by S. L. Grey
‘How did you find out that was my name?’
Duvenhage wafts a manicured hand. ‘Methods.’
Now where, Tara thinks, have I heard that before? ‘And you’re showing me this, why?’
‘I believe you’ve been talking to Clara van der Spuy about concerns you may have about one of our learners.’
That was fast. Clara must have been on the phone the second Tara left her office. ‘How long have you known about this?’
‘Oh, Mrs Marais, you must understand that we thoroughly research the backgrounds of all of our volunteers.’ He eyes the Wikipedia article.
‘I was sure that the parents in question were guilty of abuse, Mr Duvenhage. I still am.’
‘Yes, yes. That’s not my concern. You do understand that the school takes the welfare of its students very seriously.’
‘I see.’ Tara does see – she sees very clearly. The last thing that Duvenhage and the board of trustees wants is a re-run of the Raymond Scheider Primary scandal. ‘You’re blackmailing me.’
‘Blackmailing you?’ Duvenhage laughs. ‘Certainly not! I am simply pointing out that accusations like these... Well, as you know, they can be blown out of proportion. I know Jane’s... family personally. They may be a bit...’ – he chuckles – ‘eccentric, but that’s as far as it goes, I assure you. Morality is important to us here at Crossley College. It’s the basis of our very ethos. We maintain a high standard of responsibility to our learners – both within the walls of the school and within the broader community.’
He stands up, holds out a hand. She’s being dismissed again. Clara and Duvenhage make a hell of a tag team. Tara tries not to wince as her hand is gripped by moist, pudgy fingers. ‘We do appreciate all the primo work you do for us here, Mrs Marais.’
Primo. That word again. It’s just a coincidence. A new South African buzzword that’s doing the rounds. Has to be.
‘In fact,’ Duvenhage continues, ‘Mrs van der Spuy says that you might be interested in joining us at the school on a more... permanent basis.’
Tara draws back. ‘Even now? Now that... you know?’
Duvenhage chuckles again. ‘Oh, Mrs Marais. Everyone can make one mistake, can’t they?’
Chapter 12
PENTER
‘Mother! Mother. It is time for you to kindle.’
She opens her eyes, looks up into Father’s face, his skin bathed in blue light from the television screen. She must have fallen asleep on the couch in the television room. After last night’s victuals, a projectile-inducing mess of soggy corn dogs and noodles that only Danish seemed to enjoy, Penter had retired here. She meant to research more of the advertisements to please Father, but as she clicked through the channels she paused on a channel called SKY. Thinking it would be a document about the ether above her, she was shocked to see violent, sometimes blurry images that were more disquieting than those in Jane’s documents: crying and naked halfpints, broken and burning houses, enraged browns, modified browns in sale apparel talking about war, economic crises, bloodshed and ‘terrorists’. She watched for hours, hypnotised. She eventually realised that this SKY, unlike Pretty Woman or Love Actually was a factual document, not a story. Why had the Ministry guidelines not warned her about this?
She touches her cheeks. Her face is wet. ‘What is wrong with me?’
‘You had a nightmare.’
She looks at the clear moisture on her fingers. ‘What is this?’
‘An extrusion of thought-seep. It won’t bother you when we return and your penetration is renewed.’
Penter knows that the question is disregardful, that if Father wants to volunteer non-essential information he will, but she can’t help herself. ‘Do you suffer thought-seep?’
A pause. ‘Yes.’
‘And Jane?’
Father smiles. ‘She does not seem to be so affected. She’s a primo scout.’
Once again, Penter marvels at the halfpint’s adaptability. She suppresses a pang of what she understands to be jealousy. ‘Is it time for me to prepare breakfast for the family?’
‘Almost. But first, do you want to see the viables?’
She’s not sure how to answer. Is he testing her? The selection of viables is not in her purview; she is the unit’s Mother. Father wouldn’t try to trick her into committing disregard, would he? Only Players would do that, and playing is not tolerated in the Ministry of Upside Relations. Why does he want her involved?
She is curious, though, so she nods, hoping that he will invite her to explore his study, the only room in the house she has never entered.
He doesn’t. Instead, he plugs his gelphone into the slow tech at the base of the television. The screen flickers, and then she sees a recording of twelve small browns, six males and six females, sitting on chairs in a large white-walled room with wooden floors, their heads drooping like the beans in the garden. She is full of admiration for Father’s methods. Not one of the halfpints moves as he uses the device and the mark-up pens.
‘Are you sure that they will not recall their experiences here?’ Penter is confident to ask questions because Father seems so relaxed.
‘Entirely,’ Father replies. ‘The Ministry’s brain-sweep technology is perfectly efficient. The halfpints you see on screen are the viables Jane scouted,’ Father says. ‘Halfpint browns with top-percentile destructive capacity which could be rechannelled. The viability formula for this programme is adapted from the Walters-King scale used in the Wards,’ he continues, as if excited to be sharing the information with a willing audience. ‘The calculation is dependent on the mean actuarial concordance between poundage and depreciation rate.’ He smiles at her confusion. ‘The halfpints whose flesh is most likely to withstand ongoing penetration renewal and conditioning.’ Penter nods. Most of the full-grown browns scouted by Mall Management and Ward Administration have a far faster depreciation rate than normals. The theory underpinning this project suggests that halfpints will assimilate faster than full-grown browns and last longer in the environment. She hopes so, otherwise their mission here will have been nothing but a waste of energy.
‘When will the selected viable be assimilated?’ she asks.
He shrugs. ‘A matter of shifts.’
Penter remembers an image she saw on SKY last night. A crying Mother, pleading for her offspring to be returned. They did not say where it had gone, only that it was lost. ‘If browns... disappear... won’t this cause their families distress?’ She is not sure why this concerns her, but it does. She glances at Father to see if he finds this question disregardful.
‘Browns disappear all the time, Mother. They are not like us. They wander, they scope. As a default, they hold their family units and other browns in disregard. You have seen this?’
She has. Not only on SKY, but in the movies that Jane likes. ‘Which one is the primary viable?’
‘We have two options.’
He zooms in on a corpulent halfpint with a mess of yellow hair. ‘Ugh,’ she says. Then she realises that she has seen it before. It’s the brown that came to the precinct with the educator. The disregardful one. She is not surprised it has been chosen. The other one is female, not as odious, but also in need of urgent modification to make it less unsightly.
‘This is good work, Father,’ she says.
Father looks down at his gelphone and frowns. ‘Thanks you.’
‘Why did you show this to me?’
He doesn’t answer, only stands up and says, ‘I must conclude some business.’
Without another word, he leaves the room. She gets up quietly and follows, not sure what she’s looking for. As always, he’s locked his study door behind him, but she squats down and peers through the keyhole, aware of the risk she’s taking.
Father’s drafting a message on his gelphone. He can’t be conversing with the Ministry – they require only daily reports. She looks at his naturally primo features in the glancing sunlight and feels a cramping in her stomach. Remembers the words from the computer. Is t
his fear? She isn’t sure. Could it be love? No. It doesn’t feel blissful, more as if she is about to projectile. She watches him place his gelphone in his pocket, then hurries down the stairs and into the hallway, hearing Father’s footsteps behind her.
Unwilling to let Father see her face, she opens the front door, stares out into the grounds. Danish is approaching, moving faster than usual. She can’t decipher his expression – he may have been modified, but he is still a brown. He hobbles up to the door and hands a piece of paper to Father. Sometimes she wonders what the Ministry was thinking providing them with a tame brown who cannot speak, however admirable his oral modification work may be.
Father reads it, then turns to look at her. ‘There is an unauthorised brown in the precinct.’
Penter blinks. Tries to remember the correct protocol. ‘Shall I report?’
‘No. I have... an idea,’ Father says. ‘Perhaps it could be of service.’
Penter is shocked. ‘But that is not in our purview.’ She’s heard rumours that treasonous Players have been scouting browns unlawfully for the Modification Ward and that the Ministry is displeased. Unlawful scouting is a terminal offence. Is Father a Player after all? Is this what he was doing with his gelphone? As a Node Liaison it would be her duty to report him.
Jane shuffles past her and enters the kitchen, distracting her from these confusing thoughts. Which is the greater disregard: treasonous thoughts against Father, or a wariness about doing her duty to the Ministry? At this moment, confronted by the mute tame brown, an intruder, Father’s secret messages and Jane’s peculiar needs, Penter longs for nothing more than a renewal. All the questions trouble her and she longs for the quietness of clear direction. How do the browns exist without order?
She follows Jane into the kitchen, hands her a bowl and pours the colourful nuggets of dry sugar that have become the halfpint’s favourite breakfast. She distributes a similar bowlful to Danish and he limps into the corner of the room to enjoy them.
She joins Father at the door. ‘If we attempt to recruit the intruder without authorisation,’ she whispers, ‘will we not be in disregard?’
‘We have an open-ended brief when we are in the field, Mother. It does take time to acclimatise to the freedom. In this case, I am secure that the Ministry will be felicitous if we scout a rogue brown beyond the specified purview of the project. How does the advertisement say it? We go the extra mile.’ He waves a hand in Danish’s direction. ‘It will not be long before that will depreciate. We may need a replacement. This project has been a success and there will be others, I’m sure.’ Father smiles at her, places a hand on her shoulder; it’s the first time he has ever touched her. She feels a sharp tug in her chest, something that hurts more, is more blissful, than regard. When he removes his hand, she thinks she can still sense the weight of it pressing down on her.
He cannot be a Player. It would be impossible for her to have such regard for him if he were.
‘You are correct about Danish, Father,’ she says, returning his smile. She notices that Jane is watching them both carefully as she spoons sugar from the bowl into her mouth. And, she thinks, Jane did say she wanted a pet.
Chapter 13
RYAN
There’s a grinding sound in his right ear. The cold smell of wet clay and concrete. A monster is looming over him, a spider-woman, all arms and breasts, knives and malicious smiling. Something else is cutting over him, like a laser, burning into his skin.
It’s a sliver of early sunlight. Ryan props himself up on an elbow and tries to rub life into his face. There’s fine sand all over his cheek, on his brow. He brings his hand into range in front of his eyes and sees the earth-red of clay, not blood. His body is so stiff he can only haul it over and up like a carcass. His knees crackle and burn, the nerve bundles down his spine object.
The spider-woman with the knives leers and he remembers that she’s made of concrete. He’s been sleeping in the back corner of this half-built McPalace’s eight-car garage. He sits up cross-legged and chases the cobwebs away. The grinding is still vibrating through the ground, as if there are major earthworks happening deep below him. He listens intently in the dead still of dawn and fancies he can hear a high-pitched whining beneath that grinding, a keening sound.
There’s a swirl of faces listing through his head: Karin, Julie, Tess, Alice, but most of all the new girl, her polar face superimposed over all the rest. She’s somewhere near, he remembers, and the lurch that this causes in his system is a different sort of lurch to the knots of fear and regret the faces of Tess and Alice cause. As for Julie and Karin, those pathetic old hags, they leave him cold.
After hearing the kid screaming yesterday, Ryan had ducked under the portico out of sight and waited. A minute later, the library volunteer woman came out, dragging her snot-faced son down the driveway. The kid was pale, tear-streaked, but oddly passive, quiet – shocked. Ryan realised that it was that boy who’d been screaming, not the girl, and he felt a wash of relief. Dusk was falling by then and Ryan knew that this was as good a shelter as any, better than many. He’d be able to hide out in the back of this half-constructed shell and make more plans tomorrow. He’d have to go hungry tonight, but he’d been hungry often enough before. An almost-full bottle of whisky would give him all the fuel he needed.
At some stage in the evening he called Ziggy, begged him for Alice’s phone number, but of course Ziggy laughed him off. He also tried Karin, but she didn’t answer. He can’t leave things like that, Alice hating him. Is his only option to stake out Bedford Centre again on the next take-away Wednesday? He can’t allow her disappointment in him to fester and crystallise into loathing. He’s got to get in touch with her and make things right. He did nothing wrong, it was all her bitch mother’s fault. He never hurt her.
The sunlight’s slanting in more powerfully now, but Ryan still doesn’t feel elastic enough to move. He imagines the sun’s rays warming his muscles and joints and cleansing him. The grinding below has stopped, he notices, and he hears birdsong in the trees of the garden. He should be hearing cars on the road – it’s not that far away, but the gate and the wall are high and thick enough, he supposes, to block out the sound. Ryan’s never been rich, even when he was a salaried and productive member of society, and he’s always had to live with other people’s sounds and smells, but this silence and seclusion, this is why people rate being wealthy. You can buy your own private world.
Who lives here? he wonders. Can that pale girl really belong to a rich family, the type that would have eight cars to park? Or is she the daughter of a servant who lives on the property? When she’s looked at him he’s been branded by her wordless appeal – for help? For rescue? For attention, care, love? Something in that girl’s gaze cries out with need.
The slice of light falling on his body flickers off and then on again. Someone has passed the mouth of the garage. It flickers again as the figure returns and stands staring at him. It’s just a silhouette. The broad shoulders and round middle make Ryan suspect it’s a man. The head seems too big for the rest of the body and he appears to be leaning on a cane. Ryan thinks of a drawing Alice once made, which he hung on his office partition all those years ago; this shadow is like that child’s drawing come to life.
Ryan draws himself up straighter but doesn’t stand. Let the man come to him. Ryan concentrates on exuding confidence, like he belongs here. If the man’s tacitly asking what the hell Ryan’s doing in his garage, Ryan counters it with a wave of what the hell are you looking at.
The shadow man stands there looking for a minute more, then passes by again in the direction of the main house.
The spell is broken and Ryan packs his bag, readying to leave.
He’s slung his satchel over his shoulder and is on his way towards the gate when he’s confronted by a woman. She’s a peculiar woman, with curves in all the wrong places – sort of... knobbly. But that doesn’t stop her from wearing a form-fitting lacy body suit, almost as if she’s a member of one of
those I’m-a-freak-and-proud-of-it brigades. The first thing that goes through his mind is that he can probably beat her in a fight. She’s tall, but probably quite light. He hopes that it doesn’t come to that; the fact is he doesn’t want to touch her.
When she speaks, he’s surprised by her friendly tone. ‘Good morning, mister,’ she says in an unplaceable accent, but given her odd get-up, he assumes she’s a recent import from Eastern Europe. It all suddenly fits into place: the semi-constructed house, the nouveau-riche tastelessness. She must be the wife of one of those gangsters on the run from the former Yugoslavia who’ve set up shop in South Africa. People like that don’t get house bonds or building loans: all their transactions are strictly cash. That explains the bizarre decor, and the fact that work seems to have halted.
Ryan doesn’t want to be caught squatting in a Serbian gangster’s house-in-progress.
‘Oh, hi. I’ve just been admiring your... art.’ He waves a hand at the freakish statues. ‘I didn’t mean to trespass, I’ll be on my way now.’ He offers her his smile, which bounces off her unnoticed – her gaze remains one of open curiosity.
It’s as if she hasn’t heard him or understood him. She reaches out her hand. ‘My name is Mother,’ she says. ‘Danish reported you were here. You are one of those browns – uh, upside citizens – who has no home? It is charming to meet you.’
Ryan can do nothing other than take her hand and shake. She has an unsettling handshake, crimping her fingers and holding them straight and rigid, and it’s cold and clammy at the same time, almost like one of those hook-tentacled statues. Perhaps she’s palsied or something. He had better stop being so judgemental, Ryan thinks, if he’s going to survive on the road. From this woman’s perspective he’s the freak here – homeless and dirty-brown, it’s true. He’d better start being nice.
‘Hello, um, ma’am,’ he says. ‘Yes, you’re right. I actually don’t have a home at the moment. But I’m used to living on the road. I’ll be fine. Thank you.’ He turns to go.