Days

by James Lovegrove

  The rim of the hoop hoves into view. Frank slews the trolley around, slamming it sideways against the parapet. Miss Dalloway is thrown onto one hip, off-balance. Frank takes advantage of her momentary incapacity and leans over the push-bar, intending to pick up the keg and toss it over the parapet into the Menagerie. It is then that he catches sight of the clock with its straggling wires.

  He makes a grab for one of the wires in order to wrench it loose, but Miss Dalloway anticipates the move and, seizing the keg, stands up, hoisting the bomb aloft out of Frank’s reach. However, as she does so, the trolley skids sideways and overbalances, and she is tipped backside-first onto the parapet.

  Teetering there with her face stretched in an almost comical look of alarm, she clutches the bomb with one arm while her other arm flails out for something to hold on to. Frank’s lapel is the first thing that comes to hand, and she seizes it just as she topples and begins to fall.

  Unable to brace himself in time, Frank is yanked head-first over the parapet after her.

  The Menagerie yawns below him, a lake of lush green. Though he feels a sudden wrench of pain in his elbow and shoulder, it takes him a moment to realise why he and Miss Dalloway are not falling. His arm has hooked itself over the guardrail. Ape-reflex. But the purchase is far from secure, and Miss Dalloway is still clinging to him, and still hugging the bomb.

  Seams pop in his jacket. He lashes out at the keg with his foot, hoping either to kick it out of Miss Dalloway’s grasp or, failing that, at least dislodge one of the wires. He has no idea how many seconds the clock has left to run.

  Then Miss Dalloway’s grip on his lapel starts to slip, and for a brief instant her eyes meet his, and he sees in their iron depths how profoundly she feels she has been betrayed, by Days and by life. And then, dimly through his misted vision, he watches her slip away from him and fall.

  Still cradling the bomb, she hits the monofilament net, and the net rips like silk to let her through.

  She hits the gridwork of pipes, and they buckle and snap beneath her, spurting tropical-warm water.

  She hits the jungle canopy, and the leaves seem to absorb her into their moist green intricacy, sucking her out of view.

  Frank dangles there for several seconds, staring at the rift in the Menagerie’s seal, half expecting plants and animals to come surging out like the contents of a pressurised canister when its casing is cracked. Then, suddenly remembering where he is and what is about to happen, he frantically twists around, bringing his other hand up to grab the guardrail.

  His hand never makes it. There is a faint trilling sound from far below, and then his body is borne up on a cushion of air. For a moment the laws of gravity are rescinded. He floats suspended in space, the great dome of Days filling his fogged vision. He thinks he could sail up towards that gleaming hemisphere of black and clear glass, rising like a saved soul towards its eternal, time-telling sameness, for ever.

  Then he begins to descend, plunging backwards into heat and flame.

  40

  The Book of Revelation: the Apocalypse of St John the Divine offers a plethora of sevens – seven churches of Asia, seven golden candlesticks, seven stars, seven trumpets, seven spirits before the throne of God (one of them holding a scroll with seven seals), seven vials, seven plagues, a seven-headed monster, and a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes.

  2.45 p.m.

  DEEP IN ITS joists, deep in the lath and plaster of its walls, deep in its very foundations, Days groans.

  The basso-profundo whump of the blast travels through the store, the shockwave rippling out around the hoops and through every department to the farthest-flung Peripheries. As it reaches the edges of the building it sends a shiver of particles puffing out from the pitted surface of the dried-blood brickwork and sets the window displays’ huge panes shaking in their frames, alarming the window-shoppers and the living mannequins. For one brief instant, the living mannequins look directly at their audience, acknowledging their existence for perhaps the first time ever, sharing their fright. For one brief instant, performers and spectators are made equal.

  On every floor, display cabinets rattle, merchandise shudders on shelves and in several instances topples over or off, and people let out involuntary gasps and cries.

  In the Eye, static zigzags across screens, and a fall of fine grey powder sifts down from the ceiling. In the Boardroom screens also flicker, the ash and ebony table jumps on the spot, and Old Man Day’s portrait skews a couple of degrees from true.

  The echoes of the explosion reverberate boomingly along aisles and passageways and lift shafts, through all the hollow spaces of Days, like a disturbance in the bowels of some ailing leviathan.

  Even Gordon, despite the ringing in his left ear, hears it. He and Linda look at each other, and then at the Ghost who has been assigned to take them down to Processing. She is as startled as they are, and can offer them no explanation.

  And Sonny, on his marshmallow sofa, is rudely awakened by what he thinks is a clap of thunder. He hauls himself upright on the sofa with an irritable sigh and focuses his bloodshot gaze on the bright, clear, anything-but-stormy skies beyond the windows.

  Slowly the anomaly sinks in.

  2.46 p.m.

  UP IN THE Boardroom, Thurston and Mungo stand facing each other, their bodies angled like opposing beams in a vaulted ceiling, their chins jutting, their teeth clenched, their knuckles pressed to the surface of the table, their noses less than a centimetre apart. The slightest of the sons of Septimus Day is dwarfed by the well-developed physique of the largest, but Thurston is far from cowed. His limbs are rigid with rage, the tendons in his neck strain, and his nostrils flare and contract with his rapid breathing. Mungo looks down at him, calm, fiercely intractable, like a stern god confronted by a rebellious worshipper.

  “Accuse me all you like,” he says to his younger brother, “but I have no idea what he did downstairs.”

  “What he did downstairs doesn’t matter,” Thurston replies, each word like a hand-grenade going off inside a reinforced-steel safe. “What matters is that you talked us into sending him down there.”

  “You do yourself and our brothers a disservice. Each of us has the intelligence to make up his own mind. I talked no one into anything. Besides, there’s no proof that anything Sonny said or did downstairs led directly to this.” He gestures to the two sets of screens by the Boardroom door, which show two different views of the Menagerie. In both, smoke is filtering up from a section of the tree canopy, filtering through the net and twisting and turning lazily into the atrium.

  “Oh, it’s a little bit too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? Sonny goes down to arbitrate between Books and Computers, and next thing we know the Head of Books tries to blow up Computers, and very nearly succeeds. Call me unimaginative, but I can’t help but think the two events are connected. Or perhaps you can come up with a better explanation.”

  “It would seem to me – and would to you, were you thinking clearly – that the Dalloway woman has had this act of terrorism planned this for a long time, and was simply waiting for an excuse to put her scheme into action.”

  “An excuse Sonny provided.”

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  “I don’t need to know that. I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones. In my blood. Only Sonny could screw things up on such a monumental scale.”

  “I agree. But the benefit of the doubt –”

  “Fuck the benefit of the doubt!” Thurston cries, flecking Mungo’s face with stray spittle.

  Mungo wipes the spittle off with the back of his hand. He would be angry with Thurston if Thurston were not right. What makes it worse is that Thurston knows he is right, and knows that Mungo knows it, too. Neither of them, though is willing to be the first to back down.

  “Come on,” says Wensley. “Look on the positive side. According to the Eye, nothing’s been damaged except the Menagerie, and no one’s been hurt except a couple of employees. We’re safe, we’re alive –”<
br />
  “As usual, Wensley, you’re missing the point,” Thurston snaps, not taking his eyes off Mungo. “I don’t care about the Menagerie and I don’t care about the employees. Those are problems money can fix. Money cannot fix our imbecile of a brother.”

  “I trust that that isn’t a reference to me.”

  In through the Boardroom doors comes Sonny, hands filling out the pockets of his trousers.

  He saunters across to the table, offering his brothers a bleary but affectionate grin. For the first time in as long as he can remember, he doesn’t feel as though he is walking into enemy territory. He is one them now. He is their equal.

  Which is why he fails to understand the looks that greet his arrival. He has become used to a certain amount of resentment whenever he enters the Boardroom. Outright hostility – much of it originating from Thurston – he is not familiar with.

  “Sonny,” says Mungo.

  “Mungo?”

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Mungo’s tone is wary and significant.

  “Well, here I am,” says Sonny. His recollection of events between coming up from the shop floor and falling asleep on the sofa is hazy. He vaguely recalls being shouted at by Mungo and then bursting into tears, but the reason for either event is lost in alcoholic amnesia. Mungo’s warning to stay clear of the Boardroom for the rest of the day he has entirely forgotten. “Did anybody else hear that noise just now? Like thunder or something?”

  One by one his brothers nod.

  “Any ideas what it was?”

  “That’s an interesting outfit you’re wearing, Sonny,” Thurston says.

  “This?” Sonny glances down at his suit, which is rumpled from having been slept in. “Smart, huh?” He pats the golden Days logo embroidered on the breast pocket. “I thought it would impress them downstairs.”

  “Jesus...” says Fred, half to himself.

  “And the arbitration, Sonny?” says Thurston. “How did that go? I must admit, I was surprised you didn’t come back up here straight away to report.”

  “It went fine.”

  “You told the heads of department what you were supposed to tell them?”

  “Yes. I mean, I think so. Sort of. No, I did. Yes.”

  “You don’t sound very certain.” Thurston’s spectacles glint dully in the dimmed light. The dark side of the dome now nearly fills all three of the Boardroom windows.

  “Well, there was a lot going on. They were both talking so much, I...” It was a neat idea. Why be ashamed of it? “I flipped my card to decide. You know, like at university.”

  There is a sixfold intake of breath.

  “You flipped your card,” Thurston repeats coldly.

  Sonny, all of a sudden feeling like a suspect on trial, fixes his gaze straight ahead. “I wanted to be fair.”

  “And don’t tell me – your card fell in favour of the Computers Department.”

  “That was the result you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “My God,” says Wensley, “what was he thinking?”

  “What was he drinking?” says Fred.

  “I don’t understand.” Sonny’s new-found confidence is starting to crumble, and his voice along with it. “What did I do wrong? All right, so I didn’t follow your instructions to the letter, but you sent me down to sort out the dispute, and I sorted it out.”

  “And if the card had fallen the other way?” says Thurston.

  “But it didn’t.”

  “But if it had?”

  Sonny looks for Mungo, knowing his big brother will back him up, but while Thurston has been interrogating him, Mungo has moved out of his eyeline. He turns around to find that Mungo has gone stealthily over to the knife switch, has quietly plucked the ceramic handle of the knife switch from its clips, and is now standing with the handle in his hands, brandishing it like a huge cosh.

  All of a sudden Sonny is very afraid.

  Mungo wouldn’t. Not his own brother. Not his own flesh-and-blood.

  So Sonny tells himself, but in the deepening gloom of the Boardroom it is difficult to make out what Mungo’s intentions are, what is in his eyes.

  “Sonny, it was so simple,” says Mungo huskily, apologetically. “All you had to do was stay in your apartment.”

  Sonny shakes his head, wanting to beg Mungo to put the handle back on the wall, but unable to find the words.

  “This way is better for all of us,” says Mungo. “I can’t go on protecting you any more. I can’t go on helping you if you won’t help yourself.”

  Tears spill from Sonny’s eyes, bright in the unnatural twilight, but he makes no move to defend himself or get out of the way when Mungo comes at him, swinging the handle like a baseball bat.

  The handle connects with Sonny’s cranium with a crack like a log splitting in two. He reel backwards, blood blurting from his nose. Staggering into the table, he just manages to prevent himself collapsing to the floor.

  Mungo draws back the handle and swings it again, this time striking Sonny on the jaw.

  Sonny slams back flat onto the tabletop, moaning and clasping his chin. His eyes seek out Mungo, staring, blank with incomprehension. Mungo stares back, panting hard.

  Chas appears by Mungo’s side, holding out his hands. Mungo hesitates, then meekly surrenders the handle to him, expecting that to be the end of it.

  But something has been unleashed in the Boardroom, something that has been bubbling beneath their lives of polite formality, homegrown ritual and quiet paranoia for far too long. Something wild. Something dangerous.

  “Hold him down, somebody,” says Chas, and Fred and Sato take up position either side of Sonny and, with the grim efficiency of old-time doctors in the days before the invention of anaesthesia, grab his wrists and pin them to the tabletop with their knees. Sonny searches Fred’s and Sato’s faces frantically, twisting his head from side to side in the hopes of finding pity or mercy, but there is none. His brothers have come to the conclusion that payment for the trials and tribulations he has brought upon them is finally due, in full. Sonny protests, but his words fall on deaf ears. Chas raises the handle and brings it whistling down onto his sternum.

  Although the impact is a savage one, Sonny’s ribcage holds. At the next blow, however, a rib gives, snapping like dry bamboo. He bucks and writhes, howling in grinding agony too immense for words.

  Chas passes the handle to Wensley.

  With three swift strikes, Wensley shatters Sonny’s jaw, smashes his nose into a lump of crushed cartilage, and ruptures several internal organs with a blow to the abdomen. Then he passes the handle to Thurston.

  By the time Thurston has finished with it, the handle’s thick end is coated with blood, hair, and fragments of teeth, bone, and skin.

  Then it is Fred’s turn. Then it is Sato’s. Sonny no longer has to be held down. The switch handle rises and falls, rises and falls, becoming bloodier and yet bloodier with each blow.

  The brothers go about the slaughter with precise, businesslike detachment, handing over the murder weapon in strict rotation after each has taken a few swings with it. Soon they have reduced their flesh-and-blood to flesh and blood.

  The Boardroom resounds to the thudding wet impacts of the handle against Sonny’s body, and for once the old man’s good eye appears to be glittering with something other than disdain.

  41

  7.0: the pH value of a neutral solution, one which is neither acidic nor alkaline, eg. pure water.

  2.51 p.m.

  LIQUID SOUNDS: THE babble of distant voices, the trickle of running water.

  Liquid warmth: sweat-pricking heat, the slow drift of humid air.

  Chilly dampness down his back and down the backs of his legs.

  Softness clenched between his fingers – spongy, fibrous, and cool.

  Water spattering intermittently into his face.

  The faint smell of smoke.

  And then – eyelids prised apart – vision. The undersides of palm fronds. Varying thicknesses of green shadow
. A tunnel hollowing down through the leaves directly above him, ragged-edged, lit with shafts of hazy yellow light and draped with lianas and dazzling chains of water drops. His path of descent. The net, then the irrigation pipes, and finally the trees broke his fall. Branch by branch the trees delivered him to the ground, slapping his back lustily like midwives.

  Myriad aches and sore spots all over him, too many to distinguish one from another. His body one huge dull throb of pain. Whether to get up or not isn’t so much a question of being unable to as being scared to. What if he tries to move and can’t? The loamy floor of the Menagerie is snug and comfortable. He feels welded to the spot. He could happily lie here all day, half buried in the soil, hidden amongst the undergrowth.

  Could. Won’t. The Menagerie is not the safest of places. Here there be tygers. And God knows what other items of livestock waiting to be collected by their purchasers.

  Frank steels himself. Courage. Courage.

  He tries to raise his right arm.

  It won’t budge.

  Christ. Paralysed. Christ, no.

  Then, with a mighty sucking squelch, the arm springs free of the ground.

  He brings his hand up to his face and rotates it on its wrist, articulating the individual fingers. His palm and the underside of his sleeve are caked in moss, soil and dead-leaf mulch.

  He levers up his head.

  At low level, he can see ferns, grasses, and bamboos, their intricate linkings weaving a dense wall of green. Higher up, epiphyte-studded trunks. Higher still, mingling foliage.