Lunarhampton
Trapped by the threatening stares of natives, she returned to the limousine. The chauffeur followed the familiar route, but now everything looked different, more open and yet cluttered with the jagged peaks of dilapidated buildings. The horizon was nearer: the Chinese Quarter was hidden by the curvature of the city, looming into view with a terrifying clarity. She stormed into the Arcade Hotel and shut herself in her room. Behind one wall, a prostitute entertained a sterile client, mouthing an obscene checklist of erotic controls.
The city was not insane, as she had suspected, but simply following its instincts to a logical extreme. This might have happened in London, but the separate boroughs maintained equilibrium by pulling in different directions. Here, the tension was all directed inward. Birmingham seemed ready to snap in on itself. Time to leave: she needed to gather only one piece of evidence to complete her report. She would have to confront the councillor directly and demand a copy of the map hidden under his shirt. If he refused, she would exercise her authority and muscles, tearing the sackcloth monstrosity from his back.
There was something in her shoe. When she bent down to remove it, a cloud of soot puffed in her face. She had a use for this abducted filth. In the cracked mirror, jumping at each eruption out in the city, Melissa rubbed the dirt into her hair and face. She ripped her own shirt, worked holes in her trousers with her little sharp teeth and scuffed the polish of her shoes against a radiator pipe. Now she looked like a local: only the multiple earrings were missing.
On the streets, she passed unnoticed. Demolitions were taking place everywhere. Girders and blocks fell more slowly than they should, almost gently enough to be caught in her hand. The iron and concrete struck the pavement silently. Melissa ignored the quiet and concentrated on a group of young delinquents, approaching with unsheathed stubble. She was ready for them and launched a preemptive strike.
“Can you spare an ingot for a cup of tea?”
They shied away and she was free to continue her journey, removing her smirk and pocketing it for later. At the Council House, she brushed past the apathetic guard and entered the mossy travesty. The only light came from a phosphorescent slime which coated the walls. Pausing on the threshold of Alleneal’s office, she placed her ear to the rotting door. A peculiar chattering came from inside. Eye to keyhole, she watched him plucking at his face with tweezers.
Was this how all councillors groomed themselves? Turning away, in a fit of embarrassment, she reached a spiral staircase and went down. Her unease intensified with each step, as if she was descending the helix of the council’s DNA, the code which controlled the growth of the municipal nervous system. At the base, she found herself in a corridor. She passed a dungeon with a lock rusted almost all the way through. Inside, leaning over a trestle, the Cardiffians were comparing injuries. “My shoulders are more dislocated than yours!” Rising to their broken feet, probably smashed by council hammers, they started a brawl, adding a second layer of bruises to insulate the lower.
A second dungeon held her convertible. She tried the door: the iron bars crumbled in her grip. The vehicle was covered in parking-tickets, a petty, as opposed to pretty, wedding-dress. Alleneal was a thief as well as a liar, but he had left the key in the ignition. The voices of guards echoed along the passage. She had time only to free the prisoners or the convertible, not both. The decision was less painful than it should have been. As she jumped into the driving seat, she reflected that justice is simply a covert weighing of beauty.
Clogged with local air, the engine protested as she started up and drove straight through the remaining bars. The rust coated her like the pepper of a robotic chef, spicing the corners of her eyes as she swerved tightly onto the corridor. She roared in the opposite direction to the voices: soon the passage began to spiral upwards. She was gratified to discover it emerged in the library: she cruised down the aisles, packed with cankerous bookcases and exenterated computer terminals. Tramps and students sheltered under collapsed shelves, offering her no more than a toothless smile. Other vehicles waltzed among the sundry literatures. It really was a multi-storey car-park: she could trust her perception once more. She clattered down the stairs.
Leaving the building by the main entrance, she parked outside the Council House. She left the engine running, giving the convertible the appearance of having already been stolen and abandoned as inadequate. She did not pause at the councillor’s door this time, but strode in. He was sterilising his tweezers in blended whisky. Resignedly, like a moon regarding an oncoming eclipse, he turned his hatching eyes towards her. His questioning shrug was very eloquent.
“You stole my property,” she cried.
