The End of Everything

For years Phillip Tennent lived astatine the borderline of the sea, wherever artefacts were washed up each day. Scavengers, nonrecreational and otherwise, came and went. Turnover was higher than you’d expect fixed the relaxed lifestyle, the changeless bully weather, the easiness with which immoderate benignant of beingness could beryllium pursued.

Most of the beachcombers took distant the archetypal point they could easy transportation and sold it connected elsewhere. If you had contacts successful the hinterland, determination was nary uncertainty astir however slickly that could beryllium done. But the hard halfway similar Tennent hung on, retired determination dawn and dusk, radiance oregon shine, throwing the tiny ones back, waiting for an point that would springiness them intermission for thought. They were committed. They could beryllium seen from orbit. Their surviving structures glowed astatine nighttime a 100 miles up and down the coast. By time you saw that impermanent qualities had defined implicit the decades a imperishable aesthetic: bothies and benders made of whitened sticks; mirrors and bits of rag; astir thing the tide left, though to incorporated an artefact would person been considered atrocious sensation arsenic overmuch arsenic atrocious luck. The beachcombers had their limits. Their superstitions gave the tideline its societal structures and distinctive prime connected the palate.

Further backmost from the shore, the hinterland was dark, a small much threatening, with its flattened hashmark of streets and its differing sets of rules. There was a batch of poured cement and half-functioning neon, a batch of territoriality; you had to speech your mode done the bars, blockhouses and abandoned car parks to get your point retired to market.

Coming up from the intertidal, retired of the dusty brackish upwind with his latest find nether 1 arm, Tennent met a pistillate connected her mode down. She looked astatine the entity – which was astatine that clip astir the size of a baby, and which helium had wrapped successful immoderate bleached-out rags – and nodded with a benignant of measured approval. They studied the skyline unneurotic for a moment, and she asked him what information the oversea was successful down determination that day.

‘Eventually it’ll crook into speech,’ Tennent said, without knowing why.

They some laughed.

She was carrying a week’s groceries successful a container for beingness with a breached handle. No 1 was eating overmuch down there. He thought he’d seen her before, surviving mostly connected her ain successful a hut a 100 oregon truthful metres southbound of his.

‘I’m off,’ helium said. ‘Take thing you privation of mine. If you request anything, it’s yours.’

Loose achromatic soil blew into the aerial and whirled astir astatine the borderline of the oversea similar a fog. They turned to look it with akin assemblage connection – expectant, alert, anxiousness tempered with what could lone beryllium described arsenic longing. For a infinitesimal Tennent had a consciousness that thing immense was approaching implicit the water; thing fast, which hadn’t been determination – oregon so anyplace – a infinitesimal oregon 2 before. But it ne'er arrived, and the pistillate shrugged.

‘You’ll beryllium back,’ she predicted. ‘No, I won’t.’

They laughed again and she walked distant towards the tide crossed the cleanable sand, the dependable her feet made reminding him abruptly of the dependable of feet connected snow. She waved without looking back.

*

The portion was different benignant of tideline, facing some the water and the adust land, the mode they ever do.

Tennent had a comparative there, an aunt of his called Marnie, a creator who occupied an aged terraced townhouse connected an elbow of raised crushed astatine the outer borderline of the town, wherever the transverse streets turned to ungraded tracks and fused themselves into the dissected chalk plateau inland. By day, you could look retired to oversea from the apical level of the house, or, landward, crossed the curve of a constrictive small estuary, astatine mudbanks, a bridge, an island, levels of h2o according to the authorities of the tide, and connected the acold bank, ruderal scrub from which emerged the remains of buildings. At night, you chose betwixt the faltering neon messages of the Strip, or, successful the different direction, darkness.

Marnie had washed up determination from London a procreation ago, erstwhile the Strip was inactive a thriving arts community, earlier the crashed airliner raised its buckled starboard helping similar a impermanent modernist structure crossed the gardens connected the different broadside of the road. Seventy years aged now, inactive successful immoderate mode the repository of Tennent’s adolescence and the societal structures which had supported it, she seemed lively and determined 1 minute, precarious the next. Fragility had acceptable successful down the tegument of her cheekbones, but she inactive made art. Her eyes remained wide and she retained an unimpatient consciousness of her ain worth.

‘It’s bittersweet to think,’ helium remembered her saying erstwhile helium was seventeen oregon eighteen, ‘that radical person stopped making afloat usage of you arsenic a quality being. You consciousness arsenic if you’ve fto them down by someway not being persuasive enough.’

Now she stood stiffly astatine the doorway and for a infinitesimal it seemed to Tennent arsenic if she mightiness not invitation him in.

‘What’s that you person with you?’ she said.

In the disorder pursuing the accomplishment of the iGhetti, helium had recovered his mode to her on the seashore arsenic if blindfold, relying connected immoderate interior compass of nostalgia. As they emerged from the months of corporate trauma that blunted the country’s knowing of what had happened, unsure wherever – oregon possibly adjacent who – they were, the 2 of them had been capable to bash small but beryllium and talk. It had been a comfortableness to rehearse their memories of his puerility holidays successful Marnie’s location erstwhile the satellite was inactive good, inactive intact – ‘Still blown,’ arsenic she had enactment it, ‘like a watercourse of bubbles, by each that money.’ But successful the years since helium went to unrecorded connected the tideline, things had changed betwixt them. For him, the house’s worth laic successful its proximity to the sea, and successful its basement – fundamentally a garage, with bully lighting and an inspection pit – which connected to the seashore roadworthy on a abbreviated steep factual ramp. He kept immoderate of his belongings there, and called successful lone seldom to cheque connected their condition.

‘It’s nothing,’ helium said. ‘It’s conscionable thing I picked up.’ ‘But present it’s successful my house.’

‘You haven’t adjacent seen it,’ helium said. ‘All you’ve seen is simply a heap of rags.’

‘We agreed you wouldn’t bring thing here. It’s much than what you see: it’s growing. It’s grown successful the minutes you’ve been lasting astatine my doorway wondering whether to knock.’ They stared astatine 1 another, some rendered uncertain by the spot of her feelings. Eventually she stood distant to fto him enter, adding: ‘I ne'er spell adjacent the sea. I cognize what you bash down there.’

‘It’s conscionable immoderate benignant of flotsam,’ Tennent reassured her. ‘Or is it jetsam? I tin ne'er retrieve which is which, tin you?’

‘You’re not a teen immoderate more, Phillip.’

Later, she gave him baked beans connected toast. Squalls swung successful crossed the northbound slope and obscured the river. They sat looking retired of the window, listening to the rainfall and talking successful debased voices. Evening came on; down the remains of the summertime house, the tide could beryllium heard rushing up the estuary. The artefact laic nether its wraps successful a corner, shifting occasionally arsenic they talked. Every truthful often, Marnie glanced astatine it and shuddered, but aft a while, appearing to suffer interest, she closed her eyes and fell silent. Tennent got to his feet.

‘I’m conscionable going down to the garage,’ helium said.

At that, she clutched his arm. ‘One of the things I find myself reasoning about,’ she whispered, ‘is however fantastic it would beryllium to fly.’

He stared down astatine her. He wasn’t definite if she was really awake.

‘This morning,’ she went on, ‘my room doorway was crawling with ants. A vertebrate came successful to devour them. It was – what? – 1 of those small birds with a reddish breast. Such an opportunist!’ The carnal had whirred successful and retired of the room each morning, she said, making itself rather astatine home. It was connected the doormat, connected the refrigerator, connected the backmost of a chair, cocking its acheronian small oculus sidewise astatine everything. ‘Sharp arsenic its ain beak! Now, archer me: what benignant of vertebrate is that?’ Memory nonaccomplishment was some a curse and a blessing to her. Sometimes she offered it with a grin – not arsenic an mentation but arsenic a habitation, the spot she was speaking from – astatine others, it simply near her impatient. ‘A robin, Marnie. You’ve ever had robins successful the garden.’ She nodded thoughtfully; then, aft a pause, said successful a wholly antithetic code of voice: ‘I person my ain problems, Phillip. I’ve had to enactment rather hard to support this place. I’ve sometimes had to beryllium tougher than I wanted.’

Down successful the store helium pulled the particulate screen disconnected the bonnet of the conveyance helium kept there. Its patchy, matt grey bodywork absorbed the portion airy and didn’t springiness overmuch back. Everything inactive seemed adust and good. Tennent smiled. He fetched the flight kit helium kept successful a tarpaulin duffle nether immoderate cautiously curated rubbish successful the corner; portion helium was stowing the container successful the footwear of the car, helium thought helium heard the beforehand doorway open. ‘Marnie?’ helium called. ‘Marnie!’ When nary reply came, helium went backmost up into the location to cod the artefact. ‘Marnie? I’m going now.’

He thought she had fallen dormant again, but she was waiting for him successful the hallway by the beforehand door. The doorway hung open. Damp nighttime aerial was blowing in.

‘I acceptable it free,’ she said. ‘It didn’t privation to enactment and – Phillip? – I didn’t privation it here.’

‘Christ!’ said Tennent. ‘Free? What are you talking about?’ And erstwhile she looked distant from him: ‘Which absorption did it go? Did you see?’

She shrugged. ‘I cognize what you’re doing down there.’

She wouldn’t accidental what she meant by that, and helium returned to the basement, wherever helium got into the car and started it. It wasn’t until overmuch aboriginal that helium discovered that the tarpaulin container had been opened since his past visit, and 1 of his pistols was missing.

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From The End of Everything by M John Harrison. Copyright © 2026 by M. John Harrison. All rights reserved. No portion of this excerpt whitethorn beryllium reproduced oregon reprinted without support successful penning from the publisher.