged in my laptop so I could enjoy free electricity along with the free Wi-Fi. But it was hard to concentrate. I kept double-checking the Eternity Club’s address on Google Maps, and then worrying that I might have misread it. I was tempted to go there now just to make sure and then return at six but I told myself to wait. It wasn’t just that it seemed like the right thing to do; it was all I could do not to put my head down on the table and nap. Part of it was cancer fatigue – that fucker tires you out. But another part was the drama I’d stepped in with this strange woman. I made a mental note to get a new cell phone number.
Meanwhile, I was in a coffee shop; if I was tired, I could caffeinate myself.
By the time I packed up and headed out into the heart of Soho, I couldn’t have slept on a dare. I left my cell phone off.
* * *
The thing about London is, it has no grid. Streets wind and wander; you can start out thinking you’re going one place and end up somewhere completely different, with no idea how to get back. It’s part of London’s charm and it can drive visitors crazy, particularly those from the US. After twenty years, I was used to it. I still got lost, I just didn’t stress about it.
I thought for sure I’d get lost looking for the Eternity Club. It was in a nookish cranny called a close (as in close by, not close the door), the kind of place you could walk past dozens of times and never notice. But I went right to it, as if I’d been there a thousand times before. The outside of the building was painted dark brown, with equally dark windows too high up for me to try peeking through. No street number, no doorbell, not even so much as a discreet “Members Only” sign. Just a door with an old-fashioned lever-type handgrip instead of a knob, also painted dark brown.
I tried the door; it wasn’t locked.
The reception area decor was also done in shades of brown. It was softly lit by wall sconces. Pleasant, but I was going to need my reading glasses if I wanted to see anything.
“Oh!” said a voice. I blinked and realised I was standing in front of a reception counter. The young guy behind it looked surprised for a moment, then quickly covered it with a professionally warm smile. I thought he must have been standing on something because the surface was about six inches too high for me to lean on comfortably. “Welcome to the Eternity Club.”
I’d expected to be politely thrown out, not welcomed. “Thanks,” I said, feeling awkward.
“Your card?” he said.
“Of course,” I said and took my time getting it out of my shoulder bag. “Say, you don’t have a step-stool or something, do you? I’m having trouble seeing over the top.”
He surprised me by bringing me a tall white leather barstool. “Will this do?”
“Sure,” I said as I struggled to get up on it. I hate barstools but I finally managed to
get comfortable. Only now the counter was about three inches too low. Apparently awkward was mandatory.
“You mean this?” I said, putting my card down on the counter, tag and all. I thought the hole would get some kind of reaction – I’m sorry, this card is no longer valid or just What the hell did you do that for? But he didn’t bat an eye. I mean he really didn’t – he had kind of stare-y eyes, although he didn’t look weird or anything. He was quite attractive, fairly tall with olive skin and some artful gold highlights in his short, dark hair.
He reached over to take the card but I didn’t let go. “What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“Pardon?”
“I’d rather not let that out of my possession.”
“I just need to check you in and, if necessary, update the provenance.”
Whatever that meant. “You’ll give it right back?”
He nodded and I let go, watching as he swiped it through something next to the keyboard on his desk. “Here you go,” he said, handing it back to me. I made it disappear quickly, in case he changed his mind.
“Now what?” I asked.
“You can go through,” he said, tilting his head at a door to his right.
“Go through to where?”
Now he did bat an eye, both of them in fact. “To your room.” He looked at a screen I couldn’t see. “Number 47.”
“That’s my room?”
“That’s what it says here.”
I don’t know how I got the nerve – cancer, probably – but I lunged forward, grabbed the flat monitor, and twisted it around so I could see the screen. I only saw my own picture before he grabbed it back and put it out of my reach. “Excuse me,” he said a bit huffily.
“How’d you get my picture?” I demanded.
Abruptly, the door to his right opened and a tall woman with dark brown skin and a headful of short dreadlocks appeared. “You’re early,” she told me. It was like an accusation.
“Who are you?” I asked but as soon as I did, I knew.
“Stella,” we said in unison. “Come along,” she added, a bit sternly, and I obeyed. I had a hunch it would have been foolish not to.
She took me down a carpeted hall to an old-fashioned brass open-cage elevator, which we rode down, getting off at -4. I followed her through a series of hallways until we came to a rich-looking door marked 47.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” she said, although it wasn’t a question.
“I’m glad somebody figured that out,” I huffed. “Is that guy at the desk a new hire?”
She sighed. “His name is Nico and without him, this place would fall apart.”
I resisted the urge to tell her that was some rather heavy credit for somebody who just swiped cards. Unless updating the provenance was code for saving the world. Instead, I decided to come clean. “Look,” I said, “the truth is, that’s not really my card.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow at me and produced what looked like a smartphone from her blazer pocket. “Well, let’s just see whose it is then.” She held out her hand and I gave her the card. She touched it to the phone screen, waited a second, then gave it back to me. “Yes, it is,” she said and showed me the screen. “Not having an identity crisis, are you?”
I saw the same photo I’d seen on the receptionist’s screen. It was a head-and-shoulders shot taken outdoors but I couldn’t tell where. The clothing was familiar but I’d gotten rid of that shirt a long time ago, and I couldn’t remember my hair ever being that long. But it was definitely me. Below the picture all in caps was the legend: CANCER DANCER.
“What kind of a sick joke is that?” I said angrily.
Stella rolled her eyes. “Do you or do you not have cancer?”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s just a designation, you don’t have to tell anybody what it is if you don’t want to. At least it’s easy to remember and it might even help you with the process.”
“What process?” I said.
“Side-step. It’s always a step to the side. Like this.” She demonstrated by stepping from one side of the hall to the centre. “Then you go on as long as you want to.” She took three steps forward. “And when you come to a place where you want to side-step…” She stepped to the opposite side of the hallway. “See? Easy. Side-step till you find one of the lines where you’re in remission. But don’t bother trying to find one where you didn’t get cancer in the first place. You’re locked out of those.”
Light was starting to dawn. It shouldn’t have because this was nonsense, impossible, total woo-woo. Nonetheless, I was getting it.
“Just remember to look for a swipe,” she said, pointing at the one next to the door. “If it doesn’t work, just move on. Oh, and don’t be stupid and try to take someone with you. The Eternity Club has a strict no-guests policy. The consequences are quite severe. Maybe it’s not fair but that’s just how it is.”
“Is that what happened to Michael Parris?” I asked.
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Stella said.
I handed her the envelope. She examined it, then looked at the papers inside. “I couldn’t say. But let’s suppose, for a moment, that, oh, let’s say a woman decided she’d try to side-step someone with her, someone she had grown very fond of. Maybe a man with a heart condition and she wanted to save him, by taking him to a line where, say, he didn’t die of a heart attack.”
“And?” I said.
“Well, it wouldn’t work. As a non-member, he wouldn’t have a room. He’d die and her card would be lost. And you know the rule about lost things. Finders keepers,” she added when I shook my head. “Congratulations.” For some reason, her attitude toward me had softened. “You know, except the ones they know for certain are caused by things like smoking or asbestos, most cancers are just plain old bad luck. But every so often, some small compensatory action happens at random. You got lucky. Exercise care and good judgment and don’t break the rules and you just might side-step the endgame for two, even three decades.”
“What if I were happy where I was and I wanted to give my card to someone else?” I asked. I was thinking of my son.
“It’s not yours to give. It’s ours. Read the terms and conditions.”
“And if I didn’t want to use it?”
Stella’s expression was pitying. “You could give it back. But I’d suggest not doing anything rash. Hang onto it for a while, in case you change your mind.”
“But—”
“Please,” she said wearily, “I’ve told you as much as I can but I can’t spare any more time. I’m trying to quit this damned job and if I don’t get going, I might be stuck here for ever.” She strode off down the hall and around a corner before I could even say “But” again.
I looked at the door, at the swipe, and at the card in my hand. Everything that woman had just told me was complete and utter nonsense, I thought, so it wouldn’t matter if I used the card. So I did it, quick, before I changed my mind.
There was a clunking sound as the lock opened. I pushed through—
—and there I was in the reception area again, looking at What’s-His-Name. Nico. I whirled, thinking I could catch the door and go back through. Nope – it was the front door from the outside, not room 47.
“Oh!” Nico said. Same brief look of surprise, quickly covered with a smile. “Welcome to the Eternity Club.”
Wouldn’t you just fucking know it, I thought. I’d stepped from the frying pan into one of those lifetimes. And I still had cancer.
And then suddenly I understood why Stella was so annoyed with me, what kind of help poor Karen, whoever she was, had really been asking Detective Sergeant Michael Parris (ret’d) for, and why I probably couldn’t expect any, either.
PAT CADIGAN
Pat Cadigan has won the Locus Award three times, the Arthur C. Clarke Award twice, and most recently a Hugo Award and Japan’s Seiun Award. The author of fifteen books, she emigrated from Kansas City to gritty, urban North London, where she has live
d for the past twenty years with her husband, the Original Chris Fowler, and Gentleman Jynx, coolest black cat in town. She can be found on Facebook and tweets as @cadigan, and she really did kick terminal cancer’s arse, at least for the time being.
“When Conrad invited me to this project and sent my envelope of goodies, I made several false starts. Then I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the story wrote itself, with barely any help from me. Now the book has come out and, thanks to medical treatments that worked better than anticipated, I can expect to live somewhat longer than the original estimate of two years (which would have made 2016 my last). So I’ll be hanging around indefinitely, checking the mail when I’m not trying to finish a new novel and marvelling at how changeable those crazy winds of change really are.”
THE WRONG GAME
RAMSEY CAMPBELL
Conrad, I’d better say at once that I don’t think this is for your book. It isn’t fiction, even though I’ve given it that kind of title, and so I don’t imagine it will fit in. I hope at least you may feel able to respond to it – perhaps even help me understand what happened to me. Please be aware that I’m not blaming you. Perhaps I should blame myself.
You’ll recall that I was one of the writers you invited into an anthology of tales based on items returned to the dead letter office. I liked the idea and was eager to contribute, but by the time the proposal found a publisher I’d been overtaken by several projects of my own, and so I had to let you down. Other work put the anthology out of my mind, and when I received a package a couple of months ago I didn’t think of your idea at all.
While I don’t generally examine mail before I open it, this item put me on guard. It was a white Jiffy bag – to be precise, a Mail Lite manufactured by Sealed Air – with a price sticker on the back, 39p from Osborne Office. The packaging looked unusually pristine, as if it might be designed to seem innocent. The First Class Large stamp wasn’t franked, and my address had been written by more than one person. Most of it was in bold capitals inscribed with a black marker pen, but the postcode had been corrected with a ballpoint. You may understand why I was growing suspicious, unless you think it doesn’t take much to rouse my paranoia. The contents might have made you feel that way as well.
Dead Letters Anthology Page 9