I turned from side to side in front of the mirror. I certainly did like it. And with the fitted blouse untucked it wouldn’t look OTT on Sundays...
“I need to go in about ten minutes,” warned Sister Krayj. “I need to get changed before I take those guards for their exercise.” She was swapping her grey habit and simple veil for fatigues and a camo bandanna several times a day at the moment.
“Before you run rings around them, you mean,” I laughed. “I’m not doing too badly, anyway. Let’s see... I know it’s just a silly rhyme, but it’s traditional, so... something old... well the blouse is what they’d call vintage, isn’t it? Something new... um, the skirt’s not what I’d call new, more like, average age...”
“Here,” Sister Mari picked up a roll of diaphanous blue ribbon. “Brand new, we can use a piece somewhere, I’m sure.”
“Okay, so something borrowed... don’t know. Something blue, that can be the skirt. Something borrowed, then... hmm.” I glanced around. “Something for my hair, maybe?”
“What’s that?” Jolita rose from the centre of a ring of boxes at the back of the room, in which she’d been delving. “Worrying about your hair?”
Opening a cupboard, she came out with a tissue-wrapped package, took out a pair of delicate silver doves and held them up facing each other. Their wings swooped back, as though they rushed joyously towards one another, and each carried a ring in its little clawed feet!
“These are always the something borrowed for Vatican brides.” She fastened them to my hair at the back of my head. “I thought we might be needing them so I brought them along – it’s been the tradition ever since weddings became common in the state. What do you think?” She turned me back towards the main mirror and passed me a handheld mirror so I could see myself from behind.
My heart leapt up into my throat and stuck there. Somehow the doves really completed the outfit. Now I looked like a bride. It was really happening. Finally. I was marrying Bane in two weeks. Tears of joy ambushed me and I fought to hold them back.
“It’s perfect.” My voice was only a little choked.
“A garland of flowers and some of the blue ribbon falling at the back would be just right,” suggested Sister Mari.
“That would be the finishing touch! We can make the bouquet to match.”
“What sort of flowers do you want? Not many on this island but I think there might be some wild fuschias in the garden.”
“Fuschias?” My heart dropped.
“You like them, don’t you?” Sister Mari looked surprised. “Haven’t you got one in your room?”
My little plant was apparently now identifiable by its dark-veined leaves to those who knew about such things. Unlike Sister Mari, Sister Krayj knew where it had come from.
“Fuschias might be a bit delicate, don’t you think?”
Sister Mari looked disappointed.
“Oh... I suppose so. I’m sure someone told me there was a variety called ‘Margaret’, that’s all.”
“Perhaps... something more traditional?” I suggested. “Blue and white roses? Though I’m not sure where we’d get them...”
“I’m sure Eduardo might be persuaded to obtain them with suitable discretion,” said Sister Krayj. “Okay, I’ve really got to go now. You look lovely, Margo. I’ll leave you to find some shoes...”
She skedaddled. I stuck a foot from under the skirt, eyed my stout walking boots and cursed softly. Not finished yet.
On Sunday morning I was glad I’d stayed up the night before and finished the post about receiving the brain box, difficult though it’d been. All I had to do was hit ‘post’. I was so nervous I couldn’t have written a thing. What if I’d overestimated the depths of people’s feelings? Underestimated their fear? Had I simply doomed a small number of the bloc’s bravest people to death?
But so many people were reading the blog... Always very hard to judge, what with PrintArounds, but some sources estimated eighty percent of the population had seen at least one blog post of ‘The Impatient Gardener’. An extraordinary saturation, or so Eduardo liked to tell me on a regular basis.
Sister Mari was right, comments poured in all day. Messages of support, messages of consolation, messages of comfort, telling me it was all a bluff. Lots of messages about the candles as well. When to light them? How long for? Did the colour matter? Dear Margaret, I wasn’t going to light one, but then I heard what they’re doing with your parents and it’s so horrible I think I will... Sister Mari had added Father Mario (and his doves!) and a Lay Brother called Johannes to her team and they were still working flat out.
I couldn’t eat any supper at all. When Jon finished picking at his meal, we went to help Bane into the sitting room and switched the TV on. If many people at all lit candles, surely they’d report on it, even if they didn’t admit to knowing why it was happening.
Fetching the laptop, I kept hitting refresh, though it updated the comments by itself at regular intervals. Six o’clock arrived – the time I’d suggested people make a start.
Refresh. Scroll, scroll. Nothing about candles... Two minutes past. Refresh. Scroll, scroll. Nothing. Four minutes past. Oh Lord, no one’s going to do it... Refresh... There!
“I’ve got one!”
Dear Margaret and everyone else,
Just lit my candle and wanted to say, if none of you other chicken-livers do the same, I’m going to haunt you. All of you. I swear it!
Mr-I-lit-my-candle-first-so-currently-feeling-very-smug-but-hoping-not-to-be-dead-soon.
P.S. How’s that for pseudonym, M.V.?
Fingers shaking, I clicked ‘reply’.
Excellent pseudonym, Mr-I-lit-my-candle-first-so-currently-feeling-very-smug-but-hoping-not-to-be-dead-soon. I have to congratulate you on getting us off to a stylish start.
M.V.
Mr-I-lit-my-candle-first-so-currently-feeling-very-smug-but-hoping-not-to-be-dead-soon definitely deserved a personal reply!
Another one...!
Dear Margaret and everyone,
Just lit my candle. Wanted to say I second Mr-I-lit-my-candle-first-so-currently-feeling-very-smug-but-hoping-not-to-be-dead-soon on the haunting thing. Get lighting those candles, everyone. Please?
Mrs-light-your-candles-now-please-everyone-and-save-my-bacon
I clicked ‘reply’ again. Hopefully these two comments represented hundreds of other candles being lit...
I like your pseudonym too, Mrs-light-your-candles-now-please-everyone-and-save-my-bacon and I totally concur with the sentiment. So I do hope everyone is going to light their candles now and save Mrs-light-your-candles-now-please-everyone-and-save-my-bacon’s bacon?
M.V.
Another relevant comment had already appeared:
Dear People of the World,
Looks like M.V.’s online tonight. And that the first candle-lighters are going to receive personal responses. So get lighting those candles and don’t forget to tell her you’ve done it!
Papa Pontifex
Pope Cornelius, of course. Also hovering anxiously over his computer?
Nothing about it on the six o’clock news, but the trickle of candle-related comments quickly became a flood. I replied to as many as possible but soon I couldn’t even think up replies fast enough, let alone type them. The TV room had filled up, and people crowded around reading over my shoulder as I typed, so I wasn’t entirely sorry when Bane finally said, “The news is coming on, Margo.”
What? Nine o’clock already?
I typed at the end of the reply I was writing:
Well, my fingers are about to fall off, so I’m going to have to call it a night.
Keep lighting those candles everyone!
M.V.
I shut the laptop and got someone to put it safe on a nearby table, then cuddled up beside Bane, my heart in my mouth. Quite a lot of people would have to be doing it for it to make the news, though it might get a mention in the papers...
“Good evening, my name’s Wilhelm Frauberg and this is
the nine o’clock news. A strange phenomenon is sweeping the bloc tonight. Hundreds of thousands of people have placed a candle or light of some kind in their front window, and more are doing so as I speak. We have news teams on the ground to ask homeowners, why are they doing this?”
“They’re reporting it!” I exclaimed, as Bane took advantage of the moment’s silence to give a triumphant whoop taken up by the rest of the room’s occupants, rattling the windows. Close followed by a chorus of ‘shsss’ as a news team came on screen.
“So, Mr Relois, why have you decided to place a lighted candle in your window tonight?”
An anxious-looking man peeped around his front door.
“It’s, ah, it’s in memory of my mother, you know. She died about seven years ago, and, ah, I do miss her. Seemed a nice thing to do.”
They cut to a wide-eyed mother with a toddler in her arms, trying to shut the door on the camera.
“Mrs Kjelin? Why have you decided to place a lighted candle in your window tonight?”
“Memory of my sister.” She ground the door into the camera lens, getting it closed at last.
“Mr Jackson? Why have you decided to place a lighted candle in your window tonight?”
A sallow-faced man, who shrugged. “Everyone else is. Not illegal, is it?”
The camera crew gave us a shot of his road. About two out of three houses had a light of some kind flickering or glowing in their front window.
Jon snorted when Bane muttered this to him.
“What do they think, that people are actually going to out and say why they’ve really put it there? Mrs Kjelin came the closest. Bet her sister was a reAssignee.”
“Brave of her to say that much,” said Sister Krayj. Most of the non-guard members of Animal team had chosen this sitting room this evening – the guards had one of their own in The Barracks. “Though I think you may be responsible for a good bit of lying tonight, Margo.”
I winced.
“Miss Simms, is it? Why have you decided to place a lighted candle in your window tonight?”
“Just seemed a nice thing to do. It’s so dark at the moment.”
Jon was right, they didn’t get a straight answer from anyone.
Except the last one.
“Mr Galazzi? Why have you decided to place a lighted candle in your window tonight?”
“My daughter failed Sorting three years ago,” said a hard-faced Italian man. “My son is now in a Facility waiting to die, and my wife took an overdose last week. I buried her yesterday. So I’ve decided I will put a candle in my window every night from now on, until Sorting is abolished.
“That what you wanted to hear?”
***+***
20
THE CARDINAL RULE
From the near hysteria sloshing around in the online comments, you’d think everyone else was getting married, not me! An embarrassing level of excitement was building in the Citadel, as well. This would be the first wedding since the state had to relocate – and downsize – so dramatically.
“They’re all just happy for you,” said Kyle, in response to some nervous grumble from me. “Anyway, did Eduardo tell you the last candle-count? They reckon half the population took part. And in some places it was two thirds. Hard to tell in rural areas. But that’s big.”
“Yeah,” I said distractedly. “But it’s one thing to join the crowd and light a candle, and quite another to stick your neck out in any more active way. We’re a long way off ending Sorting, yet.”
Five days to go... Bane was racing around all over the Citadel now, no stopping him. Doctor Frederick was unconcerned, so clearly the wound was basically healed. Bane was talking about having one more week off after the wedding – our ‘honeymoon’ – then going out on the Liberations again. Yet another thing I was trying not to think about.
“Actually, Margo, could we just pop in here for a moment? I wanted to have a word.”
“Umhmm.” I followed Kyle into an empty room, still thinking – trying not to think – about Bane and machine guns. At least the ‘purchase’ of bulletproof vests had gone like clockwork and there was now one for everyone...
“Um, Margo?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, what is it?” Kyle looked... well, he looked really tense, actually. “Kyle? What’s wrong?”
“Well... there’s something... as your only family here, there’s something I’ve got to talk to you about...”
I smirked at him.
“If you’re about to tell me the facts of life, Mum got there before you. About ten years before you.”
Kyle laughed, but it sounded strained.
“No, no. Of course it’s not that. Let me... try to explain. And... please try to remember, I’m your brother, I’ve got to say this... So don’t get too mad at me, please?”
I frowned.
“Go on...”
“Well, about when I... left... home. Well, you know you’d been saying for a couple of years by then that you were going to marry Bane?”
“Longer than a couple.”
Kyle shrugged.
“Well, I suppose we were gradually taking it more seriously. Anyway, about six months before I left – you were fifteen, I think – I overheard Mum and Dad talking. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, just one of those things. And, um...” he shot me a wary look.
“What?”
“Well, Dad said to Mum, ‘you know Margo wants to marry Bane, don’t you?’ And he sounded... worried. That’s what caught my attention, that’s why I went on listening. And Mum said, ‘yes, I know,’ very softly, and she sounded worried too.”
“And? ”
“And, after a moment Mum said, ‘Look, I’ll try to talk to her, but I don’t think it will do any good.’ And Dad sighed.”
“And? ”
“And I just... I have to know, Margo. Did she ever talk to you about it? Whatever was worrying them so much...?”
“You going to try and tell me I shouldn’t marry Bane as well!”
Kyle drew in a breath.
“Is that what she...?”
“No, she didn’t! That’s not what she said!”
“But she did talk to you?”
“Yes, not that it’s any of your business!”
“Margo! I’m your brother. And if Mum and Dad, who love Bane like a son, are worried about you marrying him, well quite frankly, that bothers me!”
“Mum and I spoke about it, okay?” I snarled, “It’s fine.”
“Margo... Look, if it wasn’t for that one thing... I mean, Bane’s a good guy, he’s even come onto the right side now, and he’s your best friend and... well, he’s taken good care of you this far – I know I wasn’t around to help you, okay, before you say it? I haven’t... personally... got any problem with you marrying him, right?
“Well, thank you for your permission!”
“It’s just... I don’t know what they see that I don’t, but I had to check they’d talked to you, okay? That’s all.”
“And it’s quite enough!”
“Don’t be mad...”
“Just... leave it ! The only thing you need to worry about is whether you’re prepared to escort me to the altar on Saturday or whether I escort myself !”
I slammed the door behind me, seething. By the time I’d reached the battlements – forehead... slip bandanna on – I’d calmed down a little. ‘Cause it wasn’t really Kyle I was angry with. It was Mum. It was that conversation – four years ago.
‘Margo,’ she’d said to me, in such a gentle, serious voice, ‘Bane’s a lovely boy, and don’t misunderstand me, I love him like one of my own, but are you sure you want to marry him?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘He’s... he’s so angry, Margo.’
I stared at her in astonishment.
‘Can you blame him?’
‘No, Margo. I can’t blame him. But this isn’t about blame. This is about whether you really want to live with that anger for the rest of your life.’
I glared at her.
Her words were starting an ache deep inside.
‘Yes. Yes, I do!’
She sighed.
‘I can see you think you do. But Margo, the cardinal rule of choosing your life partner is this – never think you will be able to change them. What you see is what you get. Choose accordingly.’
‘I’ve chosen already! And for your information I like what I see and it’s what I want to get !’
I’d stormed off from that conversation as well. My brain could tell me over and over that my mum had my best interests at heart – that Kyle did too – but it couldn’t blot out the hurt. That the person who made me happiest was a person they didn’t want me to have.
I sniffed, brushing away a treacherous tear. So much for the only silver lining to my parents’ absence being that that whole business wouldn’t get dragged up again.
“Are you okay, Margo?”
I started. Jon. Hadn’t even noticed the tapping of his stick.
“I’m fine.”
“Pre-wedding nerves?”
“No. Just.... just Kyle being stupid.”
“Being big brotherly, is he?”
I snorted. “Depends if by big brotherly you mean...” I bit off something very uncharitable.
“You are cross.” Jon laughed, “What, he doesn’t approve of Bane?”
I couldn’t laugh with him, though silence was as good as an admission. The humour was wiped from Jon’s face.
“Not really?”
I said nothing.
“Oh, come on! Of all the guys one’s little sister could drag home to marry, Bane’s pretty unobjectionable. The hero of the Liberations? Kyle should be counting his blessings.”
“It’s... My parents don’t want me to marry Bane.” Never admitted that to anyone before. Scarcely admitted it to myself.
Jon frowned.
“Why not? His temper?”
I blinked.
“Uh... yes.”
Jon pulled a face.
“It’s blinking awful, no getting around that. But... if they’re holding out for a perfect guy for you – well, no one’s perfect.”
Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) Page 22
