by Claire Merle
They spent Friday manicuring, playing with the limited 363
options possible for Ana’s short hair, body spraying her pale skin two shades darker, and trying different eyeshadows and lipsticks. It stole Ana’s thoughts from Cole and for that at least she was grateful. But it didn’t stop her from questioning over and over whether becoming joined to Jasper was realy the right thing to do. She considered escaping.
She could return to the farmhouse where she’d once lived with her mother. It would be sitting vacant, miles from the nearest occupied town. Perhaps the vegetable from the nearest occupied town. Perhaps the vegetable garden would have survived, would be growing wild and free. Perhaps she could trap rabbit and fish the river and survive on the land.
But it was a fantasy. She knew she couldn’t run away from everything that had happened. She would do her part in weakening the Board’s authority, in reminding the Crazies and the Pures that the Board was not flawless, faultless, or omnipotent.
*
The St Johns Wood Community Hal lay on the north-eastern border of the St Johns Wood Community, only one hundred metres from the checkpoint. Before reaching a smal roundabout, Nick the chauffeur turned right into an arched driveway and puled up in front of the elegant Regency-style building with a portico of four Ionic columns. Through the car window, Ana saw a bel turret rising up from the cream colonnade. Straight ahead stood the hal’s pale-peach façade, two arched windows and two neatly
trimmed
bay
trees.
The
journalists
and
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364
photographers were either expertly camouflaged or David Taurel’s ploy had worked.
Ana popped open her door. Before anyone could help her, she raised the heavy silk of her coral and ivory dress and stepped out. Her father’s hard shoes slapped down behind her. Lake alighted from the front passenger seat.
Nick stayed where he was. Ana hadn’t seen him since the day he’d driven her to Jasper’s house, and though she’d always thought her father hadn’t noticed how wel the two of them got on, now she suspected he’d been keeping them apart on purpose. He wouldn’t have wanted Ana confiding in the chauffeur, or persuading Nick to drive her around London searching for a way into the Project.
Ana glanced up at the hazy sky. Not a patch of blue.
Diffused sunshine sapped the colour and form of the trees and the road and the people passing by. She inhaled, lungs filing with dense air and flat light. Sighing, she took a step towards the building. At the tal wooden doors, she stopped. Lake squeezed past her into the sombre interior to inform the superintendent registrar of their arrival. What was once an old church had been recently redecorated in white and gold. Pilars stretched up along the outer aisles and the high ceiling arched over them – far larger and more imposing than the music room where she and Jasper had been bound. A wide limestone aisle led up to the registrar’s desk. The box pews on either side could have held three hundred guests.
Through the gloom, Ana couldn’t make out a single person.
A trumpet blasted from a speaker, echoing across the A trumpet blasted from a speaker, echoing across the 365
nave. Her father stepped up beside her, hooking his arm inside hers.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said.
She didn’t turn or blink or show him in any way that she’d heard.
They crossed the threshold into the cool interior. Ana struggled to adjust to the low light. A galery ran across the back of the Community Hal and up the sides. Jasper stood at the end of the aisle before the registrar’s platform, head crushed down into his shoulders. Beyond him, the registrar waited behind a giant desk – once an altar – washed in soft light from a high window.
Ana drifted down the aisle like flotsam on the ocean –
fragmented, in pieces, swept along by an invisible force.
She wondered fleetingly if her legs would hold for the five-minute ceremony, or whether she’d have to sit down.
Jasper’s mother, father, sister and a man Ana didn’t recognise occupied the first pew on the right-hand side of the hal. On the far left-hand side, beneath the galery, two members of the Board sat stiffly facing forward, their gold-striped lapels glimmering in the shadows. Ana closed the remaining three feet to Jasper’s side. High up to her left, a flicker of movement caught her eye. Her eyes darted to the balcony. For a split second, she thought she saw a figure.
She squinted into the murk, attempting to discern a form, She squinted into the murk, attempting to discern a form, but after a moment she realised she’d been tricked by the light, or her heart.
As she came to a standstil, Jasper tilted his head in her direction, opaque eyes shifting on to her face. The registrar 366
began the opening address. Jasper didn’t look forward like he was supposed to, he continued to stare at Ana.
Unnerved, she glanced back at his parents. Jasper’s mother, Lucy, rose from her seat. The bald man –
Jasper’s psychologist? – put his hand over Lucy’s to stop her.
Jasper’s younger sister scowled at Ana and mouthed ‘
Call it off! ’
The registrar sped over the introductory words, stumbling as she reached the part about the commitment to a family and the continuation of geneticaly Pure human species. Ana smiled bleakly, wishing she had eyes in the back of her head to see the Board’s reaction. She and Jasper were forbidden to have children; it’s what made their joining such a farce. It was a shame the press weren’t here after al. Such a mistake would have been a huge embarrassment to the Board.
Ana pressed the back of her hand against her burning cheeks. As she grew accustomed to Jasper’s stare, she let her eyes roam the galery to her left. In her mind, she found herself running over her conversation with Nate.
Her shock at seeing Nate in the Community – in her house! – coupled with the horror of his message that Cole had gone abroad, had submerged al logical Cole had gone abroad, had submerged al logical thinking. But now she thought it through, she decided the music disc Nate had given her wasn’t proof Cole had sent his brother to say goodbye. Nate hadn’t explained how he circumvented the checkpoint, or how he’d found her home and got around Warden Dombrant.
Waves of doubt lapped over her. What if Cole hadn’t realy sent Nate to say goodbye? What if Ana’s father had 367
tracked Nate down, and bribed or blackmailed him into delivering the one piece of news he knew would put an end to Ana’s plans of escape?
The registrar moved on to the declaratory words, not waiting for either of them to repeat the joining declarations. Ana wondered if the omission rendered the proceedings nul.
Suddenly, Jasper grasped her hand.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ he hissed.
The registrar floundered and dried up.
‘And I dreamt about you,’ he continued. ‘You were in a dark place, walking among the stars.’
Ana’s mind traveled back to the tanks. What did he mean?
How could he know that?
The registrar wiped sweat from her forehead. Jasper clung to Ana’s hand.
‘We wil now hold a moment’s silence,’ the registrar said, picking up the cushion with the rings, ‘while the couple reflect on the gravity of their undertaking before showing their final decision in the exchanging of rings.’
Behind Ana, in a pew by himself, Ashby sighed in annoyance. The air prickled electricaly. Ana’s eyes raked the galery, hoping for a miracle. Hoping for Cole.
She couldn’t bring herself to pick up the ring. Jasper didn’t move.
The rings on the outstretched cushion began to quiver.
Beads of sweat dampened the registrar’s upper lip.
‘Help them,’ Ashby growled at the official. The registrar put down the cushion and picked up Jasper’s ring. She began forcing it on to his swolen finger. Oblivious, Jasper 368
dug his free hand in his suit pock
et and held up a wooden star on a rusty chain.
‘I made this for you,’ he said. The hand-carved wood was a replica of the pendant he’d worn the night he was abducted; the pendant with the disc Ana’s father probably had in his office.
Jasper clipped the star around Ana’s neck. The registrar snatched Ana’s hand and began squeezing on her joining ring. Ana looked into Jasper’s eyes. Beneath the turmoil and confusion fluttered the deeply buried shadow of truth, wrestling to get out.
‘There’s an inscription,’ he said. She turned the star over.
Engraved on the back was written:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
The smooth wood grew slick between her fingers. Ana recognised the quote. She’d studied Keats at school.
The registrar grunted. With one last twist the ring was on.
‘I have the pleasure of pronouncing you joined,’ she said.
A flash of light puled Ana’s attention up to the galery.
Distinct blue eyes aimed down on her. Galvanised by a gaze that pressed into her being, her heart sparked to life.
Cole’s solemn look absorbed her. But before a thought shot through her joy, he was turning, he was leaving, he had gone.
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31
‘Second Sight’
Ana yanked up the fish-like tail of her dress and flew down the aisle. Outside, a searing white sky blinded her.
She raised an arm to shadow her eyes, whipping around franticaly. The Community looked deserted; the streets and houses lifeless. A damp skin of sweat grew across her neck, her chest, her cheeks. She could feel it tingling, itching its way into her body.
‘Cole!’ she shouted.
She ran towards the street. Then jerked back to take in She ran towards the street. Then jerked back to take in the Community Hal. Perhaps he was stil inside. He would have to come down the galery stairs. Turning back, she raced towards the doors and smacked face first into her father.
‘There you are, dear,’ he said. He gripped her arm so tightly she yelped. She began to tug away, but then registered two gold triangles in dazzling white circles floating through the gloom towards her. The projections grew larger until they laid themselves across the pleats and cuttings of her ivory and coral dress; the Board’s emblem branded on her chest.
Ana froze. A thick blanket of numbness dropped over her. She struggled to pluck from her mind some reasonable 370
explanation for running from the Hal. She had to get them off her back long enough to escape.
As the silence ground against her, she heard a scuffle across the limestone flags. Jasper was limping up the aisle, panting.
‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ he said, forcing the Board and Ana’s father aside to reach her. He leaned in and kissed Ana on the lips. ‘That was unfair,’ he scolded. ‘I’m at a total disadvantage. I can’t compete.’ He spoke softly, but the acoustics carried his voice. The two Board members, stil puzzled, relaxed a little and stepped back.
Ana blushed. She hoped Cole wasn’t hiding in some balcony or stairway after al. She searched Jasper’s eyes, attempting to discern if the double meaning she’d heard in his words was intentional. His subconscious had remembered enough to make the star necklace; did he remembered enough to make the star necklace; did he have some inkling of what was going on?
Jasper’s parents and sister joined the gathering in the doorway. Lucy Taurel, tears streaming down her cheeks, puled Jasper and Ana to her, one under each arm and showered them with kisses. David shook hands with Ana’s father. Jasper’s sister hung back pouting, arms folded over her chest.
When Jasper’s mother finaly let go, Ana tucked her arm under Jasper’s and said, ‘Let me help you to the car.’
They wobbled forward, each supporting the other across the gravel drive, the eyes of the Board and their parents pressing into their backs.
*
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Palm held against the window, Ana scanned the streets.
They were almost at the checkpoint, folowing the short crocodile of chauffeur-driven cars carrying her father, the Taurels, the Board and Warden Dombrant, who’d appeared outside the Community Hal just as she and Jasper were getting into their car.
Ana’s mind raced. She’d seen Cole, she’d definitely seen him standing up in the Community Hal galery, but now she questioned the soundness of her state of mind. Cole couldn’t have disappeared afterwards. Besides, how would he have got into the Community? How would he have known where to find her? Why would he risk coming just to sneak away?
She thought of his Glimpse. The kiss. They stil hadn’t kissed. She found herself desperately praying for the future he’d seen. They could stil be together. If he wasn’t halfway to America, they could be together.
‘Who are you looking for?’ Jasper asked, cutting through her frantic thoughts.
Nick, driving Ana’s father, was now moving through the checkpoint ahead of them. Jasper’s driver puled up behind, the last of the convoy. If they did a U-turn, Ashby, the Warden and the Board couldn’t folow directly, they’d have to each come back through the checkpoint on the other side.
Ana turned to Jasper, guilt trickling into her heart. ‘The Royal Academy’s only two minutes from here,’ she said, pinching her mouth into an awkward smile. ‘Would it be al right if we stopped off? I forgot something. I left my um, my music.’
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‘Your music?’
‘Of course, you don’t remember. I take piano lessons on a Sunday with Professor Eidleman.’
Jasper leaned forward and slid back the glass panel between them and the driver. ‘We’re going to stop off at the Royal Academy,’ he said.
‘Marylebone Road,’ Ana whispered.
‘Marylebone Road,’ Jasper repeated to the driver.
Ana’s stomach clenched with nerves. She had no idea Ana’s stomach clenched with nerves. She had no idea what she was going to do once she got to the Academy.
Perhaps she could write a note for Cole and leave it with her piano teacher. Perhaps Professor Eidleman would know of some way she could contact Cole – after al, he was part-time staff.
Ana tried to remember the Project hotline number Jasper had caled the night of his abduction. She’d seen it in court highlighted on Jasper’s phone bil. But her mind had only a hazy recolection of the projection screen. She’d been too distracted by Cole’s presence, the way his energy surrounded and puled at her.
Jasper’s driver turned about and headed south along Park Road towards Baker Street. Tension built in Ana like a crescendo. She glanced back through the windscreen. So far Nick hadn’t altered the course of her father’s car to folow.
But he would.
Perching forward, she slid back the window divide to the front. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the driver. ‘Could we go a little faster? My music teacher wil be leaving the Academy any minute now and I don’t want to miss him.’
The driver accelerated from the leisurely twenty miles an 373
hour up to thirty five. Ana glanced through the back windscreen again. She could no longer see the checkpoint or her father’s saloon.
‘I looked up my brother’s death,’ Jasper said, ‘before they took away my interface.’
Ana jolted – it was as though she kept forgetting Jasper was there. But he was, and each time he reminded her of it she felt a tug of self-reproach drawing her towards him and away from Cole.
‘Why would Tom have been wandering around on a clifftop in the middle of nowhere?’ he asked.
Ana looked at him. Their last meeting had not gone wel, but Jasper seemed to have woken up a bit since then, even if he couldn’t remember a vast chunk of his past.
‘It’s a good question.’
‘Do you know the answer?’
‘Do you stil believe I’ve concocted a fantasy about my abduction?’
Jasper drummed his fingers against the door handle.
‘Nothing adds up,’ he said.
‘Nothing they’ve told you.’
<
br /> He frowned and then slowly raised a short blonde hair from her head. ‘Was it always this short? I have a feeling it should be longer.’
‘I . . . Something happened to me out there, Jasper. I can’t go back. I can’t be who I was.’
‘I have no idea who you were,’ he said smiling, the warmth and humour of the boy she’d once fantasised about, breaking through. ‘I don’t think that’l be a problem.’
‘It’s a problem for me,’ she said.
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The driver stopped at the Baker Street checkpoint. They passed forward their ID sticks, neither of them looking at the other.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Jasper,’ she murmured. The barrier rose and the saloon plunged on to Marylebone Road into the vast crowds of grungy men, women and children, pressing in the opposite direction.
‘If you didn’t want to be joined, why did you go through with the ceremony?’
‘I thought I didn’t have a choice.’
Jasper hunched over his own window, considering. After a moment, he said, ‘What are they doing out there?’
Ana glanced at the crowds. ‘There’s a smal restaurant up the road. Everyone’s waiting for the leftovers they throw at the end of the day.’
‘But it’s only four o’clock.’
‘And there are over a hundred people queuing for a few burgers and stale loaves of bread.’
A frown returned to Jasper’s face making him appear haggard. Ana fiddled with the wooden star. There was a little catch to hide something inside, but the secret pocket was empty.
‘Why did you make me this?’ she asked.
‘It reminded me of another one I had.’
‘You remember it?’
Jasper clenched his jaw and squinted, like daggers of pain were firing through his skul. ‘Yes, I think it was important to me. But I can’t find it. And I know it sounds odd, but I have a feeling I gave it to your dad.’
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Coldness slid through Ana. Her father did have the evidence.
‘Let’s get out,’ she said, popping open her door. ‘We’l be faster walking.’
Jasper looked horrified. The chauffeur whipped around in his seat, gaping at her like she’d lost her mind. Ana hopped down, raised her dress up to her knees and began weaving through the crowds. Only a hundred metres and she would reach the relative safety of the Academy.
