Time speeds up. A day becomes an hour, becomes a minute, becomes a second. Planes vanish first, cars are smeared into strings of coloured smoke then fade to nothing. People disappear, leaving only bodies that flicker on and off in beds in time with the steady toggle of the dark. Buildings inhabit the earth, growing like spores, sending out tubers, seeding new towns, new villages, new cities till drowned in sand or jungle. Girders and chimneys turning to mulch and rubble. Two thousand years, two hundred thousand years, two million years and a severe and stately house that once sat at the geometric centre of its square garden looking across the valley is now a ghost in the soil a mile below the surface of a snowball earth.
♦
Daisy walks to the window seat at the other end of the kitchen and stares out into the rain. She tries to worry about Richard but can’t do it. How grey the world is. So many words for red. Carmine, scarlet, ruby, burgundy, cherry, vermilion. But grey? She turns and glances into the living room and sees that Melissa has gone at last. The pressure in her chest builds. Mum?
What, love? Angela turns and touches her arm. You look dreadful.
Can we talk?
A momentary pause while Angela absorbs the oddity and intimacy of this. Of course we can.
♦
Alex loves this weather, loves all bad weather, snow, rain, hail, mud, darkness, failing light, becoming a part of the landscape instead of simply observing it. Thoughts cycle as he runs. Song lyrics, conversations he’s had or wished he’d had, sex he’s had or wished he’d had. The encounter with Richard is on repeat as he runs up the road to Red Darren. You’re making me look like an idiot. He thinks instead of Richard lying unconscious in the rain, a big wheeling pan from a film. He is not sure if he still fancies Louisa or not, the way she’s so pathetically worried about Richard. The higher he gets the colder it becomes, the rain turns to hail and for the first time he starts to wonder what will happen if Richard is in actual deep shit and he realises that if he fails to find Richard then everyone will blame him even though he is the only one doing something to find him. Plus, of course, something might have happened which has nothing to do with the weather. Broken leg, heart attack, fallen down some bloody hole. But if he finds Richard and he’s dead by the time he gets there Alex won’t actually be blamed at all. He’ll be the person who found the body.
He’s up on the top now and, Jesus, it is fucking freezing running through this stuff, and it is entirely possible that Richard took another route and turned up at the front door five minutes after Alex left, which will really piss him off. He’s having to pretty much close his eyes on account of the hail. Grey background and white dots coming straight at him like that old Windows screensaver. Was Richard wearing a waterproof? Should have grabbed a spare one from the hallway. Too late to worry about that now. Give Richard his own and earn bonus points. Who would win a fight between the two of them? Alex presumes it would be a smackdown. Richard had a few inches in height and reach but he also had that pudgy middle-aged look men got when they stopped looking after themselves. Fuck. And there he is, up ahead, limping like someone coming out of a war zone.
Richard wonders if this is really happening, and is sufficiently compos mentis to know that his unsureness is not a good sign. Not quite on the Glasgow Coma Scale yet. Alex, is it? In a luminous yellow jacket like a security guard. Shorts and a woolly hat. Richard, says Alex, in a casual golf-club manner. Long time no see, a pint of the usual? and so forth. Richard says, I’m in a bit of a state. So Alex removes his luminous yellow jacket. Take this. But Richard’s hands are so numb that he can’t grip it well enough to get his arms into the sleeves. His teeth are chattering. His teeth haven’t chattered since school. Alex puts the woolly hat on his head. Cader Idris on the recorder. Frozen milk lifting the foil caps on the chunky bottles. Before Dad died. Here, let me help. He thinks of nurses helping elderly patients into cardigans. That girl in her wheelchair. Then the jacket is on and he realises he’s going to see Louisa soon and he understands now quite how frightened he was and it is possible that he is crying about this, though hopefully the rain will disguise the fact. Alex lifts Richard’s arm over his shoulder. Come on, keep it up, or it’s me who’ll freeze to death. Richard swings his good leg, hobbles, swings his good leg, hobbles. Alex is pushing him faster than he wants to go. It hurts a lot, but it’s a good thing, going faster. He remembers the conversation of last night. He will apologise later. A hot bath, he can have a hot bath, but, God almighty, this ankle. Thanks for this.
Just keep walking.
♦
Angela shuts the door and Daisy thinks of headmasters’ offices and doctors’ surgeries. They sit beside one another on the sofa looking into the empty stove. Daisy wishes it was lit but that’s Richard’s job. What’s the matter?
You have to promise…
I have to promise what? asks Angela.
She’s standing on the high board. One bounce and don’t look down. I tried to kiss Melissa.
Angela is genuinely unsure if she has heard correctly but knows that she cannot ask Daisy to repeat it.
For God’s sake, Mum, say something.
She shuffles through her memory of Melissa and Daisy in the dining room this morning. And I’m guessing Melissa wasn’t too keen on this.
I’m not being funny, Mum.
Neither am I. It feels like a TV drama. Are you saying you’re gay?
The words are thick in Daisy’s mouth. She cries into Mum’s shoulder. Angela can’t remember the last time she held Daisy like this. Mostly Daisy is relieved that Melissa no longer has the same leverage.
Have you told anyone else? She remembers Daisy abandoning her in the street the other day and feels as if she has won a competition to regain her daughter’s affection, beaten Melissa, beaten Dominic. She rubs her hand in a circle on Daisy’s back. Ten years vanish. Those nightmares. I don’t mind if you’re gay. She squeezes Daisy a little harder.
Daisy pulls back. I’m not gay, OK? Panic in her voice.
OK. Angela is treading carefully because this is veering rapidly away from the script.
I’m not gay, OK?
So you kissed Melissa because…? It sounds accusatory but she’s trying to understand. A click of the latch and Benjy is standing in the doorway. Later, yeh? He backs out. She turns to Daisy. Did you join the church because of this? Suddenly it all fits together.
That’s not why I joined the church. The old anger in her voice. Why the hell is Mum doing this now?