The Heart Goes Last - Страница 25

Charmaine isn’t so sure. What if some reporter happened to find out about the Procedure? Not everyone would understand about that; they wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, the good reasons. You could put a really unpleasant headline on such a story. She has a flash of herself, in a front-page photo, in her green smock, smiling eerily and holding a needle: DEATH ANGEL CLAIMS SHE SENT MEN TO HEAVEN. That would be horrible. She’d be the target of a lot of hate. But Ed won’t let the reporters get in here, and thank goodness for that.

The next evening, after the communal meal in the women’s dining room – chicken stew, Brussels sprouts, tapioca pudding – they all file into the main space, where the knitting circle meets. The teddy bear bin is half full; it’s their task to fill it before the month is out.

Charmaine takes up her allotted bear and sets to work. But when she’s done only two rows, one knit, one purl, there’s a stir. Heads turn: a man has walked into the room. This is almost unheard of, here in the women’s wing. It’s Ed himself, looking the same as when she saw him in Towel-Folding, though less relaxed. His shoulders are back more, his chin is up. It’s a marching stance.

Behind him is Aurora with her PosiPad, and another woman: black hair, squarish face, a strong body, like someone who works out a lot – boxing, not yoga. Nice legs in grey stockings. Charmaine recognizes her: she’s one of the talking heads from the validation screen in Medications Administration. So those heads are real after all! She’s always wondered about that.

Is it her imagination, or has this woman singled her out, given her a brief nod, a quick smile? Maybe she’s a secret ally – one of the behind-the-scenes rooters, one of those who’s restored Charmaine to her rightful job. Charmaine gives a little nod in her direction, just in case.

Aurora speaks first. Here is Ed, their president and CEO – they will of course recognize him from his excellent Town Meeting presentations – and he has some very simple but very crucial instructions to give them at this juncture.

Ed begins with a smile and a gaze around the room. On the TV he’s always friendly, he’s made eye contact, he’s somehow included everyone in. He’s doing that now, putting them at their ease.

He begins to talk. He knows they’ve seen the Town Meeting, and he has something to add about the crisis they are all facing –well, it isn’t a crisis yet, and it’s his job, and their job too, to make sure that it never becomes one. Scrutiny from the outside world is something Ed welcomes – he’s happy to go out and speak on behalf of all of them here, and to gather support – but he will not allow the inmates to be pestered and slandered, because that is the aim of those who are set against them: pestering and slandering. Why should they be subjected to such treatment? It would be most unfair, after all the hard work they’ve been doing.

The women are nodding. He has their sympathy. How thoughtful he is, protecting them in this way.

The situation is under control, he continues, but meanwhile he’s calling upon all of them to exert themselves even more than usual, in order to repel the barbarians at the gates who have declared themselves against the new way of ordering society they have been creating right here. The new order that is a beacon of hope, a beacon that risks being deliberately sabotaged.

But necessary steps are being taken. Some of those saboteurs have been identified, and they are being brought right here to Positron to be dealt with. Some might not view such a move as strictly legal, but desperate situations require a certain bending of the rules, as he is sure they will agree.

He would ask them to help out in the following ways. No fraternizing with those new-style prisoners, even if an opportunity may present itself. Any unusual sounds are to be ignored. He can’t say what these sounds might be, other than unusual, but they will know them when they hear them. Otherwise they are to carry on as normal, and to mind – he will put this colloquially – to mind their own business.

As if it’s been orchestrated, there’s a scream. It’s distant – hard to say whether it’s a man or a woman – but it’s definitely a scream. Charmaine holds herself perfectly still; she wills herself not to turn her head. Did the scream come over the sound system? Was it from outside, in the yard? There’s an imperceptible rustling among the women as they steel themselves against hearing.

Ed has paused a little, to make room for the scream. Now he continues. And finally, he says, he will now share with them, and he does apologize for this: during this crisis, and he does expect it to be cleared up soon, Positron Prison will not be the comfortable and familiar haven of friends and neighbours that they have helped to nourish. Regrettably, it will become a less trusting and open place, because that is what happens in a crisis – people must be on guard, they must be sharper, they must be harder. But after this interlude, if the forces acting for the greater good are successful, the normal pleasant and congenial atmosphere will return.

Now he hopes they will relax and keep on with what they’re doing. He’ll just stroll around and watch them at their work, because it is deeply encouraging to him to see them so peacefully and usefully employed.

“I guess that means keep on knitting,” Charmaine’s neighbour says to her. The knitting circle is being friendlier to her now that they know she’s got her old job back.

“What was he talking about?” says another. “What sounds? I didn’t hear anything.”

“We don’t need to know,” says another. “When people talk like that, it means don’t even listen, is what they mean.”

“I didn’t get that about a crisis,” says a third. “Did something blow up?”

Dang it to heck, thinks Charmaine. I dropped a stitch.

Then Ed is standing right beside her. He must have crept up. “That’s an attractive blue bear you’re knitting,” he says to her. “It will make someone very happy.” Charmaine looks up at him. He’s against the light: she can hardly see him.

“I’m not very good at it,” she says.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” he says as he turns away.

It comes to her in a flash: He knows about Max. She can feel herself blushing with shame. Now why did she have that thought? Why would he have any reason to know? He’s too important to be bothered with people like her. She only had that thought because of the way she is, the way she can’t shake Max out of head. Out of her body. The way she can’t get clear.

Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s Day. Stan lies in bed. He doesn’t want to get up, because he doesn’t want to plod through the hours ahead, expecting to be ambushed at any minute by whatever foul or embarrassing surprise Jocelyn’s planning to spring on him. Will it be a red cake plus tawdry heart-sprinkled crotchless lingerie for Jocelyn – or, worse, for himself? Will there be a soppy and mortifying declaration of love from her, with the expectation of an equally soppy and mortifying one from him in return? Hard-shelled women like her can have slushy interiors.

Or will it be Option B – We’re done here, you fail. Sandbag to the back of the skull from the lurking goon she’s got hidden in the broom closet – he casts her regular chauffeur for that, supposing there is one and not merely a bot – then a needle in the arm to keep him out cold; then dragged into that creepy stealth car with the darkened windows and hauled off to Positron to be processed in whatever way they process people there. Then into the chicken-feed grinder, or wherever they dispose of the parts. The cake and the melting, tender, velvet-eyed confession, or the iron-fisted sandbagging? She’s capable of either.

Having bullied himself upright, he pulls on his scooter-depot work clothes, then sneak-foots along the upstairs hall to listen at the top of the stairs. She must be in the kitchen; there are food smells and clinkings. He descends gingerly, peers around the doorframe. She’s sitting at the kitchen table texting on her phone, a plate of tousled breakfast leftovers in front of her. She’s wearing her I-mean-business outfit: tidy suit, gold earrings, the grey stockings. Her reading glasses are perched on her nose.

No cake. No goon. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Sleep in?” Jocelyn says pleasantly. Should he say “Happy Valentine’s Day,” then advance and give her a kiss to forestall any nastiness? Maybe not. Maybe she’s forgotten what day it is.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Bad dreams?”

“I don’t dream,” he says, lying.

“Everyone dreams,” she says. “Have an egg. Or two. I poached them for you. They might be a little hard. Coffee’s in the thermos.” She turns the two eggs out onto a piece of toast: they’ve been done in heart-shaped poachers. Is this the Valentine surprise? Is this all? He feels massive relief. Get real, Stan, he tells himself. She’s not so bad. All she wanted was a bit of fun, plus getting back at her letch of a husband. She’s looking at him to see his reaction.

“Thanks,” he says. “That’s nice. It’s a nice … a nice gesture.” She gives one of her all-teeth smiles. She isn’t deceived for an instant, she knows he hates this.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “A token of my appreciation.”

A tip for the houseboy. Demeaning. He needs to wolf the food, then beat it out of the house. Hightail it down to the scooter depot, make small talk, rewire some circuits, hit something with a hammer. Take a breather. “I’m a bit late for work,” he says, to prepare her for his rapid exit. He slabs one of the eggs into his mouth, squeezes it down.