For a split-second, Ana saw herself back in her father’s office, tears streaming down her face. With a final cry of frustration she’d swept away the last books on the shelf, revealing a silver disc stuck to the wal. The numbers 12.04.2021 were engraved across it. Not numbers. A date!
406
She’d grabbed it, barely thinking. But the realisation had caught up with her slowly: she’d found a copy of the recording Peter Reed, ex-Secretary of State for Health, had been kiled over. And now Cole had it, tucked away in Jasper’s wooden star pendant.
‘How can I trust you?’ she said.
‘You don’t have a choice.’
‘You want me to stay with Jasper among the Pures for a year. That’s al you’re asking?’
‘And you wil have no contact with the boy, his family or anyone that isn’t Pure.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s al I’m asking. Only what you’ve wanted al along.’
along.’
Beyond the narrow passage, an engine strained as it accelerated away. If Cole was safe, Ana knew she could deal with anything. She listened as the motorbike hum faded.
It sank out of range, but stil she heard the gentle drone.
It had melded with the vibration inside her as though they were part of a symphony that played on, even when no one was listening.
The evening bore down on her. She knew it would grow darker before she felt the light again. She folowed her father through the aley to his car. She climbed in. Lila’s lavender scent lingered on the leather seats. She closed her eyes and tilted back her head. In her mind, she felt Cole’s lips, warm and soft, imprinted on her own.
407
33
The Wal
Three weeks later.
Ana lay on a chaise longue by the tennis courts while David Taurel and her father played an aggressive match of singles. It was a warm, Saturday afternoon in mid-May.
Jasper was lying down inside the west wing with one of his headaches, his sister was staying at a friend’s, and his mother was drinking cocktails and neuroticaly digging up the garden.
Putting down a book she was only pretending to read, Ana sat up and sipped her freshly squeezed lemonade.
Her father caught her eye and winked. She looked away.
She didn’t want to make him suspicious by appearing to have forgiven him.
A twinge of pain shot through her temples. She set down her drink and pressed her fingers to the sides of her skul.
Jasper wasn’t the only one suffering from headaches and lack of sleep. In the last three weeks, Ana had woken often from nightmares. She’d been frozen and buried alive a hundred times. Night after night, she’d been drowned and drugged and torn apart by zombies. She would jolt awake to the sound of her own shouting or Jasper’s howling from 408
across the hal. While days drifted by in a surreal pretence of normality to fool the Board, reporters and their fathers, at night she and Jasper were prisoners of Three Mils.
Ana stared at her father considering why, if he’d kept his promise and alowed Cole and Lila to leave the Community, there had been no news of the minister’s recording.
It should have made the headlines. But she’d heard nothing, which meant one of three things: Cole was rotting in some prison or psych dump; the minister’s disc was a sham like Tom Taurel’s research; or Cole was holding on to it.
Waiting for her. A silent message that he wouldn’t trade her freedom for information that could hurt the Board.
Because he understood that once Ashby Barber knew his daughter had not only ransacked his office and found the dead minister’s recording, but that she’d also managed to filter it out of the Community, he’d tighten up his round-the-clock surveilance.
Ana stretched and stood up. Despite a general lack of sleep, she’d been exercising rigorously for the last ten days
– swimming a hundred lengths morning and afternoon.
‘They invited me next door,’ she said. ‘They said I could use their pool until ours is fixed.’
Her father leapt for a shot, grunted as he struck the bal.
Jasper’s father slammed the tennis bal back over the net.
Her father skidded to reach it in time.
Ana stripped off her skirt and shorts down to her swimsuit. She slipped her arms through her fluffy dressing gown and languidly wedged her feet into the slip-ons she’d borrowed from Lucy.
‘Bye then,’ she said.
409
‘See you tomorrow at lunch,’ her father panted. David waved absently.
Ana trudged through the smal copse beyond the tennis courts, towards the neighbours. Coiled up against an oak tree, exactly as she’d left it, she found the rope. Quickly, she checked the noose before hoisting the rope over her she checked the noose before hoisting the rope over her shoulder. She began to run. Tree roots, twigs and prickly undergrowth pressed through the soles of her pumps. But at least Lucy’s shoes wouldn’t have tracers in them. And she was fairly sure her father wouldn’t have bothered hiding tracers in her dressing gown or swimsuit.
Sprinting across tended lawns, some in ful view of porches, back doors, and verandas, Ana retraced the path she’d gone over a dozen times using an aerial map program on her interface. She’d already decided if she ran into anyone she’d simply keep going. But her luck held. By the time she reached the boys’ school footbal field she hadn’t seen a soul. To avoid the road, she scrambled up a high fence. After days of nothing but rest, swimming, and practising her breathing exercises, her fractured rib had healed, the bruises gone. She jumped down into the playing field and bolted across the footbal pitch, breathing deeply and steadily. A tingling sensation radiated out from her chest, down her arms, and into her fingers. Anticipation. Nerves.
She was almost there. Almost at the wal.
Reaching the road, Ana huddled down beside a cluster of young trees demarcating the field. From where she crouched, she had a clear view of three hundred metres of road in each direction. She concentrated on her breathing.
Imagined one heartbeat for every two, the way she used 410
to when she would practise holding her breath underwater.
She listened. Birdsong. A distant rumble of a She listened. Birdsong. A distant rumble of a lawnmower.
But no electric buzzing of a hybrid engine. No patrol cars.
Now!
she cried inwardly. She leapt up and bounded across the two-lane road. As she ran, she unhooked the rope from her arm and swung the knotted end towards the wal’s ten-foot-high spikes. The noose snagged. She flicked the rope. The slipknot descended to the base of the metal pole. She yanked it tight then began puling her hands one over the other, pressing her feet into the wal as she climbed.
Her dressing gown flew apart. Her hands burnt as they rubbed the rope. Her heart leapt wildly.
At the top of the wal she grabbed a pointed iron pole.
Then she slid through the thin gap between spikes, gathered up the rope and dropped it over the other side.
Beneath her, scattered between the thicket of horse chest-nuts, oaks and sycamores were a thousand bluebels. Their deep violet-blue heads bobbed in the dappled sunshine.
Ana smiled. With a last look back at the quiet Community road, she gripped the rope and abseiled down into the Project.
411
Acknowledgements
My deepest thanks to my editor, Susila Baybars, whose My deepest thanks to my editor, Susila Baybars, whose insight and inteligence guided me through revisions, asking al the right questions and generously alowing me to explore the answers in some unexpected ways.
I would like to thank everyone at Antony Harwood, especialy Jo Wiliamson my agent extraordinaire, who was the first to love Ana and Cole the way I do, and whose constant support and enthusiasm is al a girl could want.
To the Faber team – Rebecca, Lizzie, Susan, Laura, Donna and everyone behind the scenes that I haven’t yet met – thank you!
Thanks to Cassandra Griffin and Leandra Walace, who read the earliest drafts of
The Glimpse
. Your advice and encouragement was invaluable. Likewise thanks to al my QT
friends who helped out at various stages, particularly Julie Fedderson, Rachel Wickham, Ruth Kolman, B. L. Holiday, Cate Peace and Jennifer L. Armentrout. And
‘aloha’ to my new critique group, Mina, Tioka and Sandra. Looking forward to working with you guys on the next one!
Thanks to my Mum who always welcomed strange people into her house – rock bands and film crews –
while I pursued my ‘artistic ambitions’; and Dad who infiltrated this story on several levels and who was probably responsible for the 2018 Colapse.
Thanks to my sister Kate Lewis, and my dear friend Andrea Kapos. Your constant support, insight and encouragement over the years wil always be deeply appreciated.
appreciated.
Finaly my thanks and love to my three boys – my eldest son, Sean, who graciously accepted that when Mummy’s writing she can no longer hear what he’s saying; my youngest, West, whose afternoon naps and good nature alowed me to keep drafting and revising through those pre-nursery years; and my husband, Claude, whose belief in me has never waned despite the fact that he’s had to rely on my garbled ramblings as to what this book is about, and won’t read
The
Glimpse
until it’s released in French.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents