Jon Grimwood - End of the World Blues

Mary had owned a flat in central London, an art gallery in Canterville Mews, five goldfish, and a cat called Miu. The cat was being looked after by Pat, the goldfish had gone to a friend. The art gallery was run by a half-Czech woman called Sylvia and could look after itself. All of these, however, now belonged to Kit.

“Is this legal?”

“ That’s all you can ask?” Kate’s voice was raw. “ Is it legal?” The bang as she slammed down her bowl was enough to make a market porter at the next table stare across. A nod from Kit and the man in overalls and yellow boots went back to his paper, foreigners forgotten.

“What do you want me to say?” asked Kit. “You think I want her flat and all this other shit?” Reaching deep into his wallet, Kit slid out a thumbnail print he’d forgotten until recently was even there. He pushed it over to Kate, who glanced down, grabbed the square of cardboard, and held it close to her face.

It was a cruel thing to do, Kit knew that. It was meant to be cruel.

“ That’s how I remember Mary,” he said. “ That’s the Mary I knew.” Without asking, Kit reached over and took back his photograph.

Thursday, 16 May 2002, a single day of blazing sunshine, trapped between a day of drizzle and an almighty thunder storm. The Doves were top of the charts. Slipknot, White Stripes, and Mercury Rev were scheduled to play Reading. He’d just bought new strings for his guitar. Mary was still going out with him. All the bad stuff was yet to come. The one perfect day of his life.

“Who took the picture?” demanded Kate.

“Who do you think?” said Kit. “Josh, obviously…”

Josh with his new Nokia, photographing his best mate and his best mate’s girl, as they sat almost facing each other. So bohemian, beneath a clear blue sky. As if Mary’s naked top and Kit’s faux casual insolence in the face of a camera phone meant all other restraints had been lost.

They looked like the kids they’d been. Only one had to be old to think like that and Kit wasn’t, not really; just tired and drunk and doing his best to hold Kate’s news at bay. “Why are you really here?”

“Because I told Pat I’d find you.”

“You could have lied,” Kit said, “holed up in a hotel, told him I’d left for somewhere else.”

“I did,” said Kate. “Twice. The last time was a month ago.”

She drank off the rest of her broth, without seeming to notice it was cold, and picked up a disposable chopstick, which was crude enough to have split along one edge when separated from its pair.

Years back, yanking her fingers apart, Yoshi had described how, until he met her sister, Yuko’s new husband had chopsticked his way through office ladies. It turned out she meant he split them open, used them once, and tossed them away. Every time Kit used disposable chopsticks he thought of Mr. Tamagusuku.

“Cheap,” Kate said, putting down one chopstick and snapping the other in two. She regarded the pointed end with interest and Kit felt himself tense.

“Maybe back then,” she said. “Not now.”

“So why come looking a third time?” asked Kit, returning to what really worried him.

“I’ve told you,” said Kate. “Pat.”

“What about him?” Kit prompted.

Kate O’Mally took a deep breath. Kit thought it was a sigh until he saw her shoulders lock and she blew the air out again. It was frustration that drove the breath from her body with the force of a punch.

“We’ve separated,” she said. “Happened about five years ago. Still stay in touch. Well, we did, mostly about Mary. He thinks she’s still alive.”

Putting down his green tea, Kit waited.

“I know for a fact,” said Kate, “my daughter stepped off a ferry into the sea. The police, the coroner, all Mary’s friends…we know that’s the truth. Only Pat refuses to believe it.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? Because he can’t stand the thought of Mary drowning herself.” From the scowl on Kate O’Mally’s face she wasn’t handling the truth much better herself. This was a woman who’d used pliers as a negotiating tool, Kit reminded himself. Now was probably not the time to start feeling pity.

“What?” demanded Kate.

“Just remembering,” Kit told her.

“Pat says Mary wouldn’t kill herself.” Kate sighed. “He says suicide wasn’t in Mary’s character.”

“So what does he think happened?”

“He told the police he believes she was kidnapped and murdered.”

“Then there should be a body or a ransom note.”

“That’s what they said.” Kate shrugged. “An Inspector came down from London. I think Pat had been giving them trouble. You know, calling them with new ideas and suggestions. You remember Mike?”

Kit shook his head, not that it made any difference.

“Surprise me,” said Kate sourly. “He took over the business a few years back.” She grimaced. “Good at it too, much smoother than me. Anyway, he called. It turned out he’d been in contact with Mary all those years that she wouldn’t even talk to me.”

Mary wouldn’t…

“Why did he call?”

“To say I should do what Pat wanted.” From the flatness in Kate’s voice, it sounded as if her nephew had said a lot of other things as well.

An early wash of dawn was weakening neon beyond the café’s curtain, turning the lights from a mating display to a jumble of glass tubes and tatty flex. Across the street a group of Chinese cleaners were tumbling out of a white van, in a clatter of mops and pails, their conversation fractured by the rattle of early-morning trains overhead.

No Neck’s motorbike was parked on the street and Kit knew the bozozoku would be watching from somewhere nearby. The man and his machine were rarely parted for long.

“Come on,” said Kit, “let’s get you back to your hotel.”

Pushing back her chair, Kate reached for her coat, forcing her arm through its sleeve on her third attempt. “I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “You can show me the sights.”

Stumbling through the door, Lady Neku, otherwise known as Baroness Nawa-no-ukiyo, Countess High Strange, and Chatelaine of Schloss Omga, fell to her knees and vomited all over slate tiles. What she’d seen clung to her like smoke, her thoughts rubble through which the last wisps of necessity demanded she search.

“Fuck.”

Hoplite, heliocentric…

Hemispherical?

Double fuck. There was something important she needed to tell her brother Nico. Only she’d forgotten it already.

Lady Neku was naked, her fingers bleeding from broken nails. A scratch on her ankles had obviously oozed liquid and then sealed itself. From what she could tell the glue her body had produced was… was … tied to extra cellular matrix receptors, linked to the initiation of granulation tissue formation.

She jumped, shocked that the castle had been the one to speak first. “You’re back,” it said. “Did you get what you were after?”

“What was I after?” asked Lady Neku.

The castle sighed. “Obviously not,” it said.

Squatting naked like some fugee, Lady Neku let the tiles melt around her and felt herself sink into the floor, until the level came up to her neck. It was wet and warm but not unpleasant, like damp flesh on damp flesh, which is what it was, Lady Neku realised.

“Can you mend me?” she asked.

“Define mend .”

“Repair the cuts and heal the bruises.” She felt the castle’s amusement. “I can still do the small stuff,” it said. “It’s the bigger stuff…”

“What bigger stuff?”

“Neku,” it said, and Lady Neku realised this was the first time Schloss Omga had ever called her by name. “You’re sweet, but not very bright.”