Then he said, but the accent was all wrong, someone else’s accent in Will’s throat, “I thought you’d want to say goodbye.”

Hand hovering, ready to scramble for a bullet in my leg, to dig it out with bare fingers, I had to breathe and couldn’t control the heaving of my lungs, felt the ceramic between my fingertips, saw the veins blue-black on the base of Will’s throat.

His head turned, pigeon-like, examining me, watching my face, my eyes. He said, “Do you love me?”

The question seemed to require a reply, and when I didn’t give one, his fingers brushed, so delicate, through the blood across my leg, streaking the uniform, pain running through the remnants of my thigh, up through my chest, throbbing from elbow to skull.

“Do you love me?” he asked again. “I wanted to find someone that you loved. When I found him, I wasn’t sure if I’d got it right. His kidneys are broken, there’s tumors in his bones and when I looked, see, here…” He pulled my right hand from beneath my body, rested it on his side, pressing it into his flesh where a bulge protruded beneath his jacket, a distortion in the flesh–hernia on a good day, something worse on a bad. “Isn’t it repulsive?” he asked, holding my hand in place, his warmth in my fingers. “Isn’t it strange? Why would anyone love something as disgusting as this? And look!” He moved my hand, higher now. I grunted in pain as the motion shifted my body, dragging me after his enthusiasm, pressing my palm into his armpit, against his skin. “There’s a mole here,” he exclaimed. “I find that fascinating. I play with it all the time; did you? I tried kissing a man, but he didn’t understand; he said there was something wrong. He didn’t love me, though he swore he loved… Will.” Hesitation, struggling to remember the name, trying it out. “He swore he loved Will, but not myself. I wanted to see if you felt the same way.”

He leaned in close, his breath mixing with mine, lips close enough to kiss, and for a moment I thought he’d do just that, lip to lip, but he was looking into my eyes, trying to find something that was not there. “Do you love me?” he asked. “I looked into the mirror and I couldn’t see it, but I thought… You’ve been me before; you’ve looked into my eyes so many times and you must have loved–loved my skin, my lips, my throat, my tongue. Did you? Do you love me? Will? Do you love me?”

Need. A child needing, imploring on Will’s face.

No, not on Will’s.

On his face.

On its face.

I didn’t answer, couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Sometimes I look at myself, and all I see is contempt. My face is full of hatred and I think, why would it hate me, I am beautiful, but then I move, and I move, and I move, and it’s all hatred, all ugly every single time I try to smile and then…” A shudder, breath drawing in, going out. “Do you love me? Come on!” A laugh that was lacking patience, a humour that had only a passing wit. “Come on, Will. Do you or do you not love me?”

I tried to speak, yes, no, maybe, perhaps. Nothing formed as my mind searched for the right answer, the way out, and couldn’t work out what that might be.

Will’s face darkened. Eyebrows closing in, eyes crunching up tight, a childish sulk on an ageing face, not Will’s face now, I hadn’t ever seen it with such a look, couldn’t call it his; he lunged forward now and rammed the barrel of the gun hard enough into my broken leg to make me scream, digging it in, and I howled, an animal sound from a stranger’s throat, my voice not so high as it had been a few bodies ago but so much more intense, a lungful of agony across my teeth, and I doubted if it had ever made such a sound before but not-Will pressed harder and roared, his left hand around my face, pulling it into his.

“Do you love me?!”

As he pressed the gun deeper, his cheek next to mine, I reached up with the shard of shattered mug in my hand and drove it, as hard as I could, into the top of Will’s neck.

My bloody hand slipped and missed his windpipe, pushing instead into the soft flesh beneath his jaw. Fresh red blood spurted out as ceramic edge penetrated skin, punching through the bottom of his mouth beneath his tongue, and he fell back even as I rolled on to him, putting both my knees on top of the arm that held the gun and twisting it. A bullet fired, a twitch in the finger, and another, great bone-jarring jumps of noise and light, but I held on, held on, as beneath me the hot body writhed and choked, coughing blood, eyes goggled and face pale, and as I prised the gun from his fingers and curled backwards, kicking my way free of him and scrambling back.

Then he looked up into my face and, with a piece of coffee mug sticking through his jaw, he smiled. “D-d-do.” The sound tangled with the blood in his mouth, a rivulet spouting at the corner of his lips. He coughed, sending droplets splattering in my face, and tried again. “D-do you l-like… w-what you see?”

I raised the gun in my one good hand. His smile widened to a grin. His teeth were fake, dentures stuck in with gum, stained with blood. I turned my face away and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 64

Bodies.

No one can track a ghost during rush hour.

A crowded train. A busy station. Shoulder to shoulder, skin brushes skin, breath breathes breath, we inhale the sweat of the tall man’s armpits, crush the old lady’s feet beneath our boots.

I

whoever I am

rode the Paris Metro from here to there, surfing the arterial pulse of strangers’ flesh.

Where Janus was, who Janus was, I didn’t care, as long as someone who was Janus was where I needed him, her, whoever, when the journey was done.

I slipped from skin to skin, a bump, a shudder, a slowing-down and a speeding-up, a swaying of the carriage, a stepping on another’s foot, I am

a child dressed in school uniform,

an old man bent double over his stick.

I bleed in the body of a woman on the first day of her period,

ache down to the soles of my tired builder’s feet.

I crave alcohol, my nose burst and swollen from too much of the same.

The doors open and I am young again, and beautiful, dressed for summer in a slinky dress and hoping that the goosebumps on my flesh will not detract from the glamour I seek to express.

I am hungry

and now I am full,

desperate to pee by the carriage window,

eating crisps in the seat by the door.

I wear silk.

I wear nylon.

I loosen my tie.

I hurt in leather shoes.

My motion is constant, my skins are stationary, but by the brush of a hand on the rush-hour train

I am everyone.

I am no one at all.

I ride the train to Gare de Lyon.

To Janus.

To somebody else.

An uninspiring station of minimal merit.

The nearest food is on the other side of a flagstone concourse where nothing grows and no one waits.

The trains are roaring TGVs heading to Montpellier, Nice, Marseille. The commuter trains are full of suburban dreamers, men and women who aspire to boulevards lined with fir trees and the sound of old men playing boules. I become one of these women for a minute, my suit sharp, briefcase heavy, a copy of the latest thing, by the latest recommended cultural wonder, tucked under my arm. My ticket is to Troyes, where the streets are clean and the mayor always says hello. I look for platform 10, and see a woman eating a baguette, devouring a baguette, standing by the barrier. Her hair is fair, her face is young, her dress is small and black, her coat is lined with fur, and she wears upon her wedding finger a band of silver studded with jade. The wedding finger taps out a rhythm, and the rhythm is one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, while feet move, almost imperceptibly, to the motion of the waltz.