The Girl With a Symphony in Her Fingers

by Michael G. Coney

  Dale Finlay was on the platform again, headphoned, directing the cameras to cover Gallaugher. “He’s not bad,” he said to me. “It’s too early to tell yet; everyone’s still in shock. But I think I’m getting some response here … yes.” He motioned a technician to his side. “Switch the filters now; we’re getting a favorable reaction. Pink positive for Gallaugher close-ups and any shots of the guards. Catch them smiling—they’re the good guys now. Green for the Foes, and a touch of graininess too, I think. See that old witch up there?” He pointed to Evadne Prendergast, grim-faced and haggard after her failure to stem Gallaugher’s oratory. “Switch on the overhead spot for shadows under the eyes and catch her in close-up. … Do a split-screen with her and Gallaugher for contrast.”

  I moved away from him as he directed his strange operation which seemed to have no connection with reality as I saw it—yet which would affect the thinking of millions. Meanwhile Gallaugher roared on, arms windmilling, calling damnation on the heads of the Foes, pitying those who had been misled by the glory-seeking virago who had proved herself little better than a murderess.

  As the crowd began to split into factions, encouraged by the drink and Gallaugher, isolated fights broke out. Sudden surges would leave inexplicable empty gaps; by the time the eye had caught the motion, the flurry would be over. A bottle sailed over our heads and shattered against the prison wall; the guards ducked, fingering their weapons. The police were everywhere, breaking up incipient fights, leading bleeding men and women away.

  “Cover that!” I heard Finlay snap as a group of women began to manhandle a policeman, their Foes’ armbands blue with hate, knocking off his cap and beating him over the head with bottles and shoes. “Cut! Edit that out!” he shouted as the policeman fought back in desperation, getting in some telling blows.

  “For God’s sake, stop Gallaugher before someone gets killed!” I told Lambert.

  He avoided my eyes, muttering something about free speech. Gallaugher raved on, praising democracy, the Establishment, law and order, and the benefits of the Penal Code—all in such terms that the brawling continued unabated and people smashed in one another’s faces.

  I took time off to glance at Newspocket, secure in the center of the now-besieged platform. Dale Finlay was putting the issues with consummate clarity now. Gallaugher appeared as a godlike figure silhouetted against the blue sky and representing all that was good and decent in the human race, while at his feet, in filthy grays and blacks, fought the animal mob: the Foes of Bondage, the drunks from the beer parlors, the rabble, the scum.

  It might have lasted all afternoon, had not a diversion occurred in the form of the flymart. Somewhere back in Louise somebody must have decided from the evidence of Newspocket that his property was in danger, and hastily pressed the recall button. The little robot helicopter, lauding the flavor of Island Hot Dogs, rose suddenly into the sky with a half dozen would-be customers still clinging to dubious handholds on its smooth exterior, and headed rapidly south.

  The chastened crowd watched them lose their grip, one by one, as the flymart dwindled to a dot on the horizon.

  Although the holiday season was at its height and consequently the sling-gliders were out every day, very little was heard of the Foes during the period before the trial of Carioca Jones. I had extended my temporary closure of the farm into an indefinite holiday while I awaited the arrival of new stock by starship—which was likely to take some months. Fortunately I had been able to recover a proportion of my losses from the insurance company, and I had a suit pending against Miranda Marjoribanks for the balance—although it seemed doubtful whether I would collect.

  I found it difficult to believe that Carioca could be guilty as charged. True, she had the motive—but such an action was uncharacteristic of her on physical grounds. I just couldn’t picture her prowling around the marina at night.

  Then I remembered that it was not revenge on Doug Marshall coupled with a coup for the Foes which would have motivated her—it was the prospect of personal glory. And I had to admit that Carioca would probably do anything for personal glory.

  Following the debacle at the state pen I had, in rather cowardly fashion, tacitly severed my connections with the Foes while things blew over. I suspected I was not the only renegade, although at an extraordinary meeting which I did not attend, Evadne Prendergast became president once more. For the time being, however, the Foes were in nationwide disrepute thanks to the job done by Newspocket, and it seemed sensible to disown them. They were in no position to help Marigold.

  The Foes were not the only victims of Dale Finlay’s cameras. It was rumored in the club that Heathcote Lambert’s position as governor of the state pen was extremely precarious.

  “I mean, Christ, you should have seen him,” Doug Marshall was saying in the club one night shortly after the event. “The man was practically weeping on Joe’s shoulder. Newspocket caught it all. He went completely to pieces.”

  “It’s a good thing they have a strong man like Bob Gallaugher at the pen,” Ramsbottom stated in his forthright manner. “By God, he soon talked some sense into those goddamned freaks.”

  Charles Wentworth was not so sure. “It seemed to me he stirred them up. There was no fighting before he started to speak. He’ll bear watching, our Bob.”

  The day’s gliding was over and we sat at the big window, opposite the bar, drinks before us and comfortably tired—the sort of situation when the problems of the world are solved. The last gliders were coming in, flitting across the darkening sky and splashing into the calm water nearby. From time to time another pilot and his crew would emerge from the dressing rooms and call thirstily for a drink.

  “I was extremely glad to see that Jones woman get her deserts,” said Bryce Alcester precisely. “After all the trouble she’s caused this club. It’ll be good to have her out of the way for a few years. I expect you’re pleased Rennie nailed her, Doug. After all, you might have been killed.”

  Doug Marshall looked uncomfortable. “To tell the truth I feel pretty goddamned sick about the whole thing. It’s past history now, but the whole affair is going to be raked up again and some of us will have to testify. OK, so it was a stupid trick she played—but I don’t think she quite understood the seriousness of it. And another thing. I reckon I’m beginning to think like Joe and Charles here. I’m beginning to agree with some of the Foes’ aims. The Organ Pool is pretty goddamned sick, and I wouldn’t trust Bob Gallaugher farther than I can throw him. If you want my opinion, Newspocket did a lot of harm with their coverage.”

  The discussion erupted into two distinct and vociferous factions and would have continued all night, if Gallaugher hadn’t arrived shortly afterward. In the following days Gallaugher rode high, and nobody saw any sign of Lambert. It was rumored that he had been transferred to another pen and would be leaving at the end of the month, but we heard nothing official. Since nobody liked to ask Gallaugher direct; our only possible source of information was Warren Rennie—but with the trial of Carioca Jones in the offing, he refused to enter into any discussions concerning Peninsula personalities.

  One interesting thing Gallaugher said: “Rennie never moves unless he has a cast-iron case.”

  Although the big talking point on the Peninsula was the forthcoming trial—there was much speculation as to the form Rennie’s evidence was to take—for me the major event was the coming release of Joanne. Carioca’s trial had been fixed for August twenty-third after a brief preliminary hearing held in camera due to the public issues involved. With the Foes discredited, the authorities had no intention of giving her the chance for another grandstand performance.

  So Carioca might well be imprisoned by the time Joanne was released, and I would have my girl to myself. I went along to the travel agents and booked flights south on the following weekend, choosing a remote resort in the Andes where I determinedly reserved a double room. Maybe I was trying to force Fate to play it my way for once.

  At the travel agents I saw a small
brochure for Halmas. I picked it out of the rack and was confronted with a bright photograph of the familiar beach; in the middle background lay a girl in sunglasses with outstanding breasts who could easily have been Marigold, and probably was. For just a few moments I felt sick with regret for the wonderful innocent past which she and I would never recapture, and sick with guilt because I hadn’t considered her predicament for days. The release of Joanne had occupied my every waking thought, and quite a few of my dreams, too.

  On the day before Carioca’s trial started I visited Joanne again. They let me through without referring to Lambert or Gallaugher, much to my relief; by now my face must have been pretty goddamned familiar to those guards. It was not strictly a visiting day, but I was worried about Joanne’s attitude toward the trial. She would probably be upset—though God knows why—and I thought perhaps I could cheer her up.

  She looked happy enough, however. “Hello, Joe,” she said, smiling.

  I regarded her anxiously. “How are you, darling?”

  “You’re worrying about Carioca’s trial, aren’t you, Joe? Well, don’t. I’m quite sure everything will work out for the best. And there’s nothing you or I can do-about it anyway, is there?”

  She seemed very calm about it—but then she always was very calm. “I’ll have to give evidence,” I said. “I’m afraid it might incriminate Carioca.”

  “It won’t. From what you’ve told me, all you can say is you heard someone on the slipway that night. It’s up to the police to prove who it was.”

  “That’s right,” I said, relieved. “Yes, that’s right.” Although I told myself that my visits were essential to her well-being, just occasionally I wondered who needed whom the most.

  “So just don’t worry about it, Joe,” she said.

  I searched for another topic. It was characteristic of Joanne that she never introduced subjects herself, although she would always discuss intelligently whatever interested me. This self-effacing manner was a part of her attraction, in its contrast to the phony loudmouths around the Peninsula.

  I produced the tickets from the travel agents and held them up to the wire. “Look what I’ve got. We’re going away for a vacation after you get out.”

  She looked from the tickets to me and my heart seemed to pause, waiting to find out whether I was to live or die.

  She smiled faintly. “That’s nice, Joe. I’ve always wanted to go to the Andes. I really hope we’ll be able to make it.”

  “Of course we’ll be able to make it,” I said desperately. “I’ve booked the hotel as well. It’s right on the side of the mountain—the view is fantastic. And the food is recommended by Harcourt Cuthbertson. It’s just what you need to, uh, put you on your feet again. If you’d rather have single rooms I’ll get single rooms, I don’t mind. Just so long as you enjoy yourself.”

  “Thank you, Joe,” she said. “You’re one of the good guys, you know that?”

  That night I sat in my living room, watching the moon on the Strait and trying to place the most favorable construction on each one of the enigmatic things Joanne had said. I knew I was not going to be able to sleep, so I drank instead, and tried not to think about the trial of Carioca Jones in the morning. In the end I gave up; despite the scotch I could not force my mind away from the unhappy juxtaposition of those two names: Joanne and Carioca, Joanne and Carioca. …

  I switched on the 3-V for distraction. The alcove blurred, wavered, and a familiar figure was sitting in the corner of my room, plump of face with eyes close-set, smiling woodenly as he waited for the announcer to finish. “… and most recently, instrumental in quelling a dangerous riot outside the Peninsula State Penitentiary where a rabble of dissidents was on the brink of storming the gates—you will recall the dramatic arrest of Carioca Jones, the attractive 3-V star, which triggered the incident—here he is, the hero of Black Point Pen, Mr. Robert Gallaugher!”

  Now Gallaugher was something I could do without, but curiosity got the better of me and I stayed with him.

  The announcer concluded: “Of course, we all know Miss Jones goes on trial tomorrow—and the last thing this station wishes to do is to influence the course of justice—but I’m sure we’re all interested to know, Mr. Gallaugher, just what prompted you to take the courageous action you did.”

  Gallaugher smiled thinly and self-deprecatingly. “Well, I could see the thing getting out of hand. The police were doing their best, and heaven knows they’re a fine body of men. But there were ugly customers down there—very ugly customers indeed. They were, shall we say, the gangster element behind the innocent facade of Miss Jones and the Foes of Bondage. They were the strong-arm men, the men of dubious political persuasions who are waiting to move in, once a chink is exposed in the armor of democracy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—give the Foes an inch, and you’ll find the hoods a step behind!”

  “Very true, very true,” said the interviewer wisely.

  I poured myself another drink while Gallaugher spoke on, and it seemed to me that his voice was just a semitone higher as he pressed home his views concerning the Foes: “… You might find it difficult to believe this, but a respected member of our community actually broke into the pen the other day on the pretext of gathering information. This sort of dangerous, unilateral action is exactly what we have come to expect from the Foes of Bondage. Under the cover of their altruistic exterior, they are plotting, infiltrating, and finally seeking to overthrow the forces of law and order—and what are they offering as an alternative to our present system of government, evolved over the centuries? Mob rule, my friends. Mob rule!”

  He stared into the camera with piggy little eyes, face bloated. It was quite extraordinary how unprepossessing the man was, seen in close-up. Puny little fists trembled before him as he ranted on. He seemed to be getting hoarse, and I hoped that he would soon stop. He must have been going on for ten minutes already.

  It was a blessed relief when the man paused for breath and the interviewer appeared. He seemed to represent a crutch of sanity, sitting there normal-sized in contrast to the giant sweaty face which had been dominating my room for minutes.

  “We have it on good authority that the principle of Compulsory Donation has been—shall we say—carried to the point of inhumanity in some instances,” he said surprisingly, in grave tones. He seemed to have switched his viewpoint. “I would like to ask you this, Mr. Gallaugher. How many prisoners have been released from the Pool during this past year, their sentences served? Is it true that some prisoners have donated everything but their brains? Is it true that organs can be bought?”

  Gallaugher returned to the screen during the later stages of these quick questions and his expression was unpleasant to see. He snorted, and the lighting pinpointed the slow parabola of a drop of spittle which seemed to be heading straight for me. “It’s a load of goddamned anarchist lies!” he shouted. I turned the sound down quickly; his voice was shrill and deafening. “It sounds like you’ve been got at, just like everybody else!” He was slobbering visibly now; glistening streamers trailed from his slack lips and, in the background, strange dull red flames flickered.

  He loomed at me out of the alcove, all bulging eyes and shapeless nose as he screamed hatred into my room, the epitome of evil, while a military brass band pounded away in the background; and just as I felt I could stand it no longer he receded and became the top third of a triangular composite, ranting away near my ceiling, while below and to the left the interviewer watched with pity in his eyes. And to the right was a well-remembered shot from an early movie, showing Carioca Jones as a beautiful and innocent young girl dressed in a white Grecian gown, struggling helplessly with her bonds. She was tied to a rock and the sea lapped at her feet and the monster which approached so relentlessly bore a striking facial resemblance to Gallaugher.

  18

  “What can you expect from a local 3-V station?” said Dale Finlay. “They completely misjudged the emotional climate of the country as a whole. They thought
they had this local hero who was defending us against subversive elements—but all they had in fact was a nasty little fat man!”

  “So how did you persuade them to alter their viewpoint?” asked Doug Marshall.

  “Newspocket was carrying their broadcast nationwide, and Newspocket is big. As soon as he started to speak, we began to get the reaction that viewers didn’t like Gallaugher’s face. So we got through to the 3-V station, goddamned quick. Gallaugher looked like a baddie, so a baddie he had to be. They handled it quite well, in the end.”

  We stood on the steps of the courthouse in the downtown area of the city, two blocks from the Princess Louise. Police had diverted traffic and a huge crowd was assembling in quiet and orderly fashion. Over the roofs I could see copters and flippers dropping toward the temporary landing field on the outskirts of town. The trial of Carioca Jones had in any event promised to be a big issue, but following Gallaugher’s poor showing last night large numbers of craft were arriving from the mainland, and I noticed that the Foes had come out of hiding. There were armbands everywhere, and a large platform was being erected on the far side of the street. Militant banners flew, proclaiming Carioca Jones as a martyr.

  I commented on this evidence of pessimism to Finlay.

  “The national feeling is that the result of the trial is a foregone conclusion,” he said. “In recent criminal cases the police have had a success factor of eighty-six percent and Rennie is known to be a good man.”

  I murmured some comment and joined a few members of the sling-gliding club who were sitting on the steps in the morning sun. It seemed that several of us would be called as witnesses, while others had come along to watch the fun. At last the doors opened and we filed in. I heard an unnervingly huge buzz of comment from the gathering crowd in the street.