Not only for the Jasper that had been taken last night, but also for the boy that had vanished nearly three years ago when his brother died, whom she’d glimpsed last night on the way to the concert and who would probably be lost to her forever now. He’d changed overnight after Tom’s accident. What would become of him after hours or days in the hands of cruel, Crazy kidnappers?
In her mind’s eye she saw Jasper at Tom’s funeral.
Pasty, unshaved, his scowling eyes were sunk in grey half-moons.
At the end of the proceedings, after al the guests had gone, 42
he’d cornered Ana, as though he’d seen her sneak in and hide in the shadows at the back.
‘Helo, Ariana,’ he’d said. She’d frozen beneath his icy regard, afraid he would cal security and have her escorted out. She didn’t think she could stand any more humiliation than she’d been through in the last couple of weeks. ‘So, how are you?’ His voice sounded strange, weeks. ‘So, how are you?’ His voice sounded strange, metalic, like it could cut. She opened her mouth to say
‘fine’, then closed it again. Her immediate reaction was to answer as she would if the Board were asking. To make herself appear balanced, stable, shocked and upset in just the right proportions. But the sparks of hurt behind his stare incited her to respond with the truth.
‘I’m finding it hard to sleep,’ she said. ‘When I close my eyes I can’t stop spinning.’
‘Not so good then,’ he said. His mouth twisted upward.
She gazed at him. Close up, she noticed his eyes were set slightly far apart and his forehead was bigger than she remembered. She blushed. An un-joined Pure girl shouldn’t be alone with a Pure male, even if they were in a public place. And then her cheeks burnt even brighter.
The rules didn’t apply to her. She wasn’t Pure. Maybe that’s why he was talking to her like this.
‘You came to the funeral,’ he said quietly. She tried not to look puzzled. Was he feverish? Of course she’d come. Or perhaps he was saying she
shouldn’t
have come. After al, she and her father had not been sent notification of the ceremony.
‘I’m sorry.’ She swalowed hard. ‘I just wanted to see if you’re OK.’
43
‘And what’s the verdict?’
‘Not so good,’ she said, echoing his words.
He almost smiled. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come after, you know . . .’ She knew at once he was referring to the know . . .’ She knew at once he was referring to the radio silence after she’d received her redone Pure test from the Board.
‘It was to be expected.’
He looked at her as though he felt sorry for her. She frowned. She didn’t want his sympathy.
‘How is your father’s hearing going?’ he asked.
‘Fine. His lawyers are confident the case wil be dismissed.’
So far, the prosecution had been unable to provide any explanation for how her father was supposed to have accessed the security codes to get on to the Board’s system and alter her test. Apparently, inputting data was easy, but only three executives on the Board were privy to the codes that alowed someone to alter files. It seemed they wouldn’t be able to prove what he’d done, but Ana knew he was guilty.
Jasper shoved his hands in his dark trouser pockets. He began to jiggle his left leg.
‘I was thinking.’ His words came with a puff of air like they were traveling at high velocity. ‘Once your father’s case is wrapped up, the Board wil be making their decision about what to do with you.’
Ana grimaced. She was wel aware of this fact and the way Jasper said it made her feel like a stray dog.
‘I’m going to tel them I want to go ahead with the binding.’
44
A wave of heat swept down through her head, her arms, her chest, her legs. ‘Why?’
‘Because I stil want to get to know you.’
‘But we couldn’t be joined. What would be the point?’
‘It’s not ilegal for a Pure to marry a Big3.’ Hearing him say ‘Big3’ made tears spring to Ana’s eyes. She forced them back.
‘You would have to leave the Community,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t . . .’
It must have been a trick of the light – a cloud passing over the sun outside – because his eyes grew overcast.
‘You’re not Active,’ he said. ‘You’ve lived in the Community for years without incident. Why shouldn’t you be alowed to stay?’
She stared at him as though he were mad. ‘Because my ilness could kick in at any moment. I might not even know it’s happening.’ Her hands trembled now at her sides. She couldn’t be sure if it was the hope or insanity of his sugges-tion that made her body shake.
‘You could be sixty, seventy, eighty years old. Who’s to say it’l ever happen?’
‘The Pure test says so,’ she whispered. Their eyes met.
Something strange flashed across his gaze. If she didn’t know better she would say he was suffering the onset of an ilness – bipolar or one of the many mood disorders an ilness – bipolar or one of the many mood disorders her father was making her learn about.
‘The Community is your home,’ he said. ‘You accepted my binding invitation. If the case is dismissed against your father, I don’t think you should be forced from your home 45
and made to give up your future. Why should you pay for the Board’s mistake?’
‘You’re upset,’ she said, suddenly desperate to get away from him. She couldn’t think like this, couldn’t alow herself to hope there might be something else for her other than banishment to the City. Holding up the long hem of her skirt, she croaked, ‘I’m sorry about Tom.’
Then she ran down the hal and out into the mild June sun.
46
5
The Board
Ana picked herself up from the floor. She got dressed, went downstairs and her father griled her about Jasper’s abduction until the Board showed up. He reworded her responses, directing her performance like she was an actress in a play. She knew he was tough on her so that it would be easier to cope with the Board’s inquisition, but she couldn’t forgive him for transforming her emotions into something so calculated and remote.
When the doorbel rang, her father left her with instructions to play something pretty on the piano, while he let the Board in. She bashed out
Chopsticks
, he let the Board in. She bashed out
Chopsticks
, reminding herself that according to Jasper and some of the legal papers she’d read, the Board’s existence was precarious. Dozens of religious and activist groups constantly petitioned the government to get rid of it or pass new bils to reduce the Board’s over-bearing domination in the field of Mental Health.
A stick figure stooped in the entrance. Ana stopped playing and looked up. At the same moment, a woman appeared beside the man, seeming lumpish next to his beanpole frame. The man’s nose, lips and chin lay squashed against his face. The woman’s mole-eyes stared at Ana through 47
thick glasses, giving the impression of distance and altitude, as though she was looking down through a microscope.
Ana’s heart began to galop. She rose from her seat, descended the steps into the living room, and invited them to join her on the leather sofas around the coffee table. They entered stiffly. In unison, they clicked open their briefcases and set up their screens on the glass table. Ana fetched the prepared tea tray and biscuits from the kitchen. She wondered what her health and beauty teacher would say about the inner workings of this ugly couple, or why, for that matter, members of the Board were always so unat-tractive.
The front door rattled shut. Leaning over the kitchen sink, Ana peered out of the window at the driveway. Her father strode across the tarmac to his chauffeur-driven saloon. The Board never alowed him to stay for her interviews.
She returned to the living room with the tray and found a She returned to the living room with the tray and found a third figure by the halway entrance perusing her father’s rock-star photographs. The stocky man didn’t wear the grey suit with gold stripes, emblematic of the Board.
The tea tray wobbled in her hands. The china clinked.
The man turned to her and smiled.
‘Jack Dombrant,’ he said, moving to assist her with the tray. She returned his smile uncertainly. He was the man her father had been talking to earlier, when she’d heard the news about Jasper.
‘You have an Irish accent,’ she said.
‘Ah, most young people wouldn’t recognise it these days,’
48
he replied. ‘You’ve got a good ear with your piano playing, eh? My ma was from Dublin.’
Ana remembered the open key cover of her baby grand and at the same time realised Mr Dombrant had to be a Warden.
‘We moved to London when I was eight,’ he continued.
‘But I never quite managed to lose the twang.’
She nodded. He must have immigrated before the 2018
Colapse, when England closed her borders, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland became independent. Which meant he was at least thirty-one.
Ana sat down on the sofa beneath the flatscreen, opposite the Board. The woman signaled for her to rol up her sleeve and attached a plastic strap around her wrist. Then she linked the monitor to Ana’s interface.
Both Board representatives leant over the coffee table to check their display screens. Ana tried to slow her racing pulse.
‘Can you describe your feelings last night at the concert?’
the man asked, without looking up.
Members of the Board did not introduce themselves or talk of themselves individualy. Ana had learnt over the last three years that they wished her to address them in a likewise, indirect fashion. The men and women who came to question her were always different, but they managed to create an unnervingly unified presence, like they were the close-up parts of a larger animal, whose singular striations and skin texture were always recognisable as part of a distinct whole.
‘I was happy and a bit nervous,’ she replied.
The Warden helped himself to a Bourbon biscuit and 49
perched on the edge of an armchair. The crunch-crunch of his chewing grated on her nerves.
The male Board representative blinked at Ana. The female took notes.
‘Have you been feeling guilty about Jasper?’ the man asked.
Ana swalowed and shook her head.
‘Do you feel any guilt,’ he pursued, ‘about the fact that if and when you join with Jasper Taurel, you may not give him children?’
‘And if you accidentaly fal pregnant,’ the woman added,
‘not only wil you and the children be relocated, but Jasper wil be forced to live in the disorder and squalor of the City, instead of working for his father as a respected defence lawyer?’
Ana straightened her grey skirt, watching her hands as they brushed the cotton fabric. She didn’t see why living in the City meant Jasper couldn’t work for his father.
Concentrate,
she thought, mentaly kicking herself.
They’re trying to catch you out.
Guilt was a symptom of Depression, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and a dozen other MIs
–
Mental Ilnesses. Her father had repeated it often enough over the years: No matter what, never, never admit guilt.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I do not feel guilty.’ From the corner of her eye, she noticed the Warden amble towards the platform by the French windows where her piano stood.
‘Jasper is aware of the consequences of his choice,’ she added.
The Board members gave curt, synchronised nods and 50
resumed filing in the Chart of Attitudes, which Ana knew resumed filing in the Chart of Attitudes, which Ana knew they would now have puled up on their screens.
Discordant notes resounded from the piano. Ana’s eyes shot to the platform. She tried to keep the shock off her face. She couldn’t believe Warden Dombrant would touch her piano without asking first or would behave so dis-respectfuly in front of the Board.
The Warden dropped crumbs on to the keys as he bit in-to a second Bourbon and tinkled with his biscuit-free hand.
‘I have a couple of questions about last night,’ he said.
Ana suppressed her annoyance. She became aware of her ramrod posture, her interlocked fingers tightening on her lap. ‘I saw Jasper in the foyer before the concert.’
She smiled tightly. ‘That’s not a question.’
‘He appeared to be rather agitated.’ Dombrant’s eyes seemed to be laughing at her.
Ana shrugged, but the hairs on her neck and arms started to tingle. She thought of Jasper beside her at the concert, leaning forward on the balcony, whispering to her he was in trouble, asking her not to draw attention. He hadn’t trusted the Wardens.
‘I don’t think he was feeling wel,’ she said.
‘Did he do anything odd?’
Her heart began to thump again. The Board leant over their screens. Though neither of them spoke, they gave the impression they were somehow conferring – no doubt evaluating her skyrocketing pulse.
doubt evaluating her skyrocketing pulse.
‘Why would he do anything odd?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he knew he was a target for kidnappers?’
51
The Warden stuffed the last of his biscuit into his mouth and brushed crumbs from his suit.
‘We’re looking at al possibilities right now,’ he said. He pushed his hands deep in his trouser pockets and skipped down the platform steps, surprisingly agile for someone so bulky. ‘Jasper might have felt somethin’ was amiss, or seen somethin’ that bothered him but not wanted to worry anyone, or spoil your evenin’.’
But that’s what the Wardens are for,
Ana thought. She caught herself before she said it. Focused on regaining her composure. Jasper may not have trusted the Wardens, but why if he’d suspected he was in danger, had he made himself vulnerable by leaving the concert early?
‘Now this morning,’ the male Board representative said, claiming back the interview. ‘Please tel the Board how you found out about the abduction, what you did afterwards, and how you felt.’
On safer ground, Ana began the rehearsed monologue of how her father had knocked on her door, awoken her, and broken the bad news. She was mid describing the shock, which after several minutes faded into worry for Jasper’s safety, when she felt the Warden’s eyes boring into her. Her attention darted to him for a second. A slight smile crept across his lips.