Nicola Griffith - Slow River

I spent the rest of the shift alternately looking over my shoulder and telling Paolo about the delicate ecological balance of the plant.

“The snails and the plankton reproduce at a rate directly proportional to the amount of algae available, but the zoo-plankton is far more susceptible to metals than the diatoms, so the proportions are constantly in flux. The algae have to be monitored very carefully, and in conjunction with the moss and metal uptake.”

It was a beautiful system. Every time I arrived at the pseudo-Victorian monstrosity that was this building, I was amazed that such a pile of metal and stone and glass and electricity could facilitate such a miracle: fish and flowers and shrubs from sewage and deadly chemicals. Sometimes I wasn’t ashamed of my family and how they earned their money.

I might be doing a low-grade job, but what I had said to Paolo was true: We made a difference. And it didn’t have to be just in the general sense. By taking the risk of talking to Paolo, even just a little, I was making a difference to him and his life, teaching him things that he could use or take with him wherever he went. Seeing the change in his face, those unguarded moments, made a difference to me, too. It made me feel as though I was doing something worthwhile. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

The only smudge on the horizon was Magyar. I wondered what had happened to anger her so much. My PIDA was safe. Spanner had fixed it. Hadn’t she? But if Magyar was as smart as I thought, then no matter how my PIDA matched my height, weight and DNA, she would know I wasn’t Sal Bird, aged twenty-five, the line-worker grunt from Immingham. She would keep checking, keep digging. And a PIDA could not protect me against a personal call to Bird’s last job site, a chat with the supervisor…

If I could just explain to Magyar what the job meant to me. Tell her about Paolo, how good I felt to be teaching him. How much easier life would be for me, for all of us, if we just let down our guards a little and talked, helped each other. Maybe I should try trusting her the way Paolo was trusting me.

I waited for her outside. Fog condensed on the street-lights and dripped onto the pavement. Even here in the city, the night smelled of autumn: damp leaves mulching, wood smoke, wool coats slightly musty from six months in the closet. Ten minutes became twenty, then half an hour.

Then suddenly she was through the gates and five paces away, fog billowing around her.

“Magyar.”

She whirled, pulling her hands out of her pockets. “Bird! What are you doing here?” We stood ten feet apart. The fog made everything feel enclosed, quieted, unreal. She put her hands back in her pockets.

“I want to talk to you.” My voice was steady. How odd.

“It’s too cold to stand around. You can talk while we walk.” She set off, obviously not caring whether I walked with her or not. She walked fast, with big strides. Her shoes were soled with some soft, absorbent material; I felt as though I were watching a film with the sound turned off

Try it, I told myself. Just try. “You seemed angry. Earlier.”

“I was.”

“I just thought we could clear the air between us.” It sounded lame. She seemed to think so, anyway. She snorted. This was a mistake. “It’s just… Look, you were angry—”

“I still am, Bird.”

But the anger did not seem to be directed at me. “Is something wrong at the plant?”

She stopped abruptly, swung to face me. “Now why should I want to tell you?”

I felt a bit bolder. “Because it might affect me and everyone else who works on the night shift. I don’t like surprises.”

“You don’t like surprises? What a shame. I don’t much like being lied to, by you or anyone else. You want to know what’s wrong with the plant? Then go to your bosses and get them to tell you what’s going on.”

“I can’t. I’m not who you think I am.” And I was stupid for thinking I could have achieved anything, risking myself like this.

“I know you’re not Sal Bird.”

“I’m the only Sal Bird there is,”

She waited, hands clenching and unclenching in her pockets, but when it became obvious I wasn’t going to tell her any more, she walked away.

The woman on the screen had dark brown hair cut in a sharp, shoulder-length line. “Spanner? Ellen. Sorry we missed your birthday. Thought you might like—”

A woman who knew when Spanner’s birthday was. With brown hair. Lore hesitated, then sat before the video pickup and touched a button. The woman on the screen frowned.

“Who are you?”

“Lore.” She remembered to make the word slippery, in her new accent. They stared at each other a minute. Dyed brown hair, dyed red hair.

“No wonder we haven’t heard from her for a while.” Ellen smiled. It was an open smile, genuine, and Lore immediately liked her. “I was calling to invite Spanner for a drink. A belated celebration. You’ll both come?”

They looked at each other some more. Lore wondered what Ellen saw. She almost asked her. Instead, she nodded.

“The Polar Bear, then.”

“Who is it?” Spanner came through from the shower, drinking coffee, no towel.

“One moment,” Lore said to Ellen, and turned off the video pickup. “It’s Ellen,” she told Spanner.

Spanner motioned Lore aside, slid into the chair. Lore was not surprised when she turned the video back on. “Hey. Did I hear something about a drinks”

“You did.” Ellen grinned, looked Spanner up and down. “You seem in the pink.”

They both laughed, and Lore felt like a child left out of a grown-up joke.

“Ten tomorrow?”

“Fine.”

“We’ll expect both of you,” Ellen said, and the screen went gray.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Lore asked.

“Ellen and Ruth.”

“The PIDA picker?”

“The same. Maybe some others.”

“I feel like I’ll be presented for inspection.”

Spanner shrugged. “You know how it is. People always want to check out who you’re with.”

People, not friends. “Business?”

“Dilettantes. Ex-dilettantes at that.”

Later, in the Polar Bear, as she sat at a table with Ellen and Ruth, and Billy and Ann, Lore thought she must have imagined the edge of disdain in Spanner’s words.

Spanner was in high gear, drinking hard and dragging the others along in her slipstream. She smiled at Ellen and Ruth, bought them drinks until their cheeks were red and their eyes sparkled, until. they laughed out loud and their bodies moved more freely. She drew the normally surly Billy into the circle until his pinched face relaxed and he stopped looking at everyone sideways; she listened attentively until Ann stopped punctuating all her sentences with a nervous laugh. Spanner’s energy pulled them all together, made them relax and feel good.

Lore found herself being sucked in, despite herself; felt Spanner’s attention like a small sun. She wanted to turn her face to that warmth, bask in it.

The late evening turned to midnight, then one. Ellen and Ruth made vague motions toward leaving, but Spanner waved them to sit down again and ordered another round. She made some joke about enjoying life while you can, even when you had joined the ranks of the faceless employed, and everyone laughed. And in that unguarded moment Lore saw Spanner’s expression change.

It was a subtle thing: the raised eyebrows that had been full of concern and interest were now canted just differently enough for Lore to reread them as sardonic—contemptuous, even. She glanced around the table, caught Ruth’s face, and realized that Ruth knew: Spanner was scoring at them for joining the sheep; for no longer living on their wits; for being soft. She looked away, studied her beer.