Memory can do this to people. It can make us dizzy at times, like Eve and Villanelle, as they whip around on the whirling Waltzer in Battersea Park, legs and shoulders slamming against each other, although both had sworn that they would not touch. I’ll have bruises tomorrow, one of them thinks, from the jut of her elbow, the force of her hip bone. I’ll have bruises up and down my side for days.
They came here tonight, to this makeshift traveling fun fair, to break up. End it. To stop this affair that has not even started, not exactly, dead before it’s out of the gate. Do you remember, one of them wonders, what I look like through a window? Do you remember, the other one thinks, what I sound like in your ear? Fingers that have moved to those memories grip at the lap bar of this ride that tilts and spins and throws them together, uncontrollably, bodies sliding on vinyl seating, crashing together at startling speeds. Bony knuckles unable to stop it. Do you remember what it feels like when I fall apart in your arms?
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One of them had sent a text that afternoon. “Change of plan. Battersea Park.” One of them had replied, “what entrance,” asked “what time?” They had found each other easily enough, despite the early evening crowds, drunk already, piling in for a free festival, Bonfire Night in a city park.
Remember the date? Remember London? Remember Parliament up in flames? Am I getting ahead of myself? They will do this against a backdrop of fire. It only seems right.
It was supposed to be at a ballroom. One of them had changed her mind. Does it matter who?
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Memory can do this to people. Sometimes it’s sticky and makes us immobile; sometimes it’s slippery and we lose our way. Tossed around like bodies on Waltzers.
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Villanelle chose before she came here. She chose to let Eve go.
It hit her in Russia, as all bad things did. It hit her in someplace no longer home. She saw Eve in her mama maybe, the way she switched from love to nothing, and Villanelle didn’t want to admit it, but once she did, she couldn’t go back. Eve. Eve does this too. Takes and uses. Reaches out for a bloody cheekbone, drags a thumb to wipe it clean, waits until the yield, the softness. What do you think is happening here? Cruelty disguised as normality. Sadism in sensible clothes. Do you remember Bonnie and Clyde?I panicked, okay? I fucking panicked.
Villanelle will kill Eve someday. Unless she forces herself to forget. Rubbing out memories like fingers on longing. Self-sufficient. She’s trying to be good like that. She just needs to say goodbye and she doesn’t know what that means.
Do you remember leaving those voicemails, when you were worrying, when you pretended that you didn’t care?
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They had seen each other at the station in Scotland. One was standing on a platform. One was sitting on a train. Both of them had raised a hand. Greeting? Surrender? There had been calculations afterwards – how long until the next departure? how many hours until she arrives? – and then one of them had picked up her phone. “We shouldn’t keep meeting like this.” The silence that followed was expected. The follow-up message was not.
“Why?”
And so it began. And so it’s continued. They text, don’t speak. They ask, don’t answer. One of them replies in seconds, the other always takes her time, sets an alarm so she doesn’t seem eager. One has perfect punctuation. Both of them have an agenda. It is not good.
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The final minute of the ride is murder. Bone-jolting. Neck-breaking. One of them throws back her head and screams. It’s thrill and terror and perfectly them. I tried to kill you, she thinks, and the other screams also, never wanting to be left behind. I tried to kill you too, remember?
“Again?” she asks, dizzy and tripping on uneven ground as she makes her way to the back of the queue. “Again,” says the other, as if there was ever another choice.
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Eve chose before she came here. She chose to let Villanelle go.
It hit her on the train from Scotland. It hit her as she headed to London to some place that was no longer home. She had mud on her shoes from the golf course and the weight of a woman underfoot. Eve didn’t want to admit it, but once she did, she couldn’t go back. Villanelle. Villanelle didn’t do this. This was Eve. Villanelle might have opened that window, but once Eve flew, she chose her own form. Hawk. Vulture. Never songbird. She is the chaos. She is the monster. Trouble came looking; she put on a show. And yes, she loves it. Spoiling for another’s destruction. She cannot stop. She needs to stop.
Eve will kill Villanelle someday. Unless she forces herself to forget. Wiping out memories like one more friendship. Self-sufficient. She has always been good like that. She just needs to tell her goodbye and she doesn’t know what that means.
Do you remember when you said that you liked me?
Memory can do this sometimes. It burns too bright and overcomes us, steals the oxygen out of the air, until we cannot notice the present, imagine a future.
Remember when you said that I didn’t need to be brave?
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They meet at the gate.
One of them is wearing woolens. One is in a bomber jacket. One of them tries not to stare. They both are warm, without the other. Still. The fire is tempting, mesmerizing, flames licking up the middle, jumping forty feet through the air. They walk closer, moths together. One of them reaches out a hand, out of a habit that hasn’t yet started, but then stops, remembering. I am here to say goodbye. They stand unmoving, still unable to quell the trouble that swarms inside. Fire brings blood to cheeks too quickly. Flushing. Tingling. Closeness makes desire pool. One of them stares too long at the fire, lets heat drag tears from her eyes.
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Memory can do this too. It disappears and leaves us stranded, without reference, left to rediscover the trauma, the truth of why we lie in these ruins, why our bodies bear these scars.
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They agree to stay for the nighttime fireworks. They walk around. One of them gets a toffee apple. One drinks beer from a plastic cup. They share candy floss, arguing over pink or blue. One of them gets it stuck in her hair. “Help me, then,” she says in protest at the other’s laughter, and wouldn’t that be nice, one of them thinks, if helping was something that they could do.
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They buy wristbands for two. The rides are unlimited.
They move from the Walzer to the big wheel. One of them is scared of heights but when has something like that stopped her? They stop at the top for a few minutes to wait for others to board the ride. One of them wants to say something that feels like a secret, although it is not. A cloudy sky masks the view, but still they see the grays and greens beyond the orange, a river slicing through the middle, bridges in the distance, straddling.
“I killed my mama,” one of them says, and in the end, they are just words, sounds in a mouth that map onto facts. She waits for the tirade of hatred and shock, the “monster” spat out in disgust. Nothing comes. “I killed her.” She says it again, more insistent, and waits for the worry and tenderness, the comfort of a hand on knee, the “I’ve got you baby, I know she deserved it.” Nothing again.
Legs swing in the space beneath them. In-between condemnation and kindness. No clear hatred, no clean love. Partway between the ground and the galaxy, hanging on a metal structure that will be disassembled by morning. A dialectic with no resolution, just the tension, starting to chafe.
One of them says “okay.”
I killed my mama, you killed your mama, okay, okay.
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“What else?”
“I’m going to leave you.”
“Yeah? You know what? I’m leaving you too.”
“Okay good, then. There we go.”
“Do you want to, though? Go, I mean? Go around again?”
They do. They ride. And then they exit. One of them walks away, haughtily. “Thank you for accepting my murders.” “Hey, don’t be like that.” One of them catches up, pulling at the back of a jacket, fabric bunching in a fist. “C’mon, I want you to buy me some popcorn.”
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Memory can do this to people. Fill our mouths with salt and butter, burnt kernels, taste buds taking us back to childhood, wondering where the fuck we went wrong.
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The night lengthens, the temperature drops. They stand in another queue for hot chocolate. Cold seeps in, solicitous, makes its way up a sleeve, under a collar, threatens to snap off the tips of ears. One of them forgets for a moment, bumps a knuckle against the other’s, lets a finger stretch in fantasy. The other stops, dead in her tracks, like a fifteen-year old on a first date, horny, sweaty, swampy, uncertain. Watching breath as it mists between them, mimicking smoke.
“Do you still like it? The smell of burning? Even after all that has happened?”
“What? Yes. Yes, I do.”
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Memory can do this to people. Make us forget what we wanted to say.
“Do you ever think about the past?”
“Do you think it’s good to remember?”
“Do you want to remember me?”
“Can I give you a better memory?”
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There is a rifle range, where one of them hands over coins from her pocket, fingers digging around in the too tight space between denim and skin. The same fingers feel the trigger, find their target, squint, squeeze, blow tin cans to kingdom come. Five shots. Four hits. One of them wins a small stuffed bear.
“Here you go, miss.”
“Here, I owe you.”
“A bear?”
“A bullet?”
“A miss.”
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Memory can do this too. It lodges in muscle, animates movement, activates longing. By the time the parade approaches, Eve and Villanelle feel its pull. Wide awake. Do you remember that I don’t feel anything?
The climax of the evening is here. I’m totally done with her. Effigies are thrown on the fire, as pagan ritual meets political theater meets public piss-up in the park. I can’t stop thinking about you. Burn the Guy: anarchist, arsonist, agent of chaos. No feelings, none at all? Villains who become our heroes who we burn each year all the same, still celebrating the spark of resistance. Remember, remember. Could it really be that easy? Gather our histories and watch them burn?
Do you remember what it feels like when my body, when my forearm, when my forehead, when my lips, my sweat, my breathing, body heat –
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“Who would you like to throw onto that fire? Would you throw me?”
“Would it kill you?”
“Would it matter?”
“Would you let me? Kiss you, I mean.”
“Now?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe.”
---
One of them needs to go for a piss. “You were the one who drank all that beer.” “You can talk. All that hot chocolate.” They walk away from lighted pathways, under the cover of darkness and trees. “Wait there, okay? Don’t look.”
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They are leaving each other now, as promised, turning away and turning this time on the fifth of November into a memory. But one of them grabs at the other. One says “no” and says “not yet” and one of them says “not before” and they kiss hard among the trees that block out moonlight. “I can hardly see you,” she says. They are wearing too many layers and coats with zips and buttons and too many fasteners and one of them pushes the other against a tree, forcing a leg between her thighs. “Don’t make me come like a teenage boy,” one moans desperately, as a hand presses against a seam, thick, knotty, double-stitched, that holds four pieces of fabric together, beneath the zip, where legs join.
“Well, now I have to,” the other one laughs.
And so she does, makes her come much too quickly, rough hand on jeans still fastened, warm and sticky down her thigh. “I didn’t think – ” she says, but doesn’t finish, as the other shuts her up, kisses her deeply, fumbling with zips and seams of her own. “I could,” she says, batting at hands, untucking a shirt with icy fingers that draw out shivers. “I can.” “I know.”
The sky lights up. The crowd is closer than they had realized. “Oohs” and “aahs” at the firework display. “If you stop now, I swear I’ll kill you.” “But you’ll have to catch me first.”
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Memory can do this sometimes. It tells us that it won’t be easy, is not possible. Memory can lie.
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They walk back towards the fire, three feet apart, trying to remember appropriate distance. “I’ll leave you tomorrow,” one of them says across the gap, and she doesn’t remember the last time she laughed and felt this happy. “Sounds perfect. I think I’ll leave you tomorrow too.”
Light and noise split the sky. It could be wartime. It is not. There are Catherine wheels and Roman candles and rockets and fountains and effigies of political leaders and governments to be burnt to the ground.
“What if I don’t want it to end? The night, I mean.”
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They walk together to the underground station. One of them tries to be chivalrous. One of them tries to not give a fuck. They walk right past it, blame the crowds, no clear knowledge of where they are going, just that they are. Going, that is. One of them ducks into a corner shop and come out with a bar of chocolate, bottles of water, a packet of sparklers, disposable lighter.
There sit on a bench off to the side. Fucking lighter. Flick the wheel. Press the button. Nothing happens. Flick again. Nothing too. “Just keep trying.” I could light you up, she thinks. “Here, let me.” “No. I’ve got it.” It sparks and catches. You already have. “See, I told you.” She lights the sparklers and hands one over. Fire and light jump between them. Hissing. Popping. Silvers. Blues. One of them sweeps her hand in dramatic gesture, writes initials into the air that disappear before they’ve formed.
Light sputters. Sticks burn. Heat moves too close to hand. One of them anticipates it, feels the slow approach of burning, the not-yet blistering of waiting skin. She doesn’t let go. She will not let go.
“What if I’m not done with you, yet?”
They split the chocolate. Spill the water.
“What if I don’t want to forget? What if I don’t want to remember?”
“What if there’s another way?”
One of them kicks her boot against the other’s, toe-to-toe, asking shyly.
“What if we burn it all down?”
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