Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'No!' said Shen, and tried to stop Joe, and, to Mae's immense pleasure, Joe hit Shen full in the face with his fist. Shen spun, holding his nose, blood spurting from it.

Mae found that part of her wanted to laugh.

There will be news enough in this night to keep the village going for a year. We will be destroyed, will all lose station, dignity, voice.

Joe tried to hit Mr Ken. Kuei caught his fist.

'I don't want to fight you, Joe.' Oh, don't you? thought Mae. You will not have much choice.

Joe swung again, and connected.

'Joe, we could not help…' Mr Ken did not finish as a second blow was struck.

It is like a toy that you let go, and watch whizzing off until its batteries run down.

Joe wanted to fight. Joe wanted to die. Mr Ken wanted to talk. The two agendas were not compatible.

Joe swung again, and this time Kuei swung back.

'You're good at hitting women,' said Kuei, and swung again.

Joe was going to get beaten up.

Oh well, thought Mae, here we go.

Mae started to scream. She did it quite deliberately, almost without emotion, to rouse the village to the point of being desperate to see what was happening. They would stop the fight. The scandal would be immense.

'Stop it, you're killing him!' she wailed, choosing her words carefully.

That truly did it. Beyond her gates, doors bashed open, footsteps clattered, men shouted, women cried aloud. Old Mrs Ken came running out of her house, clutching at her bathrobe. Mr Oz came running out hopping into his trousers, panic-stricken. He trampolined towards his golden van to make sure it was safe. The gate boomed back against the wall, and there stood Mr Kemal, with a pitchfork.

'What is going on here!' Mr Kemal demanded.

There was Shen, bloodied, Kuei and Joe fighting, and a beaten woman on the ground.

'What is this brawl?' demanded Mr Kemal. 'Teacher Shen, I am surprised to see you involved in this!'

The dismayed expression on Shen's face almost made it worthwhile. Almost.

You should have stayed unconscious, advised Old Mrs Tung.

Mae had to leave her house and go to live with Kwan.

It would have been impossible to stay with Joe and even more impossible that she move in with Mr Ken. Joe would have murdered them in their bed.

Mae's brother arrived about a half hour after the fight, demanding she move in with him. 'I do not wish to do that,' said Mae. She was flinging her clothes into a bag as Joe was comforted by Young Mr Doh.

'You have no choice,' said her brother. Ju-mei followed her all the way up the hill, making demands. He did not even offer to help Mae with her bags. 'It is all right, brother, I got myself into this mess, I certainly did not expect any help from my family!' She turned and left him standing openmouthed.

'My god,' whispered Kwan, when she saw Mae's bruised face.

Kwan let her sleep late. About midday she came up to Mae's attic room with tea, and sat with her.

'Will you leave the village?' Kwan asked.

Normally, that would have been the answer. Mae and Ken would have packed up and gone away, to live in the city. Balshang, probably. God, what a fate, to bake in those sweltering tower blocks, with no money, no air, no friends. Until they ended up hating each other, as was normal.

Mae shook her head. 'I have to help here.'

Kwan held her hand. 'You are not in a good position to help.'

Mae shrugged. 'I will still have my school.'

'No one would come to it,' said Kwan. Her eyes were sad, her mouth firm. She held her friend's hand.

So Mae had lost the school, too. She looked at Kwan's hand. The hand was the village, all she had left of it. Mae loved the village.

The fields she had worked in all summer were her husband's. They were not hers to work any longer. The rice she had nurtured, watered with her sweat, was hers no longer.

The house she had cleaned was no longer hers, the pans, the brazier, all the old spoons. That house had seen her through three children. She had stirred the laundry and the soup alike as the babies fought and wailed around her ankles.

Her home.

She nearly lost even the rough old sewing machine. Mr Wing fetched it for her, and had to remind Joe that legally it belonged to Kwan.

The sewing machine now sat in the corner, next to Mae's suitcases. They looked small in the empty loft room. The only furniture was a couch that Kwan and Wing had wrestled into the space. The roof had a window through which sunlight streamed. Wing had taped clear plastic where panes of glass had been. Everything was coated in a fine white dust.

At midday, just under the tiles, it sweltered. In winter, she would freeze. Swallows cried urgently to be fed from nests under the eaves.

'Bloody Shen,' said Mae. 'Joe's come back with no money and who will buy dresses from me now? I don't even have the loan to pay for any cloth.' Mae sighed and shook herself. 'Still – nothing broke. I kept all my teeth.' Such was peasant luck.

'Joe has been getting drunk with Young Mr Doh,' said Kwan. 'People say that he lost his job through drinking. Siao and Old Mr Chung will work on the construction.'

Mae groaned for him. He had come back with nothing, to find nothing. 'What are they saying about Shen?'

'To me? Nothing. My dear, I am your champion. There are people who will walk past me as if I am not there.'

Mae pondered this for a moment. What was her position in this house? She would have to make some kind of contribution, both in money and in attention and gratitude. How long could she stay? She needed to stay, but every friendship can wear out.

'God, I hate being poor,' said Mae. Poverty afflicts everything, in the end, everything that should be sacrosanct. Love, friendship, the chance to dream, how you live, with whom you live.

'You can stay here as long as you like,' said Kwan, quickly, to get it out of the way.

'If I get my business back together, can I run it from here?'

Kwan faltered ever so slightly. She saw cloth, sewing machines, strangers coming into her house.

'I can work from one of the barns. I know it's difficult.'

Kwan fought her way to honesty. 'I have to ask Mr Wing.'

If not… Well, things would be bad if not. Well, things had always been bad and a dishonoured woman in a village had to settle for what she could get.

'Could you tell Joe for me about the TV charges? How I bargained with Sunni? And that the interest on the loan has been waived? That should ease his mind a bit.'

Kwan nodded and worked Mae's fingers in her own.

'You are still fond of Joe.'

'Of course. I lived with him for thirty years.'

'And Mr Ken?'

'The saddest thing of all is that I had decided to end it.'

Kwan sighed, and patted her arm. 'You rest,' she said.

Mae fought her way to honesty as well. 'There is something else,' she said.

Kwan could not help putting her hand on her forehead. What now?

'I think I am pregnant,' said Mae.

Sezen came to call, still blinking, with black hair in her eyes.

Sezen said, 'You sit in bed? You have work to do.'

Mae was not in a position to admonish her for rudeness. Merely visiting Mae had put Sezen in the position of being owed. 'I will start work again, soon,' said Mae.

'Your face is a mess, but no one has to see it,' said Sezen. 'Musa and I can get the cloth for you. No problem.'

'I'm not doing bad-girl clothes,' said Mae.

'Of course not,' said Sezen. 'Just whatever you need the cloth for.'

Mae adjusted to this in silence.

Sezen added, 'Aprons, oven gloves. Things people really use.'

What is it with you, Sezen? Why can't I understand what you want? Why, in a word, are you sticking by me?

Sezen jerked sideways in an angry, harnessed way that was entirely new. 'I have bad news,' she said, and her jerking body expressed impatience with herself for not knowing how to begin. 'Han An has gone off to work for Sunni. I saw the two of them still going around with clipboards, trying to look as if you had not done it first.'