The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal. Sean Dixon

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      Neil handed the stone up to Runner, who sat up a little in Du’s arms and slowly began to translate the alleged first words of this alleged first book:

       In the very old days, back when years were long, like the first year of a child’s life, only this is the way things felt to adults and children alike, because it was the beginning of the world, the future was full of everything and there was nothing in the past–

      ‘I wish I could feel that way,’ murmured Emmy.

      – there was a time when everyone was happy in the beautiful city of Uruk, with its strong walls and its proud goddess Inanna –

      Neil interjected, as if on cue, ‘Who was like Missy?’

      A lot like Missy: always ready to leave if she didn’t get her way, march straight out of the universe …

      But like rabbits in the warrens of Watership Down –

      Romy forgot Emmy, for a moment.

      – for a thousand years the people were happy.

      And Runner paused and looked down at everyone from the arms where she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

      Look at the walls of the city. They surround you. They were built for you, to protect you from the rain. These walls were built by one man, and he made them well, although in other ways, all other ways, he was a tyrant, with a stride as long as a league and eyes the rarest, rarest shade of …

      She paused and paused some more. She would have paused forever and Missy would have let her, quietly praying for everyone to remain silent. But Romy, with her weakness for colour, took the bait.

      ‘Of what?’

      Runner smiled, as sweetly as anything Missy might venture.

      ‘Can we vote on this?’

      Romy could not believe it. She had been manipulated once again into taking the rap for the whole group, only this time it was at the hands of someone she trusted probably more than anyone in the world: ‘Runner Coghill!’

      ‘I’m sorry, Romy. I do what I have to. Can we vote on this?’

      Missy sat stoically with eyes downcast. Calmly demurred. ‘I’m not ready to.’

      Runner’s turn to panic: ‘I have to get to the hospital!’

      ‘So we’ll take you to the hospital.’

      Romy demanded to know what was the colour of the tyrant’s eyes, but Runner kept her focus on the Missy stopgap.

      ‘But you’re interested.’

      ‘Whatever.’

      ‘You are!’

      She was. It was obvious from the hesitation that followed. This proved enough for Romy, who was holding the Book of Days and so was entrusted with proclaiming the calls to vote. She shouted the motion as Neil quietly bent over his notebook and wrote, On this very day …

      ‘The proposal is to do Runner’s stone book and also to accept the new member Anna so we can keep coming back to this building. And also learn the colour of the tyrant’s eyes. All in favour?’

      Romy, Priya and Emmy all raised their hands with Runner, who almost broke her bearer’s nose. Aline raised her hand, tipping the scales in Runner’s favour. But then Missy raised her hand too, taking our breath (the breath of the two of us) away. And as our hands (the hands of the two of us) shot up as one, faster than the speed of thought (because it was true: we were curious too), Romy shouted in tones of joy, ‘The motion carries us!’

      And Missy, standing and pulling her fists to her hips in that exquisitely Wonder Woman pose: ‘Carries. The motion carries, Romy.’ Then, turning the full weight of her attention toward Runner and her injury, she managed to take her into her arms without acknowledging the presence of the boy.

      ‘Let’s get you to the hospital, you stupid, crazy girl.’

      And she swept across the floor to the stairs, the rest of us following, like all her little dogs.

      Dumuzi would have been relieved to be alone again with Anna, were it not for the anxious revelation that Anna did not wish to be alone with Du. She was following the crowd and he couldn’t shake the thought that it was mostly to get away from him.

      In a flurry of semi-words that came out in an improbable series of W’s and B’s, he tried to inquire politely where she was going. He had longed for nothing more than to be alone with her again. Instead he got this: Anna, always moving on, always heading towards some future that did not include him, leaving him with his anxiety spikes. It was amazing how swiftly they came on. Just amazing.

      ‘I just want to see her to the hospital,’ said Anna, annoyed.

      ‘But you don’t even know her.’

      ‘I don’t know. She reminds me of … somebody.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Somebody.’ And then she flushed with her subtle anger, wounding him, as Priya might say, with the lash of an eye: ‘I don’t know who. That’s why I want to go. So that I can figure it out, you know?’

      Dumuzi felt there was only one way now. ‘But I thought you wanted to, uh.’

      A glint came into Anna’s eye, transforming all of Du’s anxiety in an instant to basic, focused arousal. ‘I thought you didn’t.’

      His flurry of B’s and W’s again.

      Anna put him out of his misery. ‘Meet me here tomorrow – next floor up.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘Same time.’

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘You sure?’

      From Du a single W, half a B, and then a gesture of assent, and then Anna was gone. This was much more pleasant. An uncertain road, rife with even bigger spikes, land mines even. But for the moment everything was great. Sex. The feeling of possession. He tried to stop thinking, blowing out from puffed cheeks, blowing out again, waiting, allowing Anna to get far enough ahead of him that he couldn’t catch up and tell her he’d changed his mind or have her tell him the same. Then he followed.

       FOUR

       ROYAL VIC

      The Royal Victoria Hospital was, as always, Runner’s destination of choice, despite СКАЧАТЬ