Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [139]
“And what, exactly, is he going to work at?” Her fingernails were drawing blood now, and were sinking even further into her flesh in response to the anesthetic ministrations of her IT.
“I don’t know. Not VE, he says. Biotech, I suppose—that’s what he was trained for, before he ran away to join the circus. As to what kind of biotech, I wouldn’t know.”
Diana had no reply to that but curses—and the curses rapidly turned to violent action. For a moment, Madoc thought she might actually try to take it out on him, but she turned and hurled herself upon the bed instead, tearing at the quilt with her bloody hands, lacerating its surface as easily as she had lacerated her own flesh. The filling came out in flocculent lumps which rose into the air as she beat the bed in frustration.
Madoc wondered, as he always did, whether he ought to slap her about the face the way people sometimes did in antique movies, but he had never believed that it would work. It might conceivably have worked then, but it wouldn’t now. The world was different now, and so was the quality of Diana’s hysteria. Madoc couldn’t believe that the hysteria was authentically destructive, let alone self-destructive. He couldn’t believe that it was anything more than a performance, whose safety was guaranteed by courtesy of her IT—but it wasn’t a performance he wanted to get involved in.
Damon had had something of the same fierce reactivity in him once, but Damon’s had drained away. Damon had made a kind of peace with the world, and Diana’s inability to make a similar peace had driven them apart.
“It’s pointless, Di,” Madoc said, going forward as if to take her arm when her fury had abated a little.
She lashed out at him from a prone position, but it was a halfhearted blow. He caught her arm easily enough, turned her over, and then caught the other so that he could look into her face without fear for his eyes.
She was weeping, but she wasn’t sobbing.
“Give it up, Di,” he said as softly as he could. “It’s not worth it. Nothing’s worth that kind of heartache, that much frustration.”
Diana shook away his constraining hands, then shoved him aside and walked past him to the balcony. She barely glanced at the boy with the flamingo wings, or at the approaching figures of Lenny and Catherine. She was lost inside herself.
“I’d have gone with him, if he asked,” she said in a tortured voice. “To the ends of the earth, if necessary. A new start might be exactly what we need. I wish he could understand that. I wish . . ..”
“He isn’t going to ask you, Di,” Madoc said. “He isn’t even going to ask me. Damon’s always been restless. He has to keep moving on.”
“He shouldn’t be in such a hurry,” Diana said, still shivering with resentment. “The one thing nobody needs to do in today’s world is hurry. There’s time enough for everything. He really ought to slow down. I think he’s running away, and I don’t think it’ll solve anything. Running never does. Nobody ever really solves anything until they can settle down and sort out exactly what it is they want. He needs me—he’s just too stubborn to admit it.”
“Maybe he is running away,” Madoc said, “but not from you. Whatever he wants, you’re simply not included. He doesn’t mean to hurt you; he’s just doing what he thinks he needs to do. Let him go, Di, for your own sake.”
Madoc knew that he wasn’t getting through to her, but Lenny and Cathy were close enough by now to see her face, and she still cared enough about appearances to want to hide the true extent of her despair from them.
“Why do they get the big bedroom?” she demanded, fixing her angry gaze on their fellow guests but holding her bloody hands behind her back, where only Madoc could see what she’d done.
“Because that’s what Damon wanted,” Madoc muttered. “He thinks he owes Lenny a favor, even though it was all a stupid mistake. I owe him one too, I suppose—if Yamanaka hadn’t had the other guys to stamp on, I might not have got off with a fine. Try to relax, will you. You might actually begin to enjoy yourself.