Kellogg wheeled, stumbled, whispered, We’re okay, we’re okay, into his daughter’s hair, ran and nearly fell inside the Golden Barrel.
The bar’s half-dozen patrons swivelled to inspect him, and in disinterest or disappointment returned to their drinks.
Kell!
Pearl and Gip were in a booth by the bathrooms. Kellogg took the seat opposite, moved Elsie-Anne off his lap, gaped across the table at his wife and son.
What’s going on? said Pearl. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
Yeah, Dad, said Gip. Your hands are shivering. Dorkus, what’d you do to Dad?
Elsie-Anne spoke into her purse.
I don’t, began Kellogg. You were. . behind us. What happened?
Kell, sorry, I’m confused. What are you so shaken up about?
Sensing the whole bar watching, Kellogg hid behind the menu. So, he said, what’s good?
Mummy already ordered, said Gip. Wings.
Hope that’s okay, they don’t have flats. Pearl touched his arm. Kellogg?
Wings! he shouted — too bright, too loud, with a maniac’s grin. Hear that, Annie? Mummy’s ordered wings, who needs flats. . He trailed off. On the floor was Gip’s knapsack. Be right back, he said, scooped it up, and tumbled out of the booth.
In the bathroom he dug past Raven’s Illustrations: A Grammar, his CityGuide, the extra sweaters he’d packed (just in case), their permits, apple juice, a first-aid kit, until his fingers closed around the cold smooth container of Gip’s meds. He tapped two of the white tablets onto his palm, looked from them to his reflection in the mirror — wide-eyed and weak — shook out two more, opened the tap, filled his mouth with water, and choked all four pills down.
PUT MY LEGS BACK.
Back? Mrs. Mayor, who is to say they were ever otherwise?
Who? Me! I do!
Bah, said Raven, waving his hand as if to waft away an unpleasant odour. It’s all perception and perspective. You say tomato, I say thaumato.
Listen here, I’ve been very patient. I’m all about keeping my constituents happy. And they seemed to very much enjoy this. . trick. But, now, come on. It’s been hours.
The illustrationist drained his milk.
Please.
No.
You have to.
With a forlorn expression he contemplated the creamy residue inside the glass. You try, is the thing. You try and try and try. And people will just make of whatever you do whatever they want. Or, more — whatever they think they want.
He stood. The Mayor wriggled toward him, lost her balance, toppled onto her chest. The view was of her own legs on the lower tier: the skirt hitched to reveal a glimpse of silky slip. She grasped for it — hopeless — and let her arm hang, hand dangling.
Well, said the illustrationist, if people want a show, a show is what they will get.
He placed the empty goblet upon the dessert cart and drifted off into the shadows. The Mayor started to tell him to wait, but was preempted by a ruffle, a flapping, a whoosh. And then silence. The air felt sucked from the room.
Hello? she called.
The word echoed. Hello, replied the shadows.
Hello, hello, hello.
CALUM FLOATED WITHIN the screaming darkness. Everywhere were people: hands ran down his chest, someone’s lips fastened onto his neck, who was anyone, he patted the tops of heads for the distinctive frizz of the Hand’s buzzcut. But instead his palm met fabric — hats, hoods, stockings, masks — or greasy nests of hair, flat and damp, and he recoiled as though he’d fondled a corpse.
None of these people was her, where was she, he saw nothing. Someone caressed him from behind, looped their arms around his waist, pulled him close. Calum broke free, was hauled instantly into the arms of another stranger. Who? Nothing was discernible in the dark. Sound scorched his ears, jangled his nerves. He slipped into the arms of someone else and felt their head: a woolly cap.
The Hand was here somewhere, she had to be. Or had she left — had she abandoned him? Calum floundered into the naked flesh of someone else, he was held, though cruelly, aggressively, and the rusty music grated and shrieked, and now this person was lifting Calum’s shirt to press their hot wet skin against his — and were they now fumbling at his belt? He squirmed but was held fast, the arms were strong — and even in the dark there was something faceless about this person, something phantasmal or maybe masked. . Calum wriggled, pushed, was released with a giggle.
From the periphery glowed those feeble pockets of light: in this one figures writhed on the floor, faintly illumined in the next a shadow pinned another shadow to the wall, in the next a tangle of limbs unravelled and four, five, six people stumbled back into the central darkness. The screaming shifted, sharpened. Where was the Hand? Calum pictured that shirtless character finding her, cornering her, her body trapped and rubbed and licked. And her licking back. .
Fingers laced through his and squeezed. The touch felt familiar, safe. A cheek pressed to his, nuzzled, at the temples the smooth skin gave way to stubble, the head was crowned with a bristly patch. Come on, the Hand said in his ear, and he was taken out of the circle, beyond the music, past the ring of lights, to a tunnel, and down through the darkness, and down where it was quiet, and down and farther down.
THERE YOU GO, said Starx. Her husband’s leaving.
Olpert swivelled on his barstool. In a corner booth, a man and two children were abandoning a woman with a half-drunk pitcher and a basket of bones.
Starx punched him in the thigh. Shet, Bailie. Don’t look.
Sorry. I just might know that woman. If she’s who I think she is, she used to play for the Y’s, blew her knee in her second season and —
Pints appeared. Drink, commanded Starx. You want hot or mild wings?
Mild, said Olpert, drinking, and Starx said, Wrong.
The Taverne smelled of stale popcorn and cigarettes and pee. It had the mood lighting of a supermarket, there was no music, the sounds were the clop and chime of glassware, subdued conversations like rain upon soil, all of it supervised by the bartender, Pete, an abundantly sideburned older guy in big square glasses and a tuxedo.
Okay, said Starx. You like that ballplayer?
Olpert rubbed his thigh. That’ll bruise, he said, I hope you know.
Starx motioned to the mirror behind the bar. You want to check her out use that.
Olpert was bad at mirrors: what was reflected there never made much sense to him. He couldn’t use a rearview to park a car, and, shaving, he often floundered with the razor on the wrong side of his face.
I don’t like her, Starx. She was just on the team for a bit, I recognize her. Gosh, I probably have her card!
Card?
Y’s cards, they come with season tickets. I’ve got every set way back to when I first started going to games with my grandpa.
One of the OG’s was a Y’s fan?
Well back then they were the Maroons, Starx. . This received only a blank stare, Olpert drank. Had he said something wrong? From behind his glass he looked along the bar at the three men down the other end, each one steeping in the boozy puddle of his world, and then up to the mirror: there was the booth, and the women — it was her, the former star, Pearl, and she was staring back at him, hard.
HER EARS STILL RINGING, Debbie entered the Golden Barrel gently, almost apologetically. The usual pallid faces ringed the bar, a foursome of recent Institute grads nibbled wings. The only other patron sat by the bathrooms, some sad grey woman alone with a jug of cider. How tired and defeated this person looked — and then she was standing and waving and Debbie realized it was Pearl.