The Grasshopper's Child

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘We’re about a mile outside the village, towards Maymere Haven along the Sea Lane, you can’t miss us. It’s just a smallholding. We called it Heaven, we planned to have a petting zoo, and Organic tea rooms. It was our dream, getting out of the Rat Race, but the Crisis put paid to all that. We work for the government now, or actually the Carron-Knowells; it amounts to the same thing. I breed native hedgehogs for re-introduction, and Tim, my husband, he’s a scientist, you know, he also runs the local paper, is doing research into, well, I won’t spoil it for you, rather disgusting but fascinating research—’

  ‘I’d love to come, if I ever have time.’

  Mrs Healey talked non-stop, but Heidi didn’t mind: it was an improvement on having her welling up and begging forgiveness every other second. The little electric van whirred and clunked down the bumpy track. At Sea Lane they turned left; same direction as Heidi on the day she found the door in the wall. Straight through the silent village, over the Learning Centre crossroads, heading for the Carron-Knowells estate: and Heidi felt a stupid tingling of excitement. As if she cared, but she couldn’t stop herself thinking about Gorgeous George.

  ‘All the woods behind that fence on your left are part of the estate,’ said Mrs Healey. ‘No trespassing, that’s very strict. Never go exploring in there, will you Heidi?’

  I’m not eight, thought Heidi. And I’m a full time slave.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you won’t.’

  Imposing electric gates loomed up, and opened as they approached. Heidi glimpsed a man in uniform in an armoured booth, and then the van was crunching up a gravel drive through acres of smooth pasture; dotted with a few tasteful sheep and trees.

  ‘Here we are, Knowells Old Farm. Rather fine, isn’t it? The house has been in Portia’s family for donkey’s years, you could say she’s our lady of the manor. As you can see, the park is all in Food Production, improved pasture land—’

  Yeah, food production, right: thought Heidi, disgusted. I bet every one of those sheep has a personal beautician. Rich hippies get away with murder in the country.

  ‘George Carron is the incomer, so to speak, but they’re such a nice couple, so down to earth, always ready to help—’

  The ‘old farm’ looked more like a swanky celebrity mansion that had eaten an old farmhouse. Mrs Healey took a turn off the main drive, round the side of the building. Presumably, like Heidi at the Garden House, she wasn’t allowed to use the front door.

  ‘And beautifully, sensitively restored inside. I hope you’ll get a chance to see it. Portia and George are so, well, I don’t know how we’d get by without them. And still a highly efficient working farm too, as you see.’

  Heidi had wondered about the lack of Food Production tunnels around the village: now she saw the answer. They were here. Masses of them. Maybe she’d misjudged Lord and Lady Muck. She thought of the Garden House’s barely average veg box, and wondered what had gone wrong.

  ‘All fully intensive, conservation standard, hyper-productive—’

  The van scrunched through an archway and pulled up. Mrs Healey stopped babbling and smiled nervously. ‘Here we are. You go ahead Heidi, everyone will be in the Old Corn Barn. I have more fetching and carrying to do, but I have helpers. Portia’s so keen to meet you.’

  ‘Weird woman,’ muttered Heidi, standing in the huge, glorified, squeaky-clean farmyard; feeling deserted. The Corn Barn must be the big place in front of her. She pushed on one of the immense wooden doors: wondering if this was the moment when the yokels jumped on her, knocked her out, and she woke up naked, tied down on the altar beside that bonfire on the cliffs. About to be sacrificed by grey-eyed George the golden boy.

  The barn smelled of earth and water and crushed herbs. Wreaths of dried flowers and wheat stalks hung on the towering whitewashed walls. Heaps of produce filled rows of trestle tables. People, mostly strangers to Heidi, bustled around: carrying boxes, consulting lists. She was surprised at the crowd. There must be more to Mehilhoc than she’d seen, but of course she hadn’t seen much. A smaller, solid table stood by the entrance, with a tea urn, a rabble of mugs, and a fine display of homemade cakes. A thickset woman in a navy Guernsey jumper stood behind it, studying Heidi with narrowed eyes. She looked familiar.

  ‘You’re Heidi Ryan, aren’t you,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard about you from our Jo.’

  ‘I’m Heidi. Er, I’m here to help?’

  The woman stuck out a hand. ‘Merril Florence. From the pub, the Blue Anchor?’

  ‘Yeah, I know it.’

  ‘Not the inside you don’t. Not for a few years yet. You’re a poet, is it?’

  ‘Going to be.’

  ‘Right. Very interesting, good on yer. Okay, now. Potatoes, onions, celeriac, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, spinach, all under control. I can’t put you on the “delicates”, that’s skilled. What about filling winter salad bags? You don’t mind washing off a few little slugs?’

  ‘Okay, er, fine.’

  Jo’s mum grinned broadly. ‘Just kidding. You do plenty, already. I hate “winter salad” meself. Beet leaves. I bet even the Russians don’t eat their beet leaves.’

  ‘Not until they’ve finished off the dog and the baby first,’ said Heidi.

  ‘No subversive talk! I’ll put you with the other kids. Brook and Chall and the Deaf lad are tying herbs. If that’s too fiddly, move on to grading beets. Want a cake and a cuppa first?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Then you can get stuck in.’

  It was just like at home, really. Except the Corn Barn was a fancier venue than the function room at The Albert, and there was no music. Challon and Brook made room for her on the bench by the herbs, and showed her what to do. Cyril Staunton and Sorrel sat opposite. Cyril was sorting beetroots; Sorrel was nursing a fat baby. Next to Cyril sat a tiny old lady, with no teeth and practically no hair: following his every move with eyes of worship and a blissful smile. Next to Heidi, also on herb bunches, was John Fowler, the Deaf boy who’d only turned up once since Heidi joined the Exempt Teens sessions. He was about thirteen, and like Heidi he was not a local.

  ‘Hi, John,’ she said, making sure he could see her lips. He had a little hearing in his right ear, but she was on the wrong side. ‘How’s things?’’

  ‘Okay. How’s the slave job shaping up?’

  ‘Not too bad when you get used to it. Look, I was meaning to ask you. I was doing BSL before I got indentured. I’m really interested in the language, I’d like to keep it up. You don’t use Sign, but maybe you know it, and you could help me out sometime—?’

  The Deaf boy laughed, silently. ‘As long as you never let on to my mum that I talk like one of you lot, when I’m out of her reach. Mum hates me doing that. Dad’s okay.’

  ‘Your dad’s managing the conversion of the Cement Works, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. I could have gone to Ag. Camp. Mum wouldn’t let me, so I’m here. You’re not picking sprigs of even lengths, Heidi. Look at the chart.’

  Why does it matter? thought Heidi, starting again. I’d love to get any size of herbs. But there’d never been a bountiful herb posy, or a bunch of pungent fresh basil, in the Garden House box. She supposed that was okay. It must be a special extra.

  Brook wore a rainbow striped knitted cap today, with braided tassels; and Sorrel, Heidi suddenly realised, was breast-feeding the infant on her lap. You wouldn’t do that for your little brother. Sorrel saw her looking, and a furious scarlet blush flooded the tattoos.

  ‘Hi, Sorrel,’ said Heidi, embarrassed. She smiled at the baby. ‘Is he yours?’

  ‘Take a wild guess, smartarse.’

  ‘Sorry, I was just surprised.’

  The baby burst out wailing. Sorrel stuffed her breast back into her bra, pulled down her jumper and stormed off with him, shouting ‘Mum! Mum!’

  Nobody spoke. So that’s why you’re not at Ag. Camp, thought Heidi. So much for your dad ‘fixing it’.
She couldn’t see Clancy. No sign of George either, but she kept looking out for him. She was attracted, there was no use denying it. And Golden Boy was flirty: looking at her in the sessions; saying cheeky things to get her attention. She knew the type. She wasn’t going to fall for it. Sorrel had charged up to a tall woman in long tapestry skirts, with a hippie-ish mane of grey-streaked golden hair down her back. That must be the lady of the manor: George’s mother. Her face was weathered, strong and beautiful, but hard, Heidi thought. A touch of the Virtual Verruca’s there—

  Sorrel returned and sat down with a thump, the blush lingering like a bruise. ‘I know what you’re all thinking, but I’m not a bad person. Okay, I’m sorry, Heidi. Just so’s you know, I didn’t want it. I wanted a termination, I’m too young. My mum made me have it, so now Ag Camp won’t take me. I’m stuck here, and everything absolutely stinks. Chall, Mum says you’re to stay after this, have something to eat with us, in the kitchen, and then go straight along. You don’t need to go home. Your mum’s sending your costumes and stuff.’

  Challon nodded, without looking up from the posy she was tying. ‘Fine,’ she muttered. There wasn’t a thread of black, Heidi noticed, at the roots of her silky red-gold hair.

  ‘She’s doing a private show for my parents and their mates tonight,’ Sorrel informed the table. ‘She often does that, Heidi. It’s good practice for her. But this is special, and I’ll tell you because she won’t: Chall’s in the final, for People’s Young Artist of the Year.’

  ‘ Wow! ’ shouted John. ‘Coming soon to a Top Stories Board near you! Incredible, Chall!’

  ‘That’s very good news,’ said Cyril sedately. ‘I feel personally proud.’

  Where Heidi came from, everyone she knew thought People’s Young Artist was a disgrace. Nothing to do with real music. Just rubbish and corrupt, like those tv contests had always been; only now you got the Chinese version. But she liked Challon, and she understood that country people felt differently.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘That’s a big deal.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Chall. ‘I’m only at virtual Brit you know. They have to have a few also-rans, to make the contest look good. It’s experience, but I’ll be nowhere in the voting.’

  ‘That is the wrong attitude.’ Cyril shook his head, like a puppet, left, right: and set another beetroot carefully in order. ‘Compete against your own personal best, and you will succeed.’

  ‘You don’t know anything Cyril: Chall’s right,’ said Sorrel angrily, ‘Her mum was a popstar, Missy Anak: nobody’s heard of her now, because she had no backers. Chall knows the business, she knows she’d be nowhere without my dad.’

  ‘Sor, that’s a disgusting thing to say,’ snapped Brook.

  ‘No it isn’t. It’s the way things work. I didn’t say Chall didn’t deserve to win.’

  The tall woman in the tapestry skirts had been walking up and down, jogging the baby to quiet him, and glancing curiously at the Exempt Teens table. Finally she came over.

  ‘You must be Heidi Ryan. I’m Portia. Such a terrible thing, a terrible thing—’

  ‘Mum,’ groaned Sorrel. ‘Leave her alone. What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Not that you aren’t welcome here, of course you are,’ said Portia, ignoring her daughter and staring at Heidi. ‘But we’ll have to find you a more suitable placement, Heidi. An urban setting, where you’ll feel more at home—’

  The very old lady suddenly gave vent to a loud, wet and extremely smelly fart. ‘So glad you’ve joined us today, Heidi,’ said the lady of the manor, and hurriedly took herself off.

  John Fowler snickered heartlessly.

  ‘Hey, Cyril, I think yours needs changing! What a pong!’

  ‘I would attend to my Elder’s needs,’ said Cyril. ‘In an emergency: although it wouldn’t be dignified. But this is not an emergency, as Chall is here. Chall, please help your gran.’

  ‘She’s not my gran, she’s my great-gran. OhforGod’ssake. Come on, nenek.’

  ‘Challon’s nan is Cyril’s assigned Elder?’ said Heidi.

  ‘It’s because it’s randomised,’ growled Jo Florence, arriving at that moment to pick up a packed box of herb posies. ‘Any fool thing can happen. Hiya, Heidi, y’all right?’

  ‘All right.’

  Heidi moved up the bench to talk to Brooklyn. ‘Brook, I want to ask you something. Your mum told me, on the way here, she looks after animals?’

  ‘Hedgehogs, yeah. We breed them for re-introduction.’

  ‘Does she know about cats? There’s this stray cat I’m feeding, he’s got a lump on his throat, and it stinks, like something rotten. I’m really worried, and I can’t ask my owners to send him to the vet. Would it be okay if I asked your mum? For advice, I mean.’

  ‘No,’ said Brook. ‘It would not. Don’t mention cats to my mum. The only good cat is a dead cat. They attack hedgehogs.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘In another life, before I had heart disease, I was going to be a vet. It sounds as if your feller’s got an abscessed fight wound. I could treat that. Mum has a cabinet of pet medicines for her dim-wit spiny ratoids. I know where she keeps the key: but I’d have to see him.’

  ‘Wow. Thanks. Only I don’t know how I can get him to you. I didn’t think of that.’

  Challon returned as they were having this whispered conversation. She set the old lady back in her place beside Cyril, and sat by Heidi.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘A secret pet emergency,’ murmured Brook. ‘At the Garden House. Are you in?’

  Challon looked startled. She frowned; then quickly nodded. ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Okay, Heidi,’ said Brook. ‘Probably tomorrow. But we discuss it later, not here.’

  By five the sorting was over. Heidi carried one of the last boxes out. Villagers were getting on their bicycles, or setting off on foot. The estate workers had vanished, or were fully occupied. She took her box into the smaller, modern barn herself. The light inside was low; the boxes of fresh produce neatly stacked. She was glad to be alone for a moment.

  An urban setting, where you’ll feel more at home .

  An urban setting: Heidi knew what that meant. Ignorant, racist bitch!

  Staring at Heidi in that horrible way, so different from the way Jo Florence’s mum had looked at her. The lady of the manor, thinking poor Heidi was from a terrible background, and couldn’t survive among people who used knives and forks. She paced up and down, glaring at the high-piled loot, all those masses of delicious, quality fresh produce: while the people who did the grading and packing made do with ‘winter salad’. A swede and a few beetroots; a few potatoes. Maybe a couple of carrots. An onion if you were lucky. Food Criminals, she thought, vindictively.

  I’ll tell the police.

  And why not? The Inspector was obsessed with Mehilhoc. How did Heidi end up here, had she noticed anything funny going on? He was full of questions. Heidi wasn’t normally the sort of person who’d grass, but she’d already crossed that line in her heart, when she told the Inspector Dad had dodgy contacts. She’d have named names if he’d shown an interest. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t got back to her about the rings either. No session with an expert for Heidi, no sign of the Purple Suitcase. She’d heard nothing from the hospital either. For one glorious half hour she’d thought everything was turning around, but everything was worse than ever. Over and over, seeing what she’d seen when she walked into that room—

  Heidi knew what people thought. She knew the Exempt Teens pitied her; even Old Wreck Tallis probably pitied her for being so dumb she believed her crazy mum was innocent. Only Clancy understood. Heidi would fight like the devil for Mum, say anything, never give an inch, but all the time, every moment, she faced the worst thing—

  Someone was watching her from the doorway. It was George.

  ‘Hey, Heidi. What are you doing in here? Snooping?’

  ‘Just dumping the last box.
That’s a lot of veg. I was wondering where it all goes.’

  ‘Restaurant trade,’ said George. ‘Don’t be scared, it’s all legit. My Dad isn’t stupid. Want to see the paperwork? It costs a lot to run a whole village, and this is how it happens.’

  ‘I didn’t see you sorting carrots.’

  ‘Not my thing.’ He came over, with that lanky, swaggering walk, and stood too close.

  ‘I met your mum,’ said Heidi.

  ‘Yeah, I know. What did you think of her?’

  ‘She seems like a strong, powerful person. Lets you know who’s boss.’

  ‘Trust you. You cut straight to the chase. Strong and powerful. I call her Mother Courage, like in the Musical, because she never weakens.’ He reached inside his jacket. ‘I was looking for you. I brought you a present.’

  The flat, oval gold case weighed heavy in Heidi’s hand. She found the catch, opened it, and saw a pair of antique miniatures, a girl in lace and silks, a boy in a gold-trimmed hat.

  ‘Where did you get this? Is it yours?’

  ‘Nicked it from my Elder. Dr Gunn, she’s not a real doctor, but she used to doctor us, in the Crisis. I was terrified of her when I was a kid. She’s blind, lives with her dog. She’s got a ton of old gewgaws, she’ll never miss it. You like? What’s it worth? A kiss?’

  Suddenly his arm was around her, his eyes were serious: his mouth was soft and inviting, his breath warm and sweet on her face. Heidi slipped out of his grasp.

  ‘Hey, why be like that? I know you like me, and no one’s looking. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that I heard you and Challon were an item, maybe.’

  George’s smile vanished. ‘Oh, I get it. Girltalk. She’s dumped me. Good as dumped me, if I cared. She never thinks about anything but Virtual Brit and making it big, these days.’