White and Other Tales of Ruin (17 page)

“
String’s lake of glass,” she says. I want to ask more, but suddenly feel the urge to find out for myself.

We start down the hillside and are soon approached by two guards. They are carrying guns, ugly squat black cylinders that could spit hundreds of rounds per second. They are both tall, muscular, fit-looking, their skin a healthy tan, clothes neat and presentable. They seem to be wearing what approaches a uniform: thin cotton trousers; khaki shirts buttoned at the wrists and neck to protect from the sun; peaked caps to keep the glare out of their eyes. They are cautious but confident as they stop a dozen steps in front of us and casually place hands on their guns. They regard us with what I can only describe as pity, and I am jolted from the grey haze that pain still holds across my senses.

Pity is the last thing I expect.

“
You’re Tiarnan, right?” Jade says. The guard on the right tenses, then nods. He steps forward, swinging his gun to bear evenly upon us.

A sense of unease itches at me, tensing my muscles and stiffening my neck. No one knows we’re here, I think. No one will miss us. There are a thousand bodies back down the road, what would two more be added to it? More food for the dogs? More human detritus to leak slowly back into the soil, replacing the goodness we’ve bled from the planet for centuries? I wonder if Della will miss me. I wonder if she ever expected to see me again, once I left that final time. I had the suspicion then — and it still niggles now, even though I’ve come so far — that she sent me here to give me hope in my final days. She never really believed in what she told me; she did not have any real faith in her words of comfort.

“
Jade Kowski?” The guard’s expression does not change but there is familiarity in his voice. His gun swings slightly until it’s pointing directly at me.

“
Hi, Tiarnan. Who’s your buddy?”

Tiarnan waves a hand at the other guard. “Oh, that’s Wade.” He lowers his gun — but Wade, I notice, does not follow suit — and approaches Jade. “What the fuck are you doing back here, girl?” He claps her on the shoulder and ruffles her hair with fatherly affection, though I guess Tiarnan to be younger than Jade by at least half a decade: straggly beard, kid’s smile in a face already aged by the sun and the Ruin.

“
Brought a friend.” Jade nods down at me where I slump weakly on the trike. “String still entertaining?”

Tiarnan shrugs. “When people make it here. Still pretty exclusive, though, y’know?” He looks me over, removing his dusty sunglasses and squinting in the sudden brightness. At first I feel like an exhibit in a museum of dying people, but then I detect the same pity in his eyes that I saw earlier. He glances at my shirt, muddied by the fluids leaking from me. He sees Jade’s bandaged hand, notices the bright redness of the scrape on her leg set against the more subtle pink of sunburn.

“
Hell, Jade, you sure ain’t looking after yourself.” He looks across at his companion and some secret signal lowers his gun. “Wade, do me a favour, push our friend here down to the moat. Jade, why not walk with me? You can tell me why you’re still in this God-forsaken country after all String did for you.”

“
You’re still here,” she says, but Tiarnan laughs and starts off towards the glittering moat.

Wade pushes the Trike — I could have pedalled, but I am tired and in pain and not about to pass up the opportunity of a free ride. When we reach the moat I can see what it really is. I wonder at the work that went into making it; the weeks of travelling to and from towns and deserted villages to collect all the materials; the dedication; the planning. The idea itself is sheer brilliance.

The moat is at least twenty metres across, composed entirely of broken glass. Bottles, window-panes, bowls, mirrors, windscreens, all smashed down into a sea of sharp, deadly blades. The sun glares from its multi-faceted surface and throws up a haze of light, and it is all I can do to keep my eyes open. It is effective as a thick fog at concealing what lies beyond.

I wonder how we will cross, but then I hear the musical crunching of glass cracking and shattering. Before I have a chance to see what is happening, Wade is lifting me from the trike and sitting me gently on a large, flat-bedded vehicle that has crawled across from the other side. Wade and Tiarnan help the other two men on the strange boat as they haul on a rope, dragging it across to the inside of the moat.

“
Nearly there,” Jade says, bending down over me and blocking out the sun. “You okay?” As if the question gives my body a chance to answer, pain shouts and I fade out. The sun recedes, voices float away, and I fall unconscious to the grinding sound of breaking glass.

iv

“
How are you feeling?”

I open my eyes. “Like I’m going to die.” It’s dusk or I’m indoors. Whichever, the torturous sunlight has abated.

“
Well, I’ll see what I can do about that.” The voice is gentle, low, understated. But there is a power there, a certainty of control, a glaring confidence. Even before I see who has spoken, I know I am talking to String.

I turn my head and there he is, sitting calmly beside my bed, Jade standing behind him and Tiarnan next to her. String is a surprisingly small man — for some reason I had been imagining him huge and powerful — and another surprise is that he is black. It is only now that I realise I have seen no other coloured people on Malakki. The world is getting larger.

“
I thought Jade, perhaps, would have told you about me?” He is trying not to smile, but there is laughter painted all over his face.

“
Only what you can do,” I say. I manage to sit up, cringing as the Sickness sends a wave of shivering heat through me.

“
It’s progressed quickly, hasn’t it?” he says. It is more a statement than a question, so I say nothing. “May I?” He reaches for my shirt before I can object and gently pops the couple of remaining buttons. I look down as he bares my chest, and even I recoil in disgust.

String, however, retains his composure. He passes his hand close to the ugly growths and I’m sure I can feel the subtle movement of air. It is comforting. He is frowning, his big eyes so full of a pained compassion that I cannot recognise the look for several seconds. Even Della is more concerned than compassionate, a state that I think is based upon realism rather than choice.

“
It must hurt,” he says.

“
You bet.” But I’m used to the pain, the burning that tears at my chest as if some rabid animal is trapped within, trying to escape. Used to it, but still it tortures me unremittingly, driving blade after blade of discomfort between my joints, into my limbs, piercing my lungs. It’s the faints I cannot conquer, the regular grey spells when my body seems to say, right, that’s it, enough for now. “But the pain won’t last forever.”

String looks at me, then his face splits into an infectious smile. I feel myself mimicking him, and it appears that Tiarnan was born grinning. I look at Jade. She smiles back at me, but I still don’t know her quite well enough to read the expression. I wonder once more whether everything bad has happened, or if there are still terrible things left for me to see.

“
That’s true, Gabe,” he says. “Because I’m going to cure you.”

v

An hour later, when I am feeling stronger, String takes me on a walking tour of the village. It is larger than I first thought, stretching back along the course of the shallow valley and into a ravine formed by a small stream. The waters have long gone, but the streambed seems fertile and lush. Vegetables and fruit grow in profusion. I taste my first red-berries in years. String tells me it is the fertiliser they use.

There are hundreds of people here, going about their daily routine with a calm assurance. Some huts serve as meeting places or stores, but most of the people appear to live in tents, either self-serving or abutting old cars, lorries and buses. I see no active motor vehicle of any kind. Some of the residents throw a curious glance my way, but seem to sense why I am here — perhaps it shows in my tired walk, my hopeful eyes. They turn away again, though I cannot tell whether it is from respect or simple disinterest. I wonder how many people like me they see. I ask String, and the answer surprises me more than it really should.

“
Most of them
are
people like you. Or they were, until I cured them.”

I become more aware of the layout of the colony, and realise that it is far more established and self-sufficient that I first assumed. The glass moat merely encircles the front portion of the village, ending where sudden cliffs rise from the ground and soar towards the sun. The bulk of the dwellings and other buildings exist further into the ravine, sheltered from both the sun, and casually prying eyes, by the sheer cliffs on both sides.

“
We’ve been here a long time,” String says. “We’ve created quite a little oasis here for ourselves. Not just one of food and water, but ... well, I like to think of it as an oasis of life, an enclave of what little civilisation remains.” He smiles sadly, and for the first time I really believe how genuine he is. “Where do you come from?”

The sudden question startles me. “Britain.”

“
I’m from the Dominican Republic. Ever been there?”

“
No, of course not. Isn’t that where...?”

String is still staring directly at me, as though he can read the constant unease in my face. “Voodoo? No, that’s Haiti. Different country. Though I believe some of my ancestors were Haitians.” He leaves it at that, though my query feels unanswered.

“
What state is Britain in?” he asks. The change of subject distracts me, and I cannot believe that he does not know. He seems the sort of man who knows everything.

“
Britain is dissolving.” The word appears unbidden, but it suits perfectly what I am trying to say. “It’s regressing. The army has taken control in many places. Rumour has it there is no central government anymore.” I think of my last few days there, making my way to Southampton through a countryside ripped apart by flaming villages and sporadic, random battles. At first, I had thought the gunfire was army units taking on looters and thieving parties, but then I saw that they were really fighting each other.

“
On my last day there, I saw a woman raped in the street my three men. One after the other. It was terrible. But the worst thing wasn’t the crime itself, but the fact that the woman stood up, brushed herself down and walked away. As if she was
used
to it. As if...it was the norm. Isn’t that just gruesome?”

“
It’s a sad new world,” String says. We stroll for a few seconds, each lost in our own thoughts, most of them dark. “What of the culture?” he asks

“
What do you mean?”

String stops walking, smoothing his shirt. He is not sweating. I am soaked. I wonder whether it is my Sickness bleeding the goodness from me, or whether String is so used to the sun that he no longer perspires. “The culture; the history; tradition. The soul of the place. What of that now?”

I suddenly feel sad. I wish Della was here with us, I am certain that she and String would talk forever and never become bored or disillusioned. “It’s gone,” I say.

String nods. I am sure he already knew. “I thought so. That cannot happen.” He motions for me to follow him and we walk towards the cliff face, passing into the shadow of the mountain. He starts climbing the scree slope without pause, and I suddenly wonder whether he intends to haul himself to the top. I look up, see the thin wedge of blue sky high above, reminding me of that first day in Jade’s courtyard.

“
Here,” he says. I look. String is standing at a split in the rock, a crevasse that could easily be the doorway to a cave. Its entrance looks like a swollen vulva, and I wonder whether it is man-made. I also ponder what is inside, in the womb of the rock, hidden in shadows. As I near String he holds out his hands, halting me.

“
Gabe, Jade brought you here. She’s a good woman, though I’ve told her before she should leave this dying place. She’s too independent to join us here, more’s the pity.” He stands framed by the cave entrance; his skin shines in the shadows as if possessed of an inner light. I feel completely insubstantial. “I’m going to cure you. You can be assured of that, though I know that until it’s done you probably won’t allow yourself to believe me. But I cannot cure everyone. There’s not enough medicine for the billion people with the Sickness. And there really aren’t that many people who I think deserve curing.”

I go to say something, but he waves me down.

“
I’ve already decided that you’re worthy. Jade is a good judge of character. But we’re only a small community, and we treasure what we have. We have to. Because we have
treasures
. Do you have faith?”

“
Yes,” I reply without thinking. He has a way of springing questions without warning, the only way to find an honest answer.

“
In what?”

I think of Della; not only my utter faith in her goodness and knowledge, but also what she said to me.
If you know someone’s faith, you know their soul...You may need it one day.
“In a friend.”

“
What’s her name?”

“
Della.” I am not surprised that he knew the sex of my friend, He reminds me of Della in many ways, and
she
would have known.

He asks no more. I feel that I am about to swoon, but String is there before my body can react to the thought. He grabs me around the shoulders, and his touch seems to strengthen me. I have the unsettling certainty that he knows everything about me, understands that my feelings for Della lie way beyond simple friendship or even love. He knows my soul. But I am not worried, I have no fear. I think he deserves to know.