‘Well where are all the women?’ I asked. While there certainly where some women in the busy café, they were mostly either very old or very young, and they were in the minority.
‘Working,’ stated Ralph, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Right, so women give birth, but…’
‘Men bring up kids. Is that different to your time?’
‘Um, yes, like massively,’ I said.
‘So who raised the children?’
‘Women, mothers, they did mothering.’
‘Ooh,’ said Ralph as though I’d just said something vaguely rude. ‘Was that healthy?’
‘I don’t know, it’s just, well, it’s different, I mean a lot of women worked as well, but it was always seen as a woman’s job to raise and nurture the children.’
‘What did the men do all day?’
‘Work. Well, the ones who had jobs worked,’ I said as I started to remember the complex realities of my own time. ‘There was a lot of unemployment to.’
‘What was that for?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, confused once again. ‘What d’you mean “what was it for”?’
‘The unployment thing you mentioned,’ said Ralph, clearly having difficulty with the unfamiliar word.
‘Unemployment, it meant there were a lot of people who couldn’t get a job, it was all a bit of a mess I suppose.’
‘So the men who were ployed worked and the women looked after kids, is that why women couldn’t vote?’
‘No! What? Well, yes, but that was long before, look, women could vote, work, have children and everything, but generally it was men who worked and women who looked after kids. Not always, but generally.’
‘Okay,’ said Ralph. ‘Well now, in London, it’s mostly women who work, men look after kids and run homes.’
‘So wait, when I met the panel of women who interviewed me, Nkoyo and all those rather fierce-looking women, who were they?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ralph. ‘I wasn’t there was I. Probably just bureaucrats and officials.’
‘But they were all women.’
‘So?’
‘You mean, like, do women sort of, well, do they run the place?’
Ralph sighed very deeply and continued to stare at me.
‘You do ask the weirdest questions, Gavin.’
The waitress returned with a plate covered with bizarre looking baked things.
‘Help yourself,’ said Ralph. ‘This is just about the best place for bakes in the whole of London.’
They were of uniform shape, like small purple padded envelopes, I watched Ralph demolish one in a mouthful, I bit the corner of another, worried it might be like a mouth burning fast food ‘apple pie’ type product, mass produced in some factory and full of additives and E-numbers.
It was surprisingly delicious and wholesome, I got flavours of strawberries, rhubarb, some kind of subtle herby thing and the pastry itself was divine.
‘Pretty good,’ I said. ‘But of course this…’ I held up the half eaten pastry thing in front of me, ‘just raises loads more questions. Where does it come from? Who makes it? How are they paid? Where do the basic ingredients come from? How does the economic system work, do you still have banks, is there an investment infrastructure?’
Ralph looked at me as a man might look at a slightly annoying barking terrier.
‘You’ll have to ask a woman, all that stuff is so boring,’ he said eventually.
‘Okay, well surely you can tell me what you do, how do you earn money, I mean bits, Kwo?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘How would I know?’ I asked incredulously, noticing a particle of pastry fly out of my mouth as I spoke.
‘You just know, we all know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What, I don’t even know what you’re asking, I’m a worder, I write, everyone knows that.’
‘How do they know? Are you famous or something?’ I was trying to remember if people were actually looking at Ralph as he walked down the street, they all seemed to be looking at me when we first set out. He certainly didn’t get the reaction you might have expected from someone like Tom Cruise or the Dalai Lama.
‘Famous!’ said Ralph, he laughed. ‘No, I’m not famous, everyone knows because they just do. It’s, well, it’s in your grip, I suppose you don’t know how to feel it.’
‘My grip?’
‘You’ll have to ask someone else, I don’t know how all that stuff works. It just does.’
‘I should ask a woman,’ I suggested. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
Ralph grinned a bit like a thirteen-year-old and nodded, ‘Best to.’
‘Okay, the power-field, the big open area,’ I said nodding my head in the direction of the field I had appeared above. ‘What happens there?’
‘It’s just the power-field, there’s loads of them, they do power. I don’t know.’
‘Ask a woman?’
Another nod, this one less interested.
‘Okay, Ralph,’ I said, feeling ever more flattened by my hopeless quest for information. ‘What do you write about? You must be able to explain that.’
‘Restaurants, clothes, shoes – which reminds me, we have to get you some proper shoes, those look like old sacks strapped to your feet, it’s humiliating having you walk around in those.’
‘Are you gay?’ I asked, I thought it was about time and I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and try and guess.
‘I’m very happy most of the time,’ he said.
‘Oh, right, you don’t use that term any more, well, are you a homosexual?’
This time Ralph’s laugh was so explosive he spat coffee all over the pastries.
‘You ask the best questions!’ he squealed, mopping his mouth with a large handkerchief he produced from his absurdly tight clothing. From another area of his ridiculous body suit he produced a small squashed up ball of some kind of material, it was about the size of a marble. He put it on the table in front of me and it opened up to be a little bigger than a sheet of A4 paper. A crystal clear picture emerged as I looked at it, a picture of Ralph standing next to a rather severe-looking woman and a girl of about twelve years old. I glanced up at him, my mouth open.
‘My wife and daughter,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and buy shoes!’
The waitress who served us appeared as soon as we stood up. ‘Enjoy your bakes?’ she asked. I told her I did and she held out her hand, not palm up as if she were expecting a tip, straightforward as if she was expecting me to shake it. I shook hands, I didn’t know what else to do. As I did so again I felt a tiny kind of slump in my belly. I felt myself breath out as if I’d just jumped off a low wall and landed heavily.
‘Thanks,’ I said as we moved away from the table.
‘Come again soon,’ she replied and immediately started clearing our table.
I tottered along behind the striding form of Ralph as we passed through another place surrounded by wonderful tall buildings and then into another square, this one was very different to the squares I’d seen previously. Instead of open space it was covered in a massive tiered structure in that I assumed was a multi-storey garden of some sort. The best description I can come up with is that it looked like a multi-storey car park overflowing with greenery.
‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘What’s going on there?’
‘Covent Garden,’ said Ralph with little interest, ‘where stuff comes from.’
‘What sort of stuff, food?’
‘Yeah, food, it’s a garden, you must have had gardens in the olden days.’
‘Yeah, we did, but they didn’t look like that.’
I stared up at the construction. I counted eight floors, each one high enough t
o house fairly large trees. Once again the scale of the endeavour was mind numbing; it wasn’t so much the height, it was the massive footprint of the place, one structure that had to cover many hundreds of acres. From where I was standing on the path, I couldn’t make out the far end, it disappeared into the heat haze. It must have been several kilometres long.
Ralph turned into an opening in a building facing the Covent Garden Square and I followed. This time we descended a flight of stairs and entered a room with many people working on a variety of mysterious machines, there were hundreds of boxes piled up on tables and intriguing hoppers suspended from the ceiling. The room was dark and incredibly full of equipment, it was also very warm.
Okay, it was uncomfortably hot and I noticed the people working in it, mostly women, were sweating profusely.
‘Take those rag bags off, Uncle G, and stand over there.’
I undid my Gardenian boots and stood up, Ralph held my shoulders and pushed me gently forward, I looked down to see I was standing on a black square thing set in the floor, it had a faint grid etched into the material.
‘Just stand up straight and choose your shoes,’ he said into my ear.
In front of me, not on a screen, just appearing in front of me floating in space, an image of my right foot appeared. It wasn’t an image, that term does the system no justice; it was just the same as looking at my foot, only much bigger. The reason I knew it was my right foot was because of the quite pronounced mole I have on the arch, I wriggled my toes a little and there, right in front of my eyes the massive toes wriggled about at the same time. Somehow the light around me had been excluded as though a thick curtain had been pulled around me, but if I turned my head to the side the image disappeared and I was back in the cramped and noisy room.
A series of soles then appeared under my foot, each one staying for a few seconds before rendering into another design. One appeared that looked something like a moulded sole I recognised, like the sort of thing you’d get on a lightweight walking shoe, essentially what I’d been wearing when I landed in Gardenia.
I missed those shoes; they were still in my beautiful room at Goldacre Hall. Annoyingly I started thinking about my shoes, I ignored what was going on in front of my eyes. If Goldacre Hall no longer existed, if it was just a possible future I’d seen, what had happened to my shoes which were, after all, solid objects from a period of time that really had existed. What had happened to my phone and iPad, my wallet, credits cards, money? Had they just evaporated? Slipped through a gap in time? It was bonkers. I had to stop thinking about it.
I tried to look at the image of my foot again; it was now showing my foot as if I was standing on my toes, this time with a woman’s high heel design underneath. As if I was going to wear them! Eventually it returned to something that looked like a shoe sole I might consider, a moulded, grippy looking affair.
‘Oh, I like that one,’ I said to Ralph, I assumed he was still standing behind me but when I turned around I saw him sitting on a low chair at the far end of the room. I turned back, expecting to see another sole under my massive right foot but the same one was still there, and now a series of straps were appearing around my foot. They all looked really useless, like dainty strappy things you’d see on a woman’s evening shoe.
I said nothing. I didn’t know how to interact with whatever it was I was looking at.
Slowly, the designs that appeared at regular intervals started to cover more of my foot until one appeared that was the nearest thing to a trainer I’d seen.
‘I like that one,’ I said quickly in case I missed it. ‘That one, that’s the one I like.’
‘You are most welcome, sir,’ said a voice behind me. I turned around to see a woman looking up at me, she was really short and for some reason I immediately took to her. She had a lovely, friendly Indian face and a big smile.
‘Oh, hi, I’m Gavin,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to buy some shoes.’
‘I know,’ she said with a kind smile. ‘You are the man from the cloud. It is an honour to meet you, sir.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said. She turned around and opened a door on another box, this one less like a fridge, it was a dark blue coffin-sized contraption with a series of large hoppers mounted along the top. It was making more noise too, very recognisable mechanical noises and it shook slightly as it did whatever it was doing.
It was only then I noticed the short woman had picked up a pair of shoes in exactly the style I’d just said I liked in the weird 3D thing I’d been looking at.
‘You are most welcome, sir,’ she said as she raised the shoes up almost like some kind of religious offering.
‘Um, thanks,’ I said and took the shoes from her as graciously as I could, they were much lighter than I’d imagined and I was about to inspect them when the short woman held out her hand, so I shook it and felt the now more familiar deflated tummy feeling.
The short woman gave me a big smile. ‘Thank you most kindly, sir, and welcome to London.’
She then turned around and sat behind a box, surrounded by footwear components of all types, sheets of material and numerous small, bench mounted tools the purpose of which was completely beyond me.
I joined Ralph on the low seat.
‘That’s what you chose?’ asked Ralph picking up my new shoes. ‘Gardening boots?’
‘They’re not gardening boots,’ I said. ‘They’re sort of trainers.’
I took the new shoes from Ralph but then realised I had no idea how to put them on. I tried to push my toes into the ankle opening, there were no laces, buckles, Velcro or any form of fastening that I could see.
‘Put them down on the floor, Uncle G,’ said Ralph with more than a hint of impatience in his tone. I did so, and the shoes suddenly looked like some kind of bizarre sea anemone, the material of the uppers went soft, it looked like it was melting, but it quickly wrapped itself around my feet and turned back into the original design.
‘That is sick,’ I said as I watched the process take place.
‘What?’ asked Ralph who was now clearly bored by my fascination. ‘How else do you put shoes on?’
‘Well, we used to have to pull them on and lace them up.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ralph. ‘How much were they?’
‘What?’
‘The shoes. How much did she say?’
‘She didn’t,’ I said.
Ralph sat back with his long spindly fingers covering his face. ‘Oh no, you shook hands didn’t you,’ he said, his voice muffled by his fingers.
‘Well, I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘I told you not to negotiate, I told you to leave it to me, oh brak. It’s too late now. Hang on.’
Ralph stood up and went over to the tiny Indian woman who’d sold me the shoes, I saw him gesticulate a bit, the woman continued to smile and Ralph returned shaking his head.
‘You are one lucky man,’ he said. ‘She says you are the man from the cloud, she saw you talking yesterday and thought you were a nice man, she’s given you a discount. They’re only 15 Kwo.’
‘Oh, was she at the news conference?’ I asked.
‘No you dooz, no, she saw you.’
I shrugged, I didn’t know what he meant, I guessed he meant some kind of television.
‘Is 15 Kwo cheap for a pair of shoes?’ I asked.
‘It’s close to free, even for big, galumphing ugly gardening boots.’
I stood up and walked in a small circle in the shoes, they fitted amazingly well. I could barely feel them, they were so light and yet still supportive. I knew pretty quickly that these were the very best shoes I had ever worn.
‘It’s like they were made for me,’ I said.
‘Well who else would they be made for?’ asked Ralph, he waved at the small Indian woman and we le
ft the dark space and returned to the glaring sunlight of the square.
‘I don’t know, but as soon as I’d said I liked them she held them up in front of me. I suppose I thought she had some on a shelf or something.’
‘They make shoes, they made your shoes while you were umming and arring. Why did you think I took you there, for the good of my health? They are famous for being the fastest shoe shop in this part of London.’
We continued walking along the path beside the massive, multi-storey garden, every now and then I noticed people working in the various floors. The people working seemed to be mainly women.
I knew then, as I trotted behind the enormous striding form of Ralph, this London was going to take some getting used to.
9
A Unique Yuneec
On my fourth day in London, Pete showed up at my door early one morning. He told me he had permission to take me to see what was left of the Yuneec in his storeroom.
‘You have permission?’ I queried. ‘Who needs to give you permission?’
Pete froze for a moment, we both stood looking at each other in silence, I think I was trying to work out if he needed permission because he was a bit of a nutter and was under some kind of twenty-third-century supervision order, or if I was considered to be a bit of a nutter and had to be managed in a similar way.
‘I asked Nkoyo,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t she told you?’
‘Told me what? Am I under arrest or something?’
Again Pete froze, he stood looking at me with his enormous mouth open.
‘What is “under arrest”?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Pete. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘Am I a prisoner?’
‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘But I had to ask permission.’
That didn’t leave me any the wiser on this particular issue but by now I was learning the ways of the Squares, so I checked if this was going to cost me anything.
‘Do we have to shake hands?’ I asked.
‘Not unless you want to,’ said Pete, he looked a little crestfallen which then made me worry if it was possible to shake hands without transferring vast amounts of Kwo.
News from the Squares Page 10
