Radiance

Mary Pellam laughs like a toffee fountain and nuzzles the ear of Madame Mortimer. They have the same short blond hair, fine as fairy floss, but Mortimer has come to do business in her best black travelling suit, while Mary, seventeen and sweet as a clementine, wears a gold scrap of flapper froth, lavender lipstick, and no shoes.

Anchises does a quick shuffle over to a long couch mottled like a dairy cow with snowy moss. The tips of the moss have sprouted mauve spores. They smell of warm nutcake. “A piña colada with a juicy wedge of Queensland pineapple for my esteemed Mr Bergamot! A snakebite for Marvin the Mongoose—thank you so much for coming on such short notice—and a Brandy Alexander—served in a punchbowl, naturally—for Calliope the Carefree Callowhale!” A cartoon octopus in spats and a monocle wraps one hand-painted, bright green tentacle around the stem of his cocktail. A cheerful animated mongoose grabs his pint glass with both peppy, overcranked paws. Anchises sets the crystal punchbowl down on a side table so that a caricatured whale can dip her turquoise head into the booze. She sits like a lady: friendly, enormous, bright-eyed head up; long, non-threatening dolphin tail down. A steady spray of healthy milk gurgles up from her spout like flowers in a hat.

“Hey,” says Marvin the Mongoose, “didn’t you used to be a puppet? Or am I thinking of some other cat?”

“I transitioned to animation after my fourth film,” allows Mr Bergamot. “Though what I really want to do is direct.”

“No shop talk,” admonishes Calliope, fluttering her long eyelashes at the boys.

“And we have not forgotten the honoured, beloved, and marvellously morbid among us,” Cythera announces.

“Dead to the world, but still the life of the party—we appreciate how far you’ve come to be with us tonight! Don’t worry, cake will be served after the festivities!” Anchises drops to one silk knee before a man and woman with dark hair very like his own, dressed in a matching summer suit and clean white linen tea dress. She sits at an angle, askew; her spine is broken. He’s donned a smart bowler hat to hide his shattered skull. The couple beam with joy, blush with the embarrassment of sitting at the centre of attention.

“First,” Anchises says, his voice swelling with feeling, “a bottle of 1944 Bordeaux for my mother and father. I hope you don’t mind me calling those two Mum and Dad. Mixed families can get so confusing. But I know where I came from. Mostly. And the wine came from the Loire Valley.” He holds a hand up to his cheek and whispers loudly, “That’s in France.”

Peitho and Erzulie Kephus kiss their son, stroke his face, drink in his height, his confidence, his fine clothes. “How well you look! My baby boy, all grown up,” Erzulie says, and wipes her eyes.

“We’re proud of you, son,” says Peitho, with the special brand of gruffness that hides manful tears.

Cythera Brass selects a slim green libation from her lacquered tray. “A grasshopper for my dear, sweet Arlo,” she croons.

A man in a diving costume, his jaw square, his shoulders broad, and his glasses broken, smiles like a million dollars prudently invested. Brackish water full of stones and slime pours out of the sides of his smile. He can’t help it. He is so happy to see her. One of his feet is missing, the ankle chewed ragged, bloody. “Cyth! What brings a nice girl like you to a place like this?” Arlo Covington, C.P.A., kisses his old boss’s cheek.

Anchises moves down the line. “Max! You old so-and-so! You had me going there on Pluto for a while, but I’ve got your number now. And that number is…a banana margarita! Am I right? Old Horace, I don’t even have to ask, do I? Pisco sour, my good man. Peru or bust.”

Horace St. John, his legs tied up with silk bows to keep the shattered bones at something like human angles, shakes Anchises’s hand. One of his ribs protrudes from his Sunday suit like a white corsage. “You’re a prince.” He winks.

“Iggy, you look gorgeous! How about a stiff Sazerac?”

Santiago Zhang blushes. His mouth bleeds freely; shards of metal spike through his lips, his severed tongue. He squeezes Anchises’s hand joyfully. “It’s my lifelong ambition to try every cocktail known to man—this’ll be number eighty-two!” His lips leave a smear of blood on the glass like lipstick.

“And last but not least: Mari, Mariana, an apricot zombie for mi corazon, my darling, my sugar, apple of my eye and bird in my hand—is it too soon for hand jokes? Well, you know I never had a proper upbringing, I can’t be expected to know these things.” The sound engineer scowls, but she can’t keep it up for long. She grins girlishly and waggles her fingers. Mould covers her hand, her arm, bores into her cheeks. Fleshy fiddleheads yo-yo out of her palm. Maximo gives a mock bow and pulls a tuppence out of Anchises’s ear to show there’s no hard feelings. His eyes hang hollow in his face, his skin ashen, sallow, slick with Plutonian influenza, which is nothing to sneeze at.