The Flood Read online

  Davey knew at once it would be all right. Delorice was smiling at his mother, charmed. At least Lottie didn’t let anyone be shy. He was surprised, all the same to hear Delorice say ‘Thing is, Mrs Lucas –’ ‘Please, call me Lottie’ – ‘The thing is, Lottie, it’s my very first time. I’ve never been to the opera before.’ In the gondola Delorice had sworn him to secrecy!

  ‘How wonderful! You’re going to adore it. You must sit by me so I can see you enjoying it.’ And then Lottie linked arms with her, and swooped her ahead of Harold and Davey, and the two men watched proudly as the two pretty women, one blonde and voluptuous, rain-drenched with diamonds (‘Did you have to put the whole lot on, Mum?’ ‘I’ve got them out of the bank, I’m going to bloody well enjoy them’), the other dark and athletic and sinewy, walked in front of them up the red staircase, chattering and laughing loudly together. Every head turned to look at them, though Davey, trotting along in their wake, noticed, as he did from time to time, that Lottie’s feet under the satin were a little large.

  ‘She likes her,’ said Harold, his eyebrows in overdrive, doing a thumbs up sign at Davey. The ‘she’ in that equation was definitely Lottie.

  ‘She’ll have to, I’m going to marry her,’ said Davey, and having said it, felt completely astonished, but also certain he’d got it right, and Harold punched his arm with great emotion, and said, apparently inconsequentially, ‘Your mother and I have been so happy; happier than anyone could ever imagine.’

  ‘Although Mum can be –’

  ‘Yes, she can be.’

  The opera, though, gave him pause for thought. It began, as they had begun, all blossom, clouds of lit pink in a garden of cherries. Captain Pinkerton told the American ambassador about his plan to take a temporary bride from the imaginary country of Japan.

  Davey, on Delorice’s other side, told her in a whisper, ‘America is really Hesperica, of course.’

  ‘That’s obvious,’ she hissed back. ‘But is it going to be sad? Will Butterfly love Pinkerton too much?’

  His heart sank a little. ‘You’ll have to see.’

  The familiar arias poured out, glorious. Pinkerton left Butterfly: the child was born, a touching little elf, a blond Japanese, and Lottie managed, with terrific tactfulness, not to say, as Davey feared she would, ‘Isn’t he gorgeous? I just love half-castes,’ but the way she was smiling, when the child was on stage, suggested she was having just those thoughts. Butterfly sat waiting through that heart-stopping day and night and morning for her love to return. The inevitable tragedy closed upon them; for Davey, the stage was blurred with tears. A quick glance to his right showed both women were weeping, and Lottie was offering a handkerchief – ‘I always bring two to Butterfly.’

  ‘So good on imperialism,’ Harold enthused, afterwards, as they sat in the three-quarters empty restaurant awaiting an implausibly costly meal; Delorice widened her eyes at the prices.

  ‘But it was romantic,’ protested Delorice. ‘I thought it was romantic, not political.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Lottie put in, eating the last bit of bread in the bowl. ‘Harold is ridiculous.’ Their party made up, in life and noise, for the missing people in the room.

  ‘But Lottie –’ said Harold.

  ‘But nothing, Harold. Get me some more bread, will you, darling?’

  ‘The way they used the American flag,’ he continued, unruffled, drinking deep of his wine. ‘It was just like the way Mr Bliss and Mr Bare make use of the flag of the Hesperican empire. The director was very strong on satire.’

  ‘But the music –’ said Delorice, and then looked embarrassed. ‘I’m not an expert, right. But to me the music was all about love. Having it, then losing it. I mean she loses her husband, then her child …’ She fell silent; Davey guessed she was thinking about Leah.

  He rushed in to help out. ‘But she’s true to herself. She’s true to her love.’ He was thinking, that’s why Butterfly is wonderful. We all make shabby, temporary compromises. We are all Pinkertons, wracked with guilt. And Puccini’s music is all the things we long for: love, artistry, loyalty, eternity.

  ‘I wish she didn’t die,’ said Delorice. ‘Why do they always have to die?’

  The food had arrived, not exactly what they ordered, because of difficulties with supplies, but there was plenty of wine, and nobody minded.

  ‘No one ever dies,’ said Harold, suddenly, emptying another glass, and smiling, transformed from the usual shy, ironic Harold who let his wife take centre stage. ‘In my book, I say that no one ever dies. Good moments, like this one, go on for ever. It’s just that our bodies leave them behind. Our minds don’t have to. We can choose to be happy.’

  Lottie beamed upon him, proud but baffled. ‘That’s awfully clever, Harold. But is it true?’

  ‘In my book it is,’ he smiled back at her. ‘The eternal return, the eternal moment –’

  ‘Did you make that up?’ Lottie asked him, tenderly.

  ‘Not exactly. I wish I had.’

  ‘It’s true in art,’ said Delorice, suddenly. ‘Butterfly always lives again. Every night, she comes alive again. In a garden full of cherry-blossom.’

  ‘You mean, every time they perform the opera,’ Lottie said, thrilled to understand. ‘But I said the very same thing to Harold, just this evening, didn’t I, Harold? Tell them, will you?’ (He nodded, patient.) ‘I’d been looking at my wonderful Hopper, the one with the woman gazing out of her window, and I said to Harold, just like that, “Art will never die!” It’s astonishing.’ She beamed approval at Davey’s girlfriend: Lottie was a fan of positive thinking.

  ‘It’s the same in books, isn’t it?’ Delorice went on. ‘The characters in books don’t have to die. At least, not for ever. They’re always there.’

  ‘You ought to be a writer, like Harold,’ said Lottie. ‘I’ve rather forgotten what you do.’

  ‘I’m a publisher,’ said Delorice. ‘At Headstone Books.’

  ‘HAROLD!’ shrieked Lottie, leaning over the table and seizing his hand in hers. The fish on his fork fell off on the table, his favourite mouthful, saved till last. ‘That’s simply perfect. Did you hear that, darling? You could actually think about publishing your book. Delorice is a publisher!’

  ‘Lottie,’ said Harold, sterner than Davey could ever remember him being to Lottie, ‘leave the poor girl alone. I have already sent off my book to publishers.’ He had chosen six, at random, and tried to remember if Headstone was one of them.

  ‘Really, Harold?’ Lottie was astonished. ‘You sent it off, on your own? Without telling me? Harold you’re wonderful … did you, really?’

  ‘A toast to Harold’s book,’ said Davey, and the four of them, glowing with wine and laughter, their bloodstreams lavished with nourishment from fish and flesh and vine and vanilla, raised crystal glasses to the chandelier; the bubbles burst, softly, and kept on bursting; they wished for success, they wished for the future.

  At home, the front door banged on the night.

  Nine

  Moira knelt, by her dog, who twitched, and licked her, under the window of her attic room at the top of the student building she had moved to since she had been expelled by the City Institute. The hypocrites had told her they were not sacking her; they pretended they wanted her to get better, though Moira had never felt better or clearer. The pain of rejection had nearly killed her, but she knew it was all part of what was written; she must be cast out for her Master’s sake. She corrected herself – she was going astray; Father Bruno was not her Master, but he was so strong, so masterful.

  Moira had resigned from the wicked Institute, to show her colleagues they could not hurt her, or weaken her spirit, but they were cunning, and refused to accept it, saying they felt she needed time to consider. Now Moira had outwitted them; they kept paying money into her account, their dirty payments sneaking in like lizards, flickering up under her skirts like snakes, but she took the reptiles by their throats, turned them away from her, cast them out, gave all the money to
the One Way Mission.

  Now she was here. Now she was safe; she had humbled herself, she had left her house with its sinful weight of books and papers, its television, its tormenting music, Debussy and Ravel who seduced and sorcered, tempting her to think that life should be beautiful, tempting her to be broken-hearted. Now she was alone, unaccommodated, kneeling on the boards beside Fool, her dog, in the cold, in the dark, preparing for light, though part of her hoped day would never break, for the time drew nearer when God would dissolve the painful borders between day and night, when God would ease those exhausting crossings; the time drew near, and Moira was ready.

  This morning, for once, the house was quiet. The glass of the window, which whispered and chattered, had become silent now the rain had stopped. It was the third morning of perfect silence. She prayed, humbly, that now she might hear him, Jesus, the still small voice of calm, gentling the terror of her racing heart. Stroking the dog’s silk neck, she listened; then she pressed herself further down on the floor-boards, rasping her face against the hurtful grain; the Labrador cross watched her, trembling; Moira waited, trustful, but no voice came. She found she was shouting: ‘Master, come! Come, Master! Your servant is ready!’; she prayed for herself in the singular, for the others were surely not humble enough, they preened themselves, they boasted, like Kilda, they drew attention to their petty triumphs.

  ‘Come, Master! Master, come!’ Moira screamed, and beat her hands upon the floor-boards. Dark, so dark, and no sign of dawn. Hungry, helpless, she began to moan and thrust her body against the harsh planks, licking up dust, gnawing at splinters, catching the edge of her tooth on a nail, pressing her tongue on the sour stub of metal, knowing this suffering came from God, lifting it up to him with sore, scraped hands …

  Whining, crying, Fool ran to the door, and then Moira’s ears were blessed with thunder, a great roaring, a great shouting, and ‘Yes, Lord, yes,’ Moira called once more before the red dog’s whimpers destroyed her epiphany, keening and quivering as he pawed at the handle, and she realized someone human was out there.

  ‘Will you shut the fuck up?’ a male voice demanded.

  She was still lying there, twitching and whispering, her fingers bloodied, as the sun came up, prostrate, torn between hell and heaven.

  The sun came up; beauty, beauty.

  ‘The Gala,’ Davey heard, as he tuned his car radio, catching it, missing it, ‘the Gala … expectations … critics …’

  Davey was cruising back into the watery city as the sun’s first rays hit the tops of the Towers, having spent the night at the Observatory. He registered another cloudless sky. That he was driving into light, without the faint fretting of windscreen wipers in his vision. That the surface of the motorway was almost dry. And last night the dark had been teeming with stars.

  Perhaps it was over. Could it be over? Could they get on with their lives again?

  His mind was racing, though his body was chilled: sometimes he thought they were no longer connected. He needed to be in bed with Delorice. She put him back together again.

  And now his mother had fallen for her. The visit to the opera had been a success, as much of a success as it could possibly have been – except for the burglary, of course. Davey didn’t find out about it till next day.

  But his mother seemed curiously unfazed, this time. ‘Fortunately, darling, I had all my jewels on.’ Once again lots of Lola’s gadgets had gone, ‘but I can’t say I mind a bit about that, she’ll just have to learn to manage without them. She’s losing her allowance for the next ten years. Of course I’ll have to replace her television, and she can’t do homework without a mobile phone –’ The worst loss was Lottie’s favourite picture, the beautiful Hopper he had known since childhood. Even here she almost managed to be philosophical. ‘It’s not the value, Davey, as you know. I wasn’t ever going to sell it. The worst thing is, it might disappear completely. What if no one ever sees it again? What if whoever’s got it doesn’t even like it? It would be nice to think someone’s looking at it … Hmm. With luck God will strike them blind.’

  For Lottie, amazingly, the burglary was almost overshadowed by her revived enthusiasm for Delorice. ‘Did you notice, darling, she was just like me? We kept on having the same opinions. I suppose it’s natural, since you love your mother. Davey, Harold and I both think she’s a catch. Not all pallid and snooty like your last one, not anorexic, not a sneerer’ (Lottie had suspected Davey’s last girlfriend of laughing at her, not without reason). ‘You mustn’t let this one get away.’

  He smiled to himself. And Delorice liked Lottie. His life felt good, in the early morning sunshine. He cruised along thinking about his girlfriend: her finely cut, laughing, cushiony lips which opened, with love, like a sea-anemone, the way her fingers smoothed his back, the way she laughed at him, her truthfulness, the way she kept his feet on the ground. And Delorice did something in the world (although she always deprecated it). Unlike him, she had a proper job. It was one of the things that most impressed him.

  And now she wanted to edit Davey! The woman who’d edited Farhad Ahmad, the youngest-ever winner of the Iceland Prize! Davey’s agent was setting up a deal with Headstone for him to write a series of guided trips around the universe. The first idea Headstone came up with had made him shudder – Star-Lite Trips, ‘journeys round the universe done in the style of a “sixties acid trip”’ – but Delorice explained it had come from Marketing. ‘You do see, Delorice, this must be educational,’ he’d told her, ‘if you’re doing it for teenagers like my sister Lola. They know nothing – less than nothing.’ ‘Of course,’ said Delorice, though she looked a little anxious. ‘Don’t worry, Davey.’ He trusted her. They had settled on Star Trips, a more neutral name.

  On the radio now, a government spokesman was saying the worst of the floods was over. A full inquiry had been launched into apparent failures of emergency planning, with particular reference to the ‘alleged’ lack of pumps and boats around the Towers in the east. The government was ‘unable to substantiate’ rumours that sabotage had been involved. ‘Links to a foreign power’ should be ‘treated with caution’. (The government habitually denied its own rumours, so the item must be a government leak. The ‘foreign power’ would obviously be the one they were at war with.) But ‘the rioters’ voices would be fully heard’; the government was meeting their leaders today. ‘Full and constructive’ discussions were expected.

  There had been no rain now for forty-eight hours, the longest intermission for over two months. Government meteorological experts ‘confidently expected’ drier weather to continue. ‘The message is, we are on top of things.’ Long-term restoration works would soon be underway, and the clean-up campaign had already started. ‘It’s very good news,’ said a government spokesman. ‘Especially today, with the City Gala.’

  This Gala had been planned for a decade. It marked the twenty-fifth year since the city’s docks had been turned into a pleasure zone for international tourists (and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the dockers’ riots, in which ten people had been killed, though no one was keen to remember that). In the drubbing rain, rumours had redoubled that the government meant to call the Gala off: the rioters had demanded it, celebrities swore they would not attend, firemen and ambulancemen threatened a boycott, media pundits said it was tasteless with war boiling up in the lands around Loya, safety experts said it was pointless, the city was sinking into the flood.

  But underneath it all, the city had been hoping that the giant party would go on. They had been oppressed, by the rains, by the shortages, the winter that seemed to have eaten the spring. Almost no one had been going out, as the buses and subways grew erratic and lawless; a bus had been swept away down river, fifty-three passengers had been drowned, the taxi drivers were demanding double money … Now suddenly the worst was over, and at once, the city needed its Gala. The government would take charge of things. They were drafting an edict capping taxi rates, they were clearing debris from roads in the centre, they promised to la
y on ‘special river-buses’, ‘whatever it takes to get our people to their Gala’ – though most of ‘their people’ weren’t invited, of course.

  The Gala was of pressing concern to Davey, since he was one of its star presenters. The biggest event of a quarter century, televised all over the world. Lottie and Lola were fizzing with pride, and even Delorice got quite excited, Delorice whose head wasn’t easily turned and who was so rude about television. Delorice would be there, looking beautiful. Once his stint was over, they could dance all night, and then stay in bed and make love all morning, since the day after the Gala was a public holiday.

  Suddenly now he heard his own name, and flushed with pleasure – ‘Davey Lucas’ – instantly followed by a shiver of shame as the voice continued ‘the well-known astrologer’. He would be derided throughout the profession! But part of him knew he deserved to be. Part of him knew he was over-promoted, and some of the hype was his own fault. When TV had dubbed him ‘Mr Astronomy’, he’d asked them not to, but half-heartedly, and unsurprisingly, the name had stuck.

  He suspected that the savagery of the response from within the academic establishment on his ‘planetary lineup’ spectacular partly derived from spleen at his title. Professor Sharp, for example, had called him ‘a childishly unsophisticated thinker’, though most of the thinking hadn’t been Davey’s. Sharp was almost certainly jealous.

  And how could Davey help being flattered when Kylie Spheare, of Extreme Events, who was at every party, with her tiger-striped hair, called him and purred, into his surprised silence, ‘Davey Lucas, you’re the man we need. Frankly, at the moment, only you could do it. The kids love you, but you’re, like, an intellectual, so you’ll be able to remember all those foreign names. Bliss will be delighted to go on with you, it will help him, like, get cred with the youth –’