Divided Kingdom (12 page)

I walked on, passing through the muted pools of light that lay beneath each of the street lamps. Like many people of my age, I'd had two names, two lives. Once, I had been someone called Matthew Micklewright, but that person no longer existed, and I wasn't even curious about him now. It was just too long ago, too remote – too
unlikely.
What's the point of clinging to something that has gone? What good does it do? That old name had become as hollow and empty as a husk. A name deprived of breath, of meaning. A name without a face. And then the night when my life began again … A strange beginning. Soldiers, bright lights. The cold. And me being lifted, as if by surgeons, into a new world – and crying probably, though I couldn't remember that. But every birth is merciless, perhaps. Then the lorry, the train, and all the hardships and uncertainties of the holding station –

I put a hand on the parapet, my heart seeming to bounce against the inside of my ribs. The dream I had woken with that morning had come back in its entirety. I had been walking in a sunlit garden. A strong wind pushed at the trees and bushes, and the grass rippled on the ground. It was cold in the garden – though like someone who had drunk too much I couldn't feel it. Or if I could, then only as a delicious extra layer to my skin. For a long time that was all I knew – the sunlight on the grass, the wind, the ceaseless rushing sound of leaves … And then I saw a boy with light-brown hair standing motionless beneath a tree. He didn't seem to have noticed me, despite the fact that I was walking towards him. He didn't see me. Not even when I stood
in front of him. He was naked, I realised. Somehow this hadn't registered until that moment. I looked all around, but couldn't find his clothes. The tree shuddered in the wind. The trunk wasn't visible, nor were the branches. Only a huge murmuring cloud of leaves, which seemed held together by some supernatural force.

Staring out across the water, I trembled, as if the cold wind of the dream had jumped dimensions and was in the world with me. The boy was Jones. Even though he had light-brown hair. Even though he wasn't standing on one leg.

Jones.

Like me, he would be in his thirties by now. Was it true that he'd been sent to an asylum? What had become of him? Had he survived?

The following day I met Vishram in the lobby, as arranged, and we took a tram across town. In fifteen minutes we were standing in a grand but decaying square only a few hundred yards from the border. Though Vishram had stepped out on to the pavement with an air of sublime equanimity, he had brought me, at lunchtime, to the very heart of Fremantle, the red-light district. Here you could find establishments that catered to every taste, no matter how esoteric or degenerate, venery being the one vice to which those of a sanguine disposition were known to be susceptible.

Vishram paused outside a house that looked residential, then climbed the steps and pressed an unmarked bell. The door clicked open. A cool, tiled hallway stretched before us. The staircase curved up towards another door which stood ajar and through which came, in muffled form, the familiar hum and clatter of a crowded restaurant. Once upstairs, we were escorted into a space that skilfully contrived to be both generous and intimate. Lamps with scarlet shades stood on each table, deflecting attention from the height of the ceiling, while curtains of the same colour framed the three tall windows that overlooked the square. The waitresses wore white blouses and black skirts. They were all young and good-looking, and at least two of them knew Vishram by name.

‘I see you're a regular,' I observed once our food had arrived.

He didn't look up from the wood pigeon that he was preparing to dissect. ‘They make an exceptional
crème brûlée,'
he said. ‘It's a weakness of mine.'

‘I didn't know you had any weaknesses.'

He laid down his knife and fork, then pressed his napkin to his mouth. Above the folds of crisp white linen, his eyes were amused, benevolent, and ever so slightly long-suffering.

‘There's a conference in three weeks' time,' he said. ‘We're thinking of sending you along.'

‘It's been a while since I attended a conference. I always seem to be too busy.'

‘It's in the Blue Quarter,' Vishram added casually.

I reached for the mineral water and poured myself another glass. I was aware of having to concentrate on every movement I made, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. My lungs felt oddly shallow.

‘The Blue Quarter,' I said.

Vishram smiled faintly. ‘You would miss Rearrangement Day,' he went on, ‘but they'll probably organise some kind of celebration over there.' Lowering his eyes, he brushed a few breadcrumbs from the tablecloth with the backs of his fingers. ‘Though with phlegmatics, of course, one can never be too sure.'

I watched the bubbles rising in my glass. What was being proposed was both a privilege and an affirmation of the Department's faith in me – not many were trusted with a visit to another part of the divided kingdom – and, though I had thought the opportunity might present itself at some point, I certainly hadn't expected it so soon.

The Blue Quarter.

The words glowed inside my head, buzzing sleepily like neon. I was breathing a little easier now. Was I
supposed
to feel like this? What
was
I supposed to feel like? I glanced at Vishram, but his deceptively blank gaze was fixed on one of the more sinuous waitresses as she threaded her way among the tables.

From a political standpoint, the Blue Quarter had always
been a laughing-stock. The past fifteen years had seen thirteen different administrations, each one a coalition, the result being that even decisions taken at the highest levels were constantly reversed and nothing ever got done. As for the citizens themselves, they were reputed to be gentle and unflappable, if a little slow. They had a mystical side as well, by all accounts. In ancient times, the Druid would have been phlegmatic. So would the witch. But in the end I preferred not to generalise, and despite the fact that my job required me to group people together I somehow knew the reality of the Blue Quarter would be more subtle and complex than I'd been led to believe.

‘I would need a thorough briefing,' I said at last.

Vishram's eyes reverted to my face, and I thought I saw the shadow of something perverse swimming in their dark-brown depths, but then it was gone and there was only receptivity – the composed, indulgent look of someone who spends his life listening to problems and dispensing advice.

‘Of course. But you'd be willing to go?'

I looked at him. Was this a trick question?

‘Some people don't trust themselves,' Vishram said. ‘They think they'd be tempted in some way – or altered. What's more, there's the old superstition about the border-crossing itself, that one might be mysteriously depleted by the experience, that one might lose a part of oneself – that one might suffer injury or harm.'

Vishram directed his gaze towards the windows. Compared to the room in which we sat, with its intimate lighting and its clandestine atmosphere, the trees in the middle of the square seemed wan, over-exposed.

‘It always reminds me of how primitive people were said to feel about being photographed,' he went on. ‘They thought their souls were being stolen.'

I leaned back in my chair.

‘But you're not worried about any of that,' Vishram said.

It was more of an assertion than an enquiry, and I just held his gaze and smiled.

He nodded. ‘Aquaville,' he said. ‘It's supposed to be a magical
city. The canals, the Turkish baths, the water-taxis … Apparently they have an indoor ocean too. You can go surfing half a mile below the surface of the earth.'

I examined Vishram closely for a moment – his manicured fingernails, his elegant yet portly physique. ‘You've never been surfing, have you?'

He appeared to place a cough inside his fist.

‘No,' I said. ‘I thought not.'

That night I cycled over to Sonya's place on the south side of the river. I had met her in a park in June, at the evening performance of an opera. She had walked up to me at the interval, her beauty as classic and unforced as the single string of pearls she was wearing and the slingbacks that she carried carelessly in her left hand. We knew someone in common, she said. A professor at the university. When she put her glass of wine down, the shape of her fingers showed in the condensation. That, oddly, was the decisive moment. Looking at that glass, I could imagine exactly how we might touch each other. I asked if I could see her again, and she wrote her phone number on the back of my programme. Within a few days, we had met twice, and on our third date, after dinner at a jazz club, she took me back to her flat and we made love. Like everybody else I had been close to, she believed I was a quality engineer –
whatever that is
, as she would always add with a crooked smile. I thought at first that she might be a journalist, or even an actress – with her olive skin and dark-brown hair she resembled a famous film star of the previous century – but she worked at the Public Library, in the rare books department. She didn't make much money. I was happy to help her with her everyday expenses, though – buying clothes, paying bills, and so on. Since we both valued our independence, we had kept our own flats, but we tried to see each other at least two or three times a week. She had been married once, when she was in her early-twenties, but she'd had no children. Since she was older than I was, almost thirty-seven, I sometimes wondered what kind of future she imagined for herself, but she had given me no indication that she was dissatisfied with the way things
were going. I didn't find it difficult to picture the children we might have together – skinny, dark-eyed, with a laughter as rich and rare as hers.

I waited until we were settled in her living-room with a bottle of chilled white wine, then I told her my news. ‘Sonya, they want me to go to a conference next month. It's in the Blue Quarter.'

She reached for her wine and drank. It was another humid night, and all the windows were open. The murmur of voices floated up from the other flats that gave on to the light-well.

‘Is that why you sounded so strange when I spoke to you last night?' she said.

‘No. I didn't know about it then.'

A shriek of laughter came from somewhere below.

Sonya was staring down into her glass. I had wanted her to be excited for me – after all, to be chosen for such a trip was an honour, whatever your profession – and her muted reaction caught me off guard.

‘I've heard stories,' she said. ‘About what it's like, I mean.'

‘So have I,' I said. ‘It's damp. Everyone's ill all the time. I'll probably get flu.'

She didn't even smile.

I reached across the table. Her gaze shifted to my hand, which now covered hers. ‘It's a conference,' I said gently. ‘It's just work.'

‘You don't understand,' she said, and her chin lifted and she looked away from me, into the room.

‘Sonya …' I rose to my feet and walked round the table. Standing behind her, I wrapped her in my arms and then just held her. Cool air from the window moved across my back.

‘I'm sorry,' she murmured. ‘I don't know what's wrong with me.'

‘It's all right,' I said.

‘I'm being stupid.'

‘No.'

I had heard stories about the Blue Quarter too – tales of enchantment and possession, of pagan ritual, of bizarre religious cults – but I had heard them from relocation officers, and they had always been notorious for their lurid imaginations. It was
partly due to the privilege of their position. They travelled to other quarters on a regular basis. They saw places no one else saw. They could invariably command an audience willing to hang on their every word. But it was also a result of their constant exposure to other people's trauma. The stories they told were defence mechanisms, safety valves, ways of deflecting or releasing pressure. Their humour was gallows humour. The old joke about relocation officers was that they themselves often had to be relocated. They crossed too many borders. They burned out. It was an occupational hazard. I remembered what Vishram had said at lunch.
One might lose a part of oneself. One might suffer injury or harm.

Sonya carefully detached herself from me and, tilting her head sideways, touched the back of her wrist to her right eye. Then she looked up at me and smiled.

‘It'll be amazing,' she said.

I rose out of sleep just after three o'clock, my head cluttered with disturbing images. Not wanting to wake Sonya, I eased out of bed and crept through the darkness to her bathroom. I drank some cold water from the tap, then turned to the window. A full moon hung in an almost cloudless sky. The street below was quiet. I saw three girls stop outside the building opposite. They talked for a while, then I heard the word ‘goodnight', and two of them walked away. Alone now, the third girl leaned close to the building's entrance with her head bent, her neck white in the moonlight. She must be having trouble with her keys, I thought. Eventually the door gave, and she disappeared inside. I had been watching with a feeling of nostalgia, even though I had never seen the girl before, and I realised I was thinking of Marie, and how she would have stood outside the house on Hope Street in much the same way, tired certainly, perhaps a little drunk as well, trying to fit her key into the lock. Once through the front door, she would climb the creaky staircase in the dark. As she crossed the landing, she would knock against the linen chest that jutted from the wall, and I would hear her swear under her breath.
Fuck
, I would whisper, imitating her. I'd be grinning. In
the morning she would pull her skirt and pants down on one side and show me the mauve-and-yellow rose that had bloomed on her hip like a tattoo. Was it really eighteen months since I had seen her last?