IVON

by Michael Aylwin

  Someone is sitting towards the back of the stand, the rickety old metal stand, where he was first embraced by a Welshman. He walks towards it. The man is blond and rises slowly to his feet. It is then that Dusty realises the man is Ricky.

  Dusty calls his name and raises his hand as he enters the shade of the stand and starts to climb. Ricky is expressionless on the way down. The tier shudders with each heavy step he takes. Just as Dusty is wondering which handshake to use, Ricky lets out a roar and hurls himself at him. His shoulder thuds into Dusty’s chest, knocking him off his feet, but as they fall together they turn in the air, so that each of them lands on his side on the sharp metallic steps, Ricky taking the brunt of the impact. They bump down to the bottom of the stand, but, before Dusty has time to take stock of the angry pain in his right shoulder, ribs and hip, Ricky is flailing at him.

  ‘You fucking cunt!’ he screams between the blows. ‘Traitor!’

  Dusty manages to parry the worst of it and is quicker to his feet. He springs back into the sunlight on the pitch and turns to face Ricky, shocked at the sight of his old comrade, who stumbles slowly to his feet. His long, ragged hair is already stained with blood from a wound that disappears into it from the side of his forehead. A dirty, sparse garment across his torso reveals a livid graze on his left shoulder, which oozes more blood down his arm. Around his loins, the clothes are torn and stop at his knees. One of his feet is naked, the other shod in a flimsy article that scarcely clings to it, whose pair lies discarded in the stand, at the point of impact.

  He lumbers towards Dusty.

  ‘Ricky? What are you doing? It’s me, Dusty! Dusty Noble!’

  ‘I know who you are, you fucker! You’ve ruined our lives! You’ve ruined Ivon’s life!’

  ‘I have not! He’s thriving. He’s made elite.’

  Dusty will not retreat any more. When Ricky comes at him again, he deflects his assault and pins him in a bear hug. Ricky bursts into tears.

  ‘Have they assimilated him?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Have they tried?’

  ‘No,’ says Dusty, but this time less strident.

  Ricky is now leaning against him, quivering with emotion. Dusty releases his grip, and Ricky sits upon the ground. His head is bowed. His shapeless arms draw in his knees.

  ‘What sport?’

  ‘Rugby.’

  Ricky half-smiles.

  ‘I’d watched every game he’d ever played. Cricket, rugby, football. I remember the excitement in the early years. In all of us, him, me, Dee. He had it. That was obvious. What would the future bring? How far would he go?’ He shakes his head. ‘Too far, it turns out. But then how could he stop? Once you opened the way to England for him, how could he stop? If you’re good enough to keep going, you keep going, don’t you? Until you’re so far away from where it all started and you wake up one day and you’re fucking lost. He’s not a stable kid, you know.’

  On the left side of his head, Ricky’s hair is now streaked with dirty red. The blood has reached his shoulder and clothes. He looks wild.

  ‘Your head, Ricky. It’s bleeding.’

  Ricky waves his hand dismissively.

  ‘Why did you do it, Dusty? You knew there’d be no coming back. You knew you were taking him away from us.’

  ‘I didn’t do it! He came and found me. He wanted to come.’

  ‘He didn’t understand.’

  ‘He’s doing fine.’

  ‘He’ll never come back.’

  Dusty turns away. He catches a glimpse of the abandoned footwear in the stand and bounds up to it. A dark brown strap that could be of organic matter is all that passes across the top of the foot, leaving exposed on the sole the very imprint of Ricky’s foot, his toes, his heel, the ball and arch. It is black in places, filthier even than on the underside. Dusty presents it to him. He takes it with a grunt and slips it back on his dirty foot.

  ‘Why did you come here, Dusty? You put the idea in his head.’

  ‘Did I? You think it hadn’t occurred to him?’

  ‘You know they would never let a savage through the Fence. Not without the endorsement of the great Dusty Noble.’

  ‘Doesn’t stop him wanting to go.’

  ‘Oh, fucking hell! I want to go and live on Kepler 22b, but it’s not going to happen. And, if I did, there’d be no coming back, so I’d better be sure.’

  ‘I think we should get that head wound looked at.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Where’s the nearest medical centre?’

  Ricky laughs bitterly. ‘This is Wales, Dusty. Linda has got enough on her plate without me cluttering up her surgery.’

  ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘I’m not going. You must have some angio-gel with you.’

  ‘There’ll be some in the aero’s first-aid kit. Haven’t looked.’

  ‘We’ll put some of that shit on it. It’s opening time in half an hour.’

  Ricky lies back on the grass and closes his eyes. He stretches his arms out wide. With the blood and the wrinkles of diminishment picked out by the sun, he looks for a moment as if he’s departed. He sighs, drawing it out into a wail.

  ‘But then I think maybe he’s right. Maybe they’re right, in the Perpetual Era. Why let this,’ he says, pounding his breast, ‘have any concern but to pump blood round your body? Why not strive to make the rest of you the most efficient machine possible? Fuck knows, it’s easier that way. No love, no anger, no sadness, no doubt. And then they switch you off. And if you’re a fucking genius like our Ivon, why wouldn’t you want to keep on improving and improving and improving until there’s no more improvement left to squeeze out of your dead eyes, until you’re a ruthless, invincible, fucking robot.’

  ‘He’ll never be that, and you know it.’

  ‘Why have you come back here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I…I love it here.’

  Ricky roars with laughter, so loudly and suddenly that Dusty, who has been crouching on his haunches, rocks back into a sitting position. Ricky, still laughing, still spluttering, raises himself like a choking man onto his elbows and thence to his unsteady feet. ‘Dusty Noble! Dusty Noble, champion batsman of the Perpetual Era, loves it here! In Wales!’

  Dusty looks up at Ricky, placing his hands on the ground behind him. ‘I’m changing, Ricky. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘You will NEVER be one of us!’ Ricky spits. ‘Ivon will never be a robot! You will never be a Welshman!’ He walks away a couple of paces then turns, as if to strike like a cat. There are tears in his eyes again. ‘You took our son away from us! You have no children, you have no family, you can’t know what that means!’

  ‘No. No, you’re right. I can’t. I would never have done it if I could. But he wanted to come, Ricky. I couldn’t turn him away. He’ll come back. I’ll bring him back. I swear it.’

  ‘They won’t let him back.’

  ‘Yes they will,’ Dusty forces himself to say. ‘Elites are allowed to visit Wales. When I came here the first time, I brought an active one with me.’

  ‘They’ll never let him.’

  ‘If they trust him, they’ll let him.’

  ‘If he remains the son I love, they’ll never trust him.’

  ‘I’ll bring him back. Somehow.’

  Ricky’s watery eyes seem to give a little as the two men hold each other’s gaze. Dusty doesn’t know how he’ll do it, but he vows to himself that he will.

  ‘Let’s go to the aero,’ he says, scrambling to his feet. ‘We need to put something on that cut in your head.’

  Ricky stands his ground defiantly, pathetically, bloody and dishevelled.

  ‘Come on, Ricky. Now.’

  He takes his arm. Ricky shakes it off with a snarl, but he starts walking.

  ‘I’ve been doing some research in London. Do you remember the TMS therapy we took in 2111?’

  There is silence.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Ricky says quietly, after a few paces.

  ‘Wha
t do you remember?’

  ‘It’s when Dee and I first spoke to each other. In the lanes later that same day. I was frustrated because I couldn’t hit the bloody thing. She was just so fucking serene. “Don’t try so hard,” she said, which was advice I’d never heard before. Neither had she, it turned out. She said it like she was in a trance or something. That was the beginning of it all. Us, Ivon. All this.’

  He drifts off. Dusty is afraid to look at him, the blood, the dirt, the tears of the boy he grew up with. He is in awe of him.

  ‘Ricky, there were seven of us who took that therapy. I’m the only one left. All the others have gone.’

  ‘Talk to Dee about it. I don’t want to know any more. Take me to the Rose.’

  Welsh juveniles pass to and fro. Dusty is mesmerised by the chaos. The juveniles wear the same clothes, at least, dressed in the Lapsed Era style, an assortment of garments of differing shades of blue, each with the school badge on the chest. The exuberance is loud and chaotic. None of them walk in formation. Some spot Dusty sitting in the corner and point in his direction, giggling as if they found him funny.

  Dusty’s shoulder and elbow ache from the fall. He has spent more time than is natural inspecting the riotous comings together of paint on the wall, some of humanoid form, or the yellow wooden swing doors that lead from the corridor he sits in, or even the slippery smooth floor the juveniles squeak around on. He tries to look anywhere but in their eyes, until, at last, he meets those of the person he is here to see, he longs to see. Dee is dressed natively in loose-fitting clothes, of a darker shade than her charges’, apart from her shoes, which are white and, thinks Dusty, designed for sport. The contrast she cuts with Ricky is stark. She is neat in manner, graceful in movement, and young, much younger-looking than Ricky.

  She holds his gaze for some time, stock still, remote and inaccessible to him across the stream of juveniles shifting and surging around her. He rises to his feet, but she does not react. Instead, she turns to a collection of little wooden boxes in the wall and rifles through the paper in one of them. She pulls out a few sheets and, studying them, walks in his direction.

  ‘Take a seat in there,’ she says without looking at him. ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’

  Dusty steps into a room full of tables and chairs. More bright colours adorn the walls. He closes the yellow swing door behind him, but it has panes of glass in it, so he does not feel any more comfortable. He paces up and down the aisles between the tables.

  There is a click at the door. Dee crosses the room and sits in a chair behind the largest desk. She studies Dusty coolly.

  ‘How is he?’

  Dusty sits on one of the tables in the first row. ‘He’s fine. He’s, he’s incredible. London’s never seen anything like him. He’s sparking a transformation in fortunes. It’s funny how an entire commune can galvanise around a couple of uplifting results.’ He smiles nervously.

  Dee is unmoved. The reunion with his fellow Academy graduates has not been the uplifting affair Dusty had imagined. Lapsed Era ties are strong. He had not foreseen how upset with him Ricky and Dee would be for taking their boy to London. He feels lonelier than ever. What a peculiar torture, to walk in this inspiring land and be shunned by it.

  ‘Did you never think to find out about him, before you took him away? He’s not cut out for it.’

  ‘Oh, Dee, I think he is! He’s been fast-tracked to elite. 72–15 and 56–12: those were the scorelines in the two matches he played for URL. And that in a side that hadn’t won all year. It’s sparked a commune-wide resurgence. He and I had a meeting with the Prime Manager earlier this week.’

  ‘I know. He rang me from his chambers.’

  ‘Of course. How do you think he sounded?’

  She smiles for the first time. ‘Very Ivon. Excited, passionate. Loving. Defiant.’

  ‘Momentum is with him.’

  ‘But it’s not always going to go well, is it. And there’s too much of his father in him. You know what Ricky was like, even before he came to Wales.’

  ‘I’ve just been with Ricky.’

  Dee’s countenance changes, her cool defensiveness slipping. ‘Where?’

  ‘At St Helen’s.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Just sitting there.’

  Dee shakes her head. ‘He was at home when I left this morning. He’s not been well since Ivon left. He can’t take it, Dusty. He’s an alcoholic.’

  ‘He threw himself at me in the stand. We took a fall down the steps. He cut his head open.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve treated him. He’s fine.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I dropped him at the White Rose.’

  She holds the palm of her hand against her forehead, then runs her fingers through her hair, pulling the grey streak to one side. The hand finishes cupped around her chin. ‘He told me he wouldn’t today,’ she says quietly. ‘He’s taken Ivon’s departure badly. I’m not surprised he went for you. He holds you responsible.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘This was Ivon’s decision, not yours. If only he knew what he was doing. But he had to do it, I understand that.’ For the first time, she looks at Dusty openly. Her eyes are rich and vulnerable. ‘Our life is falling apart, Dusty. If London swallows him up, if he never comes back…’ She looks away.

  ‘I’ll bring him back, Dee. I promise. I’ll get him out of there.’

  A silence hangs in the room. Resolve and, he thinks, love are surging through Dusty now. Ricky and Dee, he will do this for Ricky and Dee, because of love for them – yes, love – for two individuals. And not for any commune.

  Dee turns her head back towards him. Her eyes are glistening red, but she doesn’t look at him. ‘Ivon had a girlfriend here for years,’ she says. ‘Cerys. A lovely girl. He adored her. But it’s not easy when your boyfriend is a national hero. She didn’t want to do it any more. He didn’t want to let her go. He wouldn’t.’

  A pile of Lapsed Era books sit on Dee’s desk. She straightens them absent-mindedly before continuing. ‘Well, Cerys threatened to involve the police. She would have done it, too, if we hadn’t got him through. He was distraught. He may play without a care in the world, but he has very dark moods. And you can’t be playing all the time.’

  The atmosphere is delicate. Dusty is aware that he is upholding something precious for as long as he partakes of it. And to partake of it is to be in Wales. It is a privilege not to be broken.

  ‘I can see how he resembles Ricky,’ he says. ‘But he is young, too, and strong, like Ricky was. He has boldness and vigour.’

  ‘If Ricky were to go to London now…’ Dee laughs softly at the idea. ‘We’ve lived in Wales for twenty-five years now, just like Ivon. Even if he could be young again, Ricky would never cope. We’re different people now.’

  ‘I was talking to Ricky earlier about a TMS procedure that we underwent, the three of us, in 2111.’

  ‘You were part of that, were you?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve been investigating it. Something went very wrong. There were seven of us. Within six months we had all been placed under surveillance. And I’m the only one who survived. Daniel Attention, gone by the age of nineteen, less than three years later. Chad Meninga, Angela Hunter, Leanda Wellington, all gone within a few years of that. You and Ricky, gone in 2119. But we know what happened to you.’

  He has Dee’s attention now. A precious connection is being formed.

  ‘I remember Leanda,’ she says. ‘She took an aero out and drove it too fast on a windy day. It flipped on the M2. Killed her instantly, they said.’

  ‘Angela Hunter?’

  Dee shakes her head. ‘Rings a bell…’

  ‘I can’t remember Chad Meninga, but Daniel Attention suffered from a failing work ethic. He couldn’t bring himself to train properly. And eventually he was flat refusing to. They took him away. And I remember the final straw with Ricky…’

  ‘The stadium computer giving him out.
I know. He still goes on about it.’

  ‘And what about you, Dee? What happened to you?’

  She sighs and sits back in her chair. ‘No specific incident, I don’t think. I just remember my attitude changing, as if we were missing the point somehow. That we’d achieve a lot more by slowing down a bit, smelling the roses, you know. Engaging with the spiritual side of what we were doing, the joy, the laughter, the timelessness of it. I mean, none of this made any sense to me at the time, but we came here and I soon understood, by which I mean I developed a language for my disquiet. Ricky’s always said this country has let us be the people we really are.’

  ‘And they let you come here, just like that?’

  Dee shrugs. ‘They released us at the Swansea West Hostel. We soon found work as coaches, Ricky at the cricket club, me in the local schools, and we settled down in Mumbles.’ She laughs at the memory. ‘We were just drawn to the Gower Peninsula somehow. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘Yes!’ says Dusty, leaping to his feet and pacing in front of Dee’s desk. ‘It was the same with me! Exactly the same! The moment I saw the signs from the road, I had to follow them! How strange we should all feel that way. And then there are the dreams. Ricky told me you both have them. So do I! The flying machine!’

  ‘The biplane.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘The safari.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Safari.’ Dee sits forward with purpose and energy, trying to make herself understood. ‘Um, it’s a kind of, well, it’s being out in the wilderness, Africa, the wildlife, leopards in particular. Ricky and I both dream about it. Then there’s the champagne dream!’