King of Morning, Queen of Day (54 page)

Case dismissed.

But it was still the Biggest Event of the Decade behind the lace curtains and vertical blinds of L’Esperanza Street. Until Elliot and his keyboards QWERTY boards rhythm generators synthesizers reel-2-reels CD cassette and record decks mixing desks amps mikes posters prints paintings and eighteen-gear Shinamo system ATB.

Elliot is good. Good enough to be able to do the bikes just three days a week. Good enough to be getting airplay on the FM stations; good enough for the nationwide network to have asked him to cut a session. Good enough to be the uncrowned King of Klubland, Master of the Warehouses, King of the Remixes; Doctor Jive. Even if sometimes Enye cannot hear the telephone.

She tells Jaypee she feels good.

That’s good to Jaypee. To hear his voice is like rolling up the years as if they were an old carpet to dance on the floorboards. He has News. Capital N news. Word is up, the skids are under the Blessèd Phaedra. Crossed Oscar the Bastard on policy decisions once too often. No one knows the exact nature of her transgressions, but Word is Up, So: QHPSL Advertising has a couple of jobs that it’s had to put on the metaphorical back burner because right now, dear heart, they’re up to metaphorical
here
and rather than lose accounts, they’re considering subcontracting. Interested, honey child?

She wishes science-fictiony things like videophones existed so Jaypee could see her smile when she says that
Actually,
she’s moving into another area of creative work entirely. Publishing.

Of course, Jaypee asks just what does she mean, but Enye does not want to tell him, not yet, that she posted the revised and edited and corrected manuscript of
The Secret Language of Flowers,
by Enye and Jessica MacColl, to a national publishing house two days ago. She tells Jaypee thanks, but she’s really not interested.

Keep in touch, says Jaypee.

She says she will try to, yes, more than try to, she will, and in her voice is a tone of sincerity that says that if they do not meet again it will not be for want of her trying.

Elliot comes bounding up the stairs, shaggy mane flying. He looks so good and fresh and spontaneous that she cannot resist pulling him into the bedroom with tiny squeaks and cries, throwing him down onto the bed and herself on top of him.

“That your mother again?”

“No. An old friend. From advertising days.”

He harrumphs. He likes to pretend he is jealous of her advertising friends.

“Oh, by the way, post.” It is a postcard, rather, a colour print, somewhat crumpled, with an address scrawled on the back. The message reads,
Love from
and the signatures are illegible. The photograph is of a blocky, thickset man of twenty-wise and a very pretty girl, age approximately ditto, wearing a denim jacket and a T-shirt with the legend “SunMed Capo Blanco.” They have a dog with them, a scruffy mongrel. It is jumping up and the man is holding its front paws off the ground, as folk will, with dogs.

“Who’s it from?”

“Oh, some folk I haven’t seen in a long time.” Then she lifts his hands and presses them to her belly. “Feel. Life. Elliot. Strong life. Feel it kick.”

Elliot loves to feel the baby move and stir within Enye’s womb.

“Feels like it’s going to be a pole vaulter, that one. A little street fighter. Feet that kick!”

“Oh, no,” Enye says. “A ballet dancer. She’s going to be a girl.”

“How can you so sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

She rises from the bed, goes to the midi system, clicks on whatever tape is in the deck. Sibelius Five. She crosses to the window, looks out at the garden where late spring is uncoiling from the earth like a slow, silent explosion. It seemed to take a long time to come this year, but it came. It always does.

“What do you think of Emily as a name?” she says.

“I
N FANTASY… ALL STORIES
must run to three volumes and include a mention of the Wild Hunt.”

—David Langford:
Mexicon III
Program Book

I
T’S A CHURLISH HUSBAND
who doesn’t dedicate his novel to his wife, so first and foremost, here’s to you, Patricia, for encouragement, and when encouragement didn’t work, stubbornness, and when stubbornness didn’t work, reminding me that I could actually do this thing called
writing.
A great debt of thanks goes to David Rhodes, for permission to plunder mercilessly our mutual childhoods (Percy Perinov lives!), and as inventor of the word
phagus.
Thanks also, and apologies, to the many people who without knowledge or consent may find themselves between these covers. Finally, to the Arts Council for Northern Ireland for awarding me a bursary during work on this novel, and all you nice people at Bantam, hope it was worth the wait: thanks.

Ian McDonald was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He used to live in a house built in the back garden of C. S. Lewis’s childhood home but has since moved to central Belfast, where he now lives, exploring interests like cats, contemplative religion, bonsai, bicycles, and comic-book collecting. He debuted in 1982 with the short story “The Island of the Dead” in the short-lived British magazine
Extro
. His first novel,
Desolation Road
, was published in 1988. Other works include
King of Morning
,
Queen of Day
(winner of the Philip K. Dick Award),
River of Gods
,
The Dervish House
(both of which won British Science Fiction Association Awards), the graphic novel
Kling Klang Klatch,
and many more. His most recent publications are
Planesrunner
and
Be My Enemy
, books one and two of the Everness series for younger readers (though older readers will find them a ball of fun, as well). Ian worked in television development for sixteen years, but is glad to be back to writing fulltime.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1991 by Ian McDonald

Cover design by Gabriel Guma

978-1-4804-3215-4

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com