Elysium. Part One. (5 page)
It was a bizarre lie for Boen to invent, and a tasteless story to save for her alone. But if it weren’t an invention and he had indeed seen a stranger exit Kelly’s house on the night of his death then it begged the question of how his passing had been misdiagnosed and, most pressingly, why he had been murdered.
*
Selina stood at the summit of the cliff, peering across an empty beach and out to the quiet sea. A mass of wind turbines stood desolately in the distance, grey and motionless; several leaned askew, their blades missing or jutting from the waters below. Priya stood by her, pointing out where the sun caught the uppermost wire of an impossibly high barrier that encircled the entire coastline.
‘There, see?’ she said, pointing out the small black dots that had once been red quarantine lights. ‘And there.’
‘Then there’s no doubt about it…’
Priya ran her long fingers through her hair.
They had walked aimlessly across fields for the entire day, stopping for the evening in a house on the outskirts of an abandoned village. Their stomach’s growled, for except the few blackberries they had found growing some miles before the village, they had eaten nothing and were deeply weary for it.
As the night drew in they comforted each other with recollections of their childhoods; Selina spoke of New Zealand and the struggle her family had endured to afford an apartment of their own, while Priya explained the complicated relationship between her parents, and how she had been deported to India, then Australia, by the Red Cross when they had been imprisoned in Bahrain during the civil war.
‘When the Causeway was demolished my parents were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘They were insurgents?’ Selina asked, enthralled by the childhood that was as turbulent as any she had heard of before.
‘God no… They were loud and the government made an example of them.’ She pursed her lips and stared into the darkness. ‘Once I was out of the country there was no hope of ever returning, what with both my parents in prison. I couldn’t do anything for them.’
‘You’ve not seen them since? How old were you?’
‘About thirteen, so a good seventeen years…’ the thought sobered her. ‘I suppose it’s too late now.’ She appeared to be lost in thought for a moment, then said, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’
‘I’m a refugee, and it seems like there’s not a government on the planet that wants to grant me citizenship. That’s why I boarded a ship of illegal immigrants and risked everything for a new life in Norway, just in the hope of finding somewhere to anchor myself. You seem like a pleasant girl who’s had a hard but relatively normal life, I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would risk it.’
Selina thought about it for a moment and decided there was nothing she could say to justify what she had done. It had taken her three years to afford the ticket to board the
Tangaroa
, and she knew there was every possibility that the ship would be destroyed by the United Nations vessels that patrolled the southern oceans; but at the time it hadn’t seemed to matter. ‘There was nothing to stay for,’ she said.
‘You left because you were bored?’
‘I don’t mean that. There was no future in New Zealand. They’d squeezed every cent out of us and still they wanted more, you know what it’s like, it’s the same everywhere. We lived without electricity for months on end, we rarely saw oil, and still they demanded higher rents, and higher utility bills. Debt was soaring everywhere, and jobs!’ She snorted in disgust, ‘You were lucky if you had a job for longer than a fortnight. Dad was convicted for outstanding payments to the council… the power had been down since Easter, but come August they expected us to pay for electricity! $2,500 for unused light bulbs! It was unbelievable. Well, he was locked up in the debtor’s reformatory and I knew I was going to shrivel and die if I stayed there. I had to get out.’
‘Where were you going?’
‘Russia. I have a cousin living there. She’s close with her employers and they said they would take me on. She’s been working for them for years… I couldn’t expect anything like that at home.’
‘Russia!’ Priya frowned. ‘Nasty.’
‘Free of flu for fifteen years,’ she said positively, before she pulled a face and looked to the ceiling, ‘well, apart from what you hear about the Georgian border,’ Selina shrugged, falling silent. She was overwhelmed by the thought that she would most likely never reach Russia, or her cousin. ‘There’s not much chance for us is there,’ they looked at each other for a moment, both knowing that, if caught, they would be arrested and detained indefinitely for boarding an unregistered haul.
The conversation was sparse after that. They fell asleep on a dusty mattress as the wind outside provoked ghostly lamentations to sigh through the rafters. Selina had feared nightmares of the shipwrecked corpses and the limp bodies drawn down with the
Tangaroa
, but instead her sleep was long, soporific and dreamless.
In the morning Priya constructed a rudimentary plan, intending them to return the way they had come the previous day and keep to the coast.
They stayed on a road heading north and this time passed numerous signposts, shrouded by a century of growth, but printed unmistakably in English. Then, after returning to the coastline, they caught sight of the distant barrier and there was no refuting it, they were cast-away in the west of England.
Selina watched the array of decaying wind turbines, her eyes glazed with tears. Her hopes were finally dashed, the last vestige of her optimism left hanging in the wind on that distant wire.
‘We’ll head up there, tonight,’ Priya said, hoping her voice was suitably comforting. She pointed to a ramshackle of houses on the horizon. ‘With any luck we’ll find a bite to eat as well. In the morning we’ll try to work out which way the nearest border is and head toward it.’
‘And we want to reach the border because?’ Selina asked, confused.
‘Look, what’s the alternative? Stop here for the rest of our lives? It’s been over twenty-four hours and all we’ve found to eat so far are a few blackberries. It’s going to be nigh impossible but we’re going to have to start from square one and find our way on to another ship somehow.’
Selina looked at her with a smirk until she realised Priya was being serious. ‘Wait a moment, you’re suggesting we can make our way across the border without being seen? Not only that, you think we can evade the authorities, and anyone who might ask us any questions… somehow strike up a relationship with someone willing to get us on a ship…’ she ran her fingers through her hair in distress, ‘let’s not even mention the money involved!’
‘What else are we going to do?’
Selina watched her sincerely. ‘Have you
seen
a border before? I don’t mean on TV or at the cine-house, I mean have you actually seen one with your own eyes? They’re like mountains. They’re like mountains with a thousand eyes! There was one a few miles away from our town and it was just enormous!’
‘I understand that,’ Priya replied tenaciously, her hands on her thighs. ‘I know Australia spends more money operating their walls than they do on healthcare and education combined; and if it’s anything like that here we’re going to have all kinds of difficulties getting anywhere near it, but the fact still remains that we simply can’t survive here!’
‘Are you sure this isn’t Wales?’ Selina argued desperately, still grasping to the hope they had merely missed the local populace and been wandering in circles. The population of Wales was still struggling to recover, she reasoned, the same as it was the world over. It wasn’t unheard of to travel days without meeting a soul. There might be a town just beyond the horizon, a refuge where they could shelter, where the residents might take pity on them. ‘Perhaps we’re not looking out of the wire,’ she said in anguish, ‘maybe we’re looking in!’
She wiped her wrist across her eyes, knowing she was arguing a foolish point. Priya put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight. ‘Come on, we’ll see ourselves right. There must have been a reason for surviving the storm.’
‘So we can suffer an even shittier death!’ Selina replied sullenly, annoyed by Priya’s misplaced confidence.
Priya smirked and ruffled Selina’s hair. ‘You’re full of…’ she began to say, before dragging her roughly to the ground. ‘Be quiet,’ she hissed, nodding toward a region somewhere out at sea. ‘Look!’
It took a moment for Selina to focus, but after searching the horizon – expecting to see the coastguard scouring the area – she noticed a black sphere gliding a few hundred yards from the shoreline. It soared noiselessly through the sky like nothing Selina had seen before.
‘What the hell is it?’ she said, unable to take her eyes off its shining surface.
‘I don’t know what they’re called, but I’ve heard about them before. They’re full of cameras and instrumentation that scan for mutations of the virus. You wait, it’ll stop in a moment, see?’ They watched wordlessly as the sphere changed course and scoured the beach below, making small zigzagging movements before hovering over a seemingly innocuous patch of sand and remaining stationary for several minutes. Now Selina could see that it wasn’t a perfectly smooth globe, but instead covered in protuberances and blackened domes hiding a range of cameras, probes and apparatus. It continued to scour the beach, stopping momentarily until it disappeared beyond the cliff face.
‘Jesus,’ Selina exhaled, lying down in the long grass. ‘I thought we weren’t going to have to worry about being seen until we got near the border. I’ve never seen anything like that before.’
‘Didn’t you ever hear about iCDO
[1]
employees refusing to work in the field?’
‘Well yeah, but I didn’t know those things were the result of it.’
‘They’ve had thirty years to build those things…’ she stopped. The sphere rose into the sky and moved eastwards, picking up speed as it skimmed the coast on its return for analysis.
Priya watched until it had evaporated in the haze of the afternoon. She stood and helped Selina to her feet, then began to walk in the direction of the dilapidated buildings further up the road.
‘I wonder how often they come,’ Selina said, brushing down her bare knees that were, after only a day, dark and grazed.
‘Come on,’ Priya said, gesturing to the houses on the rise of the cliff, ‘we can find out once we’re safely hidden up there.’
Eryn reclined on the leafy cliffs overlooking Rockham Bay. The low sun shattered the sea into a shimmering copper miasma, and the cool breeze carried a bouquet of salty pollen that blew her hair across her eyes.
For the first time since her days at school she was waiting for Boen. She’d had time to think about what he’d said and finally concluded that he’d been mistaken. Maybe he wasn’t lying or simply trying to gain her attention, but she couldn’t accept his allegations. It wasn’t that she thought the politics of their modest population were perfect - when her grandfather had overseen the safety of the community people had often lost their lives to ‘safeguard the population’, but that was a different era.
She couldn’t ignore though, that whether it be a lie, recreation or mistake, Boen seemed nervous and had been reluctant to share his thoughts outright. This in itself was strange. He normally didn’t care who heard his fictions and had, over the years, established the reputation of a fabulist wastrel. Yet he had shied away from Betty’s eavesdropping the previous morning and refused to talk to her around Baron later in the evening; there was something about his demeanour that spoke of an unshakable belief in what he said.
At midday she had seen him eating on the wall of the churchyard with his father, and had pulled him across the road so they could speak alone. He still wasn’t going to tell her in ear-shot of others though, and she insisted that they meet at sunset on the cliffs of Rockham Bay.
But where was he? Had it been anyone else, she could have waited in the sunshine without sparing it a thought, but Boen annoyed her with his sullen skulking and needless deceits, and she was hardly prepared to waste her evening for him. It was only her curiosity of his explanation and her feelings for Kelly that kept her waiting.
‘Sorry I’m late…’ Came a call from behind her. ‘Pa wouldn’t let me go until I’d finished taking in the...’
‘Well?’ She barked as he sat brusquely beside her. A dandelion burst and the seeds danced between them. She composed herself and said, more genially, ‘Sorry… Well?’
‘I couldn’t talk earlier. Your brother was looking at me like he was deciding which side of my face to cave in first.’
‘Ok, well, spit it out.’ Eryn said, finding it difficult to contain her impatience.
‘Right, well, on the morning Kelly died, pa and me were setting out earlier than usual. Pa had been up all night drinking with Kelly, and woke me up as soon as he got back. He was in a relatively good mood for once, until he noticed I’d forgotten one of the keys for the buoys. You know what he’s like, he clouted me and sent me back to Bull Point to fetch it before we set out. It was going to take a couple of hours so he was raging. Anyway, it must have been two-thirty when I left so it couldn’t have been later than half-three when I was passing Channel View. I heard a shout coming from his house and I guessed it must be Kelly, but I thought he was drunk and messing around with someone, you know how he was - he sort of said ‘oh, you bastard!’ in a way that made me laugh, like he’d been tricked or something. And then there was some banging around and it all went quiet.
‘I suppose I should have mentioned it before, but I just didn’t think. I mean, who gets murdered around here?
‘Anyway, I collected the key and then made my way back home, and when I was coming back by Channel View again someone comes steaming around the corner, fast as the wind – wearing a hooded coat and galoshes. I remember that because they made an odd smacking sound as he ran.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘That’s the thing. The moon was behind him, so whoever it was, he got a bloody good look at
me
!’
‘He saw you?’
‘I was at the junction as he came round the bend and I stopped in surprise. From the moment he rounded the corner he clapped eyes on me.’
Eryn wasn’t sure how much of his account was dramatized, though she resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt.
She picked at some grass and looked at him. ‘You definitely think he was from outside?’
‘I don’t know anyone who owns a coat like that. And get this: I remember pa once said that they favour galoshes on Lundy rather than the boots we get here.’
Eryn looked across the glittering sea to the dark smudge of Lundy Island on the horizon. ‘So you think they were from Lundy?’
‘Could be, though I don’t know why they’d want to kill him, he was a good old boy, was Kelly.’
Eryn sighed in agreement and thought about the man she had loved with so much childish passion. In her early teens she deluded herself that he was in love with her also, that’s why he had remained a bachelor when he had so many admirers. As she grew older, however, she learnt of the informal nature of his relationships and decided that he was incapable of loving anyone other than himself, and certainly couldn’t bear the thought of marriage.
‘I don’t believe anyone around here would have killed him, everyone liked Kelly.’ She found herself whispering.
‘Some more than others, eh?’ He said.
She took it as an insult. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Come off it… It didn’t take Max Carrodos to figure you were in love with him. Remember when we stole that barrel of ale? We must have been, what, thirteen?’
Eryn couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ve never been so sick in my life…’
‘You were wrecked! We all were… But I’ll never forget it. You kept on saying you were ‘drowning your sorrows’ like some heartbroken cowboy…’ He considered that the reason was the same then as it was now and cleared his throat, ‘I think you’d had another argument with your pa, you were pretty beaten about in those days. You never talked about it though, you just poured more ale and talked about Kelly. You were furious with him because he was sleeping with Lucia.’ He smirked at the memory.
Eryn thought about denying it for a moment, and then turned to the sun. She continued smirking, her head tilted so the warmth was on her cheek. ‘…Bitch.’ She said idly, and snuffed a dry laugh.
*
They returned to the Smuggler’s close to nine o’clock. The bar was as busy as usual, though people were beginning to filter home early; they had spent the whole day fixing whatever the storm had thrown at their property, and had only ventured to the pub to out-awe their fellows with reports of their battered estates.
Boen and Eryn served themselves and sat alone, away from the exaggerated storytelling.
Mrs. Sayer, the ‘buck-toothed widow of the Combe’, as Eryn called her, looked over to the two of them. She beamed a rabbity smile at Boen, scowled at Eryn, and then turned back to her writhing children who, to the consternation of everyone, were as boisterous as rutting fox. Eryn rolled her eyes and turned to her pint.
‘Why does she hate you so much?’ Boen said, indicating at Mrs. Sayer.
‘Oh, I said something to her a while back that she didn’t agree with.’
‘What?’ He leaned closer.
Eryn shook her head. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
He let it go. An awkward silence lingered between them; he wanted to say something though nothing in his mind seemed important enough to interest her – apart, of course, from the murderer.
‘The man that ran from Kelly’s? I didn’t say before but he mentioned my name.’ He said, staring into his pint.
‘No he didn’t, Boen.’ She sighed, and looked around the pub as though to find somebody else to talk to.
‘Ok, he didn’t, but… Look, it’s not as easy for me to talk to people as it is for you!’
‘What do you mean by that? Why’s it any easier for me?’
He leaned forward, keeping his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘What I mean is… well, you’re
Eryn
, beautiful, perfect
Eryn
!’ He paused, and almost began to lose his nerve. He hadn’t thought the words could sound so insulting, but he was far beyond the point of no return and so leaned a little closer. ‘People talk to you because they’re thinking of plumbing you. You just have to sit back and be talked at. You don’t have to bother trying! Me, on the other hand, I’m the greasy little turdlinger everyone avoids like the pathogen…’
‘That’s not…’ Eryn was burning with embarrassment.
‘Yes it is! You don’t need to lie. I have to spend an hour beforehand thinking of things to say to you, and you’re never interested…’
Eryn glowed. Leaning on her elbow she tried to shield her face from the rest of the room.
‘And another thing, I hate it when you ignore me when other people are about; people who you know are attracted to you. It’s so… hollow. I’m sorry I’m not as captivating as George, but maybe if you could take your eyes off his arse for a minute you might find something I have to say interesting!’ He slumped back in his seat, purged. He reached forward and held onto his tankard, though didn’t drink from it for some time. ‘Sorry…’ He said quietly.
Eryn didn’t look at him; she shook her head and gazed at the bubbles in the bottom of her pint. Boen stole a glance, her eyes were watering. ‘Oh…’ Was all he could say, feeling guilty that he had brought her to the brink of tears. A small part of him, however, was satisfied that he had liberated his opinions and, to be honest, he was even more satisfied to have said something heartfelt that had caused such emotion.
She wiped her eyes with her thumb and looked up at him. She was shocked by his frankness; it felt as though her father was talking down to her for being too merry with those he didn’t approve of.
She cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry!’ she said weakly, and cleared it a second time before saying in a stronger voice, ‘you’re right… I shouldn’t ignore you when the others are about. I promise I’ll include you in the things we...’
‘I don’t want to be included in the things you lot get up to.’ He retorted.
‘Well… what is it that you want?
He was quiet for a moment, Baron was moving around the room, silently collecting empty tankards. When he reached them, he flicked his chin at Eryn and frowned at Boen. ‘You troubling her again?’ he sneered, looming over the table. Boen said nothing.
‘He’s OK, Baron.’ Eryn said, and placed a hand softly on her brother’s arm. ‘We’re just talking about Kelly and Boen’s pa. They were best friends.’
Baron kept his eyes on Boen, but withdrew. ‘I haven’t forgotten…’ he said, pointing a handful of tankards at Boen before moving on.
‘Forgotten what?’ Eryn asked when her brother had gone.
‘Nothing,’ Boen replied, screwing his face.
‘Come on, you owe me after calling me a cow-bag.’
‘I never said…’
‘You did in so many words. Now, what did you do?’
‘Nothing, well, I put some laxatives in his drink a few months back.’
‘You never did!’
‘Ask him where he disappeared to on Mayday.’
‘He said he spent the day at the cliffs.’
‘That’s as maybe. Did he tell you what he was unloading at the cliffs?’
Eryn smiled, and just as her lips were about to part and bare her teeth, the whole tavern seemed to simultaneously gasp. Eryn looked towards the bar: Semilion, her father, was staring at the foyer. She followed his gaze; her heart faltered and as dread overwhelmed her the smile melted away.