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I find I can remember that night extraordinarily well, and, at the same point, not at all. It is as though I tried desperately to scrub it from my mind, only to discover the splattering of ink was really a tattoo permanently injected below the skin’s surface.
I recall first the presence of Geo as the plan first took effect. The portrait, which had barely dried hours before, was wrapped in long swathes of cheese paper and packed away in a wooden crate.
As I observed from the side, I had the rather disheartening premonition of being sealed within a box myself.
Dark, dank, and six feet under.
Geo leaned the crate outside the studio with the vague assurance that McAteer would send men enough to drive it down to the docks. Therefore, two shadowy figures appearing at nearly nine that evening hardly caused a second glance as they stomped up the several flights of stairs.
Coming back down proved to be another matter.
Canvas sheets stretched along a wooden frame is manageable—even, dare I venture, simple—however, when one encases it in another, heavier substance and adds the obstacle of several rickety staircases, a task no longer seems bearable. By the end of the first flight, my palms were surgically infested with splinters. At the second, my wrists and at least three vertebrae threatened to snap.
Even so, my aches and pains abated substantially with the realisation I was faring far better than Rebecca. Where her scruffy beard and moustache had begun to peel at the edges, my painted stubble and spectacles remained firmly attached to my face. I also had the distinct benefit of being well-prepared for intense manual labour, while her cunningly feminine figure—momentarily modified with torn sheets and plasters—left very little room for the required muscle. Twice she lost her footing and I was forced to bear the brunt weight of the entire portrait while she steadied herself.
Sufficiently burdened with an excruciating pain in my back and shoulders, I eventually shoved the crate into the boot of a borrowed lorry and was swept into a land with which I was both familiarly acquainted, and deeply despised. The roads yawned and roared within the same instant. While the innocent young and wizened old had sought shelter beneath their crumbling shelters, a generation long deplored still roamed upon the stone.
Those who did not acquire the permanent result of procreation, but were intimately aware of the act itself, drank gold liquor beneath the stars.
And constantly stumbled into the road.
Sometimes seemingly under the single purpose of making my task behind the wheel a bit harder.
I pushed the lorry onward at an alarming rate; following Rebecca’s instructions as best I could when the woman in question was meticulously reapplying spots of glue along her upper lip.
“Turn left here. No, not yet.” I had just eased the accelerator forward once again when her commands returned in earnest. “Now! Turn!”
In doing so, I almost ran down a man well over ninety, though he had an incredible talent for leaping laterally into an army of rubbish bins.
“Why are you slowing down?”
“That man, I almost—”
“If we are going to reach the harbour before the ship leaves, you have to drive faster.” That was a change, at least. So often either Keane or I was begging each other to slow down.
Rarely the opposite.
“Was Keane alright, do you think?” Rebecca glanced at me. I couldn’t blame her, really. It was hardly the time to discuss the hypothetical wellbeing of another person.
A person not even present.
Yet I kept going; digging my head deeper and deeper into a pit I had no hope of exiting when the time came.
“I mean, did you see when he disappeared? When they took him?” She must have. She knew he had been taken. Kidnapped. Surely she wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. This was Keane, after all; a master of wandering off whenever he found convenient and simply popping up again wherever and whenever you least expected him.
It was in his nature.
A boyish game.
The woman beside me grimaced in the mirror.
“I saw him, yes.”
“And was he injured?”
“I didn’t see any blood.” As though that bore any resemblance to an answer. There were several ways to lose consciousness—or even die—without bloodshed. Stroke. Heart attack. Internal haemorrhaging. Poison.
I tested the brakes too much on the next turn and nearly sent myself flying through the windshield.
“Was he on his feet? Keane, I mean?”
Rebecca pressed the loose end of her faux moustache to her lip for a few seconds, eased her forefinger away, and tested the glue with an exaggerated sigh.
“Has anyone told you just how annoying you are?”
“Yes.” I admitted. “Frequently. But that wasn’t the question.”
“It was an answer.” Another spot of glue was applied to the edge of her beard before she managed to elaborate. “Do you honestly think I would be dragging you into this if your friend was dead? Not a chance.”
“But the missiles—”
“I will take care of myself.”
“You make it sound personal.”
“Isn’t it?” The penny dropped. As did an unfortunate bug on the windscreen.
“You know someone else on the ship.” There it was.
The truth.
The first glimpses of honesty throughout our entire acquaintanceship.
It wasn’t about Keane.
It wasn’t about saving one country or backstabbing another.
It wasn’t even about the Veles missiles.
She needed someone else for this mission because she didn’t work alone.
She had a partner.
Who wasn’t here. They were on the ship. With Keane.
So Rebecca—no, Cicily—needed me.
Christ!
I slammed on the brakes with a string of the finest explicative; barely forcing the lorry to a stop before the damnable contraption could throw itself into the churning waters below. My heart hammered beneath my ribs at the very sight. Metal groaned and condensed around me. Water filled my lungs. Breathing? Impossible. Death?
“Get out. We’re here.”
I shakily slipped down from behind the wheel; legs jolting suddenly as they hit the ground. Which law was it? Newton’s first, I thought. Something about an object in motion staying in motion until stopped by another force, wasn’t it? I stumbled toward Rebecca as she tried to unload the crate; my trembling legs gave the illusion of a few drinks too many.
Though a hearty drink was precisely what I needed.
Once more we balanced the portrait between us and started what was to be an excruciating hike. We had not arrived at the docks as Rebecca had promised, but rather a scenic point well away from the awaiting ships. Between us lay, not only a fair half a mile, at least, but a disheartening array of slopes, loose stones, and the slightest patches of slick earth. It was slow going then.
Worse than that.
We hardly moved.
Precious time carefully planned for other tasks frittered away by accursed stumbles and scraped flesh. When we reached the docks—truly set foot alongside the massive seamen—we did so with childish bruises and cuts I prayed would not become infected before they could be treated.
Rebecca’s facial hair did, by some miracle, stay in place.
As we muddled forward beneath the looming, metal bodies of half a dozen enormous ships, the weight of our situation crashed upon my shoulders more heavily than any portrait. The vomit and bile I was able to keep at bay; however, the slight quiver in my voice could not be either denied or ignored.
“Which one is it?” Rebecca nodded her head toward two out of the six; leaving me slightly clueless as to which she meant. So I kept moving.
Kept pushing valiantly onward.
As the dark, tanned skins of bearded sharks circled my back, their eyes did as well. Barrels and crates of ungodly measure were held aloft on their broad shoulders. The older crowd, whose backs had become too weak and brittle to bear such a burden, huddled around the barrels as though they were tables; stubby pipes curling wretched tobacco smoke around their already white and balding heads. Their scenic discussions were carried to me on the tail breaths of the waves.
...Storm's coming in...
...Tonight? Not tonight...
...Yes, tonight...a big one...wouldn’t go out if it were me at the...
Suddenly the weight in my hands lurched to one side; wrenching my wrists unnaturally as Rebecca dropped her end to the ground.
“This is it then.” She hissed. In an instant the portrait was again level in my palms and we were carrying it up onto the deck of what I believed to be the largest ship of its company.
Dark and looming.
Like the end of life.
Death.
Together we hauled the crate into the iron belly of the beast, laid it aside a wall of similar boxes, and swiftly strode back the way we had come. I had never thought so many guards were necessary for the safety of even the finest artwork.
But this wasn’t simply a travelling supply of paintings and sculptures, was it?
It was the art of war.
The knife in my pocket stabbed into my side with each set of darkened eyes we passed. Their weapons—a few automatic—glared up at me from their merciless hands. I knew they would not hesitate from their work.
Just as I must not shirk from my own.
Between the third and fourth pair of guards, there was an intercepting path placed strategically just out of sight of either. I dodged right into the new hall, while Rebecca seamlessly continued forward.
She had her job.
I had mine.
As the single-bulbed lamps grew dimmer and less frequent, I placed my hand along the wall; noting every hill and valley within its work. With each sailor I passed, I could swear to feel my own throbbing heartbeat reflected in the metal’s rhythm.
Quick.
Frantic.
Frightened.
But no, I mustn't be frightened. Not now. I had a job. An important task.
And I mustn't—couldn’t—fail.
My footsteps instinctively quickened; hammering yet another rhythm into my twisting mind. I came to a crossroads, and not one of ancient or divine anecdotes. Both the left and right corridors were better lit than the one in which I stood, and certainly more than the vast mouth yawning before me.
I chose the latter.
Straight on I went; both hands now running along separate walls as a safety net.
But even safety nets do not mean you cannot fall.
The toe of my shoe hit first. Then my knee.
Then my mind.
There was no longer space offered before me; no more room to walk forward in my search. My path had ended, and my sudden confidence with it. I could not push forward. I had to turn around. Retreat. Because I had hit it.
A blank wall.
A slab of metal.
A dead end.
I was lost.