Force Majeure by Daniel O'Mahoney Read Free Book Online

letters.’
    Azure lounged on her bed, watched Kay write and made no move to dress. (‘I’m on strike,’ she said boldly, ‘till they bring me Esteban’s dick on a toasting fork. They agree it’s a fair demand.’) Kay in turn felt none of her usual anxiety at being watched at work. The first letter, written in a cramped, professional hand, was to her contact in Buenos Aires, apprising him of the situation. The second, looser, was to Her Better Half, promising to stay in touch as best she could. There were no envelopes, so she folded the finished sheets into oblongs and sealed them with dripped candle wax.
    ‘I’ll make sure they’re passed on to someone reliable,’ Azure promised, and placed them in folds of her carapace-coat, which hung on the back of her door. She clasped Kay’s hand. ‘Good luck,’ she said.
    Don’t trust to luck. Luck is the last resort. Luck teeters on the edge of the abyss.
    Presently Kay was led through grey corridors to a wardrobe where she exchanged her top and shorts for the house’s domestic uniform, a mauve tabard and belt worn over a black vest and leggings. Her supervisor, an elderly Buddha who spoke no English, pulled her hair back with a metal band that clamped like a vice onto her skull. She felt branded. In an anteroom beyond the wardrobe, other women of various ages sat and smoked and chattered and gambled, all dressed in the same plain, crumpled tabards like debauched page boys. No heads turned as Kay entered; her presence was accepted, unremarkable. The chatter was not English and she didn’t attempt to strike up conversation.
    Bells like distant angel chimes tinkled behind her; she turned and saw Quint beckoning from a doorway. It was the tug of an invisible leash, and Kay found herself trotting reluctantly into the corridors. Her new underclothes rubbed coarsely against the soft flesh on the back of her legs and around her shoulders. She wouldn’t scratch. She wouldn’t let it distract her.
    ‘What’s this place about?’ she called. ‘What’s the big mystery?’
    Quint span on her heels and blocked the narrow passageway. ‘Luna is an Appeared, like you, but I was born here. Do you know what you are? You’re a scene-shifter. You get to handle the props. You don’t perform. Lucky in some ways, unlucky in so many others.’ She farted, louder than she spoke, then waved a dismissive hand and plunged down the corridor, with Kay running curiously and obediently to heel.
    ‘It’s a theatre?’
    ‘Think of us as a school. Think of us as a body of students. Or nurses, nurses are good too, but we’re not a proper hospital. Sophia and Shekhina, we’re dealers in knowledge. Hence Mystery . Stop!’ She raised a warning palm and Kay slammed to a relieved halt. They’d come to the right door, and Quint reached easily for the correct key from her belt to unlock it. ‘Through here. Use your eyes. Take your time. I’ll see you on the other side.’
    Kay hesitated. Quint shoved. Kay fell through the door into darkness and as she caught her breath, the door thumped gently to behind her and the sound of a lock tightening followed. Her headband ached in sympathy. Stretched out before her, into the black, was a passage marked evenly with windows, each glowing with hard light from inner rooms. Kay set off carefully, picking her way through the darkness and stopping at each glass in turn to consider the view.
    The passage brought her out onto the mezzanine at the front of the old free house and, as she stepped blinking into the light, she knew that if she were to turn to the right and pull back her head sharply enough to break her neck, she might just see Azure’s balcony higher up the façade. She didn’t try. Quint had beaten her to the end, as promised, and slouched relaxed with her back to her, gazing down at the bridge carrying human traffic to and from the city. Quint had bare, muscular legs, visible through stretched layers of lace.
    Hearing Kay’s harsh, unnerved