Nicola Griffith - Always

“I’m wet, I hate my mother, and the tree… The goddamn tree. Probably the rain. It’s tipped right over and lying all over my yard. And El Jefe… Stupid cat.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. I wasn’t here.”

“Is the cat all right?”

“He’s hurt.”

“Is it bad?”

“He can’t sit down. And he’s complaining. But he’s eating and he lets me stroke him. It’s probably not even broken.”

“So it’s… his leg?” I didn’t know why we were talking about a cat that wasn’t even hers. I started walking along the sidewalk.

“His tail. It’s sort of bent. Hold on.” A strange ripping sound rasped in my ear. “That was him purring into the phone.”

“Oh.”

“So, anyway, I thought that I’d take him to the vet, and while I was gone you could finish what you started with the tree.”

“You want me to… Kick, have you seen the paper?”

“Yeah. So are you coming, or what?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Gotta get to the vet.” Click.

I folded my phone and waited in bemusement for a light. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the traffic pole flash magenta and turquoise, or burst into a chorus of “Louie, Louie.” The rain began to ease. By the time I’d crossed the road, it had stopped.

SHE OPENEDthe cardboard carrier and the old black cat stalked off, looking rumpled and annoyed, but fit. She straightened, closed the door of her van.

“Subluxation of the tail,” she said. “Good as new in two days. Whose is the truck?”

“A rental. Like the chainsaw. I bought the gloves.” I shut up before I said anything else foolish.

She looked at the sawn chunks of trunk stacked by the gate and then at the growing patch of blue sky above the dining room extension. “If it had come down a week ago it would have crushed half the house.” She stepped closer. Damp earth, sawn wood, the rich, sharp scent of Kick. I took off the gloves, dropped them on a stump, and held out my arms.

Later, in her bed, she eased herself into the curve of my arm. I stroked her hair and her back, and wondered under which knob of vertebra, exactly, the lesion lay. The skin and muscle felt the same.

“How did it go with your parents?”

“I hate my mother.” Perhaps she was aiming for a light tone, but the attempt was ruined by a deep undertow of hurt and puzzlement. “I told them. My mother… my mother’s a drama queen who thinks she’s Lady Pragmatism. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Well, the family will have to organize twenty-four-hour care.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ She looked at me kindly, like I was a three-year-old, and said, very slowly, ‘For when you’re paralyzed, honey. Who else is going to help you?’ ”

I thought of my mother’s reaction, and she’d never even met Kick.

“It was like she wanted me to be helpless so she could feel important. It was all about her. I know it was probably a shock but, Christ, paralyzed. So I looked at Pop, hoping for a bit of reason, and you know what he said?”

I shook my head.

“He said that, hell, he was sure it was all some big mistake. His little girl couldn’t have a disease like that. I should just see. I should just wait. Everything would be A-okay. I didn’t know whether to puke, scream, or bury an axe in his head.”

“So what did you do?”

“I laughed, and said I wanted a glass of water, and Mom jumped up and said she’d get it, and I had to practically arm-wrestle her to the sofa. I’m not a fucking cripple yet, I said. Except I didn’t say ‘fucking.’ And then I went into the kitchen and cried. And then I came back and told them I was just fine, and that for their information I’d just accepted a job as stunt coordinator on a series pilot, and thanks very much for their pity and denial, but I didn’t need an ounce of help from them. And now I have to find a way to tell Maureen and my brothers.”

My brain jumped to three different places at once. She’d accepted the job.

“I don’t think I can face telling them right now. Ted’s in the Seychelles, anyhow.”

“The stunt rigger?”

“No. That’s John. He’s in Arizona. Ted’s an accountant. But Maureen’s right here.”

“Yes.” Maureen, who would look blank, then say something kind and caring, such as, “I really need to get my nails done soon.” I took Kick’s hand—the nail beds were pink, the nail white—and kissed her fingers, one by one.

“So, like I said, I hate my family.” Rain pattered on the skylight. “This weather,” she said.

She had taken the job. I thought of her jumping, face peach with dawn. “So. You saw the paper.”

"Yep.”

“What did you think?”

“Always hated that picture.”

“Seriously, what—”

“ Shush. I’m trying to tell you. Seriously. The way my parents treated me, more Crip than Kick, I saw I’ve been doing that to myself. Cutting myself down to size before anyone else could do it.”

“Protecting yourself.”

“Making myself small.”

“So you told Rusen you’d accept his offer.”

“Yep. I knocked on his door and went in and announced importantly that, ‘Hey, I’ll coordinate your stunt,’ and he nodded and said, ‘Boy howdy, that’s great, can you deal with the fire department permit situation today?’ I felt crushed—drums should have rolled or lightning cracked or something equally portentous: Kick steps up to herself.” She sighed, and the long, soughing breath had a crack in it, and the crack widened and wobbled and grew and became, to my surprise, soft laughter, which, in its turn, grew sturdy and bright.

She laughed until she was as red in the face as a newborn, and as helpless, and kicked her feet. I held her tight enough to snap someone whose muscles weren’t as dense and resilient as rubber bands, and she squeezed back and swung me onto my back and pinned my hands to the mattress, and I laughed and flipped her over in turn, and she tried to turn me back the other way, and then we were on our sides, matched muscle to muscle and bone to bone, strong and fine and taut, mouth to mouth, belly to belly, eye to eye. We breathed each other’s breath, sucking the warm expelled air deep into alveoli and bronchiole; oxygen that had been in her blood dissolved in mine, fed my cells, moved the hand that curved over her bottom and between her legs, pulled her against me, gentle, inevitable, as slow as the turning of the world.

Later, she lay with her head on my thigh and her back against my ribs. I laid a hand on her rib cage and felt it rise and fall, rise and fall.

“Is it really this simple?” Her cage of bone and cartilage buzzed slightly under my palm as she talked. “Believe in yourself?”

“It’s like self-defense. You have to refuse to be trespassed against. You have to refuse to believe what people want you to believe. It helps if someone shows you a few simple things, but mainly you have to be willing to simply do it.”

“But what if some giant grabs some little old lady—”

“It doesn’t matter how small you are or how big they are. I can teach any reasonably able woman to render an attacker unconscious inside twelve seconds, if she’s willing. If she’s not willing, nothing will make a difference. ”

“Twelve seconds. How long would it take you to teach someone like me how to do that?”

“You’re more than reasonably able. And you’re smart. Five or six hours, total.”

She rolled onto her back. “Kick Kuiper, killing machine.” She smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You can teach me. But you have to let me teach you something in return. ”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Whatever you like. How to fall.”