From the Neck Up and Other Stories Read online

  It’s so dark. There’s another bang, and voices in the corridor, panicked, and running feet, and I feel fear like I never have before, so sharp, like pain.

  The melons.

  Not the melons, not when everything else has gone, but someone shouts, “Winery!” and the relief is so keen, like ice on a burn; I go numb and the aches of my body don’t matter as I get up, get dressed, and head towards the noise.

  I don’t think. I just move, in the flow with the others. Is Jim behind me? I hear a man shouting my name but I ignore it. I’m caught up in the crowd, young and old moving together, and I can’t tell them apart anymore.

  The heat hits me when we reach the entrance to the Winery and the crowd panics, parts, and disperses into smaller groups as I press on past the shelves. There are flakes of snow whirling in the orange glow up ahead, hot and cold, fire and frost, mixing, mingling, making crazy patterns. The back wall of the Winery is gone. The barrels are alight, and the puddles, puddles all around, burn. The hole in the wall, like a ragged mouth, is terrifying. The fire runs and roars; it is a monster.

  I can’t make out faces, or understand what is being shouted, but I see the concerted movements around me. Some people are attempting to control the blaze. The young ones use blankets, handfuls of snow, even their feet as they stamp and stamp in the fiery liquid. Stephan is there, a central point, standing tall against the blaze and facing it down with the confidence of one who is used to getting his own way. The fire will lose the battle. It begins to obey.

  Someone catches at my arm. It’s Jim. I’m beginning to grow sick of his face.

  “Come on,” he says, “come away. They’ve got it.” He pushes at me and I nearly lose my balance, but he’s right: we should go. When the fire goes out there will only be the hole, and the cold pouring through it, and this section will be closed off as well as the terrorists can manage to stop the endless winter from touching our plants. And to hide the sight of those mounds.

  “Where’s Lonnie?” I say, as we push past the milling crowds, their mouths open, their eyes glassy. Rubberneckers, that’s what they used to be called. The desire to stare at a car crash, when somebody else’s world has gone wrong. Except this is our world – don’t we have the right to stare?

  “I told her to stay in bed,” Jim says. “You took off so fast. I was worried about you.” He holds onto my arm, so tightly.

  “I needed to know what’s happening.”

  “What was always going to happen.” The corridor is quieter; all attention is focused behind us, on the blaze. Jim slows a little and loosens his grip. He speaks more quietly, and with well-chosen words. I get the feeling he’s been rehearsing this in his mind. “They’ll never hold this place. They’ll tell us all sorts of lies to keep us working, but they have to know they have a few days more at best. This was a message Blossom Farm was always going to send.”

  “You think Blossom Farm deliberately blew up the Winery?”

  “It’s the easiest and cheapest area to replace,” he says. “It’s just equipment, not even under the domes. Not organic. But it shows they’d rather destroy it than share it.”

  I can’t accept it, I can’t; destroy the melons, the strawberries, the oranges, the sugar snap peas, because if they don’t own it, they think nobody should.

  “Lonnie is getting more confused,” Jim says. “It’s all this uncertainty. You know what happens when one of us gets confused. They put us outside. There’s no reason to keep someone who can’t work. But if I make myself indispensable, they’ll want to keep me happy, and then she’s got a chance. We have to outlast this band of idiots and then, once they’re gone, the farm will need new supervisors, ones who understand the situation here and do their best to help the rightful owners.”

  He stops walking and pulls me to a halt beside him.

  “Listen,” he says. “You’ve been here so long, you’ve had privileges, you know how this works. You’ve got access to stuff, and you know every inch of the place. We can keep the workers together, unite them, keep them strong so they don’t help the enemy. Days, that’s all it will take until the cavalry arrives. Days.”

  “You want to form an underground movement?” I ask him. Is he picturing us striking some valiant blow for a business that doesn’t care about us one way or another? His desperation is repulsive, but I’ve been in love. I know what it’s like to think you’ll do anything to keep someone close. Still, I’m too old for this nonsense.

  “Listen,” I say. I step in close to him and hold his gaze so he can be in no doubt that I mean this. “I can’t help you. I’m done with getting involved. I came here for an easy life and I just care about the melons. That’s it.”

  “You don’t get to have an easy life now, you silly old woman,” he says. “You silly, silly old woman. This is going to be hard, and you’re part of it whether you like it or not. In the morning they’ll call a meeting, wait and see. They’ll say that Blossom Farm never cared about us, and they’ll try to split us up. They don’t get it. We know we never mattered to anybody but ourselves, but there comes a point when you have to stand up. For meaning something, if only to yourself. And you do care, Mel. We’re approaching the moment when you won’t be able to pretend otherwise anymore. When it arrives, remember my offer, and remember what you need to do to survive.” He steps back and puts his hand on the door handle. “And don’t mention any of this to Lonnie. She doesn’t need to get upset.”

  I follow him into the room and in the warm darkness it’s possible to believe that Lonnie is sleeping, escaping into good dreams. I crawl back into my nest on the floor and Jim returns to his place beside her.

  Us and them. Everything is us and them. Even if there were just us three – Jim and Lonnie and me – there would be the divide that splits the heart of all humanity. And if it came to it, they would both turn on me.

  Did Lucas mean it? That we painters should stick together? I wish I had seen him at the fire, just to see his face. But it’s so dangerous to trust anyone. Even Daisy, Daisy who had me in her hand, could not be trusted in the end.

  No, I won’t trust anyone. That’s the only way to be. If it must be us and them, I’ll stand alone and take no sides, no matter what happens.

  Jim’s breathing slows and I know he’s found sleep. How lucky he is to believe in his own importance. He protects Lonnie as if he is a superhero.

  Super Jim. The thought makes me smile.

  Yes, he’s ridiculous, but as I lie there, feeling the inevitable creep towards morning, I loose the reins of my imagination and picture myself as a young woman, running away over the snow, flanked by the people who make me super too. We are so young and pretty and free, Daisy and Lucas and me.

  * * *

  It’s eggs on toast in the morning, with the strange metallic taste of artificial eggs sticking to the back of my throat. I don’t know how they make them, but I always picture robot chickens sitting above a giant conveyor belt, their necks stretching as they pop out egg after egg.

  Damn these stupid thoughts, and my old, sore bones, and sleeping on the floor. And damn Stephan, who looks like a proper leader as he stands on the table at the front of the room and shouts, having started softly before working himself up into a frenzy worthy of a politician. I think he’s missed his calling.

  “We offered them a good deal!” he shouts. “A fair deal! Half the produce for the starving and half for them and their fat shareholders, as long as they left us alone to form a new collective, a place where young and old could work together towards a future for us all!” He holds out his hands and knits his fingers together. I finish off the last mouthful of eggs.

  “And this is their answer,” says Stephan. He drops his hands and his voice. “They destroy. They don’t care who gets hurt. They don’t care about you, and they don’t care about the future. They would rather blow this place to hell than simply take a little less for themselves! This is the kind of thinking that got us all into this mess in the first place. No care for each other
, no care for the natural world, no care for the planet. Nothing but greed. We need to show them that they’re wrong. We won’t be scared by their tactics. We won’t give in to fear. We’ll stand strong, and take care of the plants and of each other, until they see sense.”

  Does he really think this will work? He flicks his eyes over us all and I see calculations taking place. He thinks he has us where he wants us.

  From my position in the far corner, I look around the refectory and see the young ones are spread out, sitting in twos and threes, alert, none of them eating. Stephan is a very dangerous man.

  “Now, I know that you must be feeling a lot of things about what happened last night. But now is not the time to give in to negativity. Let’s all stay strong, and together we can prove to Blossom Farm that although they enslaved you, they never managed to brainwash you. You will always be, in your hearts, free men and women.”

  Across from me, Jim coughs, and catches my eye. You see? his expression says, as clear as day. I told you so.

  In my expression I try to put the thought, Don’t start trouble, Jim. Don’t start trouble, they’re ready for you.

  “Any questions?” says Stephan, pleasantly.

  Jim raises his hand. He turns in his chair to face Stephan, and all I can see is the back of his head where the hairs are combed so carefully. He was in the bathroom for ages this morning.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not so much a question as an observation,” says Jim.

  “Please,” Stephan says, waving a hand. “Go ahead.”

  He stands up. “We’re a pretty old bunch of folks, sir. And we’ve all heard this kind of nonsense before. You want to fight a war, you go right ahead. Don’t let us stop you. But I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re not about to fight it for you. Not for all the tea in China.”

  “I’m disappointed to hear you feel that way,” says Stephan, looking disappointed and righteous. “I’m afraid the time has come to choose where you stand, and everybody has to make their own choice. I see that you are choosing to stand with Blossom Farm.”

  “Oh, really?” says Jim. “If I’m not with you I’m against you, is that it? I’ve heard that before, son. And we’re for ourselves, by the way. You lot can be for yourselves and we’ll be for ourselves. End of story.” He sits down. I’m so glad I can’t see his face. I get the feeling he looks pleased with himself.

  “Ah, I’m sad that life has been so difficult for you that you can’t tell when a good offer comes along,” says Stephan. “I think we should get together, man to man, and discuss this personally.”

  If Jim thought this was how he would keep Lonnie alive, he’s an idiot. I wonder if he’s beginning to realise that.

  “But no matter how you feel about us,” says Stephan, addressing the entire room once more, “I hope we can all agree that the plants come first. Let’s work hard for them, if not yet for each other.”

  He climbs down from the table and people begin to move, taking their trays bearing empty plates and cups to the stacking holders, setting off for their sectors with dull, tired expressions. Do I care for them? Will I stand with them? No, I won’t.

  The man who took away Daisy’s body comes to our table, and says to Jim, “Wait here.”

  Jim says nothing. He shrinks down in his seat and Lonnie, beside him, looks up and around as if waking from a dream.

  “What is it?” she says, and I say, “Work. Come on.” She follows me, thank God, looking back once or twice at Jim, but she still has the sense to come away.

  I drop Lonnie off at Satsumas and then lose myself among my melons. Some areas are ripening, and I check for colour, size and shape, and write yield estimates just as Mr Cecil would have liked. The fruits are good and heavy but I won’t pick them, not yet.

  Today the desire to taste one is so very strong. If I split it open it would reveal the perfect colour of sunrise. My mouth moistens. I’m salivating all morning with the thought of the taste. It hasn’t bothered me this way for years, but right now my body is on fire with sensation. The aches and pains, the tiredness, only prove that I’m still alive, and I’m grateful for it. I haven’t felt this way for so long. I can remember exactly when I last felt so glad to still have these old arms and legs, this tired and struggling heart.

  I remember it, and I want to put it on glass.

  When the lunchtime bell goes, I pocket my paintbrush and head to the storeroom. The paint awaits me. It slides thick and easy over the surface of the pane.

  * * *

  Slide 118

  The reception area of Sector K was a mockery of an earlier time when there might have been guests to this state-of-the-art biodome complex, but the doors had been shut and the gates erected before Mel’s arrival. The orange seats, the potted palm and the water dispenser were used only by the workers, and had become invisible, beyond comment. But the stranger looked hard at them and Mel saw them again, as if for the first time. The orange seats were lurid and the potted palm lopsided. How ridiculous it all looked.

  The man’s face was slick with sweat. He wore a padded coat that was so bulky he had barely squeezed through the door. But his shoes, and his beard, were still white with snow. He sneered at them both.

  Mr Taylor said, “Can I help you?” His voice was very mild.

  The man opened his coat. Inside was a bundle, strapped to his chest by a length of sacking material, brown and coarse, looping over his shoulders and around his waist. He unveiled himself, as if something meaningful had been revealed.

  Mel thought – a bomb. A bomb. She didn’t move.

  She had heard stories. New workers, arriving from the changed world outside, had told tales of separatism, agro-terrorism, people demanding to live under their own rules to make a fairer world. She had eavesdropped on these conversations with vague interest, as if it was happening in another country, far away. Outside – the foreign country. Now the outside was here.

  “Don’t do anything,” said Mr Taylor. “Okay? Nobody needs to do anything.”

  The bundle on the man’s chest squirmed. A small arm emerged through a gap in the sacking. It had folds of fat, chubby creases and a fist that clenched and unclenched.

  The man stroked the fist and put it back inside the material, using only one hand. In the other hand was a knife.

  No, not a knife. It was a trowel. One of the small steel trowels they used for planting. He must have come here through the nurseries, Mel thought.

  “Put the knife down, okay?” said Mr Taylor, who had stretched out his own hands in that classic gesture of placation.

  The man mumbled.

  “What? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear.”

  “I need milk.”

  “You need the Meat section. You’re in Fruit. Fruit’s no good for a baby.” Mr Taylor pointed. “Here. I’ll show you the way.”

  “Real milk. From a real cow.”

  “Yes, that’s what we do here. Real cows. I promise you. This way.”

  The man watched Mr Taylor edge around so he stood beside him, by the entrance. How strange that only a moment ago they had been discussing the weather. Another cold one, Mr Taylor had said, do you remember what summer used to be like? I was on the football team and we played out there in shorts.

  “How far?” said the man.

  “Not far.” Mr Taylor flicked his eyes to Mel. It was an instruction, so obviously; no, a plea. To do something. What did he want her to do? The man saw it, and read it quickly and completely. He raised the trowel and brought it down, that steel point digging into the space between Mr Taylor’s neck and his chest, right where the collar of his white shirt sat.

  Mel looked away. She simply looked away: not there, not there, not there, she heard in her head.

  When she came back to herself, she was kneeling by the entrance to her melon area and Mr Taylor was on the ground, not far away. His blood had formed a lake around him, so red, reaching the feet of the orange chairs, the colours clashing.

  She crawled over
to him. His mouth opening and shutting. His eyes were on her. He looked very much younger.

  “Billy,” she said.

  * * *

  There’s a cheery knock at the storeroom door, a young person’s knock, and I just know it’s Lucas. I hate myself for feeling pleased at the thought.

  I put down the paintbrush and open the door. He is standing there with a big smile. I let him enter, check the corridor is empty, and then close the door. We are alone in the only space left to me. Why don’t I mind him being here? I should mind it.

  “What are you painting?” he says. “Is that a melon?”

  “It’s not finished yet. And it’s not a melon. It doesn’t look anything like a melon.”

  We stand side by side and stare at the black curves on the glass.

  “It looks exactly like a melon,” he says.

  I nudge him in the ribs.

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  “It’s a baby. Look, there’s the head, there’s an eye, that’s a little hand.”

  “Is that a hand, then? Not a flower? I can’t believe I didn’t see it immediately. You’re a painting genius. Look at that brushwork.”

  “Shut up,” I tell him.

  He smiles and smiles, and looks so comfortable with me, like we share something deep. I wish he wouldn’t smile. I have to make him stop.

  “A man got in here. Into Sector K, I mean. Two years ago. He had a baby strapped to his chest. I can still picture it. That baby. I only saw its hand, though.” I shrug. “The mind’s a funny thing.”

  At last, he’s stopped smiling. But this sudden feeling of intimacy is worse. The room is so quiet. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Guards caught him eventually, I heard. He would have been dealt with. I heard rumours afterwards, that people outside carry babies around to fatten them up, to… eat them, later.”

  “Like a packed lunch?” Lucas says, and snorts. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “No,” I tell him. “No, I don’t believe that.” I can see, once more, that man holding that baby’s hand, tucking it safely away.