Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

The next morning Sam and I round up the kids and take them shopping for new clothes; and for clothes for us too; in the daily market. I get the impression Beni and Jalsone and the other mothers are glad to have some time alone away from the kids for a while.

Before too long we split into two groups, with Asuti and Ateis coming with me and Garelan and the twins going off with Sam.

The usual manner of obtaining clothes in Jeodin is to buy fabric and then make it up into clothes yourself, or pay a seamstress to do it. If you’re really rich you just hire a dressmaker to do the whole thing. There are some nice mainland fabrics I haven’t seen before, which I order to be delivered to the boarding house, where I know Chi and Beni can do something with them.

But we also need some clothes now. Fortunately there are merchants who sell ready-made clothes. They’re usually secondhand and in variable condition, especially when it comes to children’s clothes, grown out before they were worn out by their previous owners. So the whole experience does remind me slightly of rummaging around charity shops and new-agey market stalls. Most of the stuff on offer is just dreadful, but if you keep at it you can find something unexpected and lovely. My fashion sense being a little skewed probably helps in this case, as the loveliest things to my eye aren’t necessarily those that have been priced up.

I don’t care. We have money and it’s a pleasure to buy pretty dresses for two little girls who appreciate it. Three if I count myself, I think with a little smile. I don’t want this ever to get old and boring.

Sometimes, though, I think I miss the malls back home. I can imagine setting myself loose in Bluewater – me the way I am now, able to wear all the pretty clothes teenage girls wear and look good in them and not have to imagine getting funny looks for even stopping to look at them.

And knickers! Fresh cotton undies! My God, I do love Jeodine fashions, but they have no idea when it comes to underwear. Someone born here, given a pair of knickers and told what part of the body to wear them on would probably just say ‘won’t they get smelly quickly?’ Yes, but we have washing machines! You wear a fresh pair every day!

Alien. Profligate.

But that aside, I do love Jeodine islander fashions. They’d look old-fashioned back home, in a that doesn’t match any specific historical period; but with all the petticoats and bodices and corsets and headpieces, and bright iridescent colours and velvety blacks and filigree lace and everything done up with laces, they would seem like costumes, I’m sure. I love the shapes they make; the lovely full skirts and the ruffling noise they make as I walk, the lightly-corseted postures (I’ve never seen anyone tight-lacing). They’re so feminine. You can’t wear that sort of stuff working or just getting around on board a ship; then it’s just the kind of practical tunic-and-leggings wear that everyone wears, so I always take shore-time as a chance to really dress up, and I usually steal the chance to dress Ateis up too.

And now I have Asuti too! I actually start giggling to myself right there in the middle of an aisle in the market.

“What’s funny, Tani?” Asuti asks, pretty in her new light blue day-dress and looking as happy as I feel.

“Nothing. I’m just happy. Come on, my turn. Remember that grey shimmery one we saw back there?”

“Don’t forget, Beni said we had to get some sensible clothes too.”

“Yeah I know. Boooring. We’ll do that later.” I’m thinking tomorrow.

For some reason Asuti seems to find that funny.

When I think about such things I also daydream about how it would be, to be a Neri back in that modern, technological world, in modern clothes; denim skirts and tights, mobile phones, that kind of thing. I would pass for human, I think. Especially if I wore a top that said “HUMAN” across the front. I grin at the thought. If asked about my eyes I can just say ‘Contacts. D’you like them?’ If asked about my ears I can say ‘Latex, I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan. Sad, innit.’ Or if I’m feeling cheekier, ‘I caught them in a mechanical rice-picker.’ Or I could just take to wearing hats as a fashion thing. It would work. Even if I didn’t hide them and didn’t explain them, people would give one second glance, shrug and accept it.

No such deception is possible here, nor necessary. Apart from the obvious, there must be a hundred or so little signals that my body gives out all the time even just standing still, that means anyone here can just tell I’m a Neri from distance; signals that would all be missed back in the other world because there’s no such thing as what I am and no-one’s attuned to those particulars of difference.

Asuti struggles with the unfamiliar buttons on the back of the dress I’m trying on. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen buttons anywhere since coming here. A Jeodan invention, the woman merchant assures me, and warns me, “You must be careful, dear. Some cheaper merchants are using steel buttons.”

“I’ll watch out for that. Thank you.”

It’s odd, I think, that steel should be cheap here. Elsewhere in Jeodin it’s rare and expensive.

“It’s not as good as laces ’cause you can’t adjust it,” Asuti says, behind me. “Either it fits or it doesn’t.”

As the day heats up and I detect Ateis might be getting bored, we retire to one of the inn forecourts around the market square to wait for Sam and the others. I order a pitcher of what I can closest describe as lemonade, although it’s not made from lemons and it’s not fizzy; but it is refreshingly cool, being pulled up from a deep cellar. I miss ice, at times like this.

“Well, are you two enjoying yourselves?”

“Yes.” Asuti says, smiling. She’s sitting upright in her chair, like a child allowed to sit up at the grown-ups’ table, on good manners.

“I’m tired,” Ateis complains.

“Do you want to have a quick nap here while we wait for the others?”

“No.”

“Well, what about a cuddle then?”

She gives that a little thought, then climbs down from her chair and comes to me, so I can pick her up and sit her down on my lap and wrap my arms around her.

“Hang on, can’t reach my drink…” I lean forward to retrieve it and sit back again. “There we go. Comfy?” The English word slips out.

“Comfy.” She nestles in against my shoulder. I give Asuti a ‘what can you do?’ look and she grins.

“Look, Neri,” Asuti says quietly, pointing her head off to the side. I take a quick glance, enough to see they’re coming into the forecourt, but not apparently heading for us, and face front again to wait until they come into my field of view.

I watch them find a table and take seats; the male pulls out a chair for the female, who’s heavily pregnant. They look hardly any older than me, and just as obviously induced far too early and now fully developed.

They look happy, in love, engrossed with each other. The female’s hand rests on her belly as they order drinks. They look like any young human prospective parents.

Correction: Like teenaged parents-to-be. They look like they should be in school. Like me they lack the grace of adult Neri.

“Interesting,” I say quietly, pitched low for Asuti’s ears.

“I thought only Sattheis could have babies,” Asuti whispers back.

“So did I.” Otherwise why make the sacrifice? Why bind yourself to a living ship, like a dryad to her grove, condemning yourself to its doom? “Better not talk about it here,” I add.

Asuti nods.

“Better not talk about what?” Sam says suddenly behind me, surprising me. Asuti grins; clearly she’s been in on the conspiracy to make me jump.

“Sami!” Ateis crows.

“Heya squirt. Come on you two,” she calls to the other two smaller kids. Garelan is already taking a seat next to Asuti. “Come and sit down. Cold drinks.”

That gets a cheer, and some measure of chaotic compliance.

“Hey, ’Suti, you look pretty!” Garelan says to Asuti. Asuti just preens.

I notice Sam watching them intensely for a moment. “Tani, a word?” she says.

“What?”

“Come on. Hey, Ateis, you want to sit with the others?”

“Okay.”

I help Ateis down and stand up. “Oh, another pitcher please,” I call to the girl who’s come out to see if we want one. She waves and turns back inside before even reaching us. “What’s up?” I ask Sam.

“You think you ought to be encouraging him so much?” she asks me quietly, pulling me away a few steps. She’s speaking in English too.

“What? Who?”

“Who do you think? Asutan.” She gives a look towards Asuti, currently taking charge of the kids.

“Wh—” I just stare for a moment. “What’re you talking about?”

“Beni asked me to talk to you about it. She already thinks you’re indulging him too much with this girl thing, and you’re buying him dresses now—” She stops, seeing how I’m staring at her. “Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t realise!”

“Realise what? You’re trying to tell me Asuti’s a boy? She’s bloody not! You’re having me on!”

“Tani, we were on a tiny boat together for ten days and you didn’t notice anything?” She sighs, actually covering her face with her hands for a few moments. I look at Asuti again. Still all I can see is a little girl showing off her new dress to the younger children. “Jesus, talk about a failed perception roll.”

I just continue staring at Asuti, a long silent ‘ohhh’ starting on my lips, until she senses my attention and looks up. I smile and give a little wave and turn back to Sam, decided. “You’re wrong,” I say.

“And so’s Beni, who’s shared a cabin with him and his brother the last eight months?”

“Yeah, so’s Beni. She’s an islander and you’re talking like a mainlander. Everything’s about that little bit of flesh between your legs, isn’t it? Does that define who you are?”

“And I think you’re projecting,” Sam cuts back, refusing to rise to my bait. “You’re projecting yourself onto this kid, giving him the sort of encouragement you wish you’d had.”

“I didn’t know! She told me her name was Asuti!” I hiss. “All the other kids call her that. So do Chi and Demi. Only you and Beni don’t. I just thought you were—” I stop. I don’t know what I thought about that. I don’t think I thought anything about it, like I just edited it out of my attention. “She never once contradicted me calling her a girl. She’s got all the mannerisms, all the…” I take a breath. “What, d’you think I forced her to wear that dress? And look, the kids are fine with it, what’s the problem?”

“They’re marketeer kids—”

“Yeah, exactly—”

“And we’re ashore. We need to be more careful. People won’t understand—”

“Look at her!” I burst out. “Seriously look, Sam.” Sam does actually turn her head to look. “That is a girl. I don’t care what’s between her legs, I didn’t fail that perception roll, I rolled a fucking twenty, and no-one in this city has to know a thing unless you or Beni start blabbing off.”

She sighs again. “Beni is concerned—”

“Fuck Beni!”

“Okay, fine, whatever. You’re obviously incapable of a grown-up conversation right now. Go and sit with the kids, I need to think.”

She might as well have slapped me. I actually have to hold back tears. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know. And I know this is an emotive subject for you.”

“Should be for you too.”

She shakes her head. “I haven’t lived with it all my life. I don’t look at a kid like that and remember what I felt like at that age.”

“You admit it then!”

“No, I’m saying—”

“But I’m right, Sam. I know I am.”

Sam sighs. “Beni thinks that Asutan may be imprinting on you.”

“Oh come on. Ducklings imprint. She’s a human.”

“And you’re not.”

“Sam—”

“You don’t understand the effect you have on us.” Her voice sounds suddenly plaintive. She’s looking at me especially intensely. And no, I don’t understand what she’s talking about. “Marketeer kids do gender play, I realise that. They see how Neri kids are and they do the same thing, and that’s okay. But the way you’re getting so close to him is dangerous, because you’re Neri and he can imprint on you. He’ll try to be exactly what you want him to be. It’s instinct.” She fixes my gaze urgently. “Someone you can show all the understanding and support and acceptance for wanting to be a girl that you didn’t get at his age. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“But I didn’t know!”

“You must have known,” Sam insists. “Subconsciously maybe. You can’t be on a little boat together that long and not see something.”

“Well maybe I just don’t spend my time peeking at kids’ genitals!” I snap.

Sam’s response is instant. She slaps my face for real this time.

“Leave her alone!” I hear Asuti yelling, coming our way. The initial shock passes, and I become aware of the hot sting of the slap on my cheek. “Stop telling her off all the time!” Asuti yells, and starts laying into Sam, until Sam catches both her wrists in a firm grasp.

“’Suti, stop,” I implore. “Come here.”

“She shouldn’t treat you like that!”

“Come here,” I say again, extending my hand. Sam releases her and she flies into my embrace. I look at Sam. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”

“You know? I don’t have to deal with this,” Sam says. She’s almost shaking with fury. “All these fucking tantrums every five minutes, I’m tired of it, Tani.”

“I didn’t mean it!”

“No, you never do, except when you say it.” She turns aside, to the table, where four small children are staring at us, worried. “Come on, kids. Let’s get you home so you can have your nap.”

“She’s a windsinger!” I say suddenly. I hadn’t meant to. It was our secret, mine and Asuti’s. At least I said it in English.

Sam stares back at me, surprised.

“How d’you think we got here so fast?” I push on. “Jeoda should’ve been way out of our range. It’s easy to take fair winds for granted, isn’t it?”

Sam’s gaze flicks from me to Asuti, back to me. “Now that is interesting,” she says tightly. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When you needed to know. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“The Satthei doesn’t know? Of course not, she only tests girls.”

I nod.

Sam looks away finally, sighing. “Come on kids,” she says again, switching back to Jeodine. “We both need time to think about this,” she says to me.

I watch as she collects them up and dumps a few coins on the table to cover the last pitcher, mostly undrunk. Ateis comes towards me when she gets up, but I tell her to go with Sam. Thankfully she does. Finally Sam is herding them away in the direction of the boarding house.

All except Asuti, still in my arms. I hold her tight and kiss the top of her head.

“You were arguing about me, weren’t you?” she says, as soon as Sam’s out of earshot. “She hates me.”

“No she doesn’t—”

“She does! She’s always looking at me like I’m doing something wrong!”

“No. If anything she thinks I’m doing something wrong.”

“What?”

I sigh. “Come on, let’s go down to the harbour and check on the sloop. Don’t forget the shopping.”