free. One day, I’m going to hold him to account for that.
I watch the footage one more time to be sure, then flick back to the other window, the portal behind which Ryan waits patiently.
ght='0em' width='1em' align='left'>I don’t know what to say, and hesitate over the keyboard.
Ryan types finally:
Mercy? Did you see it?
Galvanised into motion, I type back:
Yes, turns out he IS someone I know. But I couldn’t tell you what he was doing.
This time it’s Ryan’s turn to be silent — for so long that I think he’s left the room, fallen asleep, given up on me.
He writes finally:
Should I be scared?
My reply is swift.
Of me?
He replies:
Yeah.
One word. How do I read that?
I type:
No, never of me. I would never hurt you.
Then I think about Luc’s plan and I close my eyes briefly before adding:
But there’s some weird shit going down with the crowd I used to run with and I can’t promise that you won’t see stuff that’ll turn your hair white overnight. What you saw on that clip is just a tasting plate of what these guys can do. There’s a game of tug of war going on right now and I think that, maybe, I’m the rope. You still want to come get me? Don’t feel obliged.
Please, I think. Please still want to come and get me. I’m almost terrified — me, the person who claims to rarely feel fear — as I wait for his response.
Finally, he types:
Yes, I AM still coming to get you, don’t even question that. You and I aren’t done. Flight arrives Friday morning. I’ll come directly to the Green Lantern as soon as I clear customs. Pack whatever you think you’ll need because we’ll go as soon as you say we can. Stay safe till then. I mean it, Mercy. Stay safe.
I close the window, leave the internet cafe, walk slowly back up the hill through Chinatown, the muggy heat weighing down on me now where before I welcomed the warmth.
That footage Ryan directed me to is on constant replay behind my eyes. It’s further evidence that two worlds — one seen, one unseen — are beginning to bleed, one into the other. And I — a citizen of neither, a denizen of nowhere — am doomed to watch from the sidelines and wonder at it.
I stare out the window the whole bus ride home but don’t see anything except Uriel walking on water before vanishing into a singularity in time and space.
What had he been searching for?
Mrs Neill is happy to see me, love and relief blazing out of her eyes when she beholds her daughter’s face. But she’s noticeably weaker today, and as I draw the heavy chair close again to her bedside, I can almost see that silver mist rising in the room, Azraeil’s form standing by the heavy curtains at the window.
I never sleep very well anyway, but that night, all that night, I do not sleep at all. I just keep vigil, sombre and dry-eyed, over the slowly emptying shell that is Lela’s mother.
Chapter 15
Mrs Neill’s still sleeping when I leave to catch the 7.08 bus into work. I decide not to wake her, because Georgia’s due to arrive any moment. I’ll ask Mr Dymovsky if I can have a half-day again so that I can be there for her. He has to say yes. Under his no-nonsense exterior, I sense that he’s like a marshmallow. Still, he’ll be incandescent when I tell him on Friday that I’m quitting. But he’s Russian. Once he calms down, sees Ryan and me together, he’ll understand.
On the bus ride in, I drink in the sky, the clear, hard light of it, its boundlessness. I’ll miss it. There’s no sky like that where Ryan lives, in Paradise, as funny as that sounds. It’s an ugly place with ugly, polluted beaches, surrounded by oil-refining and military interests, razor wire; grey from shore to distant horizon.
When I get into the coffee shop, Reggie’s back and already angry, although it’s only 7.38 am.
She holds up a hand to me as if she’s stopping traffic. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she snarls.
‘I wasn’t planning to ask you anything,’ I say mildly.
‘Just get to work.’ Eyes hard, she jerks her head at the queues already forming for the breakfast special: one dollar to upsize the coffee.
Cecilia lifts her eyebrows in welcome, and Mr Dymovsky smiles at me through the open serving hatch from the kitchen where he’s consulting Sulaiman on the day’s menu. Sulaiman acknowledges me with a small nod of his head and I almost smile. From him, that’s tantamount to friendly.
I belt on a clean black apron over my black clothes and get to work with the sandwich press, the sandwich cutter and long bread knife, wielding them awkwardly as Sulaiman slings out trays of fried eggs and rashers of bacon faster than I can jam them between slices of buttered bread.
As if he brings the lull with him, Ranald’s entry into the cafe signals our first collective breather for several hours. Reggie goes out for yet another ‘ciggie break’.
Ranald comes up to the counter where I’m standing and says gruffly, ‘I didn’t mean what I said yesterday. About you being stupid. You’re not stupid. I wouldn’t have asked you out if I thought that. Are we still on for Friday?’
He can’t quite meet my eyes, looks at a place a few inches to the right of me, his words scrambling over themselves to be uttered. I2019;s not really an apology, but then again I’m not intending to honour that promise about dinner, so I figure we’re about even.
‘You betcha,’ I say. ‘All set.’
‘You sure you don’t have anything else on?’ he says curtly.
I shake my head, looking at him curiously. There’s something tight and hard in his features that I can’t read.
He stands there awkwardly for another long moment — a moment in which I think he is going to bark something else at me — before he moves away to his regular table and slams his laptop bag down on its surface. He unpacks his jumble of add-ons more noisily than usual and throws himself into his work, not bothering to talk to any of us. He’s clearly preoccupied with something. Deadlines maybe.
Cecilia looks at me when she returns from handing him his first coffee and shakes her head, her eyes seeming to say: Do not engage.
Fine by me, I think. Whatever.
I gaze out the window, see a guy with a gleaming bald head go by, built like a pit bull terrier. He’s almost as wide as he’s tall and dressed a little too warmly for the day that’s developing, in a red bomber jacket with black sleeves, a blue-toned plaid shirt and faded blue jeans. He has a hard, weightlifter’s body and some kind of complex Celtic tattoo crawling thickly up the back of his neck in black ink. Must have killed him to get it done.
‘Do not mess with that one!’ Mr Dymovsky says as he slides a tray of fried schnitzels into the warming area beside me. He curls the fingers of both hands into two loose fists and pivots them outwards at the wrists as if he is breaking something between them, like an imaginary stick. Or a bone.
Ranald raises his head and says sharply, ‘Cecilia! This coffee isn’t strong enough. I’d like a replacement, please, as soon as you can manage it.’
He holds the offending mug out without meeting her eyes, as if she is some kind of servant.
Cecilia looks at Mr Dymovsky as if to say, What do I do? He frowns but nods that she’s to make him another one, on the house.
‘Delat’ iz mukhi slona!’ he mutters darkly.
