Authors: Liz Jensen
A big, ignorant leap. To a new place where nothing is the same.
It could be the worst choice I ever make, but in that instant, it's done. Swiftly, I wipe Bethany's forehead with the sponge, grab the electrodes, flick on the timer, apply them to her temples, and shift the switch. I hold my breath as the clock ticks and the electricity floods her brain.
Cold, factual thoughts take hold.
I must not pass out from fear.
If she dies, they'll call it murder.
They will be right to.
I keep the electrodes clamped to her temples and watch the seconds pass.
There's an uncanny silence. Bethany's face is so impassive she could be dead. The longest ten seconds of my life pass, but nothing terrible is happening. Then twenty. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Still no movement from Bethany, no sign that the current is having an effect. How should I interpret this? What am I looking for? I don't even know. I won't breathe till it's over. Twenty-eight. I hear Ned gulp.
Cuando te tengo a ti vida, cuanto te quiera
. Frazer Melville puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. I shuck it off because I loathe myself even more than I loathe him.
Then, at twenty-nine seconds, catastrophe.
With no warning, Bethany's head jerks up with a violent epileptic spasm and her legs and arms start jerking. The electrode pads crash to the floor, and the mouth-guard goes flying, but the frantic breakdance continues, unstoppable. Frazer Melville shouts to Ned to take her legs, and grapples with her flailing arms. Barely thinking about what I am doing, I heave myself out of the chair, and with immense effort - I can feel the adrenalin whipping through me - I throw myself across her on the settee, pinning her convulsing torso down with my weight. Her head, freed from its strap, butts me in the mouth and I taste blood. She's still fitting. Despite my weight on top of her, she's half off the settee. There's more blood, Bethany's or mine I can't tell. I think:
she's bitten off her tongue
. Then she flops still.
Ned stands back while Frazer Melville lifts me bodily off her and settles me back into my chair. I am aware of his immense strength. He could be picking up a rag doll.
Bethany, covered in blood, skewed at an awkward angle, is now completely motionless. Her chest was heaving before, but now there is no rise and fall.
The world drops away beneath me.
Kristin appears at the door open-mouthed. With her is Harish Modak.
The old man is frailer in the flesh than in the photographs I have seen: a small, shrunken figure with iron-grey hair and the dark, hooded eyes of a bird of prey. Eyes which flicker across the room, widening as they take in the carnage.
Everywhere is streaked with red. Bethany is twisted oddly, as though she has tried to turn herself inside out. Blood drips from the corner of her lip.
She has stopped breathing.
Harish Modak's legs buckle as he registers what has happened, and he reaches out to support himself on the door-frame. Kristin grabs his arm and settles him, grey-faced, in a chair by the window.
'I'll do mouth-to-mouth and you work her heart,' I tell Frazer Melville.
'I'll count,' says Ned, hastening over. I take a deep breath, clamp my mouth over Bethany's and exhale into her lungs.
The next few minutes are a blur. I taste blood and snot.
If I can die in her place, I will. I'll find a way. My life for hers. Bethany, come back. Come back
. My lungs are weak with the effort of shoving air into hers. I'm working on her like a machine, all my reflexes kicking in. At one point I pull my head back from Bethany's mouth and think, this isn't Bethany any more. It's Bethany's dead body. But I carry on forcing air into her lungs anyway, peripherally conscious that Ned has handed over to Kristin Jons dottir, and is now making a phone call.
'Ambulance,' he says. 'Child having convulsions. Yes. Mouth-to-mouth, yes, and -'
'Sit her up,' I tell Frazer Melville. With a huge movement, he hauls her up and slings her across his chest so that she's semi-upright in his arms. Kristin jumps back to make way for him as he topples, then regains his balance. I thought I had been through the darkest times of my life. But I had not counted on this moment. 'What now?' Kristin asks in a whisper.
'This,' I say. And I slam Bethany on the back with all my force.
There's no reaction. 'Gabrielle -' says Frazer Melville quietly, restraining my arm which is poised for another thump. 'Gabrielle, can't you see? It's too late.'
'She's gone,' says Kristin. 'She's dead.' A low sob escapes her and her face crumples. Harish Modak is sitting completely still, as though mummified.
'No!' I free my arm and slam her on the back again. 'Come back, Bethany!' As though she can be yelled into life. Which she cannot. 'Come back!'
Ned, who has been talking urgently into the phone, suddenly stops. He's staring at me. No. Not at me. At Bethany. I can't see her face from this angle. But he can.
'Sorry, false alarm,' he says quietly into the phone, and snaps it shut.
A groan escapes me. But something odd is happening. Ned's face has broken into a bewildered, ecstatic smile. I look at Harish Modak: the old man's expression mirrors Ned's. Kristin's grey-green eyes widen, then narrow, and I realise that she's smiling too. They are all deranged. When Harish Modak speaks, his voice is like a creaky wheel.
'Well, Miss Bethany Krall,' he whispers. 'We meet at last.'
Then Bethany coughs, and my heart flips about like a landed fish.
Quickly, Frazer Melville sets Bethany down, and we both see what Ned, Kristin and Harish Modak saw first: her eyes are open and she's blinking. She's alive. From deep in her chest, she draws in a raucous breath and coughs again. A huge red chrysanthemum of blood splats on to the floor.
I burst into tears. Harish Modak comes over to me stiffly, as though hampered by pain. My breathing has become awkward: heaving and uncontrollable. I'm on the edge of hysteria. From the corner of my eye I see that Bethany is shuddering.
'It's over now, Miss Fox,' says Harish Modak. 'You can relax.' The voice is hoarse, the Indian accent stronger than I had expected. He is old. Frail. Perhaps also very ill. He may be cynical about
Homo sapiens's
use to the Earth's system, but he is kind. I can tell from the gentleness with which he touches my shoulder. 'Let us go and clean off this blood. I don't know exactly what went on in here just now and I don't think I want to. But the young lady will be OK. Now if you will permit me, Miss Fox, I have brought with me a selection of alcohol and foodstuffs. Let us see if we can improve your morale.' Frazer Melville turns away from Bethany and comes forward, apparently to accompany us, but Harish Modak puts up a hand. 'Miss Fox and I will be fine, my boy. You see to Miss Krall here and we will all convene shortly.'
And with an old-world flourish, like a servant waiting on a seated monarch, he positions himself behind my chair, spins me round, and wheels me out of the room.
I'm nursing my second whisky and Harish Modak is installing himself in the living-room, emptying a camel-hide briefcase of various packages which he unwraps and arranges on the coffee table. I've returned from a visit to the bathroom where I indulged in a fierce, private bout of crying, the most intense since I lost Max. My blood is calming, but my legs still vibrate with pins and needles, like the flickering of a shoal of tiny electric shrimps - an infuriating reminder that although unresponsive to any demands I make on them, my lower limbs have found a way of registering mental disturbance and causing their own, parallel form of havoc.
'There we are. Disaster relief,' says Harish Modak, gesturing at the food. I take in the display of odorous French cheeses, the block of pate de foie gras, the tiny samosas, the box of Belgian chocolates, the bars of Swiss Lindt, the bag of lychees, and the Turkish Delights, and readjust my image of Harish Modak as an ascetic. 'I will be offended if you refuse.'
'Then I'll have a cafe cognac truffle,' I say, helping myself from the box. 'Followed by another.' I discover I am starving. A sugar rush would be just the ticket right now.
'How do you feel?'
I'm wondering whether he heard me crying in the bathroom, and if he did, whether it matters. 'It's normally my job to ask that kind of question. Or it was until recently. I feel like asking you how you feel. As Bethany keeps reminding me, it's what I do. It's how I get to know people. I know no other way.'
'Fair enough,' he says, returning my smile. The chocolate is working, warming and cosseting me from within. 'Fair enough. I am fond of that expression, aren't you? So even-handedly British!'
'So how do you feel?'
'Now, specifically?' he asks. I nod. Amused, he applies his mind to the question, his brow furrowing slightly. 'If we're discussing the current situation, I would say: alarmed and fascinated. But cautious.'
'And more generally?'
'Aha, a larger question. Are we talking about the world?'
'I can't think of a more pressing matter right now.'
'Alarmed and fascinated again. But more than that, I feel cheated not being able to see fifty years ahead,' he says, settling in a straight-backed armchair. He moves in the manner of those afflicted with chronic rheumatic pain. 'I would like more than anything to see the future. I would like to see in what way life develops.'
'That's quite a claim, coming from a leading proponent of the idea that it isn't going to,' I say, taking another gulp of whisky and letting the glow spread through my ribcage.
'Not for most humans, in all probability. But the collapse of
Homo sapiens
as a dominant species means the dawn of a new era for a million other life forms. These interest me.' If this is the man's small talk, I wonder what his big talk is like. From the breast pocket of his jacket, he reaches for a horn-handled pocket-knife, opens it up and pares himself a inodest wedge of Pyrenean goat's cheese. 'We've been here a mere instant, in geological terms,' he says, inspecting it as he might a slice of brain on a slide. 'My wife was one of the leading experts on the end-Permian. Back then, life on the planet was nearly wiped out altogether. But within an era or two, it had regenerated most efficiently.' He pours himself a whisky and gives it an amber swirl. 'Millions of years ago, a reptilian ancestor of the pig,
Lystrosaurus
, was the king of the hill. A catastrophe species, like fungi. Perfect for the aftermath of a high-stress event because they thrive on decaying organic matter. Two hundred and fifty-one million years ago, fungi had an orgy. So did the hagfish. Arguably the ugliest creature of the sea, but a successful scavenger.'
'The point being?'
His smile is an unwilling one, as though wrought against his better judgment. The shadowed eyes glint like ancient marbles. 'That in terms of the life of this planet, blink and you will miss
Homo sapiens
altogether. We'll be an irrelevance.' Having uttered it, the notion seems to please him. He cuts himself a second slice of cheese and slots it into his mouth.
'We weren't sure you would come.'
The hooded eyes edge sideways. 'Nor was I.'
His discomfort suggests that the decision came from an urge born somewhere in the complex substrata of his psyche, an urge he cannot or will not name. I won't insist. It will emerge on its own or not at all. 'And now that you're here?'
He points the tip of the pocket-knife at me. 'I have seen with my own eyes the dramatic seriousness with which you take this interesting child. One cannot be unimpressed. I only hope that the experiment has paid off.'
'But if Bethany comes up with something definitive . . .'
'I came here on the understanding that she already had.'
'It doesn't change my question. How will you respond?'
'I will consider crossing the bridge when I have seen what kind of bridge it is. And have judged whether it is crossable.' from somewhere else in the house, we can hear Ned loudly cajoling Bethany. She tells him to leave her the fuck alone. A doubt is hatching. Why is Modak really here? Ned hinted that even if convinced, it might prove hard to persuade him to do anything. He mentioned his curiosity. Could it be that alone which has brought him here? If so, how far will it take him? If he proves stubborn, what leverage is there?
'What was Meera like?' I ask. His response is a defensive, troubled glance. 'You were married a long time. You must miss her.'
'May I ask you something, as a psychologist?' His tone is still playful but I sense a shift. I nod. 'She wanted her ashes to be thrown in the Ganges but I kept some aside because when the urn arrived back from the crematorium, I had the strangest urge to eat them.' Ah. The mud has finally stirred. I wait for more. 'Is the ingestion of one's other half a known syndrome?'
'I've read some of the literature on it. It's a surprisingly common urge.'
'Do you regard it as a form of cannibalism?'
'Do you?'
'My internal jury is still out on that one.'
'It's not a crime to want her with you. I imagine it's a comfort. A way of being one flesh, even after death. So. You followed the urge.'
He smiles, revealing teeth the colour of old piano keys. 'Dr Melville told me you were good.' I flush. He reaches into the leather briefcase and pulls out a small jamjar of granular ash which he holds up with reverence. Then he grins. 'Essence of Meera.'
I have a sudden, avid urge to discover whether he sprinkles her on his food condiment-style or swallows her like medicine, but diplomacy is called for.
'I imagine she was a formidable woman.'
'Like me, she believed that our only afterlife is an organic one. I'm not afraid of death myself. Of the change of matter, animal to mineral. You are not at my age.'
'So you have achieved all you wanted to?'
'I came to certain conclusions about our species and its fate. Conclusions to which most people chose not to listen.'
'You spawned a whole movement. With self-sufficient settlements all over the world. I get the impression a lot of people listened.'
'Not hard enough.' His old mouth forms a rigid line, like a turtle's.
'You and Meera didn't have children. I imagine that was a private response.'
'Why create hostages to a future whose shape one could so clearly see? The decision was to avoid grief. For oneself but also for others.' From habit, I note the telling use of 'one' instead of 'I' or 'we', and store the observation. 'The world is too full. But the childless are always punished. It's a great irony that one is called selfish for making what is essentially an altruistic choice.'
Since my father's brain dissolved, I have missed the company of elderly men. But Professor Modak's presence is causing unsettling questions, rather than a daughterly affinity, to germinate. If, with his blithe nihilism and his jar of edible marital ashes, he truly believes the world will be a better place without humans, and sees time in terms of epochs rather than days and hours, then yes: why should he bother to save a few random millions?
Why on earth?
At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, Harish Modak replaces the jar in his briefcase and turns his head to the door. Bethany enters first, barefoot, followed by the physicist.
'Hi, Wheels.'
I look Bethany up and down. Our absent host, the expert in chemi-luminescence, is a man of impressive physical proportions, to judge by the size of the towelling bathrobe she is wrapped in. Drowned in its red tartan folds, she settles in a corner of the sofa opposite mine, with her bare feet tucked underneath her. Frazer Melville greets us sombrely, and comments to Harish Modak on the impressive display of food. I can feel him looking at me searchingly, but I have now fully mastered the knack of avoiding his eye. Bethany has been cleaned up and somebody -I guess Ned - has rebandaged her arms and hands. Her face is ashen and her bitten tongue lolls on her lower lip, its tip a chunk of hacked meat.
'I told her to do it,' she says, nodding at me but addressing Harish Modak. She emits the words with care, working them past her ruined tongue. 'I made her give me thirty seconds.' She sounds proud. Ned and Kristin come in quietly and settle in chairs. All six of us now form a circle around the coffee table opposite the fireplace.
Harish Modak nods. 'And was it effective, Miss Krall?'
Silence stiffens the air around us. Enjoying the attention of five pairs of adult eyes, Bethany grins, then winces with the pain and sucks in a breath.
'I was right in the middle of it. It was like being struck by lightning. It was so cool. I got this huge charge.'
Harish's stillness has an intense, reptilian quality. 'Take your time. Describe everything.' Ned is positioning his laptop on a corner of the coffee table to project the rigs on to the whiteboard.
'It's like a giant cover being lifted off a bed. Bubbles and stuff are just, like, pouring out from the edges.' Frazer Melville and Kristin Jons dottir exchange a private glance that rams my guts like a thug's fist. 'These stinking bubbles. And it breaks up and there are these huge white sheets just tearing off and shooting up. It goes on and on. As far as you can see. Then there's fire on the water, the sea's just, like, glowing in the dark. Yellow and orange. Blue in some places. Just flickering on top of the water.' She tells it with the lull of a fairytale. 'Then this giant wave swells up. It's like a wall in the sky. Higher than the clouds.'
The old man does not move, but I'm aware of embers beginning to glow.
'We have to know where this happens,' says Kristin Jons dottir. 'We have to identify the rig.'
I roll closer to Bethany. 'The drawing you did. You were underwater and you imagined travelling up the pipe and you saw the platform and the yellow crane. Did you see it again?' Bethany nods, squints and dabs at the tip of her tongue. When she removes her hand, there's fresh blood on the bandage that wraps her finger. She spits on the floor, then closes her eyes and lolls her head back. 'Can you remember the crane? Could you see inside it?'
She sighs and screws up her eyes. A moment passes. 'There was something. Ouch. It hurts to talk. Something pink. It looked like a
. . .' Although her eyes are still closed, it's clear she's trying to focus. 'God. It was a cunt,' says Bethany. She bursts out laughing. 'A woman's cunt! Shaved!' Her eyes flip open and meet Kristin Jons dottir's and she smiles lopsidedly, uncertain of what she's remembered. Then she laughs again, delighted. 'It was a naked muff! You could see her arsehole too. Ew, gross!'
'Bethany,' I say sharply. 'This is serious. I nearly killed you earlier. There isn't time for games.'
'It's not a game!' she laughs. 'I tell you, I saw a vag!'
'Er, if I know anything about rigs,' Ned Rappaport intervenes, 'she may well have done, and there's actually no mystery.'
Harish Modak looks fleetingly amused. 'They allow prostitutes? Most enlightened!'
Kristin gives a wan smile. 'The next best thing,' she says, tightening the blinds.
A second later the images of the four rigs have reappeared on the wall-screen. The blue of the water in the fourth image is a virulent turquoise but in the others it's darker.
'These are the main suspects. They're all drilling for methane. They're located off Siberia, Indonesia, in the North Sea and in the Caribbean south of Florida,' says Ned. 'We've ruled out the rest for various reasons to do with their operational mode. These four all have yellow cranes.'
'These are good-quality pictures,' comments Harish Modak, looking quizzical. 'Better than anything from a satellite.'
'The sort of thing spies kill each other for,' murmurs Ned, adjusting the focus, clearly pleased that Harish has noticed. 'They're from the military.' He clicks and three of the rigs disappear. 'This is the Siberian one. Endgame Beta,' he says, zooming in first on the spire of the derrick, and then the yellow crane, which is perched to one side of the rig.
'Go in closer,' commands Bethany. We're suddenly confronted by the broad, spilling stomach of a middle-aged man sitting at the controls of the crane's cabin. His mouth hangs open, as if he is singing or yawning. He has no idea he has been caught on camera.
'See anything you recognise now, Bethany?' asks Ned. 'This bloke here? Anything familiar?'
Bethany shrugs and points at the family photographs on the wall of the man's cabin. 'No intimate flesh. No
pew-denda
. I'd say Mr Clean from Siberia is sitting in a fanny-free zone.'
Ned moves to the next image: nothing. On the next, Lost World in the Caribbean, the crane is unmanned - but on the inside wall of the cabin, to the left of the joystick and controls, is a rectangle of pink. Ned tightens the picture and adjusts the focus. Then, too suddenly, the slur of flesh has taken on silhouette and texture and we're staring at a pair of hugely swollen breasts with dark, saucer-like nipples. Perched above them, the smiling face of their brunette owner.
'Pass the sick-bag!' Bethany guffaws. Ned scrolls down the image but it stops just north of the jewel-studded belly-button.
'No
mons Venus
. So shall we rule out Miss November in the Caribbean,' says Ned drily, 'and move on?'