Border Princes

water like Gene Kelly in a happy-go-lucky mood.

Gwen thought it was Toshiko at first glance, but it wasn’t. It was a slim girl in boy-cut jeans and a skinny rib T-shirt that bore the slogan I’ve got tits, so I win.

She was running kind of funny, Gwen thought, spastic, her arms shaking. Her thin, pram face was twitching and blinking.

‘Hello?’ James called out.

The girl stumbled to a halt and wavered in front of them, blinking at James, then at Gwen, and then at James again. Each swing of her head was abrupt and made her sway. Her fingers, dripping with rain, pinched and snapped like someone telling the old ‘he’s been giving it that all night’ lobster joke.

‘Big big big,’ she told them, slurring and emphasising the middle ‘big’. ‘Sham. Sixty Nine per cent. Of cat owners. Anthropomorphise. Gibbons. Big gibbons. Big Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,’ she added.

Then she dropped to her knees with such a hard, bony crunch, Gwen winced. Kneeling, the girl threw up on the gravel.

Gwen went to her quickly, trying to help her. The girl said something, and pushed Gwen away. Then she hurled again.

Even diluted by the wind and rain, her sick smelled wrong. There was a strong ketone stink. Behind that, half-masked, plastics and burned sugar.

‘It’s all right,’ said Gwen.

‘Big big big,’ the girl slurred, and dry heaved like she was trying to exhale her liver.

Gwen looked up at James.

‘What the hell’s wrong with her?’ she asked. ‘And, also, ow! My headache’s getting worse.’

‘Mine too,’ he agreed. He was trying to be upbeat, but she could hear the tone. The pain. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘unless quiz night at the local pub has gone horribly wrong-’

The girl got up, shoving them aside. She fell down again, picked herself up once more and said, ‘Glory. Glory glory glory. Cantankerous. Is a good word.’

She swayed and looked at James. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ he replied, reaching out his hand.

The girl laughed, and bubbles of snot came out of her nose. The heaves squeezed her again, and she convulsed, elbows digging into her sides, but nothing more came up.

‘Varnish,’ she said, gurgling, and ran away.

‘Don’t let her-’ Gwen began.

The girl didn’t get far. She ran blindly into a mouldering brick wall, bounced off it with an ugly smack, and fell flat on her back.

They ran to her. Her face and arms were grazed and bleeding. Her nose was broken. Blood ran out of it, turning pink in the steady downpour.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Gwen hushed. ‘What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?’

‘Huw,’ the girl mumbled.

‘Well, there’s a switch,’ said James.

Gwen looked up at him. ‘She’s not Huw, you prat. Huw’s someone else.’

Huw ran down the riverside path, behind the glittering raindrop wall of the chain link. He thought he was running well, really sprinting, but to an observer, he would have looked like someone doing a sensationally bad Planet of the Apes impression.

He stumbled and slapped into the fence, making it trampoline and jingle. Collected rainwater shivered off the diamond links.

He sagged.

‘Let me help you,’ said the woman materialising out of the rain behind him. She was beautiful, Huw thought, blinking at her. She was slender and very cool beans in her black leather coat.

‘My name is Toshiko,’ the woman told him. ‘Let me help you. Tell me your name. Tell me what happened.’

Huw flopped back onto the grass and broken asphalt, one hand still clinging to the quivering fence.

‘There are,’ he began, but stopped. His voice sounded funny, as if his ears were stuffed full of cotton wool. Maybe they were. Had he done that? Perhaps he had. Earlier on, in the bathroom, swallowing the last of the aspirin. There had been a baggie of cotton wool balls by the sink. Laney’s, for make-up. Had he… had he?

It was so hard to think. To remember. His own name. Laney’s name. No, Laney’s name was Laney. Laney, where are you?

‘Talk to me,’ said the woman called Toshiko. ‘What were you trying to tell me?’

‘There are,’ Huw began again, ignoring the woolly sound of his voice, ‘there are numbers, and there are two blue lights and they move, and they move about, like this.’

He pulled his hand free of the dripping chain link and moved it around his other hand, describing curious, geometric patterns in the air.

‘They move. They move. They move about. They’re big lights. Big big big.’

His thready voice emphasised the middle of the three ‘bigs’.

Toshiko crouched beside him. ‘Lights? And numbers?’

Huw nodded. ‘Big big big. Flashing and moving. Blue. Oh, sometimes red. Red is dead. Blue is true. Big big big.’

‘What are the numbers?’ Toshiko asked him.

‘My name is Huw!’ he blurted, as if he’d just that minute remembered.

‘Oh, well, hello Huw. Tell me about the numbers and the lights.’

Huw’s head rolled drunkenly. He was blinking very fast, and the muscles in his face were ticking. ‘Huw is blue. Huw is true. Big big big.’

‘The numbers, Huw-’

‘Abstract numbers,’ he said, very clearly and suddenly, fixing her with a stare.

Toshiko looked back at him. Jeans, a vest top, a ratty Hoxton fin ruined by the rain. No way this ‘Huw’ knew about abstract numbers.

‘Huw, tell me about the abstract numbers.’

Huw was fiddling with his left ear. He pulled out a clump of cotton wool. It was soaked in blood.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘I think my brain’s burst.’

‘Huw,’ Toshiko soothed.

‘Oh no!’ he wailed suddenly, writhing.

‘Oh no! Go away! Don’t look at me! Leave me alone!’

Toshiko started back. She realised Huw had just wet himself. She could smell it. He was mortified by the indignity.

That suggested he wasn’t drunk.

‘Huw…’

‘My head does hurt,’ he moaned.

‘So does mine,’ she agreed. It really, really did. ‘Tell me more about the numbers and the lights. Where did they come from?’

Boiled egg. Boiled egg. She was acutely aware that they were running out of time. Completely out of time.

‘Big big big,’ Huw replied. ‘Stephi Graff. Giraffe. Ron Moody. Bastard. Twins. Illegitimate twins. On the cover of Hello! magazine. Do you know that magazine? Very much the model of a modern major overhaul.’

‘Huw? Come on! Huw?’

He smiled at her, blinking all the time.

Then he died.

His eyeballs went slack, and his head flopped back, and a puff of smoke trickled up out of his open mouth.

The smoke smelled of burned sugar, plastic and faeces.