Benjamin was still staring at the feed on his phone. They were several drinks into melancholy and he still couldn’t stop. Normally he’d have given up, and be singing already. Bixby waved at the bartender for another round, and when the drinks arrived he lifted Benjamin’s wrist up to the chipreader so he could pay. Benjamin didn’t even complain.
“There’s something not right,” said Benjamin. “I just can’t see what it is.”
“She’ll be happier without you?”
“Maybe. But that’s not it.”
“Listen, Benj, whatever it is that makes this an unchangeable thing, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Or a big thing. You know how this works.”
“Yeah, and you know how often an unchangeable thing happens. One spilled cup of coffee here, one missed train there and whole lives rewrite themselves. But that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing it happen on the same day at the same time, no matter what we mess with.”
Bixby’s stomach turned over. He’d been trying not to think about it. “Benj, stop thinking. We collect the data, we run the scripts, we go out and pick up the stray dogs and wotnot that run into roads and cause accidents and bring the city to screeching halt. We go and spill coffee on people’s suits so they miss meetings, and remind them to take their briefcases when they leave trains, all so’s things can run smooth and money can get made. Money that flows quite nicely into our accounts thank you very much, and money that could easily get diverted into someone else’s account while we get diverted into a windowless cell somewhere far away. Underground, most likely. Where people don’t care if you’re screaming. I’m not into the windowless cell thing. I’m a dog catcher. I like being a dog catcher.”
“And you’re good at it, Bix.” Benjamin drained his beer. “You know what we need?”
“What’s that?” Bixby was hoping he was going to say pizza.
“Reynolds. We need Reynolds.”
“Oh no. No. We get clocked seeing that madman, we are fried.”
“He’s the only one who’s ever-”
“And look where it got him.”
Benjamin swung round and looked at Bixby. “Look where we are now, Bix. Look where we’ve got to by playing by the rules. Crappy apartment, crappy paycheck, crappy beer in a crappy bar. No offence.” Benjamin nodded at the bartender, who acknowledged the gesture. “Sarah is the best thing about my life, and apparently it’s vital to the smooth running of the universe that she drops me like a hot potato. On a particular day. At a particular time. Doesn’t that make you just a little bit curious?”

Maude sat at her dressing table in her nightgown. She had been sitting there for an hour, since the first light crept around the edges of the heavy curtains, and gave her permission to get out of bed. She hadn’t slept well, hasn’t been sleeping well in fact, but tried not to wonder why. She got up with the intention of getting dressed quickly and making her way down to the library before the rest of the house, but once she sat down to begin she found she couldn’t get up again. There would be no one to help her dress until Liv was ready, but Liv rose so late that Maude was used to dressing herself, so her inertia was not due to that.

She reached out and touched the back of the hairbrush, and the engraved silver was cool under her finger tips. The mirror that matched it had been broken in her trunk on the way here. When she had lifted it out she had cried, because it wasn’t the only thing to have made the journey and suffered. Aunt Edith had held her hand, not unkindly but not warmly either, and said it would be sent to be mended. It had never come back. She was younger then and hadn’t dared ask about it. She remembered Liv in the doorway, her long arms stretched up in an effort to reach the top of the doorframe, oblivious to Maude’s distress.
She lifted the lid of her jewelry box, another possession of her mother’s, and pushed at the meagre trinkets inside. Her mother’s engagement ring was the only thing of real value, even if it was ugly and old-fashioned. Maude closed the lid before she could think again about selling it, taking the money and running off to a small village somewhere to teach in a small school, or taking a boat to Canada. No one would follow her to Canada.

Kevin saw it first. Mam was still shouting at Heather, and Heather was still shouting at Mam, like they had been for half an hour and half Heather’s existence on this planet. Trixie, funny little dog that she is, was barking and jumping up and down in the middle of them, like it was a game to see who could be the loudest.

“How man, look at that.” Kevin was looking out of the window, all five foot six of him silhouetted with the sinking sun, hands on his narrow hips.

“Steal from my purse again and you’ll be out on the street!” Mam was shouting.

“How! Would youse stop yellin’ and look at this,” Kevin shouted over his shoulder.

“What?!” Heather and Mam said together.

“Canny rainbow that, like.” Kevin nodded at the window.

Heather went to stand next to him first. “Ee, there’s two of them,” she said in surprise.

There was almost silence for a minute. Trixie was panting and trotting round Mam’s legs, til Mam decided to go and have a look herself. “Double rainbow,” she said. Then she went and picked the key off the top of the picture frame and opened the door to the balcony. I followed her out and stood next to her, looking across the city to the double bands of colour prettying up the sky. Kevin and Heather came out, and shut the door on Trixie. She hadn’t wanted to come out here since we moved into the high rise, but you never know with a dog like Trixie. She stood at the door, wagging her tail, barking intermittently.

“Knew there had to be summat good about moving to this shit hole.”

Mam reached around me and clipped Kevin round the ear. “Mind your language.”

“Well, man,” said Kevin.

He had a point.

(A note on the dialect: I’m a Geordie though you’d never know it to hear me speak, but I can lapse at any moment into a full on Cheryl Cole, given a glass of wine. It’s a difficult thing to replicate a dialect like Geordie, when a word like ‘how’ is used to mean ‘come on’ or ‘please’ or ‘stop it’, and ‘man’ is used constantly, often as an exclamation of frustration. I don’t entirely expect everyone to get it, but it makes sense to me.)

The end of a long day and John opened the door to his shared house with no expectations. It was dark everywhere, and he flipped the lightswitch, thinking he must be the first one home. Nothing happened.

“John? Is that you?” It was Ivy calling from the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s with the lights?”

“No power. Come and have a drink!”

John threw his bag down on top of the pile of shoes at the bottom of the stairs, shed his coat and threw that on top of the bag and went down the hall. In the kitchen a single candle burned in a wine bottle on the table, where Mark and Ivy were sitting. Lenton was propped up against the fridge, wine glass in hand.

“Johnny!” Mark threw an arm up in the air, and scattered half the playing cards he was holding. “Welcome home.”

“He’s pissed,” Ivy said, handing John the glass of red she’d just poured. “He’s been on his own all afternoon.”

“Power went out around four, came back from the offy around five. You play poker yes?”

“Yes.” John sat down, took a long drink.

“Then come and relieve me of my money!” Mark banged the table and started to shuffle the cards.

“It feels wrong, taking on such an easy mark.” Under the table John kicked off his shoes.

Lenton snorted. “It won’t when you’re winning.”

Ivy grinned. “Too right. That fifty quid is feeling mighty fine in my pocket.”

“All right then. You have a new player. Lenton, you’re in as well?”

The tall man folded himself into the last chair and tapped the table. “Deal me in suckers.”