From the Neck Up and Other Stories Page 2

  At the entrance to Sector K, Mr Cecil turns and waves us all through. We know what happens now. We will all be locked inside with the plants. Something in me thinks this is a really good idea. You don’t live as long as I have without getting a gut instinct for things.

  I wait until the others are through and then call back to Mr Cecil, who looks up from fumbling with his utility belt.

  “Mr Cecil,” I say. I can tell what he’s thinking. He means to stand outside, to break protocol, and I have to shake that thought from his head. I know why this system was set up. I’ve seen the reason why.

  “No, I think, today, I should…”

  “No,” I tell him. “No.”

  But he says, “Stop fussing, please, Mel,” and closes the door. Through the safety glass panels of the door I see him type in the special code to shut down the door. Then he disappears from view.

  Brian wheezes on. Suroopa gets him seated at the orange plastic table and chairs next to the water dispenser. The others stand around staring at him.

  Reception Area K reminds me of a hand. There are five walkways leading off, like fingers, from the square palm of the main room. Beyond lie the segmented parts of our dome. I want to go into mine and work, alone and safe.

  “Breathe,” Suroopa tells Brian. “Breathe.” The others watch, spectators to a private battle. Is he losing? No – he nods, nods, and there, he is controlling his lungs, mastering his body.

  “Well done,” says Suroopa, patting his arm.

  The alarm winds down, slowly falling in pitch until it cuts out and leaves an eerie silence. It has never done that before.

  “Right,” whispers Zena. I don’t know why she’s whispering. “Someone page Cecil and get him to let us out.”

  “Not yet,” I say, and am surprised to find it comes out as a whisper too.

  “I don’t think we should wait,” says Suroopa. “Brian needs to see the doctor.” She straightens up and pushes the button on her pager. We all listen. There it is, the tinny sound of his pager from the other side of the door. Then it stops. He must have turned it off.

  Someone walks past.

  “Who was that?” says Gregor, and then says something in his own language. He moves to the door and puts his face to the glass, then retreats behind Brian’s chair.

  “I think it was Jack from, ah…” says Suroopa.

  “No,” I say. “It wasn’t.”

  There are voices outside, voices I don’t recognise. This is a secure compound; there are guards, automated systems, nobody gets in without permission. But I don’t recognise those voices.

  Mr Cecil replies. I can’t make out the words but his voice is high. He has been trained for this sort of situation. He has a weapon that he carries on his utility belt. I’ve seen it. A taser. Has he drawn it? Does he have it ready, in his hand?

  Shouting. It builds, it is loud.

  Then everything goes quiet.

  They will make him open the door. They will force him to and I would not blame him, not when I think of all the things they could do to him. I know the things pain can make you do. I would open the door too.

  No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t open the door. I would protect my safe place, my growing plants, because there is nothing else left.

  The silence stretches on. It is long enough and deep enough for doubts to form. Is this an elaborate part of the drill just to check we won’t open the door under any circumstances? The relief I feel at that idea is crazy. I want to cling on to it. All we have to do is hold on for a few more minutes and then Mr Cecil will appear with a wink and tell us we did well, as if we are children who have been left unattended in a school room.

  I’m lost in this concept when a face appears at the safety glass.

  It’s a man. A very young man with a beard tinged with ice, bluish lips buried deep, and red-rimmed eyes. The chill of ice is stuck fast to his skin. I had forgotten how beautiful young men could be.

  Suroopa wails behind me. He looks at each of us in turn. His eyes linger on Brian, who is still slumped over in his chair but breathing regularly. The man can’t hear that, of course; as far as he’s concerned, Brian might be dead. His eyes don’t register any emotion. He points downwards, I’m guessing at the keypad for the door.

  I shake my head.

  He doesn’t seem bothered by my refusal. He points again, but none of us move.

  He walks away.

  If he can’t get in, if he’s relying on us to input the code, then it can only mean one thing – Mr Cecil is incapable of giving him what he wants.

  “Don’t let him in,” says Gregor, and Zena says, “What does he want? What does he want?”

  Brian sits up and wheezes out the thought that has invaded my mind. “Agro-terrorist.”

  Please, no. They’ll destroy the melons. They deal in the destruction of the good things to eat, that only the rich can afford, in the name of fairness, for the idea of making this a natural world once more. “Look,” I say. “No matter what happens, we can’t let him in. The guards will sort this out, but we need to be strong. We’ve got water and food. It’s an emergency – they’ll understand if we eat a bit of the fruit. We can stay here for days keeping the plants, and ourselves, safe.”

  “Days?” says Suroopa.

  “It won’t take that long,” I say. “This place is top security. They’ll get it under control in no time.”

  “Where’s Mr Cecil?” says Zena. “Should I page him again?”

  Gregor and I exchange looks. If I’ve thought about Mr Cecil’s chances out there, then Gregor has done the same and come to the same conclusion. That’s how his mind works.

  “No,” says Gregor. “Do not page him.”

  “He’ll be busy,” I say. “Negotiating.” It sounds official. It’s the right word. The others visibly relax.

  “Sit tight,” wheezes Brian. He manages a smile.

  I look at them. Four old, scared people. And I make five. How quickly things change. Ten minutes ago, I was thinking about my soil samples and my problems were molehills. I thought I would have my melons to care for, and my slides to paint, and that those things would be enough for the tail end of a beast of a life. But although I was done with difficult times, it seems they are not done with me.

  I can wait this out. I can survive. And so can my plants.

  “We’ll take it in turns to see to our areas,” I say. “There’s no reason to let the plants suffer, and it will keep our minds off—”

  A new face appears at the glass. Not a new face. An old face.

  Daisy.

  Her eyes are blue, bluer than ever before. Then I realise they only look that way because of the blood on her face. It’s so red against her white skin, and her eyes are translucent but they see me clearly. They focus on me and hold me close.

  The blood is a smear that stretches from her forehead to her cheek, daubed on, like warpaint. She puts the back of her hand to her face, and wipes it, and that’s when I realise it’s her own blood. She’s daubing herself in the blood that is coming from her heavily bandaged fingers. Ripped material has been wrapped around and around, and it has soaked through, turned bright red.

  Not good enough for a teddy bear, Daisy, I want to say. Not even you could salvage that old rag.

  She looks so tired. No, that’s not it: she looks destroyed. Worn down to pieces that are somehow still managing to move around. Her mouth is forming shapes.

  Open the door, her lips are saying without sound.

  Mel. Open the door.

  I don’t move.

  Please open the door.

  Gregor comes to stand behind me, so light on his feet. He says, “Don’t open the door,” and I feel his hand on my back, just a slight pressure. But he’s too much of a coward to do anything to stop me. I’ve seen him cover his face when one of the supervisors shouts; he’s trapped in some past that will keep him forever fearful.

  Please.

  She looks as if she’ll die, right there. She died once already to me,
only a few days ago. This time around I have a choice. I don’t have to let her die alone.

  I move forward, to the door, and put in the key code. The lock releases. I step out into the corridor and take Daisy in my arms.

  * * *

  “Everything will continue as normal,” says the man. This is another new face among many, but this one is definitely in charge. He carries it on his shoulders.

  I look around the refectory and find the face that first appeared at the Sector K door. He is eating a plate of beans not far from me. I take care not to stare but observe him from the corner of my eye. He shovels the beans in with a spoon as if hot food has not passed his lips in years. Maybe it hasn’t.

  “There is no need to worry. All we need is your cooperation,” says the man in charge. He stands in the centre of the room, on a table, so we can all look up at him. He is a little older, but still so many years away from becoming like us shrivelled wrecks of workers. There are about thirty young people among us now, and they are joined in some purpose that is about to be passed down to us like divine wisdom. We’ve seen it all before.

  “The food you are producing will be given to those who need it, not only to those who can afford it.”

  Ah, I see. This is a zealous enterprise. They are fighting the good fight. No doubt they, above all others, are deserving of my melons.

  “Keep fulfilling your duties and you will be fed and watered as usual. Nothing has changed for you, that’s all you need to remember.”

  Jim, sitting next to me, raises his hand. Is he asking permission to speak? I can’t help but despise him.

  “Go ahead,” says the man in charge.

  “Where are all the supervisors? And the guards?”

  “That’s not something you need to feel concerned about.”

  “Blossom Farm won’t let you get away with this, you know,” Jim says, quickly, then sits down and crosses his arms.

  The man in charge ignores him.

  “My name is Stephan,” he says. “If you want to talk to me in an equal and open way then I am here. But I’m not here to answer stupid questions. Try to remember that we are all in this together now. Enjoy your lunch.”

  All in this together – he’s as bad as Mr Cecil. What a fatuous phrase. If we’re all in it together, why did the newcomers, his merry band of men, get fed before us workers? People always say what they think will bring them an easy life and others believe it for the same reason. But not me. Not this time.

  We queue up for our beans. I take an extra plate for Daisy, ignoring the stares of those around me. There is no guard to stop me now. I carefully manoeuvre around all the extra people who fill up my space and carry both plates back to my room.

  Daisy lies still in my bed. I stand for a while, beans in hand, and watch her. It’s years since I’ve seen her this way in sleep. Safe. But here’s the thing. Her skin is waxy and her breathing is fast. As I look down on her I can see that she is not safe, not really.

  I put the plates down on my small table and carefully lift the blanket to look down at her body still bundled up tight in her clothes. If I was to remove them, I think I might find patches of black. Black toes, black fingers. If there are any fingers and toes left. The bandage around her hand is useless now and the blood is seeping through to my mattress, but I can’t unravel it. I can’t face what is underneath.

  She coughs, a weak rumbling at the back of her throat. “Be up soon,” she says. “Strawberries. Doctor?”

  I tuck the blanket back around her and sit on the side of the bed. I put my hand to her forehead like a professional. “No doctor, I’m afraid. Nobody’s seen her since your friends arrived. But you’ll be up and around in no time.”

  She seems to come back to herself, blinking, as if clearing her eyes from sleep. “Oh, it’s you,” she says, in her usual voice. “I thought we were all done.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Apparently not,” she mimics. How cruel she can be. “Still better than the rest of us, aren’t you?”

  I wish I’d never told her a thing about me, not one real fact that she could use as a weapon. I should have told her I was once a farmer’s wife, or a baker, or unemployed, in a council flat; some simple thing she couldn’t find fault with. Not a schoolteacher to the privileged elite, somebody who came to this place through having connections. I had never suffered the right kind of suffering for her.

  “Why did you help them?” I ask. “They’ll destroy the domes.”

  She rolls her eyes. “No, they won’t. They want a better world, Mel. They deserve their chance to fight for it. Don’t you remember what it was like to want to fight?”

  “I never wanted to fight.”

  “No.” She coughs again, a softer sound. “I believe that.”

  How do you say to someone – I think we should make up now because you’re very probably about to die? I sit quietly, my hand on her head, and try to think of a way to work that particular sentiment into the conversation. How very controlled I am.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” I tell her. “For everything.”

  “It’s like that, is it?” She nods her head on the pillow, seeing right through me, as always. “Thought so. They found me too late, I suppose. I had the bears with me and I lay down with them in the snow, that was all I wanted, and I could still taste the strawberries. But then there was this young face in front of my eyes and all the bears were gone. I don’t know where they went. All gone. The young man said, Help me, help us, help us get in and take what should belong to everyone, and it just seemed so sensible, Mel. Not that it should belong to everyone. But it should belong to them, to the young. To the kids who grew up without ever tasting a strawberry. That’s not right, is it? That’s not how it’s meant to be.”

  She stops talking. All her energy has been sucked up by that speech. I get the feeling she’s been saying it to herself, over and over, in her head. Her reasons for getting them in.

  I lie down beside her, and she doesn’t have the strength to tell me to go away.

  “I loved you,” I tell her.

  “I’m not going right this minute,” she slurs, but she turns over towards me and puts her good hand – in its thick mitten – on the old, loose curve of my breast. How could she have given up on me, on this? How could she have told me that she wanted to sit at a different table for every single meal and never hear my voice again?

  I lie there, trying not to breathe, until she falls back into sleep. Then I peel her hand away and stand up. The two plates of beans have congealed, but I don’t care. I am passionate for their flavour, their scent, their taste. I’m alive and I eat for both of us.

  * * *

  It comes to me, as I work through the afternoon under the guise of normality, that I’m not just alive, not in the same way I was before. I’m more alive. Every breath sings in my chest. Every time I stoop to take a soil sample the pain in my back is an epiphany – a promise that I hurt, I hate, I love, I live.

  The feelings swell as the hours pass. I don’t care whether the others are working or what happens outside my area. The feelings swell to the point of bursting open.

  I hear the approach of Mr Cecil’s buggy.

  I feel hope like the sharpness of citrus in my mouth, a long-forgotten taste, but when I turn around I make out, behind the wheel, the face of the man who stared at me through the glass panel in the door to Sector K and I remember that Mr Cecil is probably dead, and that I never liked him much anyway.

  The buggy comes to a juddering halt a few yards away – he needs some driving practice – and he climbs out, a smile set in place, as if we’re about to be introduced at a garden party.

  “Mel?” he says.

  I don’t answer.

  His lovely face has lost all signs of the cold, and his beard is brown and dishevelled, a sturdy, thriving mess of hair. How tall he stands. And he has left his thick coats elsewhere to reveal strong arms the colour of milk. No softness to his body at all. He must be boiling in this sudden ch
ange of temperature.

  “I’m Lucas,” he says. “Has Daisy talked about me?”

  “No.”

  “I found her, out in the snow. She’s in your room, right? The others said she’d be with you. How is she?”

  It surprises me that what felt like a lifetime for me was obviously just a blip to the other workers. Mel and Daisy – still a couple in the eyes of the biodomes, intertwined like the roots of the plants that surround us. That’s how it appears, even if you’re outside the experience.

  When I still don’t respond he changes tack and his smile drops away. “I’m going to be looking after Sector K,” he says. He has a strange accent. “We’ll be working together.”

  “Good for you, young man,” I tell him, trying to remember my schoolteacher tones. “Now let me get on with my job.”

  “Daisy said you could be difficult.”

  “So, you know all about me, do you?” I don’t care if he’s in charge or if he killed Mr Cecil himself, or even if he kills me, just so long as he goes away.

  “No. And you don’t know me.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He looks around at the high, curved dome of white and the orange globes amid the tall, curling tendrils. Can he recognise paradise when he sees it, or is it just an asset to be jotted down on the plus column of what he feels he is owed?

  “Listen,” he says. “I need to see Daisy.”

  “Why?”

  He swipes at his forehead with his palm. “You should stop asking so many questions.”

  “Actually, I don’t care for what I should or shouldn’t do.” I turn and pretend to be absorbed in the plant growth behind me. But he moves around to stand in my eyeline once more, and now he’s wearing a deep frown as if he’s only just realised that this place is unfamiliar to him.

  “She’s dead,” I tell him.

  This piece of news doesn’t change his expression.

  “Come on, then,” I say. “Let’s go and see her. Since you don’t believe me.” I march past the buggy towards the sliding door that seals up tight to keep in the moisture. A moment later I hear him reversing the buggy, then following along behind me.