Kingmaker Prologue

My Novel is coming along nicely. I am about half of the way through and have just finished the first draft of the Prologue which I am putting up here. Comments very welcome, mat@salted.net


Kingmaker

Prologue: The thirty eighth abacination


Even though the cabin was chill and draughty, Fanza was sweltering as soon as he had the cuffs duct-taped onto his freshly shaved wrists and ankles. In the dim light of the vanity unit he inspected each cuff carefully, trimming the frayed threads of the tape with his knife’s scissors.

Back facing in the mirror Fanza took a new four-blade and started shaving from the bottom up. Even though his collarbone seemed smooth he shaved it again. All parts of his body were parts of the sequence, the routine.

Under the left jaw to under the right jaw and all the way down. Then ear to ear to ear across his chin and cheeks and lips. His eyes had bits in them from the exfoliant, he shaved around them and then he shaved his mottled brow. He shaved his temples and then he binned the blade in readiness to shave his skull which he wet and lathered some more.

Taking his time he took away the blonde stubble of two days, tracing the hairline and a centimetre outside. He shaved his supple shoulders and upper back then picked up the unwhite towel with the faded ferry logo to dried himself.

Fanza cut off two ten centimetre strips and used this to tape the inner lapel of the under-suit to his chest and shoulders. Then he cut a meter long strip of tape and with surgical slowness pressed this twice around his neck, the second an inch higher than the first.

Picking up the makeup mirror from the shelf Fanza twisted his head and checked in the second reflection that there were no holes, tufts or cuts.

“Done,” he said, taking a moment to relax

Fanza looked at his watch as an announcement came over the boat’s sound system, first in English and then Spanish. The Bay of Biscay would be docking in one hour. Fanza checked his watch and quickly cleared all of the items on the shelf beneath the mirror into their stuff-sacks.

He attached the travel shower to the cabin sink’s tap and then, like a magician setting up a trick he unfolded the pristine dust-sheet. It was his eighth remaining, the other seven carefully filling sack number five. The sheet was laid out on the floor between bed and wall underneath the tiny sink that for two days had had many purposes. He taped one edge under the sink and folded the remaining edges up and onto the bed to be laid flat and covered by his rucksack and its arranged contents.

The American stood inside the dust-sheet shower, took off his watch and dropped it to his feet and then he turned on the tap and started hosing the outside of the suit and his skin. When all was drenched he turned off the tap and took the reused hair conditioner bottle from the bed. The contents were a white paste that over the next ten minutes Fanza would carefully rub into every inch of the under-suit. It made his finger-tips sting.

Fanza squeezed out some paste into his left palm and started quickly coating his ankles and his feet. His hands and wrists were next. It was building up slow, the burning, caustic, chemical agony.

“Breath big. Breath big,” he commanded himself, when all but above his shoulders was done. He took stock of the pain and his expectations and tried to stay calm as he squeezed the final dollops into his palm.

He closed his eyes and slid his fingers over his face and ears and neck and brow as fast and meticulously as his could. Through the pain. Nostrils, lips and stone black eyelids. He counted quietly but with determination.

The escalation of the sensation was more than pain.

“Nine Mississippi,” he blindly clawed as a medusa of hurt was woken inside his head. Biting and spitting at his face and neck. All the agony in the world felt his alone. He drowned in the molasses of thirty Mississippis of pain. Breath out.

Fanza knew he could not scream. Every time he felt the paste he could swear in his thirty years it was beyond any pain he had had before.

He fumbled sightless for the tap and turned it on. More than parched, washing his mouth first. His lips were stinging so much. He washed his nose next then his eyes and the rest for rapid relief. Stepping out of the dust-sheet whilst rinsing one foot at a time then he reached down into the creamy water and picked out his wristwatch.

He was sweating. On edge, hot and hurried.

Fanza dabbed down his blotchy and blistering skin with kitchen paper and gave the last application of the preparation, a white thick coconut oil, scented with radiation.

He took his third of three suits out the rucksack. It was still in the dry cleaning bag which was tightly duct-taped inside a vacuumed bag. He scrubbed his boots in the sink with the conditioner and rinsed them. Then he lifted up the now sloshing dustsheet and managed to get most of the water down the sink.

“Lots of time. Lots of Time,” he said as he slipped in a new set of insoles and tied his boots tight half way up his shins and five inches over the under-suit. Then Fanza taped each boot to the under-suit and let his trousers fall back down to cover. Standing, coat on over jacket, rucksack on, hat on, nose plugs in, gloves on and lastly his spectacles were on, and on.

“Here goes.”

Fanza opened the door, turned off the light in the cabin and was walking slow, adjusting to the insoles before the cameras came. Left, along the corridor, his knees went out a fraction with each step. He passed some passengers on the stairs. Heart fast, Mind alert. People were looking at him in the busy junction of stairs, public toilets and the first deck. Up the stairs to the outside deck he sprung smiling and blistered. The wind was so cold, it felt so good, chilling him, soothing his face. He shivered in the air and inconspicuously dropped the binbag of his rubbish over the side of the ship.

Around to the starboard side, the land side, past freezing families waking up fast. The morning lights of Plymouth in winter filled the horizon. Fanza took his heavy ruck-sack off he waited for the ferry to clunk and bump of the ferry clunked and bumped into a standstill at the port. Dead on time. He waited ten minutes until the majority of foot passengers had disembarked.

“Into Babylon,” he muttered to the salty breeze as he walked the gangway down. His key-card binned, he felt prouder than he looked.

In customs he saw the cameras and thought just about his gait, that was the only thing he could change right there. They scanned his passport but not his eyes, they couldn’t sniff his genes.

Outside in the drizzle Fanza looked for the white van with the black man that was parked as expected to the left of the terminal. The headlights lights flashed once and then the walking Fanza could see the driver disappear into the back.


As he approached the van the side door opened and there was Matte smiling from inside. Without greeting, Fanza unslung the ruck-sack and handed it to his friend. The handsome Ethiopian stepped back into the front and reached over to open the passenger door as Fanza slid the side-door shut.

“Nice weather for it,” said Fanza, shutting his own door and smiling as they were reunited. They shook hands tight. When Fanza smiled his lips cracked and Matte got a look at the real face of his friend.

“Oh Allan Sir, it’s great to see you! I won’t say that you look well!” he laughed and winced at the same time.

Fanza laughed and his lips cracked more.

“Owwww...” he said, lifting his gloved fingers to his face, halting touching just in time. “This truck is safe?” he asked.

“Yes Sir, one hundred percent,” answered Matte. The certainty in his voice allowed Fanza to relax.

“You have no idea what that means to me Matte, no idea. Let’s get out of here buddy,” he said, tapping the dashboard.

As they drove they started chatting about how Matte was finding driving on the left. Then they talked about Matte’s first week in England and his incredulity at the cold but soon, before they had crossed the Tamar, they were in the meat of their matters. Unrestricted, without the need for salts and encryptions, washing in each other’s trust, they told each other how it had been.

“It’s been hard,” he started...



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