We Float Upon a Painted Sea

2064 Two years earlier

Saffron was sitting on the moorings at Maryhill Locks admiring the myriad of bright colours she had used to repaint the narrowboat. Her friends had just finished installing solar panels, a wind turbine and a water butt. Earlier she had planted some herbs and vegetables in pots and scattered them around the deck. To her delight Bull’s boat was now a carbon neutral home. She studied the new moniker and stated, “I hereby name thee, the Wangari Muta Maathai.”

“I hope he likes it,” said her friend Aisha. Saffron took a step back and viewed her work with a critical eye. She held out her paint brush to measure the proportions. She smiled and said,

“What’s not to like? It’s beautiful, if I don’t say so myself. I think he’ll love it and if he doesn’t, he’ll learn to love it.” Aisha’s face was wracked with doubt. She joined Saffron on the moorings.

“It’s one thing potting up a few herbs for the deck and fitting a few solar panels, but don’t you think renaming his boat is a step too far? Isn’t it unlucky or something?”

“You make your own luck Aisha. Oh, he’ll be fine, just fine. If he isn’t, he can paint it back to that dull shitty brown colour.” Saffron laughed, her head feeling light with the paint fumes.

Bull had called earlier to say his flight from Svalbard had been grounded by a storm and he wouldn’t be home for the vernal equinox. This was a special time of renewal and rebirth for Saffron. In keeping with Saffron’s tradition, they had planned to travel to the Calanais standing stones on the west coast of Lewis and dance with fellow pagans until sunrise. This was a time of spiritual cleansing for Saffron. On this summer solstice she was frustrated. She had lost her sense of focus, but moreover, her independence and femininity had been compromised by her feelings for her new subject of desire. She had let her guard down. Recklessly, in the heat of the moment, she had professed her love for him. Love was not part of her plans.

The following morning Saffron felt the need to talk to someone. She brooded for a while, fed Boris and then walked to Woodlands road to meet an old friend from art school. Saffron pressed the buzzer on Maurice’s flat’s entry COM system. She listened to the hypnotic ringing until the screen lit up. Maurice’s face appeared. She said,

“Hi Maurice. Are you ready?” Maurice ran his hands through his hair.

“Un moment. Can I meet you at the Organic Café on the opposite side of the street? We can get a bus to the train station from there.” In the evening Saffron and Maurice were in Brittany, hitching a lift to Carnac to watch the sun setting over the ancient megalithic structures.

The following day the Arctic storm had passed and Bull managed to secure a seat on a flight back to Glasgow. When he arrived at the moorings on Maryhill Locks he walked past the narrowboat, and then realising something was wrong he stopped. At first he wondered where his home had gone and why another narrowboat had taken its place. It dawned on him this was his boat. It had been repainted and embellished with solar panels and plant pots. Bull glared at the new name on the boat, mouthing the words. He sighed, thinking it was bad luck to change the original name of a boat. Stepping inside the hatch he exercised a familiar ritual by accidentally banging his head on the companionway. He called Saffron’s name, but there was no reply. A note lay on the Jali coffee table. He lit a cigarette and read. It simply said, out of town for a couple of days and love you. At his feet lay a sketchbook covered in Saffron’s drawings. On the first page she had penned a title, an illustration of nature’s harmony. He flicked through the rest of the drawings, throwing it back on the floor when he had finished. He went into the study, located a false drawer under Saffron’s writing desk and withdrew a bundle of letters. He shook his head, replaced the letters and went into the galley. He poured himself a glass of red Baijiu.

The following morning Saffron returned to find Bull asleep on the sofa. Beside him on the coffee table lay an empty bottle of Chinese liquor. Saffron kissed the lump on his forehead and went up onto the top deck and finished potting the rest of the herbs. A honey bee landed on one of the painted flowers she had drawn onto the boat. Dizzy with delight she went below to wake Bull with news of the rare sighting. Bull was already awake, stretched out on the floor and staring at the ceiling. He was unimpressed with the honey bee story and asked to her whereabouts the previous day.

“I left you a note,” said Saffron.

“I read it but it didn’t say where you were,” said Bull peevishly. Saffron hugged him.

“So you’re not interested in my honey bee? They’re still on the endangered species list. I do miss real honey, don’t you?” Bull showed scant interest in Saffron’s discovery and said,

“I miss real beef, real pork and real lamb. I miss real food. I can live without honey.” She examined him, standing there in his wrinkled suit, creased from a night spent on the sofa.

“I know, it’s a shame you meat eaters are forced to gorge yourself on laboratory processed proteins, but you are where you are. Did you ever stop to question where your meat was coming from or what pollinated all the fodder crops?”

“Science has had to come up with an alternative to natural pollination.”

“I’d rather have bees any day to insectoid automatons. At least with bees we got honey.”

“Don’t like bees. Bees don’t like me,” said Bull laconically. He scratched his head. Saffron approached him and placed her hands on his face, pushing his cheeks together so his lips pursed.

“What’s wrong Faerrleah? Why are you scratching – has your little rash come back?” Saffron was now gently shaking his head from side to side. Bull mumbled through contorted lips,

“It would have been nice to surprise you. It’s so horrible to come back to an empty home, particularly when I didn’t recognise it. Who is Wangamama mafia anyway?”

“Wangari Muta Maathai,” she said correcting him, “She was a Kenyan environmentalist.”

“Where were you anyway, and what’s that?” he said sitting up and pointing to the far side of the room. Saffron’s face beamed. She said,

“It’s a totem pole I bought from a market off Byres Road. It’s a spectacular piece isn’t it?”

“I nearly crapped myself when I saw it.” Saffron released her grip on Bull’s face. She told him about her trip to Carnac with Maurice and their discussion of a book she was illustrating. In Brittany, she had taken a series of photographs to use as composite images in her book. Bull said,

“Is Maurice in your group?”

“You mean what’s left of my group. Most of them have been arrested or have fled the country.”

“I haven’t heard Maurice’s name before.”

“He’s not an activist. He’s a photographer I know from art school. He specialises in digital imaging.”

“If you had a shackle I could have tracked you.” Saffron looked horrified. She said,

“Do I look like a narwhal? I don’t need to be tracked. I don’t want a shackle. I don’t need a shackle. I don’t require constant access to GPS, credit facilities, the net, social networking or gaming. I live in the real world, not a transnational corporation’s virtualised Hades.”

“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed Bull, “It’s just a device, a tool, like everything else surrounding us. If they introduce a curfew and you don’t own a shackle, you’ll get needlessly detained and questioned by Officer Dibble, until they can verify who you are by other means like a retina scan.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’m not wearing one because it sits nicely with the Government’s neo-feudalist system. So they can profile me and analyse what I buy, where I go and who I meet. Once upon a time we lived in a democratic society. What happened? When did we become so marginalised by the fucks who govern us?”

“The last time I checked we were still a democracy.”

“You’re sweet Faerrleah, but incredibly naive. Democracy is the greatest illusion of our time. This country’s financial assets are owned by a non-tax paying oligarchy who send their children to non-tax paying private schools where elitist values are re-enforced, while the retrograde class gets tossed on the scrapheap. Our corrupt politicians are in the pockets of corporations and illegal wars are waged around the world to control energy production, manipulate food prices and prop up the weapons manufacturing industry. All facilitated by a compliant media whose job is to act as vassals for the rich and distract a gullible populace with fabrications and unqualified opinion dressed up as news. How is that fair? How is that practising the principles of social equity or democracy?” Bull was dumbfounded. He looked at the shackle on his wrist, and for the first time he saw the symbolism of being tied to a corporate machine, but he had no sage words to offer. He touched the screen on the shackle and a 3D projected image of a newsreader appeared. The voice said, “...riots are now spreading from the so-called shanty towns outside London to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool...” Saffron barked,

“Turn the propaganda shit off. If most of you men averted your eyes from her breasts and listened to what she was saying, you would realise only lies come out of those painted lips. She isn’t real, she’s a computer generated animation. You swallow what big tits on your shackle is feeding you. I’m not wearing one. I’d rather think for myself.”

“It’s for your own protection. The city is not like it used to be. Not since the Change. The streets are not safe. There are lots of desperate people out there with nothing to lose. When people’s existence is threatened and their situations become hopeless, they become desperate. Desperation changes people. It can make them fanatical. They become irrational and it makes them capable of committing all sorts of despicable acts.”

“You’re beginning to sound like my father. No offence, but he’s Mr Responsible and I wouldn’t listen to him, so why should I listen to you?” Bull shook his head. He slumped back down on the sofa and pulled one of Saffron’s boho cushions towards his stomach.

“Fine, have it your way,” he said squeezing the cushion, “But you said yourself democracy always reverts to a Plutocracy but now you deplore its demise?” Saffron’s laugh was a cynical one.

“I remember you thinking Plutocracy was a Disney inspired canine government.”

“I was being facetious.”

“Were you?” Bull looked at his feet. Saffron continued, “Look Faerrleah, people in this country fought for centuries to eradicate dictators and tyrants...”

“Now you sound like my dad,” interrupted Bull.

“We may still have a vote and free speech, but this is not democracy, not like we should have, not where ordinary people have their say and are listened to outside an election campaign. The government might change its appearance every five years, but the face behind the mask remains the same. A network of privileged elite still make the rules, and the bourgeoisie order is still in place. The defrauding bankers still walk the street, still enjoying their protected status and are propped up by public taxes, which used to be spent on the people, while those who protest against injustices like this and the rape of our planet are put behind bars. I wish you would open your eyes.” Saffron waited a moment to see how he would respond. Finally, she knelt beside him and said, “What’s this all about anyway, something is troubling you, and it’s not because I don’t wear a shackle.” Bull lent forward, brushed the hair from her ear and sniffed,

“You forgot your sketchbook in your rush to meet Maurice. It’s lying over on the table.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do your sniffing thing. Why do you do that? Why do you have to sniff everyone? I would like to know.” Bull stood up, barging into the coffee table and knocking the empty bottle of Baijiu to the floor as he left the room. Saffron shouted,

“You didn’t tell me what you thought of the boat? I spent a whole day painting it. And the Solar panels got fitted yesterday.” Bull pretended he couldn’t hear her as he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Saffron made herself a cup of peppermint tea and sat staring out of the galley window biting her paint splattered fingernails. It was an annoying childhood habit she had struggled to grow out of. She considered Bull’s own habit of sniffing people. Initially it had made her laugh but now it irritated the hell out of her. She was confused and considered how her relationship with Bull was evolving. She considered how little of her cherished principles were currently reflected in her own life. She looked back into the living room and studied the empty bottle of Baijiu, lying tipped over on the floor. A residual trickle of red liquor streamed towards her Myakka hand woven rug. She rushed to intercept the convergence. It was too late. Later, Bull walked back into the galley. He was carrying a fresh shirt and was smoking a brand cigarette.

“What’s so special about him anyway?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s just got a mercurial personality,” laughed Saffron, “and a natural life balance, or maybe it’s just the way he takes off his sunglasses, lights his pipe and says oui. I don’t know but he’s always been a good friend.” Bull became churlish. His voice was laced with nervous sarcasm. He said,

“What do you mean natural balance? Like he can ride a bike without falling off? So what? Even I can do that.” Saffron sighed,

“Do you have a problem with me being friends with Maurice?”

“I don’t know him so I couldn’t comment.” Saffron’s lips curled into a devilish smile. She said, “Your Ying-Yang seems disrupted.” Bull frowned,

“Oh, speak English woman, just for a change?” Saffron looked at him reproachfully and said,

“When you’re not here, I need someone to talk to. I’m not the type to spend my days at the window, brooding until you return.”

“You have your mam.”

“Besides my mam,” said Saffron faking a Mancunian accent.

“What about your friend Aisha?”

“She’s leaving for Rome and won’t be back until after the winter.”

“Why don’t you email or video call her? Or use virtual presence?”

“I need people to be actually present. I need to feel their aura. I need to sense things like trust, hope, or even doubt, and you can’t do that without physical participation.” Saffron stood up and walked to the sink to rinse out her cup. She stared out of the porthole, examining the potted herbs on the deck, and then over the ragwort growing in the verge behind the moorings to the diseased ravished trees swaying in the wind. Drying her cup with a rag she said,

“After exhausting the subject of homeopathy all my mother and I talk about is the weather and cats. She knows little else about my life.”

“But there are no parameters when you talk to Maurice? Do you talk about me?”

“It isn’t like that. We talk about pagan art and spiritualism. He’s from Brittany, they’re mystical people. We also share our problems and talk them through.” Saffron recalled a previous conversation with Bull when they had first met. He had described her as a small cog in a bigger machine, turning the flow against those who tried to destroy what she held dear. Lately she felt like a hamster, treading a wheel for no other reason than to keep moving. She yearned to be back amongst her group, fighting for what she believed in. Initially, Bull had been interested in her group, but recently he had barely mentioned them. Bull said,

“And you can’t talk to me about that sort of thing?”

“We used to,” considered Saffron out loud, “And perhaps we could again, if you were around for long enough. Even when you are here, you’re not here. Your mind is elsewhere. You used to talk. Now you just drink, smoke and sulk.”

“I have a lot on my mind. Don’t you think I would rather be here with you? I don’t control the weather. I get just as frustrated as you when I can’t get home.” Saffron walked into the living room and Bull followed. She bent down and mopped the spilled Baijiu with the dish towel. Bull inspected Boris’s cage, making a few adjustments to his fake rock and plastic foliage display. Saffron turned to face him, saying,

“While we’re being candid, you didn’t explain why someone who works at the Clyde flood barrier needs to go to Svalbard.” Bull turned away and pretended to take an interest in the contents of Saffron’s bookcase. He picked up a book and read the title: News from Nowhere by William Morris. Nonchalantly flicking through the pages he said,

“I was asked to go. The company is selling its technology to their government. I can’t cycle to the Arctic. I used a solar flight to Svalbard but the connection to the places they send me is a different matter. After the storm, I was lucky…”

“Good grief, how naive do you think I am?” Saffron returned to the galley and picked up a salt cellar. Again, Bull followed her.

“The company offset the carbon dioxide they use by buying carbon credits, planting trees and building wind turbines - all tax deductible of course. I don’t make the rules Saffron.”

“Yes, but you play by the rules, don’t you. You’re an ecocrite. You talk about saving the planet, but in essence what are you doing apart from expending a lot of hot air and working for a company profiting from the effects of climate change? You don’t even wear your Green Covenanters bracelet anymore.” Bull looked away. Shaking his head he said,

“I just find so much of what you say about the environment and politics so restrictive and to be honest a bit moralizing. At times you sound like a religious fundamentalist, living your life by a list of constraints and clouding every decision you make by ethics. I want to understand, but it takes time.”

“I wish we had time, but we don’t. When challenged, the corporatist sponsored governments surreptitiously sell the lie to their wage slaves that the consequences for polluting our planet is a price worth paying, that industrialists will come up with a solution and that anyone arguing against them are standing in the way of progress. For some reason a neoliberal’s concept of time is only expressed in epochs when referring to the fucking up the environment. It’s a future catastrophe for another generation to pick up the tab. They have distorted people’s perception of time and reality. Even when the flood waters are lapping around people’s feet, they still refuse to admit they are wrong and still they get away with their bullshit believing they are immune to the fallout; but who will work in their sweatshops, clean their houses or serve them champagne when the floods destroy the common folk’s lives?” Bull snorted and said,

“You’re changing the subject and deflecting the spotlight onto me or someone else or subjects you feel confident on. It’s a trick you do a lot, I’ve noticed.” Saffron returned to the rug and started pouring salt on the wine stain. She looked up and considered the man standing above her. Despite who he was, she had managed to reach out to him, even change him. He was gentle and passionate but also stubborn. He would connect with her mentally as well as physically. He was a beautiful kisser, she thought, he must have had lots of practise. A moment of silence passed and then she said,

“Why don’t you read the book you’re holding and then you might start to understand me?” Bull put the William Morris book back on the shelf, took a draw on his cigarette and said,

“Have you slept with him?” Saffron was startled by his directness. She snapped,

“I’ve already told you it isn’t that sort of relationship. I knew you were too mentally stunted to understand. Is my English clear enough for you now?” Saffron noticed ash had fallen from Bull’s cigarette and was burning a hole in her rug. As she rushed to stamp out the cinders, Bull walked out of the narrowboat, slamming the hatch door behind him. She’d thought back to previous experiences before other subjects of desire, as she called them. She hated the phrase boyfriend or partner, the former sounded childish, and the later seemed like a dull business arrangement. One subject of desire had called her a praying mantis, elaborating she was like a predatory insect unsuspectingly pouncing and devouring its victim alive. She thought of herself more like a mayfly: ephemeral, but free and beautiful, finding a mate, living and loving, if only for a short but passionate passing of time before ultimately dying. Rather a transitory life than exist like two caged beasts, living out an unfulfilled and protracted life in acquiescent comfort.