Bang

  No.

  ‘I beg your pardon, because you knew she had murdered. Murdered, yes, murdered!’

  Yes. Yes, yes, yes, Crying. The agent pulsed out single yeses and became so overwrought that he had to be carried away, after he’d jumped down into a stretchy cradle of stripes, a trail of cake crumbs falling from his mouth. Delilah had no idea who he was and had never seen him before in her life. She put her hand up to speak but was told she’d be found in contempt of court if she did not put this hand down, told that to be found in contempt of court was to risk punishment worse than the punishment likely to be awarded for the sentence one was in court for, even if it was murder. She thought of those gardens, gardens they’d let her see purely to torment her, gardens to double the misery of her incarceration when it came, and it would, it would come. Ow, she then thought, sucking a shard of eggshell from the reopened hole in her gum, eggshell that must have been there for a long time. A desperation in her wondered how she could use this eggshell to help her escape. It was true what they said, that when you were down, this far down, everything counted, everything mattered. She wished she’d never seen those fucking gardens. Her swearing was back again. She spat out the eggshell. She was angry. The trial went on.

  ‘And you, Defendant,’ said the Superintendent, ‘now that you are permitted to – a moment ago you were not – do you have anything to say?’

  Yes she did. She had a case to put. But if she put it, then what? To defend herself meant admitting she took the violent initiative that led not indirectly but directly to Gentle’s death – the flat-handed push that had at the time felt so powerful and utterly intentional (even if she hadn’t known it was coming until her hand went ahead and did it). To admit this, in this court, was to admit murder. More, no one seemed to know anything about it. Other than a couple of allusions to it by now-dead prisoners in Remand 111, the court was obsessed with some fanciful drowning. She didn’t know what to do. She could defend herself for everything that led up the push, everything that led away from it, but the push itself, though fully justified in her mind and no doubt in others’, surely in this court’s eye would constitute wilful and indefensible murder – would be all it took to send her away forever. And the other charges – from traffic violations to kidnap – these she couldn’t go into, because the law was so vague and hard to pin down that she’d probably do more harm than good, or anyway commit another crime in the process – speaking against the Authority for instance, something she was yet to be charged with, though was consciously guilty of. Maybe, she decided now, she should keep quiet – not draw attention to anything. She opened her mouth and answered, ‘No,’ and closed it again and this seemed to surprise the court and cause from the audience an intake of breath and Delilah was quite pleased about that, suppressing the smile that wanted in this desperate moment to spread itself across her face.

  Lawyer Poy Yack approached the Superintendent and whispered up harshly, pointing his legal tie over his shoulder at Delilah. This caused the Superintendent to nod robustly and bang his fist on the gavel pad and screw his face up in agreement, and say, ‘I am reminded by my friend Lawyer Poy Yack that the defendant must speak. If the defendant does not speak the defendant’s testimony cannot be contested and shown to be utterly wrong and, what’s more, nonsensical. How can a court of law operate under such adverse circumstances, girly? Answer me that.’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Lawyer Poy Yack has trained and trained over many years in the art of argument and for you to tender none is to deny the court and the lawyer their right. Speak!’

  Delilah squeezed her lips tight.

  ‘You’re not helping your cause.’

  ‘I have no cause. I am simply soon to become a victim of an injustice. That’s all I have to say. Other than I hope you enjoy your party.’ She squeezed her lips tight again.

  ‘Thank you, your sentiment is very kind. Notice over there the special waitress has just joined us and is taking notes. A splendid woman, wouldn’t you say. Look how she beautifully sits.’

  Delilah looked. A big fat woman sat smiling on a stool, which suddenly broke.

  The Superintendent said, ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poy Yack.

  ‘Defendant?’

  What for? asked Delilah’s eyes.

  ‘Sentencing. What do you think for? Why else are we here if not to sentence you? You amaze me with your ignorance. You amaze me also with your ingenuity, something I admit I was unaware I was unaware or aware of before today. Still, you do not amaze me overall, and that’s all that really matters. The sort of person that amazes me is one of those explorers who travels to the extremities of our environment, is released by guards through a security valve, then plods off to see what’s left of everything outside and how they are all doing. If indeed there is any they left. With all the information that doesn’t come out of the Center of Disinformation it is hard to know what not to believe and whether there is a they at all and if so whether this they do present a threat or don’t not present a threat, which is not quite the same thing. I would if I had my way put on trial each and every one of them for stupidity – not that any ever return. And I can’t exactly try them before they go or they would be locked up here in the System and never be able to leave in the first place, to thus display the very stupidity I want to try them for. Oh, there was one wasn’t there who came back, but he returned because he got lost and, and, oh I forget the details. He ate his feet, didn’t he? Now, to the issue in hand, sentencing. I’ve thought about this one long and hard. Knew the moment I set eyes on you that I’d have trouble with it. That’s why I’ve been working on it for so many weeks now. And why, of course, we’re here today.’

  Delilah waited – and at this moment experienced an olfactory hallucination that took her back again to the scents and smells of the Gentle Memorial Gardens . She thought it no accident that this was the comparison under which she was to learn her future, with dewy fresh grass, recently mowed, on her nose.

  The Superintendent began, ‘For the murder of Officer Gentle, and for other crimes you’ve asked be taken into consideration – traffic violation, incitement to kidnap, speaking out against the Authority by referring to it with the money man as the ‘bloody Authority’ – you are sentenced to death. Yes, to die. This is not all. This decree is absolute. However, with this death penalty fully at the forefront of your mind, you will be allowed bi-yearly appeals, each allowing you the hope that your death penalty might be overturned, which of course it will not. Understand that this is part of the punishment, this allowance for hope, and will cause long-term misery and despair, at times severe, resulting possibly in your taking your own life, which will save our doing it. This is referred to by the Authority as Intelligent Punishment. Meanwhile, the System cannot allow itself to be put at risk from you. So, further, and in addition, you will, for reasons we have heard in the court today, the surgeon’s, and for others we have not, the Former Bottle Manufacturer’s, be expelled from the System. However, you will definitely be reintroduced to the System. Or you definitely will not be reintroduced. You will definitely not know which, of this you can be quite sure. Meanwhile, your death penalty will stand and your bi-yearly appeals continue. For the Authority’s interests you will be utilised’ – the Superintendent hoicked a thumb in the air – ‘up there, generating crime, mainly, and helping keep the System going and in turn the Authority. You will not be free, let me make that absolutely clear. You will remain under sentence, a prisoner. Whether you are aware of this from day to day remains to be seen. Whether you are aware that you are aware also remains to be seen. The Authority, for its part, will be aware of you at all times, but will not pay for your sentence; you will finance it yourself, while also finding a way of repaying all monies owed the Whipping Boy, who will, and this goes without saying – I will be able to tell by the look on your face that you knew this already once you hear it – become your parole officer so soon as he’s passed his calculus exa
ms.’ The Superintendent began to lower toward the ground, smoothly but much more swiftly than he had risen on his System Rostrum. ‘You will live with Harry and Shane,’ he said, his words hanging above him in the air has he descended. ‘You have probably already guessed this, too, by now, and I am wasting my breath by repeating sentences you have already spoken inside your head. Harry especially is looking forward to having you back. Thank you, Shane, for all your hard work in this matter. Sentencing concluded. Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ and the Superintendent jumped the last metre or so to the ground, ‘I have a party to go to.’ He tripped and then rushed out, followed by Poy Yack, his team, JJ Jeffrey, the special waitress, and many others, a thousand or so, rushing too, who hoped to attend the party but knew full well, knew unequivocally, that they would not be admitted.

  ‘Here are your clothes,’ said two stripy bailiffs carrying in their elastic stripes the garments Delilah had entered the System wearing her first day. ‘Get dressed. We will watch. Sit on our stripes to pull your socks on. That is an order. Boing boing.’

  19 – An Upward Elevator Ride

  Later, she depressed the white button. On broken heels and in red blouse, skirt, socks and gilet – her salon uniform, ripped, torn, Property of the Authority stamped all over it – she hummed up in the lift. It wished her good luck but said nothing more when she stepped into Authority Welcome. She had a state-issued Life delivered into her hands by one of the two similar-looking-to-each-other officers, who showed no sign of recognising her and may not have been them at all. Other officers, similar looking too, also with the water-bag buttocks, scooted in and out of Welcome’s doors, in states of high excitement, often laughing off injuries, often complaining about the roof. Delilah was keen to get out and lose Shane. Keen to get out, full-stop, period. Keen to get to the salon, ask after her job, get back her own clothes, if her locker hadn’t been ransacked or re-rented.

  ‘Couldn’t keep away, couldya!’ said Harry, walking in, grabbing his crotch, pushing up against Delilah. ‘Wanna get yerself a bit of this, dontya.’

  Delilah wasn’t so keen on this new arrangement, her sentence, but it was better than … than the System. (Wasn’t it?)

  Shane said, ‘Come on, then, this way.’

  Harry said, ‘Follow us, try and forget about your death penalty. Have fun. We’re going to.’

  Delilah said, ‘I haven’t forgotten that you, Shane, mugged me and took my Life, and that that was the start of all this. I’ll never forget that.’

  ‘Then try to,’ he answered.

  ‘Yes, forget,’ agreed Harry.

  ‘For your own good,’ added Shane, darkly.

  But not so darkly as Delilah when she said, ‘This isn’t over.’

  They stepped onto the moving floors, Delilah automatically shifted up floor speeds and onto the smooth speed of the fast lane. It felt good. This was liberation. This was freedom. Sweeter than ever it’d been before, this speed. But then she was yanked off, onto a slower lane. ‘Oh no you don’t, prisoner’ – Delilah didn’t like hearing herself called prisoner – ‘you’re not allowed fast-lane travel, you’re not licensed, not with that.’ Shane pointed at the bulky state-issued Life.

  Delilah gave him an angry look.

  ‘Okay?’ he demanded.

  ‘So give me back my Life,’ said Delilah, ‘and then just f–, then just go. Just leave me.’

  Shane laughed. Harry did too. Delilah, in the hand move that had killed Gentle, pushed them both into each other and jumped neatly down a lane, down another, and onto lanes that travelled in the opposite direction, and then up, up, up till she was heading away at a maximum speed, and feeling good again, not caring she broke the law, not caring at all. She executed a complicated junction. These junctions, their moving figures of eights were dangerous, and Delilah loved them. She used to come out after lightdim in her teens and do them just for fun. She went up an escalator, was thrown through the air at its top, landed on the cushioned floor, resumed at speed. She looked behind her. She’d shaken Harry and Shane. Her fingers began clipping a pair of scissors that weren’t even in her hands yet. Her fingers knew where they were going: the salon. She headed there snip-snipping, and searching for an inner contentment she’d never again know, never again find.

  20 – A Convict’s Haircut

  ‘Surprise!’

  She wasn’t expecting that. It touched her.

  ‘Happy Birthday!’ they cried, the girls in the salon, crowding round, the thin men copying. They offered cake, they offered orange, they said stuff like How are you? and It must have been awful and What did they do to you? and They came asking about you and made us tell them everything and They demanded free haircuts and We didn’t give them very good ones and We upset one called Gentle, who we didn’t like, he was too big for his boots, we gave him a silly haircut.

  Then they said, ‘Here are your clothes.’ She pulled them on.

  And:

  ‘Here is your birthday cake.’ She ate some.

  And:

  ‘The special waitress baked it this morning.’ Delilah faltered on a half-chew. The birthday cake matched the court cake.

  And:

  ‘She said you’d like it – it’s true, you do. She was very fat.’

  And:

  ‘There you are.’ This was Harry.

  And:

  ‘Found you.’ That was Shane.

  ‘Hello, Harry and Shane,’ said the girls and the thin men. ‘You’re looking well. How nice to see you again.’

  Delilah had to think about this for a while.

  But then she asked the girl in charge a question. ‘Can I have my job back?’

  ‘You’ve been away a long time. You’ve lost your client base. Sammy has had to pick it up. Can you even remember how to style?’

  ‘Of course I can. Would you like me to prove it?’

  Shane said, ‘It’s academic anyway, felons are not permitted to work in salons and such like, they pose too high a risk. Officers come in here, you know. It’s out the question. Besides, prisoner, you’ll be busy. What with your new work crime-generating, not forgetting your bi-yearly appeals and how depressed you’ll be when you keep losing.’

  ‘Still,’ said the girl in charge, ‘at least let us fix her hair, she looks like a right dog’s dinner. What did they do to her lovely blonde locks down there? I could crucify them I could.’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘She’s under sentence and that’s the style she must wear. It’s not going to happen. Don’t touch the hair. Put the comb down. Move away from the scissors.’

  But Delilah, being Delilah, had already sat herself in the chair.

  ‘Out,’ said Shane.

  ‘Skedaddle,’ said Harry.

  But Delilah, being Delilah, had already picked up her old pair of scissors and begun cutting her hair. It didn’t matter what Harry and Shane said, or did, they wouldn’t be able to stop her. She wanted them to try. She even said so, and they got sheepish, there was something about her now they weren’t sure about. The girls and the thin men went to work. They did a good job. When it was over, Delilah thanked them, and one or two of them hugged her, which brought seeping eyes (she hadn’t known they liked her before). Then she brushed hair from her clothes and exited the salon, a very different person to the last time she’d left it, an ambitionless 19 year-old with a bit of a thing for boys and a flash Life she was about to lose. She left the salon this time and entered again her new life in the roofed world.

  And waited for it.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  1 – An Arrest

  2 – A F ilm

  3 – A M urder

  4 – A Rescue

  5 – A P lumbing Job

  6 – Ano ther Murder

  7 – A H earing

  8 – A Cage

  9 – A Funeral

  10 – A Consequence of Child Abuse

  11 – A Kidnap

  1 2 – Another Film

  13 – A Sanatorium
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  14 – A Headmaster

  15 – A Defacement

  16 – A Moment Before School

  17 – A S chool?

  18 – A Death Sentence

  19 – An Upward Elevator Ride

  20 – A Convict’s Haircut