Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'Mrs Wing-ma'am,' said Lung, with a practised adult politeness that would have been beyond him when he left home. He bowed, and beamed, and enveloped Kwan's frail hand in his own. 'It is so good to see old friends.' He smiled. He held onto Kwan's hand and said to Mae, 'Come, quick, see your beautiful machine.' He escorted them both to the back of the truck and flung back the tarpaulin with one huge gesture.

The weaving machine like her son was huge, brown and khaki.

Lung chuckled. 'Mrs Wing-ma'am,' he asked the owner of the barns. 'Where do you want it?'

Mae spoke instead. 'Oh not here. I have rented our old house. It needs to go there.'

Lung's smile faltered; he did not look at her, but he managed not to look sad, or ashamed.

The beefy one with the dark chin said, 'We better get it there, Lieutenant,' said the Sergeant. 'Before the snow settles too badly.

'And there's a power failure,' warned Mae.

Lung barked with laughter. 'Of course! There always is the first snow of winter! Come on, let's get this in!' He bowed again, quickly to Kwan, and was striding back to the cab on legs as thick as prize hams. 'Come on, Mama!'

'We need to stop at Sunni's.' said Mae. He pulled her into the cab, and for lack of space sat her on his lap. It was strange to be so supported by your baby.

'I remember when I used to hold you like this,' she said. He looked like a barrel full of apples, all round, red. She knew she was looking with a mother's eyes, but there was no doubt. He was so much better looking than the other two. They were invisible next to him, as if you were blinded from looking at the sun.

No wonder a Western girl fell in love with you, Mae thought. They must all fall in love with you. She felt herself fall in love with him, all over again. So this is what my son grew up into. Lieutenant Chung.

Mae realized that her son was the best looking man she had ever seen. Better looking than a movie star. But he smelled different from those pretty boys, there was nothing wispy about him. This was someone, you could tell, who jumped from aeroplanes, who built rope bridges across ravines.

Mae thought of Joe. No wonder he had been so proud, so amazed at what had stepped out from his own loins. No wonder he wanted to talk about nothing else. Lung was the one good thing he had done.

'We stop here,' Lung told the skinny driver, and the truck whined to a professional halt, not skidding in the snow.

Sunni greeted Lung graciously, just as if the family Chung had not been shattered by scandal. Her kitchen still smelled of gas and was lit with a gas lamp.

Mae murmured to her about housing the machine in the old house. Sunni waved a hand, in a grand ladylike way that was also slightly crabby. Mae suddenly saw how she would be when she was old. Saw that Sunni was already getting old, but that somehow, getting old would be good for her.

'Oh!' Sunni said. 'I already told that man of mine, I said we will get nothing else for that old place, it's only good for giving to tenants and who needs tenants? They are trouble, you have to give them the house for free with the land. Pshaw! Fifteen riels a month.'

'Twelve,' said Mae.

'Twelve,' said Sunni. 'But only because I want to see to see the machine loaded.'

Both ladies got to sit on Lung's lap, one thigh each.

The snow still fell, shooting past the windscreen as the truck moved through it. The snow looked like shooting stars, as if they were travelling through outer space.

Their old house turned as if to greet them, grey as a ghost.

'I'll get the gate,' Mae said, and stepped down from the truck. She lifted up the ground bolts, and wondered why she did not feel more. Snow, power failure, Lung, machine, there was too much going on to feel the pain and the loss of what had happened. That was good.

As the gate opened amid a spangle of illuminated snow, it was more like a festival.

The huge green van bounced into the courtyard, just missing taking off the lintel from the gate. All Mr Ken's hens were inside out of the cold or surely some of them would have been crushed. The great truck swung around and backed up. Mae saw Mr Ken's house, darkened as if deserted.

Her washing line was folded, her kitchen door was locked, and the stump for chopping wood lay sideways. Mae went to open up the barn.

The bolts were cold on her hands; the old doors groaned as if in protest at being awakened. The earthen floor had been beaten flat as polished flagstone.

The floor sloped down, as did the entire courtyard.

Lung stepped out of the truck, holding what looked like a remote control. Sunni hung back behind him as if afraid. Mae walked out then.

'We've got to put it on something first,' she said.

'Why?'

'There are floods,' said Mae.

Mae felt as if elastic braces were drawing in around her heart as she knocked on Mr Ken's door.

She looked at the old grey wood of the door, and waited unable to breathe, feeling Lung's eyes on her back. She heard footsteps; the door opened.

There he was. Mr Ken. He looked older than she remembered, more rumpled, but then she had seen Hikmet Tunch, and her son Lung, since. His eyes quickened when he first saw her, widened, darted over her face, then looked behind and saw the truck. He tried to straighten his hair; he looked embarrassed, befuddled.

'Hello, Mae,' he said. 'What's going on?'

There was no time for yearning, remembrance, or even any sign of what happened. Not with Joe's son looking on.

'Hello,' she said with restraint. 'I am sorry to bother you like this. But we are putting a new machine in the barn…'

'My mother needs to talk to you about this…'

Mae cut him off. 'It is actually Sunni's barn and I rent it. You once said that you had no use for the stone drinking troughs. Can I have them?'

He looked at her with an expression that was impossible to read. You and I meet again and we talk about this?

'I'm moving back in,' she told him. 'I've only just decided.'

Behind her, Sunni said to Lung, 'I have the keys. Let's get the TV inside.'

Kuei's hands did a helpless little wave. 'Have them if you want. They are very old. What do want them for?'

It would not be right not to warn him.

'There will be a flood. Everything will be washed away. I need to have my machine on a platform, to save it.'

His whole face was wary. 'This is Grandmother talking,' he said. 'Every winter, she would always warn us about the flood.'

'This time it's true.' All right, don't believe me, she thought. I have no time to argue. The truck's engine is running and so is Lung's. She glanced behind and saw her TV lowered from the back of the van. 'May I have the use of the troughs? I can pay you for them, whatever you ask.'

Mr Ken held up a hand. 'Take them, take them.'

Mae nodded, smiling, hoping her eyes were also able to jam into such snatched time, a form of remembrance.

'I'll have them back when the flood does not come,' he said darkly, and shut the door on her.

Mae blinked, for that had been too sudden. She turned slowly, followed her TV as it was huffed and sighed into her old house.

'Here, here, into its new home!' enthused Sunni, too bright, too glowing. She was covering for Mae. The house was small and dark and smelled of dust. Noodles had stiffened on plates left on the table. Some of Mae's old dresses still hung from the wall, as if preserved by the cold. Lung glanced down, ashamed.

'Does it convert to Aircast?' Sunni asked tapping the top of the TV.

'Oh yes, I expect Sezen will use it to serve Collabo.'

'Can I rent it?' Sunni asked. Mae hesitated. 'I want to serve high fashion. We can split the market.'

'It has possibilities,' said Mae. 'We'll talk tomorrow.'

The two fashion experts nodded, eyes hooded. Then something happened. Listen to us both, they seemed to say, and both burst out laughing at themselves.