more comfortable position. She arranged his hands.
We never had our talk, Jacob, the one in which I asked you what it was like to know so many people so well, to have so much information in your head. But I think it must have been like being smothered, smothered in other people, making demands.
I made more demands than anyone, Jacob. I cannot remember you making any demands on me. So I’m just going to sit here Jacob, and give you the time you deserve, a bit of time to understand the pattern you made, weaving through space and time, up and down the Shell, over and over, room to room, reminding people about debts and rehearsals, appointments and times to take medicines. Did you pray at night alone? Did you go to a Church, a boisterous singing church that made you happy? Is there a church for Postpeople? And what about the seizures, the way you would blank out?
People said you were used to blanking out, Jacob. Postpeople do blank out if they don’t take care of themselves. Three times, you blanked out, Jake, three times you let yourself get too full. You told me that it was like dying. Each time it happens, you said, you could feel your mind going cold in sections, like a city turning out its lights. Then they would give you a virus that taught you who you were and who your clients were, and back you went again. Three times you started anew, but it didn’t make you look any fresher. You always looked dead around the eyes.
What can I make of that, Jacob? That you should have taken better care? They had viruses that could devour memory, leave you clean and open. But you were too busy with us, too busy taking care of us. Why did we deserve such care Jacob? We did nothing for you, except exchange the hellos and the goodbyes that are everyone’s due.
I’m glad I never saw it. They say you crawled, Jacob. When the seizures came, you would crawl, and foam at the mouth. You would tear your hair. You fought, they told me, fought against it. You howled, No! No! and tore your shirt, gentle Jacob who was the soul of circumspection and dignity.
This last one killed you, didn’t it? You died in another blank out, Jacob. So what does that mean?
I think it means you were abused. Your mind was stirred about like a casserole, you were taken over for the purposes of others. But you adjusted, each time. You found the joys that this life had to offer, limited as they were. The joy of knowing so many people well, the joy of being needed, of having a regular and recognised place, the joy of knowing so much about them, these many people.
But even that was taken away, the knowledge, the memory. And you would have to start again, dead, exhausted, climbing up the weary steps.
Only one Jacob, only one. That you deserved better. You did not deserve to end up here like a sack of garbage in worn-through shoes and one old suit dying alone with no one to see, and that we cannot make it up to you and the flowers on the grave will not be seen by you. And if that’s the meaning, Jacob, if that’s all the meaning I can get then I should bloody well try. Bloody well try again. Because if that’s all there is then a mistake has been made, and the mistake is mine.
Milena remembering still had the crucifix, here, now, she could feel it, in her hand.
Ready to pass on.
And there was Mike, moving like clockwork, back erect, lighting candles in their home, their home together, amid the smell of food that he had cooked, against a window showing the slate-grey marsh, and the black reflection of clouds of smoke drifting over it, smoke from the cremation of the dead.
‘What?’ said Milena, easily amused, at least by him. ‘All this? What? Tell me?’
Mike’s thin lips turned all the way inward, fighting down a smile. He made her sit, and made her begin to eat, and poured her some wine, and then sat down.
‘Milly,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking. We should have children.’
Oh. Milena set her fork back down on the table. ‘Well you go have them, then.’
Breezy, everything was so simple and breezy back then.
‘That’s my idea,’ said Mike Stone. ‘I thought that since you’re busy and don’t like sex, you could donate an ovum, and I could donate a sperm cell and we could affix the result to the wall of my bowel.’
‘You make it sound like a recipe,’ said Milena sitting forward, suddenly disturbed. ‘No Mike,’ she said.
‘I’d like to do it very much. It makes sense.’ Milena remembered his daffy, trusting eyes.
‘It’s very dangerous,’ said Milena.
‘So’s going up in space. I’d rather do this. I’d find it more interesting.’
Mike. Why are you so… so… nice? It isn’t good for people to be nice. What if I make you bend too far? You won’t know and neither will I. Until it’s too late.
‘I had a friend, Mike.’
‘I know. Berowne. You told me.’
‘He was nice and brave too, Mike. The placenta came away just afterwards. He bled to death. The blood hit the ceiling. And there was this baby left.’
Milena was surprised by feeling, thinking of the infant. ‘It hadn’t been part of the deal. Berowne was supposed to take care of the baby. And Anna didn’t want him, couldn’t look at him at first, not until Peterpaul came along to help. So there were three lives ruined. No, Mike, no.’
‘It’s what I want to do,’ he said. ‘I’ve been consulting people. I’ve thought about all sorts of new ways to protect myself. And other people who do the same thing.’
‘Yes and everyone thinks he is the one who is going to get through it, and for what?’
‘For a beautiful new baby.’
‘I’m not taking the responsibility. I’ve been through it all before. You think Berowne went around swinging from trees? He made it, he made it all the way through to delivery and out the other side, but they couldn’t keep the placenta down. One good shove, and out it came and he was dead, dead in seconds, all the blood just pumped out of him.’
‘There are stitch viruses. They can give me a stitch virus which will meld the placenta, hold it to me.’
‘Please. I told you, I’m scared. I’m scared to death of all this biology. We’re going to get something else wrong soon.’
‘That’s a different issue to my being pregnant.’
‘I’m immune to it all. I don’t have to worry. But you’re not. What if these stitch viruses keep on stitching?’
‘They don’t,’ he said, unafraid. ‘They’re safe behind Candy.’
Milena sighed and shook her head. He was right, they were getting off the issue. ‘I don’t want to make another orphan,’ she said.
‘One of us is bound to be left. For a time. Both of us are bound to the. That’s no reason not to have a child. Otherwise, no one would have any children. And I like children. And someone has to be left to carry on.’
Make it breezy again, Mike. Take away the fear again. Tell me I’m just working too hard, that I don’t wake up every morning feeling like I’m lead sheeting on a roof.
Mike kissed her on the end of her nose.
‘No harm can ever really come. Even if someone dies. Death is going to come anyway. People always react to the thing that’s just happened. Not to what’s happening now. Out of step. I’m not Berowne.’
Milena went quiet again. Is there just a glimmer, she wondered, just a little tickle of jealousy? Thinking: hoi, that’s my job. Men always seem to take over everything. Even this?
‘So tell me, slowly and clearly,’ said Milena. ‘Why it won’t kill you. And tell me what I’m supposed to do if it
