by Rebecca Ley
The room laughed.
The dress Gloria bought from my grandmother was a shiny slip of a thing; and if that was a fish, then this was the pond. I saw Gloria, wearing a different dress from the last dinner that my grandmother had painstakingly worked on. I had stitched the hem, and checked the beading, thinking each of these dresses were for an elaborate occasion no doubt in the presence of Mrs P. But they were for parties. They were there to make sure she fitted in with the other women, whose beading also resembled fish scales, whose slippery materials also shone like the glint in the pond. And there I was – in the midst of it, everyone slipping past each other – the silt at the bottom.
But as the evening wore on and I stopped drinking champagne and everyone else carried on, I noticed the fish were garish, too. They left lipstick marks on all the glasses, they spilled red liquid on Gloria’s rug, they sung out of tune to the discord of the record player, they even tore the linen tablecloth, starched white; the whitest thing I’d ever seen. I touched it; I watched as a woman tore through its edging with her stiletto heel. I saw her come off balance, laugh, and trot off to her partner, new glass in hand, with the beat of a cat.
Then there was George, who steadily continued to drink, his breath becoming denser, and his touches firmer. It was subtle, until the food came out and he grabbed my elbow and kissed me in front of the whole room. I heard a whistle from the corner and I tore my head away in embarrassment.
He laughed and kissed my forehead. ‘This will be better than the fish paste from last time,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait for you to try it. Gloria knows her stuff.’
I wondered how Gloria knowing food meant that she was in possession of it, but I didn’t ask him. Everything was wheeled out on trolleys with big silver trays and pots, and as they were uncovered, one by one, I stared at the items. I waited for them to introduce themselves like they were guests at the party, but they lay there and people piled the food onto their plates and I only stood beside him, waiting.
He was distracted by someone calling him over to the other side of the room, and of all the things that overwhelmed me at the party, this was the most significant. I felt a childish sense of abandonment stood in front of the banquet, as people pushed past me.
I wanted to say, out loud, that I’d never seen so much colour and that it was almost unappetising. I wanted, desperately, to tell my mother: There’s blue food! And yellow, and something that looks like the plush skin of a strawberry. I wanted to prick it, watch it ooze out of itself.
It was Jaminder in the end who dragged me forwards, as I remembered her talking about the cake. And I saw it, sticky and oozing. People were grabbing slices, their faces luxuriating under the weight of the tiny forks in their mouths. But she hadn’t touched it.
I gathered a slice for myself and picked up a tiny fork, the likes of which didn’t look very useful, and I stood next to her. She didn’t notice me. I took a bite.
‘Bees,’ I said, prompting her to look at me.
She sighed. ‘His idea of a little paradise. Mr Beekeeper.’
‘It tastes like my childhood,’ I said. ‘Honey.’
‘My grandmother used to put it in hot water for me with lemon. Lemon!’ Her eyes searched the table. ‘I’m sure I saw some lemon something here.’
The honey cake was even sweeter than the peaches. It was something else. It was my mother telling me to wash my hands before dinner, it was her laugh on the shady grass in the French countryside surrounded by lavender, it was the way she cut baguette into thick slices, it was her pulling her hair away from her face, it was her voice telling me not to worry, tout est bien qui finit bien, it was a teaspoon in summer to stave off hay fever. It was a time before.
‘Don’t be sad, sweet girl,’ Jaminder said, but she was the one who looked sad, looking at my face.
‘How did he get them? Where do they get all this stuff?’
‘The bees?’ she said, surprised. ‘Well, where do you think? A little money can get you anything. They have contacts. If anyone can get things, they can.’ She pointed across the room.
‘They can?’
‘Of course. You know what you’re looking at, don’t you?’
I looked. I didn’t, I couldn’t be sure. I hadn’t wanted to know.
‘You’re looking at the wonderful Ministry of Environmental Affairs, amongst others. They’re Mrs P’s bloody cabinet, the lot of them. Most of them were tied up in the old way of things, and that still holds a certain sway behind closed doors. Of course he has bees, he can get everything. He’s the secretary of state.’
‘What old way of things?’
Her eyes narrowed as she assessed my face. ‘A generation back. They were given sanctuary, paid off. The people had to be appeased but it couldn’t have been a thing like France. All guillotines and storming of the Bastille.’ She looked at me pointedly. ‘Loose ties, you see. I don’t mean, in line for the throne, apart from that one,’ she pointed at a Minister across the room, ‘he might have been number forty-three, or something. Apart from that, they were only loosely connected. But it all had to go, didn’t it? So most of them were given a title or another that mattered, ushered into a place of power quietly. While the King and all his lot left for Norway or Denmark or whatever it was.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’ But I did know something of that upheaval. Well underway by the time I was born, it took years for the transition from Constitutional Monarchy to Republic. The truth was, it scared us, even the French. It was always the thing people talked about. Evidence that something had really changed. When supplies started to dwindle and the crisis spread, just before the blackout, there was no place for a family, a whole network of people, to reside in palaces that were redecorated with money that could now be spent only on resources. The image of the King renouncing his throne before he was forcibly removed became the symbol of the new era. Opulence was gone along with luxury. Stability for its own sake, power. No King, no promise of history. We were equalised, and the French leapt from one broken Republic to another.
Jaminder laughed. ‘They’re going to save us all. Especially George with all his projects: the bees, the farming. They’re going to bring food back, bring the bees back, reverse all the damage that’s been done. Change our little climate. Change the moon and stars. Maybe after all that, one of them will be crowned.’ She laughed and waved her fork in the air and looked towards the ceiling.
‘Really?’ I said.
‘Of course bloody not,’ she said. ‘That’s why they’re all here, getting pissed off their heads and eating anything that’s left. They know the state we’re in.’
‘But there must be a chance, with all this food? That must mean something?’
I found his face across the room, I looked in it. I saw something magical, the goodness of hope; the idea that he’d try to save our little spot on the world.
‘It’s done.’ Jaminder said.
I looked back at him, the joy on his face. I couldn’t see through it.
‘He has his little projects. A hive off the coast, and the rest. Offshore investments. Fingers in all the pies.’ She watched my reaction as she said the words, her eyes narrowed.
I imagined his large fingers with his thick nails, submerged through crust into sticky compote.
‘And every country he finds useful,’ she said, eyeing me up again. ‘Maybe even France.’
‘I doubt that. What use is France to anyone now?’
‘Strategic, maybe. Were you here before the blackout, or still over there?’ She shook her head, ‘No, you look just about too young.’
‘We came afterwards, as part of the recruitment drive by Mrs P.’
‘Oh yes, one of Auntie’s little schemes,’ she said, sarcastically.
I stopped, looking at her face, wanting to ask, but never being sure that the English wanted to remember, just like we didn’t. ‘What was it like?’
Jaminder laughed. ‘Your country was crushed by civil war, bombing, massacres, and drou
ght. I heard Notre Dame was one of the first things to be blitzed.’ She looked at my face for a reaction. ‘And you’re asking me what it was like?’
‘Yes,’ I said, quietly.
She looked away from me and out the window. ‘My grandparents were killed in the protests. My grandmother left wearing a red scarf, and my grandfather gave me the keys to his car, and never came back,’ she said, stopping to look at me, knowing I too remembered glimpses like these and held them to me when things were bad. ‘We knew food was scarce, and the storms were everywhere. But you still had power didn’t you? When the protests started, you could still turn on a light?’
‘I don’t really remember,’ I said. ‘We got out early. It happened later for us.’
‘We were one of the first to go. One evening, bam,’ she clicked her fingers. ‘No power. Nothing. Only darkness.’ She shook her head. ‘There were no warnings. They said fuel was running out, but they didn’t say it was going to run out today. It’s a bit like death isn’t it? We knew it was coming, we just didn’t think it would come so soon. We didn’t think it would ever really arrive.’ She looked at me, opening and closing her mouth, taking in a breath that lifted her shoulders. ‘Months went by like that; protests, riots, famine. A whole mechanised industry ground to a halt. Eventually the energy companies stepped up the renewable stuff but it was only enough for the odd hour here and there. Only enough for the very rich. Not much different from now.’
‘But it’s better now,’ I said. ‘That’s why we came here. Because of Mrs P.’
Jaminder smiled at me, but out of pity, rather than affection. ‘“England Isn’t Eating”, that’s all we heard for months. I’d lost my family, you know. I knew the same as anyone that we were starving.’
‘And now England Is Eating,’ I said, looking at the cake.
‘In a sense,’ she said. ‘But at what cost? You can’t force farmers to give up crops for no money, and you can’t force women to have children they don’t want and can’t feed because of warped family values.’
‘But the farmers are the ones holding the country to ransom,’ I said. ‘You can’t have a group of people making the country starve.’
She laughed at me, and I felt a fool, for repeating what I was told by other people. ‘They’re the ones who are starving. They’re the ones with nothing. Look at us,’ she said. ‘It’s like the last days of Rome in here.’
I looked across the room, I tried to find George in my eyeline, and search for some answer there. ‘It’s different here,’ I said, ‘Like the rules don’t apply. Even to the women.’
‘Maybe they don’t.’ Jaminder shrugged.
‘I had a friend who died for that policy, you know.’
‘We’ve all had someone like that. In a protest?’
‘No, childbirth. She was eighteen and got sepsis. Nothing they could do.’ I looked at her, and she gave me a nod.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said.
‘But they’re helping aren’t they? They’re trying to make it better.’ I gestured towards a group of men in the corner.
‘Do you think if it was the other way round, that they’d put their necks on the line? That’s not what they’re doing.’ She looked at me pityingly, almost held a hand out to my shoulder, and then retracted it. ‘God, you’re so young. But we’re still in the dark. It’s not like what they’re doing will save all this.’
‘Then why?’ I put down my cake.
‘What do you think? You wouldn’t do the same?’ She gestured to my plate. ‘It’s not some altruistic deed. He just wanted to taste honey again.’ She tried to smile, but it seemed that she couldn’t. She shrugged her shoulders, exasperated. ‘That’s all.’
‘How did you make it through the blackout?’ I said. ‘You must have been very young.’
She looked at me, and down at the cake that I had left discarded on the table. ‘I came back from the dead,’ she said. ‘Didn’t everyone?’
People filtered out of the house as the evening of the party wore on, so drunk they smacked against the door frames and tripped over the gravel outside as they left. Gloria vomited in her guest toilet, and Gwendolyn stood outside, rapping on the door. ‘Are you sick Gloria? Are you all right?’
Her voice moaned out from behind the solid wood. ‘Quite fine, Wendy Darling. Fine. It just keeps happening, doesn’t it.’
Gwendolyn turned around when she saw me, and smiled at me. ‘She eats too much. She’s sick,’ she made a swirling circular motion with her hand. ‘She eats too much, she’s sick.’ Her pink pout was still perfectly intact, and I wondered if she’d had a drop of food or a drink the entire evening.
‘Are you going to look after her?’ I said, wondering if I should linger and help.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m done with my date for the evening, I suppose.’
Gloria shouted from behind the door, in-between retching noises. ‘Yes, Wendy Darling, stay. The Lost Boys can do without you for one night.’
She smiled at me and shrugged. ‘She likes having me around I suppose, a friendly face at the end of the night.’
I smiled at her. ‘You’re a good friend,’ I said, as I started to hear a tinkering of notes coming from the drawing room.
‘And you?’ she said, looking me up and down, ‘How are you enjoying yourself here?’
I laughed in defence of myself. ‘It’s another world.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We get a free pass here. Away from all that population crap.’
‘You don’t have children?’ I said, wondering if this was the wrong thing to be asking.
‘God, no,’ she said. ‘What would I have one for? It’s cruel isn’t it? A very specific type of cruelty. To impose children on people who can’t feed them.’
‘They’ll hear you!’ Gloria shouted, a laughing gurgle coming through the door.
Gwendolyn looked towards it and laughed. ‘Let them.’
‘Do you know then,’ I said, ‘why they all think it’s such a good idea?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, her hand pressed against the closed door. ‘It just wouldn’t do to be another country that dwindles away to nothing. To run out of farmers, and food. It just wouldn’t do.’
‘Gwendolyn,’ I said, taking a step towards her, wanting to say something to her but not able to find the words that would give it a form.
‘Don’t fly away!’ Gloria shouted, and Gwendolyn laughed, turned towards the door, her hand on the handle, ready to turn.
‘I’m coming in now, you fool,’ she said.
I followed the noise back into the room, now a mess, stains littering the carpet, leftover food spilling out of corners. Jaminder was sitting at her piano and I went towards her. ‘What will they do with it all? The leftovers?’
‘Government waste,’ she snorted. She passed her hand along its top and moved along the stool. She looked at me. ‘Come sit with me.’
I went and placed myself beside her on the stool. ‘Will you play?’ I asked her.
She lit a cigarette and took a few drags, before setting it in her mouth. She started to play the keys. The panoply that emanated from the piano cut inside me. I wanted to remember it in times of isolation; that even though I may not always hear it, I will know it’s there.
I watched her fingers move effortlessly across the black and white surface, as if each was their own person, their own identity, independent of each other. She touched the keys lightly at first, and then more firmly. The music grew melancholy, almost menacing, and I felt it reach out and touch me, warn me, tell me.
At least, that’s how I remember it.
‘It’s wonderful,’ I said as she stopped for a drag of her cigarette.
‘It’s a party trick.’
‘No,’ I said, to convince her. ‘It’s something. It’s better than all that food, and all those people. It’s really something.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you, Mademoiselle.’
I touched the keys lightly, so they didn’t make a sound. I fingered
the black keys and their edges, pressing so softly no noise escaped them. ‘I’m going to ask him about the bees.’
She shrugged. ‘If you like.’ She took another drag. ‘Are you sleeping together?’ She exhaled.
I put my hands in my lap. I didn’t look at her. ‘No.’
She started to play, quietly, a few notes, a twinkle. ‘You can, you know. There are ways. To stop anything unwanted happening.’
I don’t suppose someone like him would’ve thought about it, but I’d had other men. We all had, there were always ways, methods that were frowned upon, but they weren’t illegal. They just didn’t always work.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But it’s risky.’
‘No, there are real things.’ A few more notes. ‘Pills you can take. Injections. You wouldn’t ever have to worry.’
‘That’s illegal,’ I said. ‘That is too risky.’
‘Risk is a judgment,’ she said, putting out her cigarette in a dish on the piano. ‘Everyone does it. Me; Gwendolyn as much as she likes.’
‘You?’
‘Oh, I dabble. Geoffrey, the Minister for Transport. As you know, the underground is dying along with the rest of it, so you can imagine how glamorous a job that is. How glamorous he is.’
‘Do you love him?’ I willed her to start playing the keys again, but she only hovered over them.
She laughed. ‘God, no. He’s a way to scratch an itch. They’re mostly awful, aren’t they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, not your one,’ she said, mocking me. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care to ask. ‘But why else come here then? If not for all that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. But I did. To be free; for freedom. The funny thing about freedom is the many forms it takes. There was a freedom from one thing which may not give you a freedom from something else. Complete freedom is an absolute, and therefore imaginary. I didn’t know that then. But I think Jaminder did, all the same, and I think that’s why she chose hers so carefully.