At the Edge of the Game (13 page)

Griffin is also
jabbering.

‘So there’s
Tommo with me, at the gates of the park, ready to shoot at anything that moves.
I did not turn my back on him, believe me. So there was this dog in the snow,
slipping along with the paws sinking in. ‘I’ll plug him,’ Tommo says. Away he
went, blazing, but the dog got away. So the next thing he turns around and
looks at me. ‘You pointing that at me?’ he says. ‘No,’ I says. ‘Lower that
gun,’ I says, reasonable as I can. ‘So you can plug me?’ ‘No,’ I says.
‘Traitor,’ he says. He pulls the trigger and nothing happens. He’s emptied the
mag at the dog. So he grabs another mag, and just as he slams it in I shoot
him. Down he goes, dead in a second. So now I’m under arrest. No more loyal or
honest a man in this unit, and I’m the one in here, and me wife and kid already
thrown out into the snow. They’re out there now in the cold with nothing. Jaysus,
what am I to do?’

He’s weeping
again. If only I could drift, at least sleep, perhaps drift even further. The
time comes when Griffin is asleep again, but even now I can’t drift. At least,
not in the way that I wish. ‘I need someone who can hold his own against other
people,’ she told me not so long ago. It was an argument about why I had
returned home without some of the things on her list. I wonder where she is
now. The luminous backbone of the sky arcs northwest, and the further Local
Group spirals wheel around each other like cottongrass seedlings on the wind. I
think of the old telescope in that newly discovered room upstairs, of how good
it would be to see the finer detail of the sky, and I turn and see that there
is no such stairs, only bare wall where I remember it being.

Where is Helen?
I want to ask her exactly what she meant. I can’t remember her leaving, but she
is nowhere to be found in the apartment. I’m alone here, suffering one of these
frightening spells during which my memory fails, I lose my past, and sometimes,
so it would seem, conjure surprising adjuncts to reality. I am trying to stay
calm, to maintain control of my senses, to breathe steadily, but I can’t see
Helen, can’t summon her face in my mind. Were my feelings for her not so much
part of me, I would be sure she also was a construct of my damaged imagination.

I hear harsh
voices in the corridor outside. Someone wants to get in here. Is it Helen? A
bolt slides and the door hinges groan. It is cold in here, and an even colder,
fresher draught sweeps in now.

‘Stand up,’
says Victor.

Griffin does as
he is told. Victor’s gaze on the red-eyed, shrunken man is a death sentence.

‘The verdict?’
The voice stabs at hopefulness, misses.

‘Guilty.’

‘Victor, why
does it have to be like this?’

Victor shoves
him into the corridor, and he’s grabbed by someone else. Now Victor turns his
attention to me.

‘You said your
sympathies lie with us.’

His eyes are
bloodshot, dark-hooded. I see now that he is older than I had thought, pushing
fifty.

‘Answer me. You
support our cause?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re two men
down now. We need a man. Can you do it?’

‘What?’

‘Answer. Can
you fight?’

‘Yes.’

He draws up the
butt of his rifle and I fall back into the corner. He stands over me. I stare
at his heavy boots, expecting a kicking.

‘I could shoot
you now.’

I squeeze my
eyes shut.

‘You’ll have to
do. Come with me.’

I follow him out
the door, through the red-lit corridor, into the candle constellation’s steady
field of influence. Women are gnashing teeth at the foot of the escalator.
Children linger bewildered around their legs. Some men are also standing there,
stolid and armed.

Victor is angry.
‘What are you waiting for, you bastards? Get out there.’ He pushes me towards
them. ‘Give him a gun and ten rounds.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Wait. Don’t
give him the ammo till we get outside.’

The gun is
heavy, heavier than it looks. It must be the hunger. Victor gives me another
push forward.

‘Stay with them,’
he says.

At the entrance
of the shopping centre more men are laying upon the bank of snow piled up close
to the doors, like men in a trench in World War I. In fact rather more like an
Ypres trench that one might have expected, since the snow is melting. The
toecaps of their heavy boots are dipped in meltwater. The word trenchfoot comes
into my head. Their heavy coats are soaking wet. The air is warmish at the
doors, a stiff breeze from the south with the inevitably false promise of
spring. They have Griffin there. ‘Come on, lads,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to
do this.’

‘Sorry, Griffin.
Orders is orders.’

‘I’m one of you,
lads.’

‘Sorry, Griffin.’

‘Hey, don’t talk
to him,’ says Victor. ‘Go and get it done. Now.’

Three of them
push Griffin up the unstable slush bank and down Grafton Street until they are
out of sight. A gun is fired twice.

 ‘Harsh but
fair,’ says Victor. He takes my gun and rams a magazine into it. ‘Ten rounds,’
he says. ‘Use them well.’ He calls a man called Clancy to him. ‘Here’s our
picket. Show him where to go.’

‘Right, boss.’

Clancy drags me
across the sucking, liquefying snow to a foxhole, and shoves me into it. It
contains a layer of cold water that immediately seeps through to my feet.

‘They’re going
to attack, so keep your fucking eyes open. You see anyone,
anyone
, you
fucking shout back to us. Don’t waste your fucking ammo either. Use it if you
have a clear target. And don’t think about running. We’ll have you in our
sights. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t let us
down. Don’t let your fucking country down.’

Now I’m alone,
hungry and light-headed kneeling in icy water. I can hear their voices over
there. I know they’re watching me. I’ve got to keep watch or Clancy will be
back. The sun slides along the rooftops, slips below. Dusk is verging into
night. Through broken cloud the moon is visible, and a few stars. In a clear
expanse at the zenith I see a swift speck, a satellite or space station in low
orbit. Also a turning, dipping indistinctness that comes slowly into focus as
my eyes find their range. The form fixes, alights on a bare tree. A bird, alive
in spite of all this.

Neck and
shoulders hot with lactic fatigue. I twist and turn, trying for any position
that will relieve the pain, but nothing works. Jaw starts to stiffen, and I
sense that my teeth could grind to nothing. Fight it down. I retch, and nothing
comes up. Perhaps the bile would freeze in my throat.

Could I run for
it, last throw of the dice? Is it dark enough yet? In a few minutes surely it
will be too dark and I can crawl to the gates of the park.

They should
have realised I am not a soldier. How can they expect me to do these things, to
fire guns, to thrust a bayonet into a warm body and twist? I have no quarrel
with the aurochs. I only want to stay and be with Helen. She needs me now more
than ever before. When they send me up the Wall, who will be there for her? We
have no one else in the Far and Near Cities, nor in the Cylinder.

Click.

A soldier is
standing over the foxhole. He’s going to shoot.

‘Don’t!’

Throw the gun
away, fling it with both arms past his laced-up boots. The dark is broken with noise,
red and yellow flashes. I’m dead. No pain. It was easy after all.

But no, not me.
The soldier topples back like a felled tree. Blood soaks through snow.

Know what I
must do. Is this courage? Start belting for the park gates. Made it. Keep low.
Bullets flying.

Dozens of army
men moving forward, shooting. Something blows up. Shouting and crying.

Quick now, duck the
way along the wall, away from the lunacy. Get away from here. Leave them to
their fight.

I didn't see
much of the old man for a few days. He spent his time inside the Unquiet
Spirit, and I felt that I shouldn't disturb him. In that time, Cat and the
alien triped became friends, and were regularly to be seen together running
along the beach, climbing trees, sunning themselves. I had seen the old man
feeding the alien some berries from the food supply I had given him, so I stuck
with these. The creature suffered no ill effects, and did not go hungry. Cat
showed it the stream where we obtained our fresh water, but it seemed equally
at home drinking the sea water.

Dexter
emerged from seclusion looking better than before. He showed some interest in
hearing of my own interstellar journey, and of the modest discoveries I had
made over the year on earth. I recounted it all to him during the course of the
morning. He showed no inclination to tell me of his and Brinnilla's
discoveries. I wasn't quite sure at the time whether he was evading the
subject, or if it simply bored him. He told me to check the ship's records if I
was curious about what they had discovered, yet he made his own suggestion
impossible to follow by constantly refusing to give me the password to the
ship's systems.

Eventually
Dexter gave in to my pleadings for a proper tour of the Unquiet Spirit. The air
from outside had at last made some impact on the overpowering stench in the
ship. He took it up on a brief circuit of the bay. I saw my home properly from
the air for the first time, saw the smooth crescent of dark beach curve from
headland to rocky headland, the many-hued fronds of the dense kelp forest
waving in the transparent, shallow sunlit waters of the bay. In the midst of
the kelp, almost completely obscured, was the dark, now inert shape of my ship.
The ship’s Core had finally died three months before Dexter arrived, when the
sea water penetrated at last into the heart of the vessel.  

Dexter gave
me a lesson in how to fly the Unquiet Spirit, which turned out to be quite easy
to do. All you needed to do in most circumstances was tell the computer where
you wanted to go. However, he quickly became bored and irritated with my
questions. He cut the lesson short by giving me the system password and
permission to take the ship up on my own. I flew about fifty kilometres out to
sea, and discovered that my island was one of dozens in a Pacific cluster. On
the way back I saw two huge blue-grey whales, which surfaced and dived
repeatedly, creating great waves that died as broken lines of white foam. This
was rather intriguing, since the last species of whale had been declared
extinct a century before I was born.

I felt that
I should return to the bay before Dexter started to fear that I had crashed his
ship. As it transpired, I needn't have worried. Flying low over the habitat, I
saw him stretched out on the beach, Cat sprawled across his lap. He liked Cat,
though his dislike of the triped seemed to have intensified. The noise of the
engines scared Cat, who ran into the forest. I landed the ship on the patch of
beach that the thrusters had marked when Dexter first landed.  

‘We should
have stayed on Earth,’ he said that evening as we roasted crab on a campfire on
the beach. ‘We left our daughter behind.’

‘You had a
daughter? I didn’t know. How old was she?’

‘Oh, very
young. Too young to remember us.’ His old eyes were bright in the dancing light
of the fire. ‘My sister was to raise her as her own when we were gone.’

‘What
possessed you to abandon your own child?’

‘You must
realise we were young. We were both the children of wealthy families. Each of
us was all the other needed. We were held together by a bond I cannot hope to
explain to you.’

‘A bond
that didn't encompass your child.’

Ancient
Helen, in such contrast, felt joy at the birth of her child, even in the
appalling circumstances in which it occurred.

I went into
labour on the second day, George. The doctor helped me, but he doesn’t speak
English. Daisy helped too, and she’s been very good to me. But the ship went
into a storm, and it was terrible, the cold, and the waves hitting the side of
the ship. But our little girl was born. I felt happy. We still thought we’d be
safe.

  ‘Great
adventurers had distinguished both our families. We wanted to bring that glory
to our generation. We were the first interstellar explorers. From what you say,
we succeeded in our aim.’

‘But you left
your daughter.’

‘I hate
myself for it. Had you any children of your own?’

‘I could
not in good conscience bring a child into the world as it was when I left. The
ice was spreading again. Populations were being driven towards the equator. Nations
were disappearing. There were wars, famine, storms. It was chaos.’

‘You were
like me – one of the privileged,’ Dexter said.

‘But that
was no longer protection enough by the time I left Earth. I had a home in
Lagos, where the Vicissitudinale was built. The last I heard of it, it had been
occupied by refugees from the north. It’s so different on Earth now. It was
good luck to get back here in the middle of an interglacial period… Do you mind
if I ask you something personal?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Would you
live your life again differently, given the chance?’

‘I wish I
had never left Earth. I lived a worthless life, and so did my wife. Much as I
love her, I can't deny it.’

‘But you
are proud of what you've achieved, aren't you?’

‘I try not
to be proud.’

‘You feel
the need to atone.’

He looked
at me, and then flung his food into the fire. It hissed and spat. Cat sat up
and looked around. The triped slept on.

‘I didn’t
mean any offence,’ I said, not understanding his anger.

‘I could
fly out of here tonight and never come back.’

He stood up
and walked away into the darkness. A little later I heard the door of the
Unquiet Spirit slam shut with a metallic clank.

Fall through wet
snow, off-balance like a drunk. There’s never been cold like this. Lights in
Ranelagh windows. No one out of doors. Far-off sounds of shooting. Cheap
fireworks. Don’t go to town, people. Stay at home. Wading through black canal
melt, it sparked brainstem instinct never before sparked. Fear of serpents. Genetically
engineered polar crocodiles it would have to be, but try telling that to
brainstem cells, or my legs when they get chewed off.

Lights on in the
house. Helen. Fall against the door, call to her. No good trying to knock with
dead hands. Thank God, thank God, she heard. Front door swings. Fall onto hall
carpet. Getting snow everywhere. It’s not Helen. A man – wrong house? No, right
house. Forgot about him. Always here, he is. Go away bastard. Helen yelps like
a dog. So hot here. Flames in the fireplace shall certainly melt lead. She’s pulling
off my boots, coat, all my clothes. Stop, won’t be naked in front of him. But
does his bit too, brings more clothes and blankets, boils water. Shock,
exposure, pneumonia, hypothermia… is there a hyperthermia? Suppose there is,
and if they don’t put that fire out maybe I’ll die of that. Have prepared a
statement to this effect, but seized-up throat lets me down.

Don’t cry,
Helen. Really. There’s no pain. Can’t feel anything much. Hate to see you
suffer like that over me. Wouldn’t want to put you through that. Is good to
have you rub my arms, chest, legs. Can’t feel any of it, but is good. A sign of
love? I think so.

Suitcases and
bags against the wall. We going somewhere? Just got here. Need to rest. TV’s
on… but that needs electricity. Stupid me, the lamp is on too. Blazing light
bulb of significant wattage. A scruffy man reading from a sheet of paper. Is it
the news? Turn it up - can’t hear.

‘…strikes
against…’

Heathshade’s
talking over it. Shut up, no one cares what you think, cretin. Listen.

‘…driving back
Free State forces…’

What’s that?

‘…no ordinary
citizen need fear…’

No, don’t switch
it off. Don’t –

Breath exhausts
from lungs and I can’t get more. Help. Help me up. Help.

The fire is to
fading embers. So unnecessary, even those. It’s too hot in here. The spewing
sun’s radiation penetrates the glass, hurts my face. The window has an inside
coating of droplets that roll down, trailing, pooling on the sill. I think of
the carriages of a steam train, beads of hot water pushed sideways by the air,
pistons and gears and wheels working. The snow has not all melted yet. Bits of
it slide down the outside of the glass, refreshing white sorbet. Looks like a
summer sky out there. I’m parched, and sorbet or anything of that ilk would be
so good.

It comes back at
once. The shooting, the bodies, the blood, the shouting.

Scumbags. Worthless
fucking scumbags. I hope they were all gunned down and picked apart by the
gulls. That’s the world they chose. No comeback for them now. No complaints.

Strange I didn’t
fall to pieces. Found refuge in the rich detail of the city architecture, the
immensity of the Falls, the desolation of the desert, the dark mass of the
Cylinder, the taste of the air, bathed in the early morning rays of the Far
City sun in our lofty apartment.

Enough of that. I’ll
suffocate in here soon. Where are you, Helen? All is quiet. Like when you wake
up as a child and you go down to the scary, empty, dark downstairs. Flashing
specks in my vision. Got to my feet too quickly. Grasp the side of the chair,
stumble past suitcases by the door. The hallway is fresh and cool. The floor
has a film of ice-cold water, seeping in through the front door. Don’t care.
The stairs creak as I climb, and the landing is bright. Helen is asleep in our
bed, lightly sighing in fairly close sync with the tapping on the sill. I open
the window, let wash in the fresh breeze. Contrail high above, comet head
moving west, cutting the sky in two. But turbulence soon spreads it into fading
filaments, and slowly over minutes the sky is restored to perfect smoothness.

The moment
arrives when the invigoration of the outside air changes to the first
intimation of chill. A gust sweeps over the rooftops at the other side of the
road, the north side of the road, shaking the few protruding black branches of
the bare tree directly opposite. I notice wisps of cirrus cloud towards the
northern horizon where there were none before. They tumble south in
high-altitude current. I shut the window as quietly as I can.

She opens her
eyes, raises the blankets and pulls me down to lie beside her. This is the
antidote, the only one.

‘I thought you
were dead.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What happened
to you?’

‘The IRA - they
had me locked up.’

‘How could you
be so stupid, George? I have to rely on you.’

There’s no
sense in arguing. ‘You’re right.’ Yes, a good strategy, because now she is
kissing me.

‘I thought I’d
lost you.’

A revving engine
outside heralds the arrival of my uncouth nemesis. A bipping car horn taps out
a tattoo. Carbon monoxide laces the air.

He sees me
looking out and gives a wave, slamming shut the door of a big ruby jeep. I’ve
seen it before. Belongs to a man who lives around the corner. If he’s still in
one piece he’ll have no problem tracking it through the snow to us.

‘You’re up and
about, then.’ He slaps my back in the hallway. ‘Is Helen about? I’ve got us our
transport.’

Helen glances my
way. ‘We were talking about leaving the city,’ she says.

‘We need wheels,’
he says.

‘Leave the city?’

‘Ain’t she
explained to you, George? I reckon my people in the UK will look after us. No
good staying here with all this trouble going on.’

‘We were only
talking about it,’ she says.

Heathshade picks
up the remote to turn on the TV. ‘Dunno about you, but as soon as the snow is
gone I’m out of here.’

The TV screen
shows static. He sits down and starts flicking. Static on all stations, except
one. Many uniformed men standing in an untidy, dark TV studio. Hanging from the
wall are a tricolour and a blue banner showing a gold harp. One man stands to
the fore reading from a sheet of paper.

‘Who’s he?’ says
Heathshade.

‘…let there be no
doubt that we will prevail.’ He has a rural but refined accent. ‘In Dublin and
in the provinces the traitors are being defeated…’

A man in
handcuffs, cuts on his face. He’s shoved in front of the camera. A familiar
face. Victor!

‘This man is a
traitor,’ says the speaker.

‘That’s the guy!’

‘Quiet,’ says
Heathshade.

‘He and his type
would sit in judgement on the rest of us, tell us what Irishness is. Traitors
will be dealt with using the greatest force of law. Treason is punishable by
death.’

Victor is taken
away. Mirroring this, I lead Helen by the elbow into the hallway.