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Authors: Gareth Power

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I go into the
bedroom. Her things are here - perfumes and oils, brushes and powders, gowns,
furs and robes. Also more casual attire - trousers, sweaters, boots. There are
books stacked on the floor at her side of the bed. I pick one up and flick
through the pages. It's a novel of political intrigue, written decades ago. On
the inside of its back cover is a photograph of the author, a bald, bearded man
dressed in an old-fashioned suit and tie. He holds a cigar in one hand, his
expression serene. I read the brief biographical note. His name was Conrad Boehm.
In his day he was a senior diplomat of the Country of Ir. He died over twenty
years ago - poisoned by agents of the Rift Valley State, the note says - at a
State banquet in his honour. I open the book at a random page.


Droplets condense on the carriage windows
as the exhaust of the steam engine sweeps over the train. The wind drives the
lensing globules horizontally before they finally evaporate. When I embarked on
the train at the ancient, grotty, crowded station in Theron, the weather was
overcast, oppressively hot. Now, though it has cooled considerably, it is still
markedly warmer than the air-conditioned interior of the train. Our carriage is
kept comfortably cool. Patches of the outside surface of the window remain
fogged.

‘We are
travelling through the moist forests beyond Ir country. The greens of the
forest are deeper, richer here than anywhere else on earth. I have travelled
this journey many times, I think I remember, in service of Lir, Lord of Ir. I
know the terrain along the route very well. It is all familiar to me, all laid
out in memory, awaiting recognition. How odd that is, for my own name will not
come so readily. And though I know I am a married man, equally I know that I
left no one behind in Theron. I live alone there, a solitary, untouchable
servant of the State, a eunuch quartered in marbled apartments within the Royal
Palace. A eunuch. This is what it is to be a eunuch. My name… it is… I open my
mouth to speak to my bodyguard, but do not, as though to do so might fix this
disequilibrium, solidify it so that it becomes me and I will have no escape
from it. Better to sit and wait. The moment will pass.’

I set the book
down. I have noticed the passageway set in the far corner of the room. Though
I’ve lived here for years, I have no recollection of it. I go over and see that
it leads up a short flight of stairs. I look up the stairs, puzzled. Above is a
room walled with pine panels. A large window at its northern face reaches from
the floor to the ceiling. There are paintings done in heavy oils on the wall. One
is of me, another of Helen. A third depicts the yawning, arched Far City
entrance to the Cylinder on a bright summer's day.

Through the
window in the mysterious room, from my angle below in the bedroom, I can see
the sky. The clouds have cleared away and the stars and other celestial objects
shine brightly as they swirl about each other. A remarkably beautiful pinwheel
galaxy has been forming in the northern sky over the past several weeks, and
through the window I see one of its scintillating spiral arms. Novae flash and
die within the arm as I stand and watch. The galaxy's rapid clockwise rotation
quickly moves the spiral arm out of view. I decide to ascend the stairs,
feeling my flesh tingle in anticipation of what I may find up there.

The mysterious
room is pleasantly fresh-smelling. There is a leather couch at the end of the
room opposite the window. The room has a fireplace, though this looks as though
it has never been used. The thick, soft carpet is coloured a rich claret. The
light comes from a glistening gas chandelier. A fine, antique telescope stands
on a tripod by the window. I look through it, scanning the city and the sky. I
focus on the lights of a large airliner drifting far away over the rooftops. I
turn the telescope to observe it as it closes in on one of the high gantries of
the Cylinder, perhaps seventy storeys up. It disappears into the looming
structure to touch down on the long runway inside. On other levels I can see
other aircraft arriving and leaving, like bees at a hive. Amongst these drop
globules of light, vestiges of the mysterious warfare raging at the Cylinder's
highest levels. Some of these fading sparks reach the ground level before dying
out completely. Some land in the dead waters of the Terminal Sea, and some
merge with the dim phosphorescence of the Liffey where it cascades over the
African Wall.

I step away
from the telescope to rest my eyes. A man in khaki vest and shorts in an
apartment in the building across the street is watching me. His expression is
fierce as he draws his curtains together with a single, abrupt movement.

I open a heavy
oak door to one side of the hearth to discover a windowless chamber containing
a large four-poster bed with a wooden chest at its foot. A gas lamp glows lowly
on the locker at the right-hand side of the bed. I look about the room briefly,
but there is little else to see. There is a corresponding door at the other
side of the hearth. This opens to reveal a billiards room. The balls on the
table are arranged for a new game. I can't resist taking a shot.  I watch the
balls ricochet along their various courses around the table until they come to
a halt. This feeling, it’s the brief glow of unsuspected personal wealth
suddenly realised. If only I had known about this place sooner.

At the far end
of the billiards room a spiral stairs winds downwards. I descend to find myself
at the apartment's front door. My home is at least three times larger than I
thought it was. As I stand here, wonder filling me, I am startled by the
turning of the lock in the door. A woman comes in with a bag full of groceries.
Joy fills me as I realise that it is Helen. She kisses me on the cheek and goes
into the kitchen. I follow her. I watch her as she sets the groceries on the
worktop and reaches up to take a glass from the press over the sink. Her dress
is light and loose at the waist. She smiles at me again and pours herself some
water. As she drinks it - lustily, all at once without taking a breath - I can
discern the small bump of her belly. I go over to her and put my arms around
her. Then I move my hands over her belly. I feel a light kick. I kneel and put
my ear to it. I hear the faint, rapid heartbeat of the child growing within.

The phone
chimes, beautiful chimes that ring like the cathedral bells of The Square,
where the gossamer buttresses prism the solar spectrum onto pink and grey
cobblestones, haloing the earnest artisans and the ambling, chatting citizens
they urge to buy their wares. I release Helen from my embrace and turn to pick
up the receiver. It’s not the house phone, though. It’s not chiming any more. The
sound is harsher now, more urgent.

My mobile. I
open my eyes. It’s early morning, sunrise, and the rain is still falling.

‘Answer it,’
Helen says, half asleep.

I get out of
bed and pick up the phone from the floor. It’s an unknown number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello? George?’

Heathshade. Another
night ends with trouble for the great man. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve been
nicked. Can you come and get me?’

‘You can’t be
serious.’

‘I’m in the
Bridewell.’

‘That’s your
problem.’ We have got to ditch this guy.

‘They won’t let
me go without someone to look after me. Got a bit of a head wound.’

Helen is sure
that I must go and collect him. ‘He belongs in a cell,’ I protest, but she’s
having none of it.

The taxi is
dirty and old. It smells of damp in spite of the two air fresheners stuck to
the dashboard. Only one of the windscreen wipers is working. In mitigation it’s
the one on the driver side. Between my two feet the floor has rusted through. I
can see the wet road surface slide by.

‘Where’ll it
be, bud?’

‘The Bridewell.’

‘Yeah? You a
copper?’

‘No.’

‘That’s good,
bud. I got no time for the coppers. That Bridewell’s a desperate place. They
had me in there all night one bleedin night with a feckin broken nose and two
teeth missing. Know what I mean?’

The teeth have
remained missing, I notice. I nod and fix my gaze away from him at the passing
world.

‘Suit yourself,
pal. There’s no harm in a bit of bleedin conversation.’

At the police
station, I ask him to wait a few minutes while I go in to get my ‘friend’, but
he speeds away as soon as he has my money.

The station is
a fortress. This part of the city has largely been overrun by the scumbags and
the Unity IRA, who at least make some effort to keep the unaffiliated scumbags
in check. The Bridewell/Four Courts area is an Israel-like enclave in the
badlands, a tactically unstable bridgehead threatened on three sides, whose
existence is maintained only by constant protection and resupply from outside. One
has only to amble a few tens of metres westwards to alight in Smithfield
Square, now a 24-hour arena for all manner of barbaric activity. The expensive
apartments surrounding the square have become Beirut to the Bridewell’s Israel.

I hurry into the
station, stopping in the security chamber to state my business. They buzz me
through and frisk me.  

Heathshade
emerges from the cells.

‘Thanks, lads,’
he says, as though he were leaving the place after a night partying. But then
again, no big night out would ever be complete without at least a minimal
amount of processing through the criminal justice system. I do believe he
actually enjoys it. The playful rough-and-tumble of the original arrest, the
banter of the holding cells, the tired bonhomie of the morning-time release.

He wasn’t joking
about the head-wound. His head is bandaged, a gash running across the forehead.

Released with a
caution. At this outcome he’s particularly happy. He explains all to me as we
return home in another taxi.

Having got
caught up in some revelling in the rain he found himself in an altercation over
the correct usage of someone’s front step.

‘’Get off my
step ya fucking ape’, he says to me. ‘Steady on,’ I says. ‘The rain’ll clean
away the piss.’ But he’s lost it. He swings at me with a poker. Got me across
the head. What could I do, I had to defend meself, so I got a hold of the poker
and tugged it away from him. He lost his nerve straight away and slammed the
door shut. I did a bit of shouting and banging on the door, and the next thing
I’m being thrown into a cop van. Bastard must have called the police.’

‘You know what…’
I’m filled with a sudden yearning for fresh air, now that we’re back on the
relatively safe south side of the river. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way home. Here’s
the fare.’

I hand money to
Heathshade, knowing without asking that he is flat broke. Into the refuge of
the pouring rain I step.

Nothing feels
better now than to splash through this hot storm. Clothes are soaked through,
shoes sodden.

In Grafton
Street drunks slump drenched against shop windows surrounded by bottles and
cans. The street is covered with broken glass, blocked by a couple of small
cars, pushed there by agents of mischief or malevolence or something in
between. The police are out and about organising a cleanup. One good thing
about the heavy rain is that, just as Heathshade pointed out to his adversary,
the filth is washed away.

Get home at
eight o’clock. Heathshade is asleep in the living room. Helen is deeply asleep
upstairs, or at least seems to be.

I strip off,
have a shower. Cleansed mentally as well as physically I feel as though I will
sleep, really sleep, like I haven’t in a while. I climb into bed and, yes, it’s
images I see this time, and I’m not plagued by voices. What could be better
than to slip away whilst the storm sound casts its comforting spell and the
beads of rain run down the glass?

Let me see words
instead of hearing them, fly along this winding narrow valley detailed so
vividly, and not in a plane as before. This time I haven’t forgotten who I am,
and for the very first time when I fly it’s as a bird, and doesn’t feel as
though a giant hand has lifted me by the shoulders. Nor is it like when I’m in
a plane in trouble that glides through a house, banking from kitchen to living
room in search of a place to ditch.

But she’s
shaking me awake most cruelly. Now it really is as though a great hand has me
by the shoulders, and is lifting me level by level back to the harsh,
unshielded surface.

‘George.’

‘What?’

The word comes
out more angrily than I had expected, which brings me out of it once and for
all.

‘Did you bring
him home?’

‘Why do you
care?’ Anger again. It feels right.

‘Just tell me.’

‘Yes, I did.’

This is as much
as she wants to know. She turns over. I want to get back to sleep, but this
time it’s impossible. She’s spoilt it. With my eyes shut, my body tense, the
auditory centres of my brain - and perhaps the aural and linguistic centres too
- are fizzing.

The sun
penetrates the thinning clouds. The warm rain slackens. The thin curtain
doesn’t do enough. All possibility of oblivion is gone. I am miserable.

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