Саймон Ингс - The Smoke

On the bridge of DARE’s hunter-killer submarine, a raised ring of metal grilles forms a walkway for the operator of the periscope: a black, white and gold contraption that looks like (indeed, is) the barrel of a model rocket. Banks of switches and nested pipework (seconds, bought from Bob’s factory) and consoles of no obvious utility, each console fitted with its integral plastic bucket chair, fill the narrow space. This can be accessed either through a small circular hatch or, when the cameras aren’t running, through a cunningly concealed gap between two banks of controls, one armed with dangerous-looking red levers, the other dominated by a large, Perspex-covered Mercator projection of the world. The continents are white silhouettes while the ocean floors are shown in exquisite blue-and-brown topographical detail.

You edge around a table covered with scale-model trees and, beyond it, a tank of brackish green water. DARE ’s big models, the vehicles, are packed in boxes full of wood shavings to protect their delicate parts: aerials and flip-up weapons arrays, wing mirrors, door handles. Fel’s submarine, on the other hand, lives permanently submerged in its tank. Too heavy, too delicate and too waterlogged to lift out of the water, it would break in half if you tried. You hunker down, peering at it through the murk. You stir the water with your fingers – abruptly snatch them out. There’s something moving in there. Something living.

It’s emerging from one of the torpedo tubes. A white grub, much bigger than a fly larva. A tadpole-like thing. You stare at it, aghast. How is this even possible? How does it live? What does it eat? It wriggles free from the tube and as it swims, it acquires form. Arms and legs. At first transparent, it acquires pigment, texture. It is wearing a sturdy silver one-piece uniform. It is recognisably human.

Recognisably female.

Recognisably Fel.

She grips the edge of the tank and falls, panting and dripping, into your lap. She has been holding her breath a long time. You remember concrete walls and pipework; a floor with a drain. Water welling, and her unconcerned stare as the water rose to cover her face. You cry out. Blue as a berry, she laughs and reaches up and kisses you, hard, pressing her teeth against your teeth. You wrap your arms around her, run your fingers through her hair. Is it possible? Can it be that she has been returned to you?

Of course not. This is something else. Her hair comes away, leaving only glass. Her skull trembles and rings in your hands. There’s something thrashing around in there. You close your eyes, afraid to look.

‘Too late.’ She laughs into your ear, and licks your ear. ‘Too late!’

Now what this all portends – Fel here and on the Moon at the same time; Fel small one moment, big the next and hot and in your arms; Fel returned and Fel naysaying her return, Too late! Too late! – you may suppose is my game. But you’d be wrong. This is none of my doing. This is something unexpected, and for that reason, frightening. This demands action, fast.

Flats topple. Boxes fall and lamps shatter. There’s someone new entering this scene: you look up, wondering what on earth the next cruel surprise might be—

And here I am – ta-da! – arrived in the nick of time by the looks of things, all dolled up in red fishnets and glitter, a studded dog collar round my neck.

Fel lets go of you and turns. (If it is Fel. Of course it is Fel. You only have to look at her. You only have to hold her. But Fel, it appears, is multiple now.) What she intends, I can’t imagine, and I’m not taking any chances, neither. I do my best to melt into the background, the way I disappeared in that train carriage the day you got hit in the face with that rock. But the trick that fooled you is having no effect on her. Fel’s looking at me . She’s smiling at me ! She’s not what she was, that’s for sure. She’s changed. She’s something new and powerful and she’s having none of my blarney.

For a horrible moment, I think she’s about to go for me. Her being a new type, I have no idea what would happen if she did.

Happily, neither does she. Discretion wins the day: laughing, she climbs off your lap, topples back into the water, shrinking as she falls so that when she hits the scummy surface, she’s become no bigger than the toy Jim I fashioned for you; she makes hardly a splash.

I come over to the tank and together we stare into the mucky water. There she is: translucent, shedding limbs, retiring to her submarine. Grublike. Gummy. Gone. How does she do that ?

I fix you with big, bottomless black eyes, reading you frantically. What did I interrupt? What did I miss? What did she want? What has she done to you?

She’s put something inside you!

Keep still, let me see! What is it? A weapon? A bomb?

KEEP STILL!

It’s a delicate business, moving around inside a mind, dancing inside another’s dance, it is so easy to…

(10) Oh, bless my heart, (9) what have I done?

(8) I’ve tripped it! (7) Triggered it! (6) What can I do?

(5) Nothing. (4) The damage is done. (3) This thing she’s put inside your mind, it’s about to… (2) what?

(1) The sets of DARE shift and reassemble to form—

A small apartment.

I am standing in the middle of a small apartment.

Well, this is new.

I can see a kitchen through a screen of beads. The bedroom’s to the right. The only other door is behind me and has a slot for letters. So this, I suppose, is it: a single room. Its furnishings are modest. Rugs. Pencil sketches in frames. Candlesticks over the fireplace. A bed, a bookshelf. The room’s big, though. Well-lit. There are windows floor to ceiling all along one side, and wooden shutters. A narrow balcony beyond. Beyond that, woods roll down to the sea.

There’s even a piano in here. A grand. In gold leaf above the lid, catching the light: ‘Bösendorfer’. A modest apartment. Not a cheap one. I wonder where (THE HELL!) I am?

Odessa, maybe? Is that the Black Sea down there? I suppose it could be Falmouth. Hell, it could be anywhere.

Or nowhere.

A modest apartment. Not cheap. Not tidy, neither: there are toys and baby books lying around on the floor. A toy xylophone with a missing bar. A panda. Some plastic building bricks. I wonder where our child is. (and all the while I’m thinking, WHAT CHILD? What is this? And why am I here? What am I supposed to do here? Who am I supposed to be?)

I peer around the room. Oh for goodness’ sake what am I doing? Do I imagine this mythical infant might be hiding under the floorboards, perhaps, or behind the lamps?

And then I freeze, utterly transfixed. Because it has suddenly dawned on me, where I am.

Do you recognise this place? This place she’s put inside you? You should.

This is the life you could have had.

Do you see? Fel, and a child. This is the future that you threw away.

Soon enough it is evening. Time is relative here, I’ve realised. So is space. The room wobbles. The room has been changing as I’ve been moving through it. The windows are glassless now with wooden screens closed over them, carved into arabesques. The air outside is hot and spiced. In truth the flat’s not changed much – the rugs are different, the sofa’s vanished, there are cushions, and candles everywhere – but the real change lies outside. Which city is that out there? Tangiers? Istanbul? Some harmless, unquestionably patronising oriental fantasy.

And so to bed.

The Moon is out, and at an angle to send its radiance spilling over our room. We lie watching lines of pale light crawl across her floor like living things. We move against each other, softly, shh, don’t wake the baby, and sometime in the heat of it all I murmur her name. ‘Oh, Fel…’