Maggie Helwig - Girls Fall Down

He knew, in fact, not much about her. Once he had thought that he wanted to know her, wanted nothing more in the world, but it had never been true; whatever he had thought he felt, Susie had finally been not much more than a blank screen for his own longings. And he, presumably, had been the same for her, had acquired what identity he had from being simply not Chris.

BIRD FLU EPIDEMIC COULD KILL MILLIONS, said a headline in a newspaper box. Maybe this would replace the fainting girls, then; that would be a relief. He bent down, glancing at a photograph of the mass extermination of chickens in Hong Kong. The story stressed that the world was overdue for an epidemic. The virus biding its time, waiting to make a grand appearance.

She was in the restaurant already when he arrived, but she stood up from the table as he came in, and there was a moment of awkward shuffling as they tried to decide whether they would hug. They did not. It had crossed his mind that he might not recognize her; but of course that was impossible. He sat down at the other side of the table, under a tourist-office poster of Bangkok.

‘Alex,’ she said. ‘You look good.’

He was stung by the cliché, but this was what people said. He should have let it pass, said the same thing in return. He smiled a bit crookedly. ‘I look ten years older than my age.’

She tipped her head to one side and raised her eyebrows, not insulted or taken aback. Almost amused.

‘The grey hair’s hereditary,’ he added, feeling foolish now. ‘Other-wise it’s just my misspent youth.’

Her own face had lost the soft prettiness he saw in his old pictures, was angular and serious, her skin textured and finely lined, her eyes still large and very dark. Her hair, which he’d been genuinely curious about, was longer, past her shoulders, and a deep red-brown that was possibly her natural colour, though more likely not. A fine, complex face, a good face to photograph. But he couldn’t say anything about how she looked; he had managed to ensure that it would not be neutral or safe.

The next few minutes were temporizing, the business of studying menus, ordering, a pause in which neither of them had to think about what to say next. The waiter came, and left, and space opened up again.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I phoned,’ she said eventually.

‘Of course not. Why would I mind?’ He played with his cutlery, not meeting her eye and thinking, How long have you been back, and never called me? Why did you look for Adrian and not for me, never for me? He was more angry than he had realized.

‘It’s been a while.’

‘Quite a while. I didn’t know you were even back in the city.’

‘Yes. Well.’

‘I didn’t have any way to know, did I?’

Or maybe this was just the edginess of an impending hypo. He’d taken his insulin before he left home, and his blood sugar must be getting quite low by now. He picked up his glass of juice and drank half of it quickly.

‘Actually, I am in the phone book,’ said Susie.

‘Ah. Well, so am I. As I guess you found out this week.’

‘I can see where you wouldn’t have thought to look, though.’

‘I didn’t especially assume you’d be back.’

‘Fair enough.’

He could, yes, feel his anger diminishing, independent of Susie or anything about her, as the sugars in the mango juice settled his blood. Sometimes it was no more than that, a process of the body, disengaged from other people.

‘Alex,’ she said suddenly. ‘What are you actually thinking?’

He took another sip of juice. ‘Nothing.’

‘Alex.’

‘Nothing. I just was wondering about the difference between emotions and chemicals.’

Again she seemed prepared to accept his bizarre conversational gambits. ‘None, if you ask a psychiatrist.’

‘Yeah. It’s all blood sugar and serotonin reuptake.’

‘Trick of the light?’

He thought of Walter’s delicate cardiac work. ‘Maybe.’

‘Is that what you believe?’

This had become a discussion about something else, where either a yes or a no would have intentions that he didn’t want. ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ he said. ‘I was just wondering.’

The waiter returned with their food, chicken fried rice for Susie and vegetarian pad Thai for Alex. ‘You still don’t eat meat?’

‘I’m hardcore. In my way.’

‘You really are the most incongruous vegetarian, though.’

‘Well, the insulin comes from a lab now. Don’t have to slaughter livestock for it anymore.’

‘Okay.’

‘On the other hand, I’ve taken pictures of doctors cutting open freshly killed pigs, so I’m still fairly compromised.’ He wound the broad noodles around his fork; the sauce was sweet and ketchupy, entirely North American. ‘It keeps me from thinking too well of myself.’

‘Good Lord. That must be a fun way to spend your day.’

‘I don’t mean all the time. Not very often, really.’

If she had asked him what he did that involved pig autopsies, it might have gotten things back onto a normal course – professional information followed by edited personal details, a socially appropriate exchange. ‘Do you have to watch them kill the pigs?’ she asked, and he realized that Susie really was quite as odd as he remembered her being. Although he wasn’t presenting a very convincing picture of normalcy himself.

‘Well, yes. But it’s not particularly graphic. The doctor gives it an injection and it just dies kind of quietly.’ He poked a piece of tofu with his fork. ‘I’m a medical photographer,’ he added desperately, trying to steer the conversation onto solid ground. ‘It’s a research hospital, so they do have an animal OR. But it’s a very small part of my job.’

‘Huh. How did you end up doing that?’

Alex breathed a small sigh of relief. ‘I don’t know, because hospitals are like a second home to me? Basically, the job was advertised and I needed work. I still do other things, but I’ve stayed at this for quite a while now. It’s a pretty good way to make a living.’

‘And that’s it?’ She lifted a bit of chicken to her lips, watching him as he tried to keep his eyes on his plate. ‘That’s all it is?’

He felt another quick burn of irritation, but something else as well, the memory of her, knotty and actual, the girl with pink hair and erratic boundaries. ‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘No. I guess it’s not. It’s also a privilege, isn’t it? I mean… if you’re not a doctor, you don’t usually get to see, say, a person’s cerebral arteries being cut and repaired. Or a heart, the actual thing, the way it moves… I’m allowed to see this, I’m allowed to see this kind of extremity. And there is something in it – something beautiful.’ It was possible that he sounded crazy. He was increasingly unsure. ‘I don’t mean to be so dramatic. Lots of times I’m just taking pictures of electron microscopes for the brochures, or, you know, doctors pretending to discuss charts with each other on the cover of the annual report.’ He ate another forkful of noodles. ‘You call yourself Suzanne now?’

‘Susie’s okay.’

‘Yeah, but mostly.’

‘Mostly Suzanne.’

Have you ever seen a pig being killed? he thought of asking. Have you ever seen anyone die? Why can’t I decide if I’m angry at you or not?

Her eyes weren’t young anymore. They were deeper and shadowed, grown-up, the skin around them creased, and for just a moment he felt almost unbearably close to her.

‘So what are you doing now?’ he asked instead.

‘I ask people peculiar questions,’ said Susie.

‘Well, yes, I see that. I mean for a living.’

‘Like I said.’

‘What, and you get paid for this? By the Question Fairy?’