Rating - PG-13 Adult themes
Song credit: “What is Her Name”; Marty Willson-Piper
On her way to the car park, Willow saw a cell phone store and had a brain wave. She marched up to the counter and said: “Hi. I need a new battery for my phone. Would you have a battery that’s already charged? I need to make an urgent call.”
The store clerk looked at Willow’s phone and nodded. “Yeah, the batteries on these tend to die after a year or so. They won’t hold a charge anymore. Is that the problem?”
“Yep,” Willow guessed, smiling broadly.
“Well,” he reached for a phone perched on a Perspex stand on a shelf behind him. “I can sell you the battery out of this one, it’s probably only a month or so old. It should have about four hours of talk time left on it at the moment. I’ll let you have it for - oh, twenty percent off retail.”
“Okay.”
“Cash or charge?”
“I’ll charge it,” Willow said chirpily, reaching for her gold credit card. She signed her name carefully, and was relieved when it matched the signature on the card.
The clerk rang up the transaction and said: “Do you want me to take that old battery for you? We can send it away for recycling.”
“Sure. Thank you.” Willow swapped batteries, bid the clerk good day and hurried out of the store. She wasted no time in turning on her phone once again, and this time was pleased to see that there was a healthy charge left in the battery. But now, the display carried the inexorable command: “Enter PIN code:”
PIN code; Goddess, it could be anything. Well, that was a waste of time. Deflated, Willow turned her phone back off again. At that moment, from a record store just across the way, a piece of music at once familiar and strange caught her attention. There was a dirge-like drone of bass and rhythm guitar, dripping with self-loathing, and over the top a raw lead guitar probed here and there like a used needle seeking a vein. She was quite sure she had never done drugs herself, and was fairly sure she didn’t know anyone who had, but nevertheless the image struck Willow so vividly that she stood rooted to the spot, and as she did, a memory-bubble opened before her:
She was sitting in a bedroom, and a beautiful young blonde woman sat facing Willow, an acoustic guitar perched on her thigh. “The opening rhythm figure is very simple, Willow,” she was saying. “It’s exactly the same as ‘Lost’. C-five for two bars, A-minor-seven for two bars, then it’s the opening riff.” To which Willow replied: “Why are you telling me all this?” The blonde grinned wickedly. “Because the chorus is for two voices.”
“Oh no, I can’t.” Willow started and looked around, as she realised she had said the last sentence out loud. Who is she? Is she the one Joyce spoke of? I really, really have to get home.
She made her way to the multi-storey car park and for the next hour, Willow sought in vain for a car that matched the badge on her key ring. She searched every level systematically. Finally, just as she was about to give up hope, as she checked the last corner on the rooftop, she found it. It was a rusty off-white old station wagon, but the rampant lion on the radiator grille was an exact match. Smiling wearily, Willow reached into her bag and pressed the button.
Nothing happened. Willow tried again, with the same result. The redhead frowned, but it dawned on her; this could not possibly be her car. When this old workhorse was built, plips and central locking had not even been invented. But at least now I know the make, Willow thought to herself happily as she circled it, reading the badges. This is a Peugeot, French I guess, and this particular model is called a 404.
Four-oh-four. It was poetic, but at the same time utterly utilitarian. In a way, Willow decided, it was something of a relief to find a car that was just a humble number; that hid its light under a bushel. Willow was heartily sick of the rampantly phallocentric names that so many cars had; on her trek around the car-park there had been a veritable epidemic of automotive priapism: Dart, Probe, Viper, Cobra; why not just call it Trouser-Dagger and have done with it? Though she had a memory-bubble buried somewhere that quietly insisted that in 2005, another French carmaker was slated to release an auto with a genuinely feminine name, except that in keeping with current company policy to start all of their models’ names with the letter “X”, the new vehicle was to be called a Xlitoris. Or perhaps it was a false memory; or more likely, a false hope.
The redhead sighed. Her feet were beginning to pain her, and she still had no idea where her car was. She toyed with the idea of taking a cab home, but a part of her rebelled at the notion. Leave my car here - like overnight, or even longer? What if something happened to it? She wondered if she might have parked on the street outside the mall, but she considered this unlikely. The day was just warming up, and Willow reckoned that if she’d had the opportunity, she would have parked on one of the undercover levels to keep the car’s interior cool. She headed back to the stairs to the lower levels.
Could it be hiding behind a larger car, so that I missed it the first time through? Willow wondered. Could I be missing it the same way now? At a whim, she slipped a hand into her bag as she walked, pressing the plip button every ten yards or so. Just in case.
Ten minutes later, a level down from where she had started on her second circuit of the car park, Willow pressed her button for the umpteenth time, and there was a sudden snick of unlocking doors. The redhead jumped, and turned towards the sound, just in time to see the telltale flash of orange lights. But the silver hatchback in question had a big chromium “H” on the grille, not a lion; it was a Honda. Willow sighed. Someone else will be coming up any second to climb into it and drive away. A pity; it was a neat little car, and looked like it was almost new.
But no-one approached the car, so Willow pressed her button again. The Honda’s doors locked with an audible click, and the indicator lights flashed twice. Willow pulled out her keys and looked at them again. Her eyes widened, and then she smacked herself in the face with her other hand. Idiot! She had been so wrapped up in the mysterious lion badge that she hadn’t looked at the key properly! On the black plastic at the base of the key, there was a subtle embossed “H”. The Honda was hers.
Willow walked wearily over to her car, unlocking it once again. She cursed herself silently. Why am I such an idiot that I have a Peugeot badge on my key ring, but I drive a Honda? How typically Willow is that? Is it so that if someone steals my keys, that they spend an hour looking for the wrong kind of car? Ridiculous…Willow hesitated as she approached the driver’s door and glanced in through the window. In the driver’s foot well, there were three pedals.
A disturbing scene played out in Willow’s memory, of her sitting in a car, driving it with magic, her hands and feet off the controls. There was an image of Dawn in the passenger seat next to her, paralysed with terror. Of a hard shocking impact, and Dawn breaking her arm. In the wish-world, that was maybe the only time I can remember driving anything, Willow thought bleakly, apart from the time I did a Boadicea act up top of a trailer truck. And now I have a licence, and I can supposedly drive a stick-shift? Whose crazy idea is this? But she calmed herself by noting that her little Honda had no visible dents and the keys were in her possession; ergo, she must have driven it here and parked it without hitting anything. She opened the door and got in.
Willow looked around the interior of her car and was pleased when she came up with a road atlas. She hesitated for just a second…aha! She quickly got out the credit card slip that the guy in the phone store had given her and sure enough, there was the merchant’s imprint to tell her where she was. She then looked up her home address on her licence and was again rewarded. She checked in the atlas. This was not bad. She was a couple of towns away from home, probably no more than ten, maybe fifteen miles. Willow took a deep breath and put the key into the ignition.
The car started first go, and Willow found that even if her brain wasn’t sure, her hands and feet were finding their way to the controls easily enough. So she checked for cars and pedestrians, selected first, and drove off.
Despite her current high level of anxiety about just what in the frilly heck she was doing here and what awaited her back home, Willow struggled to keep a cheeky little grin off her face as she drove. Despite its small size, or perhaps because of it, her Honda was a natural in the heavy traffic around the mall. And driving was quite easy; it was obvious that she had been doing it for years. She looked around her at the columns of heavy sedans and SUVs and thought, well, if bigger is better, then smaller is definitely smarter. And every time I fill up with gas, I come out way ahead. Of course, all the young programmers at work think I have a boring car; most of them have their turbo-charged Subarus and they talk endlessly about souping them up. Some of them have taken to calling their cars Scoobies, which of course makes them the Scoobie Gang…
Willow almost jammed her brakes on with surprise. That was a memory of my current life, she thought, not the wish-world. Thank Goddess, maybe it’s going to start coming back to me. It’s as if all I need to do is to look at things or experience things, and the memories will trigger.
Her theory was partially borne out a moment later. There was a CD playing on her car stereo, and Willow suddenly started to pick out the words:
In her eyes was sorrow
Her thoughts though I could follow
Her cheeks were pale as moonbeams
In the sky
What is her name?
Sarah or Jane
Constance or Charmaine
What is her name?
Where is she from?
Rebecca or Yvonne
Sabrina or Siobhan
Where has she gone?
The image of the smiling blonde with the guitar swam before Willow’s gaze once again, and she could feel her eyes filling with tears. What is her name? Is she the one that Joyce spoke of? Where has she gone? If she’s the one I’m thinking of, we swore we would find each other, but I’m not even sure I know where to begin.
A couple of miles from the mall, the houses suddenly thinned out and Willow found herself on a stretch of open highway. Suddenly, without thinking, Willow found herself slowing to turn off the main road, even though her reading of the road atlas told her that the direct way home was straight ahead. Why am I doing this? Even as she asked the question, the answer came to Willow. Because this way is quieter. It parallels the main road, but it climbs up a ridge and down the other side, past farmlets and a couple of vineyards. It’s a nice drive, and I often come this way when I want to chill out for a few minutes.
As the road rose before her and Willow steered the Honda through the first few curves, the redhead suddenly remembered that she had been up this way once on the back of a motorcycle. She could almost feel it even now; the breeze blowing in her face, the harsh bellow of the exhaust, the warm sun. Willow had felt exhilarated and at the same time just a little scared as she’d hung on, one hand on the chrome grab rail behind her, the other clinging to the broad leather-clad back of the rider sitting in front of her. He - now just a minute - he? Yes, definitely a he. But Willow had the distinct impression that he was like family, which confused her. I’m pretty sure I’m an only child, and now that Xander Harris was never my childhood friend, I can’t figure out who it could have been. I definitely need to clear my head; I better stop, there’s a place just a little way up the road with a view. Willow pulled the car off the road and silenced the engine. She stared through the windscreen for a moment, taking in the scenery. Too many questions, not enough answers yet. And what about this car? Why do I have a Peugeot key ring when I drive a Honda? But then, as she sat, her thoughts began to focus.
Bits of it were coming back to Willow now. She’d driven a Peugeot once (When? Where?) and decided she’d quite like to own one. She’d investigated, and found that Peugeots hadn’t been sold in the States for about a decade, which seemed a terrible shame. What was wrong with having cars with a little bit of character, even if they cost a little more? After all, they couldn’t be bolted together any worse than a Chevrolet, could they? She remembered checking out the possibility of importing one, but it was far too much trouble getting the necessary safety and emissions compliance, so she’d soon dropped the idea, and bought the little Honda instead. Willow pulled the key from the ignition, looking at the key ring dangling in her hand, with its snarling rampant lion - so fierce and yet so impotent. She’d bought the lion key ring and she’d kept it as a symbol; to remind herself that it was important to have dreams and to think about other possibilities and other places. Even if you couldn’t always make them happen. And equally of course, it’s important that we don’t have absolutely all of our dreams come true.
Willow smiled. It was starting to come together. She put the key back in the ignition, started the car and drove on.
The road wound its way down the other side of the ridge and rejoined the main route. No further insights came to Willow on the way. She estimated that she was about two miles from home. She drove past a Mexican take-away and took a left. She glanced a second time at the Mexican place as she turned and then it happened.
Mexico. Last year. A lot of firms were trying to headhunt me; Goddess knows why. 3S sounded interesting and they seemed to be a good place to work, so I signed on. The package came with a generous advance, which made a nice change from years of existing hand to mouth at college. I decided it was time to live a little, so we went to Mexico for a vacation. The little place we stayed at, we got friendly with one of the waiters and he told us about this great drive we had to take.
“Oh si, senoritas, there is a road to the north of Colmeneros, the view is muy spectacular. You must see it. Do you drive?”
We contacted a hire company and a dainty little Peugeot sedan had arrived a couple of days later. I felt nervous when I first saw it; it had looked too small and frail to go pounding over Mexican back roads. A Jeep or an APC might have been a better bet. But I put aside my fears and my good old-fashioned prejudice - that nagging inner voice that tried to tell me that because you never saw this car on sale in the States, therefore it couldn’t be any good. With a picnic basket and a full tank of gasolina, we had set off.
And it had been a wonderful drive. The road was frightful in places, but the little Peugeot had not missed a beat or put a wheel wrong for the whole trip. Maybe they have some awful roads in France, too. Finally we stopped on the edge of a plateau overlooking a lake and ate lunch.
“You know,” I had said to the woman with me as we ate, “I’m aware I’m not supposed to develop any sort of attachment for a rental car. I mean, we’ve only got it for a couple of days and then we’re giving it back, right? But I really love this car. It’s small and quirky and it’s got loads of character. And it’s done nothing but surprise me in good ways ever since I’ve laid eyes on it. It’s not conventional, it’s not something you’re going to see on every street corner back home…” I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with the conversation, so I’d sort of stopped talking mid-sentence..
And she had smiled her familiar lopsided grin and she’d said, “I think you just listed some of your good qualities. Now do you understand a bit better why I feel about you the way that I do?” And she’d leaned in close, cupped my face in her hands, and she kissed me. But what a kiss! This was plainly not the first time she had kissed me. It was the kiss of a woman who was thoroughly familiar with my lips, who knew their every curve and line, who knew exactly how each point liked best to be touched. It was the kiss of someone who had been kissing me for years. Someone who was going to kiss me for many years to come yet. The woman that I would spend the rest of my life with. Tara kissed me…
TARA!! Willow slammed the brakes on, her heart pounding as if it wanted to break out of her chest. She swerved and pulled the Honda in to the kerb. A horn sounded angrily behind her from a following driver unappreciative of Willow’s sudden manoeuvre. But the redhead heeded it not. Tara…She rummaged in her bag for her phone, a broad grin already spreading over her face. She turned her phone on, and when it asked for her PIN code, she keyed in: 8(t), 2(a), 7(r), 2(a).
A message flashed up that the code had been accepted, and Willow called up her address book. She began to laugh, softly at first, then loudly, uproariously. The names scrolled by, and Willow recognised each one: workmate… major client… workmate… client… boss… home… workmate… mom and dad. And so on. She got to the end of the list. Tara was not among the listed names, but (and Willow laughed once more) it didn’t matter. She’s with me now, she’s all around me, we’re together and we’ve always been together.
Beaming, Willow pulled back onto the road and drove the short remaining distance to her home.
(To be continued)
Edited by: Bagheera
at: 4/9/03 4:16:16 pm
and Dave Lister ("Red Dwarf"
And what of the others (including the baby)?
And thanks for touching on a little ancient history, as this tale approaches its first anniversary. You're right to compare this to a fun ride, especially the earlier 12-episode section. This btw now goes by the name of "Core Values", and I will change this in the thread when I find a spare moment. "Core Values" I intended to have the feel of a rollercoaster ride, and it even makes me a bit dizzy if I re-read a substantial section of it. "Coming Home" and "Night Manoevres" were intended to connect the Core with "Bastard Universe", which I look on a little differently. Rather than a rollercoaster, I see it as a runaway train. And as you say, pretty much anyone can come along for the ride (well, PG and above, anyway).
was a conceit, a device for making the bringing of Tara back to life as drawn-out and complicated as possible. When I was finished the 12 parts of Core Values, I looked back on the whole and I was dissatisfied. Why? Not so much with vampTara herself, but with the circumstances that brought her into being: Tara being dead at the start of the story. And even though, superficially, story’s end had Tara and Willow together and happy, there was still something fundamentally wrong with the Buffyverse: it was a place where Tara got killed in the first place. It was a place where, given everything that goes on there, Tara and Willow were very unlikely to be happy together for very long, or at the very least, would be unlikely to experience peace. The Buffyverse is essentially a violent and ugly place, and the loss of the Hellmouth was unlikely to make that go away. It is a place of adolescent wish-fulfilment, in which a loving, adult relationship that lasts has no place. It was at this time that “Bastard Universe” began to take shape, helped along by the undercurrent of loss, yearning and melancholy that is present in the two bridging stories, “Coming Home” and “Night Manoeuvres”. What seemed obvious to me was that although the Buffyverse was not a place designed for Tara and Willow’s happiness, it was clearly a place that was designed for the amusement and entertainment of someone. And we all know whom that someone turned out to be.
) - can I detect in you a tiny little bit of pining for the missing-in-action Faith? Hmmm...