WIP Wednesday 13: Darlings I've Killed
Oct. 5th, 2022 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
between_time_and_42As fun as rewriting a story can be, it can also be a source of pain, once you realize that you have to get rid of a particular line or scene that doesn't work anymore, and yet you've grown attached to it. I recently had to do some excising of a few lines that I was fond of, and one entire scene, and I thought I'd share those for WIP Wednesday so I have them saved somewhere. We'll start with a couple short lines that I found humorous (and none of these are edited, these come straight from the original draft):
~
[Jack's mother] passed a hand along her face, closing her eyes and finally giving in. “Okay. You can go find your friends and bring them back here. But there’s one condition…”
Oh Bog, please don’t let it be anything bad… Jack squinted. “Yes?”
“I’m coming with you,” his mother said. She marched over to the door and knelt down to put on her shoes. Jack was shocked. His mother was going back into civilization after condemning everything to do with it a few years before? Jack pinched himself to know if he was dreaming or not, but the pain didn’t wake him up. In fact, it was only made worse as Jack had accidentally dug his nails into a scratch on his arm that he had received the night before, one that was scarring over now. His eyes watered.
~
I had to get rid of this because I changed the nature of Jack's healing power, so that, much like the Aresians, any injuries he receives heal to the point of not leaving scars, no matter how deep they are. So there wouldn't be any scars on his body from the night before that he would have accidentally pinched... but I thought it was a funny thing to happen, and maybe I'll use that image in something else eventually.
Then there's this other exchange that tickled me:
~
“Mercury City?”
“Yes,” Mylo said. “The Mercurians built it belowground after the humans came to colonize this planet. It’s still somewhat of a work in progress, though, which is why a lot of Mercurians lingered aboveground in Hunger City to eventually drink themselves to death. They left behind manholes and trap doors all over the place as entryways to their underground city.”
“And we’ve known about them ever since we came here because there’s a trapdoor ever so conveniently located in our bedroom at home,” Xyloto said dryly. He wagged his head in disbelief. “Who knew we’d ever need it for an escape! I tell you, Mylo, there’s a reason I’m writing a book on all this. A story this contrived would become an instant bestseller.”
“If there were publishing companies on this planet, any story could become a bestseller,” Mylo retorted.
~
First off, I've changed a few things about Mercury City so the information here isn't accurate anymore, but I have to get rid of Xyloto and Mylo's little exchange because I originally used Xyloto to point out all the contrived parts of the plot and make fun of them, which incidentally made me hate his character for being annoying, and also I hope the revised version won't have any contrivances or inconsistencies to point out... so I have to get rid of that aspect of his character. (I'm still not very fond of him as a character though.) But I still think what Mylo said in response to him was funny (there's barely an organized civilization on this planet, let alone publishing companies...).
Finally, here's the major part I had to cut: the existence of Kylie's adopted sister, Eva. In Concept Album Extravaganza, Pink/Floyd reconcile with his wife and had a daughter with her, who he and his wife ended up abandoning when they left the planet to go to Mars. In SF: ALS, Floyd's wife divorces him and they don't reconcile, so they don't have a daughter, so Eva no longer exists. Here's a little bit of introduction to the concept of Eva's character:
~
Thinking about his father led Jack to think about Mylo and Xyloto, and then about the mystifying Eva. Although Jack had only just met her and had barely said more than a sentence to her, she seemed to be horrifically fascinated with him. Maybe it was just the fact that he wasn’t human and the son of a famous rock singer to boot, but Jack had an odd sneaking suspicion that Eva’s interest with him went deeper than that. He thought about her portraits on the walls in the main room, and suddenly a thought occurred to him that he had to ask Kylie about.
“Hey, Kylie?”
She flipped the record over. “What?”
“How old is your sister?” Jack asked.
Kylie paused for a moment. “She’s twenty-two.”
A piece of information that Kylie had told Jack entered his head. My mom had me when she was eighteen…
“So she’s six years older than you?” Jack said, counting quickly.
“Yeah…” There was a note of wariness in Kylie’s voice.
“So your mom had her when she was twelve?!”
Kylie stayed immobile in one place before setting the record down, putting the needle on it, and then pressing the button. She crept back to the bed and sat cross-legged at the end of it as a rocking song came blaring out of the boxes beside the turntable.
“My mom didn’t have Eva at all,” Kylie said. “But we don’t like talking about it.”
~
With that... let's move on to a somewhat lengthy scene where Eva and Jack have a conversation.
Shortly, Jack became aware of the sound of feet pattering along after him. He slowed down warily; none of the Nadsats could be following him, because he would hear squeaking skate wheels rather than footsteps. He turned around to find that Eva was coming after him, determination glowing in her brown eyes.
“Can you stop doing that?” Jack asked, stopping in his walk to let her come to his side.
“Doing what?” she asked, smoothing her skirt and biting her lip.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jack sighed. “You’re just staring at me a lot, and… it’s getting uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” Eva looked down at her feet, a red blush slowing approaching her skin. “That— that scene back there… that was very impressive.”
“Thanks,” Jack mumbled. “You don’t think they’re going to hate me for it later, do you?”
Eva blinked. “Hate you? Why?”
“Well, in nadsat-talk, the word ‘nadsat’ means ‘teenager…’” Jack rolled his eyes. "They’re going to think I’m the worst at coming up with names.”
“Well, you’ve never had to do it before,” Eva pointed out. She took a step forward. “Come walk with me, Jack. I’ve been wanting to talk to you since yesterday.”
Interested, Jack followed Eva, trying to keep up with her long strides. She stared straight ahead, her back ramrod straight, seeming to know exactly where she was going, although Jack hadn’t gotten the feeling that she had been to Mercury City before. Mercurians huddled and slouched in dark corners beside the squat buildings, and as Jack looked at their inhuman features, trying to accustom himself to them, Eva began to speak in her oddly-accented voice.
“I don’t know if you’ve figured this out already, but Mylo and Xyloto are not my parents, and Kylie’s not my blood sister.”
“I did figure it out,” Jack said. “Kylie told me how old you are.”
Eva nodded. “I don’t like people to talk about it, or to talk about it myself, really. But I think it’s important that you know who I am.”
“Who were your real parents?” Jack asked, having the sneaking suspicion that he would recognize one or more of the names.
Eva ran her fingers through her long, tangled hair. “My father was Floyd Pinkerton, or Pink Floyd, the rock star that Xyloto was talking about who told him about you and your mother. I was seven years old when he died.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I… I know how you feel.” He wanted to touch Eva to comfort her, but she seemed hardened and closed up, and her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her.
“No, you don’t,” Eva said. “At least you weren’t born yet when Ziggy died. At least he didn’t deliberately take himself away from you…” She breathed deeply, trying to keep her voice steady. “My parents dragged me along on some trip to America– that was a country on Earth, we used to live in England—”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jack interjected, wondering now if that was where Eva’s accent came from.
“—under the pretense that we were visiting some of my dad’s old friends,” Eva continued. “The next thing I knew, he had dumped me off with Mylo and Xyloto to go into outer space with my mum. They were trying to bury Ziggy’s body, or so Mylo and Xyloto told me… They were headed to Mars. I mean, Ares, I guess.” She fiddled with her fingers and bit her lip even harder, breaking the skin. Jack was alarmed. “Are you all right?” He reached in to take Eva’s hand, but she moved away from Jack.
“No,” she spat. “No, I’m not all right! Why would you expect me to be? My parents went away one morning, and I never saw them again… Who would do that to a little girl?” Eva’s voice choked off, and she hastily brushed away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I spent two whole years wishing they would come back. But I never found out what happened to them.” She stopped walking suddenly and hung her head, pressing her hands to her face and shaking with a suppressed sob. Jack, unable to control himself, reached out and laid a hand on Eva’s shoulder, but she violently shook him off and turned away from him. “Don’t touch me!” She hid her face in her hands as Jack, at a loss, stood by her awkwardly, trying to think of soothing things to say but only able to come up with the eternal “I’m sorry.”
Finally Eva turned back to Jack. She wiped her damp face as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Jack. I get emotional when I talk or even think about them.” She gave him a cracked smile. “I didn’t mean to tell you all that.”
“It’s fine,” Jack said, and then, aware that he might be treading dangerous waters to set Eva off again, but still wanting to know himself, he asked, “Did your parents know my father? You said that they went all the way to Ares to bury him.”
“Yes,” Eva said. “I knew him too. Ziggy was actually the first man I ever loved.” She laughed. “Imagine that— a child in love with a million-year-old man!”
A million years old? Of course Jack had known that Aresians could live for a very long time, but he couldn’t quite reconcile that with the image of the youthful singer from his newspaper clipping. But then again, Aladdin Sane had lived for about the same amount of time, and he had appeared to be no older than his thirties when Jack had met him.
“How did you meet my father?” Jack asked. Eva answered, “My family was the first to meet him when he came to Earth, actually.” She began walking again, and Jack picked up the pace. “He landed in our backyard. Well, really my parents’ backyard.”
Jack raised his eyebrows– that was an addition to the story that Xyloto had forgotten to tell him about. Another question popped into his brain. “Do I remind you of him?”
Eva turned her head and looked down her nose at Jack, and even in the bad lighting Jack was startled by the force and intensity of her eyes. Dark and brown, they seemed almost to belong to another person, not quite matching up with her quiet demeanor. They stared viscerally into Jack, mentally tearing him apart.
“Yes,” Eva murmured, her soft-spoken voice contrasting the power of her eyes. “Yes, you do remind me of him a bit. You’ve got the ears right down pat, and the eyes…” She peered deeper into Jack’s, unnerving him with her stare even more. “Goodness, but Ziggy had such lovely eyes! Dark blue on one side, light blue on the other.”
“Actually,” Jack said, “one of his pupils was permanently dilated, and the other one wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Eva pulled away from Jack. “Well, there goes my memory, then. Good thing I haven’t gotten a chance to paint him yet.” She chuckled. “Mylo and Xyloto have no good photos of Ziggy, and of course I’m not eidetic like you Aresians… it means having a flawless memory,” she clarified, seeing Jack’s blank expression.
“I’m not eidetic,” Jack said. “I can remember things pretty well, but only when I need to.”
“Ah, well supposedly Aresians can remember everything that’s happened in their life after their birth,” Eva said. “I wish I could remember Ziggy better…” She blinked in Jack’s face, and then reached out to brush a strand of hair behind his ear. Jack shuddered involuntarily.
“You have his nose,” Eva said. “As far as I recall, anyway. The cheekbones aren’t exactly the same, though…”
Jack pulled away. “I thought you said Mylo and Xyloto don’t have any good photos of my father.”
“Oh, they have a few good photos, but not for what I want to do with them,” Eva said. “I want to paint a portrait just as I’ve done for all the other members of my family, but none of their photos are suitable for the kind of portrait I want to do. I want to show Ziggy candidly as he was, not posed for some publicity shot or…” She sucked in a breath and looked away, not finishing her sentence.
“I have a photo,” Jack began, and started to reach for the knapsack on his back– before realizing that there was no knapsack on his back. He must have left it in the building that he had awoken in. “Never mind for now. Maybe I could model for you– if I look enough like my father, you could just fill in the blanks from your memory.”
Eva shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. When I paint a person’s face, I have to paint the person that I’m looking at, not someone else, no matter how similar they look. Even if they were identical twins, I’d still notice at least one difference in their expression. My mother always used to remind me that every person is different, and when I paint, I can’t help but present their uniqueness.” She smiled, and Jack was surprised to find how much the expression suited her. “Of course, you’re welcome to come and sit for your own portrait any time you want. I suppose you’re a part of the family now that Kylie is dating you.”
“We’re not dating,” Jack said.
“Oh? Then why has Kylie told me that you were her first kiss?” Eva countered.
Jack shrugged hopelessly. “Can we not talk about Kylie right now?” Bringing up Kylie had brought up the memories of the last time Jack had seen her, fighting with all her might against the pack of Diamond Dogs that could very well destroy her…
Eva nodded, understanding, and a flash of pain came to her eyes. She changed the subject and turned around to walk the other way with Jack. “There’s something I have for you back at the house. Not our house in Hunger City, I mean, but the house that you were treated in a few moments ago.” She cocked her head sideways and ran her hands over her skirt again.
“Do you mean a present?” Jack asked.
Eva inclined her head. “I suppose so. When we were fleeing the Diamond Dogs, I grabbed The Rise of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars off Mylo and Xyloto’s bed. I couldn’t bear to leave without it, and I thought you might want it too.”
“You thought right,” Jack murmured, and a smile came to his face. “Thank you very much, Eva.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back, and then her eyes grew tight around the edges. “I’ve been listening to that album for so many years now, ever since I was five. I love Ziggy’s music, but remembering who he was and what he did upsets me. I mean, he was so bloody beautiful, and brilliant as well… He didn’t deserve to die. He could have saved the entire planet Earth with his music, were it not for those three sick bastards of bandmates that he had…” Her hands balled into fists, and her eyes turned murderous. “Your father was loved by so many people, Jack. Including me. I— I wish he could have survived just long enough to meet you… and maybe make another album…” She patted Jack’s shoulder. “It must be hard for you to have grown up without him.”
“Not really,” Jack said, and his heart sang with pain. “I’ve only just started missing him, but how can you miss someone you never knew?” Eva had no response. She and Jack walked along, silently comforting each other for the respective losses of their fathers (and in Eva’s case, her mother). Then Eva spoke up again.
“It’s incredibly odd to be here with someone who is so closely connected with the man I admire.” She looked down at Jack. “Now that I’m older, I’ve begun to seriously cherish the time I spent with him. And to have his son here… It’s a bit spooky.” She laughed softly, chastising herself. “I’m sorry if that sounded weird. Actually, I’m also sorry for staring at you so much yesterday… I just couldn’t believe you existed.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. He couldn’t understand Eva’s emotional connection to his father, but the staring part made sense to him. “It’s nice to hear from someone else who knew my dad when he was alive.”
“Not that I can really tell you much,” Eva sighed. “I’ve got only the fuzziest memories of him in my head. If my dad were still around, I know he could tell you more about Ziggy than any of us can. He was very close to Ziggy back then, or so Mylo and Xyloto have said. They even lived in America together for a short while.”
She sighed and kicked at the concrete ground. “He never told me he was a musician, did you know that, Jack? My father kept it a secret when I was growing up. I know Kylie likes his music, and it’s been played often in our house, but I’ve never listened. I’ve heard it about a thousand times, but I’ve never listened. I— I just can’t think about him, or my mother, without…”
Eva sucked in a deep breath and fell silent. Then she prodded Jack in the side. “What’s your favorite song of Ziggy’s, Jack?”
“Um…” Jack racked his brains for the song titles. “I liked ‘Starman’ the best, I think. And ‘Memory of A Free Festival.’ That was pretty horrorshow.” He smiled apologetically for his use of nadsat-talk, and Eva burst out laughing.
“Horrorshow! That’s a wonderful word. Kylie’s been using it all over the place.” Then, with the unpleasant thought of Kylie looming in her mind, Eva said quickly, “Those songs are actually my two favorites of Ziggy’s, too. They’re rather hard to listen to now, though.”
~
Then their conversation gets interrupted by something happening, so that's all the Eva/Jack interaction there is in this story. Ultimately, she didn't add much to the narrative, aside from explaining what happened to her after Floyd and Audrey tragically failed to return from Mars, so it's easy to cut her out. But it was still hard to get rid of a multi-page-spanning conversation. When I get to this part, I think I'll have Jack talk to Mylo instead.
~
[Jack's mother] passed a hand along her face, closing her eyes and finally giving in. “Okay. You can go find your friends and bring them back here. But there’s one condition…”
Oh Bog, please don’t let it be anything bad… Jack squinted. “Yes?”
“I’m coming with you,” his mother said. She marched over to the door and knelt down to put on her shoes. Jack was shocked. His mother was going back into civilization after condemning everything to do with it a few years before? Jack pinched himself to know if he was dreaming or not, but the pain didn’t wake him up. In fact, it was only made worse as Jack had accidentally dug his nails into a scratch on his arm that he had received the night before, one that was scarring over now. His eyes watered.
~
I had to get rid of this because I changed the nature of Jack's healing power, so that, much like the Aresians, any injuries he receives heal to the point of not leaving scars, no matter how deep they are. So there wouldn't be any scars on his body from the night before that he would have accidentally pinched... but I thought it was a funny thing to happen, and maybe I'll use that image in something else eventually.
Then there's this other exchange that tickled me:
~
“Mercury City?”
“Yes,” Mylo said. “The Mercurians built it belowground after the humans came to colonize this planet. It’s still somewhat of a work in progress, though, which is why a lot of Mercurians lingered aboveground in Hunger City to eventually drink themselves to death. They left behind manholes and trap doors all over the place as entryways to their underground city.”
“And we’ve known about them ever since we came here because there’s a trapdoor ever so conveniently located in our bedroom at home,” Xyloto said dryly. He wagged his head in disbelief. “Who knew we’d ever need it for an escape! I tell you, Mylo, there’s a reason I’m writing a book on all this. A story this contrived would become an instant bestseller.”
“If there were publishing companies on this planet, any story could become a bestseller,” Mylo retorted.
~
First off, I've changed a few things about Mercury City so the information here isn't accurate anymore, but I have to get rid of Xyloto and Mylo's little exchange because I originally used Xyloto to point out all the contrived parts of the plot and make fun of them, which incidentally made me hate his character for being annoying, and also I hope the revised version won't have any contrivances or inconsistencies to point out... so I have to get rid of that aspect of his character. (I'm still not very fond of him as a character though.) But I still think what Mylo said in response to him was funny (there's barely an organized civilization on this planet, let alone publishing companies...).
Finally, here's the major part I had to cut: the existence of Kylie's adopted sister, Eva. In Concept Album Extravaganza, Pink/Floyd reconcile with his wife and had a daughter with her, who he and his wife ended up abandoning when they left the planet to go to Mars. In SF: ALS, Floyd's wife divorces him and they don't reconcile, so they don't have a daughter, so Eva no longer exists. Here's a little bit of introduction to the concept of Eva's character:
~
Thinking about his father led Jack to think about Mylo and Xyloto, and then about the mystifying Eva. Although Jack had only just met her and had barely said more than a sentence to her, she seemed to be horrifically fascinated with him. Maybe it was just the fact that he wasn’t human and the son of a famous rock singer to boot, but Jack had an odd sneaking suspicion that Eva’s interest with him went deeper than that. He thought about her portraits on the walls in the main room, and suddenly a thought occurred to him that he had to ask Kylie about.
“Hey, Kylie?”
She flipped the record over. “What?”
“How old is your sister?” Jack asked.
Kylie paused for a moment. “She’s twenty-two.”
A piece of information that Kylie had told Jack entered his head. My mom had me when she was eighteen…
“So she’s six years older than you?” Jack said, counting quickly.
“Yeah…” There was a note of wariness in Kylie’s voice.
“So your mom had her when she was twelve?!”
Kylie stayed immobile in one place before setting the record down, putting the needle on it, and then pressing the button. She crept back to the bed and sat cross-legged at the end of it as a rocking song came blaring out of the boxes beside the turntable.
“My mom didn’t have Eva at all,” Kylie said. “But we don’t like talking about it.”
~
With that... let's move on to a somewhat lengthy scene where Eva and Jack have a conversation.
Shortly, Jack became aware of the sound of feet pattering along after him. He slowed down warily; none of the Nadsats could be following him, because he would hear squeaking skate wheels rather than footsteps. He turned around to find that Eva was coming after him, determination glowing in her brown eyes.
“Can you stop doing that?” Jack asked, stopping in his walk to let her come to his side.
“Doing what?” she asked, smoothing her skirt and biting her lip.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jack sighed. “You’re just staring at me a lot, and… it’s getting uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” Eva looked down at her feet, a red blush slowing approaching her skin. “That— that scene back there… that was very impressive.”
“Thanks,” Jack mumbled. “You don’t think they’re going to hate me for it later, do you?”
Eva blinked. “Hate you? Why?”
“Well, in nadsat-talk, the word ‘nadsat’ means ‘teenager…’” Jack rolled his eyes. "They’re going to think I’m the worst at coming up with names.”
“Well, you’ve never had to do it before,” Eva pointed out. She took a step forward. “Come walk with me, Jack. I’ve been wanting to talk to you since yesterday.”
Interested, Jack followed Eva, trying to keep up with her long strides. She stared straight ahead, her back ramrod straight, seeming to know exactly where she was going, although Jack hadn’t gotten the feeling that she had been to Mercury City before. Mercurians huddled and slouched in dark corners beside the squat buildings, and as Jack looked at their inhuman features, trying to accustom himself to them, Eva began to speak in her oddly-accented voice.
“I don’t know if you’ve figured this out already, but Mylo and Xyloto are not my parents, and Kylie’s not my blood sister.”
“I did figure it out,” Jack said. “Kylie told me how old you are.”
Eva nodded. “I don’t like people to talk about it, or to talk about it myself, really. But I think it’s important that you know who I am.”
“Who were your real parents?” Jack asked, having the sneaking suspicion that he would recognize one or more of the names.
Eva ran her fingers through her long, tangled hair. “My father was Floyd Pinkerton, or Pink Floyd, the rock star that Xyloto was talking about who told him about you and your mother. I was seven years old when he died.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I… I know how you feel.” He wanted to touch Eva to comfort her, but she seemed hardened and closed up, and her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her.
“No, you don’t,” Eva said. “At least you weren’t born yet when Ziggy died. At least he didn’t deliberately take himself away from you…” She breathed deeply, trying to keep her voice steady. “My parents dragged me along on some trip to America– that was a country on Earth, we used to live in England—”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jack interjected, wondering now if that was where Eva’s accent came from.
“—under the pretense that we were visiting some of my dad’s old friends,” Eva continued. “The next thing I knew, he had dumped me off with Mylo and Xyloto to go into outer space with my mum. They were trying to bury Ziggy’s body, or so Mylo and Xyloto told me… They were headed to Mars. I mean, Ares, I guess.” She fiddled with her fingers and bit her lip even harder, breaking the skin. Jack was alarmed. “Are you all right?” He reached in to take Eva’s hand, but she moved away from Jack.
“No,” she spat. “No, I’m not all right! Why would you expect me to be? My parents went away one morning, and I never saw them again… Who would do that to a little girl?” Eva’s voice choked off, and she hastily brushed away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I spent two whole years wishing they would come back. But I never found out what happened to them.” She stopped walking suddenly and hung her head, pressing her hands to her face and shaking with a suppressed sob. Jack, unable to control himself, reached out and laid a hand on Eva’s shoulder, but she violently shook him off and turned away from him. “Don’t touch me!” She hid her face in her hands as Jack, at a loss, stood by her awkwardly, trying to think of soothing things to say but only able to come up with the eternal “I’m sorry.”
Finally Eva turned back to Jack. She wiped her damp face as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Jack. I get emotional when I talk or even think about them.” She gave him a cracked smile. “I didn’t mean to tell you all that.”
“It’s fine,” Jack said, and then, aware that he might be treading dangerous waters to set Eva off again, but still wanting to know himself, he asked, “Did your parents know my father? You said that they went all the way to Ares to bury him.”
“Yes,” Eva said. “I knew him too. Ziggy was actually the first man I ever loved.” She laughed. “Imagine that— a child in love with a million-year-old man!”
A million years old? Of course Jack had known that Aresians could live for a very long time, but he couldn’t quite reconcile that with the image of the youthful singer from his newspaper clipping. But then again, Aladdin Sane had lived for about the same amount of time, and he had appeared to be no older than his thirties when Jack had met him.
“How did you meet my father?” Jack asked. Eva answered, “My family was the first to meet him when he came to Earth, actually.” She began walking again, and Jack picked up the pace. “He landed in our backyard. Well, really my parents’ backyard.”
Jack raised his eyebrows– that was an addition to the story that Xyloto had forgotten to tell him about. Another question popped into his brain. “Do I remind you of him?”
Eva turned her head and looked down her nose at Jack, and even in the bad lighting Jack was startled by the force and intensity of her eyes. Dark and brown, they seemed almost to belong to another person, not quite matching up with her quiet demeanor. They stared viscerally into Jack, mentally tearing him apart.
“Yes,” Eva murmured, her soft-spoken voice contrasting the power of her eyes. “Yes, you do remind me of him a bit. You’ve got the ears right down pat, and the eyes…” She peered deeper into Jack’s, unnerving him with her stare even more. “Goodness, but Ziggy had such lovely eyes! Dark blue on one side, light blue on the other.”
“Actually,” Jack said, “one of his pupils was permanently dilated, and the other one wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Eva pulled away from Jack. “Well, there goes my memory, then. Good thing I haven’t gotten a chance to paint him yet.” She chuckled. “Mylo and Xyloto have no good photos of Ziggy, and of course I’m not eidetic like you Aresians… it means having a flawless memory,” she clarified, seeing Jack’s blank expression.
“I’m not eidetic,” Jack said. “I can remember things pretty well, but only when I need to.”
“Ah, well supposedly Aresians can remember everything that’s happened in their life after their birth,” Eva said. “I wish I could remember Ziggy better…” She blinked in Jack’s face, and then reached out to brush a strand of hair behind his ear. Jack shuddered involuntarily.
“You have his nose,” Eva said. “As far as I recall, anyway. The cheekbones aren’t exactly the same, though…”
Jack pulled away. “I thought you said Mylo and Xyloto don’t have any good photos of my father.”
“Oh, they have a few good photos, but not for what I want to do with them,” Eva said. “I want to paint a portrait just as I’ve done for all the other members of my family, but none of their photos are suitable for the kind of portrait I want to do. I want to show Ziggy candidly as he was, not posed for some publicity shot or…” She sucked in a breath and looked away, not finishing her sentence.
“I have a photo,” Jack began, and started to reach for the knapsack on his back– before realizing that there was no knapsack on his back. He must have left it in the building that he had awoken in. “Never mind for now. Maybe I could model for you– if I look enough like my father, you could just fill in the blanks from your memory.”
Eva shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. When I paint a person’s face, I have to paint the person that I’m looking at, not someone else, no matter how similar they look. Even if they were identical twins, I’d still notice at least one difference in their expression. My mother always used to remind me that every person is different, and when I paint, I can’t help but present their uniqueness.” She smiled, and Jack was surprised to find how much the expression suited her. “Of course, you’re welcome to come and sit for your own portrait any time you want. I suppose you’re a part of the family now that Kylie is dating you.”
“We’re not dating,” Jack said.
“Oh? Then why has Kylie told me that you were her first kiss?” Eva countered.
Jack shrugged hopelessly. “Can we not talk about Kylie right now?” Bringing up Kylie had brought up the memories of the last time Jack had seen her, fighting with all her might against the pack of Diamond Dogs that could very well destroy her…
Eva nodded, understanding, and a flash of pain came to her eyes. She changed the subject and turned around to walk the other way with Jack. “There’s something I have for you back at the house. Not our house in Hunger City, I mean, but the house that you were treated in a few moments ago.” She cocked her head sideways and ran her hands over her skirt again.
“Do you mean a present?” Jack asked.
Eva inclined her head. “I suppose so. When we were fleeing the Diamond Dogs, I grabbed The Rise of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars off Mylo and Xyloto’s bed. I couldn’t bear to leave without it, and I thought you might want it too.”
“You thought right,” Jack murmured, and a smile came to his face. “Thank you very much, Eva.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back, and then her eyes grew tight around the edges. “I’ve been listening to that album for so many years now, ever since I was five. I love Ziggy’s music, but remembering who he was and what he did upsets me. I mean, he was so bloody beautiful, and brilliant as well… He didn’t deserve to die. He could have saved the entire planet Earth with his music, were it not for those three sick bastards of bandmates that he had…” Her hands balled into fists, and her eyes turned murderous. “Your father was loved by so many people, Jack. Including me. I— I wish he could have survived just long enough to meet you… and maybe make another album…” She patted Jack’s shoulder. “It must be hard for you to have grown up without him.”
“Not really,” Jack said, and his heart sang with pain. “I’ve only just started missing him, but how can you miss someone you never knew?” Eva had no response. She and Jack walked along, silently comforting each other for the respective losses of their fathers (and in Eva’s case, her mother). Then Eva spoke up again.
“It’s incredibly odd to be here with someone who is so closely connected with the man I admire.” She looked down at Jack. “Now that I’m older, I’ve begun to seriously cherish the time I spent with him. And to have his son here… It’s a bit spooky.” She laughed softly, chastising herself. “I’m sorry if that sounded weird. Actually, I’m also sorry for staring at you so much yesterday… I just couldn’t believe you existed.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. He couldn’t understand Eva’s emotional connection to his father, but the staring part made sense to him. “It’s nice to hear from someone else who knew my dad when he was alive.”
“Not that I can really tell you much,” Eva sighed. “I’ve got only the fuzziest memories of him in my head. If my dad were still around, I know he could tell you more about Ziggy than any of us can. He was very close to Ziggy back then, or so Mylo and Xyloto have said. They even lived in America together for a short while.”
She sighed and kicked at the concrete ground. “He never told me he was a musician, did you know that, Jack? My father kept it a secret when I was growing up. I know Kylie likes his music, and it’s been played often in our house, but I’ve never listened. I’ve heard it about a thousand times, but I’ve never listened. I— I just can’t think about him, or my mother, without…”
Eva sucked in a deep breath and fell silent. Then she prodded Jack in the side. “What’s your favorite song of Ziggy’s, Jack?”
“Um…” Jack racked his brains for the song titles. “I liked ‘Starman’ the best, I think. And ‘Memory of A Free Festival.’ That was pretty horrorshow.” He smiled apologetically for his use of nadsat-talk, and Eva burst out laughing.
“Horrorshow! That’s a wonderful word. Kylie’s been using it all over the place.” Then, with the unpleasant thought of Kylie looming in her mind, Eva said quickly, “Those songs are actually my two favorites of Ziggy’s, too. They’re rather hard to listen to now, though.”
~
Then their conversation gets interrupted by something happening, so that's all the Eva/Jack interaction there is in this story. Ultimately, she didn't add much to the narrative, aside from explaining what happened to her after Floyd and Audrey tragically failed to return from Mars, so it's easy to cut her out. But it was still hard to get rid of a multi-page-spanning conversation. When I get to this part, I think I'll have Jack talk to Mylo instead.
