She never told me she loved me, not in words, but she was obviously very passionately attracted to me – she looked at me intensely as we made love. She connected in that way only lovers can, but other than that there was no obvious affection or even desire to arrange things so we could share our lives.
It became increasingly peculiar. I had never experienced anything like this before but however peculiar it was, it was also incredibly pleasurable and rewarding. I had never experienced sex in such an intense and exhausting way. I admit that at first I felt bad, I felt I was cheating on Beth which was something I had never done or even considered doing, but without effort that feeling passed and I felt no guilt or shame.
I also didn’t get the impression that Grace was being secretive – people must have seen her arrive and leave; they must have known she was there.
No one else ever came to the strange room that had become my refuge, only Grace. We didn’t talk much. I didn’t know if she had said anything to Mitchell or her father, or even her son Henry about this liaison. I suppose I should have asked, but I somehow knew it wasn’t appropriate.
So it was ten long days after I had first seen the wretched digger that the mobile crane slowly lowered the moulded plastic cab and control systems back onto the bulky chassis of the enormous beast.
This was the single most complex and stressful part of the operation. It was something I had come to know in my experience back in the old times. It’s very easy to take something this complex to pieces, but it’s very difficult to put it back together.
I lay in an uncomfortable position inside the guts of the monster for what seemed like hours, slowly reconnecting all the hydraulic and electrical connections. Thankfully, I had been given a Book, as in one of the ubiquitous sheets of plastic-like material, which contained very detailed maintenance manuals for the machine.
That said, I was still very anxious – the main body of the machine must have weighed several tons and it was dangling from the most precarious-looking thread attached to the mobile crane.
When I finally crawled out, covered in dust and grease, I was greeted with quite ridiculous cheering and applause. A small gathering of people I hadn’t seen before had formed around the machine. How word got around I don’t know, although some of the people standing watching had rolled up Books in their hands. It was only later I discovered they were recording this moment using the Books, which were of course also cameras.
I stood next to Tom, the very tall man, wiped my hands on an oily cloth and said, ‘You’d better see if it works.’
Tom clambered up the moulded plastic steps, across the access gangway and into the large control cab at the top of the machine. A moment later the whole thing shuddered slightly as if it really were a monster rousing from a long sleep. I could hear the main motor and the two auxiliary power pumps start up, a gentle whine and the massive digger bucket lifted off the ground.
The cheer of approval was instant. I was being hugged and patted on the back, someone held up their sheet, Book, whatever you want to call it, and I assume took my picture.
Tom swung the machine into action. It took an enormous bite out of the fetid land we were standing on and in an instant swung the material over the hopper arrangement at the front of the machine. It was then that something resembling noise started: the separator wound into action, the grinding teeth span up and from that moment the noise was intense. I stood back along with everyone else. The noise of machinery was somehow shocking – it reminded me of my world, of the old days, the days when all machines made a lot of noise.
From my experience of rebuilding the machine I knew that the giant rattling riddle was the truly dirty part of the operation; a series of riddles slowly removed the inorganic material from the contents of tens of millions of domestic bins over many decades.
I also knew that internally the machine sorted the various materials it dug up, and the plastic material was mashed up and ground down within the belly of the beast. The metal was again separated and crushed into manageable blocks. On closer inspection this looked to be all manner of metal, from pram and bicycle frames, old furniture fittings and drinks cans, bottle tops, bed springs as well as larger industrial-looking metal trimmings.
The small crowd walked along with the giant machine as Tom expertly worked its many control levers. As he dug up more and more giant scoops of twentieth-century waste, a much less toxic-looking material started spewing out of the back of the machine, leaving a neat row of what looked like soil. It was steaming, as the machine also heated the final organic waste material to very high temperatures before ejecting it.
I followed the gaggle of now less amateur mechanics I’d been working with around to the other side of the massive digging machine. It was here I saw the plastic powder being spewed into a large container. Once the digger had filled the container and moved on a little, I inspected the contents. It was a dull grey colour and seemed remarkably free of impurities. According to William and Halam, this was the only mining or extraction taking place in the whole country. Mining the previous generations’ casually discarded waste.
Two of the crew used a couple of plastic spars inserted through lugs in the moulded container, lifted it and started to walk away across the broken landscape with it. They were headed back to the trail, presumably to load it onto a cargo podmibus.
I was intrigued by this arrangement. They had this very sophisticated digging machine at their disposal, they also had the most advanced passenger and freight transportation system I have ever seen or imagined and yet they used manual labour to cover the short distance between one and the other.
They seemed happy and willing to undertake this back-breaking task. I tried to shift another of the containers, but it was incredibly heavy and I was impressed that even with the spars, two people could move it at all.
After a while and a lot more chattering with the excited group surrounding me, without any obvious direction from anyone, we all started to move away from the digger. This was something I was only aware of during later reflection. The entire group just started to move back towards the track. I don’t remember anyone suggesting it and I also don’t recall thinking it odd at the time. I just knew it was the right thing to do.
How did I know? How did they know? Obviously it was the thing to do but I never understood how we knew. In the past, in my time, there would always be a manager, someone in charge who would say, ‘okay chaps, time to go’. Not an order necessarily, just a suggestion, but in Gardenia nothing was said, we all started moving at the same time.
We arrived by the entrance to the track, there was more chattering with the occupants of the little Victorian-looking house in the clearing, we descended the stairs into the roadway, the podmibus arrived and we all got on board.
That night in Goldacre Hall there were even more people in the dining area than normal. I noticed a lot of faces I’d become familiar with at the plastic quarry. I spent the evening discussing what we’d done and hearing more and more information about drive mechanisms, energy capturing devices and advanced control systems. This was from a cross section of people; I was having the sort of conversation I’d only ever have with slightly nerdy men from my era, except I was now having it with teenage girls, hundred year-old women and men holding babies.
It must have been late in the evening that Mitchell appeared in the room. I felt very anxious, I hadn’t seen him since Grace had been spending the night with me. I had managed to be swept along by the activity in the day and the passion in the night without giving a thought to the other people involved.
As soon as he saw me in the kitchen he made his way toward me. Was this going to be a confrontation? Was I going to get lynched, would all these friendly, enthusiastic people suddenly turn on me for abusing their hospitality?
‘Gavin, I’ve just had word from William,’ said Mitchell. He didn’t sound aggressive, but
then again, I’m not good at reading subtle emotions. He didn’t look particularly happy.
‘He suggests you get to bed early as you may have a long day tomorrow.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘What have I got to fix now?’ I said it almost as a joke, I think I do that when I’m nervous. Mitchell just looked puzzled.
‘Yeah, okay, Mitchell,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I am pretty bushed, you know, tired, from all the work I’ve been doing.’
Mitchell allowed himself to smile.
‘It’s okay,’ he said softly. ‘Just try and get some rest.’
He patted me on the shoulder and left the room. An old lady smiled at me. I didn’t know what to do, so I did a bad fake yawn and made my excuses and wandered back to my room.
17
My arrival at the Heathrow terminal the following day was one of the most eye-popping experiences I had during my time in Gardenia. It was nothing in comparison to what I was about to experience, but it was still pretty incredible.
Certainly seeing the vast tidal inlet that once had been London, or even the tether to the solar array had been fairly breath-taking, travelling on a maglev podmibus going who knows how fast through the pristine tunnel network was very impressive, but standing at the foot of a puny looking cable that reached nearly 70 kilometres into space is not something you can shrug off.
William had accompanied me on an early-morning podmibus from Goldacre Hall. I had a small bag that one of the old ladies of the house had given me, a soft, beautifully made kind of rucksack. It contained a change of clothes and a Book. The Book – the plastic book thing.
In another neat pocket inside the bag was some wrapped fruit, nuts and berries, a small metal insulated pot with a hot meal inside and two small metal containers, one full of water, the other the old lady described as a special fruit juice. I’d tasted it on the journey to Heathrow; it was incredibly delicious and obviously contained some kind of zingy substance – I felt it surge through my body in a way I’ve only ever experienced with powerful drugs.
‘Don’t waste that just yet,’ said William. ‘You will want it later on, just take a small sip when you land, use it wisely.’
When I land, that’s all he said, but William and many other people at Goldacre Hall had wanted this to be my surprise. I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was we were going to Heathrow. It was a gift that the community had organised for me for helping restore the plastic quarry digger. It was, if you want to look at it in cynical terms, a form of payment. I had done something for the community and I was being paid for my efforts. So being rewarded for your efforts hadn’t completely fled the scene, I mused.
When the podmibus arrived at Heathrow, I experienced the first encounter with anything that could be described as authority since I had arrived through the cloud. There was quite a large installation right by the exit from the transport tunnel, a kind of station platform with a clear roof. What could be seen through the roof was almost nauseating in its reach. A pod was climbing up a barely discernable thread. This sight had been astounding enough when we had flown around it previously, but to see it from the ground was mind-numbing.
William spoke to a man standing by the entrance to the building before us. He wore a stark grey outfit without badges or insignia, but there was something about his manner that embodied authority. This was helped by the fact that he must have been close to seven feet tall. He looked very strong and just a little bit aggressive.
‘This is Gavin Meckler, from Goldacre Hall.’
The stern-looking man turned to a small metal lectern beside him. ‘Gavin Meckler,’ he said in a voice that in my day would have needed a clever sound engineer to achieve the same deep resonance. There was a low ping and two large glass doors slid open in front of us.
‘Thank you,’ said William. He turned to me. ‘Have a good trip, Gavin. If you want to get in touch, use The Book.’
‘Where am I going?’ I asked.
William looked up into the sky.
‘What, up there, in one of those!’ I squeaked, a bolt of terror running through me.
‘There is a pod to New York in about ten minutes,’ said William. ‘You have a place on it if you wish to go.’
‘New York!’ I said, my voice even more squeaky this time, but I wasn’t ashamed; it was a ridiculous suggestion.
William nodded. He was clearly enjoying revealing this information.
‘Are you coming with me?’
‘Goodness me no,’ said William. ‘I’m far too busy here, but you had said you wanted to experience pod transport and there may be someone at the other end to meet you.’
‘Yeah but…Will there? Who?’
‘It will be good, Gavin, it’s someone you want to meet.’
William gave me a hearty hug and then guided me through the doors. ‘Enjoy yourself,’ he said as the two large glass doors started to close. ‘I’ll see you very soon.’
I stood in a small atrium feeling like a lost child at a railway station, except there weren’t hundreds of people milling about. There was only one way to go, along a brightly lit corridor, so I walked along it. At the end was a small seating area and one woman stood by a large door on the far wall.
‘Gavin Meckler, great to see you,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’
She was American – a tall, beautiful American woman with tightly swept back hair and a neat tunic made of some kind of material that wasn’t cotton or linen.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ I said. I don’t know what my face was doing, probably giving away thoughts that were far from subconscious; this incredible woman was wearing some sort of shiny stuff that clung to her impressive contours in a way I found hard not to stare at.
This was the first person I’d seen who looked in any way sort of sci-fi and space-age.
‘I’m Kirsty. I’ll be on your journey today. We are ready to go, if you’d just like to drink this.’ She handed me a small metal cup. ‘I believe this is your first pod trip; is that correct?’
‘Um, you could say that,’ I said. I sipped at the concoction in the cup. It tasted a bit like the fruity medicine you get when you’re a kid. When I’d finished it I glanced up at Kirsty.
‘Oh, don’t worry, this is just something to keep you calm and comfortable during the journey. It only has an effect for about twenty minutes.’
I smiled, shrugged and downed the liquid in one gulp. At this point the door in front of me opened and revealed the entrance to a pod.
‘Please follow me,’ she said as she walked forward to the pod entrance. I followed and was soon confronted with a row of people standing around the sides of the small interior space held in place by some sort of stretchy material.
I won’t say I was terrified by what was in store for me, but I was very anxious. To enter a bathroom-sized plastic box and see a dozen or so people strapped to the walls was fairly disturbing to a man of my experience. However, the faces of the people there looked anything but anxious.
I would guess that every race on earth was represented by the strapped-in people in that pod. A few of them smiled at me as I was guided to an empty body-shaped cavity moulded into the wall.
‘If you’ll allow me, Gavin, I’ll place your bag somewhere safe. If you just stand in the cavity we can get moving.’
I handed Kirsty my bag and took a backwards step into my cavity. I was almost giggling – it was the word cavity that did it. I’m sure it was just nerves.
As soon as I was standing there the stretchy material shot in front of me and pulled me in tightly. I don’t know how it got there; it just appeared and tightened.
Kirsty moved to the far end of the pod, opened a door which went hiss when she did so, placed my bag inside, the door closed, then she slid herself into another sort of deep cavity. A door then slid over the top of her head and I fel
t a slight shudder.
‘Do not worry,’ said a dark-skinned man who was in the next cavity to mine. I craned my head forward and smiled at him. He smiled back. ‘The first trip is a little disconcerting, but it is very brief.’
I stared at him with a slack jaw like a dunderhead. His lips were not in synch with the words I was hearing. He had a flat, as Beth would have described it, Received Pronunciation way of speaking. But his lips were clearly saying something else.
‘Oh, sorry, my name is Baahir; I am speaking in Farsi – the translator is what you hear.’
I nodded, like a dunderhead who has just been shown a yellow ball and is told it is a yellow ball.
‘When I speak back, do you understand me?’ I asked eventually. Baahir nodded.
‘You are from Gardenia?’
‘Yes, well, yes, I am. I suppose, but, um, I’ve lived a very sheltered life. I um, I grew up in a very isolated community.’
Baahir nodded again. ‘Indeed, oh, looks like we’re moving. Here we go,’ he said.
I felt the pod lurch a little. I felt alarmed but my body was held in place by the stretchy material. Then I felt myself grow heavier, much heavier. I sensed that my body was tipped back slightly and I could see that the people opposite were indeed almost lying, the body shaped compartments had swung almost horizontal. There wasn’t much noise. I could sense that fans were blowing cool air through the compartment but other than that it was fairly silent. An old man strapped in opposite me seemed to be fast asleep.
I then felt my weight increase quite dramatically. If I hadn’t been so firmly strapped in I would have collapsed in a heap, my head felt like it weighed a ton.
‘Lean your head back against the support,’ said Baahir. ‘You will be more comfortable.’
News from Gardenia Page 17