2)

South Carolina would never be one of Ro’s favourite American places. The one time she’d been there, not including the present, the air stifled and the people were a little askance, as though they waddled and wallowed in uncertain personalities. The restaurants were good, the principles stable but conservative. Zee and Ro had started out in Beaufort that morning, leaving to Knossos from there . . . But now were north, in Myrtle Beach. Here, demeanour was laid-back, with a sense of independence acquired from the sovereignty of the sea. Repaired over a period of years from a hurricane eighteen years before, Myrtle Beach retained its sense of nostalgia and alertness. The palm trees stately. The art divine. The beaches lovely. The shops above adequate.

But she’d never want to come back to South Carolina again. Ever. It would only remind her of losses and hatred, of the unlawful, unbelievable acts a small handful of men can accomplish.

They passed an electronics store with front windows displaying the latest in televisions. Ro’s feet involuntarily dragged to a halt. With her hand still in Zee’s, he stopped at the resistance. Ro’s eyes glued to the broadcast news. The pictures consisted of a smouldering sea, grey parts of a massive structure glistened in the sunlight, with a handful of emergency crews remaining active in the skies and on the sea. Reassurance persisted in the pressure of Zee’s fingers.

‘It’s all right, Ro.’

He kept saying that, but she wasn’t so sure.

‘We’re still here.’

But they could’ve been killed as easily as anyone else. They might’ve been counted among the dead, the unlucky, the crippled, the maimed.

Zee tugged at her arm to move her along. He had to keep her from thinking about it. Odd, he figured, that their roles were reversed today. Ro, so often his source of optimism in a divided, merciless world too great for him to fathom, had turned to the maudlin and silent. That was normally his character. She felt overwhelmed and he felt sorry for it.

‘We’ve had many bumps in the road before, Ro,’ he tried to say it confidently, but he was sure she heard the tension and uncertainty in the back of his voice. If he could feel it, she could sense it. ‘This is just another challenge. I know we’ll persevere.’

‘Zee, Dr Selig is dead.’

‘We don’t know that.’

Ro knew it. She knew it by the rending of her insides, the ache in her heart, the blood pounding in her ears. She knew it. Oh, God, how she knew it. . .

‘It’s true that things won’t be the same for us,’ he went on to say. He didn’t know where this sense of leadership had come from. Had it always been a part of him and it only took a certain crisis to procure it? ‘Things will be harder.’

‘A lot harder,’ she added disconsolately.

‘But some things may improve.’

This caused her eyebrows to raise in astonishment. ‘Oh, really? Like what?’

‘The agents may leave us alone for a while.’

‘Or they might come after us because they saw us with Titus Sweete and other ugly men from Brother’s Day.’

He ignored the possibility. ‘They’ll leave us alone for a while.’

‘Something about all that got me thinking.’ She pushed back locks falling into her forehead, and paused to squeeze one thick blonde tendril. ‘They way I changed with that hologram, into that guy, I don’t know . . . The fact that these days you can be anyone. Anyone at all. It’s hard to believe. I mean, look at that guy over there.’ She pointed to a random Joe across the street, in a work shirt, tie, suspenders, talking on his mobile. ‘He could be anyone. Someone else. Just hiding behind a hologram.’

‘He isn’t, though.’

‘That’s not the point, Zee. The point is that . . . everyone’s hiding.’ She glanced at him, his profile, and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘I want to hide, too.’

Clearly, Zee didn’t follow this ambiguous plan. ‘Hide?’

‘I want to change. I want to look like someone else for a while. Here,’ at the sight of salon, Ro dragged him inside, ‘let me show you want I mean.’

An hour later, the colourist spun Ro ninety degrees in the chair, and Zee got the first look at his companion’s changed appearance. It was amazing what a little hair colour could do. She’d gone from a sunshine blonde to an autumnal red, the red of cedar, of frosted cinnamon. The red brought out the blue in her eyes, sharpened and increased it. Locks were now a little shorter in the back, and a fringe of bangs across her forehead enhanced the heart-shaped face and falsely increased her age. He’d dressed her up in holograms before, to show her how she would look if her appearance were changed. That was a game. This was permanent. This was real.

‘Don’t you like it?’

To be sure it was real, he touched the top of her head and smoothed it. Every strand was as it had been. She’d been altered by chemicals but was essentially the same. It was like him, in that way, altered on the outside by light and elements, but essentially the same. ‘I like it.’

She smiled. The first smile he’d seen from her all day. Not from sympathy or pity or kindness, but from the hope of love and the enduring grace of wisdom.

He paid for the service and left a substantial tip. Once they returned to the fresh outdoors, the humidity heavy along the coast, he put his arm around her shoulders and walked on, proud of the young woman with him.

‘Are you hiding now?’

Ro glanced down at her wardrobe and shook her head. ‘Almost. One more thing.’