Cold Fusion (7 page)

“Were they new?”

“On a Peace Warrior budget? Hardly. We cannibalised them from a trawler that was headed for the scrapyard.”

“In good condition, though.”

“Yes.” I absently topped off my mug. “My dad was a hopeless drunk, as you’ve pointed out, but he taught me how to look after the boats in my care. I must have misjudged the weather. Would you like some more wine?”

“There isn’t any left, Mallory.”

I got up. I brushed imaginary dirt off my knees and the seat of my trousers, then I walked the length of the room and back. It was only swimming round me slightly, the movement comforting. “I tell you what.” I returned to the fireside and sat down again. “You finish off this mug, and I’ll drop a bombshell in
your
lap for a change. Why did your father hate you so much that he cut you out of his will?”

I might as well have slapped him. I was immediately sorry. I knew bugger-all about autism, but apparently that wasn’t enough to stop me from throwing my weight around. He sat in silence looking up at me, the flames from the gas stove casting strange lights and shadows into his eyes.

“If you’d like,” he said quietly, “the chalet you used to like to stay in is ready.”

“Oh, my God. Are you sending me to my
room
?”

“Not unless you’d like to go there.”

“What the hell did you do to make it ready? Run a string of fairy lights out from your crackpot’s laboratory? Cold fusion doesn’t exist, mate. Doesn’t. Can’t. Nothing comes for free in this world, not ever.”

“I’m aware of that.”

Yes, he was. The pain of it was etched into his weirdly beautiful face. Unsteadily I stepped away from him. I was done here. Apparently I couldn’t open my mouth without attacking him, and I had no idea why, except that he was defenceless and the first poor unarmed sod who’d fallen into my path since I’d left Norway. Which made me a worse bully than my father.

He was holding out a key to me. I wanted to apologise, but I had no idea where to begin, and anyway it was too bad. Everything I’d done was too fucking bad, so far beyond my capacity to atone that I wanted to set fire to the whole world rather than try. In the circumstances, there were worse things that could happen to me than being sent to my room. The gas stove popped and died as the fuel ran out, a final comment on a perfect evening. I snatched the key off his palm.

Chapter Five

I had no right to a peaceful night’s sleep after that debacle, but I got one anyway. Spindrift had never been about strict rules of earning and deserving. Vivian too seemed inclined to extend a lot of credit without security. In the chalet he’d designated as mine, I found a set of crates pushed together to form a makeshift bunk, together with a mattress and blankets from some long-forgotten storeroom. It was cold, of course, since Vivian hadn’t yet mastered the magic and pixie dust, but I rolled myself up in the blankets and dropped into worn-out sleep despite my plummeting guilt at having said those things to him. For the first time since leaving the
Sea Hawk
, I felt safe. I had a moment to watch the Little Bear hanging by its tail from Polaris—perhaps he too had disgraced himself, and was being given a good shaking from the very top of heaven—and then I was out.

At the first glimmer of dawn, when my Little Bear window became a visible square of pale blue, I found myself propped on my elbow and listening. I couldn’t remember waking up, or what had brought me round, but my inner ears were aching with some vanished sound, straining to hear it again.

There. A long, wild cry—inhuman, lost, the voice of a stag I’d once found trapped in a mess of barbed wire on the beach. I’d seen the poor beast from a distance and run till my lungs almost burst to get to him. He’d given me a good kicking for my pains while I cut myself to ribbons setting him free. I’d never known a sweeter moment than standing bruised and bleeding while he thundered off over the sand. Helping him had been so easy. The whole world had been simpler then. I’d fallen asleep fully dressed, so all I had to do was shove my feet into my boots and run.

The front door to the main block was locked. Great—Vivian’s sense of neatness, or his fears for his damn copper wire. It was all perfectly understandable, but it meant that I couldn’t get to him, now he was being murdered in his bed. The howl came again. Giving up on the main door with a frustrated thump, I ran around the back to the fire exit where the clean-living wholefood café staff used to sneak out for a fag. We’d broken the locking bar one day and no one had ever dreamed of putting it right.

Thank God for feckless hippies. The metal door gave at my third shove and swung inwards. “Vivian!” I yelled, pelting down the corridor. No sense in a silent approach. My only weapons were rage and momentum, and I always had plenty of those. I grabbed the cafeteria doorframe and slewed into the room.

It was silent and empty. I skidded to a halt and stilled my breathing so that I could listen. Nothing, and when I padded through to the little kitchen Vivian had been using as a bedroom, that was vacant too.

No. How could I have thought so? There he was, huddled on the bunk, a blanket twisted around him. It was as if the tricky morning light—that hour when dogs start to bark but the wolf is still haunting the fields—had briefly consumed him, making him invisible. As it was, he was only a patchwork of shadows, the faint blue radiance catching his skin and his white cotton sheet. His head was down, face buried against his knees. Suddenly he jolted and began to fight his way farther into the corner. His terrible cry of fear rose again, lifting the hairs on my nape.

“Jesus Christ, Viv,” I whispered, not caring that this time I’d shortened his name aloud. I knelt on the bunk beside him. “Viv! It’s me. It’s Mallory.”
You remember—that dickhead who got flash-drunk on your lovely wine last night and threw a tantrum.
Cautiously I reached for his shoulder, but he cringed from my hand as if it burned. “Okay. I’m not gonna touch you.” He shuddered and choked, and despite what I’d just told him, I ran a hand across his hair. “Hush. There’s no need for this, mate. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

He woke up. No sound or movement accompanied the transition, but I felt it, like the subtle shift of light from a cloud-hidden dawn. Muscles twitched in his arms and across his shoulders. “Oh,” he said faintly, lifting his head, distant gaze focussing. “I had a nightmare.”

“You really did. It’s all over now.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Just a bit. I thought the banshees had come for you.”

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry. Mallory—I know you’re being kind, and any sane person would love it, but…would you take your hand off my hair?”

I snatched it back. I hadn’t realised I was still caressing him. It was one of those things you started and forgot to stop because it felt so natural to continue. I’d met one of the old laird’s deerhounds on that far-off day at Calder Castle, and had stood entranced until moved sharply along by my teacher, stroking and stroking the rough, silky fur. “Sorry. Bloody hell—what do you dream about?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing, mate. If you don’t want to talk about it, fair enough, but—”

“No. Nothing’s what I dream about. Dissolving, fading out. And then I’m…gone.”

“And is that bad? Being gone?”

He swallowed with a raw little noise. “It wouldn’t be. But I’m still aware. I’ve dissolved, and there’s nothing around me but—not even darkness, more a thick grey. Featureless and eternal, no sense of up or down. And I’m still awake and lost in it.”

He faded out, balling up tight again. I clenched my hands in my lap to keep them still. Everything I’d have done to comfort him was forbidden. “It was only a dream.”

“I’m not sure. I can’t feel my arms and legs anymore.”

“That’s because it’s colder than a polar bear’s dick in here. It’s the same in my chalet too, though thank you for putting up the bed.”

“It won’t be, once—”

“I know. Once you’ve got your cold fusion set up. I’m sorry for saying all that stuff.”

“You were drunk.”

“No, I was just being an arse. I tell you what. If I take this blanket…” Gently I tugged one out of the tangle of his limbs. “And I roll it up lengthways like this, and put it down the middle of the bunk, we can both squeeze in together and maybe not die of hypothermia. And I won’t be touching you, technically speaking.”

“It’s a narrow bunk. I don’t see how you could help it.”

“Well, we’ll treat it like a notional barrier and do our best. Come on.”

Stiffly he uncurled. He was wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of thin cotton pyjama bottoms. I waited until he had stretched out awkwardly on his side of the mattress, then I pushed the blanket between us and, not giving myself too much time to think about it, crawled in beside him. “Bloody hell, Vivian. You’re perishing.”

“I can’t feel it.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve cut it off. I can shut down feelings that aren’t useful.”

“It is useful to feel the cold, you nutter.” I wriggled around so that my back was to him, hoping that might make things easier. “Pull that top blanket right up and lie on your side. Now put your arm around me across the top of the blanket, and you can get my body heat without touching me at all.”

“It isn’t anything personal, you know.”

“I’m not bothered what it is. We both just need to warm up and get a bit more kip.”

That was going to be easier said than done. The rolled-up blanket was a fragile barrier. Behind it he was lean and electric in the dark, a presence my flesh could read without vision or contact. His breath was stirring the hairs at the back of my neck in a warm, too-fast rhythm.

“Mallory,” he said huskily, and I lay waiting to find out if I’d got him entirely wrong and a normal, randy lad lay under that thin layer of ice. “I don’t believe a polar bear’s penis
would
be all that cold.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it retracted into his fur until it’s erect?”

I lay motionless, trying to work out if he was joking. No—if he’d been sharing the bunk with Sir David Attenborough, he’d have asked the same question in the same tone.

“It’s an expression,” I told him. “But try to imagine that awkward minute between him getting erect and being able to sink it into some lady polar bear’s nice warm yoo-hah.”

“Her what?”

“Her yoo-hah. Didn’t you pay attention in biology class?”

A quiver ran through him, shaking the bed. Then, to my amazement, he exploded into laughter. I’d never heard anything like it. It sounded like springtime bursting its way through a glacier. He coughed and choked and stopped as abruptly as he’d started, but his arm had tightened helplessly round me. I could feel that he was shaking. “I thought you didn’t feel the cold.”

“You’re making me feel it. By making it go away.”

I wondered if I should apologise. I decided against it. The vibration of his shivers slowly died. Warmth began to build up between us, and I could sense the relaxation of his tense frame. All this talk about polar bear dicks had caused me to get hard, and I lay thinking about my last encounter with Alan Frost until the reaction died. There was enough repressive power in those memories to keep me celibate for the rest of my life.

“Mallory?”

“Oh, God. What now?”

“When you first came in here tonight—you called me Viv, not Vivian.”

I groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re offended.”

“No. I meant to say that I like it. Nobody else calls me that.”

“I shouldn’t imagine anybody else would have the nerve. You are pretty lordly, you know.” I found the shape of his hand beneath the blanket and gave it a cautious pat. “Call me Mal if you like. Everyone else does.”

“Yes, I know. I’ll keep on calling you Mallory, if that’s all right.”

“Whatever. Just go to sleep.”

* * * * *

In the morning he was back inside his overalls and his impenetrable skin. There was no sign of the man who’d wrestled nightmares and giggled like a kid into my hair. I lay watching him through the kitchen door, too lazy and warm to stir for now. He must have extricated himself carefully from the bed. He hadn’t disturbed me, and the blankets were neatly arranged.

It was surreal to lie here and see him among his toys. He was moving about confidently, utterly absorbed. He leaned over a water-filled tank, flicked some switches and adjusted the gleaming metal rod that ran through it.

The bare light bulb above me flickered and came on. So did all the other lights in the café. He stopped in the middle of the room and looked up at them critically, resting his hands on his hips. The wall-mounted storage heater in the kitchen gave a click and began to emit a smell of singed dust. Far off down the corridors, I heard the thump of the boiler coming to life. It ran off gas cylinders, but still required an electrical spark for the ignition. Vivian came and stood in the doorway.

I sat up in bed, trying to smooth down the spikes in my hair. “Morning. Looks like you got your wiring problems sorted.”

“I’ve managed this much before. The system needs to be stable and not short out in the loop we set up in the chalets. Come with me.”

“Mate, I need a wee and a shower at the very least before I start unscrewing floorboards again.”

“Come with me. Please.”

He turned and strode away. The lights in the café were so bright that he left a blue-black flashing image of himself on my retina, and faintly dazzled, I got up. I wasn’t sure why he needed my company, then realised that his tense stillness in the doorway had been excitement. He must think he was close to a breakthrough. Maybe he wanted a witness. Filled with apprehension and something perilously close to pity, I pulled on my boots and followed him outside.

The morning was overcast. The incoming tide had pushed a sea fret ahead of it. I nearly bashed my head on one of the overhanging silver flowers in the mist, then took a deep, steadying breath. There was nothing in the world like the smell of a northlands coast first thing on a foggy morning. Seaweed and salt, pungent but fresh enough to make your lungs prickle, a scent of blood and life. I was so busy inhaling it, trying to sort out for it the right words in my mind—
amniotic
seemed a good one—that it took me a moment to notice that all the chalet windows were ablaze, oblongs of gold shining through the sea wraiths.

I ran down the track to meet Vivian, who was emerging from the first hut, wiping his hands on a cloth. Yes, this was excitement. His face was absolutely still, but the corners of his mouth were set in the effort not to break into another of his huge beaming smiles, and there were lights in his eyes to put the electricity to shame. “We did it,” he said. “The system’s running smoothly.”

“I didn’t do anything.” I shielded my eyes and looked at the little glowing village he’d created. And as if all those lights—Vivian’s too—had suddenly looked back into me, a crazy spark leapt in my heart, and a world of wild possibilities unfolded before me, wiping all my own paltry troubles to oblivion. “Vivian,” I said, and then because my throat was a bit dry, and I remembered what he’d said to me last night, and how much I liked him even if he was deluded, I started again. “Viv, tell me the truth. Is this place on the electrical mains? The National Grid?”

“No,” he replied simply. “I’m powering it from my lab.”

“By…by cold fusion?”

“That’s right.”

I took him by the hand. I didn’t give a damn about his no-touching rules at that point. I folded his fist in mine as if he’d been three years old, and I marched with him to the open door of the first chalet. The same odd thrum that had woken me two nights ago was in the air again, the same weird radiance. Already a breath of warmth was coming off the storage heater.

“Cold fusion,” I echoed. “You’ve fucking invented cold fusion.”

“It isn’t a thing you invent. It’s a process that exists in nature. I’ve just—”

“Mastered it. Made it work. This is it.”

“Yes. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

I dropped his hand. This couldn’t be, and the sooner I disillusioned myself and him, the better. I set off at a dead run back to the main block. The door was stiff, and I grunted in frustration as I shoved it open against its rusty hinges. Everything in the café was still living and vivid and bright. I had only the vaguest ideas about how this mythical energy system was meant to work, but I knew the tank and the silver rod inside were central to it. I strode over, looked all around the tank’s edges for some other wire than the single black cable connecting it to the rest of Viv’s setup. There had to be an explanation. I followed the cable in its track across the floor, examined the linkage points where the others broke off from it. One of them led to the kitchen. I ran in there, checked all around the skirting board for evidence that some external source was coming in somehow, through the dilapidated plug holes perhaps, but they were all vacant, their switches up and off. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to hold myself together.