So they terminated my contract, removed my sponsorship. And there I was without a job but Dani, she worked real hard, got me this job in this club down in Wivelsfield I mean, yeah, it’s a sex club, only it’s like run in this semi-detached house in this really dull street. The missus, she drives a Honda, but I don’t do the sex. That’s the deal. I’m the cleaner. All that stuff has got to be kept clean, I mean, you should use barriers on everything because you get tearing, and the vagina’s got some natural protection against STDs, the fluids and stuff that are secreted which help clear things out, but still, you know. So I take my work really seriously, even the straps and that because you get bodily fluids and chafing and that’s the blood barrier, it’s all about the blood barrier, so yeah I’m…
Anyway, Dani called a few days ago, like, last week or something, and asked me to do her this favour. She gave me cash to buy the time off and my boss was real understanding cos she used to be on the patty line too and she was like ‘You won’t be sterilising dildos for ever, my girl!’ only she didn’t say my girl, that’s sorta what you think she’s saying but she doesn’t say it out loud, if you get me.
And Dani’s got this memory stick she needs to hide, cos it’s got serious stuff on it. So she goes down to the club late one night yeah and leaves the stick in the laundry and I pick it up, and there’s money and stuff and I’m like, cool. Then I get this phone call, and she’s crying or something, like properly scared and she says she’s being followed and watched, and I owe her, you know? I owe her. She saved my life, back on the line. She saved me. So she says I need to wait a few days, then take the money and the stick and go to this place called Shawford and wait. And I’m like are you fucking kidding me, screamers and ragers no thank you but she’s like it’s okay, it’s okay, they won’t hurt you if you stay small if you stay broken they recognise the broken ones, the broken things, they don’t hurt them who are already hurting, and I’m like fuck that shit fuck right off…
But I owe Dani. And two days after that the club is raided, I mean like, it’s torn to pieces it’s just the most
and that’s when I knew that maybe Dani wasn’t lying. That maybe she was in shit, because the local superintendent he was with the girls every other day and even his wife sometimes came down so…
But these guys, the ones who tore the place up, they weren’t like normal coppers—I got interrogated! Me, I got put in this room with a man called Markse and he was all like ‘Tell me about Dani Cumali’ and I’m like, don’t say a word, like not even hello, cos if you start to talk to them that’s how they break you, and in the end he lets me go, not worth bothering with.
So I get the memory stick and I’m on the first train to Dover, which is like the most expensive thing I’ve ever done ever, and then I walk and I’m waiting at this place, just waiting it’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever done but also sorta the best. The ragers leave me alone, mostly. One night they started screaming and they were real close, and I pissed myself, like, actually pissed myself—not bad, like, not a lot of piss just a little bit, like less than a teaspoonful I reckon. Then I started screaming too, just screaming, and it felt good. I’d never done nothing like that before but I was crying after, I screamed and then there was nothing left and I just cried and it was the best thing it was…
They don’t bother me now. They’ve got this guy, this boss bloke, he goes to the sea every morning and rages at it. Just rages at it, cos of how he was born into this shit, and he didn’t ever find no way to make his life good, and he rages at the sky cos it never helped him, and at the earth cos it never carried him somewhere else, and his raging it’s… it’s sorta good, you know? It’s like going to church, only different like. Sometimes I scream, it’s like praying, but different.
Anyway. Tonight’s the last night I’m sticking in this place. Fuck knows where Dani even is, I’ve got stuff to do… but tonight I come home.
See there’s someone in the house.
And there you are. There you are.”
She finished speaking, twisting the crisp bag into a knot, then unwound it as if surprised by her own destructiveness, smoothed it out on the ground between them. Stared at the USB stick, looked up at Theo, then away. “Missus already reopened the club, mind. Says she’s still got a place for me, says there’s a market in Wivelsfield, and I’m like real diligent; that’s economics that is that’s knowing your business. Says no one else bothers to put the plastics in the bin marked BIOHAZARD. I’m gonna…”
She stood up, unfolding in a single motion, long skinny legs in dark blue leggings, pale face turned towards the door.
Theo stayed sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Thank you for the—”
“I did it for Dani. Dani was good to me. She was like… she was good. Is she dead?” An afterthought, a thing which was probable but which the girl hadn’t wanted to ask.
“Yes. She is.”
She nodded once, sad, at nothing much. “I thought maybe she might be, way she was acting it was all… was it quick?”
“I think so.”
“Did she die cos of that?” A nod towards the memory stick.
“Probably.”
“Why? No—don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I got a life I gotta live. I got… I got this person I need to be. I gotta find… I’m gonna go now. I gotta get back to Wivelsfield.”
“Thank you for the…”
The girl was already going
going
gone.
Chapter 46
Once upon a time Neila was a man called Neil, and she worked out down the gym six times a week and drank protein shakes and was going to have the surgery for her arms, to make them properly, you know, but one day she realised that all of this, all of this was because she was in the wrong body and the protein wasn’t making it right because not only was her body wrong, the soul she was trying to force herself to be
the place inside her flesh where she fitted the light of her heart
she had shrunk down so small beneath the muscle mass that she hadn’t been able to see that the shape of her soul was a woman, blazing with light.
Theo stands at the back of the narrowboat, one hand on the rudder, and for a little while Dani Cumali is with him, disguised as a cormorant that keeps following the boat. It follows like the albatross followed the ship at sea, and for a while it was discomfiting, but now he knows it is divine.
On the patty lines they sing their songs
We are the ones who
we are the fallen who
we are the dead who
we are the dirt beneath
ours were the dreams that
we were the ones who
We lost the
we lost the
we broke the
blessed is the key in the lock
blessed are the children, for theirs is tomorrow, and their hands make the world anew.
Chapter 47
Theo slept on the floor where once his bed had been.
The cold kept waking him. He huddled into the furthest corner from the window, buried himself inside his coat and slept.
Once he thought he heard music, a tiny sound, sung in a child’s voice.
“Together we march, together we sing, happy in our community. The children play, there are igloos on the green, happy happy happy, the aliens make noodles…”