Nicola Griffith (13 page)

Lore took Spanner’s hand. “I’m not lying. I’m not laughing at you. I want you to have a happy birthday. If you don’t like the cheese plant, you don’t have to pretend. If you buy me presents, I won’t pretend.”

She could not heal all of Spanner’s hurt, she could not even offer the kind of love she thought Spanner might want, but she could offer the beginnings of trust. She hoped Spanner would know what to do with it. She thought about bulbs unfolding in the cold and dark, reaching up through the soil in blind faith.

Winter had come slowly and gently Lore’s first year in the city, but the soft grays of December changed suddenly to an iron frost in January. The sun no longer reached high enough to coat the sandstone of the Polar Bear with gold. In the morning, the light was lemony-gray, like a falsely tinted black and white photograph. People walking stiffly in the cold on their way to the slide poles squinted against the long, slanting sunshine, the occasional glitter of frost on the pavement. A squirrel, its thick winter coat making it comical, like a furry dumpling, looked up at the ice-slicked cable that ran past the second-floor window, and stayed on the ground. It scrabbled halfheartedly at the frozen dirt around the roots of the tree outside. Lore wondered why it wasn’t hibernating.

Outside, the temperature plummeted. Spanner went out less frequently to do business—“People don’t go out as much in this weather.” And Lore, who had now cleared most of the debris from the back garden and planted her spring bulbs more than a month ago, only went out to leave plates of leftovers for the cat she had seen that once.

They were watching the news and drinking loc—a hot, chocolate liqueur—when they heard about a fire in the warehouse district.

“Get your coat on.”

By the time they got there, the firefighters were gone and all that was left was the stink of charred three-hundred-year-old timbers and bricks cracked open by the heat. The warehouse was still dripping, but icicles were forming, and the lake of hose water was turning to sheet ice. There was no one about; it was too cold for sightseeing. In the orangy street light, Lore’s breath cloud looked like a bizarre special effect.

“Keep your eyes open.”

“What—” But Spanner was already bending down, levering up what looked like a section of pavement but which turned out to be a two-foot-square panel of plastone.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the master switch”—she pointed at a red panel—“but we don’t want them all.” She flipped up the lid of the nearest of a row of squat gray boxes and touched something. Four streetlights went dark. She opened a second box. More lights went out.

“Come on.” She pulled a hand light from her pocket. Its blue-white beam licked at the rubble. She scrambled up over a pile of bricks and pipe. The flashlight whipped around as she turned. “What’s the matter?”

Lore shaded her eyes with her hand, spoke to a silhouette. “It won’t be safe. Why don’t we just wait for the firefighters to come back when it’s light and flatten everything. Then we could take our time.”

“Five minutes after the building is safe, there won’t be anything left. And there are some good timbers here.”

There were. There were so many that once Spanner had a pile of what she wanted—which had cost Lore a burned finger and several scares as rafters sagged, suddenly, and floor timbers shifted—she called Billy and Ann, who brought a van. Obviously stolen for the occasion.

“But what do we want wood for?” Lore asked.

“A new front door.”

“What’s wrong with the one we have?”

“Does it matter? Maybe I just want a new one.”

Lore eyed the beams warily. Risking their lives, just because Spanner wanted something to do.

Lore and Spanner spent nine days building a new door from the thick, old timbers they had scavenged. They took down the old door and hung the new one the afternoon the rain turned to a thin gray snow.

Lore stretched her back and kicked the old door. “I don’t relish hauling it about in this weather.”

“We could break it up for firewood.”

“We don’t need a fire. It’s already hot in here.” The flat was stifling. Spanner ran illegal spurs from the power lines and was as profligate with heat as with everything else: food, sex, promises.

But Spanner had disappeared into the hallway and come back with a sledgehammer. She hefted it a couple of times. Lore stepped out of the way and Spanner swung. The old door splintered with a satisfying
crack!

“I said, we don’t need a fire. It’s—”

“If you’re hot, open the windows. Fresh air’s good for you.” She swung again.

Lore did not understand Spanner when she got in these moods. She had no point of reference for the frenzy, the constant urge to do, to use, to experience that often lasted for several days at a time. So she tried to remember what she knew about open fires, and peered as best she could up the chimney to see if the flue was clear. There was no ash in the grate. “Have you had a fire here before?”

“I’m sure I must have.” Rip. Splinter.

Lore moved the plants. “We’ll need some paper, and kindling. I think.” She rummaged around. “We don’t have any paper.”

Spanner paused, breathing heavily. “Look under the bed.”

Lore trooped into the bedroom. Looked. “There’s only your box.”

“Then we’ll use some of that stuff.”

“No. We can—”

“Bring it,” Spanner yelled. Lore sighed, and did.

“Open it.” Crunch, splinter.

It was full of old photographs and documents. What looked like a birth certificate from the middle of the last century. “I don’t think you’ll want to use this.” She started to put the lid back on, uncomfortable with the idea that she had been wrist-deep in Spanner’s private family history.

Spanner dropped the sledgehammer and squatted down by Lore. She took a random handful of papers from the box, screwed them up, and tossed them on the grate.

“But don’t you want—”

Spanner ignored her and kept taking handfuls from the box, occasionally tearing a large piece into shreds. “Should burn well enough.”

Lore grabbed her hands. “Stop. Stop just a minute. We can go buy some paper if you like. You don’t have to use these.” Spanner shrugged her off, hands already moving again. “Or we could use something flammable. Alcohol, maybe.”

“It’s just paper.”

They were Spanner’s memories. “Why are you doing this?” Why now, after all these years of hoarding them, keeping them safe? Spanner said nothing, but Lore thought she knew: because now that Spanner had started to talk about them—the memories, the pictures—they were a point of vulnerability for her. Get rid of the pictures, get rid of the memories. No more vulnerability. No more weak points. The armor would be smooth again. “I won’t help you burn them.”

Lore walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Instead of putting it on the burner, she stared outside. Once she could see past her own reflection, she saw there was a squirrel in the garden, digging. Digging up her bulbs, eating them one by one. All that work, gone in an afternoon. She felt bitter. There did not seem to be any point in trying.

Back in the living room Spanner laid the paper in the grate, followed by some of the smaller splinters from the door, then some larger boards. Lore watched as Spanner plugged in her soldering iron and used that to set alight the paper. Watched as a wisp of smoke turned into a river flowing upward, and the paper seemed to disappear.

“It’s not working.” Spanner poked at the burning mess with the sledgehammer handle. The bits of broken door were blackening, but not catching. “Why isn’t it working?” She screwed up more paper, threw it on. A ball of burning paper roared up the chimney, borne on hot air.

Lore plucked a large splinter from the rug, examined it. “It’s not wood,” she said. “I mean, it is, but it’s that pressed stuff. It’s not going to burn.”

“Fuck it!” Spanner threw the sledgehammer into the fire. Burning scraps of paper went everywhere. “Let’s go get a drink.”

They went out and drank too much and came back to hard, sweaty sex and fitful sleep. At least Lore slept. When she woke up, Spanner was pacing around the bed, talking about the projects she wanted to start on: relaying the floor, decorating, maybe rewiring the place. She had obviously been up all night, working herself up to this pitch. Lore let the talk flow over her as she got dressed.

“. . .and here, I went out and got you some presents.” Spanner dragged three bags into the bedroom. “Open them.”

They were clothes. Some of them the kind she would wear, others not. They were all expensive.

“Pick out something nice for now and then we’ll go out. We’ll go shopping, buy you some other stuff if you don’t like this—”

“This is just fine.”

“—or we could just look around. I want to get out. I need to have some fun.”

She would not stop talking. Could not. Her eyes glittered and she seemed jerky and tense. Lore chose something at random; then, seeing Spanner’s eyes, she remembered her promise and chose a moss-green chenille tunic and matching leggings. “I’ll wear these. They’re lovely.”

“And the black dress? You like the black dress?”

“I don’t wear dresses much but, yes, if I wear a dress soon, this is exactly the kind of thing I would choose.”

“You’re not lying? You like it?”

“I’m not lying. I really like it. It’s too cold to wear it today, though. I’ll wear this.” She lifted her original choices. “Where are we going?”

At Hedon Road, the mood in the locker room was mixed: face masks had arrived, but the systems were back up.

I pulled on my mask: neoprene and plastex with knobby filters on each side of the mouth gasket. I fit-tested the mask with negative and positive pressure, tightened the strap at the back of my head. It felt strange and primitive to wear a breathing mask again. I was used to either nose filters and automatic, trained nasal breathing, or the full-face mask and air tank of an SCBA. These masks were no good if something splashed on your face, but enough to keep out most vapors and particulates—if the filters were changed every week or so.

I showed Paolo how to pull the seals tight across cheekbones and jaw. It was hard, helping him fit it without touching his hands.

As we walked into the primary sector to relieve the day shift, Kinnis clowned around in his mask, making bug-eyed-monster noises. Lots of people laughed. We were all relieved that the systems were back up. If someone or something slipped now, it was up to the machines to catch it, not us. Not me. And the system was good enough to stop most things, except the unk-unks: the unknown unknowns for which it was impossible to plan.

But Magyar did not give me time to worry about unk-unks.

We’d been on-shift about twenty minutes and one of the rakes had already jammed. Paolo and I had freed it and were just climbing out of the trough when Magyar, mask loose around her neck, walked over.

“It’s against regs to free those by hand, Bird. Could be dangerous. Paolo doesn’t know any better, of course, but consider yourself under verbal warning. Further infractions of Health and Safety regulations will result in a formal written warning. A third infraction will mean dismissal.” Her eyes were hard and pleased.

A few troughs down, Meisener and Kinnis were wrestling with a stalled rake. I didn’t need to be afraid. My rec ords were airtight, now. I looked over at them deliberately, back to Magyar.

“Do you understand, Bird?”

Behind me I could hear the damn rake whining as it caught on something again. I pulled my mask off, jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “What do you want me to do about that?”

“Follow the regs, Bird. And don’t let your productivity drop.”

I think I surprised us both by laughing. “I’m good, Magyar, but not that good. Make up your mind: the regs, or productivity. Your choice. Doesn’t matter much to me.” I looked sideways at Paolo. “Why don’t you go check on that rake while the shift supervisor and I have a little talk.”

He retreated obediently.

Magyar was furious. “I could have you fired!”

“Then why don’t you?” She couldn’t, we both knew that. I was the best worker she had. She looked as though she was going to say more but I was tired of this, and my PIDA was safe. “Go harass someone else. Let me do my job.” I pulled my mask back up and waded out to help Paolo. I just hoped Spanner had not lost any of her skill, or I would be out of a job by midnight.

The rest of the shift was hard, but I felt curiously light. Whatever I had started on the roof last night and continued at Tom Wilson’s was still going on.

At the shift break I left Paolo with Kinnis and Cel, and took my egg rolls into a corner. I wanted to think.

I felt good. I was beginning to stand up for myself. I felt a little nervous, maybe. This was, after all, uncharted territory. Before, I could do or say anything I wanted: I was a van de Oest, with name, power, money, and education behind me. Now, though, it was just me speaking as me. The name didn’t matter.

I listened to the rain that was now pounding down on the glass roof, and smiled. I was finding I was maybe more than who I had thought. It pleased me.

I still felt good as I left the plant, even when a truck pulling into the yard drove right through a puddle and drenched me with cold, muddy water.

The truck pulled up, the window wound down. “Sorry about that!” the driver shouted. We both looked at my dripping coat. I was wet through.

“I thought I’d missed the rain,” I said, and smiled to show I knew it wasn’t his fault. He waved and the truck moved another twenty yards to the unloading bay. The logo read BioSystems. I didn’t think anything more of it.

When Spanner opened the door and motioned me in, I was grateful for the stifling heat. My wet clothes began to steam gently.

“I thought it had stopped raining.”

“Careless driver.” I was glad she was still in a good mood.

“Ah. Well, give me your coat. My robe’s in the bathroom if you want to get the rest off.” She saw me hesitate. “Unless you want to freeze to death it’s that or watch me try light a fire.”

“Once was enough.” I headed for the bathroom.