At one point the three of them come to a demarcation that is nothing more than a strip of peeling coloured tape on the floor; nevertheless the Guardia pause before crossing as if it represents something more. Beyond the other side of the fading blue line they encounter no one else and the corridors echo with their footsteps.
Eventually, they come to a door which the female Guardia unlocks—it opens into a small room which the other Guardia shoves him forward into despite the fact that he would have gone willingly. The other makes a sucking noise with her teeth and follows, shutting the door behind her. Fellows had expected something akin to a police interrogation room or cell, but instead it seems more like an office meeting room: four chairs on wheels (like the one in The Echo Bookshop) around a wooden table smudged with old ink. Only the lack of windows, and the paint peeling from the walls to reveal breeze blocks behind spoil the illusion.
“Right then,” the male Guardia says weakly; his hands flap as if he is itching to draw his revolver again. The other ignores him, gestures for Fellows to sit at the table and then does likewise, next to him rather than opposite. The male Guardia flaps his hands again and then abruptly leaves, seemingly in response to her continual indifference. Fellows hopes this is a good sign.
“So, some preliminaries,” the Guardia says and double-checks with Fellows the information on his identity papers, before asking him about his movements over the last few days. Fellows doesn’t mention Georgia, but otherwise tells the Guardia everywhere he has been, including the house in the Enclave—he doesn’t want to mention that but because he was spotted by the patrol there he knows he has no choice.
“A known hangout for protestors,” the Guardia says. “So what were you doing there?”
“I was looking for Boursier.”
“Boursier?” she says questioningly.
“The guy whose apartment you found me at,” Fellows says after a few seconds. “The writer.”
“Oh, him,”—it’s as if she had forgotten, and even now she sounds entirely uninterested.
“He’s at the heart of all this you know,” Fellows says animatedly. “The protestors and their weird theories and...” He stops before he says too much that is unbelievable, despite it being true. This building of grey concrete and solid walls is no place for ghosts or fracturing realities. “I’m not the person you think I am,” he sighs.
She shrugs. “You’ll do,” she says.
“I’ll do? What does that mean?” Fellows says.
“Look,” the Guardia says, “you’ve not actually committed a crime. That I know of. You’re free to leave if you want.” She waits until Fellows makes the smallest possible movement to do so, then adds “but.”
“But?”
“But, it is a crime for a civilian to be anywhere in the restricted zone unaccompanied.” She points at the doorway, where Fellows sees another boundary of blue tape. “Leave this room before I say and you’ll be arrested on the spot.”
“But what do you mean, I’ll do? You don’t really think I’m guilty of anything do you?”
“I don’t know,” the Guardia shrugs again. “But you’ll do. Bring in people who have been known to associate with the protestors, they said. I’m not going to bust a gut to bring in someone who might have broken the law when you’re already here, am I? The quicker this gets done the quicker we can both go home.” She stands, works at a crick in her neck, then picks up his identity papers and her forms. “I’ll go and file all of these and see what they want to do with you—they always take an age to decide, with you idiot protestors. It won’t do any good you know. They can’t do anything to lift it, the unity government.”
“I know that,” Fellows says angrily. “I’m not...”
“That’s why they hate you guys so much and want to frustrate you with bullshit like this. Because you might reveal how little they can actually do. So as I say, I’ll be hours. You get to stay here. Lucky for you you bought your own entertainment, eh?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry I checked it on the way here,” she says, handing him a familiar looking bag. “Just a bunch of nonsense stories. No wonder you have some funny ideas.” Fellows takes the bag of Boursier stories, holds them close to his chest although it is too late—she has already read them. “I should hand them in, especially that one called The Quarantine,” the Guardia says. “But that’s as much drivel as the rest of them. What the hell is a ‘ring road’?”
Fellows shrugs hopelessly.
“Anyway. Whatever floats your boat. If reading them stops you getting distracted by thoughts of leaving this room while I’m gone, I’ll turn a blind eye.”
“I’m not reading those!” Fellows says, with more anger than he intends.
“Suit yourself. What do I care? Don’t go anywhere,” the Guardia says, leaving and shutting the door behind her. She doesn’t even bother to lock it.
Fellows stares at the door, then sits back in his chair, idly spins in it a few times...
The anger and frustration he feels at his detention is gradually eroded by the boredom, and the absence of anything to look at in the room. There’s no sound other than the hum of the electric light above, dull with dust and dead flies inside the casing. Fellows slaps his hands on the desk to make a noise (wondering just when he had got ink on them); he gets up and opens the door, stares at the blue tape border between him and the corridor, then shuts the door and goes and sits back down.
This is what you put Leianna through, he thinks, and she had the worry of her son waiting for her at home. Still, they let her out after a few hours, so obviously they will let you out as well. You just need to wait.
He glances at the bag of Boursier stories.
He remembers, back in his old-life, Lana mocking him for his habit of taking a book everywhere. “It’s a ten minute tram journey,” she’d say, “what’s the point in taking a book?”
“What if it’s delayed? What if it breaks down and I’m stuck?” he’d say. The thought of not having something to read in such situations filled him with an odd kind of unease. As though spending too much time just in the company of his own thoughts would be unhealthy; and he always wondered, glancing up from his book at the others on the tram who were staring vacantly out the window, just what they were thinking, just where their thoughts could be taking them. He didn’t understand people who didn’t read.
He picks up the bag, quickly puts it down again. Two left, he thinks, one called The Quarantine according to the Guardia, and one called... What is the other called?
The hum of the light seems to change pitch slightly, so that he becomes aware of it all over again. He drums his hands on the desk, self-consciously this time, putting on an act of a man who has no other choices.
Just looking at the title won’t hurt surely? he thinks. Surely that can’t change anything? He has no way of knowing that for sure, but Fellows knows he is going to do it anyway.
Give it another ten minutes to see if she returns, he thinks, but without his watch that so mysteriously vanished from his wrist he doesn’t even know how long that is. He gets up, rummages through the stories to find the one he wants. Won’t hurt, he thinks, but as he reads the title his eyes automatically slip to the sentence below:
The Panda Principle by Boursier
“This is the Boundary Stone,” said Mr. Read—
~
Fellows wrenches his gaze away, blinking rapidly. Don’t be stupid, he thinks, what will reading this change? But part of him, looking round the featureless room he is trapped in, and thinking about what awaits him back home, almost doesn’t care.
The Panda Principle by Boursier
“This is the Boundary Stone,” said Mr. Read, “where they washed coins in vinegar to try and get rid of the plague. In these holes, see?”
Stones, thought Amit, all those idiots had were stones. Vinegar to wash their stupid old money in, and stones to form a border round their stupid little village.
“Did it work, Sir?” Kay D
awson asked a little breathlessly.
“It was all they had,” Mr. Read said, shrugging.
Amit sighed—he didn’t see the point of having come on a school trip all the way from one boring English village to stand in a field on the outskirts of another. He looked around: all he could see were empty fields divided by drystone walls, and the low sky stooping to erase any individuality from them with grey fog. It was so deathly dull.
The details of the plague had interested him slightly, he had to admit; the buboes, the rats, the unbelievable number of deaths. But the whole story was just stupid—if he’d been in this village when they’d quarantined themselves because they’d known the plague had come, he’d have run like fuck.
“See, they didn’t know about germs, about bacteria,” Mr. Read was saying. “Sometimes what you have is hard to get rid of, despite the fact that there’s potentially something better. The Panda Principle,” he added and looked set to continue before he realised he’d lost his class entirely. The history teacher was known for his rambling, infuriating style. “Now Jenna,” he said, changing tone, “don’t step outside the boundary!” He was obviously joking but Jenna stepped away from the border stone quickly, as if she had done something wrong. Amit sighed loudly. These village kids were such pussies!
Amit had spent most of his twelve years growing up on an estate close to the centre of a Midlands city, in a grimy and graffitied block of flats with broken lifts and metal grilles over the windows of the first three floors. He’d loved it. The sense of urgency and excitement in the streets as they darkened, the illicit deals and trades going on that he pretended to his mother he didn’t understand. The boys only a few years older prowling the streets as if they owned them; Amit had copied their cursing, their slouched walk, the sullen way they could imply violence with a shrug, a sneer. School had been a drag but none of the older kids had attended and Amit had begun skiving off himself.
But then...! His mother had won the lottery. Amit couldn’t believe his bad luck. Not the big prize, obviously, but enough to buy the crappy big house in the country that had suddenly become her lifelong dream. She’d spent nearly all she’d won on the house; she still had to work and so she was now a cleaner for other people who lived in the crappy big houses but had the income to match. And the village was dull, dull, dull—so quiet Amit wanted to scream. There was literally nothing to do but school, and various after school clubs, eagerly attended by the posh kids. But despite its dullness, Amit was still slowly forgetting where he had come from, the feel and taste of his past—if he returned to those streets now would they still know him as one of them?
He’d thought the school trip might at least have been interesting, but they’d just come to a village equally as dead. Maybe the plague’s still here, Amit thought, it’s killed everyone. That would have explained why the villagers hadn’t even looked at him as Mr. Read had led them from the carpark to the boundary of the village: they were ghosts. Amit looked dejectedly around the field; even his daydreams couldn’t make it interesting. The mist seemed to be closing in, bringing the horizon closer.
“And now,” Mr. Read said as if announcing a treat, “we’re going to look at the church!” Oh for fuck’s sake, Amit thought. “Not that they were allowed to bury the plague victims there,” Mr. Read added. “They had to make do by...” He turned away towards the village and it was as if the mist swallowed up his words. The class lined up to follow him; Mr. Read looked back to give the group a quick count. Amit stood at the back of the line, wanting to growl in frustration. This trip was so boring there wasn’t even any way to misbehave!
He took a step back, felt his heel bang into something. He looked and saw the boundary stone, its worn holes making it look like the face of a die. Fuck it, Amit thought, I’m getting out of this plague-y village! He turned and ran through the border and for a few feet into the fog, expecting Mr. Read’s voice to summon him back any second...
But there was just silence, and when Amit turned round the fog had thickened so suddenly his class was no longer visible. Brilliant! he thought. Mr. Read will shit bricks when he realises he’s lost me!
It was very quiet, he couldn’t hear the sound of the other children even though they couldn’t have gone very far. But then fog deadened sounds; Mr. Read had taught them that, Amit reflected.
He stood still, waiting for Mr. Read to emerge from the fog and for dull reality to reassert itself. But nothing happened; there was no sound and he could see forward only a few feet. Amit started to feel cold in the damp air. Sod this, he though, and started to walk back towards the invisible village. His plan was to find the carpark where the school coach was parked and wait there for his class to come back; Mr. Read would be frantic by then. As he walked he must have crossed the boundary although the fog was so thick he didn’t see the stone.
When Amit finally found the carpark the coach wasn’t there.
What the fuck? he thought, his mind’s voice an imitation of the youths of his old estate. There were no coaches at all in the carpark, and those cars that were there looked old and sat on deflated tyres. On the streets behind the carpark he was aware of movement, the villagers hurrying head down through the fog glimpsed as briefly as birds in cloud. They seemed as unaware of Amit’s presence as before.
The coach driver obviously just went somewhere more interesting, Amit thought, instead of waiting in this dump. Well, he’d had his fun; Mr. Read had probably already had a heart attack. He walked away from the carpark; occasionally as the mist swirled and shifted he caught sight of the squat church tower.
His class wasn’t at the church either; no one was at the church. Amit stuck his head inside the doors, called out into the gloomy interior, but there was no response other than an echo. He stood indecisively in the graveyard, watching the fog make odd shapes as it moved between the stones. Was the whole village deserted? As if their response to the plague had not been to stay put but to scurry head down and away, leaving Amit stranded here.
Amit reached into his pocket; his mobile phone wasn’t there. Fuck’s sake, he thought, he must have dropped it. He imagined his old mates, laughing at him. He swore aloud to himself, but in the dead and still air it sounded pitiful rather than defiant.
A figure approached out of the mist, as if called into being by his curse. It was hard to see much about the person as they approached, but Amit was just glad someone had actually noticed him.
“Eh up, lad,” the figure said, a deeper and more countrified version of the accent he and his mates had used to mock—fucking Derbyshire. He was even dressed like their caricature, in an old suit and flat-cap.
“Hi,” Amit said awkwardly. Back home he’d have assumed the man wanted something, was a pervert perhaps, but since he and his mum had moved he’d learnt that people in the country just spoke to you, regardless of if they knew you or not.
“You were out near the stones?” the man said. Both his words and expression seemed flattened by the mist between them.
Amit shrugged. “I guess.” Then weakening slightly: “I lost my class.”
“I can help you,” the man in the flat-cap said.
Later, after they’d looked round the village and its landmarks for Amit’s class, and returned to the carpark where there was also no sign of them, the man said it again: “I can help you.”
Amit looked round the deserted carpark; what if they’d left without him? Surely Mr. Read wasn’t that shit a teacher. He wished he knew what time it was; he was sure the sky was darkening but the fog made it hard to tell. For some reason he didn’t want to ask the stranger, who was peering at Amit from beneath his cap, as if trying to be certain of what he was seeing. Amit was almost sure the man was going to just walk away and leave him, and part of him hoped he would. But then the man gave a heavy sigh, and tugged at the tie around his neck with a meaty hand.
“C’mon lad,” he said. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm, get some food down you. Then we can see what’s what.”
&n
bsp; Amit didn’t see that he had any other choice.
The man, who introduced himself as Bob, lived in a squat cottage made of dull coloured stone. In the village where Amit now lived with his mum there were several ‘cottages’ which, when you stepped inside them, were expanded and renovated to look like any other house. But when entering the narrow doorway into Bob’s house, the low ceiling and uneven floor really did make it feel like stepping back in time. He didn’t notice the fusebox on the wall or the telephone cable pinned to the skirting board until his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Next to the phone on a wooden drawer was an incongruous digital photo frame, flicking between different pictures of Bob and his family. A small and rosy-cheeked woman presumably his wife, and a young boy about Amit’s age constantly scowling as if affronted by the very act of having his picture taken. Amit supposed he was just squinting in the bright sunlight of wherever the photos had been taken, the light so strong it made the boy’s pale face look ill-defined.
Amit started as he realised he had been staring at the photos as they flicked past, and that Bob had been watching him.
“Holidays?” Amit said, trying to hide his discomfort.
“Yep. Brittany. Lovely place,” Bob said. “The boy’s dead now,” he added gruffly.
“Oh, I’m... I’m sorry man, I...” Amit said, feeling sick like he’d done something wrong.
“No need for that,” Bob said. “Kid never felt like mine anyway.”
Amit stared; if all fathers were such bastards he was glad he’d never known his own. Bob hung up his coat, started to undo his tie, his eyes not leaving Amit. Amit looked away, back to the photographs sliding past so quickly; in only one did the pale boy look happy, when he’d been caught in the act of licking something tasty from his fingers.
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