STORY 2 OF THE SERIAL PORT SEASON 1
LOST? START HERE: THE HOST - PART 1 - THE CONSULTATION
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Continuity Year 45
Pete’s plan, going into the barbecue, had been to ask Curt the question. By the time the steaks were on, he’d already lost the plan. Em had given him a look across the deck three times. Curt had laughed at one of his stories. Pete couldn’t find the shape of the question in his own head anymore. He’d been working on it for two weeks. His drafts all sounded like the comments under Curt’s last post.
The post had gone up on the Sunday. The photo was of Curt and Laura from before, the two of them at a picnic at the dam. The caption was the usual sort. Booked the date. Best host in the area. Wanted his community to know first. The comments had been what you’d expect under any of them. So happy for you mate. So beautiful. So brave. The same colour and cadence as the comments under Greg’s post the year before, and Anna’s the year before that, and one of the lads from the metalworks who’d done his last autumn to be with his husband. Pete had liked all of those. He hadn’t liked Curt’s.
Pete and Em’s backyard, late afternoon, end-of-summer warm. The barbie was running. Em had been doing salads at the trestle for half an hour. Pete and Curt had been at the railing with their beers for ten minutes, both of them looking at the back fence. Curt’s hand on the bottle was steady. Curt’s hand had always been steady. Pete had known it since they were apprentices together at the metalworks. He couldn’t stop looking at it.
“So,” Pete said.
“Yeah,” Curt said.
“How’s the running going.”
“Haven’t really been running. Host said it’s good not to push too hard in the last few weeks.”
“Right.”
Em came over with the platter of salads and put it on the trestle behind them.
“Steaks on whenever you two are ready,” she said brightly.
Pete looked at Curt’s hand again. Curt’s hand was still steady. Pete’s wasn’t. He could feel the bottle shaking against his palm.
“Mate,” Pete said.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to say something cringe.”
“About what.”
“About the ceremony. About all of it.”
Curt laughed. It was the same laugh he’d always had.
“Don’t, then,” Curt said. “Just don’t say it. Honestly. I’d rather you didn’t. Em told me she’d already told you to leave it alone. I told her that was probably the right call.”
“She did, did she.”
“Yeah mate.”
Pete looked at the bottle.
“Tongs,” Em said from behind them. “One of you. Now.”
Curt clinked his bottle against Pete’s.
“I love you, mate,” Curt said.
“I love you too.”
“I know.” Curt smiled at him. “Tongs.”
Pete went to the barbie.
On the Thursday afternoon before Curt’s day, the host ran into Curt’s mother at the supermarket.
The supermarket was the small one in the lay-by between the host’s place and the venue. Fluorescent lights, two checkouts, a butcher in a back corner who knew her by name. The host did her Thursdays there because by Thursday the team had told her what they’d missed at Wednesday’s stocktake and she could pick it up on the way home. Today’s list was on her phone: ground coffee, lemon, two packs of dishcloths, replacement pen for the lectern.
She came around the end of the wine aisle and Curt’s mother was standing in the middle of it with a bottle in each hand.
The host stopped before Curt’s mother saw her. She had a second to consider whether to back up to the cereal aisle and come at the till from the other side. She had done that twice before with other mothers. She had never been spotted.
Curt’s mother turned.
“Oh,” she said.
“Hello,” the host said.
The bottles were good ones. Forty dollars each, easy. Curt’s mother put them back on the shelf fast, the labels turned in. Her hand stayed on the necks for a beat after.
“I was just,” she said. “For Saturday. The pre-lunch.”
“You don’t need to bring anything.”
“I know. I just thought.” Her hand went to her own hair and smoothed it. “I just wanted to.”
The host felt the bottom of her own stomach turn over. She had felt it with Greg’s mother last autumn and with two other mothers since. The turn-over meant the mother had not figured out yet what to do with her hands and was trying to do something normal with them.
“Whatever you’d like to bring is welcome,” the host said.
Curt’s mother picked the bottles up again. She did not look at them, or at the host. She looked at the shelf above the bottles for a moment.
“Two should do it,” she said. “Don’t you think.”
“Two would be perfect.”
The host stayed in the wine aisle until she heard Curt’s mother’s voice at the checkout. She gave it another minute, then went to the till.
On the Friday afternoon she drove up to the venue with the gold cloth in the boot. The marquee was already going up on the lawn. Helen had the two marquee blokes on the guy ropes. Jen had her stems out on the trestle, sorting them by length. The hire van was unloading the folding chairs in stacks at the side of the lawn.
The host didn’t interrupt them. She walked the perimeter of the lawn instead.
The line her clients walked from the marquee to the venue’s interior door cut across the back of the lawn at a slight angle, around a small ornamental hedge. The hedge was decorative; it also screened the side door from the marquee’s sightline. The host had asked Tom to plant it the first year. He’d put it in over a weekend.
She walked the line slowly. The late sun was warm on the side of her face. She stopped at the spot where, the next evening, the body would come out the side door on the trolley.
The body wouldn’t go to the kitchen at its own reception. It never did. The team had saved money that way for years. The reception fed on the previous Saturday’s client, processed across the week and stored cold in the room at the back of the venue. Tom had this week’s body on the spit since the morning. Curt’s would be next week’s.
She looked at the side door. She looked away. She’d been doing this every Friday for years. The side door was painted white. The handle had a key in it.
She walked back to the marquee. The team had three small questions for her. She answered all three without sitting down, then sat on a folding chair at the back and watched them work for a moment. The marquee was up. The flowers were on the trestle. The kitchen had the lamb in.
She drove home to do the running sheet one last time.
Saturday started at eight. The host was at her kitchen island with her coffee and the day’s running sheet by the time the team’s first email of the day came in.
The running sheet was a single laminated page on her own letterhead. It listed every hour of the day, from 8:00 — host’s prep down to clean-up — close venue and lock. The two items in the middle were 4:00 — Curt to private session, host attending and 5:30 — host returns from private session, reset for reception. The sheet sat on the kitchen island in plain view all morning.
Curt’s parents were at the front door just before eleven. Curt’s mother had a casserole in a Pyrex on top of the two bottles of wine in a tote bag.
“I didn’t know if you’d be feeding people,” she said. “I made it anyway.”
“Thank you. That was kind.”
The host took the casserole through to the kitchen and put it in the oven on warm. The bottles she took separately and set on the kitchen island, beside the running sheet. Curt’s mother’s eyes went to the sheet for a second. The host watched her not read it. Then Curt’s mother turned away and asked where she could put her handbag.
Curt’s sister came next, with her husband, both quiet. Laura’s sister was last. She had driven up alone. The host welcomed her at the door and held her there a moment longer than the others.
“Thank you for coming.”
Laura’s sister nodded. She came inside.
The pre-lunch was in the dining room. The host had set the table the night before. Curt sat at the head of the table — his mother had put him there when she walked in. Curt’s mother and Laura’s sister sat at the same end of the table and shared the coffee Curt’s mother had brought from home in a flask.
Curt’s father gave the toast. He stood up, held his glass, and looked at his son.
“I love you, son,” he said.
He stopped. He looked at his glass. He looked at Curt again.
“I don’t have a speech for this. There isn’t one. I’ve been trying to write one for a month. I am sorry. I love you.”
He sat down hard. Curt’s mother put her hand on his hand. Curt got up, came round the table, kissed his father on the top of the head, and went into the spare room to put his suit on.
The family cleared the table. Curt’s sister stacked the plates. The host took the casserole back out of the oven and put it in the fridge to send home with the parents. Nobody had eaten any of it.
Laura’s sister was standing at the kitchen island, reading the running sheet. The host went to the kettle and turned it on. Laura’s sister didn’t look up.
“Is this everything that happens,” Laura’s sister said.
“Yes.”
Laura’s sister nodded. The kettle came to the boil. The host poured a fresh coffee from the bench and put it on the island beside Laura’s sister.
“Take a moment if you need to.”
Laura’s sister picked up the coffee. She didn’t drink any of it. She walked back into the dining room.
The photographer arrived. The host let him in and took him through to the spare room. Curt was already in his shirt and trousers, his suit jacket on the bed. The photographer set up by the window for the prep shots.
The host went to her own room and got into her dress. It was a soft grey she’d been wearing for ceremonies for years. She did her hair. She did her face. She came back to the kitchen and stood at the island and looked at the running sheet one more time.
Just before three Curt came out of the spare room in his suit. His face was set.
“Ready,” he said.
“Ready.”
She drove him to the venue.
At three-thirty the marquee was full. The guests were in their Saturday best. The host was at the front beside the small lectern she had brought from her office at home. Behind her, on the screen, was Laura, sitting in the rendered space at the table outside her rendered home. She was wearing the long shirt. She was looking at the door.
Pete was in the third row beside Em. He had not slept the night before. The shirt he was wearing was the one Em had laid out for him while he was still trying to draft something to say. He had drafted three things and binned them all.
The music started, the solo cello piece Curt had chosen weeks earlier. Curt came up the aisle alone. The guests stood. Pete clapped when the music ended. His hands were a beat late.
The host did the welcome. She kept it short.
“Curt has written his vows. He would like to say them now.”
Curt turned to the screen. Laura, on the screen, turned to him.
“I came after you,” Curt said. “I have been coming all this time. I am here.”
That was the whole vow. He had told the host weeks earlier that he didn’t want a long one.
On the screen, Laura was crying. Curt was crying. In the third row, Pete kept his hands on his knees and looked at the floor.
The host took the leather portfolio and the pen from the lectern and walked them across to Curt. She opened the portfolio.
“Curt,” she said. “Do you understand that the final remap performed in the private session does not return the body in this room to consciousness.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that the documentation you are about to sign is a legal record of your election to undergo the final remap, and that no party present, including the team and the network, is responsible for any consequence of your election.”
“Yes.”
She read the other three. Curt said yes to each one. She handed him the pen. Curt signed the documentation in three places where she had marked it with light pencil dots. The host had been making the pencil dots for years. She made them so light her clients could barely see them, because barely seeing them was the right amount.
Curt’s father came forward to sign as witness. His hand shook so much that he had to put the pen down twice before he could finish. The witness signature took longer than the candidate signature.
The host closed the portfolio. She turned back to the marquee.
“That concludes the public part of Curt’s ceremony. Curt will now come with me through the venue’s interior door for the private session. The upload itself is by its nature a private moment, and Curt has asked that it stay private. The next two hours are yours to use as you would the photo window at any wedding. The bar is open, the lawn games are out. We’ll see you all again at six, when Curt and Laura are reintroduced on the screen at the start of the reception.”
Curt walked with her up the centre aisle. Laura, on the screen, was still watching the door. The host opened the venue’s interior door. She and Curt went through. She closed the door behind them.
In the marquee, the guests began to stand up.
Pete didn’t stand up. He stayed in the third row with his hands on his knees.
Em put a hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, mate,” she said.
“Yeah.”
He didn’t move.
The marquee was emptying around them. Laura was still on the screen behind him.
Pete sat in the third row.
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- AJW
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The concept cover for my upcoming novel - The Grey Corner, Book 2 of the Continuity Constellation.
Art by Saturnids Art Link: https://mushroomy.house/collections/saturnids
Book 1 of the Continuity Constellation: The Continuity Protocol available on Amazon and indie publishers
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