Читать книгу The Mark - Edyth Bulbring - Страница 6

The Monster

A man flails in the breakers, thrashing the sea with windmill arms. “Monster!” he shouts.

The Market Nags are the first to come screaming out of the shallows, breasts bouncing free from their underwear. “Mons­ter, it’s a monster!” They swirl in circles on the beach, looking for a place to hide.

The monster siren pierces the squeals of children being pulled from the breakers by beach wardens waving swimmers towards the dunes. “Get out of the water. Get out!” Their eyes scan the sea.

Sun-worshippers jerk free of their torpor and abandon towels and bags. They stumble for the shelter of the dunes, dragging children along with them.

“Run. Before the monster gets you. Run!” They urge toddlers along, slapping their blistered legs. The Market Nags gather their wits and clothes scattered on the beach, and follow them to safety.

Glee swells my chest as I watch these fools. Buzzing around like flies trapped crazy behind a mesh screen. The sand trickles through my fingers as I wait for my moment.

Then, in the chaos of umbrellas toppling onto the sand, I scramble to my feet and get busy. My hands rifle through baskets, slip under towels. What I find goes into my bag. Those who run for the safety of the dunes do not look back. They are oblivious to me and to the rest of us, with our quick fingers, moving among their things.

But I watch out as I work. My hands are blind but my eyes see everything and everyone around me. When I am done, I squat on the sand and watch the rest slip away, absorbed by the shadows as though they were never here. Except for one. Kitty. The girl I am always looking out for.

I watch Kitty as she sways along the beach, stepping over a bucket and spade. As she kneels to adjust her sandal strap, she reaches into a discarded bag and palms a purse.

My knees crack as I rise to follow her. I track Kitty across the sand, watching her stop, scratch her leg, and fix her sandal again. She grabs something off a towel and straightens a flag on a sandcastle. My bare feet mirror her prints on the damp sand.

Kitty reaches the foot of the steps leading from the beach onto the main road.

“Stop,” a voice shouts.

Kitty does not stop; nor does she turn around. She glides up the stairs with the poise of a girl who works at one of the local pleasure clubs. Her back is straight, her breasts thrust forward. All that is missing is a tray of drinks balanced on her hand.

“Hey, I said stop.” The voice is too loud and too close.

My stomach leaps into my mouth and I swallow bile. Keep walking, Kitty. Don’t look back.

But Kitty stops. She turns around, freezing as she recognises the uniform. Green and yellow. A Locust. I read her face, open to me like the expanse of beach sand. I must act now, before it is too late.

As the Locust races towards her, I scream and fall down, lie on my back. I whip my head from side to side, roll my eyes, simulate spasms wracking my chest. I whimper, like a child who has had her fingers slammed in a door.

The Locust turns around, sprints away from the steps towards me. I tense my body in preparation for a boot in my ribs. This is the Locusts’ favourite way of dealing with children who cause trouble. Instead, though, he kneels down on the sand and eases his hand under my neck. I try not to flinch.

I peep at him from under my sunglasses. His face is covered by a sun shield. But he must be a young one, new to his trade. For sure he will soon learn the mean tricks of the Locusts.

“Just calm down. You’re going to be all right.” The Locust soothes me with gentle hands until I stop whimpering. Perhaps he is someone’s brother, grown in the habit of comforting a younger sister.

A shadow blocks the sun on my face as a man leans over us. “Take your hands off my daughter. She hasn’t done anything.”

The Locust turns to him. “She was having a fit. I was just trying to help . . .” His protest trails away as he looks towards the stairs. But Kitty is gone. She is safe; I can breathe again.

I wriggle away from the Locust’s gloves and pull myself up. I smile at him. Thank you for caring, my smile says. I force it onto my face like I would squeeze pus from a boil. Smiling at Locusts is one of my strengths from years of practice.

I look up at the man glaring down on us. He is the one whose windmill arms had warned about the monster. But he is not my father. He is my handler.

I allow Handler Xavier to take me in his arms, and I rest my chin on his shoulder. I bleed a tear through lids that have become cracked by the sun.

“Father, father,” I say. The unfamiliar words sting my lips. I cling to him as I have learnt a daughter should.

“You can leave her with me,” Handler Xavier says. “She’s soft in the head.”

The Locust smacks the sand off his gloves and walks away, rubbing his jaw.

I relax and tell my heart to stop galloping. It’s fine. You won’t get caught. Not today.

But the Locust stops, looks back, and touches the handset on his belt. I hear the beep-beep as he presses the button.

My spine tingles.

The Locust straightens the handset and watches us. I shut my eyes tight. If I cannot see him, he will not be there. And when I open my eyes again, he is walking away across the sand. Slowly.

Handler Xavier pats my back, his expression tender. But it slides off his face as soon as the Locust is gone. My handler is a man of many faces. The face he made screaming in the water was that of a terrified man warning swimmers he had seen a flesh-eating monster and they should get out of the sea. Fast.

The face Handler Xavier shows me after the Locust has left us is of a man alert to danger of a different sort. “The Locust saw something. He’s tracked your number on his handset and he’s going to report it. Stay low and get home fast.” The hand­ler drops me on the sand and strides towards the shoreline.

He jogs along the beach. His elbows slice the air and his fists punch the sky. Now he is a jogger, taking his exercise by the seaside. He runs on the spot, throws himself onto the sand, does a set of push-ups.

He glances in the direction of a group of Locusts patrolling the beach. As soon as they have passed, he quits exercising and strolls towards the steps. Whistling.

I crouch on the beach, watching swimmers go back into the water as the beach wardens give the all-clear signal. The children settle onto the sand and rebuild their sandcastles. The sun-worshippers ease back onto their towels. They smear their skin with sunblocker and hide behind sunglasses. The danger of the monster is past.

Umbrella shadows lengthen, and we do not have much longer to enjoy the beach. When the curfew siren shrieks, many of us must return to the ghetto.

I watch the Necromunda, the sea scavengers on their bobbing seacraft, diving far beyond the surf line. The Scavvies’ bodies are black from the sun, their skin leathered by sea salt. Soon their shift will be over and they will return to shore and offload the spoils from the underwater city.

The loot is stored in Mangerian warehouses, where it is sorted and then sold to the Posh – the only ones with enough credits to buy relics from the time before the seas rose up and swallowed the world.

I wait until the beach has settled back into its rhythm, then force my feet to dawdle up the stairs onto the main street. At some point, people will search their bags for their things and find them missing. But I will not be there to see it.

The Posh wander past me in the main street. Perfume fails to mask their sweat smell. It curdles my stomach. There is nothing more disgusting than the smell of the Posh.

They play racquet and ball on the sidewalks. They call out to each other in high voices, each syllable an ice chip. Their slanted eyes, shuttered behind dark glasses do not see me.

I am a girl of many masks. The one I wore for the Locust was a girl in distress. The face I wear as I kill time on the pavements is the face of a nobody. I become invisible to the some­bodies.

The ball hits me on the side of my face. A Posh kid laughs. “Nice shot.” The ball rolls into the street. “Hey, you there. Go fetch. Fetch our ball,” he shouts, waving his racquet at me.

I fetch it.

I wander up and down the promenade, roasting the soles of my feet on the concrete. I wipe sweat and seeping fluid from my blistered face.

The siren screams. Back to the ghetto. I check the sun. It hangs low in the sky. Clouds like clots of blood lie over the taxi rank. I hustle for a ride, along with everyone else on their way home. Too many people, too slow. As a taxi rolls away, I jump on and squeeze myself inside. Sun-scorched flesh traps me in my seat.

Market Nags laugh and slap their hands on their knees as they recall how lucky they were to escape the monster.

“I felt it as I ran out of the water. Did you see the way it chased that child onto the beach?”

“It nearly ate me, but I got away.”

I make my ears go deaf to their nonsense. The taxi Pulaks, harnessed in pairs, strain as they haul the carriage. One stumbles, and his partner takes his elbow to steady him. The taxi warden up front flicks his whip over the Pulak’s back. “Move faster, you useless sack of bones,” he shouts.

My face, squashed against the moist arm of a Market Nag grows numb. Sleep whispers to me. But I must stay alert. The wound on my spine warns me. I claw at my back and the pain jolts me awake. Rule Number Four: never shut your eyes until you are home safe. If I obey Handler Xavier’s rules of the game, I will not get caught.

The Pulaks drag us through the gates and over the bridge that spans the river separating the ghetto from Mangeria City. Water the colour of vomit and thick with debris spills from the sewers.

The taxi empties at the entrance to our ghetto. Slum City we call it – its official name rejected and long forgotten. My spine tingles. I check to see if anyone is following me. Check again. I am safe. I fix my eyes to the ground and trudge past the Locusts manning the booms.

“Where’s your pass?” a Locust says. I stop. He reaches past me and grabs a man trying to slip under the boom. “We’re on curfew. You can’t leave the ghetto without a pass.”

“I’ll be really quick,” the man says. The Locust silences him with a gloved fist and turns him back.

I stop outside a block of flats in Section O. Home. High-rises shedding their paint. Washing on balconies, people calling out across narrow passages between the buildings. I do not look at them or listen to their gossip. I pretend I am not there. They neither see me nor call out to me.

My feet fight with broken toys and rubbish cluttering the stairwell as I take the stairs to the fourth floor. The stench of unwashed children assails me. As I climb, I follow the fungus trail on the walls that is fed by leaking pipes. I wipe my hands down my shorts when I reach my floor. I hear him whistling outside my room.

Handler Xavier is pacing the corridor. “What took you so long? Where’ve you been, Ettie?”

“I came home at final curfew.” I bow my head under his gaze and enter my room.

A girl looks up at me from the mattress on the floor. Kitty Seven, my roommate and partner in the game. Her eyes are red from crying while I have been barbecuing my feet on the streets.

Unlike me, Kitty does not wear masks. Everything she thinks is written on her face. And as much as I have tried to teach her to lock down her heart and muffle her thoughts, nothing helps. She cannot learn the way of masks.

Even when Kitty is sad or scared, like now, she is always beautiful. Yet it is a mystery. Her nose is too flat, her cheeks are too plump, her eyebrows too thick. It is as though all the pieces have collaborated to make her lovely.

When I look at her, I feel that I must be lovely too. That it is something I might catch, like sun sickness. But beauty is not something I have ever been accused of.

I toss my sunglasses on the table by the mattress and step over the pile of stuff on the floor: sunglasses, a stack of credits, some jewellery, sunblockers. I empty my bag and add to the pile.

“Is that all? It’s a sad haul for such a long day.” Handler Xavier sweeps his eyes across my face.

I promise with my hand on my heart and hope to starve to death. My mask hides my deceit.

Handler Xavier spends his words like a scrooge. His curt ways make people think he is stupid. But I know what he is. He is a sponge. Always listening, watching, absorbing the words and actions of those in his presence. I have to be careful around him.

“You were careless today, Kitty. That Locust saw something suspicious. If it hadn’t been for Ettie over here acting as a distraction, he’d have bust you.” Handler Xavier squeezes my arm. Hard, on my blisters. I do not want his approval, but I must not shrug him off. He must never have reason to doubt me. “Good thing that Locust didn’t report your number, Ettie.”

Kitty cowers on the mattress. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder next time.”

I dismiss her sorries. “She won’t learn. I’m sick of her.” I set my face in stone, avoiding her swollen eyes. “She flies too close to the sun and I always have to risk the burn for her when she messes up. I won’t pay the price for her stupid mistakes any more.”

I know it is not going to work, but I try anyway. I want the handler to take Kitty off the game. To let me work alone so that she will be safe. One day I will not be there to protect her.

The handler shakes his head. “She’ll play the game with you until you’re done. She may be slow, but she’s pretty. There’ll be days when we’ll need the men to be looking her way.”

Handler Xavier pockets the credits and waves his hand over the stuff on the floor. Yes, he’s counted it. “One of you take this to Cowboy at the market. I’ve got to check on the others. Let’s hope they did better than you two rubbishes today.”

When he is gone, I go to a corner of the room and lift a paver from the floor. I reach inside the hole where we two keep our secrets. Safe from the handler. Always looking to catch us out.

Among our special things that I had left behind this morning – Kitty’s ribbons, Kitty’s lip paint, Kitty’s hair clips – were two mangoes. One of these apparently exists in the past tense.

“Where’s the other mango? I know I had two this morning,” I say.

Kitty lowers her eyes.

“You’re a greedy-guts, Kitty. Those were mine.” But I am glad. I do not want her getting sick.

I toss her the last mango and she catches it with her left hand. Bracelets jangle, sliding from her wrist to her elbow, concealing the scar that reminds me how much I owe her.

She tears the plastic off the mango with her teeth. I watch her eat, the juice running down the sides of her mouth. I cannot mask the complaint that comes from my stomach. She opens the doors to the balcony, sucks at the mango as she watches the people below.

I slip the book from under my shirt. It has hidden against my stomach most of the day. My skin has been branded with a red rectangle.

I open the book, and yellow paper crackles under my fingers. I had snatched it off the beach towel of a Posh who was body-surfing. My mouth fills with saliva at the thought of reading it.

Books like this are hard to come by. They are worth at least a hundred credits. If the handler catches me with it he will make me pay in bruises. And if Kitty saw it she would steal it, to buy stuff to make herself more beautiful.

I remove the false bottom in the hole that holds our special things, and put the book away. My secret library. Safe from Kitty’s fingers. From the handler’s eyes.

There are people who say that a secret is something only one person can know. As soon as you tell someone else it will spread around Slum City like an infestation of flies, becoming everyone’s business.

They are right. I have carried my secret around with me since I was nine years old. I have not told anyone about my library, and it has stayed mine. I replace the paver and pack the stuff on the floor into my bag.

“I’ll go to Cowboy,” Kitty says, turning from the balcony. “I’ll be careful, Ettie. I promise I won’t get caught.”

Not a chance. My Kitty is shedding lives like sunburnt skin. This little piggy is not going to market. She must stay safe at home. “You act stupid. I can’t trust you.”

Kitty gnaws at the mango, the stringy flesh catching in her teeth. “Watch out, Ettie. Don’t let the Locusts get you.” She worries her teeth with a nail.

Fear prickles on my skin, coating me in an armour of cold sweat.