A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone

Author:Doug Johnstone [Doug Johnstone]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912374991
Publisher: Orenda Books Ltd
Published: 2019-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

33

HANNAH

‘Babes, you’re crazy,’ Indy said.

Hannah rubbed the back of her neck then ran a finger along the reception desk.

‘I lost it,’ she said. ‘He has to know something about Mel but the police don’t seem bothered.’

Indy came from behind the desk and hugged her. She felt Indy’s body against her own, smelled her perfume and the scent of lilies on the desk. Why do people associate cut flowers with funerals? They die a few days after, just to rub it in, the fact that nothing lasts forever. Memento mori and all that. She saw the catalogue on Indy’s desk for memorial jewellery, lockets and pendants holding a pinch of your loved one’s ashes round your neck. But what if you lost the necklace? She’d heard of people getting the deceased’s ashes tattooed into their skin and she liked that, making them a part of you. And there were also stories of people snorting the dead up with a line of coke, or having them fired into space in a rocket.

She pulled away from Indy’s embrace and looked at her tattoos, beautiful Hindu designs up her arms, snaking down and around her hands. She wanted to be a part of that one day, embedded in her lover’s skin forever. But nothing was forever except the elemental particles. All that ‘made of stardust’ stuff was true but meaningless. Better to think of it the other way – that future stars and planets would be made from you. Maybe one day some of her atoms would be part of a meteor that crashed into the home planet of an advanced civilisation, wiping them out. Maybe molecules from her and Indy would be part of a giant black hole, consuming its corner of the galaxy like a greedy baby, swallowing up gas giants and brown dwarves and neutron stars like spoonfuls of mushy peas.

‘I’m worried about you,’ Indy said.

‘There’s no need to be.’

‘I think it’s great you’re trying to find Mel, but you have to stay sane in the process. You know you can get obsessive about stuff.’

Hannah frowned, but that was true. She was the intense one in their couple. It was funny how relationships worked, you both start out as the exciting, spontaneous ones, but once the façades begin to drop you fall into more natural behaviour, like particles in a collider experiment, unable to act any way other than how the laws of physics dictate, a blend of your own innate properties and the forces applied to you. So Hannah became the organised and obsessive one, and Indy became the laid-back one, the emotional supporter.

They heard a clatter from the direction of the workshop, something large hitting the floor.

‘Archie’s gone home, hasn’t he?’ Hannah said.

Indy nodded. ‘And Dorothy’s upstairs.’

They shared a look then headed through the back, Hannah pushing the door open. She saw her mum’s arse in the air, Jenny bending over and trying to pick up a coffin lid from the ground.

‘Mum?’ Hannah said.

Jenny righted herself with the lid in front of her like a shield.

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