Fire Watch Part 7

"And you'll never guess what else," the other said, tumbling his words out. "After you said we shouldn't look in here, we went down to the sanctuary, only it was too dark to see properly. So then we went into where we all have tea and there were no good hiding places at all, so we said to ourselves where would a cup logically be and the answer of course was in the kitchen." He stopped to take a breath. "We pulled everything out of the cupboard, but it was just pots."

"And an iron skillet," Finney said.

"So we were putting them all back when we saw something else, a big old metal sort of thing rather like a cup, and your cup was inside it!" He handed the china cup triumphantly to Finney.

"Where is it?" Mrs. Andover said, as if it were an effort to speak. "This big old metal cup?"

"In the kitchen. We'll fetch it if you like."

"Please do."

The boys dashed out. Finney turned to look at her. "It wasn't there. Megan and I looked. You know what it is, don't you?" Finney said, his heart beating sickeningly fast. It was the way he had felt before he lost his foot, when he saw the ax coming down.

"Yes," she said.

"It's what you've been waiting for," he said accusingly. "It's the proof you said you wanted."

"Yes," she said, her lip trembling. "Only I didn't know what it would mean."

The boys were already racketing up the stairs. They burst in the door with it. For one awful endless moment, the steel blade falling against the sound of his own heart, louder than the drone of scripture, Finney prayed that it was an old metal cup.

The boys set it on the desk. It was badly dented from endless hidings and secretings and journeys. Tarnished like an old spoon. It shone like the cup of the sky.

"Is it a treasure?" the boy who had stolen Finney's cup said, looking at their faces. "Do we get the fifty pence?"

"It is the Holy Grail," Mrs. Andover said, putting her hands on it like a benediction.

"I thought it was lost forever."

"It was," she said. "I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.'"

Finney rubbed the back of his hand across his dry mouth. "I think we'd better get the children inside," he said.

He sent the boys downstairs to put the kettle on for tea. Mrs. Andover stood by the desk, holding onto the Grail as if she were afraid of what would happen if she let go.

"It isn't so bad once it's over," Finney said kindly. "What you think is the end isn't always, and it turns out better than you dreamed."

She set the Grail down gently and turned to him.

"It is only the last moment before the blade falls that is hard to bear," he said.

"I have never told you," Mrs. Andover said, her eyes filling with tears, "how sorry I am about your foot." She fumbled for a handkerchief.

"It doesn't matter," Finney said. "At any rate, the way things seem to be going, it might just turn up."

She smiled at that, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief, but when they went down the stairs, she clung to Finney's arm as if she were the one who was lame. Finney sent her into the kitchen to set out the tea things and then went down to the edge of the End to bring the children in.

"Is Daddy here?" Megan said, dancing along beside him with one hand on her crown to keep it from falling off. "Is that why we're having tea again?"

"No," Finney said. "But he's coming. He'll be here soon."

"Surely I come quickly," Megan said, and ran inside.

Finney looked at the sky. Above the church the clouds peeled back from the blue like the edges of a scroll. Finney shut and barred the double doors to the sanctuary. He bolted the side door on the stairs and wedged a folding chair under the lock. Then he went into tea.

When she was forty years old, Elizabeth Barrett sneaked out of her house on Wimpole Street to elope with Robert Browning. It was an astonishing thing for a Victorian woman to do, especially someone who had been an invalid for most of her life. The story has been so romanticized that it is easy to forget that she was running from as well as to something.She referred to her life with her father, a possessive and autocratic man who would allow none of his children to marry, as "my peculiar situation," and tried to make it sound amusing. Browning, frantic to get her away from the man who encouraged his daughter's invalidism, called it slavery and wrote her angrily, "I think I understand what a father may expect, and a child should comply with."When Edward Moulton Barrett found out what his daughter had done, he ruthlessly tried to destroy every trace of her, including her precious c.o.c.ker spaniel, Flush. He didn't succeed. She had taken Flush with her. But she had left her sisters Arabel and Henrietta behind.

All My Darling Daughters

BARRETT: I'll have her dog ... Octavius. I'll have her dog ... Octavius.OCTAVIUS: Sir?BARRETT: Her dog must be destroyed. At once. Her dog must be destroyed. At once.OCTAVIUS: I really d-don't see what the p-poor little beast has d-done to ...-The Barretts of Wimpole Street The first thing my new roommate did was tell me her life story. Then she tossed up all over my bunk. Welcome to h.e.l.l. I know, I know. It was my own f.u.c.ked fault that I was stuck with the stupid little scut in the first place. Daddy's darling had let her grades slip till she was back in the freshman dorm and she would stay there until the admin reported she was being a good little girl again. But he didn't have to put me in the charity ward, with all the little scholarship freshmen from the front colonies-frightened virgies one and all. The richies had usually had their share of jig-jig in boarding school, even if they were mostly edge. And they were willing to learn.

Not this one. She wouldn't know a bone from a vaj, and wouldn't know what went into which either. Ugly, too. Her hair was chopped off in an old-fashioned bob I thought n.o.body not even front kids, wore anymore. Her name was Zibet and she was from some G.o.dspit colony called Marylebone Weep and her mother was dead and she had three sisters and her father hadn't wanted her to come. She told me all this in a rush of what she probably thought was friendliness before she tossed her supper all over me and my nice new slickspin sheets.

The sheets were the sum total of good things about the vacation Daddy Dear had sent me on over summer break. Being stranded in a forest of slimy slicksa trees and n.o.ble natives was supposed to build my character and teach me the hazards of bad grades. But the n.o.ble natives were good at more than weaving their precious product with its near frictionless surface. Jig-jig on slickspin is something entirely different, and I was close to being an expert on the subject. I'd bet even Brown didn't know about this one. I'd be more than glad to teach him.

"I'm so sorry," sorry," she kept saying in a kind of hiccup while her face turned red and then white and then red again like a f.u.c.ked alert bell, and big tears seeped down her face and dripped on the mess. "I guess I got a little sick on the shuttle." she kept saying in a kind of hiccup while her face turned red and then white and then red again like a f.u.c.ked alert bell, and big tears seeped down her face and dripped on the mess. "I guess I got a little sick on the shuttle."

"I guess. Don't bawl, for jig's sake, it's no big deal. Don't they have laundries in Mary Boning It?"

"Marylebone Weep. It's a natural spring."

"So are you, kid. So are you." I scooped up the wad, with the muck inside. "No big deal. The dorm mother will take care of it."

She was in no shape to take the sheets down herself, and I figured Mumsy would take one look at those big fat tears and a.s.sign me a new roommate. This one was not exactly perfect. I could see right now I couldn't expect her to do her homework and not bawl giant tears while Brown and I jig-jigged on the new sheets. But she didn't have leprosy, she didn't weigh eight hundred pounds, and she hadn't gone for my vaj when I bent over to pick up the sheets. I could do a lot worse.

I could also be doing some better. Seeing Mumsy on my first day back was not my idea of a good start. But I trotted downstairs with the scutty wad and knocked on the dorm mother's door.

She is no dumb lady. You have to stand in a little box of an entryway waiting for her to answer your knock. The box works on the same principle as a rat cage, except that she's added her own little touch. Three big mirrors that probably cost her a year's salary to cart up from earth. Never mind-as a weapon, they were a real bargain. Because, Jesus jiggin' Mary, you stand there and sweat and the mirrors tell you your skirt isn't straight and your hair looks scutty and that bead of sweat on your upper lip is going to give it away immediately that you are scared scutless. By the time she answers the door-five minutes if she's feeling kindly-you're either edge or you're not there. No dumb lady.

I was not on the defensive, and my skirts are never straight, so the mirrors didn't have any effect on me, but the five minutes took their toll. That box didn't have any ventilation and I was way too close to those sheets. But I had my speech all ready. No need to remind her who I was. The admin had probably filled her in but good. And I'd get nowhere telling her they were my sheets. Let her think they were the virgies.

When she opened the door I gave her a brilliant smile and said, "My roommate's had a little problem. She's a new freshman, and I think she got a little excited coming up on the shuttle and-"

I expected her to launch into the "supplies are precious, everything must be recycled, cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness" speech you get for everything you do on this G.o.dspit campus. Instead she said, "What did you do to her?"

"What did I-look, she's the one who tossed up. What do you think I did, stuck my fingers down her throat?"

"Did you give her something? Samurai? Float? Alcohol?"

"Jiggin' Jesus, she just got here. She walked in, she said she was from Mary's p.r.i.c.k or something, she tossed up."

"And?"

"And what? I may look depraved, but I don't think freshmen vomit at the sight of me."

From her expression, I figured Mumsy might. I stuck the smelly wad of sheets at her. "Look," I said, "I don't care what you do. It's not my problem. The kid needs clean sheets."

Her expression for the mucky mess was kinder than the one she had for me. "Recycling is not until Wednesday. She will have to sleep on her mattress until then."

Mary Masting, she could knit a sheet by Wednesday, especially with all the cotton flying around this f.u.c.ked campus. I grabbed the sheets back.

"Jig you, scut," I said.

I got two months' dorm restricks and a date with the admin.

I went down to third level and did the sheets myself. It cost a fortune. They want you to have an awareness awareness of the harm you are doing the delicate environment by failing to abide, etc. Total scut. The environment's about as delicate as a senior's vaj. When Old Man Moulton bought this third hand h.e.l.l-Five, he had some edge dream of turning it into the college he went to as a boy. Whatever possessed him to even buy the old castoff is something n.o.body's ever figured out. There must have been a Lagrangian point on the top of his head. of the harm you are doing the delicate environment by failing to abide, etc. Total scut. The environment's about as delicate as a senior's vaj. When Old Man Moulton bought this third hand h.e.l.l-Five, he had some edge dream of turning it into the college he went to as a boy. Whatever possessed him to even buy the old castoff is something n.o.body's ever figured out. There must have been a Lagrangian point on the top of his head.

The realtor must have talked hard and fast to make him think h.e.l.l could ever look like Ames, Iowa. At least there'd been some technical advances since it was first built or we'd all be floating floating around the G.o.dspit place. But he couldn't stop at simply gravitizing the place, fixing the plumbing, and hiring a few good teachers. Oh, no, he had to build a sandstone campus, put in a football field, and plant around the G.o.dspit place. But he couldn't stop at simply gravitizing the place, fixing the plumbing, and hiring a few good teachers. Oh, no, he had to build a sandstone campus, put in a football field, and plant trees! trees! This all cost a fortune, of course, which put it out of the reach of everybody but richies and trust kids, except for Moulton's charity scholarship cases. But you couldn't jig-jig in a plastic bag to fulfill your fatherly instincts back then, so Moulton had to build himself a college. And here we sit, stuck out in s.p.a.ce with a bunch of f.u.c.ked cottonwood trees that are trying to take over. This all cost a fortune, of course, which put it out of the reach of everybody but richies and trust kids, except for Moulton's charity scholarship cases. But you couldn't jig-jig in a plastic bag to fulfill your fatherly instincts back then, so Moulton had to build himself a college. And here we sit, stuck out in s.p.a.ce with a bunch of f.u.c.ked cottonwood trees that are trying to take over.

Jesus Bonin' Mary; cottonwoods! I mean, so what if we're a hundred years out of date. I can take the freshman beanies and the pep rallies. Dorm curfews didn't stop anybody a hundred years ago either. And face it, pleated skirts and cardigans make for easy access. But those G.o.dspit trees!

At first they tried the nature-dupe stuff. Freeze your vaj in winter, suffocate in summer, just like good old Iowa. The trees were at least bearable then. Everybody choked in cotton for a month, they baled the stuff up like Mississippi slaves and shipped it down to earth and that was it. But finally something was too expensive even for Daddy Moulton and we went on even-clime like all the other h.e.l.l-Fives. n.o.body bothered to tell the trees, of course, so now they just spit and drop leaves whenever they feel like it, which is all the time. You can hardly make it to cla.s.s without choking to death.

The trees do their dirty work down under, too, rooting happily away through the plumbing and the buried cables so that nothing works. Ever. I think the whole outer sh.e.l.l could blow away and n.o.body would ever know. The f.u.c.ked root system would hold us together. And the admin wonders why we call it h.e.l.l. I'd like to upset this delicate balance once and for all.

I ran the sheets through on disinfect and put them in the spin. While I was sitting there, thinking evil thoughts about freshmen and figuring how to get off restricks, Arabel came wandering in.

"Tavvy, hi! When did you get back?" She is always too sweet for words. We played lezzies as freshmen, and sometimes I think she's sorry it's over. "There's a great party," she said.

"I'm on restricks," I said. Arabel's not the world's greatest authority on parties. I mean, herself and a plastic bone would be a great party. "Where is it?"

"My room. Brown's there," she said languidly. This was calculated to make me rush out of my pants and up the stairs, no doubt. I watched my sheets spin.

"So what are you doing down here?" I said.

"I came down for some float. Our machine's out. Why don't you come on over? Restricks never stopped you before."

"I've been to your parties, Arabel. Washing my sheets might be more exciting."

"You're right," she said, "it might." She fiddled with the machine. This was not like her at all.

"What's up?"

"Nothing's up." She sounded puzzled. "It's samurai-party time without the samurai. Not a bone in sight and no hope of any. That's why I came down here."

"Brown, too?" I asked. He was into a lot of edge stuff, but I couldn't quite imagine celibacy.

"Brown, too. They all just sit there."

"They're on something, then. Something new they brought back from vacation." I couldn't see what she was so upset about.

"No," she said. "They're not on anything. This is different. Come see. Please."

Well, maybe this was all a trick to get me to one of Arabel's scutty parties and maybe not. But I didn't want Mumsy to think she'd hurt my feelings by putting me on restricks. I threw the lock on the spin so n.o.body'd steal the sheets and went with her.

For once Arabel hadn't exaggerated. It was a G.o.dspit party, even by her low standards. You could tell that the minute you walked in. The girls looked unhappy the boys looked uninterested. It couldn't be all bad, though. At least Brown was back. I walked over to where he was standing.

"Tavvy," he said, smiling, "how was your summer? Learn anything new from the natives?"

"More than my f.u.c.ked father intended." I smiled back at him.

"I'm sure he had your best interests at heart," he said. I started to say something clever to that, then realized he wasn't kidding. Brown was trust just like I was. He had to be kidding. Only he wasn't. He wasn't smiling anymore either.

"He just wanted to protect you, for your own good."

Jiggin' Jesus, he had to be on something. "I don't need any protecting," I said. "As you well know."

"Yeah," he said, sounding disappointed. "Yeah." He moved away.

What in the scut was going on? Brown leaned against the wall, watching Sept and Arabel. She had her sweater off and was shimmying out of her skirt, which I have seen before, sometimes even helped with. What I had never seen before was the look of absolute desperation on her face. Something was very wrong. Sept stripped, and his bone was as big as Arabel could have wanted, but the look on her face didn't change. Sept shook his head almost disapprovingly at Brown and went down on Arabel.

"I haven't had any straight-up all summer," Brown said from behind me, his hand on my vaj. "Let's get out of here."

Gladly. "We can't go to my room," I said. "I've got a virgie for a roommate. How about yours?"

"No!" he said, and then more quietly, "I've got the same problem. New guy. Just off the shuttle. I want to break him in gently."

You're lying, Brown, I thought. And you're about to back out of this, too. "I know a place," I said, and practically raced him to the laundry room so he wouldn't have time to change his mind.

I spread one of the dried slickspin sheets on the floor and went down as fast as I could get out of my clothes. Brown was in no hurry, and the frictionless sheet seemed to relax him. He smoothed his hands the full length of my body, "Tavvy," he said, brushing his lips along the line from my hips to my neck, "your skin's so soft. I'd almost forgotten." He was talking to himself.

Forgotten what, for f.u.c.ked's sake, he couldn't have been without any jig-jig all summer or he'd be showing it now, and he acted like he had all the time in the world.

"Almost forgotten ... nothing like ..."

Like what? I thought furiously. Just what have you got in that room? And what has it got that I haven't. I spread my legs and forced him down between them. He raised his head a little, frowning, then he started that long, slow, torturing pa.s.sage down my skin again. Jiggin' Jesus, how long did he think I could wait?

"Come on," I whispered, trying to maneuver him with my hips. "Put it in, Brown. I want to jig-jig. Please."

He stood up in a motion so abrupt that my head smacked against the laundry-room floor. He pulled on his clothes, looking ... what? Guilty? Angry?

I sat up. "What in the holy scut do you think you're doing?"

"You wouldn't understand. I just keep thinking about your father."

"My father? What in the scut are you talking about?" What in the scut are you talking about?"

"Look, I can't explain it. I just can't ..." And left. Like that. With me ready to go off any minute and what do I get? A cracked head.

"I don't have a father, you scutty G.o.df.u.c.ker!' I shouted after him.

I yanked my clothes on and started pulling the other sheet out of the spin with a viciousness I would have liked to have spent on Brown. Arabel was back, watching from the laundry-room door. Her face still had that strained look.