The Bridge (23 page)

‘That you,’ I cleared my throat and tried again, ‘That you were dead … in the … in the uprising in ‘87.’

‘Do you remember Frieda Kelleran?’

‘A bit, not really.’

‘She didn’t visit you?’

I shook my head.

‘Did anyone else?’

‘Visit me? No.’

‘It was not my wish to put a child in that school. When I got out of the Marsh, I was told what Frieda had done. Then it was too late.’

‘Why too late?’ I asked. He studied his cigarette as it burned down to his fingers and didn’t answer. ‘What was it too late for?’ I said. ‘To get me out? You had moles in there. You were planning to blow it up. How hard could it be to get one kid out?’

‘Nik …’ said Levkova.

He stared at the cigarette. ‘That child is lost to us.’

My throat closed.

‘Tasia tells me you claim to remember Elena?’ He rolled another cigarette and lit it. Watched me. Waited. ‘What do you remember?’

I watched him back.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘This is a test, right?’

‘I’m wondering what you remember, that’s all.’

I headed for the door.

‘Wait!’ he said. ‘It’s a simple enough question. Why not answer it?’

I stopped in the doorway. ‘What would that tell you? That they’ve briefed me well? She’d be a key piece of intelligence, wouldn’t she? Looks. Quirks. Habits. Manners. There’s bound to be an ISIS dossier about her for just this purpose.’

‘So you don’t remember –’

‘Or I haven’t read it. Which do you think?’

‘Come back and sit –’

‘I remember her voice in my ear saying my name. I remember her hair reaching down to her waist when she let it out. I remember her smell, like soap and linen. I remember the orange scarf she wore when she went to market and the gold pins in her ears. I remember her fear when men came pounding on the door and wrecked the place – for you? Was that? Looking for you. And I remember the sound she made after they’d gone. I remember
her
. I don’t remember
you
.‘

Enough. More than enough.

I left.

If you climb the Southside riverwall
at the western boundary of the Moldam district and work your way past the smashed-up signs telling you not to and through the barbed wire strung across the top, you can drop down onto a narrow stretch of bank where things wash up and get caught in the reed clumps that grow there. Bits of make-shift boats and rafts, bodies sometimes, and pieces of them, mines escaped from their moorings. The bodies get fished out when someone notices them, but the mines are left alone. There’s too many, they’re too dangerous to defuse, and detonating them could destroy the wall. To the right is the Mol, Moldam Bridge, in all its glory. And a way off west, to the left, hazy in the river spray, are the bridges at Bethun, Sentinel and, a long way lost in the distance, St Clare.

The riverbank was clear of boats and bodies that
day, picked over by scavengers who’d left nothing but gravel and clay and a few tufts of spiky grass. In among the reeds I could see the glint of a couple of small metallic disks untouched by any scavenger. Mines. I wondered if they really would take out the riverwall. I sat down and scooped up a handful of gravel and threw a pebble at the nearest one. I was pretty sure it would take more than a stone. Anyway, my aim was off.

Across the water the city shimmered in hazy afternoon light. I imagined I could see Bridge Street, a dark narrow strip going up from St Clare gate through Sentian. North-east of that was Watch Hill and, beyond that, Pagnal Heath. The trees would be bare now, and there’d be a blanket of snow except on the walkways where it would be shovelled sideways into muddy piles. Not many people would be out in all that wide, empty space. But well before the heath, if you turned left at Weston, and took the short cut through the alleys, Kemryn, Ry, Madan, you’d come out on Tornmoor Avenue. Walk up Tornmoor for about five minutes and you arrive at the school gates. I stood there once, with Frieda Kelleran – stood and looked up the tree-lined drive towards the library. Memory flickered. She wore black gloves and a long gray coat, and she held my hand as we walked up the driveway. At least I think she did. Maybe I’d made that up. Maybe she never existed and it was all a lie and ISIS was playing a very long game after all.

When I hauled myself back to the riverbank, Eleanor was there – Elena – my mother, whose right name I hadn’t even known. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Threw another stone. She didn’t speak, just sat there and looked across the water.

‘Nik! Hey!
Hey!
‘ Lanya’s face peered over the wall above me. ‘What in the holy name of God are you doing?’ She rolled over the top of the wall and dropped beside me, hit the handful of gravel out of my grip and grabbed my hand with both of hers. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Those are river mines. Did you know that? You did know that.’

‘It’d take more than a stone to set one off.’

‘How do you know? You have no idea.’

‘What d’you want?’

‘To stop you making a horrible mess – that would be a good beginning.’

‘Too late.’

‘Come with me! We’re going back up.’

‘No.’

‘Nik! This is no place for anyone.’ She still had hold of my hand.

‘I’m okay here.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re really not. And I’m not either. This place is for ghosts and lost souls. It’s not for us.’

‘You’re a Maker. Were. You should be used to them.’

‘In their right place. That’s what Makers are for. To help make the paths for them to go to the right place, so they don’t come wandering in places like this.’ She stood up and pulled on my hand. ‘
Please?
‘

‘You shouldn’t even be up,’ I said. ‘And you’re freezing. Do you want my coat?’

‘I want you and me back over the wall.’ She crouched down again. ‘Right now. That’s what I want.’

She was staring at me hard and gripping my hand. She had a white gauze patch across her temple that made her eyes look blacker than ever, and the beads in her hair were trembling like all the fire in her was about to burst alight.

She tried again. ‘Levkova says, please will you come back. You got a “please” out of Levkova! Come and talk to her.’

‘No.’

‘At least come away from here. Look, she gave me this.’ She handed me a scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it. ‘She said it’s a safe place to sleep tonight.’

I scrunched it up. ‘I don’t need her help.’

‘You know, if once in a while you behaved like a normal person and took the help that’s offered, you might be amazed at the result.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning people would line up to help you.’

‘I don’t want help. I don’t want a listening ear, I don’t want people rallying round, I don’t want sympathy or advice or rescue.’ I pitched the paper into the river.

‘Fyffe needs you.’

‘No, she doesn’t. You’ll look after her.’

‘So, this is you running again, is it? Levkova told me – about your father. But how bad could it be? He’s your father! He’s here and not dead or disappeared. That makes you one of the lucky ones.’

When I didn’t answer, she stood up. ‘Come on! We’re going up. We could be arrested for being here. I have a father too, you know, and if I get into any more trouble he will not be happy. And my aunts will try to make him marry me off to someone safe.’ She dragged on my hand. ‘I’m not going without you.’

I let her pull me to my feet and we set off down the bank with Lanya still gripping my hand as though she thought she might lose me on the way. Back towards the bridge we found some stone steps with a locked iron gate at the top. We scrambled up and squeezed over the wall and through the wire, with only a few scratches.

On the other side Lanya leaned on the wall. She gave me this long look, like there was a lot to say and she wasn’t going to say any of it out loud. All she said was, ‘You scared me.’

‘It’d take more than a stone.’

‘You don’t know that.’

The guards on the bridge gate were watching us. ‘Let’s move,’ I said. We walked west along the wall, away from the bridge. All round us, the evening’s work was beginning: kids hauled pails of water to kitchens, men lit streetcorner fires, women hung lanterns in windows and from porches and conjured meals from scraps. Cookshops and coffeehouses were coming to life.

‘Where are you going to go?’ said Lanya.

Away, mainly. I said, ‘Don’t you have stuff you ought to be doing?’

‘I’m doing it.’

‘Being annoying? This is your job for the day?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Go and tell Levkova I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘She knows that. She only sent me to ask you to come back. The rest is my own invention. Please tell me what happened this morning?’

‘Lanya …’

‘I don’t want to help. I just want to know.’ Which made me smile. She smiled back. ‘Well?’

‘No.’

‘And you think
I’m
annoying. Tell me about the city, then. Oh.’ She stopped. Coming down the road towards us was Coly, the toxic little creep whose fight with Lanya had set the whole Remnant takeover in motion. And he had friends with him, three of them. Lanya swore. ‘He’s seen us.’ She dived for the first alley on offer. I followed.

We raced past houses that were boarded up and derelict, but not empty. The families squatting in them hung lanterns in their porches to stake their claims. The first dark porch we came to we ran up the steps and crammed ourselves into the shadows.

Lanya blew out a breath. ‘I thought he saw us.’ She peered into the alley; her braids fell across her shoulder and the last of the sunlight shone gold on the back of her neck. She leaned back beside me. ‘I don’t see him, but we should wait a while. I hate him! His father’s high up in Remnant. He’s just the sort of person my aunts would match me up with.’ She shuddered and looked at me. ‘Sorry. Family quarrels.’ Then she smiled. ‘You can have family quarrels now that you have a father.’ She patted my arm. ‘You’ve already had one, I think? Don’t worry – I won’t mention him again. I’m not even supposed to know about him, so I’ll just …’ She zipped thumb and finger across her lips.

I looked at her smiling face and felt her arm press on mine. I wasn’t breathing properly and my throat ached. I looked away, out towards the alley. It was quiet. Coly hadn’t followed.

Lanya said, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

She nudged me. ‘Well, think!’

I took a breath, and tried to ignore how close she was. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I have to find Sol. I’m not doing anything until I find him and get him home. Then I guess I could go
back over the river. I’ll have to steer clear of ISIS because of … you know … him, but there’ll be no getting out of being drafted because, well, you just don’t get out of that, which means I’ll end up fighting hostiles – which is you, by the way, so …’ I shrugged, stuck.

‘So stay.’ She put a hand on my arm. ‘Stay.’

I picked up her hand and held it in my unbandaged one. ‘You’re the one who wants to go over the bridge.’

‘I was.’

‘… And fight the city. We’re at war, remember? You and me.’ Her fingers were long and black, light on my palm. Her braids fell over her eyes. The beads clacked as she shook her head. And then I couldn’t look at her because my heart was beating so loud I was sure she could hear it.

‘Nik?’

‘What?’

She put her hands on my shoulders and I bent my head and kissed her.

And she kissed me back.

She smiled. ‘Don’t tell Coly.’

‘No. Do you have a whole lot of brothers who’ll have to kill me now?’

Her smile got wider. ‘I dare you to risk it.’

I picked up one of her braids and ran it through my fingers. ‘I think I could risk that.’

We stayed a while.

Until it got dark and very cold.

Lanya said, ‘It’s late.’

‘Come on. I’ll walk you back to base.’

‘Just like that? I was busy thinking up arguments about Sol and your father to get you to come back.’

‘You’ve got a funny way of thinking up arguments.’

She punched my arm. ‘Are you truly coming back?’

‘I guess. I can’t let it go at one meeting. Maybe he was having a bad day.’

Maybe.

‘Tasia, I want you to look at this.’
It was him, my father, striding into Levkova’s kitchen, holding a piece of paper. He saw me and stopped.

‘Of course,’ said Levkova. She took the paper and headed out the door.

‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘I need an answer straightaway.’

‘And you shall have one. I won’t be long.’ She closed the door behind her.

He went to the fire and stood staring down at it. I picked at the bandage on my hand. Silence for a while, then he said, ‘What happened to your hand?’

‘I met Fyffe’s kidnappers.’

‘Damage?’

‘I don’t know. My index finger doesn’t move very well, and there’s parts with no feeling. The doc says nerve and tendon damage, wait and see.’

‘You came a long way for this Hendry boy.’

‘Yeah, well, he matters to me.’ Like family, I almost said, but didn’t. I watched his back, his head bent to the fire. I couldn’t read what he was thinking, but all that compressed energy of the day before had gone. I said, ‘If ISIS had sent me, don’t you think I’d have done something by now – tried to go back over the river to report that you’re alive, or had a go at killing you?’

Silence.

‘Or do you think they’re playing a really long game where even I don’t know I’m a spy?’

He turned around at that and I thought he might leave but he just looked at me like he had no idea what to do with me. He was probably a man who was used to knowing what to do with people. ‘You have questions,’ he said. ‘Ask them.’

Just that. Questions. Ask them. I could hear Lou saying,
Jump!
He had a deadly imitation of Gorton:
My boy, when the freight train of opportunity speeds by, you gotta jump
. I looked at my father, and thought, yeah, sure – on it, or under it?

‘Well?’ he said.

I sucked in a breath. ‘Did you know about me?’