Bane. Oh, how I wish you were here. I want to talk to you, Bane. I never feel so afraid when I’m with you. No doubt my parents would say that wasn’t an advantage, but it would be, just now…
“Margo? You all right? What’re you thinking?”
Cruel to say I was wishing he was someone else.
“Just thinking. Everything’s so crazy at the moment. But we’ll get through it. One way. Or another.”
“I’d rather it was one way, for you…” His voice had gone soft again. “Out of here and away…” He rolled up onto his elbow, letting my head slide to rest in the nook of his arm, and his fingers traced my cheeks, my brow, the slope of my nose. “Let me worry about the another.”
My body felt oddly hot as his bulk hovered over me in the dark.
“I would have you safe…” he murmured, and his fingers moved to caress my tingling lips…
***+***
19
100,000 WORDS OF TRUTH
I lay rigid, my mind skittering wildly—shove him away? Slap him? Too noisy, and lingering guilt from my last blow stayed my hand. What were the right words for this?
No words. I raised my hand and slipped it over my mouth, so his fingers brushed the cool metal of my ring. About which he’d congratulated me, with that disturbing touch of hesitation…
He twisted away, throwing himself into his cramped half of the bunk, putting his back to me. His whisper was hoarse and tormented.
“Think… Think I’ll sleep this way tonight. Nothing… nothing personal.”
But it was. It was everything personal. Too personal. That was just the problem.
I turned onto my side, putting my back to him as well, but I offered a quiet, “Night, Jon,” over my shoulder. ‘Cause somehow I couldn’t feel angry with him. I lay with my cheek for once nestling on a pillow, which was soft, but not as comfortable as I remembered, for all that. Lay staring into the darkness.
Damn. Damn. Damn. I’d been afraid of this. Ever since Jon gave me that way-too-convincing kiss. Ever since then the fear had been raising its ugly head in the back of my mind. That my fiancé’s friend might be on the way to falling in love with me.
Yet I’d wanted to put no false distance between us—in truth, in the turmoil of these last few weeks I’d needed his support too much to draw right away from him, but I’d tried… I’d tried. Tried to ensure no too-warm smile infected my tone, that no too-warm words were spoken, that I gave out nothing misleading in tiniest word or touch. Not enough, apparently. Or too late. Or never any hope, in our forced intimacy.
Damn.
Neither of us mentioned what’d happened the following morning, but we slept back-to-back from then on. I missed the warm comfort of his arms, but if it’d come to mean something more—or different—to him, it wasn’t fair to continue. Perhaps it’d never been fair. Perhaps I’d just been too selfish and shortsighted to see that.
I tried to channel all my fears, all my vague self-recriminations, all my doubts and hopes and struggles, into my writing. That was what a writer was supposed to do with such things, wasn’t it?
Not sure how well it actually worked in real life.
Whether or not I was managing to stuff in my cloud of inner demons—the real, the imaginary and the plain paranoid—the book was progressing very well. I’d worked out the average word count for each page—I’d managed the addition myself with a paper and pencil and got Jon to do the division—and I knew I was about two-thirds of the way through.
I stared at the flashing cursor and rested my head in my hands, rubbing my temples. Tried unsuccessfully to banish the ceaseless mantra from my head.
What if I actually need this thing? You won’t, you won’t win.
What if I do win? Then you’ll have the book ready.
But if I actually need it…? You won’t...
A young man was coming up the garden path with a backpack over his shoulder. I sprang away from the window and raced down the stairs as the doorbell rang.
“Are you getting that, Margo?”
“Yes, Mum.” English, of course. Just in case it wasn’t the new priest, and he had his ear to the door.
I tried not to throw myself across the hall. What would he be like? Father Clive had been such a dour fellow—though of course I was very sorry when he was caught. Uncle Peter would be glad of the help, whatever.
Taking the key from the peg on the wall, I put it into the deadlock and turned it; opened the door.
“Hello…” My greeting trailed off and reflexively, I shut the door part way, peering warily through the narrow crack.
It was an assassin on the doormat, surely? A face like a hatchet… empty eyes staring at me.
“Is this the Verralls’ house?”
My heart lurched in panic—should I slam the door shut? I tried to push the sudden terror away and think. You’re fourteen, Margo, stop acting like a silly little girl! If the government found out about us they wouldn’t send a hired killer and who else would want to?
“Why do you want to know?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled and he smiled. And suddenly he was just a nice young man, bemused by my behavior.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’m your Cousin Mark.”
The wave of relief was so great it almost wiped away my embarrassment. He was the new priest! Or… he said he was. I took a moment to make sure I had the security phrase right.
“I hope your journey was really most expeditious?” And wasn’t that something no one was going to say by accident!
“It was the most pleasant of trips, except for the part where a wheel fell off the train.”
It was him! Phew!
Belatedly, I thought of the neighbors. I managed to step forward and give him a cautious hug. My stupid heart was still pounding.
“It’s so lovely to meet you at last, Cousin Mark,” I said, nice and clearly. “I’m Margaret. Come in...”
He followed me into the hall and closed the door behind him.
“Was it a long journey?” I asked at once, just to test his Latin. The government still taught their agents mostly from Classical Latin textbooks and the different pronunciation tended to linger.
“From Vatican State.” His Latin was as good as mine. A last knot of tension eased from my shoulders. “But it went pretty smoothly.”
He was looking around with that flat, emotionless look again. It sent shudders up my spine.
“Please smile when you meet my parents!” I blurted. “You look like a hit man or something!” I clapped a hand to my mouth, my cheeks burning. “I’m sorry, that was so rude!”
But his momentary frown of puzzlement was gone, no trace of surprise or offense taking its place. He just looked sad.
“No, that was honest,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you told me. Time someone did,” he added, half under his breath. Did people have a habit of slamming doors in his face, by any chance?
“Who is it, Margo?” called Mum.
“It’s Father Mark.”
I led my new ‘cousin’ quickly into the kitchen and yes, he was smiling as he shook hands with my mum. She beamed back, seeing just a friendly young priest.
“Cup of tea?” she offered.
“That would be lovely,” he said, with most un-assassin-like enthusiasm. “All they drink in Vatican State is coffee the consistency of tar. Italian peninsula, you see.”
“You must be glad to be home,” said Mum brightly—and promptly winced.
Oh, Mum! You know what coming back means—you know what’s going to happen to him sooner or later!
Father Mark’s smile faded a little… but then it returned.
“Yes,” he said, “In a way, I am.”
I pressed print, waited for the page about the arrival of ‘Father X’ to emerge, then packed up the ‘art case’ and went back to my bunk. Shoving the case up onto my own bed, I climbed into Jon’s bunk recess and sat beside him, a wad of pages in my hand.
“Hi, Margo.”
The
words were familiar, his tone normal, but it couldn’t hide how subdued he was. Had been, ever since…
“Hi, Jon.”
I took the other pages out of his chest and put them together with the new ones. His head tilted towards the rustling sounds, but he said nothing. He’d stopped asking me to read the novel to him. His guilty conscience seemed to have blotted out the recollection that I’d been just as reluctant before. Now he thought I wouldn’t read it to him because of.
It’d been a bit of a dilemma for me, over the last few days. Once I read it to him, he’d understand why I hadn’t wanted to read it to him. But until I did, he was putting all the worst interpretations on my reticence and I’d had enough of his silent misery. The winner would be announced the day after tomorrow, and I had said I’d read it to him before then.
“Are you busy, Jon?”
“Me?” As all too often, his hands were empty, his sightless eyes gazing into space. “No.”
“Would you like to hear a bit of this book of mine, then?”
He looked startled, then so pleased that whatever arguments might follow, right now, I was glad I’d offered.
Sitting up straight, he all but pricked up his ears.
“Fire away, please do.”
“Okay. There’s no title yet. Right. Chapter one. Here goes.” I took one last look around to check no one else was within hearing, then began to read.
“I am born. This seeming too obvious and excellent a beginning to be left forever as the prerogative of a certain Mr. Dickens, I therefore reclaim it for the use of the less illustrious. So. I am born.
“This event, or so I have been reliably informed, took place as unremarkably as anything so unique can, in the maternity ward of a general hospital surrounded by the last falling leaves of autumn. Three of us were born that night, and we were all examined by the doctor on duty and pronounced Normal. Swift on the heels of this permission to live came the permission for my happy parents to take me home.
“Oblivious to the fatal flaw nestling in my unformed mind, they did so. For at that point in my life, I was normal enough, and for the first fourteen days, normal described everything about my existence. There was nothing unusual about me. Nothing unusual happened to me. I was normal.
“I was two weeks old when something happened that would mean I was never normal again. One day my parents handed me to a man and this man asked them if they rejected evil, if they rejected all its works, if they rejected all its empty promises. They said they did, and he asked them if they would raise me in the true faith, and they said they would. Then he anointed me with a very special oil, and he poured water on my forehead and traced a cross there, and he spoke the words that would change my entire life.
“‘Margaret Elizabeth Verrall, ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…’” I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…
Although we weren’t touching, I felt Jon stiffen beside me. His face turned towards me, wiped clean of its prior enjoyment.
“Margo… this isn’t a novel. Is it.”
“Well…” I took a deep breath. “No, not exactly. But if they publish it, well, they won’t know that until it’s too late, will they?”
“I’m not worried about you being disqualified! You know, I don’t think I want you to win after all!”
“I thought you were my prayer support. I thought you’d been praying for it for weeks.”
“Yes, and now I wish I hadn’t been! You’ve used me!”
“Oh, come off it!” I objected. “I think that’s putting it a bit strongly. You were the one who insisted I should carry on with this! That it was worth letting Bane risk his life!”
“But not yours!”
“Some friend you are!”
Jon made an impatient gesture.
“Bane’s going to keep pushing it until he gets it, you tell me I’m wrong! Doesn’t make much difference if it’s outside the Facility walls or out with the Resistance, ‘cept the first is a better cause, in my opinion.”
“And me? What did you think they were going to do if I got this thing published and was still sitting here when I went public about it? Novel or autobiography it’s not going to make the blindest bit of difference in the end!”
“No, it’s going to make all the difference in the world, at the end! You can’t be serious about this!”
“I’m deadly serious, Jon. It’s almost finished and I haven’t got time to write anything else.”
“Then we’ll just have to hope you don’t win.”
“No, we’ll just have to hope Bane comes up with a plan, is all.”
“You told me not to get my hopes up! Margo, this changes everything. If you win, you must write to Bane at once and tell him he’s to rescue you—just you! Tell him he’s to get you out and you can worry about helping the rest of us once you’re safe.”
“Jon, I love Bane to bits, but do you really think he’s going to put his head back into this noose for a load of people he doesn’t know once he has me safe?”
“Depends how persuasive you are.”
“No, it doesn’t. I was as persuasive as I could be before, but if it weren’t for the fact my being in here is one hell of a chunk of leverage, he wouldn’t have agreed, and I don’t think I can blame him! I told him, all or none. What do I say when we’re sitting safely outside? Get them out or I’ll sulk? He’ll say, fine, you can sulk all the way to Africa, but let’s get going.”
Jon made an exasperated noise.
“If you’re that set on saving us all, tell him you won’t marry him until we’re safe.”
“No. I do my best to do the right thing, Jon, but I’m not sure I could. You said it yourself, if Bane stays around here, he’s going to get himself killed. Getting him somewhere safe, in one piece, is very high on my list of priorities. Being on the inside of these walls isn’t just leverage on Bane, you know.”
“I think you underestimate yourself! Just get him to get you out!”
“No. I think you overestimate me.”
Jon put his head in his hands as though actually contemplating tearing his beautiful russet hair out.
“Then I’m sorry, but I hope to God you don’t win. ‘Cause this escape thing is far too slender a straw to hang on to and the alternative is too ghastly to contemplate.”
The alternative was something I was trying not to contemplate at all. Since Jon looked as though he was considering elaborating on just this theme, I carefully replaced the manuscript in his clothes’ chest and took my ‘art case’ back to the table.
The thirtieth of April dawned clear and blue, a chilly morning quickly warming under the energetic rays of the sun. The winning story was to be announced in a special program live on both EuroRay and EuroVee One at seven in the evening, when it would be read out to the world. We had no television, so we’d have to make do with EuroRay.
The day continued hot and bright. Jon fidgeted incessantly. I struggled to write, gave up on the book, wrote a substandard installment of the Fellest Ewe and finally went to lie on my bed and try to pray, except I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to pray for. I fell back on your will, Lord and when my spinning head felt ready to explode, took pity on Jon’s obviously equally troubled state of mind and went down to his bunk to read aloud.
What if I’d won? What if I hadn’t?
I don’t think Jon was really listening, either. He looked as grim as I’d ever seen him.
“You still up for hearing the postSort Comp results?” I asked Rebecca, as we walked back up the stairs after supper.
“Yeah, why not,” she said, and when we got back to the dorm she took her little radio out and began to fiddle around, setting it up. Our signal was rubbish out here, so we didn’t listen as much as we might’ve done. The static drove Jon crazy.
“And whose name will they announce if your story does win?” Jon asked me softly.
“Well, Sue’s if they read from the entry information, but mine i
f they read from the manuscript,” I murmured back. “Bane typed it up with my name on the first sheet.”
“Right.”
Then the EuroBloc anthem was playing as the program began. No one showed the slightest inclination to stand. The presenters came on, babbling tantalizingly for some time, all in Esperanto, of course, trying to build excitement and whip up tension. It was wasted on me. I was already so tense, the slightest knock and I would go off like an antique alarm clock.
“And now, we have here with us from the EGD, Doctor Victor Renquez. Doctor Renquez, I believe you are holding the winning manuscript?”
“Indeed I am, Steve. I have here in my hand the actual, original manuscript of the winning short story and in just a moment more, I shall read it to you all.”
“Is it good, Doctor Renquez? What’s your opinion?”
“Oh, I think it’s good, very good indeed. The judges voted almost unanimously and this was certainly the one that had my vote. Quite an unusual entry. A real taboo-breaker.”
“So it’s about a rather unusual subject, I take it?”
“It is indeed. One of those things no one talks about. Though this story calls the very reasons for that silence into question. I’m actually not sure if I’ve ever read anything quite like it.”
“So it’s original?”
“Oh yes, most definitely original.”
“Well, then, Doctor Renquez, perhaps you should put us all out of our misery.”
“As you wish, Steve.” The ostentatious rustling of pages sounded even over our crackly reception. “Right then. The winner of the Eighty-Third postSort competition.” My mouth had gone so dry I was having trouble swallowing. I gripped Jon’s hand under the table and struggled to maintain an expression of only mild interest.
“The winning short story is... The Thousand and One Lives of Annabel Salford.”
My heart dropped away, down, down to my toes and a wave of ice-cold fear swept up to my throat, even as a dizzy, unreal sense of triumph enveloped me. I won! I won. And
I Am Margaret Page 20
