'Better the frogs,' she murmured, bitter thought that it was.
The light in the courtyard, after the dead illumination of the bunker, was dazzlingly bright, but Vanessa was pleased to be out of earshot of the stridency within. They would find a new committee very soon, Klein had told her as they made their way out into the open air: it would be a matter of weeks only before equilibrium was restored. In the meanwhile, the earth could be blown to smithereens by the desperate creatures she had just seen. They needed judgements, and quickly.
'Goldberg is still alive,' Klein said. 'And he will go on with the games; but it takes two to play.'
'Why not you?'
'Because he hates me. Hates all of us. He says that he'll only play with you.'
Goldberg was sitting under the laurel trees, playing patience. It was a slow business. His shortsightedness required him to bring each card to within three inches of his nose to read it, and by the time he had got to the end of the line he had forgotten those cards at the beginning.
'She's agreed,' said Klein. Goldberg didn't look up from his game. 'I said: she's agreed.'
'I'm blind, not deaf,' Goldberg told Klein, still perusing the cards. When he eventually looked up it was to squint at Vanessa. 'I told them it would end badly ...' he said softly, and Vanessa knew that beneath this show of fatalism he felt the loss of his companions acutely.'... I said from the beginning, we were here to stay. No use to escape.' He shrugged, and returned to the cards. 'What's to escape to? The world's changed. I know. We changed it.'
'It wasn't so bad,' Vanessa said.
'The world?'
They way they died.'
'Ah.'
'We were enjoying ourselves, until the last minute.'
'Gomm was such a sentimentalist,' Goldberg said. 'We never much liked each other.'
A large frog jumped into Vanessa's path. The movement caught Goldberg's eye.
'Who is it?' he said.
The creature regarded Vanessa's foot balefully. 'Just a frog,' she replied.
'What does it look like?'
'It's fat,' she said. 'With three red dots on its back.'
'That's Israel,' he told her. 'Don't tread on him.'
'Could we have some decisions by noon?' Klein butted in. 'Particularly the Gulf situation, and the Mexican dispute, and -'
'Yes, yes, yes,' said Goldberg. 'Now go away.'
' - We could have another Bay of Pigs -'
'You're telling me nothing I don't know. Go! You're disturbing the nations.' He peered at Vanessa. 'Well, are you going to sit down or not?'
She sat.
'I'll leave you to it.' Klein said, and retreated.
Goldberg had begun to make a sound in his throat - 'kek-kek-kek' -imitating the voice of a frog. In response, there came a croaking from every corner of the courtyard. Hearing the sound, Vanessa stifled a smile. Farce, she had told herself once before, had to be played with a straight face, as though you believed every outrageous word. Only tragedy demanded laughter; and that, with the aid of the frogs, they might yet prevent.
In The Flesh
When Cleveland Smith returned to his cell after the interview with the Landing Officer, his new bunk mate was already in residence, staring at the dust-infested sunlight through the reinforced glass window. It was a short display; for less than half an hour each afternoon (clouds permitting) the sun found its way between the wall and the administration building and edged its way along the side of B Wing, not to appear again until the following day.
'You're Tait?' Cleve said.
The prisoner looked away from the sun. Mayflower had said the new boy was twenty-two, but Tait looked five years younger. He had the face of a lost dog. An ugly dog, at that; a dog left by its owners to play in traffic. Eyes too skinned, mouth too soft, arms too slender: a born victim. Cleve was irritated to have been lumbered with the boy. Tait was dead weight, and he had no energies to expend on the boy's protection, despite Mayflower's pep-talk about extending a welcoming hand.
'Yes,' the dog replied. 'William.'
'People call you William?'
'No,' the boy said. 'They call me Billy.'
'Billy.' Cleve nodded, and stepped into the cell. The regime at Pentonville was relatively enlightened; cells were left open for two hours in the mornings, and often two in the afternoon, allowing the cons some freedom of movement. The arrangement had its disadvantages, however, which was where Mayflower's talk came in.
'I've been told to give you some advice.'
'Oh?' the boy replied.
'You've not done time before?'
'No.'
'Not even borstal?'
Tait's eyes flickered. 'A little.'
'So you know what the score is. You know you're easy meat.'
'Sure.'
'Seems I've been volunteered,' Cleve said without appetite, 'to keep you from getting mauled.'
Tait stared at Cleve with eyes the blue of which was milky, as though the sun was still in them. 'Don't put yourself out,' the boy said. 'You don't owe me anything.'
'Damn right I don't. But it seems I got a social responsibility.' Cleve said sourly. 'And you're it.'
Cleve was two months into his sentence for handling marijuana; his third visit to Pentonville. At thirty years of age he was far from obsolete. His body was solid, his face lean and refined; in his court suit he could have passed for a lawyer at ten yards. A little closer, and the viewer might catch the scar on his neck, the result of an attack by a penniless addict, and a certain wariness in his gait, as if with every step forward he was keeping the option of a speedy retreat.
You're still a young man, the last judge had told him, you still have time to change your spots. He hadn't disagreed out loud, but Cleve knew in his heart he was a leopard born and bred. Crime was easy, work was not. Until somebody proved otherwise he would do what he did best, and take the consequences if caught. Doing time wasn't so unpalatable, if you had the right attitude to it. The food was edible, the company select; as long as he had something to keep his mind occupied he was content enough. At present he was reading about sin. Now there was a subject. In his time he'd heard so many explanations of how it had come into the world; from probation officers and lawyers and priests. Theories sociological, theological, ideological. Some were worthy of a few minutes' consideration. Most were so absurd (sin from the womb; sin from the state) he laughed in their apologists' faces. None held water for long.
It was a good bone to chew over, though. He needed a problem to occupy the days. And nights; he slept badly in prison. It wasn't his guilt that kept him awake, but that of others. He was, after all, just a hash-pusher, supplying wherever there was a demand: a minor cog in the consumerist machine; he had nothing to feel guilty about. But there were others here, many others it seemed, whose dreams were not so benevolent, nor nights so peaceful. They would cry, they would complain; they would curse judges local and celestial. Their din would have kept the dead awake.
'Is it always like this?' Billy asked Cleve after a week or so. A new inmate was making a ruckus down the landing: one moment tears, the next obscenities.
'Yes. Most of the time,' said Cleve. 'Some of them need to yell a bit. It keeps their minds from curdling.'