She never seemed to feel the frustration or invasion that Adine felt, sometimes, when Debbie snatched her hand or worked a knee between her thighs and Adine’s mind was doing its own thing — contentedly, necessarily alone. Depending on her mood Adine would either ease away or bark, Not now. Rejected, Debbie would wilt a bit and Adine’s frustration would dwindle into guilt, and back to anger for being made to feel guilty, so she’d kiss Debbie with quiet resentment sizzling through her body, and the kiss would feel empty — yet Debbie would still be going for it, all ardour and tongue.
There was something sad about Debbie’s hunger, something desperate and grasping and tragically lonely, lonelier even than being alone. What if she were alone? Without Adine, what would she do? Throw herself into the arms of anyone? Those slipshod hysterical people at her potluck — they’d be there for her, always — and come away smelling of unessential oils? Fine, thought Adine. If that was what she’d rather, a great unwashed orgy of moaning ravenous kisses, a stewy kind of love, then she could have it.
Here was Jeremiah, the judder of him hopping up onto the couch. Adine reached across the cushions to pet her cat, though she couldn’t find him, sensed maybe he was avoiding her hand. On TV some Institute kids were arguing about which bars poured the best cider — though of course their city comprised only the southeast corner of the island, plus maybe the Dredge, one daring young man suggested a spot in Bebrog and was mocked. Adine sprawled onto her stomach, called, Jer? grasped, snapped, clicked her tongue. From somewhere came a faint mewling. But her fingers swept empty air.
THE ARMOIRE WAS six feet tall, baroque and quadrupedal, its legs curled into calligraphic hooves, fronted with a pair of doors whose mirrors had long fallen off. Sam set to cleaning it out — a pair of dusty shoes, the bar from which four coathangers hung, a stray sock, he put everything in a shoebox. On the armoire’s floor he laid an inch of yellow newsprint and a blanket, with a pillow at one end this made a decent bed. Next he drilled a hole in the top and dangled a bare bulb inside, ran it through an eyehook in the ceiling to an outlet by his bed. The light would just stay on, he figured, until bedtime. This is what they did in prison, yet this wasn’t a prison. More a guestroom.
Next he sawed a rectangular hole at chest height in the door, laid runners so a drawer could be inserted to pass his guest essentials and messages. When this was accomplished Sam felt quite pleased with himself, how easily the drawer slid in and out, with a compartment for food and drinks. Above it he drilled a peephole, and looking in he felt proud, it really was like a little bedroom.
Collecting his tools he secured the outside, hammering two-by-fours over the doors, wrapping the whole thing in heavy chains, then produced the combination lock the boy had magically reopened, slid it in place, pinched it shut, and twisted the dial. Sam tried the doors. Solid. No escape. Yet the boy’s words echoed: He always gets free. .
The last stage was making the image. Sam got out the unused drawing pad and pencils that Adine had given him many, many birthdays ago — You were such a good artist as a kid, she’d said, you should do stuff. Finally he had something worthwhile to draw, though this picture needed to look as close as possible to the real thing, so Sam was careful and precise — the shadows, the woodgrain, the doorhandles’ coppery gleam. .
And then it was done. Sam folded the image into the breastpocket of the khaki shirt which he’d found in the shower, and which lay, ready and waiting, upon his neatly made bed.
CALUM STOOD APART from the crowd, first in line in the yellow bevelled waiting area, hood up, his monstrous face concealed. From below came the knock of horsehooves on the cobblestones of Knock Street, Calum pictured a happy couple cuddled up in the carriage and hawked, watched his spit go arcing up and disappear between the tracks — maybe it hit them, maybe not.
From his pole position Calum was first to witness the white dot of the train approaching from UOT, the golden glowing strip above it that indicated the line (Yellow) — a cyclops with a caution-tape eyebrow swimming out of the dusk.
The gate opened, the moving sidewalk swept into motion, Calum stepped onto it as the train’s hull formed around its headlight. A hiss of brakes, a blast of air, the train slowed to match the movator’s speed as it eased into the station. The doors slid open with a singsong chime and people began to climb aboard from the moving sidewalk, everything synchronized and obedient.
No one debarked, everyone was heading to People Park. Calum found a spot inside the doors and the crowd oozed in behind him, bodies melted into one another, the air zinged with shared exuberance and joviality, there was nowhere to hide from it. Though the car was packed still more people piled into it, wedged into non-existent spaces. Calum, sandwiched between a man and a woman, cringed at the heat and tingle of strangers’ bodies. Nearby two old ladies in matching Islandwear jackets had taken the Special Needs seats. Oh it’s so nice to see all these people supporting their city, said one, and the other cawed, It sure is, it sure is.
The train hadn’t yet exited the station, the doors hung open, though the platform was empty and the movator had stopped running. It would be a long, slow, hot trip to Bay Junction. And though they weren’t yet moving, a man, pink-faced and grinning stupidly, reached over Calum’s shoulder to clutch the handrail, squeezing them face to face. Calum shrank inside his hood.
Beside Calum was the ICTS map: all that city between Blackacres and People Park, a long way to ride with this guy in his grill. Squirming, trying to eke out a little space for himself, Calum thought he heard a woman saying something about him, about his hood being up: Not supposed to have hoodies on here, he thought he heard, but wasn’t certain, everyone was talking, the air was a muddle of words. And then that gay little chime sounded and the robotic warning said to please stand back, the doors were closing, and the pink man announced, We’re off! and everyone in the car but Calum cheered.
As the train picked up speed the pink man pressed even closer, his nose almost touched Calum’s. A rubbery pink neck disappeared into a white shirt, collar yellowing, stained a deeper yellow in splotches at his armpits, a few stout black hairs investigated the outer world from his nostrils, the maroon crescent of a razor’s nick scabbed his chin, his odour was sickly and moist as rotten fruit.
Then he spoke: You excited?
Calum’s stomach lurched.
But it was the woman behind Calum who replied, You bet, speaking to the pink man not just over but through Calum, as if he weren’t even there.
My wife and kids have been in the park all day, said the pink man, saving a seat for me, and the woman said, My boyfriend too, and someone else said, Lucky you guys, and people laughed and the laughter all around him made Calum feel hateful and small.
The train rocked along the elevated lines above Lakeside, to the south the smoke-coloured lake caught the setting sun in purple and pink streaks. Next stop, Budai Beach, announced the train. Budai Beach Station, next stop. And there was another cheer — from which a Ra-ven chant evolved, first a few voices and then the whole car in chorus, feet stomped and hands clapped. Calum’s head throbbed, he looked down, the pink man’s galoshes were toe to toe with his floppy sneakers, his breath drifted outward in a sweet-sour wash.