Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 101

I was up because I hadn't slept. I'd been out with Shaun to the cinema and after she went home I hadn't been able to stand the thought of doing the same. The little terraced house I shared with my father and half-sister and my half-sister's son seemed too much like a cage.

It was a little after four in the morning, and the sky was already streaked with peach and silver, the stars washed away by light. It was bright enough that I scuffled down the bluff without undue risk of killing myself. I turned to put the water on my right, the bluffs and the town on my left. Ahead, fingers of gray-and-black basalt, crusted with weeds and barnacles, broke up the stretches of fine sand. Low, slow breakers hissed across the surface of the softly rolling sea.

The tide ebbed as I walked east and then north along Balbriggan Strand. I wasn't dressed for the beach, and still wore last night's skirt and slippery shoes and no sunblock. But the skirt was loose enough that I could climb in it if I kept the hem up. And even a pale-skinned redhead like me wouldn't get sunburn in a half-hour at sunrise.

So I pulled my shoes off and hung them through my belt by the laces. They swung there, b.u.mping my thigh with every wet step through the streams that ran across the beach and down to the ocean.

I'd have to be careful of rocks and sh.e.l.ls, especially in the half-light of morning, especially in the rougher sections of rock and weed. The barnacles could slash your feet to ribbons.

But it wouldn't be so bad if I were careful. The sunlight was already starting to creep down the face of the bluff, casting a pall of crimson over its beige surface, s.h.a.ggy with vegetation. As long as I didn't look directly at the sun and dazzle myself, it was more than enough light by which to pick my way.

Seals played alongside the rock reefs, just dots wriggling through the water as I climbed. A gray heron flew low across the water, its slowly beating wings casting a writhing shadow as the sun peeked over the edge of the world. Out in the Irish Sea, a tall ship cruised under box sails-the ship still in shadow, the sails lit by the sun-and I changed my mind: I could imagine this was the nineteenth century, the age of exploration and sail, and that I was on my way to Dublin to meet the ship that would take me to America, to Asia, to the world.

By the harbor, the fishing boats awaited the tide, their masts bare and the rigging sagging. They went out and came back. With a fair wind, you might make Wales overnight-but none of them ever went that far.

They couldn't call to me as the kite-rigged cargo vessel did.

I can't stay here, I thought. I'll die if I stay here. Reflexively, I thought of calling Shaun-or at least of texting her. Just as reflexively, I stopped myself. I thought I already knew what she'd say. "Don't be ridiculous, Billie. We have each other here; isn't that enough?"

Shouldn't it be?

I turned my back on the ship and the sea and scrambled up the bluff for a better look-eventually. It wasn't until I reached the top that I realized I was crying.

There are no rocks on the top of the bluff so I sat down in the gra.s.ses, careful to avoid any nettles, my back to the land and my face to the sea. The sun stung my eyes, though I turned my head at an angle. Across the water lay England-London-and beyond that the continent. Freedom.

The ship I watched sailed south, toward Dublin, and I wondered what cargo it carried precious enough to be worth the long sea journey. I knew from history that, once upon a time, great cargo vessels-even aircraft!-had burned fossil fuels bringing exotic fruit, liquor, toys, from all the world over. In those days it was actually less expensive to make a thing in a foreign land and ship it than it was to live on what could be had locally. "Cheap foreign goods" was a concept I could only just begin to understand-anything that came from far away was luxurious and precious, and not for the likes of me. Not now, likely never.

But it wasn't luxury that drew me to the idea of travel. It was ...

. . . freedom.

I had finished my mandated schooling the previous month. There was no chance of University with my background and apt.i.tudes, not unless I'd managed much better marks, and no chance of Employment without University. I already knew how I'd spend my life: here in Balbriggan, making do with whatever subsistence payments and goods allotted me. They'd be adequate to keep me alive and housed-but not much more than that. And almost n.o.body could afford travel.

The world needed far fewer workers than it had people. And with economies of scarcity a thing of the past since the Green Sustainability Bills pa.s.sed in the mid-twenty-first, there was nothing much for those surplus people to do.

And I was one of them.

So was my dad, and so was my sister.

And so was Shaun Mellor. That, at least, had always been comforting. She was as trapped here as I was, even if it chafed her less. We had each other. Always had, always would.

We planned to live together when we turned eighteen and could find housing. If we applied for subsistence as a childless gay couple, we'd get a little bit of additional support-as long as we stayed that way. Not reproducing. Not making more useless mouths to feed.

It was a natural thing, Shaun and me. We'd grown up together in the village-not best friends, but aware of each other-and started being girlfriends at fifteen. She had olive skin and straight dark hair that blew in the wind, and her eyes were so brown you could only see the detail in them when the sun shone across them.

n.o.body had ever understood me better. n.o.body had ever loved me more. Our families both a.s.sumed that we'd settle in together and so did we.

I'd never thought I was going to be the girl who broke Shaun Mellor's heart. But as I watched that ship sail into the sunrise, I knew that was what was going to happen.

Because I was leaving Balbriggan. Leaving her. Some way. Somehow. I'd go to Dublin. My ancestors might have gone to London to seek their fortune-but sailors had to come from somewhere, didn't they? I didn't imagine they'd be University types. And surely, no matter how automated modern shipping was, you needed somebody on board to trim the sails and helm the thing if something went wrong ...

I reached with one hand to tap my Omni back on. The contact lens for the interface dried my eye, but everybody a.s.sured me it would get less annoying with time. I was still looking out through clouds of protein buildup from crying, however.

Just as I thumbed it on, though, I heard Shaun's voice behind me.

"Billie?"

I'd turned off my Omni and she'd tried to text from bed, of course. She'd gotten worried and come to find me, and she'd known exactly where to look. That was how well we knew each other.

And it wasn't as if Balbriggan were a big place, after all.

She said, "Are you okay?"

It was my moment of supreme cowardice. "Fine, love," I said, holding up an arm so she could sit down inside its bend. "Just thinking of you."

She snugged herself into my side and kissed me, long strands of dark hair curving her cheek.

I was the worst person alive.

My dad was up by the time I came home. He always made a virtue of punctuality and keeping to a schedule, just as if he were Employed. He said it helped lend purpose to the day, and when I compared him to the rest of my friends' moms and dads, spending all day down at the pub or sleeping until afternoon, I thought he had it right.

The clouds had rolled in, tall and tattered, and the wind smelled like coming rain. I watched it twist the leaves of the willow in the front garden as Dad came down the steps to meet me.

"Shaun was looking for you," he said.

"She found me," I said, and kissed him on the cheek. He'd been taking out the composting. I lifted the bag from his hand and carried it over to the bin in the garden corner.

"She's worried about you," he said. "So'm I."

It stopped me, one hand on the composter's solar lid. The lazy whirr of windmills along the terrace filled my hearing. A white-waist-coated magpie hopped up, eyeing the multi-colored kitchen waste inquisitively. I shut the bin in its face.

"There's no call to be worried," I said. "You should right-mind it out."

He sighed. I knew perfectly well that he didn't need re medial rightminding. Dad was one of the most stable people I'd ever met, and he was rigorous about keeping up with his emotional controls. They really worked best after twenty or so-I'd been told often enough that the erratic shifts of adolescent hormones were hard to balance out, no matter what surgery, cognitive measures, or chemical supports were used.

Maybe, I thought, when the rightminding kicked in properly I'd be able to let go of my dream of going to sea.

Except I'd already decided that wasn't going to be what happened. I supposed I had the rightminding, to the extent that it was working, to thank for the fact that I could have a conversation with with him rationally. We were taught in school that young adults were once notorious for their emotional lability.

"Now, Billie," he said. "You know I just want to see you contented. Not-"

"Not like Mam?" I asked.

His face paled.

Now that was cruel, I thought. Maybe my rightminding wasn't so good after all.

But he saw through the cruelty, I guess, to my hurt. "You're not your mam, Bill," he said. "I've never thought so. You wouldn't run out on people who love you."

He said it with kindness. He reached out to touch my arm.

Shame filled me up until I wanted to vomit it out. Wasn't that exactly what I was thinking of doing?

I went upstairs to bed-my half-sister Katy was just getting up, so I didn't have to share the room with her and her fretting infant-and slept for six hours, which still had me up by noon. When I came down again, Dad and Katy were both out. I thought Dad might be at his painting cla.s.s (he's terrible) and I seemed to remember that Katy's son David had an early rightminding appraisal (he's two). I thought about using some of the water ration to shower and decided to get some work done in the back garden instead. I sat in the parlor and ate two pieces of toast with b.u.t.ter while I was considering the ch.o.r.es and staring at the dusty guitar hung over the old fireplace.

We had a typical Irish terraced house with a typical Irish garden, which was about six meters by five and bounded by gray stone walls too high to see over. There were roses in two corners, scarlet runner beans planted where they'd climb the through the rose branches and up the walls. We had courgettes, culinary herbs, sunflowers for the oil. Two brown hens scratched around the margins. When I went into the garden I first took a few moments to search for their warm brown eggs.

Our house had been built before Greening, but the roof had been retrofitted with a green frame that grew herbs and sweet potatoes and tomatoes and lettuces. We had an apple tree and a solar water reclamation system. The house was well-insulated and snug.

We had everything we needed right here. And what we didn't have we could buy from the shops in the town. Any reasonable, rightminded person would be perfectly happy here.

Except what we didn't have was any purpose beyond subsisting.

The stepladder was in the community shed-none of our neighbors were using it this early, and n.o.body was signed up to use it until five. Having decided I would work on the roof garden, I pulled out the ladder, rolled it home on its wheeled side, braced its foot pads, and clambered up. The overlay from my Omni helped me identify and pull weeds while avoiding the seedlings of desirable plants. The pink and white valerian would take over everything if you let it. It was pretty, but as far as I was concerned it smelled like a cat. It could stay in the c.h.i.n.ks of the stone walls, where it belonged.

As I worked, I tried to calm my mind-but I couldn't help it. Over and over, I wondered again why Mam had left.

Dad's first wife, Katy's mother, had died of a cancer the health service hadn't been able to do anything for. After a while, he met and married my mam but she didn't stick around past my fifth birthday, and she'd never told us where she was going or sent word back that she was a alive.

For a long time, n.o.body and no amount of rightminding could convince me it wasn't my fault she'd gone. After a while, I'd started to accept it had been something inside her that had driven her away. The realization had come about the same time that same something had begun to rear itself in my own head.

I patted the last marigolds in among the tomatoes-organic pest control-and made my way back down the ladder. I folded it up and took it back to the community shed.

Because I'd been thinking so much about the past, about escaping to it, I imagined what it would be like if we had our own ladder. Not to have to work around everyone else in the community or sign up months in advance to work on the roof.

I imagined every house on my street with its own step-ladder. Its own lawnmower. Its own hedge clippers.

It was a little dizzying. So much stuff. Where would you keep it all?

Wasteful. Like the airplanes and the food from far away and the internal combustion engines that used to race around the streets. You could see it all in old movies, which people used to buy on disks made of polymer, in boxes made of polymer, and just pile up on shelves.

It's better to keep everything in the cloud. I know it is. It's better to use only what you need, when you most need it, then put it back where everybody else can use it too.

But is it really better to spend your whole life in comfortable purposelessness? All those people in those old movies, zipping around in their ocean-raising cars and their storm-causing airplanes.

They're not like me. They all look as if they're going somewhere.

I went inside to shower, thinking I'd earned the use of a water ration now. Besides, if it rained again this afternoon, it'd help fill the roof tank. We'd be in pretty good shape still.

And I couldn't stand the feeling of dirt and grease in my hair.

Showers are a good place for making life-changing decisions. The hot water seems to unstick the brain cells and if you cry, n.o.body can tell. Not even you, really. I probably pushed my water ration a little, but I'd make up for it by not being here later.

When I was clean, I made myself a cup of tea-worth importing, even in these times-and skinned out all distractions except the obligatory emergency channel before settling down with my interface to do some serious research.

Career inquiry, I entered into my Omni. How does one become a long-distance sailor?

Fifteen minutes later, I knew. There was a school for it-but at least according to the cloud, most people learned to sail by simply sailing. Finding a captain who would take them on as unskilled labor and teach them the ropes-quite literally.

I also knew that it didn't pay significantly better than staying on the dole. And that it was considerably more dangerous.

And that I wanted it more than anything in the world.

I closed up all the research windows floating in my peripheral vision, skinned back into reality and made myself another cup of tea-chamomile, this time, locally grown-while I figured out the letter I was going to send to Shaun. My dad and Katy were easier: I just told them over the dinner table.

"I'll write," I said. "I'll telepresence. I'll AR you. You'll hardly know I'm gone."

Dad stood up to take my plate. "Who'll do the washing up, then?" he asked, but I knew that was his way of saying he would miss me.

"I'll do it," Katy said. "At least there'll be one less plate."

The sun didn't set that night until almost ten.

I used the daylight packing. Summers were better than winters-in summer, you never got enough sleep, but in winter it was always going to bed early so you didn't outrun your electricity allotment. Katy was downstairs with David, letting him nap in the shady part of the garden. I imagined they were both skinning out my sounds, not wanting to be reminded.

While I was staring at jumpers spread out on my bed, I heard Dad's step upon the stair.

He paused in the open door to my room. I didn't turn at first, but caught his eyes in the mirror, looking at me. I had his coloring, the same red hair and freckles, though his had gone sandy with the years, but my cheekbones and pointed chin were all Mam's.

He didn't say anything, just stared at me with love and sorrow. I held his gaze in the mirror until I couldn't stand to anymore, and looked down.

I wondered if he also saw Mam in my face just now, or now more than ever.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I said.

He had two gla.s.ses of wine that had come by tallship from France. He saved it for special occasions. He handed me one, then went to the bed and pushed one of the jumpers aside to make an edge to sit on. He looked up at me and pursed his lips, and the seriousness and hush in his voice made me strain to hear.

"Don't ever tell Katy this," he said. "But when I was your age, I wanted to go to Dublin and be a musician."

I thought of the dusty guitar in the living room. I knew he could play it, so I must have seen him play, but I couldn't summon up a memory of him with the thing in his hands. Certainly, I'd always wondered why we had one when n.o.body in the house used it much-a wasted resource, just warehoused like that.

Now I knew.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be," he said. "I made another choice, and I got you and Katy and David."

I nodded, too tight up for words. Was this what grown-up choices were like, then? This hollow feeling that nothing I could do would be right?