Nicola Griffith - Always

OUTSIDE CRYSTA LGAZE, I UNLOADED THE LAST OF THE HEAVY PADDING. DORNANwatched and tugged at his hair.

“And you swear you won’t be hitting me?”

“Won’t touch you.”

“It’s just for your ladies?”

“Yes. Now take this to the main-floor bathroom and”—a pale green Beetle convertible swept into the parking lot. Therese—“get changed. Go now, Dornan. Come into the room at exactly six-ten.”

“Ten past, yes, yes, now, you’re sure—”

Therese got out, she was waving something at me. She was clearly agitated.

I picked up the pile of padding, dumped it in Dornan’s arms. “Go.” I turned to Therese.

“I am so glad I can get a word with you,” she said. “I need you to listen to this.” She waved her phone again.

“What is it?”

“A message. From Sandra. Listen.” She hit a key, listened, then another, handed me the phone.

A woman’s voice, a whisper, as though she were hiding in a cupboard. “ ‘Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they do, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the Lord… ’ ” She paused and spat softly, as people do when clearing their mouth of blood. “ ‘Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will discover their secret parts.’ ” Another pause. Musing. “ ‘Discover their secret parts.’ ”

I turned off the phone, handed it back to Therese.

“When did you get the message?”

“Last night.”

“What did you do?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t ask for my help, I didn’t know…”

I waited.

“I called nine-one-one.”

“And what did you say?”

“I gave Sandra’s address.”

“She gave it to you?”

Therese nodded, kept nodding as she realized what a coincidence of timing that was. “I gave her address and said they should get an ambulance there.”

“And then what happened?”

“I don’t know. I was up all night thinking and thinking about it. This morning there was nothing on the news. Nothing anywhere.”

There never was, unless someone died.

“Did I do the right thing?”

“It never does any harm to call nine-one-one. They would have sent police as well as an ambulance. If Sandra was hurt, she would have got help. If she was in danger, she would have been protected.”

Another car pulled into the lot, a battered Civic. Tonya: tense, ready.

“You didn’t call Sandra?”

“She didn’t give me her phone number. I don’t even know her last name.”

“I see.” I didn’t. But another car was arriving. Time to go in.

SEVEN MINUTESlater, the basement air smelled singed, like an iron skillet heated too long on the stove: partly someone’s overuse of hair spray—odd, the way some people prepared—and partly adrenaline sweat. Sandra was the last to arrive. Her left arm was strapped close in a black sling. When she dropped her purse on the bench and turned, the new bruise along her collarbone was momentarily visible. Her face was expertly made up. No one said anything, but the taste in the air intensified to gunmetal and cordite.

Therese dithered, unsure whether to talk to Sandra, whether she should acknowledge the phone call, admit she had called 911.

I didn’t wait for her to make up her mind.

“In”—I glanced at the clock—“nine minutes, my friend Dornan will come in. He will be wearing body armor and padding. He will attack you impartially, without malice, one by one. We will decide on the order before he arrives. You will hit him with everything you’ve got. You can’t hurt him. Even his joints will be specially braced. He will keep attacking you until he signals that he’s sustained what would be a knockout or structurally disabling blow if he weren’t padded. He will signal this by patting his head with his hand—or slapping the mat with his foot or hand if his head is unreachable. ” If, for example, it’s rolled off into the corner of the room and is being smashed like a piñata. “I’ll repeat all this before we begin.”

Jennifer’s face was glaucous and glistening. Good. That fear would translate nicely to the kind of adrenaline I—they—would need.

“This is the order in which he’ll attack: Tonya, Suze, Sandra, Nina, Pauletta, Jennifer, Therese, Katherine, Kim, Christie. You know everything you need to know about knocking a man down. Dornan is in his early thirties and reasonably fit, average height, and a little below average weight—until you add in the sixty pounds of padding. Sandra, tell me about your injury. Will you be all right for this exercise?”

“It’s just bruises.”

"Were you X-rayed?”

“No. But it’s an injury I’m familiar with. Soft-tissue injury. Muscles, not ligaments. And it’s been documented.”

Documented. Was that a reference to the ambulance? She seemed almost supernaturally calm. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty… She had reached the place some people find before they die. I doubted she could do much to harm anyone in this class with me watching, but she could hurt herself, which would distract everyone. I considered. If it were only bruises, being attacked would be painful but probably wouldn’t pose a danger of serious damage. I’d tell Dornan to grab her around the waist. I nodded, and continued with the task at hand.

“Dornan will attack you as you walk. He will attack you from the side or the front or the back. For the purposes of this scenario, you should assume he wants to drag you somewhere such as his car or yours, that he wants to hurt you. This is not a situation in which to talk. You fight. Questions?”

“What’s he dragging us off for?”

“Whatever is the worst thing you can imagine, but you will not stop in order to elicit this information. Ideally you will render him unconscious or otherwise incapable of pursuing you. Think of your best moves, the ones you’ve rehearsed this last week: your kicks or your throws or your punches. There is no reason, given your training, that you couldn’t half kill an attacker in under twelve seconds.”

Now they were all pale. Lots of glances at the clock. Six minutes.

“Remember everything we’ve learnt about fear. The most important thing is to breathe. What is the most important thing?”

“To breathe,” Christie said.

“Good. Please stand. Sandra, take off your sling. Line up along the mat, in the order in which you will be attacked.”

Some reluctant shuffling. Some stress clumsiness and bumping. One startling high-pitched giggle from Katherine.

“Raise your arms. Take a deep breath. Stretch up, stretch that spine.” Spinal muscles were always the ones that got wrenched, and Sandra, at least, hadn’t had time to warm up. I watched her carefully. Her left arm went up as smoothly as the right. Pain is just a message. “Breathe out as you lower your arms. Raise and breathe in. And now we’ll squat and breathe out, hard. And up and in. And down.” Therese and Tonya both went backwards. “Good. Yes. Why not. We’ll do some rolling. And up and in, and down and out and over. And up. Good. Yes.” Much less pale now.

Though still some glances at the clock. Five minutes. “Breathe. Down and out, loudly please, loudly, and over, and up.” Down and out and over and up, and down and out and over and up. I could see good steady carotid pulses. Too steady in some cases. I needed them pumped. “Down.” Down they went. I thought of the Haka, a traditional Maori war chant designed to provoke and intimidate the enemy while pumping up the chanters. It is death, it is death, it is life, it is life…. “This time, when you go down, use your voice. Shout whatever you’ve been imagining all week in your anger scenario. And up, and fill those lungs, and down!”