Descent (35 page)

I stood at the foot of the familiar short flight of worn stone steps, took a deep breath, bounded up, and rang the doorbell of Calum’s flat. The power light of the camera in the top right corner of the doorway winked on, a red bead like the gaze of a lab-rat’s eye. The speaker grille crackled.

‘Hello?’ I said. ‘It’s me – Ryan.’

‘Oh, right, Sinky.’ The voice was Calum’s. ‘Just a minute.’

More than a minute passed. The grille crackled again.

‘OK, Ryan,’ said Gabrielle. ‘You can come up.’

She didn’t sound welcoming. I pushed the door as the lock buzzer sounded and went up three flights of stairs within, past the usual parked bikes and scattering of car rental and fast-food flyers. Calum opened the flat door halfway and looked at me round the side.

‘Morning, Sinky.’

‘Hi, Duke.’

‘What are you here for?’

‘I just wanted to see you and Gabrielle and, uh, explain and apologise for a few things.’

‘“A few things”?’ He snorted. ‘We havnae got aw day, you know.’

‘I didn’t say everything.’

He cracked a smile, and opened the door wider.

‘Ah, come on in then.’

He looked not long up, barefoot and in jeans and an old T-shirt. Gabrielle, similarly dressed, sat curled up in an armchair in the small front room. She smiled but didn’t get up, and motioned me to the couch.

‘Coffee?’ Calum offered, from the doorway.

‘Yes please. Black, no sugar.’

‘I remember whit yi take.’

The room looked like it was still very much Calum’s, apart from the pictures on the walls, which as I’d noticed months ago showed Gabrielle’s taste. The carpets were as worn as I expected and the bookcase in a niche in the corner had only half its shelves occupied by books: casual collectors’ items by the look of them, more for decoration than for practical use. The other shelves suggested Gabrielle’s hand at work: shells, feathers, odds and ends of old crockery, some with small cut flowers in them; glass paperweights with fossils inside, instead of the random dusty clutter the shelves would no doubt have accumulated when the place was Calum’s alone.

Gabrielle watched me with a wary eye.

‘How are you?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Everything going, uh …’

She sat up a bit. ‘How did you know?’

Her pregnancy wasn’t showing under what she was wearing at the moment: one of Calum’s old T-shirts.

‘Someone told me,’ I said. ‘I’m happy for you.’

A flicker of a smile. ‘Fingers crossed.’

Calum returned bearing a mug of coffee. He handed it to me and sat on the arm of Gabrielle’s chair, fingers lightly playing with her hair in what struck me as an unduly possessive manner. She didn’t seem to mind.

‘OK, Sinky,’ said Calum. ‘Shoot.’

‘Well, there’s two things I want to apologise about,’ I said. ‘First of all I want to apologise to the two of you for being such a dickhead about your being together. I mean, I knew it was all over with me and you, Gabrielle, and I know it was my fault or anyway not your fault, and, well, fuck, I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, I’d have been miffed if you’d not been jealous,’ Gabrielle said.

Still wounding, still teasing, still winding me up. I tried to rise above it.

‘Yeah, I understand that, but still I should have been a bit more mature about it. I shouldn’t have called Calum … all the things I called him.’

‘You called me things?’ Calum shook his head. ‘Cannae remember. Forget about it yirsel, OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thanks. Well. The other thing is … a bit more awkward.’

Gabrielle laughed. ‘More awkward than harassing me and slandering Calum?’

‘Well yes, actually. And, uh, sorry about all that, too.’

At that moment I was thinking about what I hadn’t confessed and had no intention of confessing. I must have looked impressively guilty and ashamed of myself because Gabrielle shrugged one shoulder and said, ‘All right, apology accepted. A note to my parents wouldn’t be out of place either, by the way.’

‘I’ll do that,’ I said.

‘Grovel a bit,’ she advised.

‘Uh, that won’t be hard,’ I said, ‘because the other thing kind of concerns them, as well.’

‘It does?’ Gabrielle looked less lazily sensual, less accepting of an apology that was nothing but her due, wary again and more alert. ‘What’s it about?’

I took a fortifying puff of Zip and sip of coffee. ‘Do you have your glasses handy?’

With a faint snort of irritation, Calum heaved himself up, padded out, and returned with two sets of glasses. I took out my phone and thumbed up the genealogy file, and flicked it across. They examined it.

‘Jeez,’ said Calum, when he saw what it was. Gabrielle shot me a look of anger and disappointment. They turned the structure over and pulled it about as I explained why and how I’d compiled it.

‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ I said.

‘Not the worst?’ Gabrielle asked, sounding shocked.

I drained the mug. By now the coffee was lukewarm. ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s more.’

I then told them how I’d taken it to Baxter, and why, and what had happened – including about the spooks’ visit, and the aftermath.

‘Jesus, Sinky,’ said Calum, ‘You are a bit of a shit.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, really,’ said Gabrielle, voice shaking, her face white to the lips, ‘this is the most spiteful, vindictive, stupid thing you could have done. Didn’t you even
think
? What if Baxter really
had
been a fascist? Did you not think about that? Or
did
you? Did the thought of me and mine getting identified and investigated and maybe even persecuted give you a little smirk of quiet satisfaction?’

‘No!’ I said. That was exactly what it had given me; even though I hadn’t taken the possibility seriously I’d entertained the fantasy. The guilty memory added heat to my denial. ‘No, nothing like that! I
knew
it wouldn’t come to anything like that. I knew Baxter would treat it as a provocation, that was the whole point. I knew he’d be suspicious of it.’

‘Oh, you knew, did you?’

‘Yes, and anyway this is all public, it’s all on the databases, and you said yourself about the speciation thing being known—’

‘Oh, fuck you, Ryan, grow up. It may be out there but it takes a – an evil ideology or an evil mind to pull it all together like that.’

‘I don’t have
any
ideology,’ I said. I raised both hands, and half a smile. ‘An evil mind, OK, I’ll admit to that.’

‘It’s no fucking joke, Sinky,’ said Calum. ‘I mean apart fae whit Gabrielle’s saying, there’s yir other disturbing wee admission that what yi were really trying tae dae wis finger me and Sophie as revolutionaries, for fuck’s sake.’

‘And myself as well,’ I pointed out.

‘Aye, but
you’re
aw right,’ said Calum, leaning forward and shaking his finger at me. ‘You ken fine yir no a revolutionary. The fucking spooks could rake through yir entire fucking life and no find a scrap ae evidence against yi.’

‘Well, they could,’ I said, still trying to be reasonable, trying to make light of it. ‘I still have a copy or two and a zip drive of
What Now?
somewhere.’

‘Aye, and so has every cunt that ever had a spark ae curiosity or rebellion back in their teens. They’d be mair suspicious if yi didnae! The point is, Sinky, you only know for sure about yirself. You don’t know for sure about me and Sophie.’

‘Oh, come on!’ I cried. ‘This is ridiculous. I know
you
all right – you and me were practically fascists ourselves when we were at school, hoping for a military coup and all that, and to this day you bang on about how we’re living under socialism already – just like Baxter does, come to think of it. And as for Sophie, OK I don’t know her so well, but she’s no revolutionary. She makes cloth for
frocks
, for fuck’s sake! I’ve never heard a political word out of her.’

This was not strictly true, I realised as I said it, remembering her alarming reflections about the ethics of taking the long view. But that was too abstract a consideration to count.

‘Disnae matter,’ said Calum. ‘It was no your call tae make.’

I’d come here to confess and to apologise, but I’d thought of it more in the nature of clearing up a misunderstanding. Only now did the enormity of what I’d done come home to me. McCormick had been right about me. I really was a piece of work.

I found myself sitting with my head in my hands. I didn’t know how long for. I sat up straight and looked at Calum and Gabrielle, that perfect Neanderthal couple, at this moment almost literally joined at the hip, who regarded me from across the room with silent scorn.

‘I’ve done you wrong,’ I said. ‘You and a lot of other people. I’m sorry.’

Gabrielle and Calum looked at each other, and each, almost imperceptibly to me, nodded. Then they faced me again.

‘Good,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Now, what are you going to do to put it right? You’ve convinced Baxter that it was all nonsense, you’ve come and told us everything, and I guess you’re going to tell Sophie.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That was the plan.’

‘It’s not enough. You have to keep an eye on Baxter and his lot from now on, and you have to convince us you’re never going to pull a stunt like this again.’

I felt relieved that this was all she demanded.

‘Oh!’ I cried. ‘I know how I can keep an eye on Baxter. I can take him up on his offer of a job.’

Gabrielle smiled thinly. ‘Getting a proper job would do you good, as I used to tell you over and over. But how can you convince us you’ll be loyal to your friends?’

So we were still friends. That was something.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t have any hostages to offer you. I could swear, if that would help.’

‘You swore tae me once,’ said Calum. ‘By God and Darwin, I seem tae recall. Didnae make any difference, did it?’

‘It did!’ I protested. ‘I never said a word about the book to anyone. That’s what you swore me to silence about. The book you told me about and that you faked the evidence for and that didn’t exist anyway.’

‘The book wisnae the main point,’ said Calum. ‘But OK, I’ll gie you that. And Gabrielle got you thinking about the family secret and made out it was no secret and no big deal apart fae the, uh, the personal aspect ae it. So I’ll let yi off on a technicality. But this time, I just want you tae swear tae stay loyal tae yir friends, like Gabrielle said.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll swear.’ Giddy with relief, I essayed a smile. ‘What do you want me to swear on this time?’

Calum slid off the side of the armchair, stalked over to the bookshelf niche, pulled down a book and gave it to me, from both of his hands to both of mine. It was bound in ancient, furred leather with faint remnants of gold tooling, and lay heavy in my hands and across my knees. I opened it, and saw within the striking, surprising white of vellum; turned over the leaves, and saw the incomprehensible words in an unfamiliar alphabet, and the text divided in the easily recognisable form of gospel and epistle, chapter and verse; and the weird, crabbed, violent illustrations throughout. I turned to the last book, and its ninth chapter, and saw the locust picture.

I closed it, hands shaking, and looked up at Calum.

‘You can swear on this,’ he said.

The big frocks blazed in jewel shades in the window panel on the front of the Fabrications office in Hope Street. The illusion of an old-fashioned formal dress shop window was perfect until one of the mannequins morphed to a model with a catwalk scowl and twirl, or a gown changed shape and colour more radically than even metafabric garments actually could. I watched several cycles of such transformations before I nerved myself to go in. Behind the door, it was a normal front office, apart from the wall pictures, which were more of the same, and the receptionist likewise. The juxtaposition was bizarre. She looked as if she’d stepped from a Winterhalter or Sargent painting into a 1970s office-furniture ad, to park her bustle on a swivel chair behind a compressed-pine desk.

I’d originally intended to visit Sophie the following week, but Calum and Gabrielle had pointed out that she often worked on Saturdays, and insisted I go straight to her workplace from their flat. Perhaps they suspected that my resolve would falter with delay, or that I’d come up with some scheme to evade the issue and mitigate the confrontation.

‘Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?’

‘Ah, is Sophie Watt in today?’

The receptionist eyed me. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, I’m an old school friend. I just dropped by on impulse.’

‘I’ll see.’

She rang and spoke, listened, nodded.

‘Second floor,’ she told me. ‘Third door on the left.’

I smiled, thanked her, and trudged up the four flights of stairs. The third door opened silently to a big studio space. Bolts and swatches of fabric lay on long tables, weighted by scissors and metal rulers, alongside complex bits of laboratory apparatus and synthetic biology tanks and tubes. Prototyping machines and 3D printers jostled for space with industrial-grade overlockers and sewing machines. In one corner stood a small tent, and overhead hung what looked like the wing of a man-sized bat. Sophie stood in front of a big tilted screen, light-pen in hand, caught in thought. She was wearing narrow jeans, long boots, and a protective smock spattered with varicoloured splotches of plastic and paint like a kindergarten child’s art-class tabard.

She must have heard my step, or seen a shadow flicker. She turned from her work and smiled.

‘Oh, hi, Ryan! Good to see you.’

She threaded her way through the clutter, and indicated two stools by one of the long tables.

‘Have a seat, watch your step.’

‘Thanks. And thanks for making time to see me. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.’

‘Only the most totally brilliant idea for a new fabric that I’ve ever had.’ She put the heel of her hand to her forehead. ‘Then the phone rang. It’s gone now.’

‘Oh, Christ, sorry about—’

She laughed at the look on my face. ‘Honestly, Ryan! Of course not. I’m just dealing with stuff I should have got done during the week. Come to think of it, that really is your fault. We were all agog about the Rammie business. Thank goodness it wasn’t our material that was the problem. Nice bit of investigation you did there! I saw you mentioned on the telly.’