by Fay Weldon
Frivolously, I asked whose side we were on.
‘The ADFs, of course,’ said Robbie. ‘They’re the ones who fund us.’
I tried to take them seriously, but it was difficult, and I giggled.
‘And the “big guys”?’ I asked at last. But I knew. The ones who rule our lives and know our secrets. What we buy and what we think, every passing whim and feeling categorised and turned into mega data to be algorithm-ised. The young ones sauntering about in California in the sun, who mean to live forever , or, plan B, swap universes and set up their palaces in Lethe. Red Beard was offering me a pill.
‘I think not,’ I said.
‘No worries,’ said Red Beard. ‘This is just ordinary caffeine to wake you up.’
I realised only then that that he was an Australian. That figured. He had the burly amiability yet stubbornness of a man whose beard would not be denied. I realised I was being swept with a wave of frivolity which would probably do me no good in an interview, whoever it was with: one should never joke with policemen, security guards or an interviewing committee. It is one of the rules of modern society that one does not joke with officials.
I accepted the pill. Really, I had little to lose, no secrets left. Waking up was certainly a good idea. Robbie seemed to have lost his normal languid composure. Both Red Beard and he were all of a flutter, competing for a view of themselves in the mirror, straightening ties and smoothing hair. They might have been biker girls waiting for the leader of the pack. They seemed to have forgotten me.
‘The Committee are holding a special convocation ahead of tonight’s AGM,’ said Robbie. He was breathless and babbling. ‘They opened up the cathedral the minute the analysis of the tree came through. The ADFs are using it as evidence.’
‘It’s fairly conclusive. Percholate of unknown origin, most likely other dimensional. Where a tree goes a revenant can follow.’ said Red Beard.
‘When was a committee ever rational? They might jump this way, might jump that. And Phyllis as a star witness—’ said Robbie.
‘I’ll say whatever you like,’ I said, feeling obliging again, but they didn’t seem to notice.
‘Someone patched through the lab results to them,’ said Robbie.
‘Fuck,’ said Red Beard. ‘The techs pushed the machine up to 6.5. I told them not to go past 6. The gradients were way too steep. Her epiphysis cerebri readings were all over the place. Something crook happened. “Stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you?”’
‘Or it could have been the sapling,’ said Robbie.
‘Pity it ever made it to the lab, then,’ said Red Beard. ‘Better if we’d deep-sixed it. Shit. Just when we were getting somewhere.’
‘A bit too fast for my liking, and possibly theirs.’ said Robbie. ‘Did you give Phil a Juve?’
‘Plenty,’ said Red Beard.
‘Pity about that,’ said Robbie. ‘There’ll be no discretion on Philly’s part, then.’
‘And some normal Ritalin.’
‘That’s why she’s so cheerful.’
I expected Ted to walk through the door at any moment but what the hell.
I said I wanted something to eat. Just a sandwich would do. It had been a long day and I’d had no breakfast. Robbie trotted off to the canteen. He was being very attentive, as if I needed to be placated at all costs. ‘Normal Ritalin’, forsooth, and telling me it was caffeine! But it did make me feel rather good; alert and jokey, a great combination.
I was soon chewing on a limp cheese and tomato wheatgerm roll: all the canteen had left, but it restored me. I assumed it wasn’t poisoned. Who would bother to do such a thing?
‘I can’t face a committee not wearing a bra,’ I said, and explained the garment had been taken as evidence of the murderous intent of expensive RMI machines. The hooks had torn off when I put it on that morning in a hurry: therefore the safety pin. I didn’t want the bra back, it was old anyway: I just didn’t want to look sloppy and droopy in front of some ethics committee.
Robbie said I looked just fine to him without a bra, but when I persisted said he imagined I was much the same size as Cynara and she was in the building somewhere. If she was wearing one today – and it was fifty-fifty; she often went without one – she might be induced to part with hers. I smiled and nodded.
My first thought was where had Ted had gone when he stepped over the rim, rashly freed by me and the twins? Off to find Cynara? My second thought was that I didn’t care one bit if he had, and the third thought was astonishment – I was not troubled at all by Robbie’s apparent intimacy with the state of Cynara’s underwear. I no longer craved any man’s approval. I was unburdened – no longer bowed down by useless longing. I was free! I brushed the crumbs from my mouth and stood up to face the world.
It was news to me that Cynara was in the building, but presumably she worked at least part-time for Portal Inc. Nothing was what it seemed. I was amazed at my own naïveté, but excused myself. I had been going round in drug-induced haze for almost a year. Of course Robbie knew about the state of Cynara’s underwear. Why would he not? How much did any woman whose partner went off to work every morning with a clean shirt and polished shoes know about what happened when he got there, on the way, or on the way back?
When Robbie returned with the bra I asked him if he had another Juve and he said he had not.
7
I could see why they called their meeting a convocation and the place it was in a cathedral; it was as much like a small-scale Chartres as steel and glass, and a glaring mosaic maze on the floor could manage. It took up the entire height of the building. Everything seemed to reach skywards in a pattern of gothic arches and mirrored glass: as a temple to everlasting life on earth it seemed to me faintly ridiculous. They were trying too hard. The place had no age to it – it seemed brittle, an ad-man’s delight.
They sat me to wait on my own in the equivalent of a vestry. If I was a witness I was the only one. In the far corner a cluster of uniformed staff stood waiting for the crowd to surge out of the inner sanctum for their tea and coffee and the various health drinks on offer. I went over to them and asked for an orange juice, but this caused considerable consternation – I wasn’t on their list and they had no instructions. I said don’t bother, and went back to my seat to sit and snooze and wait, but for what? I presumed there was a preliminary meeting of some kind going on next door.
Two security guards in sinister black appeared out of nowhere and hurried towards me; they were carrying what looked like assault rifles, though I know very little about arms. Their weapons looked lethal, and their owners only too happy to use them. I was still in my red poppy cotton dress and what I assumed was Cynara’s bra: it fitted, but not as well as my own. Heaven knew where my bag had gone but there’d been nothing important in it anyway. I’d had very little sleep the night before, but though I might not look my best I hoped I looked harmless. The black-clad ones took up their positions in front of me, and I was relieved to see that their brief seemed to be to herd and protect me like attentive sheep dogs, rather than to assault me in any way.
A soft broadcast voice announced ‘Recess, Recess’, the near set of double doors flew open, the organ struck up Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, and a procession of men emerged: I counted twelve. They wore long scarlet velvet robes and buckled shoes and walked two by two with due solemnity. One could suppose they were cardinals or professors except that they all looked young and healthy, not at all worn out by too much thought or the normal burdens of office: almost like Olympic contestants, strong, confident, and moved by an athletic grace. The Illuminati, I supposed them to be, the ‘big guys’ – the Ethics Committee who were to interview me.
Only when they got nearer did it strike me that their outer and inner appearances did not match. They were old men in new bodies: their eyes did not open wide with the enthusiasms of youth, but were narrowed and watery as if they had seen too much, knew too much. Yet all seemed in bursting good health, with that smooth, polis
hed skin and confident air of those not plagued by money worries. You might attribute the wisdom of experience to them, while yet fearing the enthusiasm of their youth.
So these were the ones not prepared to accept their own mortality that Cynara had spoken of, whom Ben and Robbie had called the Live Forever Lads, and exactly half of them – Portal’s sponsors – who favoured contacting the Beyond were the After Death Freaks. And all consulting little me, I thought: this is a great opportunity, and a great responsibility.
And then they passed by me, just a few feet away, on into a side room, where I guessed that, in the interests of life extension and even immortality they would rest, and perhaps indulge in a well-deserved blood change to lengthen the telomeres, munch blueberries and carp liver, sip green juices, or whatever the latest longevity craze was. Maybe they just all lay down together for a rest in agreeable togetherness.
The organ died away, the other set of double doors were flung wide and a whole crowd of young men and women, dozens of them, flocked through for tea, coffee and health drinks. They had the kind of happy, earnest and animated faces I’d seen years ago at the Young Theosophists – devotees all. All seemed to be on their phones, or moving nimble fingers over tablets. All were dressed in white or pastel shades. Among the first out were Cynara, Jill Woodward and the twins. I cried out in surprise. I was upset, and the shock was enough to break through my drug-induced non-affect and mental acuity that had protected me so well throughout the day. I found myself on my feet, but the two security men who flanked me suggested by look, gesture and weapon that I sat still, kept quiet, and behaved. I sat down again quietly, composed myself, and thought.
Cynara, Jill Woodward, Martha and Maude. What did the four of them have in common? Why, Ted, Robbie, the NSA (presumably the twins also were now on its books – why else the riverside flat?) and myself. They didn’t seem to have noticed me; all were too busy with each other and their cellphones and their strange green drinks. I hoped that their being dressed in white did not mean that they were potential brides. Martha and Maude, their blonde heads close together, were no doubt on the phone to one another. They did that a lot: I think it made them feel more like separate entities if they communicated electronically. My reason was returning: I recognised all this was actuality, not a dream.
Seeing the four of them together had been startling, but I could at least understand what had happened. The death had acted like a divorce; friends and family had split and taken sides – sometimes the most painful thing about a divorce is not just the damage done to the children, but the way good friends will take sides. Ted had died and I had become the guilty party, betraying my husband by bedding Robbie. All of them loved Ted and all had taken up arms against me. Jill Woodward might have killed Ted, but only by accident: there was no point in blaming her. Ted was the one I should be angry with. The night before Christmas he had betrayed me with her by thought and word, and deed. In all probability he’d been over at her place for a quickie while I was out on my forlorn Christmas Eve shopping trip. And Jill had taken a Doxy in anticipation of his visit, the poor silly bitch. I won’t blame the woman; in such circumstances I blame the man.
As for Cynara, she loved Ted, and for all I knew Ted loved her sincerely and passionately. Why not? Why would he love me, the wife of decades, the older woman back home, the bad-tempered, un-generous, un-fun me. I must accept it. As for the twins, they loved their father. I had bedded Robbie too soon, and though they took the gifts their stepfather brought them, they never could forgive either him, or me, their mother.
And perhaps I was not the only one to have Ted dreams. Perhaps all five of us did; perhaps we all knew he was not dead, only halfway dead? And for all I knew Ted was walking amongst us here, now. Had he not stepped out of his sarcophagus shell, set free by me, as the 7.5 MRI machine had agitated my pineal gland out of its stupor. It had done what it was meant to do all too well. Too steep the gradient!
I did feel very odd. There was an empty chair beside me. I had a sudden feeling Ted was sitting in it. I could almost see him, but not quite. The air quivered there as it had around the tape reels. Ted was there. I stretched out my hand to touch, but it went right through him. It was almost him, though not quite a solid him, as if he were a hologram. Then he got up and walked away. The security guards did not notice: no-one did.
Ted seemed to join the group of four – Cynara, Jill and the twins – and laughed and joked with them. Why wouldn’t he? All were part of him and he of them. The twins were his children. The women were joined to him by sexual contact. Whomever women have unprotected sex with affect them just a little – I’m convinced of that. Animal breeders say the bitch who ‘gets out’ never breeds true again; no wonder men used to be so fussy about marrying virgin brides. And the harder I gazed at Ted the less he seemed to be there, winking in and out as if there were something wrong with my eyes.
The organ struck up again: with a loud, fulsome, triumphant sound the hymn from Beethoven’s ninth, Joyful, joyful, we adore thee. The twelve scarlet-robed members of the Ethics Committee were filing back in after their twenty-minute break. They looked even healthier and younger than they had when they’d gone out, but it might have been my imagination. Ted peeled away from the others, and joined the end of the procession. He did not look at all out of place. He too was wearing a scarlet gown and buckled shoes. The chattering brides quietened for a moment of awe and adoration before filing back themselves in a brisk and orderly fashion to take their seats in the hall. A trusting and dedicated lot, I thought: one could tell they were worshipers all at the shrine of longevity, conscious of the possibility of immortality, of death without its sting at last, grave without its victory, the world to come. And Ted was to be one of those deciding the direction mankind was to be led. I could only hope his time in another reality had given him some added wisdom. He had not necessarily spent all his time in a forest jungle.
The two guys in black uniforms left my side, as Robbie and Red Beard came to join me in the now emptying vestry; the coffee staff wheeled their trolleys away to wherever they belonged. We were alone. They looked calm and composed: more like competent modern executives than mad scientists. But what struck me was how tentative, flawed and pallid both looked in comparison to the manly vigour of twelve red-robed Committee members. We all sat quietly for a minute or two. Robbie took my hand.
‘Okay?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘She’s fine,’ said Red Beard.
I’d rather wanted Red Beard not Robbie to take my hand, but I subdued the thought: so not the time or place.
‘Mrs Phyllis Whitman, please come to the stand,’ said the loudspeaker. We all jumped.
‘Good luck,’ said Red Beard
‘Tell the truth,’ said Robbie.
‘I haven’t much choice,’ I said. (I wondered if it was possible to manufacture Juves without the dangerous truth component – and Ritalin without the habit-forming propensity – how enormously popular with public speakers the world over such pills would be: an end to sleepless nights and stage fright.) I found I was not at all nervous, just glad to have Robbie and Red Beard for support – they both loved me! SRRI’s of one kind or another had not completely worked their way out of my system.
The committee was sitting in a semi-circle on a daïs, facing an audience of a hundred or so of young, good-looking, clear-complexioned and attentive young persons, like a picture of the hopeful utopian world they strove to bring about. I took my place facing the panel and counted them again. Thirteen, not twelve: or had I miscounted? The panel member to my far left, presumably the last one in, looked very like Ted. I was almost sure yet not quite sure that it was. Revenants seem to have a way of always looking rather like someone else, if only temporarily.
I took my time to settle. All assembled waited patiently, then the Chairman addressed me. He sat in the centre of the semi-circle, a charming man with a big nose and deep set if slightly rheumy eyes. He exuded power and grace.
‘Our thanks to you for coming in to speak to the Ethics Committee, Mrs Whitman,’ he said to me, in his rich, kindly voice. ‘We are honoured and flattered.’ On cue the organ next door struck up a chord or two. This was an absurdly over stage-managed event. ‘You have worked long and hard for us in our outreach programme and contributed your outstanding talents towards a greater understanding of the nature of the barriers that exist between the living and the dead. Future generations will be grateful to you.’ I couldn’t point out that my hard work had consisted mainly of sex and sleeping: it’s only courteous to accept compliments when they come one’s way. ‘And now we have some questions for you, Mrs Whitman.’
Audience and panel applauded politely, as if I was a jazz player who’d just finished a satisfactory though not very noteworthy solo. I wished I could take these people more seriously. Frivolity still kept welling up in me. The chairman fell silent. I could see I was expected to respond, to play my part and speak in similar spirit.
‘Honoured? Flattered?’ I asked. ‘Very nice of you and all that. But why? What for?’
My voice was picked up by a microphone somewhere and I could hear it ripple around the hall. The lighting of the daïs dimmed: if Ted was still there I could not be sure of it. The lighting in the auditorium brightened so that when I looked behind me I was dazzled, and couldn’t see faces; I myself sat in a pool of light. I was a Juve addict amongst Juve addicts, a Doxy addict amongst Doxy addicts, dweller in the new Pharmocracy and it was great.
‘Mrs Whitman, we have recognised your talent for quite some time, and marvelled at it. As Mozart is a musician amongst musicians, Rembrandt an artist among artists, you are a medium among mediums, a genius. You are the one in billions picked out through metadata procedures, and before you the traditional barriers of space and time dissolve.’