Nicola Griffith - Always

“And your lawyer,” Pauletta said.

“And your lawyer,” I said. “And don’t clean away any blood on you. Don’t change your clothes, even if they’re torn or soiled. Make sure the first thing you mention is not how you learnt to do this in a self-defense class. Now”—before they could think too hard about any of it—“let’s practice. Find your partner. Try the double-hand pin first. Good. Make sure you’re spread out, that you won’t be throwing your partner into someone else.” I said that particularly to Suze, who tended to forget that others might mind having a body hurled in their direction.

We ran through the double-hand pin, then the one-handed strangle. They were tentative at first, then began to toss each other about as children would.

“With both, remember what should come next. Think of your bedroom: when they’re down, what can you hit them with easily? Where’s your clock? Your potted plant? Your baseball bat? Where’s your phone, so you can take it with you when you run? Good. That’s good, Kim, very good,” as she sank her nails into Jennifer’s hands in slow motion.

This was more like it. Even Sandra was mechanically following the plan. Katherine and Tonya were—

Tonya’s nose blossomed red and she shrieked and clapped both hands to her face.

“Sit up, put your head back.” Wail. The whole room focused. Blood in the room. “Tonya. Sit up. Put your head back.”

“Oh, God,” Katherine said, “oh, God, I’m sorry. I just—”

“Tonya, move your hand.” I spoke slowly and very clearly. “Move your hand. Tonya, please, move your hand so I can see.” The initial spill of blood from her nose was already slowing. Her eyes were wide with pain and panic. Everyone in the room was poised to run, as though blood would make the sharks come.

“I’m so sorry,” Katherine was still saying, “I didn’t—”

I tapped the back of one of Tonya’s wrists, then deliberately put both hands behind my back so she knew I wouldn’t be touching her face, and she moved her hands just enough for me to peer at her nose. “It’s not broken. You’ll be fine. The blood’s already slowing. You’re fine. Nice deep breaths. Katherine, are you hurt? No? Good, then I want you and Therese and Kim to help me. Therese, I want you to get me a hot, caffeinated drink with sugar. Kim, your job is to find ice and a soft cloth. Katherine, bring me something to clean the mat before it stains.” Cleaning. Before it stained. Yes. She nodded, followed Therese and Kim like a zombie through the door. “The rest of you, do some stretching, and when you’ve done that, we’ll take it in turns to hit the bag.”

I waited until they’d started their unwilling stretching, then sat by Tonya.

“At least you’re wearing a black T-shirt,” I said. “When the ice comes, put it on your face.”

“It’ll hurt,” Sandra said matter-of-factly, and squatted down on the mat. “But it’ll keep the swelling down. If you take two ibuprofen every four or five hours for a couple of days, you won’t even be able to tell anyone hit you.”

Therese came back with a double mocha latte.

“I don’t drink coffee,” Tonya said in a shaky voice.

“You do now. Caffeine and sugar will help with the shock. It will make you feel better. Sip, good. And another. And why aren’t you all hitting that bag?” They went back to punching. “Ah, here’s the ice.”

After another minute, her shakes began to subside. I helped her up and moved her to the bench.

“Drink more coffee, keep the ice on your face, and if you’re feeling all right in ten minutes, I’ll drive you home.”

“Let me do it,” Katherine said.

“You can clean the mat,” I said, nodding at the cloth in her hand.

“I’ll sit with her,” Sandra said. I nodded, and moved to supervise the punching of the bag, which wasn’t all it could have been.

After another five minutes, Katherine gathered Tonya’s things and they made their way to the door. Everyone watched them leave.

“All right,” I said when the door closed behind them. “Excitement’s over. Let’s get back to pins. This time on your backs with a one-handed strangle.”

They moved like old women, newly aware that they could be hurt. Even Suze was tentative when she put her hand around Christie’s throat.

I kept my tone brisk. “What did we learn about strangles? Tuck your chin—protect your throat. Breathe, if you can.” Slight movement as the supine women tucked their chins. I pretended not to notice. “Distract. And where there’s a joint, there’s a weakness. Watch.”

I lay down and gestured Therese over. She smiled politely and climbed on top of me and laid her left hand lightly on my throat. I tucked my chin and said, in that deep, exaggerated voice it’s impossible to avoid when stretching one’s vocal folds, “I have so many choices here it’s almost embarrassing. Suggestions?”

“Hey,” Christie said, “it’s like—Get off me a sec,” she said to Suze, who obeyed.

“That was easy,” I said. No one laughed, though Nina smiled. I sighed internally; after the blood, we were back at square one. “Saying, Get off me is always worth trying. You never know. So, Christie, you were saying?” She looked blank. “What is it like?”

“Oh. Like last week, the week before I mean, with the one-handed strangle against the wall. You could twist and bash her elbow, or bring her face into the mat like it was a wall, or, well, shit, anything.”

“Exactly.”

I showed them. How I could put my left foot flat on the mat and use that to leverage the same twist into the slam of forearm on inside elbow. How to pull myself down and yank Therese’s face into the mat as though it were a wall. The swing and whole-arm pin of the opposite twist with my right foot on the mat. And they wouldn’t do any of it. They had seen blood and they were afraid: that swinging elbow might connect to a nose, that moving fingernail might graze a cornea, that wrist or shoulder or knuckle might get dislocated.

"Up,” I said. "Everybody up. Let’s get back to the bag. I want to see combinations: fist, elbow, knee, one after the other.”

The bag couldn’t bruise. The bag couldn’t look at you reproachfully if you slipped a little and banged the wrong place. The bag wouldn’t remind you of thin skin and red blood. Even so, they were tentative. “Shout,” I said. “Blam. Kapow. Whap. This is an attacker who is trying to hurt you. Why should you put up with that? Defend yourselves.”

Not much difference.

“They are coming after your children.” The thumps got meatier. “You are not going to let them hurt you, or your family—not you, not your sister, not your mother, not your children. You. It’s up to you. No one else. Come on. Hit it!”

“It’s just a bag,” Nina said.

And that was the problem.

BELLEVUE WAS MORE OF A GENERIC SUBURB THAN A CITY. THE SAME MIDSIZEDoffice buildings of white concrete and green glass; the smooth six-lane blacktop; the uncrusted, still wet-looking red brick of libraries and schools. Bland, moneyed, characterless. Ideal for Corning, the kind of woman who thought running away made the problem vanish.

In my mind’s eye I saw Kick’s brilliant white smile, the white in the crook of her elbow, her white knuckles as she said, Lesions. Christ. God.

I checked my phone again. 8:08. No messages.

At almost every stop light, I imagined the fall of her oak hair, her delight as she expounded her theory of everything, her laugh like sun shimmering on water. I began to cut in and out of morning traffic.

Amateur, she said in my head.

The hotel was efficient and faceless and could have been in Atlanta. I walked through the lobby. No quiet corners. I went back to the car, retrieved Mackie’s cell phone. Texted a message to Corning’s phone: need money now, meet me in parking garage, by elevator, level P2.