At the Edge of the Game Read online

  The road has twisted and turned, gone downhill and uphill, under a railway bridge from which water poured in cascades, through empty villages, past deserted farms. Not once have we seen another human being, though we have seen many a carcass.

  It seems that we have hit our first snag since we left the main road, descending into a deep, broad valley. Small town ahead. The sky is starting to darken and we are in need of somewhere to see out the night. The problem is that the place squats in a big flood lake, a placid mirror casting the far hill darkly.

  A narrow white sign announces the town. Banlian.

  Here is a warehouse, something from olden times, moss-covered and crumbling. Some cottages too, gone to ruin. Flood might be the best thing for this stooped place. The main body of the town is mostly submerged, only grey-slate roofs higher than the water level.

  We have reached the end of the line, stopped at the edge of the lapping dark mass. Voluminous streams empty into it, draining the saturated slope.

  The scene is not entirely dispiriting. Some birds have come from somewhere and seem to be enjoying swimming the watery Banlian streets. How they survived the extremes of the winter I cannot imagine, and yet here they are bobbing and gliding with untroubled feathery countenance.

  We’ll have to stay here for the night. No way around it. Heathshade takes out the petrol can and re-siphons the contents of the fuel tank back into it. Something I would not have thought of doing.

  There’s a dirt pathway running along the back of the old warehouse, and it leads towards what seem to be some more modern structures a distance away, above the flood line. It’s not easy lugging our things through the slippery mud, especially when the lane veers close to the water, close enough to have to walk through lapping wavelets. And carrying Helen’s two bags as well as my own is hell on the shoulders. That thundery face says Don’t ask me how I am. But she would answer Heathshade politely enough if he asked, wouldn’t she? Not that he ever would ask.

  The laneway opens onto a cul de sac with cars and vans parked and a bungalow with a chimney emitting smoke. A lace curtain twitches.

  The bungalow’s front door opens. A woman. A fat woman.

  ‘Ye can’t stay here,’ she says.

  A fat man joins her. He has a double-barrelled shotgun.

  ‘Private property.’

  I try to sound friendly. ‘Is there’s anywhere around here we can stay?’

  ‘Houses down there,’ says the woman. The door slams. A lock clicks on the inside.

  ‘Fuck them,’ says Heathshade. He takes Helen’s two bags from me and hefts them onto his back.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  She follows behind. I follow her.

  We are not gone far when a voice comes from behind. ‘Hey, wait!’ It’s the fat man. ‘Is that petrol you’ve got?’

  Heathshade shouts back without looking.

  ‘Not for sale.’

  ‘What do you want for it? Food?’

  ‘Not hungry.’ Heathshade mutters to us: ‘Keep walking.’

  But Helen has a mind of her own. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Stew on the boil. Round steak, potatoes, carrots, onions. Yours for two litres.’

  ‘Can’t afford two litres,’ Heathshade says.

  ‘You travelling somewhere?’

  ‘South.’

  ‘Come in and talk,’ he says.

  John-Paul Galvin is the fat man’s name. Not after one of the popes of the same name, he claims, but after the Beatles.

  ‘If we had a Ringo now we’d have the full set.’

  This makes me warm to him a little.

  Teresa is his woman’s name. Her hair is dyed red and she exudes a sort of general greasiness, excess weight mainly above the hips. Rolls of flesh show through, the bloodless hue of moribundity, shot through with black veins.

  I wonder are they married, but best not to ask. Personal questions would introduce an element of mission-creep into this situation.

  She struggles to bring their bloated child to heel. Mick by name, he is a monster child. The primitive brute-in-the-making is four years old according to them, but he looks more like about seven or eight. I feel queasy looking at him. Is the human race starting to devolve in this cold drowned world? Looking at this specimen, one might think so. Those dullard grey eyes appraise us with proto-malevolence.

  ‘Cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss,’ says Heathshade.

  The woman sighs and places a kettle of water on the blazing-hot stove. Miraculously they have running water.

  The fat man sets his elbows on the greasy table.

  ‘You see that pot on the stove there? You smell that cooking? That’s good food there. Two litres for that.’

  ‘Can’t afford two litres.’

  ‘Half the pot, one litre.’

  ‘No good.’

  The fat man sits back in his creaking chair.

  ‘Where are you going anyway?’

  Heathshade doesn’t want to answer, but Helen is impatient.

  ‘Rosslare,’ she says. She’s not leaving this room without the food, that much is clear. Neither is Heathshade, but he is coming at the problem from a different angle.

  The fat man too seems to consider himself a sharp operator. I wonder whether he perceives yet that if no deal is made Heathshade will take more direct action. He’s straying dangerously far from his shotgun.

  ‘Going abroad?’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Heathshade.

  A long pause. The woman is testy. The boy is making noises as he plays with a toy car, and she silences him with a smack to the head. The kettle whistles.

  ‘Would you take us with you?’

  ‘No room.’

  ‘We have a people carrier. Share the petrol, we can all go to Rosslare.’

  ‘We have a car.’

  ‘We have lots of food here. Team up with us and we’ll share. You stay here tonight. Tomorrow we go.’

  His wife starts crying all of a sudden. The boy, after a moment’s consideration, joins in. Big, throaty wails from him.

  ‘So can you do it?’

  ‘Where’s the food?’ says Helen.

  They have a freezer – not really cold with no electricity. Packed with all the commodities you’d expect them to have - pizzas, burgers, frozen chips.

  ‘We’ll want a good share of that,’ says Heathshade.

  ‘We can discuss it.’

  Helen knows what she wants. ‘We’ll have the stew now, please.’

  She takes it upon herself to ladle it out onto plates for the three of us.

  The most for Heathshade, the least for me. Why?

  Next we indicate that we are to be shown to our beds. Only one spare bed is available and pre-emptively I make it plain that Heathshade is assigned the sofa.

  The bed is bare, the mattress lumpy. In the wardrobe are dusty old blankets, torn sheets, a single stained pillow.

  It’s still only seven, but Helen falls asleep. Not me though. I’m over-tired, strung out from the stresses of the day, muscles aching, head throbbing. Also thirsty, but will stay here. The family is hearing a Heathshade monologue. His personal brand of opinionated vacuity must be quite an unfamiliar experience for them.

  Bur can’t find a comfortable position on the bed, and I am too aware of the airborne grime of this musty room, troublingly elaborate of molecular structure. It sticks to the back of my throat.

  Open the window. It’s of that old-fashioned wooden sort that sticks so that you have to force it. The loud creak makes Helen groan and stir.

  The air, cool and refreshing. Carrying still some sense of springtime, rippling the curtains, stirring dust on the sill.

  Moonlight and the busy floodwater glint give dark definition to the line of trees outside the boundary wall.

  Climb out through the window. Why am I doing this? Plant feet on the yielding soil like stepping off a lunar module ladder. Leave behind those lost souls inside.

  I will ensure that my child has a soul, transcends th
e world of the obvious, a world already overpopulated with the likes of those fools in the house and - may as well admit it - also inhabited by myself.

  A voice carries faintly on the breeze, propagating across the water, a halloo desolate and grim, emitted without hope.

  I come upon a garden bench wet with water droplets. It’s pleasant to sit, look at the clouds driven from the south crossing past the bright moon. Through gaps stars are also visible, and Venus, and that gold body, that spark low in the southwest, that I divine must be Jupiter.

  I throw a rock, never hear the splash though it surely hit the water. I’d like to climb one of those trees, plunge from a high branch. I imagine against all reason warmish water, soft and friendly like this spring air.

  The swishing grass is long, catches at my legs so that I plod as though I were in the flood shallows.

  At least the aurochs are unsighted behind the rocky ridge. Good fortune has ordained that we are also downwind of the grazing animals. We did not take the wind into consideration when we formulated our plan. We sit against a boulder. Whispering, Masqle outlines the next stage of our venture. One of us, he says, should proceed to one end of the rocky ridge, the two others to the other end. When the two are in position, the one should emerge from cover into full view of the aurochs. This should startle them sufficiently so that they bolt in the opposite direction. As they pass the far end of the ridge, the two concealed marksmen should be able to bring down Aleph-29 at their leisure, and have time to take more than one shot to do so if need be.

  Connor volunteers for the lone role. Masqle and I proceed quietly to the end of the ridge and settle down against a boulder in preparation for the auroch stampede. We wait several minutes for Connor to manoeuvre himself into suitable position. We clutch our rifles tightly, with sweating hands, not knowing when the charge will occur. A flash of movement catches my eye amongst the grasses between two boulders about thirty paces below the ridge. I grip Masqle's shoulder lightly and gesture towards the spot. Another quick movement reveals a male acinonyx creeping towards the slow-moving aurochs. Then we spot another further away - a sleek female, feline eyes fixed on its unsuspecting quarry. There may be more acinonyxes with these two. They often work in familial teams.

  As one, we realise the danger. Abandoning our position, we make out way back down the ridge, keeping as low as we can to stay in cover, all the while listening for the acinonyx attack that will send the aurochs thundering towards our comrade. We reach the end of the ridge and see no sign of Connor. Then Masqle spots him some way down the ridge, too far from us to hear our whispered warnings, lying on a patch of grass between two boulders. The aurochs are standing in a tight group now, the closest twenty paces from him, looking warily around, sensing danger. Masqle tells me to stay where I am and crawls down the shallow incline towards Connor. He is within several paces of him when Connor notices his presence. They exchange a few hushed words and then start to creep their way back up the incline towards me.

  The acinonxyes begin their attack. There are four of them. They emerge from cover as one, converging on the aurochs from different directions. Though the great cats are large creatures, half as heavy again as a man, they are dwarfed by the aurochs, who stand so tall that a man is not high enough even to look levelly at their massive shoulders. Yet even an auroch in full health is in danger in the face of a team of hungry acinonyxes. The aurochs cannot hope to outrun the great cats, for they are the swiftest land-creatures on earth. Neither can they hope to elude them through agility, for the acinonyxes employ strategies that can cause an auroch to break a leg on the treacherous grassland. The aurochs cannot even confidently hope to defeat the acinonyxes through brute strength, though they are among the most powerful creatures on the planet. A team of acinonyxes can pull down even a bull like Aleph-29 with relative ease after they have used their natural cunning to tire him out.

  However, the primary weapon of the acinonyx is surprise, for it is through confusion that they can isolate an auroch and subdue it. In this case the acinonyxes have mistimed their appearance. They are young and relatively inexperienced hunters, probably all from the same litter, now on the cusp of adulthood. The aurochs turn as a unit and bolt in the direction of Connor and Masqle. I shout a cry of warning to them. They realise too late what has transpired. They get to their feet and try to run to safety. The aurochs, pursued half-heartedly by the acinonyxes, who know they have already lost their opportunity, bear down upon the men too swiftly for them to get clear. The men are knocked to the ground in an instant and then crushed beneath the hoofs of the huge animals. Their blood and entrails are spread across the grass.

  I stare at their broken forms, living men one instant, formless meat the next. The acinonyxes, still not aware of me, bound cheerfully to the site of my comrades' deaths, sniff at the scattered bloody traces before settling down to feast.

  A female grips Masqle by the neck and drags him along the ground, so I discharge a round into the sky. They scatter, retreating to the cover of some longer grass some distance away, look back towards me as I climb unsteadily, legs trembling, down to the bodies.

  I don't know what to do. I can't hope to carry them back to the post, leaving a trail of blood all the way back. The acinonyxes would have me before I even got halfway there. Vultures already assembling in the sky overhead. One of the males emerges from the grass and begins a cautious approach. I fire off another round, this time aimed at a rock just to his left, and he retreats again.

  The smell will draw all kinds of predators here, some of them likely to be more formidable than these cats. Better get back to the safety of the post.

  I pick up the identity tags of Masqle and Connor and put them in my pocket. The human remains I leave to the local predators and scavengers.

  The light is on in our hut. A surprise. One that makes me fearful now in an entirely different way. The window is open. A shadow crosses the wall inside.

  Helen. She sits on the side of the bed, leaning forward, rocking.

  ‘Where were you?’ She’s sweating, very pale.

  I haul myself inside. Trying to gather my thoughts, think straight. I need to make a conscious effort to breathe, medulla out of commission. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look well.’

  She doesn’t answer for a moment. ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’ Heart switches gear.

  ‘I don’t know. Cramps.’

  Don’t let there be blood. There isn’t.

  She groans at the onset of… what, a contraction?

  ‘What’s happening, Helen?’

  ‘Help me into bed. I’ll be all right.’

  She’s wearing nightclothes under a couple of sweaters and a heavy overcoat. Why? It’s not that cold in the savannah breeze. So light and slender she feels in my arms.

  She doesn’t want me to talk, but she lets me lay beside her, hold her hand. The tattered wallpaper has a cartoon-animal pattern of puppies, fawns, kittens. On the wall are scribbles, clumsily scrawled letters. Not, I am completely sure, anything to do with that half-boy, half-defendant out there. The word CAT appears beside a pen-drawn form that does, in fact, for all its inexactness, capture something of feline essence. I could labour for years and not achieve what this scribble does. I would enlarge the scrawl and frame it, if I could.

  She takes a breath. ‘Get more blankets. I'm freezing.’

  Yes, it’s cold in this godforsaken place. A layer of ice on the bed and the carpet. Standing up, I get dizzy. Lean against the wall. The CAT comes away in my hand, ripped in two, destroyed.

  I get all the remaining blankets from the wardrobe and cover her. So much dust is raised that I have a fit of sneezing. Where has my strength gone? I really want to lie down. She has the bed. She needs it. I’ll take the floor.

  ‘Are you okay, George?’

  ‘Tired.’

  My skin tingles, my legs ache even more than before. I really want to sleep. She’s leaning over me. Let me just lie here, Helen. Get back into bed. Your turn
not to bother me. Tables turned.

  Can’t think with this internal overlay getting worse – buzzing, roaring, a drifting veil, pain like electric current. Body defences failing cell by cell, biological defeat played out on the thin, worn carpet. No contortion relieves the burning in my waist and legs. A problem, a mental puzzle I have to solve – what is it again? Like in dreaming, I forget what it is. I keep forgetting.

  Sound of rattling loose windowpanes - a distraction. Cool evening air, blowing in from the sea. Sea? That’s not right. We’re far from the sea… hundreds of miles. Where’s the sea? A long way beyond that high mountain spine, which the train track parallels throughout its long ascent. Not so hot here as down in the lowlands, but the exertion of this hike, this leg-aching hike, has pricked my sweat glands. Nothing wholesome or satisfying about this. Feels like life itself leaking out through my skin.

  But those impressive hilltop earthworks are the work of sound military minds. I have a new respect for these Neanderthals, seeing the sharpened beams protrude from the circular mound, and the deep, dry moat that rings its outer edge. Steel-tipped assegais and pikes of the defenders flash in the afternoon sun. A multitude of warriors occupy the foot of the hill, and all are silent. On the wind is carried only the faint sound of a woman gasping and groaning, coming from… I can’t see where. Will someone not attend to her? Are they so primitive, these people, that they will ignore a woman in labour?

  In the light of day we skirted around the evening's unpleasantness. After a breakfast of forest nuts and fruit he went up the slope to Brinnilla's grave. Some time later I saw him at the edge of the trees, moving in the general direction of the northern headland. That afternoon I spotted him through the telescope sitting on one of the headland's rocky crags, watching the waves crashing beneath. He returned just before sunset in lighter mood. I shared the meal I had prepared for myself, which he accepted with good grace. We discussed of the possibility of exploring the wider world. We studied a holographic representation of the globe based on mapping the ship had carried out from lunar orbit, and prepared an ambitious flight plan that would take us on a polar circumnavigation of the planet.