2. Merryn

Inf. 2.58 “O anima cortese mantoana”

Merryn: Sometimes the sun glints off the quartz in the rock upon which the city sits. It never glints gold but always a cool pearlish silver, soft grey rather than a yellow solar glow. Maybe it’s the time of day that I see it, always when I’m on my way out of the city early in the morning, driving fast along the bridge that connects the vast rock of the city to the rest of the world. Driving east, driving into the sun, catching the sparkle of my city in the rear view mirror.

I work at the sea. At the docks, I suppose they would have been, before all the industry finally went. In the early days of my work, when the dockside was a wall of container ships stacked three or four deep out into the sea, I would sit at the side and try to imagine what lay beyond the ships. I never saw the dockside empty. I was pretty then, they said, in all sorts of languages I didn’t understand, but I could see in their eyes what they meant, and I hoped that being pretty might prove some sort of solution to life, might reveal itself to be the place where happiness was to be found in life. But I would shake my hair and turn away. There were always more, always saying or doing the same thing. Sometimes they told me words that made them cry, and pointed out over the sea, pointing to where they had come from, where they would go back to.

Twenty years on and I’m still at the sea but I’ve lost my looks and every night I return alone to my flat stacked above and beside and under sixty two other flats. I know how those young men felt, stacked in their container ships four deep, ten long, numerous beyond counting, I know how insignificant they must have felt in relation to their gargantuan ship, and I regret that I shook my hair, I regret that I didn’t learn to say the names of their cities back to them.

1. Jordy

Inf.1. 58: “tal mi fece la bestia sanza pace”

Jordy: I just went down there to see what was going on. I wasn’t planning anything at all; I never do plan anything. There’s no point. Every day’s the same. They just roll on, as if we’re on some kind of giant industrial conveyor belt suspended in mid-air, the rollers grinding and shaking underneath so you’re constantly reminded how uncomfortable it is and how you’d much rather be someone else, but there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop it. You can’t get off.

So there was a mob meet at half ten at the carpet shop. Janine tried to follow me down the steps from the flat but I heard her, even though she was in her bare feet and she’s still only five stone or something, even though she’s meant to be better and she’s nearly fourteen now, God, how did that happen? I told her I’d blow her head off if she didn’t get back. I don’t want her getting involved in this sort of thing. I want it different for Janine.

I could hear stuff kicking off even before I got to the high road. There was shouting and bottles smashing but I thought it was weird there was no sirens. No police, that was fucking not right. No traffic either, like when you go out on Christmas Day and there’s no one else out, no cars, just miserable bastards and their dogs. I could smell smoke, weird rank smoke, not like a barbecue or the fires we’d light in the woods when we was younger. It felt edgy, the whole place, like there was something up, something everyone knew about but then didn’t, too, something everybody felt and had been feeling more and more, but something it was impossible to put into words, even to yourself. Like an earthquake rumbling away about to erupt. Like something massive was about to go off, but not just one person, not like an Anders Breivik or Raoul Moat, but like the whole fucking town was going to go. Like everyone, even the old dears, even the kids, even the pregnant women, were all just about to go off like a bomb, everyone. It really freaked me out.

I thought about just going back. That way I could make sure Janine was in and OK. It’s not like anyone else was going to, is it? Not sober, not straight anyway. Then I heard a massive shattering rattle behind me and I jumped nearly out of my skin but it was just a bloke, come running up behind me pushing a shopping trolley, empty, don’t know if he was scared or what but something about him suddenly gave me a bit of a hit. I started running after him.

Then just as I was following him across the road at the lights and turning into the high road, there was a massive explosion, a huge boof then a whole series of bangs, like skimming a stone across water, a fucking brilliant skim where it all comes together. A massive crowd of lads, all masked up so you couldn’t see who was who, all going mental, smashing windows, pushing through the glass, nicking everything they could lay their hands on. My heart was going mental; the rush was amazing. Stuff! Stuff everywhere! Stuff you could just take. Everyone just taking it. Taking it and shoving it in anywhere, anywhere they could, just stuffing themselves.