Broken Hero (38 page)

“But,” I say. “The Uhrwerkgerät. The end of the world.” I can’t believe… Except I can. Of course I can believe it. This has been as inevitable as everything else. And it doesn’t matter. In a short-term world of course it doesn’t matter but…

“If I’m going to stop the end of the world,” Tabitha interrupts me, “I’m sure as hell not going to do it working with you wankers.”

And that’s it really. There is no arguing with that. If I even really wanted to argue. This, in many ways, is the desired result. But, Jesus, Felicity is going to kill me.

“You’re asking me to kill you, aren’t you? This is some warped suicide attempt. That’s it, right?”

There are not many times a man gets to use the word apoplectic in his life. This is one. Felicity is apoplectic.

She also seems set on getting an answer.

“No.” I barely whisper the word.

“You’re sure?” she barks. “Absolutely, one hundred percent certain that all this imminent death thing hasn’t gotten to you and you want me to right here, right now rip your balls off and beat you to death with them?”

I nod, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

We’ve had fights before, of course. We’re like any other couple. And the nature of our jobs has put us through the fire on more than one occasion. But, usually after the event, I like to think that those are the sorts of fires that forge us into a stronger whole. This feels more like the flames of hell checking in to see how long it will take them to melt us to oblivion.

“So why in the name of all that is good and holy on this goddamn planet did you not say a goddamn word when she told you she was quitting?”

“She,” I start, but I’m still at the barely audible level. And if I want to be able to ever meet Felicity’s eye again after today that is not how to go forward from here. “She did not give the impression,” I say, louder this time, “that she would be entirely amenable to a protracted plea for her to stay.”

“Oh really? Rrrrrreally?” She rolls the word about, tasting it. I don’t think she likes it very much. “And I wonder why that would be? Perhaps it would be that contrary to every piece of advice I’ve given you, contrary to every promise you have made to me, despite me spelling out to you the very high price that would be paid, you have continually and actively gone out of your way to antagonize and alienate her? Could that possibly be the goddamn fucking reason, Arthur?”

She punctuates this by flinging a folder at me. Papers explode out, littering the air around me. By the time it strikes much of its heft has gone.

I feel numb. Too beaten up and exhausted to deal with this. Because it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

“It’s not going to happen,” I say. “You shouldn’t worry.”

For a moment I think Felicity’s eyes are actually going to explode out of her head and rip through me like shells fired from a rather attractive cannon.

“Shouldn’t…” she manages.

“It will take weeks,” I say. “We don’t have that long.”

For a moment, nothing. Just a long, dead silence stretching out, out—

Another folder follows the first. Another. Another. Felicity is yelling something but I can’t make it out. The room is full of flying paper. Analog static, filling the room. Manilla edges strike me again and again. I retreat down the office’s narrow length.

“You stay goddamn there!” Felicty’s bellow will be obeyed. My feet know that before my head even registers what she said. I stand there. A piece of paper is stuck to a patch of blood on my shirt that hasn’t completely dried yet.

“It’s pointless,” I say to her. “Those were your words.”

Felicity looks very tired then. She flings a final folder at me, but it’s half-hearted. It doesn’t even make it all the way to me—skids to a halt an inch shy of my feet.

“It probably is,” she says. She’s closer to my volume now. “But doesn’t that make this time even more important? Doesn’t that mean that we should be striving even harder now than we ever have before? I mean this, this…” She stares at me. “This pathetic capitulation, Arthur. What the hell is that?”

I could tell her
, I think.
Tell her everything that Hannah said
. But what good would it really do to tell her that she is really Hannah’s biggest complaint? How would that make this situation any better?

“This was my life’s work, Arthur,” Felicity says. She sweeps an arm up and around, pointing to the ceiling, the walls, the whole damn edifice. “This place. This was everything I strived for. And we were so close to being something bigger, something better. It could still have happened, before the end. Whatever end that is. But now it can’t. Because of you.”

And OK, I’ll admit that hurts. My eyes sting. She’s done it. She’s cut through all the apathy, and the shock, and the physical goddamn pain, and she’s found a way to hurt me.

Because I love her. And I’ve hurt her so much.

“My first anniversary present.” Felicity shakes her head. “Well done, Arthur. You’ve really outdone yourself.”

There has to be something. There must be. Something I can do to try and take the hurt away from her.

“The only thing,” I say, “I want to strive for, when everything is ending, is you.”

Felicity’s face cracks. Disappointment bursting its dams, spilling into sorrow, scorn, anger, and maybe worst of all, love.

“Well you fucked that up, didn’t you?”

As bare and bald a statement as there can be.

“Didn’t even try to move in with me. Didn’t even pack your boxes.”

The accusations mount one upon the other. I can’t deny a single one.

“You know what, Arthur? I don’t think I want you to move in anymore. I don’t want to see you at my apartment even for a moment. Not this version of you.”

“I—” I start, not really knowing what sentence follows from there.

“Get out, Arthur.”

Felicity stands there. Implacable. Her words… inevitable. I get out.

Honestly I couldn’t even tell you how I got to London.

Wait…

Is this London?

Jazz billows and blooms about me. A saxophone melody sidles through my consciousness. A lilting bass line insinuates itself between the glasses scattered on the table in front of me. Pint glasses rattle against whiskey tumblers, make an awkward syncopation.

Around me, couples lean together, whisper beneath the melody. Groups of students wear fedoras and try to look as if they invented the style. A few herds of businessmen, ties loosened, let their eyes rove. And then there’s the odd lonely, useless bastard: a man with his eyes closed in rapture at the notes; another reading a book and sipping from the same whiskey glass he’s been nursing all night.

So what stereotype does that make me? The lonely drunk, drowning his sorrows in alcohol? Jesus, I’m even a washed-up detective.

The cocktail menu slips from my hand, lands on the floor. I curse, bend to pick it up. The room heaves in front of my eyes. I decide against it.

As a teenager, I used to dream of coming to places like this. Now, almost twenty years later, here I am. Almost twenty years and in that time I have personally helped save the world from imminent destruction three times. Me. And what’s it gotten me? An inability to enjoy this bloody music is what.

I go for another slug of booze but all the glasses are empty. I appear to have been rather enthusiastic in my consumption. I swirl a hand above my head. Eventually a waiter interprets the signal, comes over. There is a look of resignation on his face.

“Another one of…” I survey the empty glasses. “That one,” I say pointing to a rather interesting looking glass.

“That one?” the waiter says. He sounds like he wants to say more. To hell with him. I am a young buck once more. Hell, thirties isn’t old. It’s a long downhill slope from here.

Well, it would be if the world wasn’t utterly doomed…

I start to giggle at that. The waiter seems to take that as a cue to leave. Probably not a terrible idea on his part.

I close my eyes, try to sink into the music, to remember what it was that teenage version of myself wanted to do when he got here.

I seem to remember my younger self imagining friends being here. I think he imagined better jazz than this as well… Something less Latin and with sharper, harsher edges.

Maybe the problem is in the specificity of my dreams. They’re twenty years out of date. All I really want is to recapture that moment when the future was bright and bold and too big to even hold. Before all the decisions closed it down to one stupid pinprick of obsolescence. Fuck all that.

I stand up, unsteady. My chair falls over, lands next to the cocktail menu. I attempt to rescue it from the floor, rethink the idea as my stomach sloshes. A waiter says he has it, hands me a drink and a bill.

“How bloody much?” I ask him

He tells me, and then points out that a gratuity is not included in the bill.

Jesus, no wonder I never came here as a teenager.

The cold of the London night bites. I check the time on my phone. There don’t seem to be enough numbers. Well, piss on it. I hail a cab. By the time the third one stops, I’ve learned to sit down and strap in before I open my mouth.

“A club,” I slur at the driver. “A night club. With dancing. And music.” I think hard. “And booze. And young people.”

It strikes me that calling them “young people,” is probably not something young people call themselves. “Cool people,” I correct myself. Yes. That sounds right.

The cabby says something incomprehensibly cockney. It sounds disparaging. I laugh. Show bloody him. What it’ll show, I’m not completely sure.

Still we arrive. I can feel a dance beat shaking the pavement. Yes. This is more like it. I remember the Park End in Oxford. I enjoyed that. Yes. Dancing and drink and… fun.

The queue is short. The bouncer is dubious. Possibly more so when I tell him, “I’m a young buck,” as defiantly as I am able.

“You going to be trouble?” he asks me.

“No,” I tell him. “I’m going to be awesome.”

This doesn’t seem to entirely reassure him. Still he lets me in with a solid pat on the back and the words, “Go on, you plonker.”

For a moment, on the cusp of the club, I question the wisdom of my decision-making. A sweaty, jumping beast of a crowd oscillates before me. I’m pretty sure I’m the oldest person here by a clear ten years. Even the bartenders look like I should card them.

And then, unbidden, I think of Felicity. No matter how deep I drown those thoughts they keep bubbling up. And I don’t want to think of Felicity. I don’t want to think at all. I want to be a young buck. Stuck in the eternal
now
. No future, no past, no goddamn worries. Just this, here, now.

I fling myself at the crowd.

In retrospect that phrase probably shouldn’t be used literally. Still, I dust myself off, and stagger away before confusion can change to accusation.

The music batters at me. I have another drink, close my eyes, try to stop thinking. The music slowly morphs, becomes less of an assault, more of a channel, pushing me, pulling me. My body starts to find a way to move.

I fall off my bar stool. I’d forgotten I was on that.

More dusting off. I am distantly aware of pain in… pretty much everywhere actually. I order another drink, head to the dance floor.

I spin. The room spins. I abandon sense. I dance. I fucking dance. And screw the kids staring at me. I am a buck, maybe not young, but, but, but…

I think I’m going to throw up.

It turns out I’m right.

The bouncer comes to collect me from the dance floor.

“Not what I’d call awesome,” I hear him tell me, but the world has gone sideways. I laugh at that but then I throw up again. The bouncer isn’t so friendly after that. What’s more it turns out he’s terrible at bouncing. I land on the floor and just lie there.

Finally I manage to gather up enough dignity to stagger into an alleyway and heave out the last of the alcohol in privacy. My stomach clenches. An ugly mess of beer, regret, and defeat spills onto the floor and stains my shoes.

Oh God. Oh God why? What in the name of hell was I thinking? Acting half my age last night, and now I feel twice it this morning. I didn’t arrest the forward march of time, I bloody accelerated it.

On the plus side, if the world decided to end today, I’m not sure I’d be all that sad.

My apartment feels as small and cramped as my skull. There is too much shit here. The contents of my fridge horrify me. The roiling in my stomach convinces me breakfast is something made for braver men on better days. I make coffee instead and swallow more ibuprofen than the packaging recommends. My stomach doesn’t thank me for that.

When I reach the office the pounding in my skull has at least decreased from full-on siege bombardment with heavy artillery to more of a running battle. If I could just find a small corner to curl up in, that would probably be fine. I’ll let Tabitha and Clyde find Friedrich today. With any luck he’ll need another day or two to complete the Uhrwerkgerät. We’ll have some time to…

To…

I should have stayed in bed.

The elevator rumbles down into the bowels of MI37. My stomach rumbles right back. I take deep breaths before I step out into the corridor. Fluorescent lights flicker. Long corridors full of long empty offices stretch out on either side.

Soon, they’ll all be empty, I suppose.

Will MI6 be so bad? Probably. I wonder if I’ll go back to police work.

I catch myself. I’m still thinking about the future. Like it’s a tick I can’t quite shake.

But it’s what I know. And nihilism hasn’t exactly been working out for me. Maybe I’ve been playing this all wrong. I should be going full Dylan Thomas. Raging against the dying of the light.

Would anger be better?

I’m too hungover for this. And as that realization hits, Felicity’s head appears from out of a door. Conference room B. At the sight, my stomach lurches yet again. It’s not got much to do with last night’s excesses this time.