IVON

by Michael Aylwin

  Ivon’s breast is heaving against the futility. The blandness and collusion. The emasculation of heroes, the smoothing over of boldness. His body may lie on a slab, taken out of the game, but there is a spirit in him still. He knows not from where it came, inherited or acquired, but he knows that it is vivid and it is his. ‘This is madness!’ he cries. ‘Fucking madness! I have acted! I have changed things in my world! I have changed things in your world!’

  ‘And after Assimilation you will continue to contribute. But these ejaculations of pro-activity are mere exchanges between you and the external world, which created you in the first place and continues to shape you. That world is permanent; you are ephemeral, like a spark leaping from the turbines, like a fly-half breaking from the game plan. You are not independent. You are not self-determining. On your own, you will fizzle out.’

  A faint buzzing begins in Ivon’s head. Actually in it. Not like the comms that fill the space between his ears. He can place this sound within his head, two precise spots, either side of central, on a level towards the top of the ears. It slowly builds. Ivon senses a tide rising. He is panicking. In his mind he is thrashing again.

  The voice in the room continues: ‘Your progenitors were bred by the commune of London, whose gene pool belongs to the commune. You are a part of that great programme. Your aptitude was conferred by London, and London here reclaims you.’

  The buzzing is louder and has grown beyond its origin, into the top and front of his head. It has stabilised, and now the frequency begins to build towards a pitch. Ivon knows that its purity of focus will have consequences, like the note that shatters glass. Something is impending. He is about to burst.

  Ignatius reappears in his vision. His palms are held together as in prayer. ‘The hippocampus and the relevant strata of your cerebral cortex are being prepared. I’m afraid it is necessary for you to remain conscious for this part of the procedure. You may experience some discomfort. It will soon be over.’

  Ignatius steps out of view. Ivon’s eyes dart this way and that; his breath bursts forth in staccato surges, part pant, part wail. His brain is vibrating, the buzz crescendoing. It is almost here; something, the moment, is almost here. The not knowing is torturous, the dread unbearable. A very precise pain sizzles into life, deep within his brain. Then, as if a flame, it sweeps throughout the region of the buzzing. Ivon cries out.

  The pitch is reached. He stares into the space above him. The pain is white. It has surpassed the physical. He stops screaming. His brain unfolds, tearing itself open and unravelling, lifting him out of himself and into the white, through the white and beyond.

  He is at St Helen’s on a sunny day, the turf is firm, the crowd in good voice, Ceiron just ahead of him, Jenks alongside, Dafydd Bennett on the bench, ha! Or maybe at 15. The promenade to Mumbles, with Cerys on his arm. She is above, hair tumbling towards him, lips flared. Then so is someone else. The Llanelli game. Then Cerys, beneath him this time, body arched against the dirty, cold stone. Beside him. He is beside himself. The curtains drawn, the door is locked, the walls a sleeve between him and the insistent world. His father yells. Then laughs, then cries. His mother lost in thought. She smiles. There’s something on, it opens up, his life, the field, the goal, the stumps. Ivon, Ivon, Ivon. He has something. He’s home, he’s in hell, he’s among stars. The table is his, the room and laughter, the possibilities endless. The fields, the surf, the seagull yelps. You have something. Yes. Yes! You are something. A piece of work. Be still, my sweet. The cool, dull whiff of boots and Hefin Stevens stabs his hand and fires are lit, the coals aglow in the dark days before Christmas. A ball turns and turns and turns seeking completion seeking home. Want it. Reach. Have. Home. Darkness at last. It surrounds him. Warm giving walls that live, do not demand. It is organic. He is home. It is over. He is home.

  XV

  Dusty checks his course towards Juno’s office. Two black suits step out only a few seconds before he is due to arrive at her door. He turns sharply away and loiters. Everything feels out of joint. He pretends to preoccupy himself with something, anything, on his neuro-face.

  When the security officers have passed, he resumes his course. Juno seems subdued. Or is it disconcerted? Either way, it’s not flamboyant, it’s not wicked. It’s not Juno.

  ‘Dusty,’ she says neutrally, suddenly cool, suddenly inscrutable.

  He takes it as an invitation to speak. ‘Have you heard anything from Headingley?’ He should be more circumspect, but he can’t remember why he should, nor can he straighten his head out to remind himself. Then when Juno does not respond, he presses her further. ‘The rugby match yesterday. Against Yorkshire.’

  Juno takes a short breath. ‘We lost. Badly. 49–6.’

  Dusty’s shoulders slump. Inside, he wants to scream Welsh words like Ricky. Fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck has happened to Ivon. He wants to hammer the floor with his fists. He wants to rage. But the slumped shoulders have it.

  ‘I can’t access the match packs.’ Should he be admitting that? ‘Can you?’ He doesn’t want to hear the answer, which he knows must be yes.

  Juno studies him over those interlocking fingers. But there’s no grin, not even a twinkle in her eye. Something is wrong. Very wrong. Dusty is being marginalised.

  ‘What happened in the match?’ he blurts out.

  Excessive Interest in Another. He knows it, but he doesn’t want to correct himself. He can’t.

  ‘How should I know?’ she says.

  ‘You’ve seen the score!’

  ‘Of course I have, Dusty. I check the scores every morning.’

  ‘So you can access the match packs!’

  Why can’t he?

  ‘Yes! But I haven’t gone into any of them! Why would I? I’m not a scientist!’ They stare at each other, as if about to engage in a wrestling match, the sport in which Juno was a champion. ‘And you’re not one either.’

  She is offering him nothing today. London is offering him nothing. He has nothing to offer London. The relationship is collapsing. He feels the chill wisps of rejection play round his ankles. If he stands still they will billow higher. Privileges rescinded. The security officers earlier.

  ‘What were Security doing here?’

  Again, the hopeless question is blurted out.

  Juno shrugs and raises her eyebrows.

  That’s something. The slightest hint of ambiguity. Could it have been a playful gesture? This is Juno, Dusty tells himself! The most momentous woman he has ever known. He does have more to offer. Of course he does!

  ‘Shall we see if a cot’s free?’ he says, the spirit in him high.

  Juno lowers her hands and reaches for her tablet. ‘I’ve had my constitutional this morning.’

  She does not look up at him again.

  Lana happens to be facing away, as she pulls up her day suit. The legs are still sleek, but as she straightens he notes a slight heaviness of buttock before she is cupped and covered by fabric. Manager for Cricket she may be, but there is less wattage in those buttocks than when she and Dusty were among the leading cricketers of their respective genders. There is less in his.

  She looked sad when she pulled down the monitor after their bout. Diminishment is a reality for them now, but there is always the next bout to look towards and the aspiration to make it better than the last. When it’s not, there is a brief pang before the mind turns to the next again, to the shower, the powder and the return of unravelling body to day suit.

  Dusty leans back against the wall, stretching his legs. ‘Do you know, I don’t care that we don’t register the same figures as we used to!’

  And he doesn’t. His heart is racing as he says it – another outrageous unorthodoxy. The journey in discovery of himself goes on. It is liberating to feel the real Dusty bubble through what is left of his discipline; it is thrilling to express it, to allow it to express itself. He knows it cannot last.

  Lana turns and looks down at him. When was the last time she sat with him on a recovery
couch? She doesn’t need to say anything. Gone is the sadness he saw a few minutes ago. There is astonishment, perhaps even shock. Did he really just say what she thought he did?

  ‘I mean, yes, I’d rather we were banking a megajoule each time, like in the old days. But let’s think more about how much we must have generated together over the years. And I don’t mean at the crease. I’m talking in here. You and me.’

  She pauses before slipping her feet into her shoes. A tress of hair breaks from behind her ear and brushes her face as she watches the shoes fold round her feet. She tucks it back in place, quite thoughtfully.

  Dusty wants to go on. He wants to tell her he doesn’t care that the grip of her thighs is not what it used to be, the gyration of her loins less momentous, her audio a little strained and dutiful. He’s not the dynamo he used to be, either. But isn’t there something else now, something about this hint of gentleness in their coitus? The numbers may be down, but there’s a new quality to it that strikes a chord with the new Dusty. He knows it must be Welsh by nature. Yes, he looks at Lana and he sees Dee, their slippings a poignant echo of the bold, clean assets that went before – and all the more beautiful for that. He wants to tell Lana these things, but he chooses not to.

  ‘Diminishment is hard, Dusty,’ she says. ‘This inclination of yours to look backwards instead of forwards – it seems to me you are suffering. There are people you can talk to.’

  Dusty is irritated by her impeccable alignment. After all they’ve been through, all they’ve contributed to London and England over the years, with nothing now but administration left to them before stasis, can they not be allowed a moment’s mischief in the post-coital wind-down? Irritation provokes him further. Recklessness leads him on. ‘And not just the joules, Lana,’ he says, with no thought or care for tomorrow. ‘What about the cricketers? How many of those do you think we’ve generated? I saw Marius Amstrad yesterday. Did you know I’m his progenitor? Something about him reminded me of you. Could it be…?’

  Lana gasps and heads sharply for the door. ‘No. He’s not one of mine.’

  She heads sharply for the door without Dusty.

  ‘What? You know? How do you know?’

  Lana does not look round but, on her own, she initiates the consolidation. She initiates the consolidation without her coital partner by her side, without Dusty. ‘We just know.’

  Dusty is too stunned to take his place next to her. The consolidator rumbles, their potential now actual, and she stands alone at the door. She doesn’t look for him. She’s going to leave the cot without him. The door sweeps open. She looks to the floor for just a moment. (Did she?) Lana strides out of the cot without a backward glance.

  In all his thirty-six years of coitus, no one has left him behind in a coition terminal like that. He’s sure of it. On his path back to the recovery lounge, he passes a pair of cot partners, who eye him suspiciously. Why wouldn’t they? He’s never seen anyone alone in the corridors of a leisure club either. This pair must have just seen Lana though, a few moments ahead of him, striding in the magenta of the managerial class, who walk without care wherever they want. That must have struck them as unusual. Now Dusty presents himself as the reason. What must he have done? And he a veteran elite…

  It occurs to him that he should summon the bearing of the elite he once was, who generated terajoules with his prowess, but such assurance has deserted him. He has lost the momentum of agency. He is a burst balloon, defined by what is left of him, blown on by the eddies what is left of him can catch.

  The recovery lounge is busy. Lana has gone, which he notes with relief, but he scans the room for Alanis. Maybe she can tell him something about Ivon, now they are seeing so much of each other. Alanis and Dusty have not taken a cot together since that bout off the Grid in Wales, not since Ivon came to London. Have they even spoken?

  Melissa Toni is in the lounge. Even stretched out on a couch she slugs from her isotonic with focus, a study in bristling potential energy. He wanders over to her, then hesitates the moment she spots him. The isotonic is at her lips, but she has stopped gulping. She lowers it slowly at the sight of Dusty and sits up, swinging her legs round to the floor.

  ‘That Welshman of yours,’ she says, shaking her head menacingly.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No, but he’s seen Alanis.’

  ‘Where is Alanis?’

  ‘That’s a good question, Dusty,’ she says, rising to her feet, growing into her instinct for a fight. ‘In the IC, probably. Or an infirmary. She may need to be assimilated. A model citizen, an elite of impeccable standing and service. For her to have to go through an ordeal like that, the humiliation of it, the pain, through no fault of her own – it’s disgusting!’

  ‘Wait a minute! Assimilation? What are you talking about?’

  ‘He entered her home, Dusty! Your man! Ivon! The Welshman you introduced into society! What were you thinking?!’

  ‘It’s part of his culture. He doesn’t understand. In Wales, they live in each other’s homes.’

  ‘And in the jungle they eat each other, which is why I would never let a tiger loose in England. You understand, Dusty! You should have seen where this was going.’

  ‘Alanis understands too. She’s been to Wales. She brought him back with me.’

  Melissa throws her isotonic to the floor. The bottle bounces a couple of times, spewing what’s left of its contents around their feet. The violence of emotion comes as a surprise to Dusty. Alanis has told him about Melissa. She’s an outside hitter; aggression is integral to her role on the volleyball court. She’s probably on a programme, Dusty tells himself – encouraged to lose her temper once or twice a week. That’s all this is, an exercise. He tells himself that, but it’s not so easy to let the hostility roll off. It might have been when he’d been active himself, but no one ever behaved like this to Dusty Noble then. The recovery lounge has fallen silent, but Dusty can see or hear nothing beyond the seething pugilist opposite.

  ‘Don’t you dare implicate her in this sick experiment of yours! She trusted you, you flagging clock-watcher. And she trusted him. Now look where that’s got her!’

  ‘There’s no reason for her to be damaged by this. If you think about it, what’s wrong with entering another’s home?’

  A murmuring breaks out round the lounge, if only Dusty could register it.

  Melissa cries out, half-laugh, half-shriek. ‘And you’ve let him into your home, have you?’

  ‘I’ve been to Ivon’s home in Wales!’

  ‘Have you let him in to yours?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘But you haven’t, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ha! You stand there, uttering these Lapsed Era depravities, but you don’t even have the balls to be exposed to them yourself. It’s pathetic!’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘And how long has the Welshman been in London? A month? Six weeks? And he hasn’t once entered your home in all that time! Why don’t you admit it? You could no more handle it than any of the rest of us. You shouldn’t be surprised that Alanis couldn’t either.’

  Dusty is overtaken, quite suddenly. Not by the tears this time, but the sense of something he can’t control is no less vivid. He falls back onto the recovery couch behind him and holds his head in his hands, but it is not enough. He needs words, a word perhaps, and he finds from somewhere a visceral syllable from the Lapsed Era, yes, it has to be something Welsh. He cries, ‘Fuck!’ Except he draws out the vowel into a prolonged scream, so that it sounds more like ‘Fuuaaaaaaaaaaaak’, a scream from the depths of his soul, book-ended by an f and a k. Ghostly white pimples appear in his vision, dance hypnotically for their moment, then fade into the reality of the way things are – like Ivon, like Ivon.

  He appears to be trembling. She’s right! He never let Ivon in to his home, and not just because a Perpetual citizen would never do that, not just because it is forbidden.

  It was a matter of fear. Dusty Noble, afraid. Al
l those years his bravery was a given, a starting point from which he built his life as a batsman, a rock on which London built a dynasty, erected a statue. But that wasn’t bravery, his defiance of all-comers, all missiles. That was mastery of the known. Perpetual citizens cannot be brave. Everything is too known.

  Ivon has been brave. To stride into a new world with so little knowledge, so ill-prepared. So incompatible. Dusty is half the man Ivon is, half the man he thought Dusty was. It’s a revelation that yawns beneath him, a chasm where once there had been fathoms of rock.

  ‘She didn’t turn up for our match yesterday.’ Melissa’s voice is softer now, but Dusty cannot look up. ‘Our re-engagement after the Spring Recess. Joules, she was so excited about it! We all were. But she didn’t turn up. Too traumatised. She’s been given compassionate leave. I don’t know when we’ll see her again.’

  Oh, Alanis! If only Dusty had the time, the emotional space, to consider what his actions have meant for you too. He might, in his nostalgic frame of mind, weep in remembrance of the magnificent young woman who glided into the club one day and of the intervening years in which – yes, as a would-be Welshman he can say it – her relationship with him grew. But his mind is too full with the roar of Melissa and his own conscience, with fear for the future – for himself, for Ivon and for a Wales without him.

  The net is closing in. In the streets and clubs and refectories, he feels the eyes of people turn on him. When he was of genuine value to the commune he walked without fear of glance or whisper. Now each day is a gauntlet of lingering eyes and dark looks. Recognition at last. And from the black suits, who populate his landscape at every turn, dark, inscrutable, half-turned away.

  Down here in the bowels of ReSure he is free from it. He sits in what they call the Shed. Dusty asked Juno what the word meant. She shrugged.