At the Edge of the Game Read online

  ‘It’s home,’ he said. ‘The smell, the feel of it. Like nothing else anywhere.’ He shook my proffered hand. ‘What year is it... ah, what's your name?’

  ‘I am Xian Chu. According to my equipment, it's 98,348. Anno Domini.’

  He squinted down the beach at the red dome of my distant habitat. He looked sad and grotesque with his back hunched, his thick white eyebrows hooding his eyes. ‘My ship says it's 98,351. Likewise, Anno Domini. A discrepancy.’

  ‘I saw your ship manoeuvring into lunar orbit. Where have you come from?’

  ‘From the Betelgeuse nebula and a dozen star systems between here and there. Let me ask you the same question.’

  ‘I was also an interstellar traveller. I left Earth in the year 2342 on a voyage to a globular cluster in the Fornax constellation.’

  ‘So you left Earth decades in my future. You obviously know who I am.’

  ‘Of course. You and your wife, you went down in history as the first interstellar colonists, the first to leave for the stars on a one-way trip.’

  ‘A one-way trip. That’s not the way it turned out, is it?’ He looked back up the stairway of the Unquiet Spirit, then paused. ‘Mr Xian, can you come aboard? I may need some help with my wife.’

  His wife. Brinnilla Innes. The beautiful Brinnilla Innes, whose exceptional beauty had survived to my time in the form of photographs and video archives.

  I followed Dexter up the steps to the entrance to the spacecraft.

  Through the spare room window I am watching the rain splash and steam on a glowing street lamp. Is it really happening? It’s been months since it last rained in Dublin. Now that it has returned, it is torrential, thunderous, relentless. So much for the experts. We have a moist weather system and new fresher air that tastes different and feels different, evokes a host of forgotten sensations. The TV today showed rain pelting down in Mayo, even while Dublin still baked under a hot sun. They said that by evening the storm would reach the city, and they were right.

  Now the cars are crawling past in low visibility. Wide, ever-widening streams fill the gutters.

  Helen’s standing at the door. She’s dressed in a light nightgown. There’s something about her, the look in her eyes, or the way she’s moving, or perhaps it’s something else, but she seems different. I want to touch her, taken by an old feeling revived, a memory of a feeling, a state I had forgotten.

  ‘I need to tell you something.’ Her mood does not match mine. She sounds serious.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you before. I’m pregnant.’

  I bump against the window, find myself sitting on the sill looking up into her face.

  ‘I’ve known for a while. I didn’t tell you because… I don’t know.’

  Did I suspect? Did I not discern something, trace alterations in body chemistry feeding back, small disturbances in established causal patterns, modulated indications in spreading thought waveforms?

  Not a good time materially, nor in many other ways. Still… I think we were both hoping this would happen. And – unexpected, this – all of a sudden I perceive the certainty of my own death. Another human station reached. No doubt that the ultimate one lays ahead. No matter. As long as this child is born and lives well I think I will have lived an adequately human life.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be happy,’ she says.

  Do I look unhappy? ‘I am. Of course I am.’

  ‘Do you mind that I didn’t tell you?’

  I stand up and put my arms around her.

  She’s crying. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ll be a good father, won’t you, George?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  She clutches me.

  ‘I’ll find work. Don’t worry.’

  ‘There’s an appointment with the consultant next week. Will you go with me?’

  A strange and vaguely troubling question. ‘Of course I’ll go.’

  Through the open window come two refugees from the deluge - flitting moths, autumn-dwellers that live and die in a time of decline. They sense the change, heed the body-urge to seed some cranny if they can. Soon they’ll be hollow keratin shells mixing with the soil, dissolved well before any of their offspring stir and emerge weak into a fresh world.

  In the bedroom we lie down together, watching undulations of rain make patterns of windowpane distortion on the wall opposite. The rhythmic drumming is soothing, and she falls asleep. I kiss her cool forehead and ease away, crossing the room to draw the curtains together. Father. I try and fail to comprehend the word. To that end, best instead to aim for emptiness, be right in the now. Perceive surroundings. The room is seen through a distorting lens. The raindrops tap on the glass and roll downwards. The sky-luminescence penetrates through the clouds out over the Terminal Sea, casting lights of different colours on the water. It also casts milky light along one side of the Cylinder, revealing how the structure extends high up into the clouds and touches the solid ceiling of the sky. The wind strengthens and the rain strikes the glass with greater force and frequency. I can no longer see anything of the outside except streaks of colour on a dark background. I shiver, though the room is warm.

  I think I remember that my name is Leo. I pick up the cigarette lighter on the coffee table. It's Helen's lighter - her initial is engraved on one side. I gave it to her… when, I can't recall. Neither can I recall her face. She's my wife - that much I know. But I don't know where she is or how long she’s been gone. It's as likely a few minutes as a few days.

  I go into the bedroom. Her things are here - perfumes and oils, brushes and powders, gowns, furs and robes. Also more casual attire - trousers, sweaters, boots. There are books stacked on the floor at her side of the bed. I pick one up and flick through the pages. It's a novel of political intrigue, written decades ago. On the inside of its back cover is a photograph of the author, a bald, bearded man dressed in an old-fashioned suit and tie. He holds a cigar in one hand, his expression serene. I read the brief biographical note. His name was Conrad Boehm. In his day he was a senior diplomat of the Country of Ir. He died over twenty years ago - poisoned by agents of the Rift Valley State, the note says - at a State banquet in his honour. I open the book at a random page.

  ‘Droplets condense on the carriage windows as the exhaust of the steam engine sweeps over the train. The wind drives the lensing globules horizontally before they finally evaporate. When I embarked on the train at the ancient, grotty, crowded station in Theron, the weather was overcast, oppressively hot. Now, though it has cooled considerably, it is still markedly warmer than the air-conditioned interior of the train. Our carriage is kept comfortably cool. Patches of the outside surface of the window remain fogged.

  ‘We are travelling through the moist forests beyond Ir country. The greens of the forest are deeper, richer here than anywhere else on earth. I have travelled this journey many times, I think I remember, in service of Lir, Lord of Ir. I know the terrain along the route very well. It is all familiar to me, all laid out in memory, awaiting recognition. How odd that is, for my own name will not come so readily. And though I know I am a married man, equally I know that I left no one behind in Theron. I live alone there, a solitary, untouchable servant of the State, a eunuch quartered in marbled apartments within the Royal Palace. A eunuch. This is what it is to be a eunuch. My name… it is… I open my mouth to speak to my bodyguard, but do not, as though to do so might fix this disequilibrium, solidify it so that it becomes me and I will have no escape from it. Better to sit and wait. The moment will pass.’

  I set the book down. I have noticed the passageway set in the far corner of the room. Though I’ve lived here for years, I have no recollection of it. I go over and see that it leads up a short flight of stairs. I look up the stairs, puzzled. Above is a room walled with pine panels. A large window at its northern face reaches from the floor to the ceiling. There are paintings done in heavy oils on the wall. One is of me, another of Helen. A third depicts the yawning,
arched Far City entrance to the Cylinder on a bright summer's day.

  Through the window in the mysterious room, from my angle below in the bedroom, I can see the sky. The clouds have cleared away and the stars and other celestial objects shine brightly as they swirl about each other. A remarkably beautiful pinwheel galaxy has been forming in the northern sky over the past several weeks, and through the window I see one of its scintillating spiral arms. Novae flash and die within the arm as I stand and watch. The galaxy's rapid clockwise rotation quickly moves the spiral arm out of view. I decide to ascend the stairs, feeling my flesh tingle in anticipation of what I may find up there.

  The mysterious room is pleasantly fresh-smelling. There is a leather couch at the end of the room opposite the window. The room has a fireplace, though this looks as though it has never been used. The thick, soft carpet is coloured a rich claret. The light comes from a glistening gas chandelier. A fine, antique telescope stands on a tripod by the window. I look through it, scanning the city and the sky. I focus on the lights of a large airliner drifting far away over the rooftops. I turn the telescope to observe it as it closes in on one of the high gantries of the Cylinder, perhaps seventy storeys up. It disappears into the looming structure to touch down on the long runway inside. On other levels I can see other aircraft arriving and leaving, like bees at a hive. Amongst these drop globules of light, vestiges of the mysterious warfare raging at the Cylinder's highest levels. Some of these fading sparks reach the ground level before dying out completely. Some land in the dead waters of the Terminal Sea, and some merge with the dim phosphorescence of the Liffey where it cascades over the African Wall.

  I step away from the telescope to rest my eyes. A man in khaki vest and shorts in an apartment in the building across the street is watching me. His expression is fierce as he draws his curtains together with a single, abrupt movement.

  I open a heavy oak door to one side of the hearth to discover a windowless chamber containing a large four-poster bed with a wooden chest at its foot. A gas lamp glows lowly on the locker at the right-hand side of the bed. I look about the room briefly, but there is little else to see. There is a corresponding door at the other side of the hearth. This opens to reveal a billiards room. The balls on the table are arranged for a new game. I can't resist taking a shot. I watch the balls ricochet along their various courses around the table until they come to a halt. This feeling, it’s the brief glow of unsuspected personal wealth suddenly realised. If only I had known about this place sooner.

  At the far end of the billiards room a spiral stairs winds downwards. I descend to find myself at the apartment's front door. My home is at least three times larger than I thought it was. As I stand here, wonder filling me, I am startled by the turning of the lock in the door. A woman comes in with a bag full of groceries. Joy fills me as I realise that it is Helen. She kisses me on the cheek and goes into the kitchen. I follow her. I watch her as she sets the groceries on the worktop and reaches up to take a glass from the press over the sink. Her dress is light and loose at the waist. She smiles at me again and pours herself some water. As she drinks it - lustily, all at once without taking a breath - I can discern the small bump of her belly. I go over to her and put my arms around her. Then I move my hands over her belly. I feel a light kick. I kneel and put my ear to it. I hear the faint, rapid heartbeat of the child growing within.

  The phone chimes, beautiful chimes that ring like the cathedral bells of The Square, where the gossamer buttresses prism the solar spectrum onto pink and grey cobblestones, haloing the earnest artisans and the ambling, chatting citizens they urge to buy their wares. I release Helen from my embrace and turn to pick up the receiver. It’s not the house phone, though. It’s not chiming any more. The sound is harsher now, more urgent.

  My mobile. I open my eyes. It’s early morning, sunrise, and the rain is still falling.

  ‘Answer it,’ Helen says, half asleep.

  I get out of bed and pick up the phone from the floor. It’s an unknown number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello? George?’

  Heathshade. Another night ends with trouble for the great man. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve been nicked. Can you come and get me?’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I’m in the Bridewell.’

  ‘That’s your problem.’ We have got to ditch this guy.

  ‘They won’t let me go without someone to look after me. Got a bit of a head wound.’

  Helen is sure that I must go and collect him. ‘He belongs in a cell,’ I protest, but she’s having none of it.

  The taxi is dirty and old. It smells of damp in spite of the two air fresheners stuck to the dashboard. Only one of the windscreen wipers is working. In mitigation it’s the one on the driver side. Between my two feet the floor has rusted through. I can see the wet road surface slide by.

  ‘Where’ll it be, bud?’

  ‘The Bridewell.’

  ‘Yeah? You a copper?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good, bud. I got no time for the coppers. That Bridewell’s a desperate place. They had me in there all night one bleedin night with a feckin broken nose and two teeth missing. Know what I mean?’

  The teeth have remained missing, I notice. I nod and fix my gaze away from him at the passing world.

  ‘Suit yourself, pal. There’s no harm in a bit of bleedin conversation.’

  At the police station, I ask him to wait a few minutes while I go in to get my ‘friend’, but he speeds away as soon as he has my money.

  The station is a fortress. This part of the city has largely been overrun by the scumbags and the Unity IRA, who at least make some effort to keep the unaffiliated scumbags in check. The Bridewell/Four Courts area is an Israel-like enclave in the badlands, a tactically unstable bridgehead threatened on three sides, whose existence is maintained only by constant protection and resupply from outside. One has only to amble a few tens of metres westwards to alight in Smithfield Square, now a 24-hour arena for all manner of barbaric activity. The expensive apartments surrounding the square have become Beirut to the Bridewell’s Israel.

  I hurry into the station, stopping in the security chamber to state my business. They buzz me through and frisk me.

  Heathshade emerges from the cells.

  ‘Thanks, lads,’ he says, as though he were leaving the place after a night partying. But then again, no big night out would ever be complete without at least a minimal amount of processing through the criminal justice system. I do believe he actually enjoys it. The playful rough-and-tumble of the original arrest, the banter of the holding cells, the tired bonhomie of the morning-time release.

  He wasn’t joking about the head-wound. His head is bandaged, a gash running across the forehead.

  Released with a caution. At this outcome he’s particularly happy. He explains all to me as we return home in another taxi.

  Having got caught up in some revelling in the rain he found himself in an altercation over the correct usage of someone’s front step.

  ‘’Get off my step ya fucking ape’, he says to me. ‘Steady on,’ I says. ‘The rain’ll clean away the piss.’ But he’s lost it. He swings at me with a poker. Got me across the head. What could I do, I had to defend meself, so I got a hold of the poker and tugged it away from him. He lost his nerve straight away and slammed the door shut. I did a bit of shouting and banging on the door, and the next thing I’m being thrown into a cop van. Bastard must have called the police.’

  ‘You know what…’ I’m filled with a sudden yearning for fresh air, now that we’re back on the relatively safe south side of the river. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way home. Here’s the fare.’

  I hand money to Heathshade, knowing without asking that he is flat broke. Into the refuge of the pouring rain I step.

  Nothing feels better now than to splash through this hot storm. Clothes are soaked through, shoes sodden.

  In Grafton Street drunks s
lump drenched against shop windows surrounded by bottles and cans. The street is covered with broken glass, blocked by a couple of small cars, pushed there by agents of mischief or malevolence or something in between. The police are out and about organising a cleanup. One good thing about the heavy rain is that, just as Heathshade pointed out to his adversary, the filth is washed away.

  Get home at eight o’clock. Heathshade is asleep in the living room. Helen is deeply asleep upstairs, or at least seems to be.

  I strip off, have a shower. Cleansed mentally as well as physically I feel as though I will sleep, really sleep, like I haven’t in a while. I climb into bed and, yes, it’s images I see this time, and I’m not plagued by voices. What could be better than to slip away whilst the storm sound casts its comforting spell and the beads of rain run down the glass?

  Let me see words instead of hearing them, fly along this winding narrow valley detailed so vividly, and not in a plane as before. This time I haven’t forgotten who I am, and for the very first time when I fly it’s as a bird, and doesn’t feel as though a giant hand has lifted me by the shoulders. Nor is it like when I’m in a plane in trouble that glides through a house, banking from kitchen to living room in search of a place to ditch.

  But she’s shaking me awake most cruelly. Now it really is as though a great hand has me by the shoulders, and is lifting me level by level back to the harsh, unshielded surface.

  ‘George.’

  ‘What?’

  The word comes out more angrily than I had expected, which brings me out of it once and for all.

  ‘Did you bring him home?’

  ‘Why do you care?’ Anger again. It feels right.

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  This is as much as she wants to know. She turns over. I want to get back to sleep, but this time it’s impossible. She’s spoilt it. With my eyes shut, my body tense, the auditory centres of my brain - and perhaps the aural and linguistic centres too - are fizzing.