The Forcing, page 7
It was a five-storey corner building with a dark-brown brick exterior and 1950s-style mouldings and windows. Above the double glass doors a name was embossed in brick: The Hamptons.
Argent whispered something to his wife and pushed her towards the door. She jumped to the pavement and hurried to the building’s front entrance. He grabbed his bag and followed her. The rest of us straggled behind, blinking in the mid-afternoon sunshine. I tried to take May’s hand, reassure her, but she pushed me away, stood staring at the building.
Argent stood outside the main entrance facing the rest of us. As the van rolled away, he opened his arms wide and smiled at us. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry if we got off to a bad start. I’m Derek. Might as well get to know each other if we’re going to be living together for a while.’
He thrust out his hand to me. ‘Sorry about all that back there,’ he said.
I nodded, shook. ‘Call me Teacher. This is my wife, May.’
His grip was strong. He looked to be about my age, perhaps a few years older, with thick grey hair combed up in a flamboyant pompadour, a square, clean-shaven face that exuded well-kept vitality, and those strangely luminescent glacier-blue eyes.
He greeted us each in turn, as if he were our host. We all took his lead, stood there on the pavement outside the building and introduced ourselves. Everyone was polite and shook hands. Kwesi and Francoise were the other couple. She was very pretty and had a French accent. He was built like a rugby player and sounded like he was from somewhere in Africa. The single guy was called Lance – Lan – from Seattle, quiet and polite. It was as if we were at a dinner party.
This Little Time-Bound Corner We Call Home
I sit at my writing desk and look out across the dark water. Cold starlight reflects across the bay. The first measures of day appear. Mornings are becoming progressively cooler now as the season turns. Fairweather Orion has disappeared for another winter, along with Rigel, my old companion. Aldebaran, the follower, has returned to the northern horizon, faithfully tracking the Seven Sisters across the skies. It’s not that far away, as stars go. Sixty-five light years. I was alive when the light I am seeing now started its journey. Not so Electra, whose present beauty is centuries old.
I can hear my wife working in the kitchen. It is Lewis’s birthday today, and she is baking him a cake. She rose early, as she always does, and got the fire going. Baking a cake in a wood-fired stove is not, I am told, a simple thing. Nor are the ingredients easy to come by. Later, I will grill up a beautiful dhufish the boys caught on their last trip out, throw in some garlic and thyme, some wild capers. We will top it off with fresh cornbread and green beans from the garden.
The kids will be coming over sometime after midday. It is important to mark these occasions, to punctuate the flow of time. To give thanks. To recognise our place in the universe and our responsibility to care for this little time-bound corner of it we call home.
11
The French woman’s name was Francoise Abachwa. She had long fair hair and wide-set hazel-green eyes that seemed to smile even when the rest of her face did not. She looked young, far too young to have been relocated with the rest of us. Her husband’s name was Kwesi Abachwa. May and I followed them down the hall and into the apartment. They walked hand in hand.
The main living room had two threadbare sofas and a big bank of south-facing windows and doors that opened onto a walled back garden with a patch of burnt grass and a few small trees. The kitchen let off from the living room and looked out onto the garden. Three bedrooms fronted the street, accessed from a hallway that ran the length of the apartment. Argent’s wife was standing in the doorway of the first bedroom, and she smiled at us as we entered. May walked past her without so much as a glance and disappeared down the hallway. Francoise and Kwesi said hello, dropped their cases and went out into the back garden. I watched them walking around the garden together, inspecting the trees. It was late afternoon, and the winter sun cast long shadows across the dead grass. Francoise bent over and picked up some of the earth and rubbed it between her fingers. After a moment she stood and took her husband’s hands in hers. They spoke awhile. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I watched him kiss her and take her in his arms. The man who had introduced himself as Lance put his case on the fold-out bed at the far end of the living room and surveyed his new accommodation with a bewildered look on his face.
When May returned, I knew something was wrong. She stood facing me, hands on hips. She pointed at Samantha, Argent’s wife. Argent had joined her, and they stood together just outside the doorway of the first bedroom.
‘They did it on purpose,’ May said, loud enough so that everyone could hear. ‘He distracted us so she could get in here first and claim the best room.’
Samantha arched her cherry-red lips into a wide grin. ‘Don’t get your knickers steamed up, honey,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to think ahead.’
‘It’s not fair,’ said May, staring at me. ‘Why don’t you stand up to them? You let everyone walk all over us. You always have.’ The words raked over her vocal cords. ‘They took our home, for God’s sake, and you just signed it over to them without a fight. Why can’t we have the master suite? Why does that bitch get her own bathroom, while we have to share with…’ she looked over at Francoise and Kwesi, who had just come back in from the garden ‘…with them.’ She slumped forward, seemingly resigned, and then suddenly straightened and landed a full handed slap across my face.
Argent laughed.
‘Coward,’ May hissed. Then she turned and ran.
I put my hand to my cheek, stood silent. I looked down for a moment, and then back up at Francoise and Kwesi. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t mean it. About sharing the bathroom, I mean.’
Francoise smiled at me. I could tell she pitied me, that she was wondering how relationships could deteriorate so. They must have loved each other once, she was thinking. I knew she could tell that we had been married a long time, the way we seemed so familiar in our conflict, so settled in our dissatisfaction. Bathrooms were going to be least of our worries.
I faced Argent. ‘She’s right you know. The fair thing would be to flip for the rooms. If we’re all going to be living here together, we had better start working together. We are going to have to have rules, a fair way of sharing what we have.’
Argent laughed, his gaze carving out the space between us. ‘You go right ahead, mister. I approve. The two of you can flip for the other rooms. I am staying where I am. It ain’t the Kempinski, but it’ll do for now, until I get out of this shit hole.’ He turned and disappeared into the master bedroom, leaving his wife facing the rest of us.
Kwesi sat on the tattered sofa. ‘Teacher is correct. We must work together, all of us.’
Samantha regarded us all for a while. ‘I think you’ll find that my husband has absolutely no interest in working for anyone but himself. I advise you not to waste your time. Now if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to.’ She walked to the front door and left the apartment.
Despite Argent’s prediction, our bags arrived a couple of hours later, dumped in a pile on the front verge. We collected them from the sidewalk, carried them to our rooms. It was clear that they had been inspected, turned through. A clasp knife and the solar charger were missing from my pack, but otherwise everything else seemed to have survived the trip. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the apartment and meeting some of our neighbours in the building. Everyone’s story was similar. We were all dealing with it differently.
By six o’clock the sky was darkening, and the worst of the heat was dissipating. May had reappeared and sat sulking on the couch. Argent was still in his room, and Samantha had not returned. Francoise and Kwesi were in the kitchen, preparing dinner. They’d found a big pot, were cooking for everyone. I offered a few potatoes and a chicken cube from my supplies. Soon the room filled with the wonderful smell of hot food. We found bowls and spoons in the cupboards, some old tin mugs, enough for seven but no more, the minimum of everything according to the rules. I set the kitchen table and filled an earthenware jug with water from the tap and placed it in the middle. Francoise cut seven slices of heavy dark-seed bread that she said she had baked in her own oven just last week and balanced one on the edge of each bowl.
‘There are no fresh greens for a salad,’ she said. ‘But that will change soon. We will make a garden in the back. We will eat well.’ And then: ‘Dinner’s ready, May, Lance. Please, come and join us.’
May looked up. Her eyes were swollen, the whites laced with angry red veins. ‘I shouldn’t be here you know.’
Francoise glanced at me. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said.
‘I only missed the cut-off by three days.’
Francoise frowned, walked to the master bedroom and knocked on the door. Argent answered. I could see that it was a big room, with curtained bay windows looking out onto the street and a big double bed.
Argent looked Francoise up and down, lingering on her bust, and grinned with big white teeth. ‘I’m Derek,’ he said, sticking out his hand. ‘Derek Argent.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Francoise said. ‘You introduced yourself outside, remember?’
‘Blocking our way so your wife could snatch the best room,’ said May.
Argent glanced past Francoise. ‘And that’s your husband?’
Francoise looked back at us over her shoulder. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Kwesi. Born on Tuesday.’
‘Where is he from, originally? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘He’s from Ghana. We met while I was working there, in the war,’ she said. ‘We were wondering if you would like to join us for dinner. We have made a stew.’
‘Actually, I was just about to eat,’ Argent said, smiling again, showing off ten years of an average salary, too perfect and much too white. ‘I have some pâté, a couple of cheeses, tinned peaches for dessert.’ He was staring at her now, examining her face. I saw him reach up and touch her jaw. She recoiled as he did it, but she did not back away. Kwesi stood.
‘You’re way too young to be here, aren’t you?’ said Argent. ‘Either that or you have one helluva plastic surgeon. Would you like to join me for dinner, beautiful?’
‘Please don’t,’ she said in a clear voice. ‘I am married.’
‘Leave her alone,’ said Kwesi, pushing back his chair.
Argent laughed. ‘I know you’re married, baby.’
Francoise spun around and walked back to the table. Her face was flushed.
‘Anytime,’ Argent called after her. ‘Open invitation.’
We ate in silence.
12
When I woke, it was cold and dark. I could hear May breathing from the far side of the room, where she had pushed the other single bed. This was part of the treatment, a familiar pattern of enforced silence, eternal sulks and that ‘you ruined my life’ attitude designed to inflict maximum punishment. I’d known for some time that this behaviour was driven by her condition and that it wasn’t really her, and I tried my best to accept it. Knowing how amazing she could be, and had been, only it made it harder.
I pulled on track pants, a thermal running vest, my old Gel Kayanos and a black wool skull cap, and slipped out of the room. Francoise was sitting at the kitchen table, working under the glow of a small portable lamp. Her hair was tied up in a thick braid. Before her was a row of small cardboard pots filled with earth. She looked up and smiled.
‘Oh, bonjour,’ she said. ‘It is a bit chilly, no?’
‘Solar?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the lamp. Yes. Kwesi and I have been using it for years, very good technology from Germany. I understand such things were banned here.’
All I could do was frown. ‘During the Repudiation, yes. Are you planting?’
‘Some of my favourites from our farm: aubergine, Roma tomatoes, Lebanese cucumbers, rocket, oregano.’
‘If we’re here that long.’ I went to the sink and filled my water bottle from the tap.
‘Do you think we will be moved?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘You are going out?’
‘For a run.’ I would go long this morning, twenty K. Even with all the strife and the changes and the lack of food, running was one of the few things I was still not prepared to give up. It kept me sane, made every other part of my life more manageable.
She looked up from her seed pots. There was a smudge of soil on her chin. ‘There is a curfew, no?’
‘This early, I’m guessing not,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’
She frowned, a little twitch of her lip.
Yellow pools of streetlight stretched away down the road in both directions for as far as I could see. It still seemed strange to see a city street so completely devoid of cars, so deserted. If only I could have brought my bicycle. I took a compass bearing along the road, looked at my watch, the fluorescent dial showing 0512, synced the chronometer to the footpod and started walking east towards the mountains. No GPS since they re-tasked the civilian satellites.
By the look of the place, we were in some town-become-suburb, swallowed by urban sprawl sometime in the last century, spat out again the next. Why we’d been dumped here, and how long they intended to keep us here, I could only guess. Questions queued up in my head like tech-tragics waiting to buy the latest phone in happier times. What did they expect us to do, now that they’d shipped us halfway across the continent? Start businesses? Find jobs? There were no kids here, that was certain, no schools. From what I’d seen of the place so far, there was little in the way of economic activity of any kind. The fact that we’d been issued ration books suggested that the government was planning to feed us, for now at least. And then what? I determined that I was going to get answers. Like I always did, I was going to figure it out – collect the data, do the analysis, test the hypotheses and deduce the truth. That’s what a scientist did, a man of logic in a world gone crazy.
After five minutes I was warm. I started a slow run past boarded-up shops, the familiar names of enterprises now defunct, the sources of their goods closed off, their customers no longer able to afford the continuous cycle of cheap, ever-changing disposable fashion, the permanent upgrade cycle of consumer electronics, even, sadly, the books and magazines and confections of my adolescence. I passed a string of bars with neon signs, the sidewalk littered with broken bottles and plastic cups, the occasionally syringe. A faint whiff of smoke came on the breeze, the smell vaguely industrial, burning plastic.
As I ran, I thought of Kazinsky and Smith, that day they came to the house. They had been determined, and I sympathetic. In their place, I would have done the same thing. Now I wondered where they were, if they were alright, and if I would ever hear from them again.
I upped the pace, aiming for an even five-minute K. Shops and apartment buildings gave way to run-down single-family dwellings, apparently empty, the lawns scorched, the trees bare and forlorn. Perhaps we would soon be given one of these houses. With a little work I could make it comfortable, I thought, maybe even build May a little studio again. The thought gave me a little boost of adrenaline, upped my pace. A police cruiser flashed through a cross-street intersection ahead, the blue-and-red strobe light lingering on my retina. I looked at my watch. Seven K and a bit, feeling stronger now. The streets slipped by, one after the other, a dark gridwork of lost opportunities, the concrete spooling out in front of me, section after section, like some hard-paved destiny.
Soon I was in an old industrial area, warehouses and fenced yards, wooden power poles strung with sagging wires, gravel shoulders now, my feet crunching out a steady rhythm. Ahead, the grey pre-dawn sky glowed orange. The odour of burning refuse intensified. A kilometre later, a fine ash began to fall, covering my hat and jacket and filming my face.
A garbage truck rumbled past towards the lights, and a few minutes later another. I followed the red tail-lights as they contracted towards the glow. After a while I could make out the first fingertips of orange flame flickering behind the black hulk of a factory building. Fire-lit smoke billowed into the starless sky. I pulled my bandana up over my mouth and kept running, drawn by the glow.
An underpass loomed up ahead, a rail line above. Beneath the tracks, the reek of piss and shit and fear, a pair of ragged boots sticking out from beneath a sheet of cardboard wedged under the big concrete beams. I kept going towards the fire. Soon I was running through a blizzard of ash, spinning scraps of charred paper, partially melted plastic bags, glowing embers of wood and rubber, half-burnt shreds of Styrofoam. I stopped, gazed at the steadily accumulating layer of burn around me. Another truck passed, heading towards the glow.
I looked at my watch. I’d gone ten and a half kilometres. I decided to go another half K, and then turn back. I reached a junction, took the turn to the right, away from the glow and into the wind, towards a series of older factory buildings, their brick chimneys glowing in the orange firelight. Soon I’d left the worst of the smoke and ash behind. I dusted myself off, kept going. The road was narrower here, the chain-link factory gates pushed into gravel shoulders, the overhanging crown of razor wire freshly hung, and here a hole in the base of the fence where the wire had been pulled back, as if someone had tried to dig their way out.
Eleven kilometres, even, flashed up on my watch, and I slowed to a walk, looking for a place to stretch. Ahead was a recess in the fence, the entranceway to an old brick warehouse. An empty wooden cable spool lay on end next to the gate. I stopped and leaned against its curved edge, stretching my calves. Beyond the fence, I could see a big black SUV parked in front of the building’s main cargo bay, its distinctive Chevrolet emblem glinting in the new flaring dawn. It was starting to get warm. I pulled off my cap and put it in the pocket of my vest, rolled up my sleeves.
I was about to start back when I heard it. A high-pitched wail, a scream perhaps. I quietened my breathing, listened. After a while, I reassessed. No, it must have been something else. A dog’s bark, maybe. It had sounded like a bark. No, more like a yelp. I faced the warehouse. It had come from there. I stood and watched the sky lighten behind the building, heard the cawing of a solitary crow and the rumbling of machinery in the distance, back from where the fire was.
