by Claire Merle
‘Ariana Barber.’ Her voice sounded smal and tight from crying.
The older one’s eyes narrowed. ‘The geneticist’s daughter?’
She nodded.
‘Why aren’t you with everyone else?’ he asked.
‘There are too many of them.’
The younger one laughed. His face radiated warmth.
‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘There are far too many of them.’
They escorted her back to the party, the older one teasing the younger about a girl. ‘She’l be joined long before you’re old enough to express an interest,’ he said.
‘Anyway, what’s the rush? Just because you can be joined at fifteen, 11
doesn’t mean you have to be. You could be eighteen, nineteen, twenty or twenty-five. A ten-year gap is nothing.’
The younger boy glanced at Ana, embarrassed and sheepish, and she stared back at him, hoping he’d take his brother’s advice and wait until her fifteenth birthday when she became eligible.
The folowing two years, Ana anticipated the Taurel’s Christmas party with love-sick longing, but she only caught glimpses of Jasper through the crowds. The third year, several months before she came of binding age, she decided she wouldn’t leave the party until she’d talked to him.
She found Jasper sitting on the servant stairs at the back of the house with Juliet Mango, a pretty girl from the year of the house with Juliet Mango, a pretty girl from the year above her at school. They were laughing and flirting and their hands were fastened together with a scarf. Devast-ated, she’d bolted out a back door, crossed several gardens, scrambled over two fences, and sprinted home in the bitter cold without her coat.
So on April 21st, Ana’s fifteenth birthday, when Jasper personaly delivered his binding invitation, she was beside herself with shock and joy. Like everyone else, she’d known the Taurel–Mango joining hadn’t gone ahead because Juliet had returned to school after the Christmas holidays.
But she hadn’t imagined Jasper might ask someone else, least of al her, so soon after. Obviously last year, when Jasper had praised her piano playing at the school variety show, she hadn’t made such an idiot of herself, nodding and blushing and being too stunned to speak, as she’d feared.
For three blissful weeks after the invitation, Ana dreamed she would have the future she’d fantasised about.
12
But then the Board came to school with her redone Pure test. And a fortnight after that, Jasper’s brother Tom died.
By the summer, Ana’s father was vindicated of al charges, the Board admitted a possible mistake on their part and Ana was given a reprieve: She could stay in the Community until her eighteenth birthday as long as her ilness had not begun to manifest. If she and Jasper were joined during that time, her reprieve would be extended indefinitely until the day she became sick. But Jasper put indefinitely until the day she became sick. But Jasper put off setting a binding date again and again. As the weeks turned into months and then years, Ana’s hope shrank and her heart hardened, expecting disappointment.
And now it was realy happening. She felt like the time when she was eight and her mum stopped getting out of bed. For days she’d prayed her mother would do something, anything. But the morning her mum shook her awake, threw clothes and books into the old car her father had left them in case of an emergency, and driven them away from the farm at high speed across bumpy lanes until the petrol ran out, Ana’s happiness was crushed with no-tions of getting lost, becoming stranded in the middle of nowhere, crashing. She’d got what she’d wished for. And al she could think about was disaster.
The saloon slowed as they approached the south-western checkpoint. Two square cabins stood on either side of the road harbouring guards who let the traffic through. Ana sat up, alert. Nick, the chauffeur, handed over their IDs.
Crazies could not enter any of the Communities without going through the Wardens’ approval process, and even then the date and hours had to be specified. Pure men came 13
and went as they pleased. Pure women, for their own safety, were always accompanied into the City.
The guard checked their ID sticks, handed them back, and raised the barrier. They advanced towards Whitestone pond, a man-made basin surrounded by roads. Once a watering spot for horses, the pond was now a mecca for Crazies. Hundreds of them waded in the water, pushing and jostling for space as they dunked the water, pushing and jostling for space as they dunked and scrubbed dirty washing.
Only several hundred metres lay between the Highgate and Hampstead checkpoints. But to Ana such forays into the City filed her mind so that six hundred metres felt like six thousand.
The car inched into Heath Street. Nick maintained a steady fifteen miles per hour. On the whole, the crowds parted around the vehicle, but even at this speed people tumbled against the doors. None of the Crazies by the pond had bikes or e-trikes or rickshaws. Ana had once asked Nick why. ‘Too crowded,’ he’d told her.
‘Nowhere to lock them up.’
As they passed the pond, a thump sounded on the car bonnet. Ana tensed. A bearded, scruffy man pushed against the front bumper. They edged forward and he pounded the windscreen, a blade glinting in his scabby hand.
Ana sucked in her breath. ‘He’s got a knife,’ she said.
Lake gazed ahead, indifferent. Nick continued his steady advance down Heath Street. There came shouting. A scream. Ana peered through the back window searching for the bearded man who’d now disappeared into the throng.
Her eyes locked on a girl of twelve or thirteen. Pain 14
gripped the girl’s round face. She was swooning and pressing a blood-drenched hand against her shoulder.
‘Someone’s injured. We have to stop.’ Ana knew she was supposed to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, the was supposed to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, the way her father and Jasper and al the other Pures did.
But she couldn’t. Perhaps because one day that girl might be her.
‘We can’t stop,’ Lake said. ‘We’l be late.’
Ana began to unwrap the silver scarf prettily twisted around the top of her dress.
‘Don’t do that,’ Lake said. ‘It’l take hours to fix.’
Ignoring her joining planner, Ana ripped away the scarf and pressed the button to descend the electric window.
Lake reached over and fought to remove her finger. Ana stretched her legs, leaning her neck and shoulders out of the car.
‘Pul her in!’ Nick shouted. Lake’s arms wrapped around Ana’s waist and tugged.
Ana flourished the scarf at a woman. ‘It’s for the bleeding girl,’ she caled. The woman’s hand snapped at the stream of fine material. Lake yanked Ana’s hips and Ana fel backwards into her seat. The electric window zipped closed.
Nick frowned at them in the rear-view mirror. Like al those who worked for the Pures, he was a Carrier – he could pass on mutated genes to his children, but he wouldn’t develop the ilnesses he carried. Everyone who wasn’t Pure either carried one or more of the genomes that caused the hundreds of mental ils, the ‘Carriers’; were already sick, the ‘Actives’; or would become sick at some point in their lives, the ‘Sleepers’, like Ana.
15
‘Sorry,’ Ana mouthed at him. She knew he’d have stopped if he considered it safe enough.
‘She won’t use it for the girl,’ Lake said.
‘She might.’
‘She won’t.’ Lake’s eyes roamed across what remained of Ana’s binding outfit. Without the diaphanous scarf twisting around Ana’s waist and across her chest to knot at the back of her neck, the pale, ankle-length dress looked ordinary.
Lake pinched her nose, let out a huff of air, then sank back in her seat.
*
The saloon puled up outside an eighteenth-century Queen Anne house, which served as the Hampstead Community Hal. Six girls in pastel dresses clumped outside the entrance like tame varieties of roadside flowers. Ana felt a pang of regret for the scarf. Without it, her forget-me-not blu
e dress looked the same as al the others – strappy shoulders and a long straight-down skirt. Al of the girls wore their hair up in chignons and French twists.
‘Do you want me to wait with you?’ Lake asked. She was slumped back in the leather car seat, with clearly no intention of moving.
Ana glanced at the mothers and joining planners standing on the sidelines. Then back at the girls. They al seemed to know each other, which wasn’t surprising. Most to know each other, which wasn’t surprising. Most eligible Pures chose to attend the binding ceremony in their own Community Hal.
‘I’l be fine,’ she said.
Nick rounded the car and popped open the back passen-16
ger door. He offered Ana a hand. She took it, at the same time puling free the centre pin holding up her French rol with her other hand. Soft, straight hair splashed across her shoulders.
‘Or you could wear it down,’ Lake muttered.
‘Sorry,’ Ana said, picking out the remaining hairpins.
Lake had spent an hour brushing and roling, but stil, Ana felt instantly better. Just because people paid attention to her for the wrong reasons, didn’t mean she wanted to blend in. Wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, she stepped on to the pavement. Sun seeped through a gauze of cloud but it was freezing. She wondered about the bleeding girl. The Hampstead Whittington, only ten minutes from the pond, would be the closest hospital. But the girl wouldn’t be alowed through the Hampstead Community checkpoint. She’d have to walk around. A forty- or fifty-minute detour.
‘Nick,’ she said, as her father’s chauffeur ducked into the driver’s seat. ‘Could you go back and have a look for that girl?’
‘Only if you promise not to pul another stunt like that.’
‘I promise.’
‘I promise.’
Nick cocked his eyebrow, pretending to decide whether he could trust her. For the last year he’d driven Ana to her piano lessons at the Royal Academy of Music in the heart of London. Seven months ago, just after Ana’s best friend Tamsin mysteriously vanished, Ana had gone through a stage of appropriating funds from her father’s ilegal wads of cash and handing them out to teenage girls who looked 17
like they hadn’t eaten for weeks. Nick had grown accustomed to her odd requests.
He smiled at her before getting back into the car. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I’l see you tonight. Your father’s asked me to pick you up from the concert hal, after the celebrations.’
Ana waved goodbye. Behind her the huddle of chattering girls grew tense and silent. A lady in a brown suit opened the wrought-iron gates and beckoned them forwards.
Mothers kissed their daughters goodbye. Joining planners made last-minute tucks of hair and sweeps of lip gloss. Ana was the first up the paving stone path to the listed Queen Anne house. She imagined the superintendent registrar would have said something if they were missing a male binding participant. But then the woman had barely looked at the girls, so maybe she wouldn’t know if the count was off. They paused at the black front door, alowing the others to catch up. Ana focused on inhaling and exhaling but she felt as though she’d forgotten how to breathe.
‘We wil now proceed to the music room,’ the registrar said as the last two girls tottered up. Breathe, bend leg said as the last two girls tottered up. Breathe, bend leg at knee, lift foot, bend other leg. Thank goodness her heart continued to beat on its own, even if it was way too fast.
Ana folowed the registrar into the halway and first left.
The music room lay at the front of the house. Wood-paneled wals glowed honey-brown in the afternoon light.
The young men stood twelve feet away with their backs facing the door. Two rows of three. Six sets of dark-suited shoulders. Seven girls.
Ana lost her footing. Pastel colours rippled around her as the other girls swept across the wooden floor to join 18
their respective partners. Chest pain, dizziness and shortness of breath are all symptoms of a panic attack, she warned herself.
You cannot have a panic attack. She pressed her toes against the soles of her low-heeled shoes.
A plump girl reached the centre of the room and pivoted in confusion. At the same time the remaining young man glanced back. Oval face, dimpled chin, wavy hair.
Jasper’s hazel eyes met Ana’s and the tension inside her burst. She wobbled towards him feeling light-headed.
Behind her a middle-aged woman shuffled into the music room. The plump girl gasped. The woman wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and led her away. On any other occasion, Ana might have found herself empathising with the girl and hoping the girl’s partner was simply sick, but she was too relieved it wasn’t her. Today she was on her own emotional roler coaster. She was going to have her own emotional roler coaster. She was going to have to hold on tight just to make it through.
The registrar rounded a desk at the back of the room to address them.
‘Please take your binding partner’s hand,’ she said.
Ana peeked at Jasper. His eyebrows slanted towards the bridge of his nose. He looked psyched up for a fight and though it had been concealed, a faint bruise coloured the skin above his right eye. She wondered how he’d got it.
At the same time, shame smothered her. She shouldn’t be letting him go through with this.
He glanced down at her hand before gliding his bony fingers between hers. His skin felt soft and slippery. Nine days ago, the last time she’d seen him, he’d appeared troubled but not angry. He’d fiddled incessantly with a star-19
shaped pendant, and told her she should continue to play the piano ‘whatever happens’. ‘No guarantees, remember?’
he’d said, and she’d attempted to brush off an impending sense of doom.
The registrar approached the boy and girl in front of Ana and Jasper. She bound their clasped hands with a long piece of fabric, then repeated the procedure for each couple.
At school, Ana had been taught that the act of binding came from an ancient tradition of betrothal (also known as
‘handfastening’). Hundreds of years ago, a betrothal was a serious commitment that could not be easily broken. It almost always ended in the giving-away of the wife to the husband. The Pure ceremonies reflected the serious undertaking of becoming first bound, then joined in marriage with vows which could never be undone. It was a reminder that there were no divorces for a joined couple, and that the couple’s duty first and foremost was the preservation and strengthening of Pure numbers, through procreation and the raising of Pure children.
Ana and Jasper were the last to have their hands bound.
Jasper raised their entwined fingers. Ana’s hand trembled as the registrar looped the cotton ribbon around and around.
Jasper tightened his hold to steady her. She squinted across at him. His eyes met hers, tenderly. She dropped her gaze.
A dul pain bloomed in her chest.
The registrar knotted the ribbon and returned to stand behind the oak and leather desk.
‘You are now bound,’ she announced to the group. ‘In exactly four weeks you wil each be asked to declare whether you wish to become joined. Use this time to become ac-20
quainted. A joining is a lifetime commitment and may not be undone.’
As the woman’s final words fel from her lips, Jasper leant in to Ana and whispered, ‘I need to talk to you leant in to Ana and whispered, ‘I need to talk to you urgently.’
She looked into his eyes and saw anxiety. Nodding once, she returned his firm grip, lifted her skirt with her unbound hand and hurried with him from the music room.
They surprised the confetti throwers at the front door.
Arms jerked into the air, releasing tiny paper hearts in their wake. Jasper didn’t relent. He puled her down the stone path towards the gate and jostled them through the gossiping mothers and joining planners.
Ana saw her father before Jasper did. Ashby Barber was leaning against a wal on the other side of the narrow street, arms folded across his suit, waiting f
or them. His blue eyes shone wolf-like in the dwindling afternoon light.
The hint of silver in his blond hair made him appear distinguished rather than middle-aged. He resembled a movie star from the previous century, not a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
Ana stopped abruptly, tugging on Jasper’s arm. She felt a stab of guilt as wel as surprise. Surprise because fathers didn’t usualy attend the bindings and though under the circumstances he might have stepped in to fulfil her mother’s role, Ashby wasn’t the type. The guilt was to do with Jasper’s furtive escape, though they had every right to run off together. And the bleeding girl.
Jasper’s eyes folowed Ana’s gaze to her father. He swore under his breath.
Ashby crossed the road. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, picking up their bound hands, which looked like some strange 21
strange 21
disfigurement wrapped in a tourniquet. Then he kissed Ana’s cheek and shook Jasper’s right hand. ‘Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier.’
‘I didn’t realise you were coming at al,’ Ana said.
Her father smiled showing gleaming white teeth. Ana glanced at Jasper. He’d turned so pale he looked sick.
‘Where’s Nick?’ Ashby asked.
‘Jasper’s chauffeur is driving us to the concert.’ Ana didn’t tel her father she’d sent his chauffeur off to take an injured girl to hospital in the City; he wouldn’t appreciate blood al over the car seat. ‘I told Nick I didn’t need him until later.’
‘Wel,’ her father said, addressing Jasper, ‘your parents are waiting for us to have a celebratory drink before the concert, and you two probably want to take advantage of your first trip on your own. Fortunately, I held on to the extra driver. I’l folow you to the Barbican.’
‘OK, Dad.’ Ana puled her lips into a tight smile, aware of how quiet Jasper was beside her. Almost rude. At least they’d be alone for the ride to the concert hal. Then finaly he’d tel her what was going on.
22
3
The Concert
Jasper slouched in the back seat of the saloon car behind his driver. Ana sat beside him. Their shoulders touched, his driver. Ana sat beside him. Their shoulders touched, their bound hands were sunk in the gap between their legs.
