‘I never break my word, ma’am. That’s how I stay alive. Not natural honesty, just good business.’
I believed him at once, but he was crossing psychic swords with me and my nagging, fundamental class consciousness could not brook challenge from the gutter. It was necessary that he understand the nature of power.
‘If I had reason to doubt—’ I said, and let the unspoken drag out its implications.
He asked with exemplary politeness, ‘What would you do, ma’am? Have us killed? Sounds like triv stuff but I bet it has happened.’ I had been worse than clumsy, stupid. Yes, it had happened, though not through me; there were unpleasant stories of the covering of exploded intrigues. He was a most patient, explaining man. ‘Ma’am, you haven’t got the hard guts for it.’ And of course I hadn’t. ‘I can get killed any day in line of business, it don’t worry me none.’ I was given a surprising glimpse into his pretensions when he frowned and corrected himself: ‘It does not worry me,’ I did not dare smile; I think I wanted really to pat his hand and say, That’s right. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘we take each other on trust, then neither gets worried enough to do anything silly. Anyway I’m a businessman and it pays me to protect you.’
That was the rock-bottom argument that should have stopped me before I started. Now it gave me a chance to turn the talk from the awkward lessons he was reading me. ‘And I expect the businessman will want payment in cash. Credit would be of no use to you.’ A credit voucher in Swill hands would cause instant suspicion of theft.
‘Swill get no credit, ma’am, even for good intentions.’ He had managed a final flick as the subject changed. ‘Not much cash, either, except they steal it.’
‘Mrs Conway—’
‘She still has her Sweet credit rating in bank deposit, but if Data says she’s got no income she can’t make more deposits.’
‘Well, then?’
‘Goods, ma’am. To eat or wear or be used up some way that won’t be noticed. You can pay the boy’s school fees – nice lady taking pity on Fringe kid – and we can use small change, like for fares to get here. Otherwise, goods.’ He unfolded a sheet of paper and held it out to me. It was a list in an awkward but clear script. So few of them could write more than their names.
He saw my surprise. ‘We had proper Swill schools once. Remember? But we weren’t called Swill then.’
He was probably not as old as I and the difference between us lay bare before me in a shock of guilt. Involuntarily, words jumping out of me, I exclaimed, ‘How did we come to this awfulness in a single generation?’
He took the question seriously. ‘We didn’t, ma’am. It was coming a long time, a century. What the politicians called the Greed Syndrome, that they blamed others for while they had both hands in the till.’
It was the catchphrase of three decades back – the pursuit of wealth, the survival of the wolf; the sapping of the money system as starvation mounted, and starvation mounting as population soared and food became the plaything of graft and international blackmail; statesmen and philosophers and bleeding hearts all helpless against I want, I want, as the Earth’s resources were sacked to shore up the illusion of an endlessly expanding economy. Ideas and ideals flourished on the intellectual stock exchanges but stood not a chance against I want that became I must have in order to survive.
Three millennia after its invention money had become the tiger which could be dismounted only in bankruptcy.
‘Something wrong there, ma’am?’
I had stared at the list without seeing it. ‘No.’ I read a little and asked, ‘Is this serious?’
‘It’s not a joke, ma’am.’
‘Groceries, toothpaste, pens and slates, scratch pads, soap. Soap!’ His quiet gaze seemed to consider me as some ignorant oddity. ‘Can you actually not get such things?’
‘Some but not enough. They’re luxuries.’
‘Soap?’
‘Soap. You don’t realize, do you? You’ve got this—’ his wave embraced the house, the city, all my kind, ‘—so you don’t know, don’t think.’
‘You shame me.’
I meant it but he was genial. ‘No need for that. If you gave away all you’ve got it wouldn’t make a dent in the poverty. We can’t change anything so we join the greed game, both of us. You’re in too deep to stop and I play to stay alive. I’m as bad as you.’
He did not say, You, rich Sweet, are as bad as I, Swill scum. The inversion, assuming me naturally corrupt, was worse than the outright insult, I am corrupt; I faced that long ago. But it hurts to be told. I returned to the list. ‘Pens, slates, scratch pads. Why, on Earth?’
‘I’ve got five kids, three to twelve, besides the big ones.’ Good God – floreat Swilldom! ‘I try to teach them. But I need books – to teach me, I mean, so I can teach them. I can’t steal what I need – I can’t get near where books are without starting questions.’
Sympathy shook me almost to tears of pity and respect for such useless courage. ‘I’ll get what you need. Don’t steal. Don’t do anything you might be caught at. At least,’ and here I tried to set sentiment at arm’s length, ‘not while I still need you.’ That tickled his pragmatism and I felt that we had reached a point of mutual regard. ‘How do I get these things to you? You can’t very well carry them off in a parcel.’
‘There’s ways. Now I’ve seen the area I’ll work something out. I’ll tell you next time.’ Hesitantly he gave away a fraction of his method? ‘I’ve got connections with Little Sweet, delivery drivers and that.’
Interesting, but something I had better not know too much about. I supposed a blurring of caste at the lower levels of income earners, those with relatives on both sides of the line, for instance . . . ‘You haven’t asked anything for the boy.’
‘I’ll ask his mother. I had to see the setup first. Next time.’
‘But you have asked for yourself and yours.’
‘Little things. Testing the delivery line.’
‘A general and a planner. Is this all?’
‘All for now, ma’am.’
I would have liked to have him stay and talk about his strange world – but ours was a business association. I called, ‘Francis!’ and he came at once, holding a book close to his chest. ‘What have you there, child?’
Unwillingly, perhaps fearing that I would take it from him, he exposed the cover. Peter Pan. An old, illustrated edition I had won at school. For essay writing in another world, another culture.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ With a struggle he overcame doubt and reserve. ‘May I finish it when I come again?’
‘Take it home. Bring it back next week.’
He broke into an unexpected, excited liveliness, thanks foundering in a clutter of words. To calm him, I asked, ‘Would you like to take home something for your mother?’
Reserve returned. He muttered, ‘I don’t know.’ While I tried to think of a gift small enough to fit a pocket, his manner took a startling turn. He said mutinously, ‘How do I know what she wants? Why doesn’t Teddy get stuff for her? He’s the Extra.’
Kovacs ejaculated, ‘Francis!’ For all his hard dealing he was emotionally simple; a man with such a gaggle of children should have recognized sibling rivalry when it squalled at him, but he was merely shocked at bad behaviour. He could dote as he pleased but I decided then that I disliked Francis. I have not changed my mind in the years since.
‘Never mind,’ I said, and to Kovacs suggested, ‘A woman appreciates good underwear. Even when nobody else sees it.’
He did not rise to that bait, but with all those children bedraggling his home life it would be surprising if a man of his reputation was not finding in Alison Conway an outside solace. I have read that poverty breeds puritanical moral codes to defend the family solidarity, but I do not quite believe it.
When he left, I felt mentally mauled, second rate in the face of such determined efforts at clear sight. But at least I knew and respected what I was dealing with. We could
treat as equals.
4
Francis
AD 2044–2050
I never felt the same about adults after that night. I was earning things for Mum and Billy that they couldn’t get without me, and it changes everything when you see that they have weaknesses and you have strengths.
I was only nine. Adults underestimate children.
The next few years were quiet, as though a time of adjustment had ended. There were no adventures or highs or lows. At school I made no real friends and on Friday nights Billy and I went to Mrs Parkes’ house – after a while I was able to go on my own – to earn our luxuries. That was about all.
Home was more comfortable though we couldn’t risk showing our advantages. Keeping clear of the neighbours probably made them more curious than they might otherwise have been but our only regular visitor was Billy (whose presence held tongues at bay) and Mum made sure that the old couple never came into our half. She would tell me that such contacts could only drag down our social level, but I think the neighbours would have protected us out of sheer greed if we had shared some of our luck.
I could not then articulate what I was beginning to perceive, that when the gap between the rich and poor is vast and the middle ground the haunt of an endangered species, snobbery was a defense against terror. The Sweet had to believe in their superiority or admit that they tore their possessions from the fingers of the Swill.
And so we did. We might as well admit to being animals fighting for what we can get. Keep eyes and ears open and there will always be opportunity of profit, influence and security. What you don’t grasp, another will. Billy’s PR dealing taught me that. Mum said he was a good man doing his best under harsh circumstances, but in fact he was a parasite with a single grace: he looked after his friends.
Teddy did not exist. If I mentioned him, Mum said, ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’ She had to be tough to keep from falling apart but in her heart she bled.
The only other thing that recurs to me from that time is that Peter Pan became my favorite book. Mrs Parkes let me keep it. It told of flying into a world where life was an adventure and every adversity was finally an occasion for triumph and joy. Heady stuff for a lonely boy living on the edge of the rubbish tips of his culture.
I was eleven when Billy began staying overnight, sleeping in Mum’s room. He kept clothes there, too, because sometimes he had a clean shirt at breakfast and his clothes hung with ours on the drying line. The old couple said nothing; they were too scared. To me it meant nothing. I was incurious about other people’s relationships – even the dirty jokes at school had only a removed meaning, the reality of fairy tales. I did see that they had reached a new sort of intimacy, a private talking that switched off when I entered the room, but I did not have a prurient imagination. I must have been a pretty limited boy.
I knew what they were up to, in a hazy fashion, but it did not impinge until Mum delegated to Billy the ‘man’s job’ of explaining to me ‘the facts of life’ and he stumbled through the sexual catalogue with dumbfounding vagueness. There was nothing new in it, only a connecting-up of disparate schoolyard jokes and speculations; the scribbles on the lavatory walls fell into a pattern. Masturbation, it seemed, was unsatisfactory rather than forbidden and would not, after all, stunt my growth.
It was one more proof that Billy, however successful as a PR man, could also be bumbling and inept. Mum would have done it better, but she had begun to make casual acquaintances in the Fringe shops and to slip into the prim attitudes of the not-quite-Swill who clung to the fairy floss of their lost affluence and the behaviour patterns defining ‘woman’s sphere’ and ‘male responsibility.’ She laughed at their middle-class morality without seeing that it was hers also.
Visiting Mrs Parkes lost piquancy, became something of a chore. Others offered for my talent but not many were allowed occasional use of me. She and Billy had the sense not to be greedy where too many contacts could leave traces to be detected by computers that ‘talked’ to each other and pursued anomalies clear to the prison gates.
Since it was impossible that my attendance should go unnoticed in her house, at least by servants as well as unexpected callers and even hovertram drivers, I became her distant nephew in whom she took a philanthropic interest so that my family, fallen on ‘discouraging’ times, should not feel deserted and ignored. There really were people who soothed their Sweet consciences by playing Lord or Lady Bountiful, and the social delicacy of the time prevented more than superficial questioning of my status.
What I dreamed of and hugged to myself was that I was on my way up, away from the revolting, fearsome tenements. In time I would be wholly Sweet again.
Kids adapt to change so quickly that they forget that the world was not always as in their present moment.
One change frightened the wits out of Mum and most other people and caused some overnight rearrangements of Billy’s operations. In response to awesome shifts in the world’s economic structure the State froze bank accounts, allowing only business firms to make financial transactions, and then only on paper. A temporary measure only, it was announced. Until national liquidity was restored. For a time those who earned must live on their earnings.
It hardly touched the Swill, who lived on coupons and vouchers, but made a huge difference to Mum who had nibbled each month at a bank account suddenly nonexistent. Nobody believed that the State would or could repay what it had grabbed. Nor did it. Many Fringers not quite fallen into the Swill now tumbled all the way and more than a few Sweet suicided in the face of social obliteration.
Mum and Billy were lucky, having me – Mrs Parkes made sure we did not suffer. I knew how much I mattered in the home but did not dare assert myself. Billy would have belted the hide off me now he was practically my stepfather.
More by association than by application I had learned the distinguishing formulae of share transactions, tax dodges, undeclared earnings, international money-buying and the rest of the language of fraud and understood vaguely that money as such was losing meaning in a world geared to poverty.
The Third World (a concept whose meaning has been lost) had, before I was born, renounced indebtedness to the West (another dubious term) and driven money into a no-win situation wherein the Third World had to be shored up financially by the West because it was the West’s profitable junk market. The idea of selling to people who bought with money lent by the seller lest the system collapse was more than idiotic; it was the final self-criticism of a system that could exist only by expansion and when expansion ceased for lack of markets must eat its own body.
This was only a part of what was happening to the world but was the most visibly urgent part. Wealth was in the hands of a few and governments were hunting down the sequestrators of wealth before they should hunt down the governments. The only strategy of power was to place the entire planetary population in the position of poor relations, fed on what could be salvaged from the necessities of armament equality and the maintenance of a crumbling technology in which research and development shrank as they became too costly. Once there had been a ‘space program!’
Over this desperation presided a monstrous joke, the ravenous armament factories belching out weapons, which became obsolete on the very design screens and must be replaced in the moment of production . . . for a war nobody dared start for fear of nukes and an industry nobody dared stop.
The Australian State – and the world – stalled for a time. Time for what? There were only stopgap answers.
I was fifteen when the money system collapsed worldwide.
That, in a single sentence, records the passing of one of the fundamental human-invented systems, private-sector capitalism. It died because it had reached its limits. The poor – that is, most people – could buy only necessities and disaster struck manufacturers when necessities became, inexorably, luxuries. The dumping ground of the Third World no longer yielded even a miser’s profit.
Money did not actually vanish but became
a thing of promises and acknowledgements and recognitions of debit and credit held in the guts of the new molecular storage units. The commercial Sweet had spent months preparing for the changeover to what might preserve some standard of living or drive it to final chaos. I suppose it was saved in this country (others fell into conditions worse than beggary) but that may mean just that we had become used to the poverty line. Cash money went out like a passing itch. With forgetful speed it became convenient to present an allocation card at a State Distribution Store, see it computer checked to assess the balance of your provision-reserve, be told your entitlement of what was available, make your selection and then start in on the serious calculation of what remainder you could afford to squander in the free-choice section. Home logistics – the calculation of supply, necessity and limited pleasure – became the new game for Swill with simple arithmetic skills.
I recall Mum explaining to Billy that Russia had adopted a similar mode some decades back and had predicted that the rest of the world would come to it. He was shocked, and asked, ‘Is this communism, then?’ ‘Communism’ was a dirtier word than any in the four-letter range.
She told him, ‘Heavens, no! Communism is only an idea that has never been tried – except perhaps by the Pilgrim Fathers for a very short while, and they were happy to backslide as soon as cash became available.’
For all his hungry reading there was a lot Billy didn’t know – he had to be told who the Pilgrim Fathers were.
My one worry was with Mrs Parkes’ situation, but she had made her assessment when she saw the change coming, and maybe had inside information, for her network was higher-reaching than Billy’s and no more licit. With the change she moved, as it were, sideways, from the ownership of an import-export firm to the direction of a State sub-department, handling the same products. It was a smooth operation and she was one of several to accomplish it. The State helped, knowing whom it wanted, probably knowing who robbed it and preferring efficiency with ‘bonus deductions’ to muddling honesty.
The Sea and Summer Page 9
