Cruel Pink by Tanith Lee (uplifting book club books TXT) 📕

who knows? But then, he who can wholly fathom the mind of a woman no doubt is a very great master of wisdom, which I, alas, am not.

No fire on the hearth on returning, though I had paid for such. I will speak to the landlady, if ever I am able to catch her. She is elusive as the unicorn. Though less lovely.

Blow out the candle then, Irvin, and lie down in the icy bed. May God forgive London. I do not.

Klova:

31

He didn’t come back. Coal, I mean.

Who else would I mean?

Like truly I hadn’t expected him to. And I would get used to it, that he never would.

But I didn’t.

There were also no new shots, and now the bank-nanny had paid the quarter for the flat and the gadgets that heat and light and clean it—including the extra polish to the tiles—I was down to one hundred and twenty. I messaged the nanny and asked if I could have a loan of three hundred, and later it messaged me and said No. Instead I could have an overdebt of one hundred and fifty, at an interest rate of like something I might not be able to repay unless someone wired in three thousand shots pretty fast, and then even a thousand shots might end up paying off the debt-interest. So I said No as well. Then I went to bed at Zone 20, like some kiddy.

I can remember that at the Child Centre. How they shoved you off to the dormitory so early. And I used to cry, but silent, so the bullies didn’t hear.

I never knew my parents, not even my mother.

On my birth-registration she is called CP.

That’s like the letters on the lipstick, now I remem it.

C.P.

Only there are like as the other smaller letters too. On the lipstick.

32

Next morning I got up and I had an idea.

I’d dreamed of Coal, and he said in the dream, “Where are you?” And I thought then he meant he would like to see me, but he wouldn’t be the first one to move. After all, I’d told him to go. I still didn’t know really why I had. It was because of him going on about the rat smell. Stupid.

But I didn’t of course have his Mee number. I decided though if I went to the Leaning Tower that night he would be there again, and perhaps it would be fine.

I put on the black and gold and red and all of that, even though I’d worn it there before. It wasn’t anyway worn when I saw him first. I put sparkles in my hair, which is black at that time.

When I left the flat-house I for some reason rem’d the peculio male and the girl who asked me about their lost male called Sigh. No one was in the street. No visible home lights anywhere. And the lights weren’t on in the Forest and the float-lamps had gone all bunched up about five buildings along and were useless, and blinding when you got under them.

I caught the sprint.

It was only when I was on it I thought; there was no bad smell in the hall tonight. I was really sure this time there hadn’t been. Perhaps I could ask him back.

When I got into the Tower I went along through all the rooms, slowly, each by each. I only bought one liquid-silver. It would have to last. I couldn’t afford another. I couldn’t really afford one.

I didn’t see him, though. I didn’t, anywhere…

And then I went up on the roof-walk under the spire with the blue-mauve-rose-jade pulse beam. And I tried not to cry. I was early at the Tower, it wasn’t yet 48. So maybe he came later, the way generally I did.

I went down and into the loud room and danced with myself a while. There were lots of girls and some males, all dancing with themselves, but none of the males was Coal.

I had the lipstick on.

I wondered, as he said his name was Coal, if his registered name began with P.

At Zone 48 he came into the room, and tonight his hair flamed dark red like the chrysanthemums, and his eyes were red too, like garnets in his dark beautiful face.

He was with a girl.

They danced together.

I went to the side and sat on one of the thin stools, and finally his eyes passed over me. I thought he would just cut me out. But he stopped dancing and spoke to the girl. Her face was blank but it went blanker, and he crossed the floor and stood beside me.

“How are you, Klova?”

“I’m OK. How are you, Coal?”

“I’m here,” he said.

“So am I,” I said.

He leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. I was so moved I couldn’t do anything. He said, “What do you want to do?”

“Whatever you do,” I said but he couldn’t hear me.

I said, “What about her?”

He heard that.

“She’s fine,” he said. And I looked and she was already dancing with two other males.

“She’s just a friend. She’s meeting someone. I knew you’d be here,” he said softly, and his voice played under the music and I heard every word. “I knew you’d come here. I sent you a message.”

“To my Mee?”

“No. Just to your mind. Your heart. And I knew you would hear it and you would be here.”

He put his arms round me and slid me off the stool and we went into a bar and he bought me another liquid-silver, but he drank fire-cracker.

Then he said how about going to a room. And I said, “Let’s go back to my flat.”

And he just nodded. No mention of anything not good. He smiled at me. He said, “Shall we have another drink?” And I saw I’d drunk all my second drink in about five minutes, but I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t afford to stay in the Tower much longer. I only paid up to Zone 50.”