The Wipe

by Nik Abnett

  “T-shirts, sweats, jeans, take what you want out of the airing cupboard… Here,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He opened a door on the landing.

  “Wow!” said Charity. “This is incredibly organised.”

  “I got a bit obsessive about stuff while Dad was sick. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise,” said Charity, kissing him on the cheek. “Don’t apologise for anything. Any coping strategy is a good coping strategy.”

  “Mr Frith,” said Able. “I would never have believed a couple of days ago that I’d be standing here listening to you quote Mr Frith.”

  “I wonder if he’s okay,” said Charity.

  “Whether he is or not, he’ll clearly live on for decades… All those kids he taught, quoting him like that.”

  “He had some good ones, though, didn’t he?”

  “He had some great ones. I didn’t understand some of them, not until the Deluge.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand some of them,” said Charity. “This one seems good for now, though.”

  “That, and ‘Keep on keeping on’.”

  There was a pause as Charity pulled a pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of the airing cupboard. She held them against her chest.

  “That’s the spare room,” said Able, pointing to a closed door, along the corridor at the front of the house. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve sorted it out for you, but it’s yours. You can change in there.”

  “I really need a pee, first. I didn’t dare go before I left.”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “Go and have your bath,” said Charity, coming out of the bathroom. “I’m sure I can find my way around, and I’ll make that tea.”

  “Yes… tea.”

  “Pa’s a pharmacist,” said Charity, “and the first thing he always reaches for is a cup of tea. That’s before he gets out a thermometer or hands out the paracetamol. I don’t suppose it cures grief, but it might help. Come and find me in the kitchen when you’re done.”

  “Promise you’ll be there,” said Able. “I’m still half-convinced that I’m dreaming you.”

  “I’ll tell you what, leave the bathroom door open, and I’ll leave the kitchen door open, and we’ll be able to hear each other.”

  She went into the spare room to change her clothes and run her fingers through her hair. It had been a long, eventful day. She hadn’t slept, and she’d been wearing the silk dress for almost twenty-four hours. She hung it on a wire coat hanger found on the back of the door, the sort you used to get from the dry cleaners. She had to roll up the hems of the borrowed jeans, and she’d need a belt, but they were fine, and she liked the slightly oversized t-shirt with the band logo on the front. She’d have to go without underwear until she could sort something out. It didn’t matter.

  Then, she skipped down the stairs, listening to running water in the bathroom as she went. In the kitchen, she splashed water on her face, and washed her hands with the dish soap that stood beside the sink. Then she filled the kettle, and opened all the cupboard doors to find mugs, tea bags and sugar. There was even a teapot, and there was plenty of milk in the fridge.

  By the time Able came downstairs in shorts and a t-shirt, Charity was on her second cup of tea.

  “What should we do first?” asked Able.

  “You look like you need some sleep, and I should really have a decent wash.”

  “I want to do something real with you,” said Able.

  “Okay,” said Charity, smiling. “We can find something real to do… What’s the time?”

  Able pointed behind him at a clock on the kitchen wall. Charity glanced up at it.

  “Let’s drink our tea for ten more minutes, and just sit quietly, and at six o’clock, I’m going to ring Pa. Is that real enough for you?” She smiled.

  “That’s almost too real,” said Able.

  Thirty-eight

  Dharma didn’t upload any new data to her photo storage at home. She wasn’t allowed to take work product home or do her analysis on the data anywhere except in her cubicle. It was all confidential stuff. This counted as work product, because she had accessed it using the W.W. intranet. It didn’t matter. She understood what had happened to Liberty, and she had Blythe Dole’s name and id number.

  Tomorrow, Dharma would contact her cousin for the first time.

  She thought about it a lot that night. She didn’t know what to expect. It was one thing reaching out, but reaching out to a complete stranger was practically unheard of. She had never done it herself, and she didn’t know anyone else who had. She thought about it a little longer, and realised how few people she knew.

  She lived in an apartment block, and knew her neighbours by sight. She rarely spoke to any of them, unless it was a casual greeting if they crossed paths in the lobby. She worked in a large office, but stayed in her single cubicle for the entire length of the working day. Again, she knew some of the others who worked there by sight, mostly from her own floor. She waved at the concierge every day, but didn’t even know his name.

  The last new person that Dharma had met was Patience Opie, the gardener at her mother’s senior housing. It had been nice, and perhaps she would go back some time, talk to her some more and maybe accept some seeds to grow in a window box. That safe smell of geraniums.

  Dharma didn’t know what to expect from Blythe Dole. She wondered how she would react if some stranger reached out to her via her connections. It had never happened.

  She had intranet connections with other people who worked for W.W. She got messages from ‘data collection’ and from ‘implementation’, but all of that was work related, and she hadn’t exchanged any personal information with any of her colleagues.

  She had always had her mother, of course, at least until recently.

  If someone reached out to her, she thought she’d want to connect out of curiosity. Her specialism was data analysis, and a relation would be a fount of new data. Blythe Dole might not feel that way about Dharma, though. Blythe might not work in data, or in anything related.

  Blood, though… Blood was important.

  Dharma knew that Blythe’s mother was still alive, so they no doubt had a connection. Perhaps that would be enough for Blythe.

  Dharma wondered what stories Liberty had told Blythe growing up. She wondered if Blythe remembered more of the old stories than she did and whether they’d been told some of the same stories.

  None of it mattered. She would request a connection and then wait to see what happened. If she didn’t get a reply, perhaps she’d try again, in three months, or six, or perhaps a year. They were both young, and there was plenty of time.

  Dharma knew that she had no control over Blythe, or over what Blythe chose to do. The only control Dharma had was making the connection request in the first instance, and preparing an e-mail in the event that Blythe was curious enough to enable the connection.

  So, that’s what she did. On Saturday, Dharma spent the day preparing to introduce herself to Blythe and tell her about her search. She couldn’t include everything, and she had to include some data to convince Blythe that she was genuine. She began to work through the documents in her photo storage.

  On Sunday, Dharma jogged back to her mother’s old place. Her id let her into the grounds, and she walked through the garden. There was nobody else around, so she picked some of the geraniums, and jogged back home. The last time she’d come it had been a Saturday, so perhaps Patience didn’t work on Sundays.

  Dharma decided that she liked the distance, the amount of time she’d spent in the fresh air. It scared her less this time that she had been outside for more than two hours, where the air wasn’t tested or cycled, and where she had no opportunity to walk through a wipe.

  When she got back to her building, she walked just once through the wipe into the lobby. Then she jogged up to her apartment, where she showered and changed. The geraniums went into a cup of water.

  She had
never had flowers in the apartment before. She put them in the middle of the table where she ate, and then adjusted their position so that the light fell on them, shining through the purple blue petals and showing how fragile they were.

  The first geraniums she’d brought home hadn’t lasted overnight. They’d been held too tightly for too long, and hadn’t been put in water. She hoped she’d be able to look at these in the morning, during breakfast.

  Tomorrow was going to be a big day for Dharma. Tomorrow she was going to get in touch with her cousin.

  “Blythe Dole,” she said. “Blythe Dole and Dharma Tuke.” The names sounded good together.

  Thirty-nine

  Charity could hear the ringtone as she held her breath. It sounded too loud, and was going on for too long. She counted the rings, and for a split-second she thought he wasn’t going to pick up.

  “Hello, Charity,” said Pa.

  “Morning, Pa. Are you up? I hope I didn’t wake you?”

  “I was just thinking about going downstairs to make your mother a cup of tea…”

  Charity waited through the pause. Pa was coming to a realisation.

  “Charity,” said Pa. “You could’ve just knocked on my door if you wanted to speak to me… It’s early, but you can always knock.”

  “Sorry, Pa,” said Charity. “I couldn’t knock on your door.”

  “Why? What’s the matter? Are you ill? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s time for you to pop downstairs and make a cup of tea,” said Charity. “You’ll probably want to pee first, too. I’ll ring you back in five minutes… I’m totally fine, Pa… Promise.”

  Charity hung up.

  Pax didn’t wait to pee; he went straight to Charity’s room. He tapped once, opened the door and looked in.

  “Faith!” he shouted.

  Sage was on the landing, outside the box room door before Faith had pulled on a robe. “What’s the matter, Pax?” he asked. “You sound…”

  “Run down and check the rest of the house… The garden, too,” said Pax. He was standing in the middle of Charity’s empty room, still holding his phone in his right hand, his left clutching his head. He had no idea what the hell was going on.

  Sage ran down the stairs and Faith walked along the landing. She saw that Charity’s door was open and popped her head around it.

  “Oh, Pax,” she said. “What’s all the fuss about?”

  Sage shouted from the bottom of the stairs, “She’s not down here.”

  Pax was shaking when he hit the button to dial Charity back.

  Charity jumped when the phone rang.

  “Do you want me to go?” asked Able, half-standing from his seat at the kitchen table.

  “Don’t you dare,” said Charity. She took a deep breath, and answered the phone.

  “Charity! Where are you?” Pa’s voice was higher and louder than usual. He didn’t sound angry, exactly, but he was clearly worried and upset.

  “Pa, I’m fine. Honestly. I couldn’t be better. Everything’s all right, I promise you.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Pa’s voice had lost none of its urgency.

  “Your stuff is here, but you’re nowhere to be found. This isn’t a big house, Charity, so where have you gone? What have you done?”

  “It’s better this way,” said Charity.

  “I think I’ll decide what’s best. And what’s best is that you tell me exactly where you are, right now… I wouldn’t mind knowing the why of it, either.”

  “I’m with Able… You remember Able?” said Charity.

  “The boy? How are you with the boy…? Why are you with the boy?”

  “Able, Pa. His name’s Able. I’m only a couple of streets away, and I’m safe… I promise I’m safe.”

  “How did you get out of the house? How did you get a couple of streets away? What are you talking about, Charity?”

  “We’ve been talking for a long time, me and Able. We were at school together, and then we got to know each in the group chats, and one thing led to another. We’ve been together for months.”

  “How can you be together?” asked Pa. “You’ve been with us.”

  “I’ve been living with you,” said Charity, “but I’ve been talking to Able. We love each other, Pa.”

  “That’s no excuse… You need to be with us… You’re a child.”

  “I’m not a child. You can’t be a child and live through the Deluge… It grows you up,” said Charity. “Pa, I have to be with Able. He doesn’t have anyone else. They took his dad away on Sunday… Hazmat. His dad died, Pa, and he doesn’t have anyone else. It was just the two of them, and now it’s just me and Abe.”

  Pax sighed. “That’s terrible,” he said. “I’m sorry for the boy… I really am. He can be looked after… There are places he can be looked after.”

  “He’s eighteen. He’s an adult. He has to look after himself. They expected him to stay here, on his own, and look after himself. He needs me, Pa,” said Charity, “and I need him.”

  “Your mother wants to speak to you,”

  “Charity, darling, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mum. I’m with Abe.”

  “Yes, I heard some of it. I wish you were here with us, Able, too, if he needs to be.”

  “You’ve already got a houseful.”

  There was a pause on the line.

  “Mum?” asked Charity.

  “We didn’t drive you away, did we?” asked Faith. “I’d hate that.”

  Charity could hear tears in her mother’s voice.

  “No, of course not. I love you… I love all of you. I just need to be with Abe. It means that Sage and Verity can have the box room for the baby. Pa can have a new project, setting up a nice nursery.”

  “You shouldn’t have left, Charity,” said Faith. “We’d have found room for the cot, for the baby.”

  “I know we would, but I’m where I need to be. You must understand that… Maybe not right now, but if you think about it, I know you’ll understand.”

  “I just love you so much,” said Faith, crying.

  “It’s your father,” said Pax, a moment later.

  “Hi, Pa,” said Charity. “Look after Mum… She’s upset.”

  Charity was crying too, tears running down her cheeks, but she was trying to sound cheerful. “Make yourselves a cup of tea. We can talk some more later. Honestly, Pa, I did the right thing… I did what you would have done. Love you.”

  Charity hung up again. She waited for a minute or two, looking at her phone, but it didn’t ring. She put it on the table.

  “Are you okay?” asked Able.

  “Of course I’m okay, said Charity, wiping away her tears, and smiling. “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

  Able got up from the table and went to her. The embrace was less clumsy this time, gentler. He kissed the top of her head, and smelled her hair.

  “I love you, Charity,” he said.

  “I love you too,” said Charity, “and I love that I’m here.”

  Forty

  “Are you getting coffee, today, or shall I?” asked Con.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s my turn,” said Blythe. “I’ll go now. Joy should be clear of the building.”

  “Okay.”

  A moment later, Blythe was out of the cubicle and Con could begin his search.

  +Address search: 131 ending SEd6+

  The screen showed only half-a-dozen matches. Con punched the air. He was fearful that there might be a lot more.

  He ran his eyes down the list, clicked on one of the addresses to save it, and went back to Constance Tuke’s birth certificate, with the address 131 Engleheart Road, Catford, SE6. He compared it to the saved address, which read 131/EgRcCT/SEd6. He didn’t know what the lower case ‘c’ represented, nor the lower case ‘d’, but the rest seemed to correlate. It was a leap of faith, but Con believed he’d found the right place.

  +Map of Catford in 2020+ he keyed in just as Blythe returned with coffee.

 
“What are you doing?” She asked.

  “Geography.”

  “Another one of your strange interests?” asked Blythe. “Like your fascination with nineteenth century novels?”

  “I’ve got a thing for old maps, right now,” said Con. He wasn’t lying. He’d hate to lie to Blythe. “All those years spent downloading school. I just can’t help myself.”

  “Well, good luck with that. I’ve got to check in with Mum. I still don’t know what to do about Dharma.”

  “You’ll work it out,” said Con. “At least you’ve started a relationship with her. She knows you’ve got limited computer access. I’m sure she’ll be patient.”

  “Thanks, Concord. You’re a pretty decent person, you know?”

  “I did know, but it’s nice to know you see it too. Now, speak to your mother, before she starts to wonder where you are.”

  Blythe sat at her station, and opened her connection to her mother. It was going to be a very long thirty-five minutes. Her mother still hadn’t forgiven her for being so absent the previous week.

  +Address: 159/RhGcCT/SEd6, closest match+

  The screen blinked and faded out. Only after several seconds did the map reappear, zoomed in on a smaller area. Con could see several streets, with names written along them. He scanned for anything beginning with an R that also had one of the other letters in the name.

  “Rushey Green,” he said.

  Blythe turned her chair to face him.

  “Now you’re just saying random words.”

  “I just thought it was an exciting place name.”

  “You’re weird,” said Blythe.

  “Not the first time you’ve told me that,” said Con, smiling.

  If only she knew.

  He opened his connection to Dharma.

  +Catford… I think we live in Catford. I think my office address is 159 Rushey Green, Catford SE6. I believe the current address for 131 Engleheart Road, Catford is 131/EgRcCT/SEd6. Both addresses are in the same district. I could go and look at the location!+