by Paul Magrs
I couldn’t shake this ghastly thought. It went whirling on and on round my head.
‘My parents were very impressed by you,’ Tillian told me, during one visit.
‘I can’t see why,’ I frowned.
‘They’re very grateful to you, actually,’ said Tillian, in her refined City accent. ‘For looking after Al and seeing that he has turned out to be such a fine young man. You must take the credit, you know. He tells me he was a wild ragamuffin at one time. I believe you are responsible for taming your brother. And so I thank you, too.’
‘I can’t take any credit for how Al’s turned out. He’s his own man.’
Yes, I thought. He’s a young man, now. He was taller and smarter, but also more calm and thoughtful. Nothing like the endlessly questioning and cross little boy I once knew. He seemed alien to me. I no longer knew what was going on behind those quicksilver, sparkling eyes.
During Tillian’s visit that morning there was a funny thing with Toaster. The sunbed was in a flustered mood when he brought in our mid-morning tea. When I asked what the matter was, he was evasive.
Then there was a knock at the door and it was two repairmen, who showed me their identification badges and told me they had come to collect Toaster.
‘Collect him?’
‘His memory circuits, miss. When he filled out his evaluation form he complained that we hadn’t been able to do them much good during his recent refurb.’
Toaster appeared at my elbow. ‘That’s right. I’m here. I’m ready.’
They were taking him away again. When I watched him gathering his few necessary things, I felt a clutch of fear.
‘It’s all right, Lora. They did a good job on me before, didn’t they?’
Al appeared, dressed for going out with his girlfriend. ‘Oh, Toaster. Are you off?’
So he knew about this!
‘Now,’ Toaster said. ‘I won’t be gone for long, Lora. I’ve made these gentlemen promise to return me home on Christmas Eve at the very latest. Don’t fret! I shall be here to cook your dinner for you on the big day!’
It wasn’t that. It wasn’t as a servant that Toaster was important, and I hoped he knew that. He looked at me earnestly and said softly, ‘Imagine if they can reboot my whole memory? What then? We shall know everything then, won’t we?’
I nodded and tried to smile. Then the two repairmen took him away.
Al and Tillian thought nothing of it. They were soon ready to go out themselves. Today Tillian was going to take my brother to Eliot District, where the most wonderful stores were to be found.
‘Are you sure you won’t come, Lora?’
I told them I had things to do in the apartment.
Once they were gone, I went straight to my room and opened the little door in my bedside cabinet. The box was waiting there, just as it had since our night at the Graveleys’.
I put it on my knee and tugged the pink satin ribbon free. It felt heavy enough, as if it had a hard-backed book inside, or a whole ream of computer paper. When I opened the lid, I saw that it did. Inside a wrapper of frayed grey silk there was a stack of perhaps five hundred pages. Five hundred very clean, white pages of paper.
They were all blank.
My heart rate went sky high as I leafed through, faster and faster. Why would Tillian bring us this? What was she playing at? Each page was attached to the next by little perforations. The whole lot flew out of the box and concertinaed around me.
Nothing. Nothing. The box of secrets had nothing whatsoever inside.
Except. On the very last page. In the smallest possible type, there was this:
536 / Appt D
Bolingbroke District
900044 NNVX
‘It’s an address,’ Peter told me.
‘Well, I can see that,’ I snapped.
He looked at me, hair falling into his eyes. I’d hurt his feelings with my brusqueness. I ploughed on. ‘Can you find it? Can you help me get there?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Easily. Actually, it’s not too far from the park and the Den. You’ve been quite near the place yourself.’
‘I have?’
My palms were sweating against the greasy oilcloth of our café table. We were having frothy coffee at a stall quite close to Peter’s busking spot. After I opened the box and found the address in that heap of computer paper, I knew I had to go straight to the Downstairs Market.
I’d been so relieved to see Peter standing there, playing one of the old tunes on his harp. Folk were buying papers and walking by him, tossing him coins, as he concentrated on drawing that golden music out of the strings. Christmassy music now, of course. Pure. It bubbled over everyone’s heads and drew me to him with my scrap of paper with the address on it. The address that had come out of the archive when Al had punched in Grandma’s name.
Sure, there were thirty-two women of that name on the list. Why was I so keen on finding a namesake, or even a distant relative?
Now we were in the smoky café drinking coffee together, I realised that I’d neglected Peter for a few days. He casually suggested I was keeping my distance since I’d learned he lived somewhere as grotty as the Den.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Not at all! You must never think that.’
He nodded. I looked at Karl, who was bundled up on the bench in Peter’s coat. The twisted cat-dog was trembling worse than ever, but his tongue was pink and he shuffled forward to be petted by me. Whatever was wrong with him seemed to be getting worse, I thought. Karl wagged his stumpy tail harder, but couldn’t manage to jump up at me.
The waitress brought us coffee refills and slipped the cat-dog a tough biscuit to chew. Karl poked it with his dry nose, but didn’t eat it.
‘It’s just a touch of cold he’s got,’ Peter told me. ‘It’s since the weather’s been worse. It’s kind of damp in the Den.’
I thought about the dinginess of the place they lived. I still didn’t understand why they had to live there.
‘We could go to this place this afternoon if you like,’ Peter said. He flicked at the paper with the address on.
‘Not yet. I’ve another appointment today,’ I said nervously. ‘At the university.’
38
Dean Swiftnick didn’t seem to be in a great mood. He was grumbling from the minute I first saw him.
‘You’d think they’d be more interested,’ he was saying when I walked into his book-lined office. ‘After all, they chose to do this course and they paid for it. Can you believe that? Out of the whole group only three had finished the set text and none of them could say they actually enjoyed reading it.’ He was waving what looked like a very old soft-back book at me.
The room smelled of books. It was like a blend of fallen leaves, vanilla extract and stewed tea. And tobacco, too, for Dean Swiftnick was smoking a pipe that had, over years perhaps, turned his hair and beard yellowish.
‘What was the book?’ I asked. He blinked at me owlishly and tossed the very delicate article to me. An actual book! It was called Our Astounding Voyage to Mars by G.E Watson. A subtitle ran: ‘How Earth Insiders Invaded the Red Planet’. I had never even heard of it, but I coveted it at once.
Dean Swiftnick sat down heavily at his messy wooden desk. ‘How I wish I was reading Mr Watson’s firsthand account for the first time like my lucky students ought to be, and not for the twenty-ninth. I think I am growing just a tad jaded…’ He plucked off his spectacles and rubbed his red eyes with dirty cuffs. Then he glared at me. ‘Am I expecting you, young lady? Do we have an appointment?’
I hugged the book to me, wondering if the old professor would notice if I slipped it into my shopping basket for later perusal. I was in my bonnet, clutching a basket, duster coat over my dress. I knew I looked like a girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes, or perhaps the cleaner come to deal with the impossible task of tidying this office.
But I had been invited. I was supposed to be there, in the Department of True Life Stories. I told him so.
The Dean’s e
yes widened and he came scuttling around his desk to grasp both my hands in his own. ‘Oh, you’re here! You are here!’ He beamed at me. ‘You found us all right, then?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said as, with a showman’s flourish, he pulled out a chair for me.
Peter had shown me the way. The University of the City Inside sprawled within the square mile of Ruskin District. There were a bewildering array of orange-bricked edifices, surrounding the verdigrised dome of the Central Library and Royal Planetarium. Peter had surprised me by confiding that several years ago he had begun a degree in the very department where Dean Swiftnick taught. But he had been thrown out for reasons he didn’t go into, one term short of completing his qualification in True Life Stories.
‘Ah, it was all just gobbledegook and bunkum,’ he said, as he led me through the dark warren of streets. We had to squeeze past crowds of begging students. ‘It was much too theoretical. It had hardly anything to do with real or true life. And yes, I remember old Dean Swiftnick!’
It seemed that being close to the university and talking about his days there put Peter in a very odd mood. Like he was going back to a part of his life that he’d rather forget about.
For me, I was amazed to be there. In that ‘august seat of learning’ – which was the kind of thing they used to say in the novels I’d read. I didn’t mind the dirt and slime in the alleyways, or the coughing and sickness of the students all around me, or the shouts that rang out as we went by. All I knew was that one of the esteemed professors up in those towers, in one of those hidden offices, wanted to hear all about my True Life Story. Through him, my life was about to go down in the records. It would become a part of History.
Even though Peter had looked sceptical about the whole visit, he led me into the reception of the True Life Stories Department and saw that I was taken to the right place. ‘I’ll wait in the little quadrangle outside,’ he’d said. He had Karl bundled up in his arms. Karl was trembling harder than ever. I couldn’t help thinking Peter should have left him home at the Den today, damp though it might be.
I came out of my reverie with a jump, realising that Dean Swiftnick was talking to me. He was leaning earnestly towards me. His voice sounded so kind.
‘There will be consent and copyright forms, of course, and then other things to fill in, to do with insurance and indemnity, liability and so on. Naturally! And then evaluation sheets to complete. But I’m sure that we can cope with all of these in due course. The main, important thing, my dear Lora Robinson is, that you are ready to pass on the tale of your most fascinating and, may I even say, historically significant life?’
I smiled at him. ‘Yes, I am.’
I imagined he would transcribe what I had to say, very carefully. In fact, I had even started rehearsing in my mind how it would be. In my basket I’d brought the sheets of paper with my scribbled-down notes. My writings began with the very day that the storms came to devastate Da’s crops in the last year of our Homestead life on the prairie. They told my tale in scattershot fashion all the way up to the night that Al and me had dinner with Tillian Graveley’s snooty parents.
I was sure that, no matter how roughly written these notes were, and how ill-educated they showed me to be, they would surely be of interest to the Dean, in whose study I was starting to feel so comfortable.
Once I finished explaining about the notes I’d made, he put down his cup of tea with a loud clunk. ‘Good heavens, no.’
‘No?’ I gasped. I put down my own tea that he’d poured for me. It had nasty bits in it.
He chuckled. ‘Do you really think, my dear, that a person such as I have time to go picking through the illiterate, hand-written memoirs of a girl like you? A girl from the wilderness?’
‘B-but,’ I said. ‘I thought you were interested in my life?’
‘Indeed I am,’ he said, standing up and fiddling with his collar and cravat. ‘As an example, or a type. An historical phenomenon. But that doesn’t mean that I would find any great value in your written outpourings and the things you saw fit to scrawl down. Or, God forbid, your feelings. Oh no, indeed. I need a much more objective and scientific methodology.’
‘Methodology?’ I asked.
The next thing I knew I was being led out of that cosily bookish room, back into the institutional corridor. Shifty-looking academics in gowns and hollow-eyed students slouched about on missions of their own. Each of them acknowledged the Dean respectfully with heads lowered as he bumbled past. He had me by the hand and was digging his ink-stained nails into the flesh of my palm. I was too amazed by everything to protest.
Then we were out of the building and crossing the grassy quad. It was chillier now and pinkish snow was starting to tumble out of the sky.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Where all the equipment is kept,’ he said, and his voice was a whole lot less genial away from his office. His grip was vice-like.
‘Dean Swiftnick,’ said a familiar and very welcome voice. ‘How nice to see you again.’
I looked up in relief to see Peter standing there with Karl in his arms.
‘Do I know you?’ snapped the academic, trying to shove past.
‘A few years ago, you had me thrown out of your department,’ Peter said. ‘Remember? I was once one of your most promising students.’
The Dean looked up into Peter’s handsome face and scowled. ‘Oh yes. Caused quite a disgrace, as I recall. We had to report you to the Authorities.’
‘I was glad to leave this dump. Now I want to know what you’re doing to my friend.’
Dean Swiftnick darted a glance at me. ‘You’re her friend, are you?’
‘She said you invited her to help with your research.’
He sighed. ‘Well, yes. In a manner of speaking.’ He looked about, obviously uncomfortable at being outside, beyond the protection of the departmental security guards. ‘Look, can we have this conversation inside? I’m taking her to the Remembering Room…’
Peter came with us across the quadrangle. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, sidling close. I told him yes, but really I wished that I could change my mind and just leave.
At the glass entrance to the new building Dean Swiftnick turned on Peter. ‘Things have changed since you were here. This is a highly scientific sterile premises.’
Peter shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So you must leave that … animal tied up outside the main entrance. That is the rule.’
Peter hugged Karl to his chest. ‘He’s not well.’
‘He’s a dog,’ snapped the Dean.
‘No, he’s not,’ said Peter in a reasonable tone. ‘Though he’s not a cat either, mind. We aren’t exactly sure what Karl is, but I’m all he’s got. And I don’t think I want to leave him out here.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said the Dean. ‘Then the pair of you ambiguous creatures must remain outside whilst I take Lora into the Remembering Room.’
I wasn’t at all happy about the way this man was telling us all what to do. I decided to speak up. ‘Look, forget this. I’m going home. I don’t even want you to have my story any more…’
His face turned livid and he seized my arm. ‘You will do as you are commanded, young woman!’
‘Oh yeah?’ I shouted. ‘How are you gonna make me do that?’
We were drawing the attention of several hungry-looking students.
Dean Swiftnick licked his lips like he could taste something absolutely delicious. ‘I know who has your Servo-Furnishing. Your treasured sunbed. I could make them wipe his memory and identity completely clean…’ He snapped his fingers loudly. ‘Just like that.’
‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who has him?’
‘We do,’ he snarled. ‘This university. We took him away from under your nose. His buried recollections are even more important than your own, young woman.’
‘You’ve really got Toaster?’
‘Yes,’ he said, knowing he had won. ‘And we will drain him of all information and then sell him to the Antique Hunte
rs, if you don’t do precisely what I tell you to. Ah, yes. I see you know all about the Antique Hunters. Now, come along, my dear young woman.’ He turned to Peter. ‘You may come if you leave your unhygienic mongrel behind. It is up to you.’
The snow was coming down in flurries. Peter looked stricken and torn. Karl let out a pathetic whimper. I decided to make up my friend’s mind for him.
‘Peter, it’s all right. Just wait out here with Karl, if you would. I’ll be OK in there. I promise I will.’
‘Of course no harm will come to this precious lady,’ said Dean Swiftnick, chuckling as he led me into the green glass building. We passed through the electric doors and into the sterile atmosphere of what he told me was their new archive centre. He continued chuckling, very pleased with himself. He had a very high-pitched laugh.
Dean Switftnick led me deeper and deeper into the metal-walled corridors of the archive complex. He hung onto my arm, pulling me along almost hungrily and he didn’t say much.
At last we came to a kind of operating theatre labelled ‘The Elizabeth Gaskell Memorial Remembering Room’. The old man led me in and told me to lie on a padded couch. All of a sudden I felt incredibly weary. I lay back gratefully and I remembered to ask him how long this would take. I didn’t like the thought of Peter and Karl standing out in the weather for too long.
The Dean didn’t bother to reply. It was as if I had ceased to be a person to him, now that I was a bona fide object of study. He began untangling yards of wire and attaching electrodes to my arms and head. I couldn’t resist. I felt more feeble than I ever had in my life. It came to me that this was why my cup of tea in his office had been gritty. I had been sedated by the Dean. I couldn’t cause too much of a fuss because he might harm Toaster. He might siphon his robot mind completely dry and hand him over to those men who would take great pleasure in hunting him across the Martian prairie and blowing him to smithereens…
Now I was drowsy, slipping away…
Dean Swiftnick retreated behind a glass partition where, along with a couple of worried-looking research students, he worked feverishly at a control console. Then his voice came out of a speaker. ‘I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my research student assistants. They know what to do with you. I bid you farewell, prairie child. I have a lecture that I must give, and a whole lot of very important things to do … heee heeeeeee heee…’
