‘They don’t suffer in any way other than they have the inability to communicate outside the walls of the Institute.’
‘So they are the really mad people who are seen as a threat to society?’ I said as I chewed through a delicious apple.
‘Yes.’
‘And yet we eat the food they’ve prepared,’ I was smiling as I said this. Nkoyo looked at me blankly. ‘Meaning they could poison it, or put broken glass in my porridge, or piss in your coffee.’
Nkoyo started laughing. ‘You can take the man out of the dark times, but you–’
‘–can’t take the dark times out of the man,’ I said, grinning too. ‘You are an amazing woman Nkoyo. Is it okay if I say that?’
Nkoyo brushed her hand over her shortly cropped hair and smiled coyly.
‘Why thank you, Mister Meckler.’
‘No, I mean it. I could not have coped with being here if it wasn’t for you. If I’d been born here, if I’d grown up here and wanted to meet someone I could love and have children with, I’d be hard pushed to find a woman better than you to do that with.’
‘That is a very kind thing to say. Thank you.’
Nkoyo sat looking at me with no fear, no anxiety that I was making some kind of subtle move with sexual intent. It didn’t feel sexual because it wasn’t. I don’t know why, all I knew was she understood me perfectly and that was incredibly reassuring. A woman understood me. I didn’t feel any different; I wasn’t putting on an act in the hope that it would chime with her. I told her what I felt, I knew the feelings were real and she responded accordingly. It was revelatory.
‘Well, on that note, how would you like to become more independent, move out of the Institute, make the first step into becoming a normal member of society?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. Seriously. I have been talking to Pete Branson, you remember him?’
‘I do remember him. I’ve been hoping to see him because I really want to thank him. He sorted out the recording nightmare when we were in Rio.’
‘Indeed. But let me explain a little bit about Pete. You see he spent a long time living here a few years ago. He was a very troubled man. Did he ever tell you about his mother?’
‘No, he never told me about his life, just that he can fix things.’
‘Yes, that is true, he is extraordinarily gifted at maintenance. Many see this skill, limited though it is, as being inherited from his mother. She was a very influential engineering scientist who sadly died when Pete was a very young boy. Obviously his father raised him but this man was so distraught at the loss of his partner I fear much damage was done in Pete’s early life.’
I nodded knowingly at this information. I still had a couple of cynical sinews left deeply embedded and took comfort in them. My impression of Pete was that he was a bit thick, clearly hadn’t inherited much of his mother’s intelligence. I then realised that was a very cruel and judgemental thing to think, Pete had shown enormous intelligence and foresight to get the recording from the Erotic Museum’s infrastructure data.
‘We treated Pete here for many years, he was prone to bouts of depression and self-harm but he is very much better now, he lives in a kind of half-way house in Carson Square, on the opposite side to the Erotic Museum.’
‘I remember now,’ I said. ‘When I first met him he told me he lived in a house with a blue door with an eight painted on the front.’
‘Yes, eight Carson Square, that is the address of the safe house.’
‘It’s a safe house, what, like top secret, used by mi5 and stuff?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Nkoyo flatly.
‘No, sorry, no, I mean the term safe house, it was used back in the dark times, where secret agents hid people under threat of assassination and stuff.’
‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about, so let me explain,’ said Nkoyo with just a hint of impatience. ‘There is a room available at the house. It’s up to you, you could live there if you wanted. You’d have to support yourself, pay a ground charge and share in the house tasks. Do you think you might like to do that for a bit?’
‘Yeah. If that’s what’s on offer, as I think you know I don’t have many alternatives,’ I said feeling very non-committal about the whole thing. Much as I was grateful to Pete for what he did for me when I was in Rio, the idea of living with him was a bit of a big ask.
‘It’s not just Pete in the house, there are forty rooms so there are thirty-nine other people there. Mostly women but there are five men including Pete.’
‘Oh I see,’ I said again realising just too late that Nkoyo had heard my thoughts and responded accordingly.
‘Have a think about it. Pete is coming around this morning, you could talk to him about it if you want.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Nkoyo, she looked mildly concerned.
‘I just, well, I was just asking how are you, you know. Just a friendly question,’ I said nervously. It didn’t sound like a rude thing to say but I still seemed to get things wrong all the time in London.
‘You know how I am,’ she said, then smiled. ‘Well, you could know how I am.’
‘If I relaxed and listened.’
Nkoyo nodded, then stood up. ‘I’m actually rather busy, we’ve had a lot of new patients lately, mostly Weaver women who’ve been causing a bit of difficulty since the vote.’
‘Oh, what kind of difficulty?’ I wanted to know what these nut bags were up to.
‘It’s nothing to worry about, just some civil disorder, fairly inconsequential.’
‘Like riots?’
Nkoyo put her coffee container back in the box it came from, the door melted closed and she turned and smiled at me.
‘No, not riots, just a bit of shouting and crying.’
Nkoyo walked out of the canteen room, and a moment or two later Hector walked in looking like a Dickensian ghost of gardeners past. He was holding a small tool in front of him which I instantly knew meant he wanted me to follow him out into the garden.
It was brutally hot outside as I walked across the garden to one of the long beds by the far wall. Hector bent down and used the tool, it was a three pronged fork similar to the thing my grandma used to toast crumpets on the fire in her old cottage in the Forest of Dean. Hector touched a sprout of chickweed with the end of this tool and it immediately burst into a puff of green powder. It wasn’t a violent event, the fork thing made the weed disappear with a vaguely audible pop. He ran his fingers along a row of some kind of vegetable seedlings that were planted in the bed, I knew he meant that I shouldn’t use the tool on them. It was just for the weeds. He held prongs of the tool near his hand, turned his sad old face toward mine and slowly shook his head. Simple to understand, don’t touch yourself with the prongs. Hector stood up and handed me the tool, patted me on the back and went away.
So, for the next two hours I was bent over in the baking sun touching weeds with a weird fork and watched them pop into oblivion. Of course, I was tempted to touch one of the prongs on my hand just to see how painful it would be but thought better of it. I didn’t fancy seeing my hand make a gentle pop sound and turn to pink mist.
‘Hey, Gavin my man, look at you, a genuine son of the soil!’ said Pete. I hadn’t heard him enter the garden but then I was very lost in removing a patch of dense weeds in the far corner of the vegetable bed I was working on.
We greeted each other with a hug, it was a little like hugging a king-sized mattress, Pete was truly enormous.
‘Thank you so much, Pete,’ I said as we finally disengaged. ‘The Weaver women thing, the recording.’
‘Hey, don’t worry about that, it was fun. I said to my housemates, I said, hey, I can fix that and I did. I went over the old Erotic Museum and
got into the sub-basement, all the data collection points are there. Not many people would know where to look, but I know. So it was fun, and it showed up those Weaver ladies. I’m not going to pretend and be all benign like the big girls say I should, I don’t like the Weaver ladies and I never did. There, I’ve said it.’
‘Good for you, matey,’ I said. ‘I’m not too keen on them either. And yes, Nkoyo did talk about me coming to live in your house.’
Pete’s enormous face broke into a massive grin, he pointed at me and nodded excitedly.
‘Hey, look at you, all tuned into your kidonge, you know what’s happening now, Gavin matey, you know what I’m thinking. You are so clever, took me years before I could do anything with mine.’
I received another massive pat on the back which nearly sent me flying into a nearby bush.
‘Let’s walk up here,’ said Pete. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
35
Fractal Fireworks
I walked out of the institute’s front door very early the following morning with a sack of furniture cushions in a large bag on my back. I had chosen to go early in the hope that there wouldn’t be many people about. It was mid-September, the air was hot, the sun was high and paths were busy. I was immediately engulfed in a large crowd of men, a sea of eager, happy faces surrounded me. Suddenly I saw one I recognised. It was Tudor boy, it was Judd, the student I’d walked around the Museum of Human History with.
‘Mister Meckler, please allow me to carry your bag, it would be a great honour,’ he said.
‘Oh, there’s really no need it’s not—’ but the bag was lifted from my shoulder and this rather frail looking young man started to walk ahead of me.
‘Thank you, Gavin,’ said a very tall, rather gaunt looking man who walked beside me. ‘Thank you for all you’ve done.’
I smiled at him. I had no idea what to say. Someone else patted me on the back, the crowd increased in size and I quickly realised that it was a very bad idea to leave the Institute through the front door carrying a large bag first thing in the morning. Of course everyone was awake, it was the obvious time to do things, six in the morning was before the temperature got really high, as it seemed to be every day in London 2211.
‘Are you going to live with Pete?’ asked a man who was walking on the other side of me.
‘Yes,’ I said, I couldn’t think of any reason to say ‘none of your business mate.’
‘I was only going to suggest you are very welcome to live in my apartment, I have a spare room.’
I looked at the man, he seemed perfectly normal but why would he ask a stranger to move in with him? It sounded dodgy, but then I realised that this was me projecting. Then I pondered if it was because I was some kind of celebrity and these people all wanted some kind of reflected glory thing, I don’t know what it was but it felt strange and slightly unnerving.
‘I’m just staying with Pete for a while,’ I said through the jostling throng, ‘’til I can find something to do.’
‘You can come and work with me, I repair cars, I’ve got a workshop at my place,’ someone shouted.
‘Come and talk to the kids at my school,’ shouted someone else.
‘Tell us about war!’ said another voice. It was getting a little heated. I kept my eye on Judd the Tudor boy and pressed forward. I knew I just needed to get to the transit entrance, get down the stairs and get into a car. They couldn’t all get in with me.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I shouted. ‘I’ve got nothing to say at the moment. I kind of need to be left alone, you know, just a bit.’
I was trying not to be rude, I didn’t hate these men but I had no idea what I could do for them.
‘Were you a soldier?’ one asked, a very tall man walking behind me, he had his hand on my shoulder, it wasn’t aggressive, he wasn’t threatening me but it was a bit of an intrusion. I saw another man gently remove his hand.
‘Let Gavin be,’ said the intervening man. ‘He just needs some time alone. Let’s leave him alone.’
‘Yes, leave Gavin alone,’ shouted another man.
Over the next few meters the crush around me receded and I continued on my way. Soon it was just me and Judd trudging along the path, a few women were walking toward us, they stopped and stared as I walked past but thankfully they didn’t say anything.
When we got to the corner where the transit entrance was Judd turned to me and handed me the large bag.
‘There you go, Mister Meckler. Thank you for letting me help you.’
‘I think I should thank you, Judd,’ I said as I swung the bag over my shoulder. ‘Maybe you can explain to me what all those men wanted?’
‘What they wanted?’
‘Yes, with me, what they expected me to do, or to say to them. I really don’t understand.’
‘You are a hero, they admire you as I do,’ said Judd with a look of surprise on his pristine young face. ‘Do you not understand that?’
’To be perfectly honest, no I don’t understand.’
Judd looked positively dumbstruck.
‘Look, I haven’t done anything,’ I said. ‘I didn’t change the Senate vote, I was being kept in a moving room on the side of the Senate security building in Rio when the vote took place.’
‘But you showed the powerful that all the stories of the dark times are not true. You showed that men weren’t always bad, not all men.’
‘Is that really what you’ve been told?’ I asked. I’d never quite got to the bottom of how the dark times were perceived.
‘Yes, we learn, and there is plenty of historical documentation to back this up, that up to a hundred and fifty years ago men were almost fanatical in their desire to destroy, to dominate and control. Men thought of women as their possessions.’
‘You obviously haven’t met my wife.’
‘Men forced themselves on women whenever they wanted.’
‘You obviously haven’t met my wife.’
‘They used the earth as a possession, they stripped resources without a second thought, they wasted those resources, wasted their own lives in wars, wasted everything they had been blessed with. You showed us this wasn’t completely true.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes!’ shouted Judd. He started jumping up and down as he spoke. ‘You showed the world that a man, okay, only one, but a man from the dark times didn’t want to do all these things. Thought it was wrong for a man to kill and rape. You showed that men are not the only culprits of the crimes of the dark times.’
I stood looking at Judd for a moment. I admit that I felt guilty about the slightly homophobic thoughts I’d had about this young man. I had reacted to him in a fairly negative way when I’d first discovered he liked to dress up in Tudor clothes. Now he’d just explained something very clearly, something that had been worrying me since my arrival in the Squares.
‘Thank you, Judd,’ I said and I gave him a hug, just like that. I gave him a hug as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Of course I’d been hugged my numerous men since I’d arrived in the confusing city but I’d never, in my life, given a man a hug, especially one who might be a gay Tudor re-enactor.
‘I understand, and I’m very pleased I was able to help even though it doesn’t feel like I did anything.’
Judd was smiling as I left him and descended the stairs into the transit hall. I had to wait about a minute for a free car to arrive. I hopped in and was quickly joining the incredibly high-speed traffic silently rushing through the tunnels. After another two or three minutes the car came to a neck straining halt and I exited on Carson Square. It was the first time I’d been back since my fateful visit to the Erotic Museum and I realised how much I’d changed since that day. I felt very different as I emerged into the hot sun. I glanced up at the sign and made a mental note to f
ind time to read ‘The Silent Spring’ as soon as I got the chance.
I turned in the opposite direction to the Erotic Museum and before I’d even had time to register where Pete’s house might be, a huge gathering of people further up the path gave me a painfully obvious location point. Outside the blue door with an eight painted on it was another massive crowd of people. I could see there were women among the men, but they were in the minority for once. As I approached I could see some people pointing at me, a huge cheer went up and suddenly the most extraordinary fireworks shot into the sky. I don’t have any other way to describe them, I knew immediately they were not in the least firework like, I’m sure no gunpowder, strontium, calcium, barium or copper chloride was used to create what were essentially light patterns that shot skyward at eye-defying speed. They opened into massive, ornate and multicoloured displays before dispersing into a trillion fragments of bright light. I suppose virtual fireworks would be a better description, fractal fireworks maybe. They were amazing, and I know I was stumbling toward this crowd with my mouth open as I observed the spectacle of intense light, even against the bright blue sky they were clearly visible.
As I got closer four rocket type things fired at once, they didn’t make any sound but a rocket is the best way I have of describing the sudden burst of light that emerged from the middle of the gathering. High above them the words ‘Welcome Home Gavin Meckler’ appeared in perfect Avenir Book font. I stopped walking and watched as the letters glowed in the sky, slowly dispersing and melting away like showers of sparks.
‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered as I was engulfed in a seething crowd of well-wishers. My assumption that they were well-wishers was based on their smiles, cheers and friendly back slaps.
‘Well done, Mister Meckler!’ I heard someone shout.
‘Good job, Gavin!’ another voice from the throng.
I was swept along by this happy gaggle and suddenly noticed an oversized face grinning at me. It was Pete standing in the open doorway of number eight, Carson Square. He nodded to his left and I knew at once what he was gesturing at, I managed to crane my neck and see, through the jumping and shouting crowd around me a long row of figures dressed in black standing slightly away from the seething mass around me. It was a row of what I assumed were women, Weaver women, their heads covered, dressed in shapeless, floor-length black gowns looking exactly like women from Muslim countries during my era.
News from the Squares Page 33
