The Wipe

by Nik Abnett

  The Deluge had turned the clock back in some ways, and it had changed human existence forever in others.

  Human life endured, though. It seemed to Dharma, with her huge cache of old records and documents, that life had always endured, and that people were capable of things that she had never imagined. People were capable of almost anything.

  Forty-three

  “That’s the rations arriving,” Able called out, peering out of the front window, as the van pulled up outside.

  The driver was in a paper suit, with a cap, mask, gloves, and protective eye-wear. He began to unload covered plastic crates from the van onto the drive. He sprayed each one with sanitiser from a bottle at his belt, once he’d put it down. And, finally, he picked up the empties and took them back to the van.

  “There are lots of boxes,” he called again. “Come and see.”

  Charity came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth. She stood next to Able, at the window and looked at the boxes.

  “Pa did it!” she said. “He promised he’d organised things, but I didn’t want to believe it until I saw for myself.”

  “It’s your stuff!” said Abe, realising what was going on. “Is your father a miracle worker by any chance?”

  “He knows how to talk nicely to people. I can’t remember a time when he couldn’t get things done.”

  “Well, good for him.”

  “Good for me,” said Charity, leaving the living room.

  The driver had pulled away from in front of the house, and Charity walked out without a second thought. She had already picked up the first of her boxes when Able came to the door in a paper suit, mask and gloves.

  “We’re immune,” said Charity. “We don’t need to do any of that any more. In fact, if you check the rations, I’m not expecting to find any more protective gear.”

  “Oh.” Abe pulled his face mask down. “Now I feel ridiculous.”

  Charity laughed.

  “Come and give me a hand,” she said.

  All of Charity’s favourite clothes were neatly folded in one of the boxes, including freshly laundered underwear, a robe, and even a sweater and a jacket for when the weather turned. It was the height of summer, so Charity assumed that Pa had insisted on the jacket, just in case. Surely the Deluge would be over before another winter had passed. Faith had also packed Charity’s favourite bed linen. Her mum had gone above and beyond to make sure that Charity was happy and had familiar things around her. She opened the second box and found some more of her personal things: a make-up bag and hairbrush, a soft toy she’d had since she was a child, a couple of her favourite books, and some other bits and pieces. There was a ring box tucked in a corner that Charity didn’t recognise. She opened it.

  She thought for a moment that she was going to cry. Faith had given Verity her eternity ring when she had married Sage. This box contained her engagement ring. There was a note with it, folded small and tucked into the box-lid.

  “Don’t get any funny ideas,” it said. “I just wanted you to have something personal of mine while you’re away. I hope you’ll wear it. Love, Mum X.”

  Charity slipped the ring onto the fourth finger on her right hand. It wasn’t for her and Able, it was for her and Mum.

  There was also a large, fat manila envelope in the box, with something written on the outside.

  “Should we unpack, inside?” asked Able, as he watched Charity rummaging around in the boxes while they still stood on the drive. He’d already taken the rations into the kitchen for unpacking.

  “Sorry. Yes, that’s a good idea.” She popped the lids back on the boxes and picked up the one with the clothes in it. Able took the other one and they headed inside.

  Charity went upstairs with her box, unpacked her clothes and put them away in the spare room where the drawers and wardrobe were empty. She also changed the sheets on the bed to her own bed linen. When she was finished, it felt so like the old box room that she’d spent so much time in for the past several months, she almost wanted to cry again.

  While Charity was upstairs, Able had unpacked the rations boxes and put everything away.

  “Anything good?” asked Charity, as she wandered into the kitchen.

  “No real milk, this time, but there’s a can of the powdered stuff.”

  “Well that’s not good,” said Charity.

  “It is when it’s mixed with this.” Able held up a small drum of cocoa powder. “We can have hot chocolate, or cold milkshakes.”

  “Milkshakes, please.”

  “You realise we’ll have to make the hot chocolate and then refrigerate it until it becomes cold milkshake, right?”

  “I know how this stuff works,” she said, smiling. “I can wait.”

  “Milkshakes it is,” said Able, finding a measuring jug and a saucepan, and setting to work.

  “Are you all set up in your room?” he asked, as Charity sat and watched him work.

  “It’s lovely. Mum even sent my favourite duvet cover.”

  “Good. What’s in the other box?”

  “Oh! I’d forgotten about the other box. Where did you put it?”

  “By the front door.”

  Charity fetched it, putting it on the kitchen table to unpack. She made a little ritual of it. Starting with her mother’s ring, she showed each item to Abe, telling him where it had come from and why it was important to her.

  “What’s in the envelope?” he asked. He’d finished making the cocoa and was standing at the table with Charity.

  “I don’t know.” She turned it over to read what was written on the outside, and laughed.

  “What’s funny?” asked Able.

  “It’s from Sage,” she said. “From him and Mum.”

  She opened the envelope and tipped the contents out onto the table. A dozen or more little brown envelopes landed in a haphazard pile. Able picked one up at random. The block capital handwriting on the outside said, ‘spinach’. He picked up another one. It said ‘nasturtiums’.

  “I hope you know how to garden,” he said, “because I haven’t got a clue. I might be able to find some old tools in the shed, but it’s all lawn back there.”

  Charity pushed her hand into the envelope, almost up to the elbow, and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, unfolding the paper and waving it under his nose. “We’ve got instructions.”

  Forty-four

  “Do you have any plans for the weekend?” asked Con.

  “What do you mean, plans?” asked Blythe.

  “I’ve got to see my mother,” said Joy.

  “You see,” said Con. “That’s a plan.”

  “My mother’s been trying to persuade me to visit her, but it’s such a pain, and I’d never get everything sorted by the weekend,” said Blythe. “It’s Wednesday already. Maybe I’ll put through the forms and go next month.”

  “Other plans, then?” asked Concord.

  “For instance?”

  “Sometimes I read a book.”

  “A nineteenth century novel,” said Blythe.

  “Or twentieth century Science Fiction. There’s some good stuff.”

  “It’s not real, though is it?” asked Joy. “None of it’s real.”

  “That’s sort of the point.”

  “I like that thing they stream, about the people in the cubicle,” said Joy.

  “I think it’s called ‘The Cubicle’,” said Blythe, smiling at Con while Joy’s back was turned.

  “That’s the one,” said Joy, missing the irony.

  “So, you sit with us in a cubicle all week, and then you go home to watch people sitting in a cubicle on streaming.”

  “But there are only three of us,” said Joy. “There are four of them in ‘The Cubicle’.”

  “Yes, there are,” said Con. “I don’t watch a lot of streaming, but sometimes I like to take a walk.”

  “Really?” asked Joy, turning her chair to look at him. “Why would you do that?”

&
nbsp; “I like it.”

  “Well,” said Joy, turning her chair back to her station. “I think that’s weird.”

  “Then you and Blythe have something in common,” said Con. “Because she thinks I’m weird, too.”

  “I used to think you were nice.”

  Blythe raised an eyebrow at Con, but said nothing.

  “I walk every day,” he said. “Well, most days anyway, for forty minutes.”

  “During your lunch break,” Blythe remembered.

  “You could walk a long way in forty minutes,” said Joy. “You could cross the district border if you walk for forty minutes. That’s terrifying.”

  “I walk around and around,” said Con. “I never walk in a straight line during lunch.”

  “I eat during lunch,” said Joy. “The people at the lunch bar are nice… Nicer than you two.”

  “I’m sure they are,” said Blythe.

  “Anyway,” said Con. “I thought I might take a walk this weekend, or maybe next weekend. I wondered if I could persuade you to go with me?”

  “Not a chance,” said Joy.

  Con raised an eyebrow at Blythe; she knew he wasn’t asking Joy.

  “I might,” said Blythe, even though it made her feel nervous.

  Blythe and Con had found a way to talk to each other, while apparently having a general conversation in the cubicle with Joy. Neither of them wanted to go back to the way it had been before Joy’s holiday. Ideally, Joy would be a better fit, but, she wasn’t. So, Blythe and Con talked to each other, and if Joy chimed in, that was fine. It also seemed to keep Joy a bit happier, and there wasn’t as much conversational room for her complaints when Blythe or Con set the agenda for their chats.

  “Well, you two can plan your weekend walk while I go to my lunch bar,” said Joy, logging out of Anley Corp’s intranet. The screen faded to black, and Joy left the cubicle.

  “How far do you think you could walk?” asked Con.

  “I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.”

  “What floor of your building do you live on?”

  “The sixth.”

  “Wow!” said Con. “You got unlucky.”

  “Actually, there’s a trick to it. When I was looking for housing I did quite a bit of research. There are always things we can do to work the system.”

  “I don’t get it. You chose to live on the sixth floor?”

  “I live in an old building, converted after the Deluge.”

  “Well, obviously,” said Con. “None of the modern buildings are higher than three storeys.”

  “But, they’re built for purpose.”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you know about old buildings?”

  “Not much. I haven’t been in many.”

  “Which market do you use?”

  “Brewers.”

  “Oh…” said Blythe. “Same… Okay, so you know the layout of an old building. Hasn’t it ever crossed your mind that the spaces are big, and the ceilings are high?”

  “Well, some are.”

  “Next time you go, have a look at what’s original and where partitions have been added to divide up the space.”

  “I will,” said Con, “but what’s that got to do with you choosing to live on the sixth floor?”

  “When people fill in housing forms, what do they prioritise?”

  “The lower three floors, obviously. It’s the first box everyone ticks.”

  “What floor is your apartment on?” asked Blythe.

  “The first. I didn’t want to be on the ground floor.”

  “And how big is it?”

  “I guess it’s the same as most singles. Why?”

  “You’ve got a murphy bed, or a sleeping platform?”

  “A platform,” said Con, “but don’t we all?”

  “We don’t,” said Blythe. “Here’s the thing. Nobody wants to climb up and down stairs more than they absolutely have to, and there’s no other way to reach higher floors in buildings.”

  “Right,” said Con.

  “Mothers don’t want to have to carry babies up several flights of stairs, either.”

  “Right.”

  “So everyone wants to live on the bottom three floors of a building. There’s a high demand. Are you with me, Concord?”

  “So far.”

  “The purpose-built apartment blocks give each occupant the minimum space they can live in, hence murphy beds, kitchenettes, wet rooms. Most apartments are studios.”

  “Right, again.”

  “Old buildings converted into apartments use the same principle. They partition up the space on the lowest three floors into single units or small apartments for mothers with a child.”

  “Yes,” said Con.

  “They don’t do that further up the old buildings.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If nobody wants to live on the sixth floor, what’s the point of spending time and money partitioning that floor into small studios?”

  “There is no point, I suppose.”

  “Which is why they don’t do it,” said Blythe. “The sixth floor of my building has not been partitioned up, so I have a sitting room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom.”

  “That can’t be true,” said Con.

  “My apartment is huge,” said Blythe, smiling.

  “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  “You could always put in a request for relocation. Plenty of people would be happy to take your little studio rather than live above the third floor.”

  “I might just do that. I feel foolish not knowing about it.”

  “Well, let’s keep it a secret between the two of us… We don’t want everyone jumping on this particular bandwagon.”

  “Six flights of stairs, though,” said Con. “Up, and down.”

  “Five, actually,” said Blythe. “It took me a while to get used to it but, honestly, it makes me feel good. I look forward to trotting down my stairs every morning.”

  “I’m pretty sure you could walk a decent distance, then, if you had to,” said Con. “If you wanted to.”

  “I suppose I could. Outside, though, for a long time… Is that a good idea?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe we should find out.”

  “You have been plotting,” said Blythe. “Joy was right all along.”

  “By the law of averages, she had to be right about something eventually.”

  “You want us to go for a walk together, this weekend?”

  “Hopefully this weekend, if I can work out a good route,” said Con. “It might be next weekend.”

  “Well, I’m always free,” said Blythe. “Don’t expect me to like it, though, it’s making me feel anxious just thinking about it.”

  “I’ll plan properly. I’ll do my research, and I promise I’ll keep you safe,” said Con. “It’s just an experiment.”

  “An experiment you don’t want to do on your own?”

  “It’s an experiment that involves you,” said Con. “As a matter of fact. It’s an experiment that I can’t do without you.”

  “So, you’re really asking me to do you a favour?” asked Blythe.

  “I’m asking you to do us both a favour.”

  “I’d have done it anyway. You’re the nearest thing I’ve got to a friend, and when a friend asks for something it’s churlish to refuse.”

  “Churlish?” asked Con.

  “I’ve struggled with it a bit, but I started reading Great Expectations, because you said Dickens was good. I spend a lot of time looking words up.”

  “There’s no need. Context is everything, and Dickens is good at context. Just read it, and you’ll soon get the hang of it.”

  “It’s like a foreign language,” said Blythe.

  “It really isn’t,” said Con, smiling.

  Forty-five

  Dharma went for her jog the following Saturday, mid-morning, around the same time she’d gone when she’d met Patience in the gardens.

  The morning wa
s fresh and bright, and the jog was easy. Dharma enjoyed it. She held her id up to the scanner, and was let in. She walked around the garden, to the back of the building, and looked up at the rooms where her mother used to live. The window box was in full bloom. She could see splashes of orange, and lots of greenery, some of it hanging down a metre or so.

  She sat in the grass for a few minutes, thinking about her mother, and about all the women in her mother’s family that she had come to know something about over the past few months.

  She got up, and walked over to the deep flower bed, where the geraniums were growing.

  “Help yourself,” someone said from behind her. Dharma turned to see Patience in her beekeeping outfit, her headgear under one arm. “I grow lots of them, and they bloom all summer long. They make good companion plants.”

  “I don’t understand anything about plants,” said Dharma. “What’s a companion plant?”

  “Some plants repel the pests that would otherwise eat other plants,” said Patience. “If I grow geraniums close to cabbages and broccoli, they keep the cabbage worms from eating my crop.”

  “Clever,” said Dharma. “I didn’t know.”

  “I bet you know lots of other things,” said Patience, smiling.

  “I was wondering about the orange flowers.”

  “You might have to be more specific.”

  “The window box of my mother’s old apartment. There are orange flowers in it. I don’t recognise them,” said Dharma.

  “Marigolds. Look over there.” She pointed to a large patch of the orange flowers.

  “Yes,” said Dharma.

  “They’re around the potato patch.”

  “They keep something off your potatoes?” asked Dharma.

  “Tomatoes, too.”

  “What about the bees? You collect the honey?”

  “I keep them to pollinate the plants,” said Patience. “You must have taken some basic science school?”

  “I was always more of a physicist than a chemist or horticulturalist. I’m a data analyst.”

  “So am I, in a way. I’ve been working this garden for ten years, making notes of what grows best where, and which companion plants are the most effective. How to get the best range of produce growing year round to feed my people.”