Part 101 (1/2)

I was up because I hadn't slept. I'd been out with Shaun to the cinema and after she went home I hadn't been able to stand the thought of doing the same. The little terraced house I shared with my father and half-sister and my half-sister's son seemed too much like a cage.

It was a little after four in the morning, and the sky was already streaked with peach and silver, the stars washed away by light. It was bright enough that I scuffled down the bluff without undue risk of killing myself. I turned to put the water on my right, the bluffs and the town on my left. Ahead, fingers of gray-and-black basalt, crusted with weeds and barnacles, broke up the stretches of fine sand. Low, slow breakers hissed across the surface of the softly rolling sea.

The tide ebbed as I walked east and then north along Balbriggan Strand. I wasn't dressed for the beach, and still wore last night's skirt and slippery shoes and no sunblock. But the skirt was loose enough that I could climb in it if I kept the hem up. And even a pale-skinned redhead like me wouldn't get sunburn in a half-hour at sunrise.

So I pulled my shoes off and hung them through my belt by the laces. They swung there, b.u.mping my thigh with every wet step through the streams that ran across the beach and down to the ocean.

I'd have to be careful of rocks and sh.e.l.ls, especially in the half-light of morning, especially in the rougher sections of rock and weed. The barnacles could slash your feet to ribbons.

But it wouldn't be so bad if I were careful. The sunlight was already starting to creep down the face of the bluff, casting a pall of crimson over its beige surface, s.h.a.ggy with vegetation. As long as I didn't look directly at the sun and dazzle myself, it was more than enough light by which to pick my way.

Seals played alongside the rock reefs, just dots wriggling through the water as I climbed. A gray heron flew low across the water, its slowly beating wings casting a writhing shadow as the sun peeked over the edge of the world. Out in the Irish Sea, a tall s.h.i.+p cruised under box sails-the s.h.i.+p still in shadow, the sails lit by the sun-and I changed my mind: I could imagine this was the nineteenth century, the age of exploration and sail, and that I was on my way to Dublin to meet the s.h.i.+p that would take me to America, to Asia, to the world.

By the harbor, the fis.h.i.+ng boats awaited the tide, their masts bare and the rigging sagging. They went out and came back. With a fair wind, you might make Wales overnight-but none of them ever went that far.

They couldn't call to me as the kite-rigged cargo vessel did.

I can't stay here, I thought. I'll die if I stay here. Reflexively, I thought of calling Shaun-or at least of texting her. Just as reflexively, I stopped myself. I thought I already knew what she'd say. ”Don't be ridiculous, Billie. We have each other here; isn't that enough?”

Shouldn't it be?

I turned my back on the s.h.i.+p and the sea and scrambled up the bluff for a better look-eventually. It wasn't until I reached the top that I realized I was crying.

There are no rocks on the top of the bluff so I sat down in the gra.s.ses, careful to avoid any nettles, my back to the land and my face to the sea. The sun stung my eyes, though I turned my head at an angle. Across the water lay England-London-and beyond that the continent. Freedom.

The s.h.i.+p I watched sailed south, toward Dublin, and I wondered what cargo it carried precious enough to be worth the long sea journey. I knew from history that, once upon a time, great cargo vessels-even aircraft!-had burned fossil fuels bringing exotic fruit, liquor, toys, from all the world over. In those days it was actually less expensive to make a thing in a foreign land and s.h.i.+p it than it was to live on what could be had locally. ”Cheap foreign goods” was a concept I could only just begin to understand-anything that came from far away was luxurious and precious, and not for the likes of me. Not now, likely never.

But it wasn't luxury that drew me to the idea of travel. It was ...

. . . freedom.

I had finished my mandated schooling the previous month. There was no chance of University with my background and apt.i.tudes, not unless I'd managed much better marks, and no chance of Employment without University. I already knew how I'd spend my life: here in Balbriggan, making do with whatever subsistence payments and goods allotted me. They'd be adequate to keep me alive and housed-but not much more than that. And almost n.o.body could afford travel.

The world needed far fewer workers than it had people. And with economies of scarcity a thing of the past since the Green Sustainability Bills pa.s.sed in the mid-twenty-first, there was nothing much for those surplus people to do.

And I was one of them.

So was my dad, and so was my sister.

And so was Shaun Mellor. That, at least, had always been comforting. She was as trapped here as I was, even if it chafed her less. We had each other. Always had, always would.

We planned to live together when we turned eighteen and could find housing. If we applied for subsistence as a childless gay couple, we'd get a little bit of additional support-as long as we stayed that way. Not reproducing. Not making more useless mouths to feed.

It was a natural thing, Shaun and me. We'd grown up together in the village-not best friends, but aware of each other-and started being girlfriends at fifteen. She had olive skin and straight dark hair that blew in the wind, and her eyes were so brown you could only see the detail in them when the sun shone across them.

n.o.body had ever understood me better. n.o.body had ever loved me more. Our families both a.s.sumed that we'd settle in together and so did we.

I'd never thought I was going to be the girl who broke Shaun Mellor's heart. But as I watched that s.h.i.+p sail into the sunrise, I knew that was what was going to happen.

Because I was leaving Balbriggan. Leaving her. Some way. Somehow. I'd go to Dublin. My ancestors might have gone to London to seek their fortune-but sailors had to come from somewhere, didn't they? I didn't imagine they'd be University types. And surely, no matter how automated modern s.h.i.+pping was, you needed somebody on board to trim the sails and helm the thing if something went wrong ...

I reached with one hand to tap my Omni back on. The contact lens for the interface dried my eye, but everybody a.s.sured me it would get less annoying with time. I was still looking out through clouds of protein buildup from crying, however.

Just as I thumbed it on, though, I heard Shaun's voice behind me.

”Billie?”

I'd turned off my Omni and she'd tried to text from bed, of course. She'd gotten worried and come to find me, and she'd known exactly where to look. That was how well we knew each other.

And it wasn't as if Balbriggan were a big place, after all.

She said, ”Are you okay?”

It was my moment of supreme cowardice. ”Fine, love,” I said, holding up an arm so she could sit down inside its bend. ”Just thinking of you.”

She snugged herself into my side and kissed me, long strands of dark hair curving her cheek.

I was the worst person alive.

My dad was up by the time I came home. He always made a virtue of punctuality and keeping to a schedule, just as if he were Employed. He said it helped lend purpose to the day, and when I compared him to the rest of my friends' moms and dads, spending all day down at the pub or sleeping until afternoon, I thought he had it right.

The clouds had rolled in, tall and tattered, and the wind smelled like coming rain. I watched it twist the leaves of the willow in the front garden as Dad came down the steps to meet me.

”Shaun was looking for you,” he said.

”She found me,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek. He'd been taking out the composting. I lifted the bag from his hand and carried it over to the bin in the garden corner.

”She's worried about you,” he said. ”So'm I.”

It stopped me, one hand on the composter's solar lid. The lazy whirr of windmills along the terrace filled my hearing. A white-waist-coated magpie hopped up, eyeing the multi-colored kitchen waste inquisitively. I shut the bin in its face.

”There's no call to be worried,” I said. ”You should right-mind it out.”

He sighed. I knew perfectly well that he didn't need re medial rightminding. Dad was one of the most stable people I'd ever met, and he was rigorous about keeping up with his emotional controls. They really worked best after twenty or so-I'd been told often enough that the erratic s.h.i.+fts of adolescent hormones were hard to balance out, no matter what surgery, cognitive measures, or chemical supports were used.

Maybe, I thought, when the rightminding kicked in properly I'd be able to let go of my dream of going to sea.

Except I'd already decided that wasn't going to be what happened. I supposed I had the rightminding, to the extent that it was working, to thank for the fact that I could have a conversation with with him rationally. We were taught in school that young adults were once notorious for their emotional lability.

”Now, Billie,” he said. ”You know I just want to see you contented. Not-”

”Not like Mam?” I asked.

His face paled.