Link Arms with Toads! (8 page)

Her train of thought was interrupted by a stampede in the corridor. She stepped to her door and secured it, a moment before it was violently shaken and a voice demanded admittance.

“
I will hold a fiver for you!” it boomed.

Melissa was prepared for the native attempts at intimidation. In a voice no less aggressive, she called:

“
And I’ll break an arm for
you
…”

The panhandler moved away and Melissa reclined on the bed. For the rest of the evening, the hotel reverberated with distant oaths and sobs. She listened to indefinable sounds located in hidden cavities behind the walls, a decay both human and inanimate. Sleep evaded her and she sat by the mottled window. Soon after midnight, a series of muffled explosions tickled the city. An oscillating rumble flirted with the edges of sound, like the snoring of an unemployed giant.

(iv)

The following morning, and each day thereafter, the limousine picked her up at the hotel and drove to carefully selected city sites. Alleneal was always nervous, a student sitting an exam, confident of his ability but uncertain whether his methods would be palatable to the invigilator. As they roamed the urban decrepitude, Melissa wondered when he was going to play his trump. They passed through the gutted suburbs of Bournville and Edgbaston, which the councillor appeared to regard as personal triumphs, examples of an unspecified progress. At every crater, he fingered one of his facial pocks, as if they were analogous to the larger ruination. She found his cryptic messages infuriating.

In Aston, he gestured at the expanse of powdered brick and sawdust, the legacy of a particularly violent cataclysm. “This suburb can be seen with the naked eye, Ms Sting. No need for telescopes to appreciate the beauty of these radial fissures.”

To Melissa, it looked like the result of badly laid carpet bombing. Was Alleneal hinting that Birmingham had engaged in unlicensed warfare? But she still believed his assertion that inter-municipal aggression on an organised scale was impossible in the Midlands. And no other council had reported a military engagement.

“
An accident of some kind?” she asked.

Disappointment showed in his expression. “A carefully orchestrated operation, requiring dozens of workers and tonnes of explosives. Haven’t I made myself clear yet, Ms Sting?”

“
Apparently not. But I’m all ears.”

His response was a shrug denoting both irritation with her naivety and satisfaction with himself for preserving a mystery. “You’ll realise the truth before long. Let me show you the ongoing work.” He tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder. “To Sarehole Mill!” Turning back to Melissa, he chuckled. “It’s like a jigsaw. Concentrate on the edges first. Comes together in the middle of its own accord.”

“
I think I understand. To encourage people to relocate to the moon, you destroy their homes and places of work.”

“
Places of work? Oh, Ms Sting, you’re a romantic!”

They drove south in silence. At various points throughout the city, sheets of blackened fabric from the aeolipile glimmered in the drizzle, caught on lampposts like the sails of ships in mourning, or draped over tenements like the awnings of repossessed shops. Finally, reaching Cole Bank Road, they stopped to watch a group of surly labourers demolishing what was apparently a famous building. Charges were set in the edifice, a ponderous corn mill. The detonation itself was a less dramatic affair than the aeolipile incident: the mill leaned over and briefly regained its feet before sprawling in a polluted pond, cleared of algae for the purpose of receiving its body. Alleneal explained the details in muted tones, as if suffocating the facts.

“
Your earlier remark about fireworks was most apt, Ms Sting. There are many local factories producing gunpowder that we have pressed into our service. The workers daren’t protest on pain of public flogging. We have had few problems with forced labour.”

“
Just what sort of official are you? This is barbaric behaviour for a councillor. Not even in Hull…”

“
Obviously, when our colony is fully functioning, I shall no longer be content to remain a standard councillor. I intend to award myself the title of
Conducator
and rule by decree.”

“
I often think total devolution was a mistake,” Melissa sighed. She decided to press him on seeing the actual project hardware. “I thank you for the tour of the city. The craters and social collapse have been most instructive. However, my report must not be delayed. I wish to view your transportation and surface hardware.”

“
How can you entertain doubts?” Alleneal spluttered. His tormented eyes took in the urban landscape, accepting its pain and tragedy with an obscene stoicism, a father who witnesses the circumcision of a terrified boy. “The noose of desolation is tightening. Soon even the Council House will be torn down. A total wasteland.”

“
With all respect, these perverse civil operations hold very little interest for the Commission. I was specifically charged with grading the viability of your colony tender.”

He was amicable again. “I know this, Ms Sting. Allow me to show you our fleet of moon-buggies. They are fine beasts, heavy and powerful. The best way of sculpting lunar seas.”

Chewing her lip, she allowed herself to be ferried back to the city centre. The councillor fumbled in the glove compartment for a torch. The rains were in benevolent mood, each greasy droplet falling slowly enough for Melissa to avoid. She sidestepped from limousine to National Indoor Arena, a structure that was plainly sick, bulging like a raped wife. As if tuning in to her thoughts, Alleneal twisted his nose. “Pregnant? Yes, expectant mothers are our chief export.”

They passed the bored guards, who barely offered them a glance. She saw how the structure had been disembowelled and turned into a cyclopean garage. The interior was unlit and Alleneal played games with his torch, angling it under his chin and illuminating his horrible face from below. As his hand trembled in the low temperature, and the halogen bulb cast a shifting glow over his cheeks, tiny shadows moved inside his dimples and pockmarks. Melissa was reminded more than ever of the moon: a lunar day, sunrise to sunset, fleeing across his visage as the beam rose higher and abruptly turned away to prick a ludicrously small hole in the void. Down on the floor of the hall, metal gleamed.

“
Bulldozers?” she hissed. “You’ll never be able to lift these into space. Your jokes become more crass.”

He touched her elbow. “Buggies, if you please. These are my babies, Ms Sting, the key to my future tranquillity.” He breathed on her neck, a moistening of the clue, but she was too stubborn to work at the hint. It was a relief to return outside, to flee the stench of antique diesel and damp earth on caterpillar tracks, oppressive as the odours of a roadside allotment. Alleneal watched her warily.

She snapped: “It is clear you are trying to obstruct my mission. My report will not be sabotaged by such foolish tactics. You should revise expectations about claiming any bonus.”

He seemed hurt. “You are closing your eyes to your surroundings, Ms Sting. It’s all here, you know. We’re on the threshold of a new age, one we’ve been chasing for decades, without even knowing it. Birmingham has finally woken. Our traditional strengths no longer shame us. We know how to exploit our most valuable resource.”

“
And that is?” she asked bitterly.

He rolled his eyes upwards, leaving rotten eggs in his sockets, and pressed palms in an attitude of prayer. “Entropy.” He held the stance for a full minute, before scratching the emptiness above his head, as if he wore an invisible halo infested with fleas. Exhausted by the messianic fervour of his pronouncement, he staggered away. “I must rest. Tomorrow, I will show you Moseley and Olton, the venues for serenity and crises.” Hunched, but with supplicating hands, he left her, a series of hops too athletic for one in his condition.

Trapped by the threatening stares of natives, she returned to the limousine. The chauffeur followed the familiar route, but now everything looked different, more open and yet cluttered with the jagged peaks of dilapidated buildings. The horizon was nearer: the Chinese Quarter was hidden by the curvature of the city, looming into view with a terrifying clarity. She stormed into the Arcade Hotel and shut herself in her room. Behind one wall, a prostitute entertained a sterile client, mouthing an obscene checklist of erotic controls.

The city was not insane, as she had suspected, but simply following its instincts to a logical extreme. This might have happened in London, but the separate boroughs maintained equilibrium by pulling in different directions. Here, the tension was all directed inward. Birmingham seemed ready to snap in on itself. Time to leave: she needed to gather only one piece of evidence to complete her report. She would have to confront the councillor directly and demand a copy of the map hidden under his shirt. If he refused, she would exercise her authority and muscles, tearing the sackcloth monstrosity from his back.

There was something in her shoe. When she bent down to remove it, a cloud of soot puffed in her face. She had a use for this abducted filth. In the cracked mirror, jumping at each eruption out in the city, Melissa rubbed the dirt into her hair and face. She ripped her own shirt, worked holes in her trousers with her little sharp teeth and scuffed the polish of her shoes against a radiator pipe. Now she looked like a local: only the multiple earrings were missing.

On the streets, she passed unnoticed. Demolitions were taking place everywhere. Girders and blocks fell more slowly than they should, almost gently enough to be caught in her hand. The iron and concrete struck the pavement silently. Melissa ignored the quiet and concentrated on a group of young delinquents, approaching with unsheathed stubble. She was ready for them and launched a preemptive strike.

“
Can you spare an ingot for a cup of tea?”

They shied away and she was free to continue her journey, removing her smirk and pocketing it for later. At the Council House, she brushed past the apathetic guard and entered the mossy travesty. The only light came from a phosphorescent slime that coated the walls. Pausing on the threshold of Alleneal’s office, she placed her ear to the rotting door. A peculiar chattering came from inside. Eye to keyhole, she watched him plucking at his face with tweezers.

Was this how all councillors groomed themselves? Turning away, in a fit of embarrassment, she reached a spiral staircase and went down. Her unease intensified with each step, as if she was descending the helix of the council’s DNA, the code that controlled the growth of the municipal nervous system. At the base, she found herself in a corridor. She passed a dungeon with a lock rusted almost all the way through. Inside, leaning over a trestle, the Cardiffians were comparing injuries. “My shoulders are more dislocated than yours!” Rising to their broken feet, probably smashed by council hammers, they started a brawl, adding a second layer of bruises to insulate the lower.

A second dungeon held her convertible. She tried the door: the iron bars crumbled in her grip. The vehicle was covered in parking tickets, a petty, as opposed to pretty, wedding dress. Alleneal was a thief as well as a liar, but he had left the key in the ignition. The voices of guards echoed along the passage. She had time only to free the prisoners or the convertible, not both. The decision was less painful than it should have been. As she jumped into the driving seat, she reflected that justice is simply a covert weighing of beauty.

Clogged with local air, the engine protested as she started up and drove straight through the remaining bars. The rust coated her like the pepper of a robotic chef, spicing the corners of her eyes as she swerved tightly into the corridor. She roared in the opposite direction to the voices: soon the passage began to spiral upwards. She was gratified to discover it emerged in the library: she cruised down the aisles, packed with cankerous bookcases and exenterated computer terminals. Tramps and students sheltered under collapsed shelves, offering her no more than a toothless smile. Other vehicles waltzed among the sundry literatures. It really was a multistorey car park: she could trust her perception once more. She clattered down the stairs.

Leaving the building by the main entrance, she parked outside the Council House. She left the engine running, giving the convertible the appearance of having already been stolen and abandoned as inadequate. She did not pause at the councillor’s door this time, but strode in. He was sterilising his tweezers in blended whisky. Resignedly, like a moon regarding an oncoming eclipse, he turned his hatching eyes towards her. His questioning shrug was very eloquent.

“
You stole my property,” she cried.

“
Councils do not steal, Ms Sting. They confiscate. We had to ensure you remained with us for the whole week. Perhaps I should have been more open, but I am unused to dealing with females.” Dropping the tweezers in the whisky bottle, he sighed. “Especially not sassy redheads. I never engage in relationships, Ms Sting. I find you somewhat alarming. Emotion is noise in my brain: I am a councillor.”

“
I’m just the same as everyone else.”

He shook a finger. “Oh no, Ms Sting! You won’t pull that particular shade of wool over my eyes.” In a more conciliatory tone, he added: “The car is a minor issue. We all make sacrifices, we all have fears. My dear mother was startled by a monkey. She was pregnant and the shock affected her womb. This world is an absurd place.”

“
Enough nostalgia. I demand to see the colony map.”