by Burke, John
Martin said “Mum, do take it easy.”
“It won’t hurt me to make myself useful. Now that awful business is all over, maybe we can talk some sense and get things sorted out properly.”
“All over,” mused Arthur. “Mm. All over? Apart from the nasty decaying smell left behind.” Abruptly he turned to Nell and added: “Who’s for getting out?” Brigid winked at Martin. “Go North, young man.”
Her father said: “What’s that?” Then he laughed. “Don’t tell me you, too…” He made an impulsive gesture towards Martin and succeeded in jolting the teapot as Mrs Hemming tilted it to pour. Tea splashed across the carpet. “You’re seriously thinking…?”
They both began to talk at once. About new cities and old traditions, about buildings and about bugs, about construction and research and imagination. About getting out of Lurgate.
Nell managed to get a word in at last. “There have been Johnsons in Lurgate since goodness knows when. Are you sure you can bear to leave?” Her hand rested on the arm of the chair. Arthur touched it lightly. “Are you sure?” she insisted. Mrs Hemming kept an eye on people’s untrustworthy arms and elbows, and poured with a steady hand into the row of cups she had arranged symmetrically along the table.
“Down with ancestors,” said Martin. “Look what they did to that poor woman, Serafina.”
“Poor woman!” snorted his mother. “Family pride. Family spitefulness. You can never balance that kind of ledger. Write it off and get out. Start again.” Arthur was looking earnestly at Nell. “You think you could stand it?”
“Anyone would think we were talking about the North Pole. Why shouldn’t I be able to stand it?”
“It’s all right for me. All right to work there, I mean. But not much fun for you. Can’t guarantee you the sort of place you’d choose to live in.”
“Isn’t the basic idea that you’re going to make the places worth living in?”
“It won’t be achieved for some years. A generation, maybe.”
“I’d like to be there,” said Nell, “when you make a start.” Her lips twitched. “What are we arguing about, anyway? I know when you’ve made up your mind.
There’s only one thing I dread. I’m not sure I can face it.”
Brigid edged closer to Martin. Whatever the objections, she and Martin were going. Martin wanted it that way, so she wanted it too. She waited.
“It’s the electricity,” said Nell.
“What’s electricity got to do with it?” Arthur demanded.
“Think of the power points. All those plugs and sockets, that kind of thing. They’re bound to be different, wherever we go. They always are.”
They began to laugh, and Mrs Hemming shrugged and said “Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” and the men leaned towards each other across the table and began to talk to and at and over each other, planning an escape as though there were not a second to lose.
Craning round Arthur’s head, Nell smiled at Brigid. “They’re both crazy.”
“Yes,” said Brigid happily, “they are, aren’t they?”
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