"Get off me! Stop hitting me! He's hitting me! Get him off me!"
"I think we should stop," said Desdemona.
"What?"
"I think we should do something."
Oh wow, like thanks, sister.
"What's going on here?" I said, my voice doing its best to sound cool and hard. Totally failing.
"We just found this woman, man," said the guy, a black guy. "We was just driving along.",
His car was parked just forward a small way, one wheel mounted upon the pavement Another guy, a white one, was hunched up in the driving seat. There was a woman in the back seat, and she was kind of rocking, you know, back and forth like a snake victim.
"She was screaming by the road," the black guy said. "Just screaming… you know?"
"He's lying," announced Desdemona, and it wasn't exactly pleasing.
"I am not fucking lying!"
"So what's going on?" I asked, still trembling, just to please the sister.
"I was just trying to help her," he started, but I think we'd got him riled, because just then the woman found a way out of his arms. She ran straight into the road, into the path of an oncoming car. Car screeched to a halt, wheels slipping. Good driving but not that good. Car hit the woman. More like this, actually; woman hit the car, kind of threw herself at it. She was down, face to the tarmac, for maybe two seconds. Then she sprang up again, banging on other cars as they passed her by, slowly, scared faces peering out.
"Help me! Help me!" she was screaming.
Nobody stopped. Who the hell stops these days?
Drivers were looking at me as though I was some villain in this. Felt strange. One of those moments you'll think you'll remember forever, but it just slips away. Until such a day arrives when you've got nothing else to do but list your memories, nowhere else to live but inside them.
Early morning air was misty and serene, with hours to go until sunshine.
Screaming woman was miles away, seemed like, almost down to the next set of lights. I could hear cars braking over the screams.
The black guy was just standing around, hopping from foot to foot, building his anger up. White guy just sitting in the car, chewing gum.
Desdemona had opened the back door. Now she was reaching in to help the swaying woman.
"I think we need the cops, Scribb," said Desdemona, from the back seat. "Girl's in a bad way. She's feathered up on something. I can't move her."
The cops? I'd never called them before.
"I don't think we need that," answered the black, moving towards me. His fists were bunched up, and he had that look on him, like the idea that pain was a pleasure to give.
I backed away, towards the car.
"Are these guys hurting you?" I heard Desdemona ask.
No answer from the comatose girl. The other one, down the road some, was screaming anyway for the both of them.
"Des?" I whispered, trying to get her attention. Sister wasn't answering so I made a quick turn, aiming to drag her out of there. But she was too busy to care about me; too busy searching through the woman's handbag.
"What are you doing, sister?" I asked
"Looking for an address. I think these men are using her."
"Big deal, sis. There's a bad guy out here."
"Keep him off, Scribb!" the sister said.
Well thanks for that. Like how?
The black guy was up close now, waving his fists around, close enough to do damage to a soft face.
Sound of a cop van in the distance.
Fists faltering.
Sometimes, don't you just love the cops, despite the fact that they have hurt some good friends of yours? Because sometimes, just occasionally, they turn up in the right place, at just the right time. Don't you just love them for that?
Cop siren sounding. And the black stepped back, a small step. Then another.
Then he was running. Out of there!
White guy started the car engine.
Desdemona was half in, half out of the car. "I've found something!" she shouted. The car started to move off, and Des was thrown out, hard to the pavement.
The siren bursting in my brain, as the cop van pulls up in front of the car, wheels squealing, blocking the escape.
And although my sister's body was on the floor, although she was obviously in pain, and the sun wasn't even awake yet, never mind rising, still I could see her grasping tight hold of something. It was feathery, and it was glinting yellow as it passed through the air, towards her pocket.
What you got there? What you got there, sweet sister? Must be a beauty.
If only I'd known then. If only.
Suze and Tristan are washing their hair, which is each other's hair. Which is their shared hair. As they listened to my story.
Mandy was awake again, sitting on the floor, playing with the big puppy dog. Something about its body made me uneasy; the way the plastic bones shone through the taut flesh stretched over its rib-cage. Suze called the dog Karli.
The Beetle was sucking on a demon bong-pipe, his eyes drifting to other worlds, as the water popped in bubbles of Haze.
I was trapped in the armchair, drugged by the smoke, fascinated by the ritual.
Suze was taking water to the joint locks. Adding herbs to the water, she mixed up a slick lather, which glistened with perfume. Like you could see the smell, you know? She worked this lather into each thick strand of hair, each in turn, from her own roots to Tristan's, until their hair was a stream of suds. It was lovely to look at, and Tristan was smiling through it all. "You're very privileged to see this," Suze said, in a whisper.
"It's a good story, Scribble," Tristan said. "You want to carry on?"
Their eyes were heavy-lidded from the shampoo pleasure, and it was like watching sex. Drugged-up sex. "It's very beautiful," whispered Mandy.
Through the walls I could hear the hound dogs howl.
"Don't worry about them, Scribble," said Tristan, dreamily.
Desdemona and I, back in the Rusholme Gardens, fingering the feather.
The Beetle and Bridget were out for the night and the morning, travelling in the van, visiting a down south Vurt Fest, gathering contacts and suppliers.The cops had taken some details, pronounced us innocent. We were back home, and it was all ours; the flat, the feather, the love.
"Wonder what it's called?" Desdemona asked, letting the feather's yellow glints shine under the table lamp. The feather was 70% black, 20% pink, 10% yellow. There was a pale space on the shaft where somebody had peeled the label off.
"Plug us in, Des," I said.
"No way!" she shouted. "Not on our own."
She was following the Beetle's rules. Nobody goes in alone, just in case it gets real bad in there.
"Go on!" I pleaded. "We've got each other. What can go wrong?"
This I will never forgive.
"Beetle's doing it," I told her. "Right this moment. Down South. Oh come on, sister! He's at a Vurt Fest! With Bridget! Of course he's doing it. He's in Vurtland, right now!"
"We've never done a Yellow before, Scribb."
This was true. Yellows were ultra-rare. Low-lifers just didn't come across them. "It's not a full Yellow," I said. "It's just got some Yellow in it. Look, a tiny amount. It's safe."
"We don't even know what it is!"
"Let's do it!"
She gazed at the feather for a full minute, saying nothing, just drinking in the rainbow of colours. And then, finally; "Let's do it, Scribb." It was a soft voice. And she looked at me with those eyes made out of plums, juicy plums, as I stole the feather from her hands.
Some things just seem bound.
And she opened her mouth, my sister, waiting for the feathering. She was too full up of love to resist, so I stroked her there, deep in the mouth, and then myself, and this is how we lost the sister. Desdemona was taking it, all to heart.
Tristan uncorked a new jar and reached inside, with wide open fingers. And when he pulled his hand back out, it was covered in thick green slime, like hairvaz, but living. Nanosham! Read about it in the Cat, but never seen it before. Those minuscule machines were dribbling from between his fingers.