Why You Were Taken

MARY CONTRARY ₉

Johannesburg, 2021

Kirsten catches the waiter’s attention and motions for another round. She is sitting on her own in Molly Q’s, a retro-restaurant, the only one in Johannesburg that still serves molecular cuisine.

It’s her favourite, and James had booked a table for them for his first night back home. Kirsten’s favourite gastroventure, she loves the purity of the flavours here; the shapes she sees and feels are so vivid and in focus.

She is drinking their signature cocktail, an unBloody Mary-Contrary. The purest vodka swirled with clear tomato water and essence of pepper. They serve it with a long, slender, frozen piece of celery-green glass. Kirsten takes a sip and feels the crystalline shapes appear before her. Not as strong as the first drink, but quite clear nevertheless.

Damn the law of diminishing returns.

They’ll get stronger, more palpable, later in the evening; alcohol always makes her synaesthesia more pronounced. Suddenly she feels lips on her forehead, sunshine hue, a warm hand on her back, and she blinks past the crystals to see James.

‘Kitty! I missed you.’

She springs up to hug him, inhales the tang of his neck. He smells like Zimbabwe: hand sanitiser and aeroplane cabin. Also: miswak chewing gum that has long lost its flavour. They hold onto each other for a while.

‘I missed you too.’ It was true.

They sit down, and Kirsten orders a craft beer for him, a hoppy ale; he doesn’t drink cocktails. He always laughs out loud when they watch old movies and James Bond drinks a martini.

‘How’s the clinic?’

He has a slight tan, despite his usually fanatical compulsion to apply SPF100, and crumpled cotton sleeves. He looks tired, but well.

‘Understaffed, underfunded, and bursting with sick people: sick children, sick babies. It was difficult to leave.’

Something small in Kirsten splinters. He grabs her hand.

‘Of course, I’d rather be with you than anywhere, but there are just so many—’

‘I understand,’ she says, looking away. It’s easier to be with people you can help.

‘So many of the babies there are hungry and neglected. Not like here,’ he says.

‘Not like here,’ she agrees. How can you neglect a baby? How come those creeps are fertile, she thinks, when I’m not?

‘I mean I can see how the border-baby trade is thriving. When you see kids like that you get the feeling that their parents would gladly part with them for a couple of hundred thousand rand.’

‘Awful,’ says Kirsten, pulling a face. ‘They should write it into law that you need to qualify for a parenting license before you’re allowed to procreate.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ James says, but she kind of does.

They order the set menu, and an amuse bouche of wooded chardonnay gelée with pink balsamic caviar arrives, then Asian crudo with a brush of avocado silk, and wasabi sorbet. They keep quiet for the first few bites, allowing Kirsten to appreciate all the shapes, colours and textures of the flavours. The wasabi sorbet in particular sends cool ninja stars into her brain. It feels good.

‘How are you?’ James asks, ‘how have you been holding up?’

‘I had a very interesting weekend,’ she says, spooning the last of the wasabi into her mouth and feeling the jagged edges of the stars fade away. ‘I discovered the reason I’m so, well, fucked up.’

James takes a long, slow sip of his beer. They had been through this so many times before.

One of the problems with long-term mono-relationships, she thinks, is that listening to the same old issues gets eyeball-bleedingly boring. At least now she has a new angle.

He looks at her, measuring her mood, puts his glass down. She senses him sighing on the inside.

‘Kitty, you’re not fucked up.’

‘I am, a little.’

‘Okay, you are, a little. But so is everyone else. You’re just more aware of your fucked-up-ness than the average creep, because you’re…’

‘Special?’

‘Not what I was going to say, but let’s go with that.’

They smile at each other, and it reminds them both of when they started dating in varsity. When things were still shiny.

‘Do you mean your synaesthesia?’ He knows she doesn’t.

‘No, the synaesthesia is my light side. I’m talking about my dark side.’

‘The Black Hole,’ he says. God, how he hates The Black Hole.

As a child she had tried to explain it to her parents, thinking that they had it too, that is was a necessary human condition, but they would get frustrated and lose their patience, just as James does now. Perhaps The Black Hole on its own would have been fine, but together with her synaesthesia it seemed too much for them to handle. It caused a rift: a cool, empty space between them that could easily be ignored; not often navigated.

Once, when she was still in primary school, she had tried to explain the emptiness to her mother, who became very upset and stormed out, leaving her at home alone. When the minutes streamed into hours and the started sinking she went to the neighbour’s house: a young couple who, non-plussed, plopped her in front of the television. They fed her milky rooibos and stale Marie biscuits while they whispered into the phone. Afterwards, they sat in the living room with her, making awkward conversation, until the glare of her mother’s advancing headlights lit up their sitting room, announcing with bright hostility her return. It wasn’t the first or the last time her mother had left her on her own.

Eventually, a little desperately, her father had produced Mingi: a meowing yin-yang ball of fluff, hoping the kitten would stitch up The Black Hole, but it didn’t. She kept quiet about it after that, not wanting to cause them any more worry. Now they were gone. And now James was the worrier.

‘And?’ he prompts, ‘what’s the reason?’

She smooths out the polka-dotted tablecloth. She finally says the words out loud: slowly, clearly, listening to her own voice.

‘I think I was adopted.’

James frowns at her: ‘What?’

‘Keke visited while you were away. She found out some… well, to cut a long story short, my mother had a hysterectomy before I was born.’

She lets it sink in. James just looks at her.

‘And,’ she says, taking the birth certificate and magazine clipping out of her bag, ‘look at these. Look at this cheap-ass certificate, probably created in Corel Draw. Do you know that there is not one photo of me as a baby? Not one.’

She flips the imposter-baby picture over to reveal the magazine name and date on the other side. James looks stunned. She doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t quite believe it yet, either. He grabs the photo from her hand and studies it.

‘I know!’ she says, ‘isn’t it crazy? I’m adopted!’ The woman at the next table looks over in interest. Kirsten lowers her voice.

‘So there is a reason I never felt properly connected to them. Why I always felt like an outsider.’

‘Everyone feels like an outsider. It’s inherent, the feeling we don’t belong. Ironically, the one thing we all have in common.’

‘Yes, okay, but… it’s crackers, right? Do you realise what this means? I could have a family out there!’

James is quiet, looks worried.

‘Well?’ she urges him, as if he has some kind of answer for her.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s pretty shocking. If it’s true.’

‘I need to find them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What the hell do you think I mean? I’m going to find out who my real parents are. And meet them. Have them over for some fucking cake.’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

‘I knew you’d say that.’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘That night… that night they were killed,’ says Kirsten. James puts his hand over hers. ‘My mother called me. Said she had to tell me something. That it couldn’t wait.’

‘Why didn’t you… tell me?’

‘She was upset, stumbling over her words. Not making sense. I thought she was… having one of her episodes.’

Carol had been showing signs of early-onset Alzheimers. She hadn’t been diagnosed, but the symptoms of dementia had begun presenting themselves the year before, and were increasing in frequency. Kirsten pictured the disease as a whey-coloured cotton wool cloud over her mother’s head (Cirrus Nest). As with most issues, her parents hadn’t liked to talk about it.

‘Surely you must get it? This is my chance to find my missing part. Besides, it’s not just for me, it’s for us. It will be helpful to know my biological mother’s medical history, it might help us figure out our… fertility issues.’

‘We don’t have fertility issues,’ he says.

‘Are you being serious? We’ve been trying for years.’

‘That’s normal, nowadays.’

This makes Kirsten furious. She feels like upending the table, smashing plates. Instead she just sits and fixes her glare on James. A frozen veil descends between them.

‘I feel the hope, too,’ says James. ‘And the disappointment. I want a baby as much as you do.’

‘Bullshit,’ she says, although she knows it hurts him.

‘Look, the less you worry about it—’

Kirsten curls her hands into fists.

‘Less worry is not an option currently on the table. Please choose another fucking option.’

The chicken truffle with cocoa-chilli reduction and green peppercorn brittle arrives. It is beautifully presented but Kirsten is raging inside and can’t imagine she can swallow any of it.

‘Look,’ she says, pushing her chair back. ‘I’m meeting Kex for drinks tonight. I’m going to go.’

‘Kitty, please don’t be like this.’

She stands up. ‘I’ll see you later.’

Seth leaves the Fontus building at 20:30. He is enjoying the actual work of the new job, the flavour-mapping and production process modelling, it’s like grinding at Disney World after the serious chemical engineering he did at Pharmax. Plus they have everything you could possibly want on the campus: a gym, a spa, a drycleaner, a download-den, communal bikes, restaurants, a (mostly empty) childcare centre, a virtual bowling alley, a Lixair chamber, SleepPods, all complimentary for staff. They even have wine tasting and book club evenings. Golf days, gaming nights. Infertility support groups. Overnight accommodation. The huge property is not dissimilar to a full-board holiday resort. It’s as if they don’t want their employees to leave the premises. Seth is surprised that they don’t run a matchmaking service to keep all the creeps in the family. Or a brothel.

The employees themselves seem to be extremely clean-cut: professionally dressed, well-groomed, clear skinned. Not a lot of individual style – no Smudge or ink in sight. Certainly no recreational drugs as far as he could tell.

The Weasel is turning out to be even more of a pesticle than expected, literally leaning over his shoulder as he works. He finds it difficult to be constructive when he’s being watched, especially by a bag of dicks. He needs to experiment and play around, and this includes swapping and swerving in between a host of different programs and apps, and you can’t do that when you have those watery eyes glued to your screen.

Worse still, it makes it almost impossible to do his real job – his Alba job – the reason he is here is in the first place. Seth feels a hot rush of irritation, almost anger; he needs to blow off some steam. He has a cocaine drop, his third for the day, and decides to head to the SkyBar.

Kirsten catches a tuk-tuk for the short ride into the inner city. She has the feeling that someone is watching her, and keeps looking over her shoulder for James, thinking he must have followed her out of Molly Q’s, but each time she thinks she hears something, or sees movement out of the corner of her eye, there is no one there. Despite the reassuring company of her fellow passengers, she starts to feel quite spooked.

Kekeletso is already at the bar when Kirsten gets there, and is getting some girl’s number. Once she has it, they smile at each other, and the woman kisses Keke’s cheek, strokes her arm. Keke is wearing a lacy tank top that shows off her nano-ink tattoo beautifully. It’s an antique grey colour now, so Keke must have shot up quite recently.

The SkyBar is on top of the tallest skyscraper in South Africa. It’s five hundred floors, and has a glass elevator on either side. They used to have a C-shaped infinity pool outside, running almost all the way around the venue. Now it’s dry and filled with exotic-looking plants with larger-than-life leaves and trailing tendrils. The club’s main attraction is that there’s always an interesting crowd, a good mix of BEE and reverse-BEE millionaires, bohemians, sports celebrities, tourists and race-car drivers.

‘Hey,’ she greets Keke, ‘this place is packed! I thought we were only meeting at nine-thirty.’

She waves the woman off. ‘I decided to come early, to network.’

‘So that’s what the kids are calling it nowadays?’

Keke smiles, and Kirsten grabs the still-warm barstool, which is more of a post-modernist statement than an actual chair.

‘Seriously, she’s a good contact to have. Grinds for the Nancies.’

‘Yuck,’ says Kirsten, ‘and I thought my life was bad.’

‘She’s clearly a masochist.’

‘Those masochists. Handy to have around.’

Keke orders them a couple of beers, hits the ‘tip’ button twice, and the barman delivers them with a wink in her direction. Her account will be debited with the balance by the KFID system as she leaves.

‘So, why are you early? I thought Marmalade was taking you out tonight. What happened, did he stand you up? No petrol in Zim again? No water? No aeroplane stairs?’

‘It would have been better if he had.’

‘Oh, shit. Sorry. Another fight?’

‘Argh… I’m so sick of hearing about my own problems. Fuck it. What are we here to celebrate?’

‘Well… can I tell you a secret?’ asks Keke, eyes a-sparkle.

‘Hello,’ says Kirsten, ‘who else would you tell?’

‘You can’t tell anyone, not even Marmalade.’

Won’t be the first time, thinks Kirsten. She nods.

‘I’m just about to break this big story. It’s huge. I’d love to say that it’s been weeks of hard journo-ing but actually it just fell into my lap. All I had to do was fact-check.’

‘In other words, all your Friend With Benefits had to do was fact-check.’

‘Yeah-bo.’

‘Hey? Who did it come from? Why would someone just hand over a story to you? And why you?’

‘I don’t know. The gods of the fuck-circus that is journalism decided to smile down on me. Why do whistleblowers toot their flutes? – Justice? Revenge? It arrived in my SkyBox with no note and no author. Just the picture of a little green rabbit that disappeared as soon as I opened it.’

‘Bizarre,’ says Kirsten.

‘I know already. But listen to this. You know that Slow-Age super-expensive beauty-salon-slash-plastic-surgery clinic in Saxonwold? Tabula Rasa. They were the first spa in SA to have a Lixair – vitamin air – chamber. They made headlines a while ago with their FOXO gene therapy? The one with all-white everything? Like, you get blinded when you go in there?’

‘Heard of it. Never been. My freelance salary doesn’t stretch that far.’

‘Lucky for you. All that white was hiding something very dark indeed.’

‘Let me guess. They were exchanging their wrinkled flesh-and-blood clients for smooth-skinned Quinbots?’

‘Worse,’ says Kekeletso.

‘Ha,’ says Kirsten. ‘What?’

‘They were buying discarded embryos from dodgy fertility clinics, spinning them for their stem cells, then injecting them into their clients’ faces.’

Kirsten stops smiling. ‘No,’ she says.

‘That’s what I thought. No way it could be true. But this report came from someone who had worked there. Had infiltrated the system and had proof of hundreds of transactions. Pics, video, everything.’

‘That is so fucked up. Horrible. I wish you had never told me. I wish it wasn’t true.’

‘Sorry,’ says Keke. ‘I had to tell someone. I’ve been sitting on it for days waiting for all the facts to check out.’

‘What kind of world are we living in?’ asks Kirsten.

‘One where at least there is someone willing to out those bastards. If something like this had happened fifty years ago we wouldn’t have had a cooking clue. May The Net bless Truthers everywhere.’

‘To Truthers!’ says Kirsten, raising her drink. ‘Also: ha ha.’

‘Huh?’

‘Don’t you think it’s funny? The name? Tabula Rasa means “clean slate”, doesn’t it? Like, come in all aged and wrinkled and shit and leave with a face like a clean slate.’

‘And a brain to go with it,’ Keke adds.

‘Except now it’s going to be revealed as a black clinic.’

‘Poetry!’

‘You’re right, it is funny. Ha!’

‘Or would be, if it wasn’t so fucked up.’

‘Yes,’ Keke pulls a face, ‘well. You know what they say.’

‘Tell me. What do they say?’

‘If you don’t laugh, you cry.’

‘Story of my life. Well, congratulations. That’s one big fucking story. I sense some kind of award for journalistic excellence on the horizon. Huzzah!’

‘I wish I could take the credit. Oh, Kitty… there’s something else,’ says Keke, looking hesitant.

‘What’s up?’

‘I found something else. It’s something about you. About your parents.’ Keke rubs her lips, rings for another round. ‘You’re not going to like it.’

Seth is gliding to electro-house swampo-phonic with a drunk woman in a kimono on the superglass dance-floor. It is easier to dance if you don’t look down: five hundred floors up, the vertigo from looking down sucks the rhythm from your feet.

Usually he loves the mixed crowd at the SkyBar but he feels off-balance tonight. The drinks don’t taste as good; the women aren’t as pretty as usual. It’s too crowded. He tried taking more coke earlier but it seems like a waste with this mood. Usually he would have already banged this girl in the plant pool, or in the unisex bathroom, but tonight it doesn’t feel worth the bother. This makes him feel worse. Is he getting old? Is grinding in a corporate environment leaching him of his personality? What’s next? Wearing a suit and tie? A nametag? A hearing aid? Joining the Fontus gaming club? Facebook? Getting married? Viagra? He shivers involuntarily. The sooner he can get his job there done and move on, the better.

He gives up on having a good time, abandons his drink, shrugs the kimono off and goes to get his jacket and gun from the security counter. While he manoeuvres through the warm bodies that block him he inadvertently gets close to the bar. As he’s making his way forward he feels a surge, an electric current zip through his body. It shocks him into standing up straight. He is surrounded – touching so many creeps at the same time – and he looks about to see if anyone else felt it, but no one around him registers any kind of surprise.

The fuck was that?

Kirsten is doubled over. Keke grabs her arm.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Christ,’ she whispers, ‘what the fuck?’

‘What?’

‘I just had the weirdest feeling.’

‘Your synaes-stuff?’

Slowly she starts to straighten up, hands on hips. ‘Fucking hell. I don’t think so. More like getting the electric chair. You didn’t feel anything?’

Keke shakes her head.

‘I must have touched something,’ she says, and looks around for anything that looks like it could have shocked her. ‘It’s so crowded in here, maybe it was just some kind of sensory overload.’

Keke looks unconvinced. ‘Good God, woman. The more I get to know you, the stranger you become.’

‘It’s nothing. I’m okay. Hit me,’ she says to Keke. ‘I can take it.’

‘You weren’t adopted,’ says Keke.

‘What?’ says Kirsten, cupping her ear.

‘You weren’t adopted!’ shouts Keke.

‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I know,’ says Keke. ‘But my FWB knows his stuff and there is no record of your parents adopting you, or of you being put up for adoption. He’s the best hacker I know. If Marko didn’t find anything, believe me, there is nothing to find.’

Kirsten can’t think of a word to say.

‘It wasn’t easy, either. I did some of the digging myself. Since the last orphanage closed in 2016 it’s tricky to get information… enough red tape to strangle all the bureaucrats on the planet. It’s as if, now that adoption doesn’t happen anymore, it’s a closed chapter in SA history.’

‘I guess that makes sense. Now that babies are… hard to come by, no one wants to think of a time when there were hundreds of them growing up in nasty institutions.’

‘Another legacy of the HI-Vax. No more AIDS orphan babies.’

‘And of the fertility crisis. No more babies, full stop.’ Pain flashes across Kirsten’s face.

‘Sorry, I know this must be difficult for you.’

‘It’s not. I mean, of course it is, but for different reasons. So you’re sure? No record of an adoption?’

‘Actually, no record of you being born. At all.’

Kirsten had guessed the birth certificate was a fake. She laughs despite herself.

‘So, what? You’re saying I don’t exist? I’m a ghost? No wonder I feel hollow. It’s all starting to make sense now!’

‘Not quite a ghost, but there’s definitely something odd about the way you came into the world. We just need to work out what happened. I mean, if that’s what you want. You could just forget about the autopsy report. Go back to living your normal life. It’s probably the sensible thing to do.’

‘Impossible. Besides, it’s never been normal. I need to find out the truth.’

Keke downs the last of her drink.

‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

Seth looks at the clockologram on his bedroom wall for what feels like the hundredth time since getting into bed. Agitated, he wonders if he should get a sleeping pill but he’s already had two TranX so another downer would probably be a bad idea, especially on top of everything else he’s had today. A rock lyric comes into his head.

‘Sandy,’ he says to the open room.

‘Yes, Seth,’ purrs the apartment voice.

‘Play the song ‘Slumber is For Corpses’.’

Three beats later the song comes onto the sound system.

He closes his eyes and listens for a while, then reaches over for the sleeping pills, taps one into his palm. Fuck it, he thinks, and swallows it dry. He feels immensely dissatisfied with life in general. His QOL score was sitting at 32 out of a possible 100.

He had logged on to the Alba network when he arrived home to see if there were any messages, but there was no green rabbit. He looked for a chatterbot in the quantum philosophy circuit but didn’t find one interesting enough. He watched half an hour of a really bad ultra-reality programme about the Underground Games: NinjaJitsu and Punch-Rugby, before giving up on the day and going to bed. He had been alone for so long, but had never gotten used to the feeling. On nights like this he feels his life gaping before him, one big, empty gash. He was a prime number, and prime numbers are always lonely.

The animated graphic novel on his Tile fails to interest him, and he doesn’t feel up to gaming, so he just lies back and watches the red hologram digits click over and over. 00:00. He can’t even be bothered to jerk off.

They leave the SkyBar at around midnight. Kirsten knows by the look in Keke’s eyes that she’s on her way to a booty call.

‘Watch yourself,’ Keke says, strapping her helmet on and inflating it. She flings her leg over her sleek e-motorbike, releases the kickstand, and revs the engine. Kirsten waves as Keke takes off with a roar.

Standing in the monochrome rectangular box of the almost empty, poorly lit parking basement, Kirsten feels restless, cocky, horny, and not at all in the mood to go home. If she were single she would go back to the bar, pick up some unsuspecting man and show him her talents.

She misses that, sometimes, the thrill of sleeping with someone for the first time. The feeling of a stranger’s lips on hers; lips that have nothing to do with love or affection. The first undressing, the first nipple-in-mouth, pulling of hair, and then the heady relief of that first swollen thrust. Just thinking about it, Kirsten feels her breathing deepen, and a general throbbing in the lower half of her body. James is a generous lover, but he doesn’t have the same nagging libido as she does. Add thirteen years of old-fashioned monogamy to that and it’s always tempting on nights like this, with booze in her blood, to accept one of the many advances made to her. After all, she reasons, no one would have to know, so no one would be hurt. She has never cheated on James, but at times like this, angry with him, angry with the world, she feels a hard, rebellious recklessness. A sharp chipstone in her fist.

The idea of meeting someone new at the bar, someone who doesn’t know any of her problems, Is tempting. She could pretend to be a different person. Be someone lighter: someone who didn’t think as much. Make up a fake name, live one of those parallel lives that loiter in her subconscious, if only for a few hours. Shake some yellow stars of adrenaline into her bloodstream. Have dirty sex.

But she knows she won’t do it; wouldn’t be able to live with the haunting guilt. She may have a dozen flaws, but she is not a cheater. Cursed at birth with honesty and loyalty. Not dissimilar to a Labrador, as Keke likes to say.

All relationships, she tells herself, have their rocky roads. She reminds herself to think with her brain, and her heart, and takes a definitive step in the direction of the late night bus stop.

In the distance a silhouette steps out from behind a car and Kirsten jumps.

Jesus! She thinks, scrabbling for her mace.

The figure slowly approaches her. Her beer-clumsy fingers can’t find it so she decides to run, but the parking basement is in virtual darkness apart from the exit, and the creep now stands between her and the light. Kirsten squints, shields her eyes, tries to see the face of the stranger.

‘Hello?’ she calls, pushing her voice deeper, trying to seem strong and confident. The figure slows down, but keeps moving towards her, gliding silently, also cautious. With a zinging in her head, Kirsten realises that this is the person who has been following her all night. She sweats: feverish with fright.

‘Don’t be scared,’ says a wobbly voice. Female.

‘What do you want?’ shouts Kirsten, an edge to her voice. She imagines herself waking up the next morning in a bath of dirty ice, with untidy green stitches (Seaweed Sutures) where her kidneys used to be. But that kind of stuff doesn’t happen anymore, she assures herself. They print organs now.

‘I have something for you,’ the woman says.

Kirsten can make out her face, cheek-boned but androgynous, with a matching haircut. Skeletal figure hidden in unflattering clothes: mom-cut jeans and a tracksuit top flecked with dog hair. No make-up on her dry lips or darting eyes. Clenched hands.

‘Stay away from me!’ shouts Kirsten. ‘Stay away!’

‘I have something for you,’ the woman says again.

Jesus Christ. What? A knife? An injection? A cold pad of chloroform to hold to my mouth?

‘I’m not here to hurt you,’ she says, scuttling up close in dirty sneakers. She has body odour: dried figs and BBQ sauce. The stink smacks Kirsten in the face: it’s a giant grey curtain, poised to smother. The woman has some sticky white sleep in her eyes. Kirsten is repelled, nauseated.

‘I’m here to warn you,’ her eyes flash from beneath her blunt-cut fringe. ‘There are people, people that want to hurt us.’

‘Us?’

‘You, and me, and the other four.’

‘Six people?’

‘Seven! Seven! One is dead already!’

Oh boy.

‘He was first on the list. He sang a song. Music man. Now he is dead. We were too late. Now I am warning you.’

Kirsten tries to step around her, but she blocks her way.

‘I didn’t believe it either when she told me,’ she rambles, ‘but she said I had to find you! Had to warn you. Had to give you the list.’

The woman takes her hand, and the feel of her clammy fingers makes Kirsten’s hair stand on end. The woman presses something cold into her palm and closes her fingers over them. A new wave of BBQ BO washes over Kirsten and she almost gags.

‘There is real danger. Don’t go to the police, they are in on it! They are pawns. Don’t tell anyone, don’t trust anyone. Like dominoes we’ll fall,’ she says, softly clicking her fingers. Click, click, click. ‘Dominoes.’ She clicks seven times. ‘Don’t trust anyone! Not even the people you love.’

Kirsten’s heart was banging around in her chest. Her watch alerts her to a spike in blood pressure. The woman turns and scurries away. After a few steps she turns and whispers: ‘Be careful, Kate.’

‘My name is Kirsten!’

‘Yes,’ says the woman. ‘Your Kirsten is my Betty, Kate. Betty-Barbara. Kirsten-Kate.’

Kirsten looks down, opening her hand to reveal a small silver key.

‘Thank Christ!’ says Kirsten as she catches sight of James. Spooked by the delusional woman in the basement, she had called and asked him to fetch her, and was waiting for him in a bright 24-hour teashop around the corner from the bar. She gets up too quickly to hug him and sends her cup and saucer stuttering to the floor where they crack and break apart in slow motion. They move awkwardly to pick up the pieces.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, mid-crouch, eyes on the floor.

‘Me too,’ she says. ‘Well, sorry that we fought, anyway.’

‘Yes,’ he says.

She’s too strung out to catch any kind of public transport, so they walk home. The pavement trips them up, but it’s a small price to pay. Kirsten tells him about Keke’s latest discovery: that there’s no record of her birth.

‘That’s impossible,’ James says. ‘There must be. Just because she can’t find proof… Look, I got your pills for you,’ he takes a plastic bottle of little yellow tablets (Lemon Zest) out of his manbag and hands it to her. After bumping him the prescription from the inVitro offices she had forgotten about it.

‘Thanks.’

He stops her, takes her by her elbows.

‘Kitty, are you okay?’

‘That… that stupid woman in the basement scared me,’ she says, childlike, vulnerable.

‘Creeps like that should be locked up,’ he says, anger grating his voice. ‘Instead of, instead of going around … frightening people. We should report her.’

Kirsten knows she shouldn’t tell him about the silver key but it’s glowing hot in her pocket, in her brain. They are walking over a bridge when she takes it out and shows it to him.

‘I know I should get rid of it,’ she says, ‘but something in me says I should keep it. I mean, I want to get rid of it…’ She feels silly. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I do,’ says James. He grabs the key out of her hand and throws it over the bridge. It glints against the dark sky and then is lost forever. Not even a sound as it lands: seconds, meters, stories, away. Swallowed by the night. Kirsten is shocked by her empty moon-white palm.

‘It’s for the best,’ James says, and marches on.