by Kate Bulpitt
‘A police doughnut,’ said Adio, as he took a bite from a more edible one.
He and Eve watched a clip of a policewoman speaking to a journalist.
‘It’s quite a scene here,’ said the reporter.
The policewoman raised her eyebrows, gave a curt nod.
‘Were you aware of what was going on, of who was being held here?’
The policewoman looked at him, unflinching. ‘I arrived today, I couldn’t speculate on what was happening before then.’
‘How will the inmates’ security be maintained upon release?’
‘Their security? I can imagine they’ll get some attention, but I don’t think their safety’s at risk.’
‘You don’t think that the public might react quite strongly when they’re back in their own communities?’
‘In their current – ’ the briefest of pauses – ‘condition, these individuals should pose a substantially lessened risk once they’re back in their communities. Hopefully the public will appreciate that. Obviously, members of the public are also reminded that this initiative is now fully operational, and anyone can be affected, so everyone should show consideration and caution in their behaviour.’
‘When you return to your usual patrols, will you be responsible for making culprits Purple?’
With what Eve had considered to be an exemplary poker face, the policewoman replied, ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
*
Eve gazed out of the window as the taxi pulled away. Across the road, a man with a dog exited the all-hours deli which she and Saffron sometimes ventured to late at night, giggling, already in their pajamas, but craving a slumber party fix of ice cream or potato chips. The dog stopped, squatting near the flowers bursting with almost surreal, technicolour brightness that filled rows of buckets outside the shop, reminding Eve of blooms as seen in a View-Master camera. The man lingered too, holding up a New York newspaper that had been tucked under his arm and scanning the headlines. It was still too early for it to have hit the presses, but Eve squinted, trying to catch an inky update, and any mention of the Purpleness.
The cab sped on, through streets swarming with high-spirited bodies spilling out of bars and into the clammy night air. They passed Eve’s favourite seafood restaurant (the scene of one of her most memorably awful dates), and the first Say Fantastique! office, a fourth-floor walk-up in Chinatown which had framed paintings of dragons on every landing (she and Adio had spent many a sticky summer evening sitting on the fire escape there, watching the city below and pinching themselves that this was their new life). Then they crossed the bridge and were out onto the freeway, where billboards advertised action films and sci-fi shows, each of which had a premise that, however daft, seemed less preposterous than what she was about to go home to.
‘So,’ said the taxi driver, with an affable smile via the rear view mirror, ‘you’re English?’
Eve nodded, ‘Yup. Been here a long time though.’
She looked at the ID badge displayed on the partition between them. His name was Earl, and he was smiling in the photo too.
‘Hard to leave, right?’ he said. ‘A land of plenty. Plenty crazy, but good.’
‘It’s true,’ said Eve.
‘So you English got all these crazy people who’re purple now, right? What d’you make of that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Eve sighed. ‘It seems unreal. I’m still getting my head around it. What do you think?’
Earl tutted. ‘I’m not going to say judging a man by his colour could be a good thing. Seems backwards. Can’t see how that’ll help anybody, right?’
Eve murmured in agreement and looked out of the window. In truth, she wasn’t yet sure how she felt about the Purpleness. It was, of course, insane – ludicrous, unbelievable and indefensible. But perhaps a crazier deterrent was called for, given the dreadful, intolerable things people seemed willing to do to one another, which often beggared belief. It wasn’t just the foul play taking place behind closed doors, or large-scale atrocities planned by determined, detestable organisations. Since shocking tales of road rage and a tortured toddler led from a shopping centre to an unimaginable death, there seemed to be a level of violence that was almost banal, where inadvertently queue-jumping or looking at someone the wrong way could land you in casualty or worse.
Not long ago, a friend of Womble’s had been ambling home from the pub when a couple of lads approached him with flying fists and no reason, leaving him lying in the street with a broken jaw. And the teenage nephew of one of Eve’s schoolfriends had recently been stabbed after an accidental slight en route to a nightclub; instead of a merry evening peppered with lager and lasses, his night was deflated by a near-fatal punctured lung. Whenever she read of another hateful, mindless crime, Eve would wonder why people were like that, how the perpetrators of such acts became that way. To a lesser degree, she’d thought the same about her brother Simon, who seemed to have so little consideration for anyone or anything. No apparent empathy, no sense of responsibility, no concern for those he hurt.
But had things truly declined? Eve wondered. Or were they the same as ever, and she had just been too young to notice before? Was it the speed and volume of information to which everyone had access, with the Portal feeding an increasingly super-sized diet of news, that meant we could now know about everything that happens rather than a more digestible portion of it? Had we simply been cocooned before?
Or did the world seem more disturbed because that was how everyone was being programmed to feel? This was always Eve’s next stop on this train of thought, and she guessed it would be pivotal in the popularity of the prime minister’s new scheme. She loathed the sense of fear that had become such a popular currency and was relentlessly instilled in everyone, usually to peddle something, from dodgy foreign policies to antibacterial hand wash, and left you feeling under siege, constantly in danger from unseen enemies.
Even before her move across the pond, the persistent scaremongering had begun to dampen Eve’s enthusiasm for a life in the news. Not long after her arrival in America, there had been a major terrorist attack. With the world on anxiety-pill-popping, terror-stopping high alert, every morning began with a reminder of that day’s threat level, usually at the higher, hotter end of the spectrum, flagged in dangerously warm red or orange (Eve had thought they could jolly up the system with some appropriately coloured alarming icons – molten lava, sunburn, or the dwarf in the red coat from Don’t Look Now). The increasing popularity of panic seemed at best unhelpful and at worst irresponsible. But how could you unravel the truth? She thought again of Theo Fletcher, of Lee the Lav, and how there was probably little you couldn’t convince people of if they’d been successfully infected with enough unease.
And then, of course, there had been the Repeal, which seemed like a gateway drug to the Purpleness, when Eve thought of it now. Restricting access to some technologies, such as the relaunched Portal, where every move was tracked, and disposing of others, like the previously indispensable PortAble. The device had been held at least partially responsible for an escalation of inconsiderate behaviour, from the seeping, thoughtless cacophony of excess noise on trains and buses to invasive video-filming that ran the gamut from an irritation, and unsettling invasion of privacy (‘You just never know when someone is recording you,’ Eve’s mum had said once, bewildered, having spotted a man surreptitiously filming from behind a rack of department store dressing gowns), to trophy tapings of a far more sinister kind.
When the Repeal was first announced, the outcry was extreme, with hundreds of thousands attending a Refuse to Repeal demonstration in London (organisers estimated attendance to have been two million; the police claimed half that). ‘These things give us power, and you want to take our power away,’ protesters exclaimed. Then prime minister Milton Hardy had proclaimed the PortAble’s dark side: ‘A contrary, ability-reducing enabler of narcissism and social withdrawal.’ Adding, ‘Didn’t we manage perfectly well before?’
With
the new regulations, nothing could be posted on the Portal anonymously, and all online activity could be traced to an individual civilian identifier called a CIV code. Critics claimed that it was an invasion of privacy, an infringement of human rights; supporters that it was for the greater good, protecting human rights by regulating what had become the Wild West, and that if you weren’t doing anything dodgy then you had no cause for concern. In the physical world, they said, behave badly and the ISON cameras would catch you; why should life on the Portal be any different? Later, everyone had to admit that the Repeal had made life online more cordial, that it felt safer. Bullying and vitriol became a less easy fix when you had to expose yourself; weapons lost, power snatched from the nasty, the attention-seeking, the insecure. Initially dismissed as blustery legislation that was unlikely to be enforced, folk were soon unpleasantly surprised. Employers were encouraged to see casually insidious and unpleasant behaviour as toxic. Many companies introduced a declaration for staff to sign, and there were petitions and – ironically – public shaming for those that did not. At the point when prosecutions for Portal offences peaked, hundreds were losing their job every week; recruitment agencies rubbed their hands with glee.
That was, as the phrase went at Say Fantastique!, just the tip of the asparagus. The anti-social elements could perhaps have been overlooked. But what sealed the Repeal was the malicious bug that had infiltrated not one but two superpowers’ nuclear systems and caused a simultaneous flushing of every automated toilet in Japan (naturally, for Say Fantastique! the flush-a-thon had been a winning story. Also, Eve remembered that, despite multiple technology experts asserting that the bug had been initiated from a PortAble, with many world leaders subsequently banning such devices, Womble’s friend Bob maintained that this was a smokescreen related to the device manufacturers’ not paying enough tax). In quite the photo opportunity, Milton Hardy had been pictured disposing of his; there had been a lot of recycling to do. And while it had been controversial, you couldn’t argue with the results.
So what was this, then, the Purpleness? A diabolical scheme built on a handy foundation of fear, or a necessarily extreme measure to protect the good folk, the decent and deserving? And would Eve despise herself for believing the latter?
*
The cab swerved to the kerb, pulling in sharply behind a shuttle bus from which spilled a pick ’n’ mix of bags and passengers.
‘Here we are,’ said Earl, as a plastic crucifix swung from his rear view mirror. He got out of the cab and took Eve’s suitcase from the boot while she gathered cash to pay him. As she took her case, he turned to her and said, ‘Have a blessed trip.’
‘Thanks,’ said Eve, rolling into the airport terminal, thinking, I’m not sure blessed will be quite the word for it.
*
On the plane, Eve found herself thinking of a family holiday they’d taken when she was ten. Her father had booked for them to go on a package trip to Portugal, but for some reason – she couldn’t quite remember now, but thought it was down to a problem with the travel agency – they’d instead ended up at a bed and breakfast on the Isle of Wight. Whether or not a troublesome travel agent, or some equally plausible excuse, had been the reason for their switch of locale, the trip had been during one of the brighter spells in her parents’ marriage and, for a change, her father wasn’t in the doghouse. Although she couldn’t have articulated it until she was older, even then Eve had a grasp of the circular dynamic of their relationship: father does wrong by mother, mother is upset, father feels guilt (or irritation) and avoids facing both reminders of this disappointment and arguments at home by spending more time seeking solace elsewhere. Now, Eve wondered why her mum hadn’t been firmer with him, refused to put up with his exploits; but Eve guessed it was something of a tightrope: she’d wanted him to stay and figured that challenging his behaviour would only push him further away.
The teenage Eve had fretted about whether her dad had ever really wanted to be with them, wondered if he’d been happy with their mum until she and Simon came along – if it was they who had caused the cracks in the marriage. She hadn’t known that aside from being ridiculously in love with him, her mum had also felt the giddy thrill of winner’s luck; Vince Baxter was handsome and charming, with the so-sure swagger of a rock star, and he had picked her. Linda, who was pretty and smart, but longed for the poise and confidence that some of the other girls possessed, hadn’t expected to be swept off her feet by the kind of chap she usually only encountered in romance novels. In keeping with her parents’ assumptions, she had expected to marry someone kind and dependable, reliable in providing all except excitement. She’d been courting such a fellow – a couple of years older than her, he was a man about town with good prospects – and she could picture their life together (although sometimes, in quiet moments, she’d feel a shortness of breath, and wonder if this was the thinning air of predictability).
In turn, Vince hadn’t reckoned on the elegant, unattainable-seeming Linda who came from a nice part of town and whom he’d sometimes spot in a cafe near where he worked, nose in a book which she’d occasionally put down to gaze wistfully out of the window. Vince had a knack for attracting the gals who wanted something more, something else; but when he crossed paths with Linda at the pub, or down the dance hall, she was usually on the arm of a well-heeled sort of chap, all greased hair and shiny shoes, and she’d often seem to look right through Vince – which, naturally, made her all the more enticing (he wouldn’t know until later that such apparent coolness was in fact poor eyesight). How proud he’d been when Linda accepted his proposal – that he, the wild card, had won her over the shiny-shoed sure thing! Her devotion was a high, and though he did love her, in his own way, was most intoxicated by the idea of snagging such an unlikely prize: a bird – and maybe a life? – so much fancier than he’d aspired to. Plus her reverence Teflon-coated his confidence, making him all the more alluring – and why should he deny himself? Linda knew how desirable he was, wouldn’t have expected them to live the same life of monotony, monogamy, that everyone else signed up for. She found Vince’s unpredictable-ness exciting, and unpredictability was the one thing he could guarantee to provide.
It was the night after their arrival on the Isle of Wight, and the family had gone out for dinner. It had been a warm evening, and they’d walked along the seafront enjoying the early evening sun, the laugh-filled chatter of other holiday-makers, and the tinny clatter of the amusement arcades, the beeps of the machines and cascading coins chiming with the chart hits that blared through cheap speakers. Her mum was wearing a white dress covered in little flowers, with spaghetti straps which tied at the shoulders, and silver sandals. Her dad sported a sky-blue shirt and a moustache. They strolled hand in hand, looking like something out of a glossy American TV show, glamorous, attractive – and not arguing – and Eve had felt like the girl who had it all. Even Simon wasn’t behaving disastrously, though he did keep trying to kick seagulls, who were always too quick to fly away. Eve had breathed in the heady aroma of summer freedom: chips, suntan lotion, sea air and expectation, mingling with her dad’s aftershave and her mum’s perfume to create a scent so intoxicating Eve thought she might never again feel this content.
They ate at an Italian restaurant (a place that to the young Eve seemed so sophisticated, but which also served all-day fry-ups), where the waiter commented on how beautiful Linda looked. Vince looked peacock proud, whispering something in his wife’s ear before leaning back and winking at her. Linda beamed and, catching Eve’s eye, gave one of the most genuinely happy smiles Eve had witnessed from her mother (it still saddened her when she thought of it). Despite having already enjoyed Flake 99 Cones on the seafront that afternoon, they’d ordered ice cream for pudding. Simon had a monster amount of chocolate, nuts and whipped cream, their parents shared a banana split, while Eve had a knickerbocker glory all to herself, and as she held her extra long spoon above the towering bowl, she wondered if this was too good to be true.
&nbs
p; Their parents had got talking to the family at the next table, who were also on holiday. The wife was pretty, blonde, wore shimmering blue eyeliner, and laughed at Eve’s dad’s jokes. The husband was stocky and would chime into what Vince was saying with a joke of his own before downing a long glug of beer. The four of them decided to move to the bar and share a couple more drinks, and gave the children some change to spend at the amusement arcade. Simon had badgered Eve to give him some of her coins, threatening her with a Chinese burn, but Eve had refused, and as they stood in a scowling stand off, she had very, very nearly stamped on his flip-flopped foot with her new mini-heeled party shoes. She could imagine how much that would have hurt. But then she’d pictured her newsreading heroines looking at her calmly and saying, don’t let him get to you, don’t let him spoil this evening that you’ve enjoyed so much. So instead she turned and walked into the maze of machines, ringing and whirling and clattering, taking herself and her money as far away from her brother as she could.
Eve won some coppers at the sliding games, and when one of the other kids came to tell her that it was time to go she still had twenty pence in her hand. Mum and dad will be impressed, she thought. But when they reached the bar, her father had a swollen eye and her mother’s mascara was smudged from tears. Eve had clutched the twenty pence, thought of her parents’ clasped hands, the wink and the smile, and her knickerbocker glory, and scorned herself for thinking such enchantment could last.