Solomon's Keepers (15 page)

You hear her shout and the dull sound of a strike. Stocky stiffens for an instant and then is sliding away. The girl replaces him, silhouetted in the flames, the bloody machete in her hand following his slow, sliding progress to the ground.

‘Are you all right?’ she says softly.

The shoulder is sore but moves freely. The cloth of your shirt has burned.

‘I’m okay’.

‘The other one went.’ She waves the machete behind, he went there. We must go now.’

She takes your hand and draws you to her. ‘Thank you, whoever you are. You saved my life.’ She leads you away across the clearing. ‘Come…come with me.’

She walks ahead and finds an invisible path into the jungle. You follow in her footsteps, weaving amongst the touches and textures of the forest as they block, then brush and finally bare the secret route that meanders amongst them. The firelight is quickly gone and only the faintest moonlight breaks through to sketch a cathedral window high amongst branches and leaves. She finds your hand to guide you through dense shadows. The sounds of the jungle have returned. Then the path slopes down and leads by natural steps to a pool. The branch of a tree points the way down and provides a hand rail. The bark is powdery, smells of cinnamon. She slips out of her dress and walks naked into the water. ‘Come,’ she says, ‘come with me.’ There is just enough light on her body to raise a shine that bleeds into widening ripples as she wades out and down. You watch for several seconds, and then pull off your boots and discard your clothes. The night air is fresh on your skin and the water warm as it climbs your legs. You walk out to her and she turns and holds you, scooping water to gently wash your shoulder. Your hands slip around her waist. You feel the touch of her belly, her breasts, as you hold one another tight.

‘Are you ok?’ you whisper, but she captures your question in a kiss.

The water is a waistband. There is warmth above and beneath. The moonlight winks and a heavy drop of rain smacks a broad leaf nearby. A few random flinches of foliage become a two-step and then a fusillade. The forest hisses and the hiss becomes a roar. Her lips broaden to a smile but stay connected in the kiss. Together you sink down into the water until the surface is a collar. Your bodies twine beneath. The rain seems to be falling so far through galleries of leaves and steam to reach you, wet on your lips, slick on your scalp, beating its warm, irrelevant tattoo.

Eleven

Trigger and Woho are the main Escalon derivative supplements and they are getting a bad reputation. The manufacturers talk of harmless sugar-based tonics to keep the body primed for a demanding mental experience, the equivalent of taking chocolate on a hill walk, but the buzz on the web is they can give you a heart attack. The government has tried to ban them but everyone knows a street corner where you can buy a switch.

It hardly seems a month or two since the early advertisements for KomViva (remember when those snooty questions seemed original? Do you still brew your own beer? What would you rather be doing tonight? Then the first ones to carry the name: There’s a word for people who pleasure themselves: There’s a new word for people who don’t…KomViva!).

Now there’s a new show coming on Network One. They call it Sensomondo and they say you won’t need enhancers. Four individuals will be selected by the general public as the people whose sensations they most want to have, two girls and two boys picked out of thousands of applicants. The show will follow them in intimate detail as each one tries to outdo the others and then share their experience with the viewers. They think they will be the most voracious, passionate, sensitive and sensation-driven of the group. Don’t you wish you could be inside that body, feel what he’s feeling? Look at her! Listen to her tell you what it was like doing all those crazy things you’d always fancied doing. All of this series is a long preamble for the real thing. The winners will undergo the operation to enable them to deliver the coming additional KomViva service over Petanet. A new wave of helmet devices is going on sale. They hammer it home on all the right web forums and the blogs that Network One likes to use. There are discussions about the operation the Sensomandos will undergo, the risks, and some shallow science. This is reality entertainment and there have to be risks. It’s part of the deal. Will people go for it? A million each when they sign and to become the kind of celebrity this is going to create? You bet they will. It’s unique. What could they do? Vote for what you want them to do.

The advertisements stir up a predictable storm of complaint. KomViva has grown big but remains largely an illicit activity. This pushes it into the mainstream, into opposition. Even the church takes a line. KomViva threatens to violate notions of personal responsibility and encourages the worst forms of excess. The Bishop of London denounces it as a cocktail of prurience, schadenfreude and vacuous juvenility. No one knows what he is talking about but it sounds great! In the meantime the politicians are clucking about thousands of jobs. Quang Ji electronics announce they have shortlisted the UK for their European finishing and distribution complex for KomViva-branded equipment and a corroborating plot of several square kilometres of mud outside Slough has suddenly come out in a rash of digger tracks and perimeter fencing. The locals call it West Korea.

The opening programme and the first heat has a hundred youngsters and some not so young (but see how eager, how alive, and how full of compensatory zest) cavorting in the corridors of an anonymous conference centre, waiting to be summoned for their brief moment before the panel. How many ways are there to interpret the requirement to prove you deserve to be the nerves of the nation?

The opening shots confirm that this is for the most part a licence for insanity. Some of these kids appear to be stoned, wandering open mouthed from one reverent tactile encounter to the next; others are emoting as though in a primary school drama lesson or a silent movie; a minority watch and wait and keep their counsel. The camera lingers over one youth who has arrived naked and worked up an erection with which he is introducing himself to every female. It only takes a few approaches before the instinct to recoil is overwhelmed by the opportunity to perform. This dick has a camera behind it. Suddenly there are plenty of takers.

Inside the audition room the first candidate is answering questions. Every hopeful has submitted a ‘video info pack’ in order to be selected. This individual has been videoed while his friends turn his exposed torso into a human pin cushion. The finale is a close up of him having his tongue stapled to a card that reads yours fearlessly, Paul Cotton. Of course they show that. Of course they don’t put him through.

Next, a girl in jeans and a tee shirt (hasn’t she tried?) whose pack features a monologue to camera:

‘All my life I have been extraordinarily sensitive,’ she says, her blonde eyebrows wriggling even then at some unseen stimulus. ‘My parents often tell people that I have a sixth sense. I can always tell even before the forecast what it is going to do the next day – the weather I mean. When I was at school I suffered from hay fever that sometimes stopped me playing games. I used to sit inside and dream of playing with the other girls but I couldn’t. I just had to sit there and work. I realised that if I concentrated hard enough though I could be out there with them. One day I followed the whole game – it was hockey and I saw them score the goals. I was able to tell them afterwards who had scored and everything. You couldn’t see the pitch from where I was.’

There are three judges. The first in line is a small man with silver hair and a goatee. ‘Harriet, what sort of experiences would you like to relay to our subscribers?’ he asks, deadpan.

‘Oh anything,’ she says, ‘mostly though I would really like to help them experience beauty.’

They only put one through to the second round. He is a tough-looking man in his twenties. His video is ordinary but captures a genuine spirit of fun. It shows him in a restaurant with friends, kissing several women, windsurfing and riding a motor bike. I am a regular guy who knows how to enjoy myself, I’ve been doing a good job of that for myself and there’s not much I haven’t tried or wouldn’t try. I look after myself so that I am in good shape for anything….

The panel confers and then the silver-haired man says ‘Congratulations, you’re going through to the next round.’

The nascent people’s hero punches the air. ‘Yes!’ he mouths to camera.

Twelve

The washers on the rental car give out somewhere on the motorway and Eva watches the city gather around her through the twin arcs of a windscreen now misty with dirt and pureed insects. The traffic slows to a crawl and she sits under a painted intersection breathing smoke and dust through the open side windows and wondering whether it’s only men that produce graffiti: huge blocky names, hurried spray. The traffic picks up again. The railings skip by, measuring off the pavement. She finds the car park in the shabby footprint of a demolished high rise and parks the car in the far corner. The perimeter has a twelve foot wire mesh beyond which, through a gap between the buildings, she can see a wasteland of concrete, knee high with weeds.

A tall white van loops the car park and pulls up alongside. A young woman in a jade sari spills from the driver’s seat, tosses a rope of black hair and leans through the window. ‘I’m Sooya, I’m a friend of Jake’s, are you Eva?’ Her eyes run a quick tour of the inside of the car. Eva says Hi. A handshake is briefly a possibility but is awkward at that angle and turns into a scrabble for the door handle. Sooya steps back as Eva climbs out of the car.

‘Jake couldn’t come.’ Sooya says. ‘But he’ll meet us. You want to come with me?’

They step up into the van and Sooya drives off in a whirl of dust. Rap stutters and slithers on the stereo.

They climb a steep hill that makes something large shift in the back of the van. ‘Omnis,’ Sooya shouts over the engine. Got a delivery after you.’

They pull a few turns down rat runs of side streets and leave the towers behind for a suburban sea of houses. The urban ratio: one house, one dish, two vehicles, one wreck and several children.

Eva looks across at her driver. ‘So are you into KomViva too?’

Sooya is playing chicken with a driving instructor in a Japanese Mini. He cowers into a space behind a skip at the last minute as she sails unflinchingly past.

‘Oh yeah, sure. I got Jake into it. We distribute Network One Petanet gear. That’s what all that is in the back. Can’t get them fast enough.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘All wait-listed. Most people can’t get them for another three months. That’s what they keep promising. We’ll see. We have a few strings to pull.’

‘I’ve been trying. I just came over from Spain for a new job. No chance there. My flatmate saw Jake’s name on a forum and talked me into it, he said he’d cut the wait time and get me a set.’

‘You got the money?’

Eva’s confirmation is lost in the shriek of brakes as Sooya brings the van nose to nose with a jerking blacked-out pick up. She leans out of her window to shout at the driver and point. ‘You bloody blind or what?’ The only reply from the darkened interior of the cab is the bass that’s warping the door panels with a cartoon heartbeat. It waits for a moment and then gives in and reverses into a space ten yards behind. Sooya guns past. ‘Bloody kids. They think they own these streets. You wouldn’t even bother at night when they’re all stoned. Car’s probably stolen too. Never mind. They’ve all got K-sat.’

‘And they’re all on the waiting list?’

‘Round here? Every bloody one of them.’

Jake’s place is a new house in a partly built estate. There’s an army truck on blocks out front and a big Honda bike leaning against the wall in the driveway to one side. A small garden on two sides is enclosed by a high boarded fence. Except it isn’t a garden, it’s still a building site with a caravan and a collection of ramshackle sheds and containers that have acquired an air of permanence. The carved wooden sign at the door reads Anfield.

Jake looms darkly in the frosted glass. He is heavy and square and wears a black tracksuit and leather clogs. His eyes are a jostle of blue riding high in his big lardy face like children in the back window of a school bus. His hair is slicked back with gel, recently applied.

‘You’d better come in then,’ he says and turns a broad nylon back to Eva. ‘You’re in luck. We usually sell out the same day.’

Sooya calls out that she’ll see him later and Eva follows him inside.

The house is hot and smells like a launderette. Jake leads the way into a small sitting room and gestures at a maroon velvet couch which has backed several stacks of magazines against the wall. A small table with a complex pattern of rings stained on its surface holds an ashtray full of butts.

‘Scuse the mess. I’ve been busy,’ Jake says, lowering himself into a leather recliner. ‘Things have been going kind of crazy.’

Eva glances around the room. The mantelpiece over the fireplace holds a row of candles and a picture of a racing motorbike. A tousled white carpet lies like a dead sheep in the middle of the floor. A fig tree is trading leaves for dust in the corner. Behind Jake a large poster depicts a mountain climber suspended in a fiery sunset. The word STRIVE is printed across the bottom in large white letters.

Eva feels Jake’s eyes on her. She’s glad she has dressed casually in cotton chinos and an old washed silk blouse. She sits back, crosses her legs and pulls her bag towards her.

‘Been here long, Jake?’

‘I bought it two years ago new. This area’s on the up. Lots of building work now but give it another few years and…’ a pout of the lips finishes the idea.

‘Are you from round here, originally?’

He needs to think about that. ‘My Mam is.’

‘Right.’

Jake lights up and leans forward for an ashtray.

‘So what about you? Scientist, huh? Your English is good.’

‘Thank you. I’ve lived here a while, off and on. Family there, work here. The whole Woho thing is just kicking off in Spain now. I saw your advertisement and didn’t want to wait.’

Jake nods sagely. ‘Bet you didn’t.’

Eva smiles. ‘You still can’t find out a whole lot about it. Just the hype. Hence my chasing you.’

A wry smile lifts the free end of Jake’s mouth. ‘Started like that here. You had to be in the know. It’s all been very cleverly planned. There’re some very smart people behind this, very smart people.’

‘Is it alright to try out the service first? I haven’t used it before and if you wouldn’t mind…’

Jake leans forward to flick ash.

‘Right now? Yeah?’ Jake is poised for takeoff.

‘Yes, absolutely fine. I have the money here.’

Jake zips the envelope containing the cash into his tracksuit pocket and spreads his hands wide. ‘A drink to celebrate? I can offer you a special brew or…’

A very small one. I’m driving.’

Jake is carrying a large cardboard box. ‘De derrr!’ He says and thumps it into the dead sheep. ‘One Nandie for Madam. Trust me, this is the nuts. You can get stuck in straight away. It won’t do the full job until you’ve calibrated it but you’re eighty percent there anyway. You want to wear it overnight as soon as you can. Makes a difference.’

They squeak the polystyrene off and rip into the bubble wrap. The helmet comes up like a diver, a dome of silver with an angular pod at the front like a cowling over blind eyes. It reminds Eva of photos of embryos.

Jake pulls out some papers from under the helmet as it emerges. ‘Ignore all the bumf in here, it’s all in Chinese. He’s on his knees and a moment later a red pin prick glows in the front pod.

‘Auto test,’ Jake says. After a moment the pinprick goes green. ‘Ever see one of these with a flashing amber, it’s in use.’

Eva holds the pod in her hands. It’s heavier than she expects, weighted at the front over the forehead. The shell is plasticky and slightly soft. When she turns it over the inside is lined with tiny spines like a wire carpet.

‘Never mess around with the villi inside, they get enough crap on them as it is and then you have to clean them up. Won’t break if you drop it but you don’t want to shake it too much and don’t wrench the cable. It’s hard sometimes to remember you’re in it when you get going. You’ll see what I mean.’ Jake plugs a jack into the back of the helmet.

‘So is that it. Am I ready to go?’

‘You want to read that stuff and do the practice routine a couple of times. You just hit the green button with the one on it, here, to go. Keep it in your hand and press this one, feel the O on it, there, when you’re done. I’ll leave you to get sorted. You all right in here?’

Eva says fine.

‘I’ll be around. I’m in the kitchen when you’re done. Take a break after the first practice and use the lav before you know you need to. In case you think I’m being previous, I’m not.’

Eva slips on the helmet and drags it over her ears. It feels tight around her skull but leaves her jaw free. Her scalp tingles. She can see and hear nothing.

She presses the go button.

Jake watches her feet start to move. She does what everybody does and lets her arms float out like wings. He knows exactly where she is as she suddenly clutches her chest and her legs kick out together.

‘Let’s get started,’ he sings to himself. ‘Enjoy the view.’

Eva is panting when she tears the helmet off. The switch in her hand is damp but she grips it like her last handhold on life. Her head is sweating and her hair is matted slick to the back of her neck.

‘Christ! I don’t believe this,’ she mutters through short breaths. She is back in her own body, back on firm ground, back in the little sitting room at Jake’s. She has slipped on to the floor and sits with her back pressed against the settee. She looks around the room, relieved to find she is alone. She runs her palms over her hair and shakes it free. Her hands are trembling, her insides jangling but settling slowly, her heartbeats like knives dropping in a drawer. She hasn’t smoked in two years but now she needs a cigarette and pinches one from Jake’s pack. She jiggles one into her mouth, jiggles it alight. She blows the plume of smoke out and it pulls a loud laugh behind it. ‘That was…’ What was it? A smile breaks out on her face. She can’t help herself. ‘…unreal. That was so great!’

Jake’s head appears around the door. He catches her grin. ‘Enjoy the jump?’

She holds out her hands and laughs out loud. ‘I just can’t believe that. I mean…it really happens. It is real. I did it. I bloody jumped off that…Shit, what would’ve happened if I’d waited?’

Jake is enjoying watching her. There is pride on his face, a told you so look and welcome to the club. Yes it is something else. No, you can’t tell anyone. They never get it. You just have to try it.

‘You’ll find out next time. It’s okay. You’ll like it.’

Eva looks at him and thinks for a moment. It has been so real that it hasn’t occurred to her until now that everyone would have the same experience. That body, those moves, the view over the cliff edge. Everyone gets the same. Jake had done it, she could do it again, and again. Not remember it or ‘relive it’, by which people just meant putting your back into remembering it, but really do it again.

‘I need to use your loo.’

‘There aren’t many people who make the landing first time,’ Jake is saying. ‘I suppose that’s why they do that. Sort of make you take a short sharp shock to begin with. You need to know, it needs to know, how you handle getting shit scared. Well, and other things.

‘How long was I up there? In there?’ She looks at her watch.

‘About five minutes,’

‘And how long is the live thing?’

‘An hour, hour and a half maybe.’

‘And you get through that do you?’

‘Oh yeah. Wouldn’t miss a minute. You’ll be the same, I guarantee you.’

‘It’s just so weird. The whole thing is just so weird. And being a man! I mean…’

‘You wait till you use it.’

She watches him laugh and laughs with him. This is the most breathtaking, fantastic and unbelievable thing she has ever done. It isn’t just going to be big; it is going to be huge.

‘Come on, I want to do another one. What do you recommend?’

‘You like boats, the sea?’

She’s not sure about the look he gives her. She says yes anyway.

First the smell of fish rotting in water and then the cold hard weight of the metal around your neck. It’s a collar and someone is jerking it. Metal links chatter ahead of you leading upwards. When you move they chatter behind, below. A metal wall echoes but your feet are on creaking steps, wood grain on your bare soles. You’re holding a rope banister and the stairway is steep, the heat and sweat from many bodies rushing upwards to a square of sky and seagull shrieks in open air.

The chain snatches and you move together, a jangling centipede spiralling layer by freshening layer towards the air.

Light fountains downwards over nakedness; bloods the many tones of black skin, finds you and your pallor. The last turn brings a dazzling square of sky overhead and you stand in a shaft of dancing dust.

A face leans into the daylight. ‘Move it. Get on with it.’

You step out on deck into screams of circling gulls, into sun and a salt breeze like bleach in your eyes. The fat man breathes putrid meat in your face and jerks you off the step as he has each one before you. It’s an old container ship. To one side stands the bridge, a tower of flaking white paint, misty windows and rusted rivets; the other way the windings and suspensions and clutter of the foredeck; an anchor chain tangled in ropes, scuffed boat bellies under blistered davits and, eventually, the prow pointing to open sea. Ten naked men strung across the deck on a line; limber, scrawny bodies, smooth but for shaggy heads tossing and pubes like forgotten rosettes.