by Andy Graham
“How could I? I’m an only child, you know that.”
“Don’t be so literal. You know what I mean.”
Lynn brought another round of drinks. Ray paid, tipped her and asked for a drink to be left hanging. Around them, the bar was coming to life, filling with voices and laughter and stories. People dropped coats, damp with the autumnal mist, on chairs. One woman warmed her hands on the candle on her table. She joked to her friends she was stocking up on heat for the night.
“Don’t you people believe in an afterlife?” Ray asked Brooke. “I’m sure I read that somewhere.”
“We do, the End Times, too. But after years in your cities, the Sci-Corps and now the legion, surrounded by people like Orr, who can’t see past his own prejudices, and Nascimento, who can’t see past his own mirror, I’m not so sure either is true.”
“I’m not from the Gates.”
“And Orr is from nowhere now. I get it, you’re different.” The sarcasm dripped from her words.
Ray kept his mouth shut. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a woman trying to ignore a well-dressed man looming over her. Whenever she turned away from him, he moved round to face her, trying to slide a drink into her hands. Ray flashed a glance at the manager. Lynn nodded and sauntered over. As she did so, the doors opened and a blocky man in a suit walked in, a flesh-coloured jaw-piece connected to his ear. Ray considered telling Brooke and then realised he had just missed her last few sentences. Some friend he was turning out to be.
“Hamid reminded me of Kames, my brother,” she said. “His face, the wiry build, the slow, methodical approach to life, the same sense of relentless loyalty and justice.”
Ray coughed up the drink he had half-inhaled.
“I know what you all thought. Hamid knew, too.” Brooke’s lips twitched into a faint smile.
“You spent a lot of time with each other.”
“And you spend a lot of time with Nascimento – should I start spreading rumours?”
“That’s different.”
“Should it be?”
Ray opened his mouth to protest as Brooke nudged him. Martinez was going through his parade drills, using his mop as a surrogate rifle. The table he was performing to cheered each time the mop flicked drips of water at them. The cheers changed to jeers as the ex-legionnaire was moved on by the unsmiling man in the suit. He whispered something into Martinez’s ear that made him glower.
“Yes,” Ray replied as Brooke turned back. “I mean, no. I don’t know. It’s just...”
He stole a look across the bar. Lynn was leaning on the bar next to the harassed looking woman. The man standing next to her had both hands raised in an innocent gesture.
“Even in this day and age all the old prejudices and assumptions still refuse to lie down and die.” She glanced at the growing commotion behind them. “Enough of this conversation. It’s too maudlin.” She pointed to Ray’s leg. “Nascimento told me you’ve got to go see the specialist. When’s that?”
“What?”
“The medic! Sure you don’t want to get your ears checked instead of your leg?”
“Tomorrow.” He realised he’d been trying to work the feeling back into his foot. How could his back and his foot hurt, and nothing in between? “Tomorrow, Dr Neufeld will click his fingers and I shall walk straight again.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’ll let this Neufeld tackle this one with you, though.”
She stood to put her jacket on. “Hamid and I were just friends. He was too much like Kames to be anything else for me. He kind of filled the ‘never’ hole for a while. When I explained why he wasn’t going to get any further, Hamid said he understood. But I didn’t want him to think I was leading him on.” There was a shout. The splintering sound of glass breaking. A curse. Brooke stopped doing up the dry-zip of her jacket and pointed behind Ray. The dark-haired woman had knocked the drink over as she tried to push it away. The man’s voice was rising, gesturing to the damp patch on his suit. Ray got to his feet, the pain in his back forgotten.
Brooke caught his arm and squeezed it. Tall as she was, she still had to look up at him. “Maybe that flame never died in Hamid. Maybe he did think I would crack and roll into his arms. I’ll never know now. But I came to see him for who he was – Ernest, not Kames, and loved him for it. As a friend.”
The bar manager was trying to calm the situation. She said something to one of the staff, who hurried into the back room where Martinez had disappeared with his mop. The woman at the bar was standing up, eyes wide as the man gesticulated at the bar staff. Martinez came out of the room. His scarred face went purple when the other man snapped at him. Brooke let Ray’s arm go and gave him a shove.
“I’m fine. Go do your knight-in-shining-armour thing. You boys love that stuff. If I go over there now, I’ll hurt the guy. Badly. I’m not ruining my new jacket and clean record for a jerk.” She kissed him on the cheek, ignoring his shocked look. “Thank you for trying to say the right thing.”
7
Playground Economics
David Prothero ran his thumb along the edge of his pocket watch. In his hurry to get to the Kickshaw this evening, he’d left it at home. He’d considered leaving it there but it hadn’t felt right; he’d felt more naked than when he didn’t have his phone on him. So he’d gone back for the watch. That meant he’d arrived late. Late meant lazy, he’d always told his daughter. It had put him more on edge than before, especially as it had been his suggestion to meet the president here. At least the manager had honoured her promise to give the place a scrub. Lynn had even got rid of the cobwebs festooning the ceiling beams. He flashed the buxom bar manager his most charming smile as she set their drinks down and turned his attention to his companion.
The last few decades had been kinder to Bethina Laudanum than to him. His hair was greying, hers was the same oil-black colour as always. It was less severely cut but still austere. She never followed what was deemed current but was never too far from it, either; acknowledging rather than imitating. Whereas he was getting ‘a little paunchy’, as his daughter, Anna, kept pointing out, Beth remained lithe and elegant, if not quite as athletic as she once was. What hadn’t changed in the forty years or so they had known each other was her her attitude. She was still harder than nails. She was also on the phone.
With a polite nod and an imperious wave of a finger, Beth let him know that she was on an important call. Prothero smiled to himself. He knew the rules: he had made Beth wait, she was making him wait. Knowing that didn’t help his mood. Nor did his blasted leg. The rush to get here had aggravated his knee pain. He should have picked up his pills when he went home for the watch.
On the other side of the bar, a crash sounded from the tail end of the disagreement he’d been half-following. The man behind Beth turned, hand twitching towards his lapel. A second man by the main door, who could have been split from the same rock face as his partner, shook his head. The president’s abnormally large shadow settled back onto its heels.
The disagreement at the bar comprised two young men arguing over a woman while a crowd watched. It was classic, old-school entertainment, tested through the ages. The taller of the two combatants, though that implied there was a fight rather than a rout, had to be military with that hair cut. The legionnaire had the thinner man pinned to the floor. The creases in his jacket sleeve twisted at uncomfortable angles. The legionnaire looked like Ray Franklin, but the high and tight made them all look similar. Prothero guessed that was the idea.
Beth pocketed her phone and started the conversation they were here for with no preamble, greeting or ceremony. “My position remains the same. There isn’t enough money for a living wage. You know that. I don’t see why hard work should be punished. Many of the wealthy have worked hard to get where they are, and those born rich are at no more fault than those born poor.”
“There is plenty of money, Beth. You know that.”
“Still arguing like a teenager? Snappy sounding solutions work well for
the public but rarely make the grade in reality.”
They’d been over this so many times it was verging on boring. Neither was prepared to give ground, and each maintained the absolute certainty that they were right. He was right, Prothero told himself. How could his views be juvenile? After a long silence where neither person was prepared to break eye contact first, she bowed her head. In anyone else he would have taken it as a victory. With her, it made the hairs stand up on his neck.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she poured him a drink, “and I am not patronising you. I never would. It’s just not as simple as you make out. You’re aware of that as well as I am.”
“Only because you and your kind say so.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he regretted them. Bethina had the faintest of smiles behind her wine glass. “Our kind? David, please. Think about what you’re saying.” Her phone buzzed. “I’m sorry. This call is—“
“More important than the problems facing your public?”
“How do you know this isn’t the solution you’re waiting for?” She winked at him. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“But—” It was too late. She was already talking. Prothero eased his leg into a different position. This was not going as he had hoped. He should be used to it by now. Every victory he had won over the years, whether they had left small or big scratches in the surface of what he was facing, had been fought like this. It never got any easier. He’d been advised not to take it personally, to leave it in the office. He’d tried, but whenever he left his comfortable office in its serviced building, he was confronted by real-life examples of what he was fighting for and against.
He saw the inequalities and the limitations that kept most people on the start line their entire life. He had witnessed countless examples of the paradox of not being able to get the right job without the right qualifications or vaccinations, but not being able to afford those things without a decent wage. People could see the possibilities, see who was in front of them, but knew they could never catch them. If they tried too hard, they may lose their place in the race: pay a forfeit, be disqualified or be sent back to the start line.
The whole system was based on fear. Do as you’re told, don’t rock the boat and you may have a chance of promotion; don’t play by the rules, you get thrown to the sharks. His argument that it was inherently wrong wasn’t helped by the fact that the woman opposite him had dragged her way up from the streets of Gallowgutter, one of the capital’s poorest areas, to the top of the presidential tower. She was living testament to the claim that the system could work.
Bethina pocketed her phone. “Where were we?”
“You were—“
“Patronising you.” She grinned and muttered something about uptight men and their pride. “I’m joking,” she said in a voice like a primary school teacher. “We were talking about money. The status quo has to be maintained for everyone’s benefit. I know you disagree but the people you champion have the same options and possibilities as everyone else.”
“Not every one has the brains you have or had the same lucky breaks.”
“No,” she replied. “But should I suffer for that? Would it have been fairer for everyone if I’d both thought and tried less? I did what I had to do to get where I wanted to be. The world wouldn’t be a better place if I’d played the role it expected me to play. In fact, I believe it would be worse. I took my opportunities when they arose and made them when they didn’t. You of all people should appreciate that.”
“I do. I understand. It’s just—“
Her phone buzzed. “I’m so sorry, David.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “This is important.”
“If our country has survived without financial parity for this long, it can wait one more minute.” She smiled guilelessly and took the call.
A sudden burst of laughter floated over to them. A table of drinkers burst into song, drowning out the jukebox. Prothero grabbed his pocket watch. She was doing this on purpose, trying to unsettle him. Beth was one of the few people who could get to him like this. Anna came close but that was to be expected. Family was supposed to annoy you.
Beth and he had spent years battling across what passed as a virtual ballot box. For every victory he’d claimed, there was always a sting in the tail. Not even their mutual respect and old friendship, which at times seemed held together by need or habit, could temper it. Beth’s call finished. She made a show of switching the phone off and giving it to her bodyguard before turning her full attention to Prothero. It made him feel, as it once had, that he was the only person in the world.
“You do know there is no such thing as a perfect system?” she asked. “At least not when you add people into the equation.”
“We’d settle for better.”
Her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. “We?”
“Being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse.”
“No,” she replied, “but a horse born in a house is still a horse. Seeing as you bring this up, where were you born again?”
“You know where,” he mumbled. “New Town, on the border.”
“The disputed border. And you have never told me if your family measured their wealth by money or antiques. Or was it your vintage wine collection?”
“Give it a rest, Beth.”
Beth, however, didn’t seem to be in a forgiving mood. “Nor did you tell me if you made your protests about the unfair system while your maid was changing your silk sheets or waited until she had finished?”
“Stop. Please.”
“And did you tip her or just try and sleep with her as was your perceived right as a male born into a wealthy family?”
“Enough,” he snapped, fingers curling around his pocket watch. “That’s way out of line. I never tried to sleep with the staff.”
“The staff,” Beth whispered with a slight shake of her head. An uncomfortable silence settled over their table. Someone yelled something obscene at the bar. The vanquished suitor was leaving, dusting himself off and shouting vague threats over his shoulder in an attempt to claw back some face. Prothero wasn’t sure what had started the dispute, but the lady had just offered the victor, the legionnaire, a seat next to her.
The jukebox changed tunes. Colour rippled across the bar as the lights flickered. Prothero blinked. The two people, Ray Franklin and the dark-haired woman, blurred. The image became Prothero and the VP. They’d been sitting on those exact stools only the other week. They’d managed a couple of civil sentences before the conversation had turned wretched again. He’d been told to be patient with the VP. But for how long?
Beth tapped her drink with a finger nail. The glass chime rang out across the table. “Everyone of working age has a job,” she said quietly, “even in the Settlements. It’s taken a long time to achieve this balance and we can’t tinker with it now. The redistribution you’re proposing is playground economics: seesaws and roundabouts.”
“I’d rather be at the top of the slide. The view is much better.”
“And you have further to fall,” she retorted, voice rising. “Let’s drop the clichés and lame analogies for a moment, David. A society where everyone is equal has been tried. People don’t like it; it doesn’t work. No matter how many bleat to the contrary there’s something within us that doesn’t like equality. Maybe Professor Lind has a genetic explanation for it. I don’t. Your proposal is unaffordable, unworkable and the boards will never go for it.”
“They will if you decree it, or at least support it. Nothing is fixed, nothing is forever.”
“Your famous rallying cry.” She sighed. “The answer’s still no.”
“A simple change, it’s all I want. A change which would mean people wouldn’t have to choose between heating or eating in winter. That infernal season is getting longer and harsher each year. The change would stop people defying the curfew and scavenging at night.”
“We do not have scavengers in the city.”
>
“You’re arguing a technicality, Beth. The crime of scavenging doesn’t exist but people do it. Will you make the proposal?”
“No.”
“What about my second proposal?”
The lines around her eyes hardened.
“There is a precedent for it. The military and the government all contract for life with set hours. Why not extend the privilege? Surely, that’s less daunting a compromise? It’s not technically giving anyone a pay rise after all.”
She stared over at the bar. The legionnaire and his princess were laughing, oblivious to the battle taking place metres away, a battle which affected them all. Almost indulgently, Beth’s face softened. He’d seen a similar expression before in public broadcasts. This was different. Genuine. Haunted. With a sigh she turned back to him. “You’re improving, David.”
“So, you will consider it?”
“I said you were improving. My answer hasn’t changed.”
The sense of anticipation that had been building vanished as quickly as the whimsical expression on her face. He hated having to fight by their rules but his principles had only got him so far. Looking back down the years, he could see the slow, inexorable slide into his current position, the responsibility he had never wanted. Years of offering armchair solutions from a hidden room in a wine cellar had led to protests from the sidelines. That had developed into activism on the front line. At first masked, then open, full-faced defiance, and now he was arguing with the president.
‘Big leaders don’t focus on little matters,’ she’d once said to him. Couldn’t Beth see that without the little matters there would be no big leaders?
“Do you want me to ask for the files on the Window Riots to be opened?” he asked. “The originals, not the official version. I checked, the electronic files are still readable. The digital deficit seems to have spared those.”
There was a puckering of the skin on her forehead. “I assume you have a hard copy of these files, too?”