Graft (23 page)

Roy savours Sol's puzzled expression and pulls an imaginary zip across his lips. “Yellow brick road's over here,” he says. And together they head for the entrance door.

“Password?” the grate asks.

“Milk organ.”

Sol blinks.

The door opens. “After you,” Roy says.

Sol edges in. A man in nothing but his boxer shorts greets them with gibberish, holding out his arms in shapes from some mysterious sign language. He's covered head to toe in what might be Vaseline.

“Piss off,” Roy tells him.

The man totters, unbalanced. Sol skirts him, trying to come off casual.

Roy laughs. “Don't look them in the eyes,” he whispers, letting the warning take root. Then, as he pulls Sol through the players' tunnel and into the stadium proper – a grid of shanties crumbling in perfect formation – he says: “See? One of these could be yours.”

Sol watches his feet until they reach the Reverend's place.

A young woman opens the door and bows at them.

Roy waves in her face. “Is he in?”

A disoriented look. Then, “Yes, yes.” From the back comes the sound of running water. “Come,” she says. It's odd, the way she says it. “Sit, sit,” she adds, and Sol decides her invite owes more to learned custom than genuine hospitality.

The two men sink awkwardly into a deep leather Winchester. Legs touching. Beside them, an antique clock is ticking itself to death.

“Wife!” the Reverend shouts from the back. His voice echoes.

Sol shifts in the chair, tries to put space between him and Roy.

“Visitors,” she replies.

“What?” The man splutters and slops through the shanty. He appears in a towel that reveals his massive slipped gut, indecipherable green tattoos on each tumbling breast. “Royston!” he bellows. “Why didn't you
say
?”

“Evening, Rev,” Roy says. Sol thinks his voice is lower, more subdued.

“And who is
this
vision before me?”

“S–” starts Sol.

“–olomon,” Roy finishes. “Mechanic on the conversion job.”

“Oh, fabulous!” the Reverend booms. His eyebrows twitch madly. “How's the work progressing?”

“It's fine,” Sol says. “Fine.”

“Bless you. Bless your hands. I'll be sure to let our client know.” Then, to Roy: “So that being the case, what's the matter?”

“I've been–”

“Speak up, Royston!”

Roy clears his throat. “I've been a nob and lost something – that's all.”

“Lost… what? Should we worry?”

Roy shakes his head.

“What, then, pray tell?”

“My piece.”

An awkward pause. “But darling,” the Reverend says. “That was a present.”

“I know,' Roy says. “I know it was.”

The Reverend exhales through his nose. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

Sol realizes Roy is gripping the leather of the seat.

“Just… just wondered if you've got anything going spare,” Roy says. “I can't… you know.”

Sol tenses, too. Some power exchange is happening here; some latent fear worming out. Why, he can't be sure – the Reverend's overweight, clearly unfit. Eyes so small and close together it's a wonder he can actually see past his nose. Yes, he's brash, but there's something deeper.

“I hate to feel disappointed,” the Reverend says, looking at Sol. “It sits heavily in the shoulders, doesn't it?” He turns to his wife. “You'll have to rub it out, won't you?”

“Listen, Rev–”

The Reverend cuts Roy off. “Look at you two. Quite cute, really. Little schoolboys. And does your boyfriend have any thoughts on your forgetfulness?”

Sol stares. It takes a beat to register the Reverend means him.

“Yeah,” Sol says. “I mean it's a shame and–”

“A shame,” the Reverend cuts in. “Yes. That's about the sum of it. But the Lord teaches us to forgive. So that's what I'll have to do, isn't it? Now, do you break bread, Sol? Do you value that body which was given for our sins?”

“Probably not enough,” Sol says. “No.”

The Reverend's face twitches. “Come through, then, idiot-boy. Something can be arranged.”

The men stand awkwardly.

“Wife – you stay with him. No, no. The black one.” He slaps his chair next to her leg.

A lump swells in Sol's throat. He goes to apologize – instinct, maybe. But as he does, he looks between Roy and the Rev, and Roy looks so adrift and vulnerable – his eyes imploring Sol to say nothing more.

“Ought to start going out with spares, you forgetful clot,” the Reverend tells him, and a door closes. Sol hears the Reverend's muffled laughter, the dull sounds of drawers and heavy metal clanging.

Sol looks at the Reverend's wife. “You doing OK?”

The woman smiles thinly but doesn't hold eye contact.

He wills her to respond, to say anything. She picks at her sleeves – Sol thinks he can see bruises there, her skin polka-dotted.

“What's your name?” he asks, filled with a cloying sensation.

“Jovin,” she says.

“Jovin. And you're alright, aren't you?”

“I am–”

The far door bangs open and Roy shouts up the corridor: “Sol! Three-five-seven or nine mil? Auto pistol? Or a proper hand-cannon?”

“Christ,” Sol whispers. He massages his eyes with his fists. Jovin stays still. Hanging on her husband's grace –

Roy comes back into the room, a pistol held high. “
Jawohl!”
he shouts. “Mein new sidearm
ist ein classisch!
” He thrusts the gun under Sol's nose, forcing out a laugh. “Reconditioned
Luger!”
Behind him, the Reverend howls with glee.

“We've left her too long,” Sol whispers.

The Reverend's laughter crashes. “Her?” he asks, his wide face over Roy's shoulder.

“He's just being soft in the head,” Roy says backwards, waving the pistol. “Cheers for this though, man.”

The Reverend narrows his eyes and caricatures Jovin's bow. “A pleasure,” he says flatly. Then he pushes past to stand before Sol. “I suppose I'll look forward to hearing from a happy client, then. Goodnight and God bless.”

Sol glances at Jovin as he stands up. Her face is turned into the wall.

“Come on,” Roy says.

As they leave, the Reverend closing the door behind them, Sol catches the face of a business card on the doormat, two overlapping circles on its face.

They're some way down the street when Sol realizes what he's seen. He spins, sprints back, beats the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Roy hisses. “Don't!”

Two latches, a chain. The door swings. “What?” the Reverend asks, his face swollen with indignation.

Sol eyeballs the mat again. He has to be sure. He has to know. Is the Reverend a customer? Is he involved, somehow? Or was it simply audacious flyering?

There's nothing there.

“Thought I'd forgotten something,” Sol tells him.

The Reverend shakes his head, his bottom lip pushed out dismissively. “No,” he says. “You didn't.” And he slams the door.

N
aked
as the day they remade her, Y came through the darkness into the sister-world; emerged down a tunnel that bellowed rank-smelling disinfectant from both sides. Jelly rolled from her skin in butter curls, coagulated in gutters that lined the gangway. She breathed in through her nose: a reek of rotting animals.

At the end of the misting tunnel was a sign reading WATCH YOUR HEAD. Y wasn't tall enough to worry, but ducked anyway. She passed through a plastic strip-curtain into an area cooled by vented walls. Heavy-looking chains hung from the roof. Gears and industrial switches were mounted on mezzanine fixtures. When Y looked around, she saw more piles of trans-crates. There were so many that after a moment she stopped seeing anything else.

Indirectly, she knew this wasn't the same tower she'd entered. Something imperceptible had shifted, and she was aware she'd somehow been disassembled and reassembled with unknowable differences. Molecular shifts had taken place. Atomic, even. The tooth pendant had taken on a different colour – bluer, cleaner, and more abstract.

From nowhere, a bundle of rags was pushed into Y's hands. She glanced up and saw a suited figure sliding away. She looked at her hands. Underwear, top, pants. Y dressed herself there and then, still dripping, clothes dragging over wet limbs. The woollen top irritated her skin.

Away from the strip-curtain, the warehouse revealed itself. The crates were everywhere. There was movement between them – others dressed like her, more suited figures. Y watched a fork truck intersect a line of crates on the conveyor.

She felt lighter. To walk required much less effort – her limbs freer, less defined. Y followed the fork truck as it trundled back through the warehouse. She thought she could hear something clattering inside its loaded crate.

Ahead, a pair of depot gates yawned open. White-out. Y saw a large yard, floodlit and stark.

“Keep moving forward,” someone said. Instantly, people were flowing round her. Y almost broke into an amble, carried by the stream of new arrivals. Her feet seemed to hover.

“That's it,” the voice said. It was coming from everywhere. Everywhere. “Better,” it went on. “You'll be paired up shortly.”

And they were. Y found herself marching two by two – her partner a short, sparrow-chested boy with a rattling wheeze. He turned away whenever she looked at him, and sniffed relentlessly into his sleeve.

Y tried to take the boy's hand. She rubbed her little finger against the side of it. He didn't seem to react, though with some repetition his breathing seemed to calm.

By the entrance of the floodlit yard were two women with boxes. Each pair paused by the women, and closer she heard them speaking melodiously: “Headscarves for the girls, blousons for the boys.”

“Keep moving!” the omnipresent voice said.

Y and her young partner reached the women. She was given hers without a word – a headscarf shoved into her hands. But as Y took a step forward, meek in her way, the woman caught her arm and lifted the pendant clean from her chest. She had an illuminated patch over one eye that reminded Y of the harridan in the feeding chamber.

“What's your name, princess?” the woman asked.

Y pointed to her throat and rattled.

“Ah. Did he give you this himself?”

Y shook her head.

“Oh,” the woman said. “I've never seen one in the flesh. You must be liked. I saw him once you know – I saw him and he waved.”

Y swallowed. She didn't want to be liked. She didn't want to be anything to him.

“Don't look so frightened,” the woman said. “The scarf'll suit you. Just keep in mind that if you hear a buzzing from the heavens, you put this on. A big noise –
bvooom
– and on it goes. You're a refugee, you understand? It'll help. I know it'll help. They won't bomb refugee convoys. And they certainly won't bomb someone as treasured as you.”

Y's new headscarf was already dampening in her hands. Her mods ached. Ahead, she watched the boy take his shirt and murmur something numbly. A sadness was buried right down inside his eyes. What did hers look like? How did she appear to him? A broken vessel, an abandoned space?

Y turned back to the brothers and sisters behind; the pairs being nudged onwards.

“Take care,” the woman said, and smiled with such respect that Y went light-headed.

The air outside was bright and cold and stinging. Stepping into it, they were each seared white under the floods. Someone ushering them from the front. In the middle of the yard stood two towers of scrap metal that formed a sort of half-finished archway above. Each pillar had started to lean in, precarious, though still some way off touching. Green lines twinkled down from it, disorientating. Set against the clean steel and piano-gloss finishing of her cradle suite, this new environment collected together grotesque industrial sculptures that terrorized her senses. She walked between mechanical carcasses in the realm of a steel-king deposed. And along with the cold, a persistent sulphur smell repulsed her: left her imagining that an unutterable creature slept here, waiting. The dirt and the dark, the greasy surface underfoot… it was the antithesis of Y's cradle, those immaculate mansion lawns outside. Even the sun, that terrible sun, might be a friend here.

The scrap towers dropped the weirdest shadows across the facility around her. Everywhere she looked she found blackened spires: chimneys, pipes, cable, piles, gantries. Pools of standing water. And so many people in full suits, their faces obscured by elephantine masks. The crowding of it all overcame her, left her stricken with sorrow. It filled her with a perverse homesickness for the mansion, for what she knew of it. Being here, in the court of this alien palace, was worse than remoteness. It was total displacement. And though she clung to herself – her body an anchor – her true memories, those concealed from her, still occupied a stranger who was always a corner away.

The boy next to her was crying now. Clearly the landscape was getting to him, too. Y managed to loop a little finger over his, and together they saw long boxes being loaded with her brothers and sisters.

People had started shouting again when a man in a drab-green suit approached them. He had two black discs for eyes.

“Across the way,” the man said, breathing apparatus whistling. “Southbound trucks. But not you,” he added, motioning to the boy. “You're transferring north.”

Y looked over her shoulder. The tower loomed, its black outline superimposed on the blue. It was still there, and that should've been a relief. But now, she understood, it was no longer hers. Like her routines, she was leaving it behind to carry just one possession forward: a piece of the Manor Lord around her neck. A philosophy in microcosm, a constant reminder. Lest she ever forget.

He watched me. He said he was my father.