– Sometimes it helps to bring the reality of it home, Mrs Park, the associate said. Why don’t you take the cassette with you, have a think? You never know, some customers in your situation find that –
Tilda had burst into hopeless sobbing. Benedict stepped in, murmured a few discreet words, then pocketed it himself.
– For when you’re ready, Tilda, he said. And not before. He left it on her video rack, but he didn’t push it.
It’s still there now, untouched. Watch it? She’d rather die. She finishes the Vanillo in one, smacks her lips. Pours another. Vanilla tang. Blunt feeling. Good.
Anyone illegally entering the zone takes their life in their hands, Benedict explained gently as Tilda rattled away at her little chest of drawers searching for the right pill, saying now where do I keep them, now where do I keep them, under her breath. The security personnel have their instructions. They can’t be held responsible for accidents. Especially if they’re encountered during the course of –
The word sabotage hung between them.
Hannah wasn’t the first Sect casualty. Far from it. It had been hush-hush so far. Don’t give them the publicity, was the thinking. It’ll help them thrive. It was more than anyone’s job was worth, Benedict Sommers told her sorrowfully, to retrieve the body from the crater.
The body.
There are bodies on TV. On Moment of Crisis they showed a bulldozed man, cut in two. Abroad, where human error’s so rife, there are hordes of them, aren’t there; wars, famines, burst dams, exploded factories… She opened her eyes and looked at Benedict again, dizzily.
– Body?
– But they found her cardigan, he said.
Crumpling, Tilda grabbed it, buried her face in its loose hairy knit and breathed in the smell of peanut butter.
Ever since that day a year ago, Benedict has been solicitous beyond the call of duty. He’s visited her every week and kept an eye on her like the good man he is. How many good men are there in the world? Tilda reckons she can count those that she has met in her entire lifetime on the fingers of one hand.
But sometimes, like last night, Tilda will sit in the semi-darkness of her living-room, staring at the hologram of Hannah and thinking about Benedict. He’s a dark horse. Oh, he’s told her things from time to time, about his flat not far from here, and how everyone in Head Office calls the Liberty Machine the Boss; it’s a she, apparently, and no bigger than a household fridge. But in those lonely, scary, middle-of-the night times, Tilda can’t help wondering if she did the right thing when he first started to visit her, back in the days when she called him Mr Sommers and he called her Mrs Park. She’d talked about her daughter, of course she had, shown him the hologram, why not, been pleased when he said he knew Hannah, even more pleased when he said she was well thought of… They’d first bumped into each other in a lift – that must happen a lot in office life, mustn’t it?
After that, it had seemed fine to show him the envelope.
– Go ahead, Tilda said, thrusting it at him. It’ll all be Greek to me, but if it’s of use.
– Thank you, he said. His eyes were a lovely blue. – It’s good to have your trust.
That was a nice thing to say, wasn’t it? He’d bring it back, he said. Hannah needn’t even know.
But on nights like last night, while the flood sirens are wailing across St Placid, Tilda re-lives that moment, and it just doesn’t look good. It fills her with – well, doubts. Doubts that turn to multi-headed monsters, the way they do in the dark, and whack, whack! When you chop one head off, another one sprouts. Sometimes a sleeping pill fixes it till morning. But sometimes it doesn’t.
Vanilla tang. Blunt feeling.
Exhausted to the bone, Tilda sighs wearily. Outside, through the wobbling blur of her tears, she can see the first hint of the fairy weather promised by the forecast: mauve mist giving way to coral pink, then a perfect, translucent blue with sparkling whorls of cloud.
Celebrate Liberty, that’s the slogan they’re using for the day. There’s going to be retail chaos apparently. The Bargain of a Lifetime will be the biggest sale ever.
Funny, though. She just can’t get in the mood.
Behind her on the muted television, Craig Devon is mouthing something, and pointing to a map of the United States. There’s an animated graphic showing how the votes are coming in. One after another, little Birds of Liberty fill the blank states.
LIBERTY DAY 9 A.M.
I’m stiff all over. I must have slept, because it’s light outside. But I’m not in bed; I’m sitting at the craft table with the chess set laid out in front of me and Tiffany’s letter lying on the floor. I’m confused about how time has jumped – until I remember what I did. I swallowed Dr Pappadakis’s pills, all five of them. Not placebos after all, then. No wonder I feel groggy.
Groggy, and suddenly scared, remembering. Scared like I’ve never felt before, scared beyond anything I’ve known. I groan as I look out, because the porthole’s filling up with land, the skyline of Harbourville close enough to make out the Frooto Tower, the spiky rollercoasters of Attractionworld, the giant Ferris wheel and the sheer blind-windowed cliff of Head Office. Seagulls swarm around the porthole, their swooping cries like a chorus of taunts. If my mum, wearing her salamander dress, came and told me I wasn’t going to be electric-shocked into a fizzing human kebab, I’d believe her. But she doesn’t come, of course she doesn’t, and there’s no one here but John, asleep. Try to focus on the small things. The table. The bunk. Stegoman on the duvet cover. But my eyes slide back to the porthole. The land seems to yawn sideways. All the buildings – even Head Office, even the Makasoki bubble-domes in the distance – they’re all Pisa’d to the left. Only the grit-filled rainbows splintering above them are on an even keel. I buzz Garcia and he leads me to the mess for my last breakfast, where the other prisoners stand back to let me through. I guess I look like a bad omen. Grey man for the chop. I drink coffee. I can’t eat.
It’s a great day for the future of the world, according to Craig Devon, who’s on TV. The Corporation has already swept to victory across almost half of the United States. This could be the beginning of a new world order, he’s saying. America might get a new name, too: Liberty.
As this piece of news sinks in, a low ugly murmur runs through the mess – but what do I care? I won’t be there to see it. When I stand to leave, a couple of blokes come and slap me on the arm and murmur stuff like Goodbye, mate. I try to say something back, but there’s a big thing like a walnut lodged in my throat and I can’t see properly and I have to turn away.
– Apparently it’s the dawn of a new fucking era, I tell John when I’m back in the cabin. He’s sitting on his bunk, his legs dangling down, my letter in his hand.
– Gonna read it then? he says, flapping it at me. Cos I can’t.
I sigh at the blood-red writing, then glance across at the Tiffany rook. It’s probably not Art, but it’s a version of my daughter I can live with before I die. That’s got to count for something, hasn’t it? John thrusts the letter at me with its childish red script.
– It’s from my daughter, I tell him. The one who shopped me.
John blows out air from his cheeks.
– So what’s it say?
Life can’t get any worse, can it? But already, as I read the first line, I’m thinking, famous last words. Dear Dad, I am so sorry about everything. Mum and me and Geoff
– Grammar! I choke.
Mum and me and Geoff are so terribly regretful –