“I’m older than you think,” Della said to me. “It’s as if losing my legs provided less of me to age; time can’t find me, sometimes, because I’m not whole, I’m a smaller target than most. I’m older than you think.”
I almost asked how old, but in reality I did not want to know. Her age was just another enigma which identified her, an unknown that made her even more mysterious and exotic in my eyes. She scratched her stumps as I looked around the overgrown garden. I tried to appear blase but actually felt so nervous in her presence that I could faint. She was not ashamed of her terrible wounds — seemed to display them as a badge of worldliness, sometimes — but still I hated them. It was extremely disorientating looking at the stumps of legs that should continue on down to the floor. Instead, they were cut short at the edge of the wheel chair. Sometimes, when Della scratched them all night, she drew blood. I tried to get her talking.
“So what happens now?”
It was the start of the Ruin. The Sickness was still to come, lying in wait in some distant African cave like the ghost of a wronged nation ready to exact a chilling, relentless revenge. The first nukes had fallen in the Middle East, and money markets across the globe had crashed the previous month. Britain was already threatening a worldwide ban on trade, import or export. In some areas of the country, martial law had been declared. It was rumoured that people were being shot. In London, the army was hanging looters they caught pillaging the pickings of the Numb-Skull plague in the streets; their bloated bodies became home to fattened, less homely pigeons than those that adorned Nelson’s column.
Della shrugged, rolled her eyes skyward. “Well, you heard them, kiddo, telling everyone how good it would be. The Lord Ships are mighty fine and high, ready, they say, to restore to us all that we’ve lost over the last few years: justice; law; peace; even food. In the process, where do you think the Lords live? What do you reckon they eat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Somewhere nicer and something better than you, that’s where and what.” She flinched as her nail caught a fold of skin and opened a cut. A tear of blood formed on the stump and I watched, fascinated, as it grew, swelled and then dropped like a folded petal to the ground. When I looked up, I saw that Della had been watching me watching her.
“But don’t you think it’ll all work out for us?” I asked, naive and blindly trusting. “They say it’s the answer. ‘Government from afar’, they say.”
“I think the Lord Ships will last a long time,” she mused. She sat back in her chair and stopped worrying her absent legs. I knew the signs — she was warming to the subject, not only because she loved sharing her wisdom with me, but also because it meant she did not hurt herself. At least, for a time.
“At the end of that long time,” she continued, “there’re going to be a lot less people in the world. I think the Lords’ll rule adequately, considering, but they’ll also reap any rewards of their labours before anyone else even knows they’re there. The worst thing is …” She trailed off. This was something that Della never did, she had an angle on everything, an opinion for anyone who would listen. She stared up at the moon where it was emerging from the azure blue of a summer sky. I’m sure that for those few moments she was alone, and she had forgotten how different life had become.
“What’s the worst thing, Della?” I asked. Each time we spoke, I remembered her every word, repeated them to myself like a mantra as I drifted off to sleep. They were precious to me, in a way priceless. Some people — a few — still read the Bible. My bible was the lake of words I remembered from Della.
“The worst thing, kiddo, is that they’re going to be gods.”
Della sent me away then, complaining about her stumps, saying her legs were aching and she could only ever put the ghosts to sleep when she was alone. I knew what she meant, but sometimes I lay awake at night, imagining a pair of discorporated limbs stumbling unconnected down a straight, dusty road.
I left Della to her thoughts, knowing that I would benefit from them the next time we met. Della was a treasure.