Truth Sister

by Phil Gilvin

  ‘So they don’t really know? I mean, are they sure the ship’s gone down?’

  Again Frieda shrugged. ‘Got a letter. They wouldn’t waste paper telling me unless they was sure. Anyhow, girl, you’ll be late for work if you don’t get a move on. What you doing, listening to old Frieda?’

  On an impulse Clara reached over the counter, took Frieda’s hand and patted it. She left her crying, which wasn’t quite the reaction she’d expected. It was puzzling, but that was okay. She felt that touching Frieda had actually been quite “respectful”. Is that what Naturals do, she wondered?

  In Parliament Street, a bony cat was scrabbling in one of the bins that stood underneath a large poster of a happy mother playing with her bouncing baby. “Cloning Keeps Us Pure”, read the slogan. Further on, two white-masked Waterco engineers stood in a large hole, inspecting something that gave off a pungent, sweet-putrid smell. Everything was normal here – the Waterco women had even left their tool box in the middle of the pavement where anyone could trip over it – but somewhere out in the North Sea, thought Clara, a piece of Frieda’s life had just sunk from sight. ‘Well,’ she muttered, ‘people’s lives change, don’t they?’

  She sighed as she mounted the now-familiar white stone steps and showed her ID. Maybe it was the blood on the pavement, maybe it was Frieda’s news; but today, Clara couldn’t care less about work. She’d been ploughing through paper after paper for weeks now, and getting nowhere. Maybe today she’d try the Republic Library – she might find something more interesting there.

  By now she was familiar enough to the security guards to be nodded through the Library gates, and she spent a quiet morning digging out cloning papers. There was nothing especially useful, but she noted down a couple of things to mention to her collator. Then she looked up “Repsegs”. There was something fascinating about a Repseg’s life, she thought – maybe it was the idea of always having orders to follow, and never minding about anything else. She knew that Bella, who was feeling better and better, was bored at work: maybe she’d like to try being a Repseg. For Clara herself, of course, it was out of the question. She could hardly beat herself up, she thought grimly. But no matter how she tried, she could find nothing about how to become a Repseg. All she found was that the Fortis College records weren’t even kept in London – they were at the Bodleian, in Oxford.

  Back at the Ministry, Clara took her lunch to the staffroom, where she found Harriet Butcher munching a pie and dropping crumbs on the floor. She motioned Clara to sit down. ‘Guess what?’ she said.

  Clara looked at her old teacher. ‘Um, Mater Hedera isn’t going to make you run the Ministry after all?’

  Butcher grinned. There were bits of pie sticking to her teeth. ‘Better than that,’ she said.

  ‘Better?’ said Clara, unpacking her own thin sandwiches.

  ‘They’re going to make her All Mother,’ said Butcher. She took a massive slurp of tea. ‘All Mother! Isn’t that good news?’

  ‘Very good,’ Clara nodded, trying to get her enthusiasm to the right pitch. ‘She must be really pleased.’

  Butcher looked up to heaven. ‘Keep up, Clara. If Hedera becomes All Mother–’ she looked around and lowered her voice to a whisper ‘–she’ll get off our backs. We’ll get somebody else.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Clara. ‘Yes. Somebody else.’

  Butcher took another swig. ‘Someone who won’t be so hard on us, silly. You’re very slow today. I hope you haven’t been working too hard.’

  ‘N-no,’ said Clara. ‘I found some good papers on cloning this morning. I’ll get them to collation as soon as I can.’

  Butcher was staring out of the window. ‘I wonder who we’ll get?’ she murmured. ‘In charge of the Ministry?’

  ‘We won’t get Ms Carrow?’ said Clara.

  Butcher chuckled. ‘No, no. She’s still enjoying herself getting rid of religion and Naturals. It makes up for her not getting the headship.’

  Clara stared. ‘The headship?’

  Butcher sucked a finger. ‘Of the Academy. After I, ah, moved on, my esteemed deputy thought she was going to take over. Bit of a shock for her when she wasn’t even asked. But she’s better off chasing Naturals. She has a nose for them.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Clara, wondering if that’s why Carrow had always hated her.

  ‘I’ll bring some cake tomorrow,’ said Butcher, making the table rock as she pushed back her chair. ‘Let’s celebrate.’ The floorboards creaked as she skipped from the room.

  Clara sighed and looked down at the scattering of crumbs on the chair. Amongst them lay Harriet’s security pass, in its cardboard sleeve. She put it in her pocket; she could give it to Harriet later. Her colleague shouldn’t be so careless. But it was a measure of just how glad she must be to get rid of Hedera.

  By the time Clara went home, the Waterco women had finished their work and were grunting jokes at each other as they packed up their motor-van. A big muscular one with the suggestion of a moustache nodded at Clara as she passed. Clara nodded back, and as the van drove off in a cloud of black smoke, she paused. They hadn’t done a bad job of filling in the hole, and the smell had gone. But they’d put the wrong cover on – the thick iron plate was clearly stamped: “Supply L456. Waterco only.” They’d been wearing masks, and the thing had reeked. So it must be a drain, of course – a drinking-water pipe wouldn’t stink like that. Clara shook her head at their carelessness.

  To her surprise, Clara found a short note waiting for her at the flat: Grana was coming up to town at the weekend, and wanted to take her out for lunch. She hugged the letter to her chest and closed her eyes. At last! Contact with home, after all these months. How lovely it would be to find out all their news, how the cows were doing, how James was getting on with the well. Yes, it’d be lovely. In spite of everything.

  It was Clara’s turn to cook that evening. Bella had gradually thawed towards her over the last week or two, particularly after Clara’s help during her illness, so that they were now sharing the chores. Clara enjoyed cooking, and today she’d managed to get some pasta, which the Provis depots didn’t usually stock, from the market. It was great to be away from all the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I questions of the day, all the hiding and pretending, all the insincerities. Women had always done the honest job of cooking, from ancient times right through to the twenty-second century. And nowadays, they didn’t have to do it for men.

  It was hot in the kitchen, and she threw open the fire-escape door to let the steam out. Wiping her forehead, she glugged some olive oil – from Sussex, she noticed, not far from Briar Farm – over the vegetables, then thudded the oven door shut.

  She knocked on the door of Bella’s room and pushed it open. ‘Fifteen minutes, it’ll be. I think I’ve made enough this time. Oh!’ she added, noticing the pile of pictures strewn over Bella’s bed. They were pictures of men.

  Scarlet-faced, Bella was scrabbling the prints together. ‘It’s art,’ she said. ‘Famous paintings from history. That’s all. You know how I like painting! I – I just want to learn from them.’

  Clara didn’t know what to say. She picked up a print that had fallen to the floor: a near-naked man lay, his still arms spread wide, on a desolate beach with threatening clouds behind. A woman, half-naked too, cradled his head, her hair falling over his neck and chest as she cried for him. Clara stared; then Bella snatched it away.

  ‘Just art, all right?’ said Bella, swallowing.

  ‘What – what happened?’ said Clara.

  Bella shook her head. ‘I said, I just like painting. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  ‘No,’ said Clara, ‘I mean in the picture. Is – is he dead?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bella. She studied Clara for a moment. ‘Which one was it?’ She thumbed through the prints, some of which had got creased in her haste, until Clara pointed it out. ‘This one?’ said Bella. ‘It’s an old legend. Painted in the nineteenth century, but they always liked to use the old Greek and Roman stories.’


  Clara was staring at the print again. All that flesh was shocking, but there was something so piteous in the scene that it didn’t seem to matter. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s called Hero and Leander. He swims over the sea every night to be with her. Then one night he drowns.’

  ‘How dreadful,’ cried Clara.

  ‘It’s only a story. Then Hero – that’s the girl – commits suicide.’ Bella took the print, put it with the others and packed them away. Then, arms folded, she turned to Clara. ‘Are you going to report me?’

  ‘No,’ said Clara. ‘What for?’

  ‘It’s not very pure, is it, looking at pictures of men? But I can’t help it, Clara. I like to see them, to imagine them. I’ll be turning Natural before you know it.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Clara, wondering how to get out of this one.

  ‘And you’ve turned people in before,’ said Bella, looking away.

  ‘Not this time,’ said Clara through her teeth. ‘Never again, Bella. I was wrong to betray Amy, and I – well, things have changed, see. I’m never going to do it again. Right? So get that into your head. I won’t be the one who turns you in.’

  Bella was staring. ‘You swear?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clara. Bella couldn’t know just how sincere she was.

  ‘I’m not sure I care, anyway,’ said Bella, slumping down on the bed. ‘Everything’s so crap these days – if I got arrested, at least it’d be something different.’

  ‘They’d do more than arrest you, Bella. But I told you – I won’t say anything. I promise.’

  Bella turned. ‘What do you mean, they’d do more than arrest me?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Clara. ‘I – I don’t know. It’s just that – well, I don’t think the Republic likes to be gentle with people.’

  The meal passed mostly in silence, but at last Clara put down her knife and fork. Maybe she felt more secure now that her friend had a secret of her own to keep. First she told Bella about Grana’s visit – Bella was suitably pleased – then she said, ‘I saw some Waterco engineers inspecting supply pipes today.’

  Bella gathered the plates. ‘That’s their job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but why did they have to wear masks? And why are Waterco engineers always big and beardy?’

  Bella chuckled. ‘Oh, dear – aren’t you being a bit hard on them?’

  ‘It’s true. Have you ever seen a pretty one?’

  ‘Pretty! That’s not a very pure word to be using. Not a very Truth Sister word.’

  Now it was Clara’s turn to blush. ‘I’ve been wondering, you see,’ she went on. ‘Why aren’t we all Naturals? No – that’s not what I mean. I mean, why don’t all women do the same as Amy’s mum? Why don’t we all revert?’

  ‘I don’t know. Haven’t we evolved to do without sex, or something?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Clara. ‘It takes thousands of years to evolve. And you can’t evolve if you’re cloned.’ She clattered the dishes into the sink and coaxed the tap into disgorging some water. ‘Something’s going on, Bella.’

  ‘I’ll do those,’ said Bella, with an air of changing the subject. ‘You make some tea.’

  Still musing, Clara filled the kettle then went to the cupboard. The door came off again; this time she caught it before it fell on her. Cursing, she propped it, hinges and all, behind a bin.

  As they sat with their tea, Clara noticed that Bella had begun on a new watercolour: the head and shoulders of a large, thick-set man with fair hair. But she decided to talk about something else. ‘I saw Harriet Butcher at lunch,’ she said. ‘Mater Hedera’s got the top job at last.’

  ‘All Mother?’ said Bella. ‘Hoorah. Put the bunting out. Like it’s going to change all our lives.’

  ‘Harriet’s so pleased to get Hedera out of her hair, she’s bringing some cake tomorrow.’

  Bella raised an eyebrow. ‘My, my,’ she said. ‘Not the best of friends, then.’

  ‘Not the best, no.’

  Bella was staring at her painting. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I think I know how to get that cupboard mended.’

  Clara spent Friday evening cleaning the flat; Bella helped. The next morning Bella went out while Clara waited in for Aunt Grana. She couldn’t settle to her novel about the fight of the suffragettes, putting the book down every few minutes to pace the flat or look out of the window. At last there came a knock on the door.

  ‘Hello, Aunt,’ said Clara, opening the door. ‘Come in.’

  Her Aunt looked distinctly more haggard than she had done when she brought Clara to town, but she gave a wide smile and held out a bunch of flowers. ‘Clara. Good to see you. Your mother sends her best wishes. But you know how busy we are on the farm.’

  ‘Of course I understand,’ said Clara. ‘Come on in.’ As she led the way through to the kitchen, she realised with a shock that she’d never even considered that Sophia would come. Of course, that’s what they’d agreed. Sophia hadn’t written, as she’d promised; and now she wasn’t visiting. So why did Clara feel sad?

  They had a cup of tea, Grana talking, Clara nodding and saying ‘yes’, ‘oh!’ and ‘ah’ in all the right places. It seemed to Clara that Grana was scared of silences, for scarcely had she finished one subject than she galloped on to another: how short the money was, how Sophia really ought to keep James busier, how many houses Grana had visited with the Sorority, on and on and on. It was the same as they walked up towards Victoria.

  Eventually, over lunch in a busy cafe with hard walls and crowded tables, Grana asked Clara about her work at the Ministry. Clara tried to suppress the thought that her Aunt had only stopped talking in order to swallow; but her aunt did show more interest when Clara told her about Mater Hedera’s visit.

  ‘By the teacher!’ said Grana. ‘I’m astonished. That was a great privilege for you, Clara. A great privilege. Did she say why she wanted to talk to you?’

  Clara frowned. ‘No, not really. I think it was a kind of pep-talk for a new starter. She’d been talking to Harriet Butcher, too.’

  Grana was shaking her head. ‘Strange,’ she said.

  ‘She said I had to follow Ms Butcher’s example, and Ms Carrow’s. You know they both have new jobs now?’

  ‘I do indeed,’ said Grana. ‘That’s why I had to wait till today to visit. I wanted to see Medea, and this is the first time she’s been back in town for a while.’

  ‘Yes, she’s been in Oxford.’

  ‘I know. Hunting Naturals.’

  Clara pretended to concentrate on her food.

  When lunch was over, Grana asked for the bill.

  ‘Oh, Aunt,’ said Clara. ‘Let me pay. If you don’t mind, that is.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Grana, her face working. ‘No, my dear, it’s all right. My treat.’ Clara thought she saw tears in her eyes. And later, when Grana came to take her leave, she was actually crying.

  This wasn’t like her. ‘What’s the matter, Aunt?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m all right,’ sniffed Grana. ‘I’ve enjoyed today. You’re such a nice girl, after all. We’ve had a lovely time, haven’t we?’

  ‘Well, yes, Aunt,’ said Clara. ‘Thank you so much.’ She felt an urge to pat her Aunt on the shoulder, or something. After all, it had sort of worked with Frieda. But Grana had always been keen on respectfulness, and Clara decided against it. With a weak smile, her Aunt turned and made her way downstairs, clutching a handkerchief.

  ‘Goodbye, Aunt,’ called Clara.

  On Sunday night, the weather broke. After a still, cloudless sunset the wind had risen and brought sweet rain to the thirsty soil. Clara had left her window open, and the unexpected chill gave her a restless night. Her waking thoughts and half-dreams were filled with Naturals, with Bella’s strangeness and with Amy. Amy was just the same as Clara: an unregistered Natural. But Amy had been discovered, and Clara hadn’t.

  The next day, she couldn’t concentrate on her work. None of the papers seemed to make any sense, and she wondered why she was bothering.
Leaving work early, she walked home along Millbank through busy clouds of rain-wakened mosquitoes and past the half-demolished tower block. Along the embankment, pedestrians packed the pavements; cabs and carriages ploughed ruts in the horse-droppings, and guards drove a reclamation gang back to camp.

  Next to some steps that led down to the river, a knot of people had gathered. Clara recognised a couple of Repseg uniforms, and was about to hurry past when her eye fell on a crumpled shape at their feet. She stopped, and listened to the conversation.

  ‘… been in the river a good few hours,’ the taller Repseg was saying. She had a nose that divided her face in half like a cleaver. ‘See how bloated it is?’ She gave the shape a kick; Clara suppressed a shudder. Between the legs of the bystanders she could see a once-orange overall and a pair of feet, one clothed and booted, one bare and chalk-white.

  A well-dressed businesswoman with her nose in the air said, ‘Well, you can’t leave it there, officer. Isn’t it from the reclamation site?’ She pointed over her shoulder. ‘Surely it’s their responsibility.’

  ‘Not this one, Ma’am,’ said the Repseg, raising a hand. ‘It’s come downriver. One of the sites had a breakout yesterday. This,’ she said, prodding the corpse with her foot, ‘must be one of theirs. But don’t you worry, we’ll get rid of it.’

  ‘Fulham,’ said a thick-set woman in khaki trousers and rolled-up sleeves. ‘They’re doing lots o’ reccy work up there.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s confidential, Ma’am,’ said the Repseg.

  A fat woman with short black hair said, ‘Poor woman! It’s a bad thing to drown, whoever you are.’

  ‘Oh, they’re merely criminals,’ said the businesswoman. ‘One fewer to take care of, eh, Officer?’

  ‘Exactly, Ma’am,’ said the second Repseg, stepping forward. With a thrill, Clara recognised Sergeant Shavila, from London Bridge. ‘So now, if you don’t mind, we’ll take this one away.’