The Power(105)

And they’re both laughing, Bernie’s head tipped back to the sky and all his nicotine-stained teeth and fillings showing.

‘I should kill you, really,’ says Roxy.

‘Yeah. You should, really. Can’t afford to be soft, girl.’

‘That’s what they keep telling me. Maybe I’ve learned my lesson. Took me long enough.’

At the horizon, there is a flash across the skyline. Pink and brown, although it is nearly midnight.

‘Bit of nice news,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve met a bloke.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Early days,’ she says, ‘and with all this, it’s a bit complicated. But yeah, maybe. I like him. He likes me.’ She laughs her old, throaty growl. ‘I got him out of a country full of mad women trying to kill him, and I own an underground bunker, so obviously he likes me.’

‘Grandchildren?’ says Bernie, hopefully.

Darrell and Terry are gone. Ricky’s not going to be able to do anything in that department ever again.

Roxy shrugs. ‘Might do. Someone’s got to survive these things, haven’t they?’

A thought occurs to her. She smiles. ‘Bet if I had a daughter she’d be strong as fuck.’

They have another drink before they go down.





Apocrypha excluded from the Book of Eve



Discovered in a cave in Cappadocia, c. 1,500 years old.

The shape of power is always the same: it is infinite, it is complex, it is forever branching. While it is alive like a tree, it is growing; while it contains itself, it is a multitude. Its directions are unpredictable; it obeys its own laws. No one can observe the acorn and extrapolate each vein in each leaf of the oak crown. The closer you look, the more various it becomes. However complex you think it is, it is more complex than that. Like the rivers to the ocean, like the lightning strike, it is obscene and uncontained.





A human being is made not by our own will but by that same organic, inconceivable, unpredictable, uncontrollable process that drives the unfurling leaves in season and the tiny twigs to bud and the roots to spread in tangled complications.





Even a stone is not the same as any other stone.





There is no shape to anything except the shape it has.





Every name we give ourselves is wrong.





Our dreams are more true than our waking.





Dear Neil, Well! I must say first of all that I like your contortionist Mother Eve! I’ve seen some of those things done at the Underground Circus and I’ve been very impressed – one of those women made my hand wave at everyone in the room, and even Selim could hardly believe afterwards that I hadn’t done it myself. I suppose lots of things in the ancient scriptures can be accounted for that way. And I see what you’ve done with Tunde – I’m sure something like that has happened to thousands of men down the generations. Misattributions, anonymous work assumed to be female, men helping their wives or sisters or mothers with their work and getting no credit, and yes, simple theft.

I have some questions. The male soldiers at the start of the book. I know you’re going to tell me that ancient excavations have found male warrior figures. But really, I suppose this is the crux of the matter for me. Are we sure those weren’t just isolated civilizations? One or two amongst millions? We were taught in school about women making men fight for entertainment – I think a lot of your readers will still have that in mind when you have those scenes where men are soldiers in India or Arabia. Or those feisty men trying to provoke a war! Or gangs of men locking up women for sex … some of us have had fantasies like that! (Can I confess, shall I confess, that while thinking about this I … no, no, I can’t confess it.) It’s not just me, though, my dear. A whole battalion of men in army fatigues or police uniforms really does make most people think of some kind of sexual fetish, I’m afraid!

I’m sure you learned the same thing as I did in school. The Cataclysm happened when several different factions in the old world were unable to reach an accord, and their leaders stupidly each thought they could win a global war. I see you have that here. And you mention nuclear and chemical weapons, and of course the effect of electromagnetic battles on their data-storage devices is understood.

But does the history really support the idea that women didn’t have skeins much before the Cataclysm? I know, I know about the occasional statues we find of women without skeins from before the Cataclysm, but that could just be artistic licence. Surely it makes more sense that it was women who provoked the war. I feel instinctively – and I hope you do, too – that a world run by men would be more kind, more gentle, more loving and naturally nurturing. Have you thought about the evolutionary psychology of it? Men have evolved to be strong worker homestead-keepers, while women – with babies to protect from harm – have had to become aggressive and violent. The few partial patriarchies that have ever existed in human society have been very peaceful places.

I know you’re going to tell me that soft tissue doesn’t preserve well, and we can’t look for evidence of skeins in cadavers that are five thousand years old. But shouldn’t that give you pause, too? Are there any problems that your interpretation solves that the standard model of world history leaves unsolved? I mean, it’s a clever idea, I’ll grant you. And maybe worth doing for that reason alone, just as a fun exercise. But I don’t know if it advances your cause to make an assertion that just can’t be backed up or proved. You might tell me that it’s not the job of a work of history or fiction to advance a cause. Now I’m having an argument with myself. I’ll wait for your reply. I just want to challenge your thinking here before the critics do!