Forget Yourself (8 page)

He’d let go and told me to open my eyes.

We were in the middle of a circle, scratched through the dirt. He told me to keep my breathing steady. There was nothing but us and the circle, a tiny, peaceful, silent world. Everything was still. The crowded world was us.

Protection. Tie was gone but he had left me that.

I closed my eyes and kept my breathing even. The world melted. I pushed my finger into the gravel and drew a large circle around Ketamine’s new hut, end-to-end. This was for her, this would keep her safe. I could let go.

End-to-end, I pulled my finger out from the ground and I pulled away from her. An arm reached around me. Frederick pressed his nose into my hair.

After the moderates Frederick had taken me over his own land. At first I argued: to go peak at the moderates was one thing, but to spy on the least? That was too much. But he had convinced me in his slow, stuttered way—the least are not so different, he had said.

He was wrong.

First of all, the opulence of the least houses was overwhelming. My mind couldn’t comprehend the size—each home was three times larger than the courtyard, with windows and sturdy walls and doors in frames. They were lined with elegance itself: held together with nails rather than rope and glue.

All houses everywhere changed in shape, but there they changed in colour. Some wore pink-and-purple tiles, some were lavished with green paint. Each had a garden, ornaments jutting from the ground and marking a territory. Each garden too was draped in eye-clutching colours: red posts; blue ornaments.

One had pillars on either side of the front door—
front
door, Frederick had told me, there was very often more than one door. There were two small windows on either side of either pillar, glass gleaming in the afternoon sun. Frederick stepped to one of the side walls and pressed his ear to it.

I tugged at his sleeve. We couldn’t listen to them, not in these rich homes, surely? But he folded his arms about my waist and we listened. They were quieter, those voices, muffled by their many walls.

Here was the second major difference: like the moderates they talked of rations and weather—but they also talked about the book and they talked far more of their neighbours. Frederick had smiled silently the whole time.

I enjoyed the warmth off his stomach.

Another house was clad in crimson boards and lined with small trees—living trees which were once scattered all over the world, which had been transported to the land of the minors. Frederick told me that this was Pilsner’s home, one of the largest, one of the most elegant. We peered in through the window.

It was a palace. I’d had no idea how far it was flung, running backwards and backwards, at minimum the length of fifteen minor huts. In the centre squatted an actual coffee table with four legs. The walls were adorned with torn satin and silk. There were two unbroken mugs and a private water tap, which stood in the very centre of his home, surrounded by a mosaic of colourful chipped tile, proudly wrapped in orange rust. There were chairs, chairs which actually had backs.

I could see one of the mugs read ‘World’s Best Dad,’ though most of the letters were worn. Why did he need two mugs?

“Do you live in a place like this, Frederick?”

He didn’t reply.

He would come to my triangle hut, but always after it was dark or a little before the light—he would whisper my name through the fabric of my door, and I would whisper his name in return. Now and then he would enter the hut and we would spend time with our arms wrapped around one another, though that was the full extent of it.

We had spent some days exploring the land of the least before he turned up, a little before light, and said my name. He didn’t enter—instead he asked if I wanted to see something truly new.

Of course.

We journeyed out of sight, in and around the backs of huts. He sped slightly, his bare feet kicking soil and sand in small flurries. His feet were burned black on the soles. We wound past more impossibly-large huts before leaving them behind. We came to a tangle of trees and bushes.

We passed through the scratched embrace of red and green leaves, pushing and shoving forward for space, clawed at, branches black against the dim sky. And there was the far wall of the least land. This was their edge, their limit. As I walked toward the wall I felt water curl about my toes, licking my toenails then up to my ankles. I stumbled and fell, a splash as water rippled around my wrists. My arse was wet.

“See.”

The water stretched all the way over to the wall. He swept past me, small waves bobbing about his ankles, then shins, thighs, then his knees. I stood up and followed, watching him disappear from the bottom-up, waist then finally chest, up to the armpits.

“What is this?”

“Well, it’s water,” Frederick replied.

“Where’s it coming from?”

“There’s a pipe. Down there. It’s not big enough to fit through.”

“Can you drink it?”

“Would you want to try?”

I glanced behind.

“Don’t worry—it’s all fine—no-one ever comes here. And no, I don’t—I just don’t know why.”

I swept my arms from side to side, enjoying the feeling of wet waves about my limbs, heavy in my clothes, spinning and feeling the slow movements of my liquid body. The water spread out through the fading light, an endless ocean wide and long. Frederick splashed his way back to land.

The water had a scent, a scent I couldn’t place, one which crawled into my nose and stung my sinuses. I had smelled it before my death sleep, I knew that much. Frederick didn’t seem to notice. He crouched with his back to me, examining the stone-scattered ground by the water. I waded over and knelt next to him, my knee scraping shards of rock.

“What is it?”

Sprigs of plants were sprawled and played between his fingers. They were red and green and tiny. I moved away and brought myself to the ground, kicking at the water with my toes.

“How many memories have you had, Frederick?”

“Well. I don’t know.”

“You remembered art.”

“I did.”

“Did you remember anything else?”

“A few things,” he paused as he turned around, still crouching. He leaned his face into mine. I felt each word against my cheek. “I remembered having four meals a day. I remembered people have their hair cut evenly on all sides. I remembered sayings, like ‘Any old iron’ and ‘Don’t eat yellow snow’. I remembered sex, having sex when you broke up with someone—to say goodbye.”

The last one stung. I slung a scatter of small stones over the water.

Frederick moved his head into my lap. I placed a pebble on his forehead.

“Did it all make it into the book?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did everything you remembered make it into the book?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

I didn’t answer. I took the pebble from his face and flung it into the water.
Chlorine.
Where was that word from?

THE LIGHT WAS STRANGE
from the moment the sun rose. It was a heavy bruised colour. I let in a sliver through the curtains. He lay half-dozing, half-awake, propped up against the wall as though it would collapse without him. Now and then he would snort or murmur, his arm resting gently against mine. The window was battered with heavy-falling droplets, falling in short bursts, tinny shots from the sky. I lay half-dozing, half-awake, one foot in the triangle home and the other somewhere else.

We were both slumped over stickly linoleum. I was careful not to place my hands upon the floor, instead resting one on Frederick’s thigh, the other on my own. Sleep was edging away from me, being absorbed by him, into his young body which was clad in well-sewn green cotton. His breathing grew deeper and heavier as he drew more sleep from me, sucking it in through his mouth and nostrils. Perhaps if he took too much he would sleep forever, and I would be stuck with the weight of a young man on my lino. Perhaps I would have to feed him, move his mouth to chew for him, clean up after him when it came out again...

He opened his eyes and for a moment they rested on me, before slipping back behind half-closed lids. I ran a finger through his hair then pressed my weight on his thigh to push myself up. He gave a hollow grunt and leant forward, before leaning back into sleep.

I had slept with no memories. The days were flowing into one another so quickly and smoothly that I thought very little of the stone woman and her stern grimace. What did I even need memories for?

I went to make breakfast, pulling the plastic tray from under my bed. It was nearly empty—a dice-size block or two of bouillon-butter, slices of green-mottled cheese, firm rye bread, rice. There was little point in preparation and so I piled bread, butter and cheese into my mouth, forcing it down my throat, dry and unsatisfying.

“Blondee.” Tanned’s voice called through the doorway. He wouldn’t be able to see Frederick, no-one had seen me spending all this time with Frederick. They would have said we were lovers, but we weren’t fucking. We were physical, sure enough, but any caress was with arms, torsos, even legs: nothing below the waist, nothing above the thigh. The curtains were ever closed.

“Blondee.”

I swallowed as quickly as I could. Frederick didn’t stir.

“Tanned. I’m coming.”

“You’d better,” his voice sounded unnatural.

I stepped outside, the light grazing my eyes. Outside it was more vibrant: even the heat it gave was purple. It felt purple. The dusty grass was tinged with it, the wall was a gentle lilac, our skins dark.

“Did you ever see the sky like this?” I asked.

“I just felt like seeing you.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I need to talk.”

“Is it about Burberry?” I often imagined them as twins.

Tanned didn’t respond, instead looking upwards, his eyes glinting an alien colour.

“So what’s up with her?” I tried, “With you and her?”

With false reluctance he answered.

In all fairness I tried to concentrate. I tried to force my mind to focus. Tanned and Burberry fought, more often these days than ever, and the fights were usually the same and they were usually banal. Maybe it was just the way couples were, or maybe they really didn’t get along and stayed together so as not to stand out in a world of partners. That was understandable.

“So what did she say?”

And Tanned talked about how she had been unreasonable and how he had tried to talk to her and how she would never really understand. And I nodded because it was friendly and fought the urge to glance back at the triangle hut.

Tanned told me how she had thrown old milk over him.

I wasn’t unsympathetic, I felt for him. I could deal with the emotion but not the details. They were too familiar. I waited until he had finished talking and placed two of my fingers on his hand, as many as I could get away with. It was some restrained attempt at comfort.

“Talk to her.”

“I will.”

“You two will work things out.”

“We will.”

“Don’t forget, you can always talk to me, if you need to.”

Talk to your partner about your problems.

Code of love. Page 18.

Problems can always be sorted out, don’t give up on your love.

Code of. Page 18.

Don’t forget, talk to Blondee, go to Blondee for sympathy.

The last one wasn’t in there. I meant it though. I waited until Tanned had disappeared behind the hut of the old-dead-woman before I returned to my own. Inside Frederick had slumped over, his beard stuck to the lino.

For the first time I ate cake. It was mostly icing, piled thick and creamy atop crumble-dry bread. Frederick had given it to me. He awoke and we ate it together: the sky was purple—that was surely a special enough reason to eat such a delicacy. We ate it quietly. I ran my fingers through the icing, piling fluffy clouds on my fingertips and licking them away.

“Blondee.” A voice at the door.

“Tanned, you’re back already?”