Yellowcake - Margo Lanagan [30]
A policewoman lifted the tape for them to duck under; ‘Ricky here’s going to take you up,’ she said, waving forward a Swathes security guard.
Inside was quiet, alight; people in coveralls, radios spitting and crackling and blurting at their hips, loosely lined the way to the lifts. On the way up, Ricky stood with his feet apart, his hands clasped in front of him, and watched the numbers light up one after another. His aftershave was stronger, and sweeter, than the smell of the wreath in Marcus’s arms. At the fifth floor, he stepped out, and stood aside and waved them out of the lift.
There weren’t a million people there, but enough eyes turned to Marcus for him to wish he was carrying Lenny, to shield himself from all that attention.
‘Across the floor there, mate,’ Ricky said to Dad. ‘Through Books to that EXIT door, and then you turn left.’
They set out through the uniforms, through the watching. Some people looked curious, some looked nervous; all of them were sober and unamused, almost as if he and Dad and Lenny had done something wrong. Dad took his great long strides, and Marcus hurried to keep up. Halfway across, as they passed the escalators, he felt a soft buffeting in the air, and the light changed, was more muted and yet more lively. They had stepped within the range of Mum’s cloud, of the warmth that fell from her, of the blessings. And they were clear, suddenly, of the crowd; all the eyes were behind them now. The Books section was deserted, two shelves of bright-coloured covers leading them to the EXIT door.
With every step, Marcus needed greater willpower to keep walking, as the feeling grew warmer and brighter. It was strong, much stronger than that day in the kitchen, and the wonderfulness made it hard for Marcus to think his own thoughts, but with the snippet of his mind that was left to him he knew that he ought to be very worried, though he couldn’t worry really, not with all that shining at him.
They stepped through the doorway, out of the store proper and into its back halls, cream-lit, linoleum-floored, with doors off to STAIRS and STAFF ONLY and FIRE EXIT—THIS DOOR IS ALARMED. They turned and forged ahead against the resisting warmth, the resisting delight, of the air in the corridor. Witches hats, and more police tape, and a CLEANING IN PROGRESS sign, were clustered at the Ladies’ door untidily, as though people hadn’t had the time to place them properly.
Dad and Marcus stood at the door. Through everything, it was hard for them, as boys, to push open a door like that. The round-headed lady in her skirt stood on it like another kind of guard.
‘You okay, champ?’ Dad looked down at Marcus through the torrent, around the bundle that was Lenny, sleepily scrambling on his shoulder.
‘I’m good,’ Marcus said, in the flat voice he knew he was supposed to use. He laid his hand on Dad’s back, just above his belt, to let him know he was right behind him.
‘Let’s see, then, eh. What we’ve got.’ And Dad pushed open the Ladies’ door, and they went in.
The smell of bleach overpowered the aftershave on the wreath for a moment. Both smells were side-notes, though, to the out-rushing of nectar, of heat, of gold-green changefulness.
‘Mum?’ Marcus called out softly. What if it wasn’t her at all? What if it was not just some other mum, but some other creature completely?
They pushed upstream to the cubicle, stopped at the open door. It was Mum, and the relief of finding her filled Marcus as full as he ever needed to be, her good dress with the red swirls on it, her best handbag, her face so restful and pleased, so Mum. She had risen