Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

All sounds were muted. On the chilly stones of the courtyard the snow looked like lace, its delicate patterns refrigerated from underneath. Mae pushed the courtyard gate, and for the first time in weeks stepped back out into her village.

Everything was being tucked into a bed of snow, as if by a mother. The houses and terraces were all outlined in white. From the high hillside came the tuneless clanking of twenty or thirty sheep bells. Someone had left his flock out to pasture too long. Mae smiled. The same happened every year. Was it Old Mr Pin? Lazy Mr Mack? Who would sit in a corner of the Teahouse, smoking a hubbly-bubbly and grinning with embarrassment?

Mae walked up and over the bridge. The invulnerable ducks still paddled in snow-rimmed water. Mae passed the door of Mrs Doh and her fearsome dog. Mae heard its breath, and the scratching of its giant claws against the other side of the doorway. She caught a gasp of food odours from Mrs Doh's kitchen window: garlic, bean sauce, rice.

The next door opened just as Mae was beside it.

Out came Sunni's friend, Mrs Ali. 'Oh!' she said startled. Then she saw it was Mae. Her face faltered and then recovered.

'Hello,' she said. 'It snows.'

This was awkward. Village manners would not allow them to part without talking. Mrs Ali slammed her door twice with her customary thoroughness. She was bundled up against the chill, tall, skinny, regal and slightly absurd, like a walking telephone pole.

'It is very beautiful,' said Mae. 'It makes me feel like I have come home.'

Then the old rake did not know what to say, for Mae plainly had lost her home several times over. She was discomfited, but not hostile.

'Well, we all have fond memories of snow.' Mrs Ali paused. 'I hear your business does well.'

They both started to walk down the hill together.

'Yes. We have orders from America for five hundred collars. I don't know how we will do all the work!'

That was so far beyond Mrs Ali's imagination that she could not be sure she had heard correctly.

'Successful indeed!' she said, and her smile froze. 'That brings in money?'

'It is a special deal. We have a good relationship with a New York fashion magpie. So we said, join our Circle and wear our collar for only ten dollars each.'

Yes, thought Mae, that does make five thousand dollars. 'So amidst all the terrible things that have happened, there has been some good. The ladies of the Circle share the money. Sunni and I are friends again.' Mae shrugged with her eyebrows, a kind of peace offering. Don't forget that I have been hurt too.

They were at the Okans', the last house on Upper Street. Mrs Ali paused.

'I have noticed,' said Mrs Ali, 'that your friends tend to benefit.' She looked back at Mae, and there was something completely unexpected: a rueful humour, as if Mae were one of life's bitter jokes.

'Good day,' said Mrs Ali. 'I have no lard, and winter is upon us, and I go to beg some from Sunni.' She turned and began to trudge uphill towards Sunni's big house.

There was a rumble, as if from the sky. Mae scowled. Something shifted gears and roared and suddenly, a truck came round the hill and up Upper Street, straight towards her.

A big green truck with huge devouring tyres.

Army! Mae thought, and it was a though a fist had seized hold of her heart and stopped it pumping. She ducked to the side of the Okans' house.

Army, army, army, army, struggled her heart as if to breathe.

The truck roared past, green canvas over camouflaged sides, lashed down, bolted, huge. Army, army, army roaring up the hill, slowing to shoulder their way over the bridge.

Towards Kwan's house.

Mae ran without thinking. Her feet slipped on the snowy cobbles; the cold reached down like deep roots into her lungs. Please! Please! It was a prayer.

She had to be there to tell her story, to explain. I am New York Times! I am New York Times! Mae ran out of breath and had to lean forward onto her knees. Fire from her pregnancy shot up her gorge into her mouth. She swallowed, pushed herself upright and struggled on up the hill. Kwan's gates gaped defencelessly. The courtyard already full of truck. Mae stumbled into the yard.

There was a bloodcurdling yell, and the green door of the cab swung open. A bull of a man burst out of it in piebald camouflage. Before Mae could think, he was running towards her, full pelt. male. huge, fast, young, and strong. She managed to skid to a halt, and was about to turn and run.

He grabbed hold of her.

And then swung her round and round and round. Her string shoes with their slippery leather soles left the ground. She flew. Kwan's courtyard became a merry-go-round, spinning around her, and the man was laughing. Mae wanted to be sick.

He kissed her.

'Surprise!' he called, as if out of a nightmare. Mae's feet were helpless as flippers as she fought to find footing.

She looked up at him. She saw his teeth grinning. 'It's me!' he said.

The world shifted gears like a truck. Her breath left her, she clutched at her chest, all was confusion.

'Lung?' she asked. 'Lung!' For one further terrible moment she thought her own son had come to arrest her best friend.

He laughed. 'Not expecting me were you?'

'No,' she said weakly. 'What are you doing here?'

He laughed again. 'We are bringing you your knitting machine!' As big as a tree branch, his arm was flung towards the cargo under the canvas.

'Oh!' she called out, clutching herself in relief. 'Oh! Oh!'

'Your Mr Oz told me the machine was going, and said, it would be a good chance for me to see you again. Also we have the new TV for you! Did no one tell you?'

Relief spilled over, sloppily, loosely into other emotions. 'Oh Lung!' she said again, and hugged him, held onto him as if he were a new village tree to root things in place. Suddenly it was joyful to see him. Out of confusion, relief, and love her eyes were suddenly full of tears. He chuckled and patted her back. 'Meet my colleagues,' he said.

Two more soldiers lurched out of the cab. One was small and wiry with bad teeth in a cheerful grin. The other looked uncomfortable smiling. He was slim in the hips but fat in the face. Fat and brutal was how he would swell into the future. Both bowed slightly in politeness.

'This is Private Ozer, and Sergeant Alkanuh,' said Lung. 'This is my mother, Mrs Chung Mae.'

Mae was shivering with cold and nerves but managed to bow to each of them. She looked back at her son. The cold was bringing a beautiful pink to her cheeks. The two soldiers were chuckling, the tears and emotion were what they expected from a homecoming. Mae saw Kwan, pale, grey at a window.

'Kwan!' Mae called. 'It is my son Lung. He has brought our knitting machine.' She pushed the tear out of her face and smiled, smiled as wide as she could so that Kwan would see everything was all right.

'Kwan, come out and see my huge, new son! I mean, machine!'

They all laughed because it was true.

Lung was a monster. He had left home as a skinny, spotty seventeen-year-old, off to Army College and refusing to admit that he was shy of the future. Army food and training had made him tall and broad and fit. And he was handsome, oh how handsome Lung had become! She stared in wonder at his perfect face, his perfect teeth, his perfect combed jet black hair.

'Why didn't you tell me?' she said and hit him, lightly on the arm.

His colleagues chuckled again.

'I thought Mr Oz would tell you,' he said, coyly, charmingly.

The skinny one spoke. 'Lung wanted to surprise you.'

'He surprised me all right, I thought I would die!' Her eyes betrayed her again, she wept again. 'It has been three years since I have seen him!'

Shaking like fine china on an unsteady shelf, Kwan crept down the stone steps of her house, clutching her coat. Kwan looked as though she had been punched in the belly.