Nicola Griffith - Always

“We want to spend much of our time with you,” my mother said. “I want to hear about your life. Do you have pictures?”

“Pictures?”

“The filthy American habit,” Eric said, but in a tone that meant he approved. “Photos in your wallet, pictures of your house, your children, your dog, your corner office.”

“One of many habits Eric learnt in this country,” she said, and laid a hand on his arm. They smiled at each other. She looked at me. “For the first time I think I appreciate the sentiment. I, for example, will be very pleased to see a picture of your daughter.”

We were still speaking English but she was beginning not to make sense again.

“The little girl,” she said. “The one who was in such difficulties last year.”

“You want to see a picture of Luz?”

She nodded. Perhaps she wondered if I had had brain surgery in the years since we’d last seen each other. “Eric tells me that when you live in America and have a child, it is expected.”

“I don’t know if I do have a child, exactly.”

“Then you need to make up your mind.” While I tried to parse that one she turned to the hors d’oeuvres and with quick, economical movements dabbed caviar on a toast point, which she put on a plate and handed to me. Her hands were slender and much bigger than Kuiper’s.

My mother made a toast point for Eric, and one for herself, took a sip of wine, and again laid her free hand on Eric’s arm. The look she gave me was full of meaning, but I had no idea what it was. “I can’t tell you what is right,” she said, “but I can tell you what is expected—by others, and by this child. It doesn’t matter what she calls you, Mor or Tante or Aud, if legally you are her mother, somewhere inside she will one day expect you to behave as one. It doesn’t matter if this is likely, or even possible, it is what she will expect. One day.”

Her fingers were white at the tips. Eric would have a bruise tomorrow. I ate my toast point.

I WAS ATthe Edgewater bar, halfway down my second pale green cocktail, when Dornan joined me.

“Is that a kamikaze?”

“I thought I’d try it.” I pushed the glass aside. Too much lime. “Ready for that film set?”

“You saw your mum?”

“I did.” I dropped cash on the bar and stood. “She wants to invite you for dinner tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

I nodded. He reached past me for the kamikaze and drained it in one swallow.

THE PARKINGlot was full, and the air trembled below audible range with generators and the subtle pheromones of stress and excitement. The light slicing from the partially open warehouse door was blue-white against the inky sky, and the air was stiff and charged, as though before a storm. I felt every bone snug in its socket, and Dornan’s eyes shone.

Inside the warehouse, the noise and heat and light were intense. He paused on the threshold, trying to take it all in, then made a beeline for one of the Hippoworks posters.

Kuiper and another woman at the food services table were shoveling food onto plates that were snatched out of their hands by a seemingly endless stream of actors, grips, sound technicians, and extras in street-kid clothes.

“Killer Squirrels,” Dornan said.

“What?”

“Anton Brian Finkel.” He tapped the notice. “He made a film in the eighties about squirrels who eat alien nuts or something and go rogue. Great film to watch when wrecked, all these tiny squirrels flying about, trying to look menacing. It’s got to be the same man.”

“I don’t know.” From here Kuiper looked very busy.

He saw that I wasn’t really paying attention, and followed my gaze. “You going to introduce me?”

“Maybe when she isn’t so busy. I’ll take you to Finkel’s partner, Stan Rusen.”

We headed through the streams of eating extras to where the lights and cameras were clustered, but the one giving orders was the bad-tempered Goatee Boy, who today wore his earring in the other ear, not Rusen.

I led Dornan back outside, to the Hippoworks trailer, the one with the lights on. I banged on the door. I was just about to bang again when it was yanked open by a woman talking over her shoulder to whoever was at the other end of the trailer.

“…can’t tell you how pissed off I get when he does that. Oh. Well, who the hell are you?” It was the woman who had been ordering everyone about on the soundstage last time I was here. The set dresser.

“Good evening,” I said, and gestured for Dornan to follow me inside.

“Hey,” she said as I brushed past her. “I said, who the hell are you?”

“She probably heard you the first time,” a man near the door said. I recognized him, too: the technical coordinator she had been arguing with yesterday.

“Joel,” I said, remembering. He shifted in surprise, and that’s when I saw Rusen, who was sitting at his keyboard looking overwhelmed. When he saw me, he jumped up.

“Aud, hey, glad you came. Peg, Joel, I’m sorry but we’ll have to do this later. Boy,” he said when they’d gone, “all those two do is squabble: I can’t do my job when he does this, I can’t get any work done when she does that. This is not like film school.” He rubbed the back of his ear. “I’m worrying if I can afford to pay anyone next week and they’re carrying on like a couple of kids.”

I introduced Dornan. They exchanged pleased-to-meet-yous. “So can you? Pay them next week?”

“Maybe. I’m hoping Anton will be able to figure out a way to sweet-talk the bank.”

“Know when he’s due back?”

He shook his head, then forced a smile. “Say, I probably sound as bad as Peg and Joel. You didn’t come here to listen to me complain. What can I do for you?”

I nearly said: Have you eaten? Kuiper would no doubt be nicer to me if I could tell her he had. “I need some information.”

He sat back at his keyboard. “Okay.”

“To begin with, general details on everyone who works here: names, résumés, references, date of hire. Anything you think might be useful background information. Former workers, too, please.”

“Not a problem.” He started tapping.

“Also any documentation you have with regard to meetings or correspondence with EPA and OSHA.”

“Easy enough.”

“Yesterday, someone on the set mentioned that she thought this production might crash and burn. Any idea what she might have meant by that?”

He dragged his eyes away from the screen and rubbed behind his ear again. “Well, the OSHA thing is killing us.”

“Apart from that.”

“There have been some delays. Annoying things. Little things.”

“Such as?”

“The lighting tech spending five hours getting the set lit right, and then coming back from break to find someone’s messed it all up. Hours of night footage lost on the way to the lab. When we reshoot during the day using day-for-night exposures, we find it’s all screwy, though the camera guy swears it was set up right. Not so little, that one.”

“Write it all down. E-mail it to me.” I gave him the address. I couldn’t spend every minute with my mother. It would give me something to do while I waited for Monday. And unlike Atlanta, this time I’d be helping people to help themselves. “I’d also be happy to take a look at your accounts, see if I can see a way out of this mess, but I’d understand if you felt uncomfortable with that.”

If he didn’t give it to me, I’d just take it, but there was no harm in playing nicely, especially when it saved time and effort.

“I’ll have to talk to Finkel about that,” he said. “Anything else? Did you read the promo material?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Oh,” he said.