The Society

by Karen Guyler

  She put her phone on silent, dropped it in her handbag, stared out of the window. What happened to you, Eric?

  Her ring tone filling the car confused her until she heard DI Smith answer his phone. “We’re in the middle of something. . .No, but—statement. . .” His voice sounded tighter with every syllable. “Yes. . .I will. Understood, DI Smith, DC Truman responding.” He disconnected, “pull over,” turned round to Eva. “There’s a major incident,” held a business card out to her. “Report within five days to give your statement.”

  Eva reached for it, but he held onto it. “Don’t make me come and find you.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  DC Truman roared away, lights flashing, sirens blaring. By the time Eva got back to Every Drop, Breaking News confirmed the incident was on the tube network. Lily, at school and Charles in his lab, they were safe. Eva felt her tension level dropping. For her, at least, the most important thing was going right today.

  “What happened?” Dario stopped Eva passing his office. “You’ve been ages, ‘Your Good Morning’,” he added at her blank look.

  The interview, how could she have forgotten that disaster? “I said you should have done it.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as you think.”

  She leant against his door frame. “Except for me not getting out anything I went there to say.”

  “Except that. But we didn’t lose—”

  “Except for what Stuart apparently said. Did he really?”

  Dario gestured at his desk. “Haven’t had a chance to look. Logistics for the next supply wait for no one.”

  “What’s going badly?”

  “How—?” He caught himself running his hand through his straying into grey dark hair for what must have been the hundredth time. “Ah.” Always a hundred percent, a smile for him, sparkling his brown eyes, showing off neat teeth, extra white against his olive skin. His Italian heritage embraced emotion.

  “Hair like a bird’s nest, it’s your poker tell. What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing specific, the whole thing’s a bloody nightmare.”

  She’d known it would be, but to get the new installation operational before Time Magazine announced their company of the year was so important to her. “Is it the schedule?”

  He shrugged, nodded.

  “You need me to help?”

  He gestured at the wall between their offices. “You’ve a stack of messages.”

  “Catch up later then, with coffee?”

  “If you’re offering, sure.” His grin made her smile back, something normal.

  Her office welcomed her in, but she felt more conscious than usual of her father watching from behind the framed cover on the wall when he’d been Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, serious in army fatigues and a microphoned headset on his helmet, and again from behind his framed photo on her desk. He smiled at her from that one, his hand raised against the glare of a strong sun that highlighted the colours around him: sand, sky, washed out khaki clothing, the corner of a red daubed building, the perfect composition.

  “Daddy.” Always whispered, not so much because she’d never progressed to the more grown up ‘Dad’, more that she didn’t want people to know she talked to him. Their special bond, my daddy, my Evie. The ‘my father’ she talked about to others had a remove, a distance to it that had never been between them, until he’d made his fateful decision.

  Eva touched the glass, asked him the question she always did. The echo of him remained stubbornly silent, as always. She still didn’t understand.

  The urgent firefighting for the ball took until late afternoon before she could snatch the minute she needed to dial a number she hadn’t in seven years.

  “The number has not been recognised. Please check and try again.”

  She did as the automated voice ordered even though she knew she hadn’t got it wrong; memorising things like that saved lives.

  Gordon could have retired. That most unlikely scenario could be an explanation. More likely he’d moved departments, changed responsibilities, his number might have been compromised. Could have, might have been, always worse, the imagining.

  “SIS, how may I direct your call?” Bad enough that MI6 could be found through Google, but it had been Americanised? He’d hate that.

  “Gordon Stamford, please.”

  “One moment.”

  The number rang, once, twice—

  “Yes.” Hearing his voice catapulted Eva back to when she was a different person. She opened her mouth to reply as Charles burst into her office, her present smashing into her past. She slammed the phone down.

  “Your friend didn’t come through.” His accent was stronger in his agitation, more Royal Family than his namesake.

  “Friend?”

  “Per Larsson, not much of a friend.” She bit back that her godfather and his wife were the only family that counted to her, apart from him and Lily. “I didn’t get it.”

  Oh, no. Eva’s dart of disappointment for him made her wince. He must be devastated.

  “He can’t sway the judgement of the committee, you know that.” She said it gently, trying to be on both sides at the same time.

  “Chairman of the Committee, that’s exactly what he could do.”

  It was Charles’ upset lashing out; she knew he would only want to win on merit.

  “I’m so sorry you’re disappointed.” She put her arms around him, her head on his shoulder, and waited for the few seconds before she felt him relax against her, hug her back.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” But not getting it this year didn’t mean forever. He was only forty, plenty of time to try again. She squeezed him tighter.

  “This changes everything,” he murmured into her hair.

  “It doesn’t change what’s important.”

  “It’s a disaster.”

  He released her. Beneath her smile, his frown softened but she’d never seen him so crushed. Closed about his work usually, he’d invested all his hope in this, his ultimate recognition. That would be what hurt, that he believed his peers had found his work and, by consequence, him lacking. Setbacks wounded, even if your dream wasn’t as grandiose as a Nobel prize. She still had to reality check herself at Every Drop that she was sitting amongst hers.

  “No for now doesn’t mean forever.” She couldn’t help saying it.

  “You planning on being late home?”

  “I never plan it, but it’ll probably happen. Can you be there for Lily? I promised her pizza tonight. Things’ll calm down after the ball. Did you get a tux yet?”

  He shook his head. She stroked his stubble, more silver than brown these days, but she loved they were growing older together. Eva ignored the pressing weight of the ticking clock—he needed her for that moment.

  “I can escape to help you choose one, but only if you promise you’ll trim this. Go for less of the academic I never remember to shave, more of the designer stubble.” His still mostly brown hair had grown into tighter curls, he’d get away without getting it cut.

  “I could manage that.” He tried for a smile back.

  The cold air snatched their breath, the temperature agreeing with the forecasters that early snow was on the way, but the rain-slicked pavements wouldn’t hold on to it for long.

  “We can walk up to the City, there’s a couple of suit hire places.”

  “At City prices?”

  “Probably, but we can try TK Maxx first.” Where she’d got her dress.

  London Bridge was ordinarily busy, the major incident couldn’t be near there. Buses and heavy traffic rumbled over the choppy Thames beneath them. Charles let her precede him through the pedestrian filtering bollards that marked each end. Barriers ran the length of the pavements, keeping pedestrians safe from terrorist drivers. Eva could remember when walking over a bridge in London wasn’t anything, when no one would have tried to mow people down to make a point. The times in which they lived.

  “What
is it?”

  Charles had stopped, was looking behind them. “Nothing. Come on, before it rains again.” He grabbed her hand.

  Eva smiled, that was nice. When they’d first met they always held hands, but when they’d got back together seven years ago, it had slipped out of the pattern of being them. Not so easy to do that and wrangle a four year-old.

  “You can slow down, they won’t sell out before we get there.”

  But he glanced behind again, sped up further. Eva pulled her hand away from him, but he gripped her tighter. “Charles, I’m wearing heels.”

  They were north of the Thames now, on the City side of the bridge. The green man telling pedestrians it was safe to cross faded ahead of the traffic lights changing from red.

  Eva slowed to wait but, as the traffic restarted, Charles ran straight into its path, pulling her with him.

  4

  “Charles, move.” Eva pushed against him but he held her, rooted between the left hand and middle lanes of London Bridge, a fragile human island in a sea of cars and vans, racing to beat the traffic lights.

  “Stop it, we’re safer here.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  A double-decker hurtled towards them, its driver beeping the warning there wasn’t enough space. Eva wrenched out of Charles’ grip and charged back the way they’d come.

  She lunged for the safety of the pavement, but a weight smacked into her just before she reached it. Eva crashed onto the dropped kerb. Her knee popped loudly, pain reverberated down her leg. She’d broken it, no, no, she couldn’t have, she’d just get up and—

  “Don’t move,” a woman with spectacularly plaited hair held her hand out. “You’re safe there, you might have internal injuries. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “Eva,” wide-eyed with concern, Charles squatted beside her. “What were you thinking?”

  “Me? What were you thinking?” The dimpled pavement was digging into her side.

  “A cyclist hit you.” The woman clarified. “Courier probably, couldn’t get out of here fast enough. I can’t get an ambulance.” She looked at her phone in disgust.

  Major incident, Eva heard it in DI Smith’s voice.

  “Don’t move.” Charles looked through the forest of legs crowding them as some pedestrians slowed for the drama, some stopped to help.

  “I’m fine.” She shifted her weight to get up off the wet, cold, hard, hurting ground. “It’s just my leg.”

  “Eva, please, you’re bleeding.”

  “You recording this?” The woman with the fabulous hair slapped the phone of the teenager beside her. It fell on to the pavement. He yelled at her, scrabbling to pick it up. “You need some respect. What’s the matter with you? Get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” A couple of the other crowd members backed her up.

  The teenager snatched up his phone, held it up as though he was going to take the lady’s photo. She squared up to him. “Go on then and I’ll do a proper job of trashing it this time.”

  He mumbled something and walked off.

  Rain fell on Eva’s face. The kind lady held an umbrella over her.

  “Thank you.” Eva murmured.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  No good deed. If Eva had done what she was supposed to be doing, she’d be safe at her desk right now. Those damn pools of liquid chocolate could always make her do whatever their owner wanted. Charles’ eyes now darkened almost to black, as he looked from her, up at the ring of fast disappearing people around them, nothing exciting enough to keep them there in the renewed rain.

  Only a cyclist. It wasn’t like it had been the bus. Eva had to speak to Gordon, probably had another pile of messages stacking up on her desk. She wiggled her toes, nothing hurt more, she was fine. She sat up.

  “Eva—”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re not.”

  She wiped the raindrop rolling down the side of her face, held her hand out for him to help her up. He gestured at her fingertips. Red, oh. She wiped them down her coat. Dry clean only. She wouldn’t be wearing that tomorrow.

  “Honey, I don’t think—”

  “Honestly, I’m fine.” Eva smiled at the umbrella-holding lady. “Thank you so much for stopping. Charles.”

  He helped get her vertical, her weight on her right leg, hop-stepping her away from the road. “We can get to hospital by taxi.”

  “There’s a major incident, I’m only walking wounded, I have zero chance of being seen before the ball tomorrow. Dario’s pretty handy with a first aid kit,” one perk of having an ex-paramedic on the staff. “Get me back to Every Drop.”

  She’d padded at her face with an increasingly red tissue three times before Charles gave up with the taxi apps on her mobile. With an arm round him, she was able to put more weight on her left leg with every step until they reached her building.

  “I’ve got it from here, you need to get a tux.”

  “That’s not important right now.”

  “Yes, it is, one less thing for me to stress about. And you need to get home for Lily.”

  He pulled her into a hug, only reinforcing where she was busy bruising. “Thank God you’re okay. I’m sorry I panicked. I would never mean for you to get hurt.”

  He pulled out his handkerchief, pristine from where she’d washed it.

  “Don’t get it—”

  He patted gently at her forehead, held it against her cut. “Don’t work too late.” He kissed her on the top of her head and left.

  “What happened to you?” The shocked refrain followed her up the building, echoed last by Dario as she limped into his office.

  “Disagreement with a bike courier.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in A & E?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “You want help?” he gestured at her face.

  “I was hoping you’d ask.”

  “Sit, I’ll be right back.”

  The tea he handed her was welcome, even with its surprising sweetness. He peered at her face, appraising for longer than Eva was comfortable with.

  “That bad?”

  “And you’re certain you didn’t black out?”

  She nodded.

  “If you get it stitched, it’ll be less of a scar.”

  “Let’s go with steri-strips for now.”

  “Your knee sounds like ACL damage, the ligament, you’ll need a scan,” longer in A & E, “if you’re lucky it might just be a sprain but you could have torn it.” He cleaned her wound, making her gasp, and dressed it gently. “There you go. It probably won’t hold, but it’ll do for now. You really need—”

  “I know, thanks, Dario. You’re a lifesaver.”

  He kept her supplied with tea and snacks, coffee and takeaway until the 22:30 alarm on Eva’s phone cut through her last fruitless try of Gordon’s number. Go to bed, it ordered.

  The Google tab she’d opened to search for up-to-the-minute stories on the impact the Seitu installation had on the local population for her keynote speech had changed. She hit refresh, but the date on the bad news stayed the same. Today.

  “Dario, have you seen this?” She called him into her office where he read over her shoulder.

  ‘Reports are coming in from Seitu township, where a couple of hundred people have fallen ill. A viral epidemic is not believed to be responsible and, with the population density so high here, the authorities can only hope not. Living conditions in this shanty town may be to blame, but the charities adopting innovative ways to get clean running water to the residents have justified their intrusion by claiming such outbreaks would be a thing of the past.’

  Eva scrolled past the photo in the middle of the article. The spiderweb of Every Drop’s raised water pipe network looked stunning against the African sky, an award-winning architecture in its own right, beyond how it had saved lives.

  ‘With no available ground space through which to run pipes, this method was thought to provide a better, safer way of getting water to the people.’


  It was a better, safer way, it was the only way. Eva knew everyone who now didn’t have to trek miles to collect dirty water were grateful for it.

  Think about it like the analyst she used to be. Logically, a couple of hundred cases wasn’t anything to get panicky about; the slum housed people in the high thousands. It might not even be the water. But any infection could spread like Ebola in the time between cooking dinner and sleeping.

  “Do we have anyone close?” Eva asked. Close could be two days of travel away on the African continent, but she knew the answer. “We’re all in on India, aren’t we?”

  Dario nodded.

  It had been such a coup bringing the raised installation through all of its logistical challenges in Africa she’d expected them to carry on rolling it out there. But the Board had other ideas which made sense, given that Chennai and Hyderabad were in the top five most water-stressed megacities. It had been unanimous that Every Drop’s infrastructure would help the most people the fastest there. No point wishing it could be different now.

  “Never thought I’d say this but let’s hope it’s a virus or food poisoning,” things people would recover from, “even better if it’s just the media being lazy, connecting the closest dots because it gives them a quick story.” She sighed. “All we can do is monitor it.” She closed her laptop, disconnected it from the dock. “Home now, that’s an order.”

  “You’re on your way to hospital, aren’t you?” Dario asked.

  Eva padded a whisper touch at her dressing, wet through now. “It’ll be fine.”

  “I can probably call in a favour to get you through quicker, so I’m taking you. That’s an order.”

  5

  Eva’s neck ached. Her laptop was dead, slipped half off her lap when she’d finally fallen asleep. She rolled her shoulders, winced. She wouldn’t do that. Connecting her charger, she pressed the on button until her laptop booted up. Nothing more on the Seitu situation. Could it be what she hoped, a food contamination that could be easily contained, with no one else sick or worse?

  The bathroom mirror showed her that walking up the stairs like an old lady had less to do with spending the night on the sofa, more to do with the state of her. The bright white of the dressing over her stitches just drew attention to the spectacular bruise that had blossomed outwards from underneath it round her eye, curving down onto her cheek like a question mark—what happened to you?