At the Edge of the Game Read online

  ‘Jaysus, have you been in the dark all the time? I'll get you a candle, love. Look, I've brought you a cuppa and some biscuits. Don’t tell the men. We’re not supposed to give you anything. Do you like digestives? I'll leave this bucket over here for when you have to go to the toilet, okay? We have to use the buckets outside too. The bleeding pipes are frozen up with the weather.’

  Only now do I realise how hungry I am. All is consumed as she watches. She laughs and takes the empty cup.

  ‘Can I have more?’

  ‘We’ll see, love.’

  She locks the door behind and returns in a little while with a lit candle, but no more food.

  ‘Please let me go.’ I have moved myself with my plaintiveness.

  ‘Sorry, love. It’s Victor you need to talk to.’

  She locks the door behind her again, and I am alone. The flickering light of the candle casts moving shadows. I see how filthy it is in here.

  But the candle does not last long. Guttering already. The void closes in on me again.

  I waken to the sound of the door opening. While I am still half-blinded by the red lights, someone pushes me down the corridor to a filthy toilet, where I am to empty the bucket containing my urine. Back in my room, I am handed a cup of soup, and left alone again in the dark. The warmth of the thick, salty soup spreads in my belly. I feel heavy, and lay on the hard floor. Hard and dirty, but I care little.

  I have visions. Clear and vivid they are, but I know they are just visions. Beautiful vistas of my own manufacture. For as long as I can remain under the spell I will dwell here. I shall know this place as my home, for where else can one find such beauty? Only on days such as today, cloudless, clear and bright, can the Salt Desert be seen from our apartment, high though it is in a tall city tower. It is beyond the city, all around the Terminal Sea, shining in the sunlight, lifeless and serene. When the wind blows strongly from the east, crystal clouds drift over the city, settling on roofs and pavements, making the city surfaces look as though they were coated with snow. No region of the earth is more barren than the Salt Desert. More barren even than Mars, as the saying goes. Unsheltered plants cannot long survive the salt blizzards. The urban vista of Dublin Far City is one of apparently continuous rooftop, unbroken by greenery. Only those artificial canyons where the expressways cut wide swaths through the cityscape, converging on the base of Dublin City Cylinder, offer any break in the uniformity.

  The Liffey Falls also shine. The great river is shrouded in dense clouds of vapour during its miles-long cascade from the heights of the African plateau to feed the Terminal Sea. These clouds produce haloes and rainbows that offset the darkness of the Cylinder. Throughout the millennia, the Liffey has cut a great channel into the African Wall, dozens of stadia deep and wide, that keeps the waters contained and the city safe from inundation. Some scientists have claimed that eventually the channel walls will fail, and that Dublin Far City will be flattened by the resultant deluge. A few have even claimed, outrageously, that such an event could topple the eternal City Cylinder.

  Even the African Wall shines. The early morning sunlight falls obliquely on its steep, rocky slopes, providing a brash yellow backdrop to the luminescent light effects of the Liffey Falls. Mottling its boulder-strewn slopes are the faint greens and arid browns of patchy scrubland. At dusk, with the last of the sunlight shining from the west, the African Wall usually takes on an orange colour. That is the time when many of its native creatures emerge from their dens in search of food. Their calls - cries, howls, roars - can carry across to the far side of Dublin Far City as the hushed twilight sets in.

  But now, an hour after dawn, the sun's light is brilliant and unsullied. Helen is still asleep. She won't waken for another while. I have told her about the strange spells I have been having, but my account of it has made little impression on her. She believes I have simply been dreaming, probably while slumped half-asleep in an armchair. She asked me when the spells took place, and I had to admit that I do not know. I could not place them within the sequence of my waking memories. However, I do not believe they were dreams. They were too real, too rooted in complex sensation and in facets of the real world. I believe that what I experienced was more like a trance, though what could have caused it, I do not know.

  The book by Conrad Boehm - was it I who composed these paragraphs, then?

  ‘We make a steady ascent through the Atbay foothills. We are close to the edge of the forest, at the altitude where it yields to open, craggy bush and grassland. I have always favoured the forest over the open plateau, have always felt uneasy under the unimpeded glare of the high-altitude sun. Now, as we leave the forest edge behind us, I feel that familiar tenseness spread over me. Around us is the thick-bladed, brown-hued grass of this region, as well as rough scrub and occasional, thin-trunked trees. To the east is a high silver barrier of great rocky peaks, the tallest Atbay summits. Though it is high summer, these mountains are snow-capped and barren.

  ‘I lean forward and rest my hand on my dispatches case. Yes, here is my purpose. I carry a private communiqué from my Queen to the Prime Minister of the Dublin Cities. Its contents are secret, even from me. The sun-and-sphinx wax imprint of the Royal Seal protects the document. In the carriage with me are my three bodyguards, Iourno, Paz and Ephraim. They speak little in my presence, except to instruct me what to do in those instances when they suspect that my security is in jeopardy. They are freedmen of desert extraction, culturally quite alien to one of my Patrician standing. In common with most of those lacking citizenship, they care little about affairs of state. They are indifferent to my mission and its import. They certainly do not care about my personal concerns. However, they set great store in courage, duty and honour, and they are completely trustworthy. They all carry heavy sidearms beneath their dark jackets. Under their shirts they wear discreet microfibre body armour. For this is by no means a routine journey to the Cities. I am travelling incognito, and my mission is secret. There are parties abroad who, if they knew of this journey, would dearly wish to prevent me from reaching the Dublin Cities.

  ‘The train's brakes engage, and it decelerates rapidly, metal wheels squealing against the track. My bodyguards stand and draw their weapons. Paz goes to the window. Ephraim goes to the door and watches the corridor. Iourno stands over me, looking from one to the other of his colleagues. The train comes to a halt. Passengers emerge from their compartments, but Ephraim allows no one to approach us. After a brief discussion with the other two, Iourno goes to find out why we have halted. He returns several minutes later and instructs the others to stand easy. The train has been flagged down by a Neanderthal party. They have parleyed with the train staff, explaining that a battle is soon to commence a short distance ahead, and we may not pass until it has reached its conclusion; in Neanderthal culture, battleground is sacred ground. There is no question of us defying the wishes of these primitives. We must defer to them in this upland country in accordance with precedent going back through the long ages.

  ‘People are walking ahead, men, women and children, some carrying food and drink with them, to enjoy the spectacle soon to take place. I ask my bodyguards whether it would be inordinately risky to leave the train and join the other passengers. After all, the train is likely to be standing here for hours before the journey north can recommence. They demur, but eventually allow that in the circumstances, the hazard is probably small. They are, I suppose, glad to take advantage of this opportunity to take in some fresh air and stretch their legs. We disembark, I with my precious dispatches case, and follow the crowd ahead, leaving the cooling steam engine and its envious, dirty-faced, cursing crewmen behind.

  ‘The Neanderthal party is walking in the midst of the giddy Sapient throng. The differences, rather than the similarities, between the two human species are most obvious in circumstances such as these. The passengers are by and large brightly dressed in well-cut modern clothes. They are lean, mostly dark-skinned and loquacious, being prosperous urban citizens. Of the N
eanderthals, the five males are dressed in furs and leathers. The two women are wearing dull textile gowns, clearly of Sapient manufacture, and body ornaments they probably made themselves in imitation of Sapient designs. They are squat, powerfully-built people who generally speak little except at ritual occasions, such as when they recount their sagas. They are light-skinned, as are all Neanderthals in day-to-day life, with red, flowing manes, powerful brows, strong jaws, receding chins. The men have worked bright red dye into their beards. The women, ugly to the eyes of most Sapient men, have braided their hair. All seven are ignoring the jabbered questions of the Sapient children running innocently alongside them. It is unlikely that they understand the children's words. Few Neanderthals find Sapient language easy to master. For that matter, few Sapients have ever acquired a firm grasp of the universal Neanderthal tongue.

  ‘We draw close to them - they do not generally walk as swiftly as Sapients. They all have the same distant, hard look in their eyes. They are slipping into the battle-trance, even the women, for many of their women fight alongside the men. Each carries three assegais - one held in the hand, another two slung on the back. These are seasoned birch staffs tipped with sharp flint flakes held on by leather twine. Each of the men carries a Sapient bronze dagger - an item treasured highly in Neanderthal culture. They find such weapons difficult to construct themselves.

  ‘We reach a rise in the terrain where all the passengers ahead of us have halted. Reaching the top of the rise, we see a Neanderthal army spread out before us. There are, perhaps, a thousand of them, dressed mostly in leathers and furs like the men now walking past to rejoin their comrades, though some, seemingly those of high status, wear tunics of red or blue. They are assembled shoulder-to-shoulder in three lines, one behind the other, across a wide, flat area. The first line is composed of assegai-bearers, fierce men and women covering their fronts with wooden body armour. Each member of the second line carries a single assegai, as well as a peculiar type of heavy wooden club known to the Neanderthals as a zurk. Most of these warriors lack the body armour possessed by the first wave. I note that there are more women in the second line than in the first. In effect, though the Neanderthals do not use these concepts, the first line constitutes the heavy infantry and the second the light infantry. The third line is composed of archers. Each archer has on his back a quiver full of arrows and a stout, blackened zurk. Neanderthal bows are crude, and the third line will have to move well up the hill before the enemy is within range of their sharpened wooden arrows.’

  My eyes are tired. I set down Boehm’s imaginary book and gaze out the window at the bright blue sky. From some uncharted dominion in my mind, dread darts forth in a rush, like a stalking komodo dragon. In those phantom memories I imagined that my name was Leo, and that my true name belonged to this diplomat of the Rift Valley State. The book in my lap is not, after all, written by Conrad Boehm, who is me. The author’s name on the cover is indistinct. As I try to read it, the letters move and change. A multiplicity of names form, and none stays in my memory more than an instant.

  Something falls through the letterbox – a real thing, acting as an anchor. Two letters. One is addressed to Helen, the other to me. Mine bears an official government stamp of a type I have not received before but which, dismayed, I recognise. I know what the letter will say. I have been called up to serve in this year's auroch cull.

  NOTICE OF CONSCRIPTION

  A cara,

  By order of this office, you must register in person at the Ministry of Public Health and Safety at noon on Friday, June 1, for temporary service in the Urban Guard. Your term of service will begin on June 5 and will terminate on September 1 of the current year. If special arrangements need to be made with your employer, please contact this office prior to registration day.

  In the service of the Cities

  Bowen MacDhiarmada

  Minister for Public Health and Safety

  The auroch cull will take me away from Helen just when she needs me. But there’s nothing I can do. I have no power; nor money, influence or good luck. And now, as the door to the dark corridor creaks open again, letting in more of the harsh red light, casting swinging black shadows, shapes that cross the wall, I wonder whether my luck will improve or worsen still further.

  It’s Victor.

  ‘Still alive?’

  My throat is dry. I rasp an answer.

  ‘A friend for you.’ He pushes Griffin into the room. The door shuts again. I sit up, back into a corner, bumping my head on a shelf I had not known was there. Metal things fall clanging on the floor in the pitch black. His is heavy breath, with much throaty snuffling. The sort of thing that would emanate from an animal. Is there something I can use as a weapon?

  ‘Jaysus. Oh, Jaysus.’ He’s crying.

  I can just about see his shape, dark against weak red diffusion at the gap between door and floor. Can’t stop the heave of my lungs.

  ‘Are you there?’ he says, then sighs when I keep quiet.

  Time goes by, eyes re-adapt. The red fringe shows he has no shoes. He’s shivering, legs drawn up so that he can rest his head on his knees. Rattling breath comes loudly, ever more loudly, until I can hear nothing else, the slowing sound in this blackness becoming my whole universe.

  He yelps suddenly, as though he had drifted asleep for a moment. I want to grab something and start swinging.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, lad. Sure we’re in the same boat. Griffin is my name.’

  It seems less of an ordeal now to speak than to keep quiet. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Sorry for what I did against you. I had no choice.’

  ‘Why are you in here?’

  ‘It’s a mistake, that’s all. I’ll sort it out with Victor. I had to shoot Tommo. I had to, ye see. I hadn’t any choice.’ His voice gets louder as though he imagines Victor is standing outside the door listening in.

  ‘I was out in the snow with Tommo, on patrol. We have to keep an eye on things. But Tommo was doing coke. I was telling Victor he shouldn’t be on duty in a state like that, but he wouldn’t listen. He even let his kids at the drink. Oh, yeah. And the wife’s as bad as him. Worse, with all her evil fucking lies and the dirt and noise, steal and cheating and plotting against them who’s too honest not to do the same, like me. Funniest thing ever they thought while their kid fell drunk around the place, crashing into things, knocking the stuff off the shelves. Victor got annoyed with all the racket, gave the little fella a thump, but the lad never even noticed. Just kept up the spinning and the jabbering.’

  Griffin is also jabbering.

  ‘So there’s Tommo with me, at the gates of the park, ready to shoot at anything that moves. I did not turn my back on him, believe me. So there was this dog in the snow, slipping along with the paws sinking in. ‘I’ll plug him,’ Tommo says. Away he went, blazing, but the dog got away. So the next thing he turns around and looks at me. ‘You pointing that at me?’ he says. ‘No,’ I says. ‘Lower that gun,’ I says, reasonable as I can. ‘So you can plug me?’ ‘No,’ I says. ‘Traitor,’ he says. He pulls the trigger and nothing happens. He’s emptied the mag at the dog. So he grabs another mag, and just as he slams it in I shoot him. Down he goes, dead in a second. So now I’m under arrest. No more loyal or honest a man in this unit, and I’m the one in here, and me wife and kid already thrown out into the snow. They’re out there now in the cold with nothing. Jaysus, what am I to do?’

  He’s weeping again. If only I could drift, at least sleep, perhaps drift even further. The time comes when Griffin is asleep again, but even now I can’t drift. At least, not in the way that I wish. ‘I need someone who can hold his own against other people,’ she told me not so long ago. It was an argument about why I had returned home without some of the things on her list. I wonder where she is now. The luminous backbone of the sky arcs northwest, and the further Local Group spirals wheel around each other like cottongrass seedlings on the wind. I think of the old telescope in that newly discovered room upstairs, of how go
od it would be to see the finer detail of the sky, and I turn and see that there is no such stairs, only bare wall where I remember it being.

  Where is Helen? I want to ask her exactly what she meant. I can’t remember her leaving, but she is nowhere to be found in the apartment. I’m alone here, suffering one of these frightening spells during which my memory fails, I lose my past, and sometimes, so it would seem, conjure surprising adjuncts to reality. I am trying to stay calm, to maintain control of my senses, to breathe steadily, but I can’t see Helen, can’t summon her face in my mind. Were my feelings for her not so much part of me, I would be sure she also was a construct of my damaged imagination.

  I hear harsh voices in the corridor outside. Someone wants to get in here. Is it Helen? A bolt slides and the door hinges groan. It is cold in here, and an even colder, fresher draught sweeps in now.

  ‘Stand up,’ says Victor.

  Griffin does as he is told. Victor’s gaze on the red-eyed, shrunken man is a death sentence.

  ‘The verdict?’ The voice stabs at hopefulness, misses.

  ‘Guilty.’

  ‘Victor, why does it have to be like this?’

  Victor shoves him into the corridor, and he’s grabbed by someone else. Now Victor turns his attention to me.

  ‘You said your sympathies lie with us.’

  His eyes are bloodshot, dark-hooded. I see now that he is older than I had thought, pushing fifty.

  ‘Answer me. You support our cause?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re two men down now. We need a man. Can you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Answer. Can you fight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He draws up the butt of his rifle and I fall back into the corner. He stands over me. I stare at his heavy boots, expecting a kicking.

  ‘I could shoot you now.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut.