by Luiza Sauma
‘It was inevitable,’ says Iris. ‘People get bored of TV shows.’
‘But it was the TV show to end all TV shows.’
Iris shrugs. ‘No, that was The Sopranos, and even that had to end.’
Abby laughs, but her eyes are still blank. ‘I never saw The Sopranos. I guess I never will.’
‘What happens now?’
‘Nothing happens. We wait.’
20.
These Are the Things
Silence, stars, the night and so many other things.
Cigarettes. Mmm, cig-a-rettes! Even the word delights her. She had her last one in front of a hotel in West Hollywood, the night before she went to the desert for training. In fact, she had three in a row. They were deee-licious.
The smell of money. Weird, right? She didn’t expect that. The other night, she dreamed she was in a corner shop, and as she unfolded a twenty-pound note it released a whiff of papery, cocaine bitterness. Did banknotes smell of cocaine, or did cocaine smell of banknotes?
Painkillers. Iris left Earth behind, but not her body, so she still suffers from horrendous period pain – an ominous trembling in her upper thighs that radiates into a stabbing stomach ache. On Earth she wasn’t fully aware of its violence; she would swallow two ibuprofen and the pain would ebb away like a falling tide. But ibuprofen finished in Year 3. Paracetamol in Year 2. SSRIs and sleeping pills are running low. More people are coming, Norman used to say. They’ll bring everything we need. At some point he stopped talking about them – the new arrivals, who would fix everything.
Sex and romance. Sure, she misses them. Privacy is hard to come by. Committed couples can live in the family quarters, but casual sex is limited to quickies, when roommates are elsewhere. Iris last had sex two years ago, with Jonah in the Annex 4 bathroom, out of boredom more than anything else. Since then – nothing.
And then she noticed Elias. Until three months ago, they had barely talked – beyond ‘please’ and ‘thanks’ at the cafeteria, where he works. But then she had a dream about him and woke at the end of a tender, throbbing orgasm. The morning after the dream, he was at the counter, serving grey, sticky mashed potatoes.
‘Want some?’ said Elias, blinking his sad, pretty eyes.
Iris opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak.
Elias smiled. ‘You all right, Iris?’
Her stomach pulsed when he said her name.
‘Yes, please.’
‘OK.’
He slopped them onto her plate and looked at the next person in the queue.
21.
Cleaning
On Earth, Iris worked long hours and was always on call. On Nyx, time stretches around her like an empty room. Her social media duties take barely ten minutes a day. She cleans the Hub six days a week, for a few hours. Nearly everyone cleans. Iris doesn’t mind it. It’s repetitive and soothing; it’s a chance to talk to Yuko and Stella for hours on end. She likes the vinegary smell of the cleaning fluid. She likes how her hands and arms have hardened. On Earth, sitting at her desk, she felt as fat and soft as a manatee.
This morning, on the way to her shift, she glances through a window at the farm, catching sight of luscious greenery and people working. It’s hard to tell from here, but are the farmers really struggling that much? A minute later, she passes a window that overlooks the unfinished extension, Hub 2. It’s a black skeleton of a building: a few walls surrounded by heaped rubbish.
Today, the team begins cleaning in Annex 5, in the women’s bathroom. Most of the toilets are separated by flimsy cubicles, but a few of the walls have fallen down. The showers are communal. There are no cameras in here. The three women have stripped down to grey tank tops and shorts. Cleaning is sweaty work. As they scrub on their hands and knees, Vitor’s secret fizzes on Iris’s tongue like a pill. She wants to tell them so badly. When Yuko looks up, Iris opens her mouth but changes her mind.
‘What is it, Iris?’ says Yuko, in her sweet, flinty Japanese accent. ‘You looked like you were going to say something.’ She glances at her four-year-old daughter, Norma, who is sitting in the corner of the room, drawing something on Yuko’s tab.
‘Nothing,’ says Iris.
‘You know,’ says Stella, from across the room, ‘I got up in the middle of the night and went for walk, because I couldn’t sleep, and I swear I saw Norman skulking around in a corridor.’
‘No, really?’ says Yuko.
‘Yeah, he ran away like a frightened rabbit as soon as he saw me.’ Stella throws her hands in the air. ‘Who knows? I might’ve been dreaming.’
‘Weird,’ says Yuko. ‘I wonder what he’s doing.’
‘He’s probably locked in a room somewhere, pissing into bottles like a madman,’ says Stella.
All three of them laugh.
‘Hey,’ says Yuko, ‘do you guys know how to cut hair?’
‘You want a haircut?’ says Stella.
Yuko nods. ‘Yes, it’s been a while.’
‘I can do it.’ Stella rummages through the box of cleaning products and pulls out a pair of thick black scissors. ‘Look! Could do it now, if you like.’
Yuko frowns. ‘I want to go to my hairdresser in Tokyo, have one of those head massages and a blow-dry, and come out looking like a million dollars.’
‘I can give you a massage,’ says Stella, deadpan.
‘Awww, thanks.’
‘I’m serious!’ It’s hard to tell when Stella is being serious. She rarely smiles, but there’s always a glint of silliness in her eyes. She’s in her early forties, but looks older. Sometimes she alludes to her life in New Zealand, to difficult times, but Iris knows not to ask. Over there, she worked as a secretary, among other things. Over here, she cooks and cleans.
‘Why didn’t they bring a hairdresser to this fucking planet?’ says Yuko. ‘I mean, God.’ She widens her eyes when she swears, delighted with herself. Her use of language has changed over the past seven years, taken on American inflections.
‘So you want it cut or what?’ says Stella.
‘Have you done it before?’
‘Sure, I used to cut my boyfriend’s hair all the time.’
‘Hmm, OK, then.’
Stella points at one of the toilets. ‘Sit on there, facing away from me.’
Yuko screws up her face in disgust.
‘I just cleaned it!’
‘OK.’ Yuko sits on the edge of the toilet.
‘Try not to fall inside, OK? Or I’ll have to flush you out to space.’
Yuko starts to undo her bun – a huge black puffball, tied together by hair alone. (All the hairbands were lost years ago.) Her hair falls thickly to several inches below her bum.
‘Jesus, girl!’ says Stella.
Iris walks over and stands beside Stella as she combs her fingers through Yuko’s hair with great tenderness. It’s wispy at the ends, with a few grey strands, but still shiny and thick. Seven years without earthly products and it looks just fine. It smells like soil and crushed leaves. Iris remembers the shelves in her bathroom in London, laden with potions. Even at the time, she marvelled at her own gullibility.
‘How long has it been since you cut it?’ says Stella.
Yuko laughs. ‘Oh, you won’t believe it.’
‘Two, three years?’
‘I haven’t cut it since I left Earth.’
‘Whaaat?!’ say the other two, in unison.
‘Do you remember my hair when we arrived?’
‘Didn’t you have a buzzcut?’ says Iris.
‘Yeah, I did it for the show. I thought it would be easier to look after.’
‘It looked so cool.’
Yuko smiles. ‘Thanks.’
Stella takes a handful of Yuko’s virgin hair and lets it run through her fingers. ‘Seven years of hair,’ she says. ‘So how do you want it?’
‘Shoulder-length?’
Norma is not paying attention. She’s still glued to Yuko’s tab.
‘Shoulder-length,’ says Stella. ‘OK.’
> As she assesses the situation, they all stop speaking. Stella gently moves Yuko’s head with her hands, checks that the hair is hanging straight and then, finally, scissors across in five thick snips. Thousands of black strands fall to the floor.
‘Done!’ says Stella.
Yuko runs her hands through her hair, widening her eyes in surprise when her fingers reach the ends. ‘Wow, that feels so much better.’
‘It looks great,’ says Iris.
‘It really does,’ says Stella. ‘Very chic.’
There’s no mirror in this bathroom – it fell and smashed a while ago – so Yuko takes their word for it.
‘Okaasan, I’m hungry,’ says Norma in her hybrid accent, without looking up from her tab.
In a hundred years, thinks Iris, maybe there’ll be a Nyxian accent. By then, all of the non-English speakers will be dead.
‘OK, Norma,’ says Yuko, sighing.
She sits on the floor in the corner. Norma sits on her lap, lifts Yuko’s top and starts to suckle on her breast. It’s partly why Yuko is so skinny – her daughter is sucking her dry.
Stella gathers the hair from the floor with her bare hands, rolls it into a ball and throws it in the bin.
‘On Earth you could’ve sold this to a wig-maker,’ she says. ‘It’s good-quality hair.’
‘No,’ says Yuko, ‘there’s too much grey.’
Norma stops suckling and looks up at her mother, whose hair hangs bluntly over her shoulders. Yuko does look chic. She could be an architect or a designer – someone who makes beautiful things.
‘Okaasan!’ shrieks Norma. ‘Your hair!’ Her mouth hangs open in shock.
‘Stella cut it for me. Doesn’t it look nice?’
‘Noooo!’ Fat tears begin to fall down her cheeks. ‘It looks awful!’
‘Sweetie, come on.’
Norma hides her face in her mother’s breasts, wracked with sobs, unable to say anything more. Yuko smiles at Iris and Stella, and rolls her eyes. They turn away to give her some privacy, and carry on with their cleaning.
‘Bloody hell,’ says Iris, quietly.
‘She didn’t recognize her mother,’ says Stella. ‘That’s all.’
Afterwards they clean the living room and a couple of corridors. The other teams will do the rest. At one point they pass Abby, carrying a bucket to the control quarters. Everyone says ‘Hey!’ to each other and carries on walking.
When Iris gets back to her bedroom, it’s empty. Abby is still working. As well as cleaning, she holds classes for the Nyxian children – just a couple of hours a day. Most of the kids are too young for school, but they’re getting older. Iris is glad to be alone, glad to hear the hum of the Hub, the almost-silence. When she climbs up to the top bunk, tiredness ripples through her body, like it did at the end of yoga classes, when she would lie down and think of nothing. On Earth, she rarely went to yoga, rarely did any exercise at all, but when she did, that was the best bit – when the work was done. When work finished at the office there was also a sort of joy, but alongside it, a gaping hole that could only be filled with alcohol. Iris looks at her tab. It’s 11 May. Seven years ago, she had just left her job at Freedom & Co.
She lies with her palms facing the ceiling, her legs slightly apart, her eyes softly closed, her jaw relaxed. Shavasana. She thinks of nothing. Her muscles radiate peace. This is the highlight of her day, always.
22.
These Are the Things
New music. They have their hundred songs, and that’s it. Songs by Bob Dylan, Beyoncé, Mozart, Tinariwen, Gal Costa, Prince, Asha Bhosle, Bob Marley, LCD Soundsystem, the Notorious B.I.G. and others. Iris never imagined that she would one day become intimately familiar with George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ or Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, but she grew to love them both. Now she can’t bear any of them, not even the song she chose. There are other songs in their heads, of course – the ones they can’t forget – but the Nyxians aren’t allowed to sing them in the Hub’s public areas. The royalties would be too high.
There was one exception: when Hans died, Elizabeth sang Bob Dylan’s ‘To Ramona’ a cappella at the memorial service in the cafeteria. The song was muted on TV and the livestream, so all you could see was people crying, holding hands. Elizabeth also cried as she sang, but she didn’t miss a note. Her voice was clear and cool as a stream.
Hans isn’t the only Nyxian who has died. There have been three others, all of natural causes. On Earth they would have lived.
Films and TV.
The internet. The ability to stalk people, look at clothes, photos of dogs, waste hours of her life in a vacant, meditative state. All she can do now is send her pictures out to the world. She knew it would be like this. It was in the terms and conditions.
Cocktails, beer and wine. All alcohol. Drugs, too. On Earth, oblivious, dumb joy was just a couple of phone calls away. Iris had taken it for granted.
Sometimes they make moonshine up here. It isn’t allowed, but it happens. Abby managed to get some once. It tasted like bin juice. They drank it quickly in their bedroom, laughed for hours and talked about how they would literally kill someone in order to hear one song that wasn’t on the playlist. Something with a beat, something you could dance to. They sang the songs themselves – Rihanna’s ‘What’s My Name’, Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ – and forgot most of the words. Abby tried to moonwalk in her bare feet, but the room was too small and she couldn’t do it. The hangover the next day was mild and also pleasant, somehow. Iris had forgotten how sweet and soft a hangover could be, like a blanket draped over your body, telling you: Slow down.
When Iris is asleep she can go anywhere she wants, eat and drink anything, hear any song – and everything tastes and sounds exactly like it did on Earth. Other than sex dreams, her favourites are the ones in which she eats Earth foods. Sometimes something extravagant, like duck pâté or oysters. Sometimes a McDonald’s cheeseburger or a chocolate biscuit. Then she wakes up with her mouth full of saliva, wanting to scream, but thankful for the dream.
23.
Elias
The following Saturday, after her shift, Iris goes to Rav’s exercise class in the living room along with twenty or so other Nyxians – mostly women. She and Abby always stand at the back because their giggling puts him off. Everyone wears the same tank top and shorts, barefoot because their shoes are falling apart. They run, they squat, they do burpees, press-ups, sit-ups and stretches. Rav does the same moves but barely sweats, while shouting instructions:
‘Five more!’
‘Three more!’
‘Don’t forget to breeeathe!’
He laughs along with them at the strain and effort of it all, even though it’s easy for him. Iris used to see men like him in London parks, training rich people to be better versions of themselves.
Their arms are shiny and slick, their mouths gasp for air. On Earth someone would say, ‘Can you crack open a window?’ but they can’t crack open a window, because the atmosphere would kill them, so nobody says this. Breeze on sweat, thinks Iris. That was a good feeling. The room becomes hotter and hotter, permeated with the smell of humans, exerting themselves.
As always, Iris leaves early so she can enjoy a few minutes alone in the shower – her weekly cleanse. The soap is scent-free and barely lathers, but it works – she can smell dirt disintegrating on her body. With her eyes closed, she pretends she’s at home in Clapton, rubbing lavender shower gel over her skin, hearing the distant sound of a radio, Kiran knocking on the door.
‘You almost done?’ she would say.
But then, suddenly, her body goes cold – the shower has switched off. Her ten minutes are up. She dries off with a semi-clean towel.
Kiran probably left the flat years ago. Strangers live there now.
After lunch, fifteen or so Nyxians gather in the living room for the book club. Interest has waned since Year 3. The funky smell of the gym class lingers in the air,
and a humid, tropical warmth, but neither of these things bothers the Nyxians. The air is always stale; they’re used to it. They sit on chairs in a circle, like a support group, clutching their tabs, waiting to talk about East of Eden. Iris sits across from Elias, far enough for his presence to not overwhelm her, but with a good view of his pretty face. He rarely catches her eye. He looks at the floor, he looks at the ceiling, he looks more or less in the direction of whoever’s speaking, he nods and shakes his head. Like Iris, he mostly listens. He sits next to Sean.
‘Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming,’ says Johnny. Outside the book club, Iris doesn’t know him very well. He’s a technician, and therefore superior. ‘So, East of Eden. Great choice. I’d never read it before. I’d never read any Steinbeck at all, actually. How about you guys?’
‘I read Of Mice and Men in high school,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Yeah,’ says Abby, ‘me too.’
‘Well, whoever suggested it – thank you. It’s an incredible book.’
Several people look around to see if they can tell who chose it. Iris tries to look casual, but her face burns. Elias rests his gaze on her. She feels her face go redder and redder, till the warmth spreads to her throat, her chest, her fingers. He raises his eyebrows and smiles. Iris’s face spasms. She looks away. She has to.