I am so delicate. I measure every mouthful. I become aware of the student moving around me to stand behind the mother, willing her strength into the woman. The round, woven room with its thick branches and hanging vines is hazy to me; the meal is too heavy in my stomach, too rich in taste, and I can feel my grip on the moment start to falter. It’s too much. The plants are snaking around me, wrapping me up. The vines lower to take me among themselves, and then lift me high into their care, and I see nothing more, but I can still hear. Stanislav is singing. Stanislav sings.
I come back down.
“It’s done,” says a voice, “stay still. All is well.” I recognise the voice and smile at it; it is a voice I care for. Then I realise is it the student speaking, and I push that emotion away and try to sit up. But I am so heavy inside. I sink. I am sinking through the floor, through the roots and stones, into the rich brown darkness where no pain can penetrate.
“Let’s get her home,” says Stanislav, and my hearing becomes expansive, acute, clear beyond anything I have heard before as I listen to the leaves of the Undergrowth rustling with dedicated menace all around me. The mother is whispering. She is saying mercy over and over, or is it merci? And the baby cries, a reedy, warbling, healthy sound of annoyance, maybe hunger.
I love how the rooms grow naturally here, the holes and walkways adapted by humanity in the spaces between growth. We fit around the plants now. We fit. I wish I could speak of it, but my mouth won’t work.
* * *
Part Two
A makeshift stretcher later, and with the help of a willing team of Undergrowth residents of all colours and organisations clamouring around me with deference before cheerfully putting their hands on me, I am returned to my house. It’s practically a long parade through the streets as I can’t be squeezed into the eco-car. People take it in turns to hold the stretcher aloft, or just to put a hand upon it. Others come out of their own houses to join in.
It feels like a celebration. Everybody is so keen to turn bad news into good. I hear the people saying, “A baby saved! What a blessing!” to each other, to every new person that joins the party. No matter what the cost, it’s a price worth paying for a baby.
Stanislav oversees my return to the house, and the slow business of negotiating me up the stairs and into my hammock. He is all I can bear to look at while this happens, his familiar old features, which is not without irony. I told him, not so long ago, that I never wanted to see his face again.
Once the party has moved back to the street I say to him, “It’s unbearable how they all want to say this is a better world, no matter what the reality suggests.”
He takes my swollen hand and I feel a sudden, deep pain that shoots through my elbow, my shoulder, to my head. “Hope,” he says. “You just can’t see it, can you?”
“If you’re going to tell me yet again that we’re saving the world, you know I’ll kick you out. I’ve done it before.”
“You used to believe we were. Saving the world.”
“Did I?” I can’t remember. I know I recall too many good things when I look at him and that makes it difficult to stay angry. It hurts more than the pain in my hand, in my head, when I think of when he became my foster father. I was so willing to please him. When we were allocated to this area this became our house, the two of us, and he was the only driver I needed. We’d go to save people, and afterwards he’d drive me to places, new places, changed landscapes. We watched the world remake itself in flora. When the algae reached up out of the North Sea in vast fingers, glittering, bejewelled with fat clams, he took me to see it. And he took me to the woods when the bluebells had melted into a slick that was as warm as butter in the sun. I took off my shoes – shoes still fit me, back then – and rolled up my trousers, and paddled; my feet soaked up the blue and bore the colour for weeks afterwards. Eventually, it faded. As did my ability to think of such moments without feeling cheated.
Cheated that all I would ever have were disconnected moments, dreamlike, between the duties I had to perform. I began to realise that Stanislav could not help me with the burden I carried. He was not my real father. That had not mattered before, but as I sucked out more and more of the poison I felt less and less like a person myself. And to call him father became akin to listening to the Good News Network on the radio. It only made me think of everything that was not good and was no longer being said out loud.
“Tell me some bad news,” I say to him. I squeeze his hand in mine.
“You’re very ill. You should rest.”
“No, tell me real bad news. The stuff out there. The stuff we’re no longer allowed to know. War. Oppression. Something real.”
“It’s not a case of not being allowed to know it,” he says, and he takes his hand away. I can tell from his tone that I’m getting under his skin. “I have tried to explain how all this works, if you’d ever wanted to listen.”
“So explain. Explain the baby I just saved. How much of his life does the Red Gathering now own? Was it a better deal than the Blue Collective? What’s the going rate for a cure?”
“Once the baby grows up, he’ll work for the Gathering for at least thirty years, I’d imagine. What does that matter, Hope, when your cure has probably extended his life by at least that amount? Would you rather we still dealt in money? That his mother could never afford such a price, so watched him die? Trading in time means he’s rich. He has time. Because of you. And they’ll find him the right jobs and give him a good education for those roles. He’ll get asked what he wants to do.”
“Like you were asked?”
“Yes.”
“And you chose to work here, with me? You still choose it?”
“Yes,” he says, and then his face contorts, and he walks away from me. I listen to his footsteps. The door slams.
Now we’re not arguing, I can hear the singing outside in the street. The crowd are singing the prayer.
“Hello?” I call out. I don’t want to be alone.
The student replies; it sounds like she’s standing close by but I can’t see her over the lip of the hammock. “It’s for you,” she says. “The people are gathering. The word is that you’re dying and they want to sing you to a peaceful rest.”
“Bad news,” I whisper. “Bad news that they want to turn into good.”
She doesn’t reply.
* * *
The more I lie here thinking about it, the more I can appreciate that Stanislav is right. I don’t understand this world and I haven’t made much of an effort to. I didn’t vote in the last three elections even though he offered to drive me there. The difference between the organisations and the lives they offer with their trades has never been clear to me. Why is the Red Gathering better than the Blue Collective? They promise variations on a theme of happiness, but the tune remains the same. And the people sing it, because the future has become their religion and politics their church.
At least, I think that’s true of the people I get to meet, who have already agreed the trade and signed away their years. There must be others who choose not to work for any organisation at all; they are not swayed by the living space, the work, the healthcare benefits. Living wild somewhere. Living and dying very fast in the remnants of the old world.
The driver will take me to one of these communities. I want to see it, to see what humans are like underneath the trades and treatments. Is it better than the apartment blocks or Undergrowths? What is life like without this form?
* * *
I dream of Assembly Island.
It’s one of those hot, hallucinatory dreams, where everything is vivid and verdant. The plants grow through the plastic upon which I stand, and then through me. Inside the skin on the soles of my feet and then snaking through my veins, up, up, up, to blossom in my lungs and force out flowers through my nostrils. What a sweet smell. The smell of my own sweat, I realise, when I wake; I am creating this wet, pungent aroma.
My scarf is too itchy around my neck to bear. I take it off and d
rop it over the side of the hammock. The skin around my collarbones has taken on a waxy, crinkling quality. It rustles when I run my hand over it, but at least it is painless.
I try to raise my head, but it is too heavy. I moan. The student comes close to me, leaning over the hammock so I can see her beautiful face.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“It’s late morning. You’ve slept right through the night. We didn’t want to try to move you to the bedroom.”
“Can you call your family?”
She frowns at me. “I’m not due another call for weeks.”
“No, that will be too late. Get Stanislav to give you permission. Is he here? Stanislav!”
“Shush,” she says, wearily. “He’s not here. And I don’t need his permission. They’re just not expecting my call right now. They’ll be sleeping. It’s the night, there.”
“Oh. Couldn’t you… wake them up?”
“Why?”
What should I say? Can I tell her that I’ve woken from this dream to the certainty that the crowd are right, and I am dying? Would she even understand that when I watch her with her family I feel included? “It’s all right. Never mind.”
She blinks, once, twice. She’s mustering the courage to speak. Eventually, she says, “Listen. I have an idea of how we can make you more comfortable. Let me take some of your sickness. Your burden. I’ll lift it from you. I know how to do it. I’ve watched you so many times.”
“No.”
“You’re suffering. I can do this. Just a little, if you would like.”
“No!”
She lifts up her fists; for a moment I think she’s going to hit me. “I swear,” she says. “I swear, you are the most stubborn, stupid—”
“Not ever.”
“Fine.” She drops her hands. “Fine.” We stare at each other in the silence.
Silence. The singing has stopped.
“The crowd. I can’t hear them.”
“They decided not to waste their breath on you anymore.”
I try to lean over in my hammock, to see out of the window, but I can’t get a view of the street below and I feel my balance tipping; I fall – no, she grabs me – and pulls me back to a stable position. Then she says, “I’ll get the laptop. My mother might be awake. She doesn’t sleep well.”
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “She saw too much, I think. Too much of the war, the plastic plague. When you see things like that, they become part of you, and then they’re inside and they never come out. Do you want to say hello to her, is that what you want? If she answers?”
“No. I just want to watch.”
So, she fetches the laptop and stands beside me as she calls. Her mother’s face fills the screen. How old she looks; she has so little time left to trade. But she bathes in the light of the screen and the sight of her daughter, and then she looks – not younger, just happier. Youth and happiness are not the same thing.
* * *
How much time has passed?
Stanislav is close. I know it. I’ve spent hours drifting in and out of dreams, and now I find the world outside the window is darkening once more and I can tell that Stanislav is here. I call his name.
“Hi.” He comes to me and holds the edge of the hammock, swinging me gently.
“What happened to the singers?”
“I thought you didn’t like it?”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“No,” he muses. “No, you didn’t. I suppose I assumed it. I organised a service at the new eruption. It’s very fruitful. I set it up as a thanksgiving and a memorial event, for you.”
“They think I’m already dead?”
“You very nearly are,” he says. “You wanted bad news, so there you go. You’ve moved from very ill to dying.”
“How come you’re so sure?”
He keeps rocking the hammock, and the gentle motion is soothing. “Because everyone else who was found along with you on Assembly Island – all of that generation of plastic eaters – went through this. They reached a point where their bodies could no longer process the disease. And they all died. You’re the last of that generation.”
“I’m the last,” I repeat. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“What difference would it have made?”
I really am dying. I thought so.
I’m dying.
I feel – I don’t know what I feel. I should feel something.
“I could tell you that we have found many more, like Arama, to take over your work. Plastic eaters are being discovered all over the world, now. The worse the pollution, the more babies are born with this blessing. Perhaps they’re the salvation of our species, what do you think? Or if you prefer it, I could tell you again about the good you’ve done. But telling you that is the reason you threw me out in the first place, isn’t it?”
“Don’t ruin it,” I tell him. “Don’t turn bad news into good.”
“Then how about the worst news? Would you like that?”
“The worst news?” I try to nod but my head is rigid, my neck too stiff to bend.
Stanislav says, his eyes fixed on mine, “You cannot appreciate what you’ve done for others because you’ve done it. The more people you saved, the more poison you ate. The more poison you ate, the more it changed you. Not just your body – your mind. You didn’t start out angry and disbelieving. You were a trusting child, a happy one, when you were found on that island. You don’t remember it, I know. Eating the cancer robbed you of the person that you were.”
I wonder if that’s true.
I wonder if this is, in fact, a good world. An improving one. One that I’ve helped to make better.
“You think that’s bad news?” I ask him.
“I think it’s the worst news I could ever give you. Because it means you’re wrong about it all. About everything. Now, shall I get some of the singers to come back?”
I can’t shake my head anymore. “You sing.”
He always had such a wonderful voice. He puts a hand on the top of my head and sings me into peace. I can feel him willing me to let go of my life. He is wishing me towards a happy death, but I’m not going yet. I will hang on for tonight.
The driver promised me he would come.
* * *
I wake, and the driver is standing over me. For a moment I see his unguarded expression: his disgust at my body, his pity at my fate. Then he realises I’m awake and smiles, and says, “I’m here. Where do you want to go?”
I’m going nowhere. I’m cold, and hard, and so heavy. It’s all I can do to say, “Look. My room. Under the bed.”
“I’ll fetch it,” says the student. So, she is close by. Good. I listen to her footsteps, going and returning. She comes to stand beside the driver and she is holding the small wooden box that I have kept under my bed since my arrival in New Foreston.
“Open it,” I tell her.
She lifts the lid. Inside is a collection of shiny objects that, once upon a time, would have been worth a lot more than the cost of one drive. Over the years I’ve been given so many of these things by the people I’ve saved, because it’s hard to let go of the idea that they are worth something. Coins. Jewellery. Silver. Gold.
Now I understand that when you have nothing valuable left to sell, you’ll try to sell anything else. Even worthless things.
“Take it,” I tell the driver.
He shrugs, and takes the box from the student, flipping the lid shut. “But I already said I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Not me. Her.” I can’t raise my hand to point at her, but I manage to flick my eyes in her direction. “Take her home.”
“Home?” says the driver, and the student says, “Brazil?” at the same time, and then says, “No, no, she’s out of her mind, leave her, leave her.”
I hear Stanislav, calling to the driver, “Come here, come over here.” And the driver walks away from me.
“I don’t want to go home,” s
ays the student.
“You don’t have to do this job. To be like me.”
“I want to do it. I want to help people. Haven’t you understood that? I wasn’t made to come here, to sign up to the Red Gathering. I signed the deal knowing what it was. I want it. I want this life. To stay home and do nothing when so many people need help – that would be so selfish.”
“You should be selfish.”
“No! If I end up looking like you it will have been a good life. Don’t you understand? You’ve had a good life!”
I’m so tired. I can’t argue with her anymore and she is so desperate that I should agree with her on the value of my life, my actions. I lay down my resistance and tell her what she has always wanted to hear from me. “Okay. Yes. I have had a good life. You will too. You will do a good job, Arama.”
She breathes out, long and low. How sweet, and young, and ripe she is. Like new fruit. “Finally,” she says. “Finally, I have managed to teach you something.”
STAR IN THE SPIRE
Sammie snatches up her rucksack in the first moment of wakefulness. She decides whether to stay or run in the breath of instinct. Staying wins out.
She was certain something rustled. But beyond the willowy-tree, nothing moves.
Of course nothing moves.
Perhaps it was only a sound that crossed over from her dream, a particular and deep one in which dead monsters came for her and pushed her down in the dirt with their teeth and claws and faces: grumblers and whiners. Sounds buried within from her past – will they return? They used to call at night. She dreads it and wants it.
She relaxes a little, shakes her head. She runs her fingers through the knots of her hair. Still no sound apart from the thin trickle of water and the wind, so she stands, stretches, and decides against washing in the stream. Instead, she takes her flask from the rucksack and swallows a mouthful of water. She pulls up her skirts and urinates on the ground, close to the trunk. Perhaps it will do the roots some good. Then she parts the brown, curling curtain of the willowy-tree and steps outside.
From the Neck Up and Other Stories Page 17