21
19 days
“Our daughter Miriam couldn’t walk or speak. In fact, she could understand very little at all. People often said she would be better off dead—until they met her. Once they had experienced her silent language of love and joy, they’d leave smiling and filled with a new love for life. And from then on, their faces would fall when they spoke about her coming fate.”
‘Monsieur P.’, parent of a preKnown—quoted on ‘The Impatient Gardener’
Despite lingering shock from the assassins and the anguish about my baby that felt like it would never fade—and my ongoing estrangement with Kyle—I actually knocked on Lucas’s door fairly cheerfully the next day, showing him the shiny new Office book as soon as I was inside. “Look what my lovely husband and friends put together all their Office tokens and got for me!”
Lucas eyed the book—then my shining eyes…oops, realizing for the first time he’d deprived me of something I really valued?
“Sorry,” he said unhappily.
“It’s all right, I really didn’t mind you having that one.” Glad to find I meant it, too.
Lucas frowned at the book again. “I have no gift for you. What occasion?”
“Oh.” My face fell. “No, no occasion. They just wanted to cheer me up. And my birthday—all my saint’s days for that matter; y’know, St Margaret, St Elizabeth, St Anysia—are all in November, December, so they weren’t going to get an excuse any time soon.”
Lucas had a very intent look on his face. “I know what gift I would like to give you. Wanted for long time—but simply cannot afford…worth so much just now.”
I was touched by the longing in his eyes. “It’s okay, Lucas, there really is no occasion. And when my birthday does come around,” if we’re still alive—shut up little voice, “you’ll have the perfect present—because your baby fuchsias will be ready by then, won’t they?” He’d taken cuttings the moment he got his own room and some of them were still alive. Unlike my baby… Stop it, Margo!
He shrugged slightly, thoughts still on whatever luxury item he thought I’d like. But after a while, he focused on me again. “Feeling better, then?”
“Yes.” I eyed him—still a little pensive, no glint. “What about you?”
He gave me a sharp look. “Father Mark talking to you again?”
“He mentioned you were very angry with those men.”
“Yes. Aren’t you?”
I pulled a face. “Yes. But I’ve been praying for them this morning.”
The pensive look gained ascendance. “That’s what Father Mark suggested.”
“Have you been doing it?”
“No. Don’t know.”
Oh no, the forgiveness thing again. I took his thin hand and pressed it. “I really think I do forgive you, Lucas. Please believe it.”
He shook his head—went abruptly to sit on the bed, back to the headboard, long legs stretched out. Frowning at his shiny shoes. “I believe you think you do—but I don’t know if you can do. You don’t really know me, do you?”
I dragged one of the soft chairs over and sat. Frowned at him. “Don’t I?”
“Do you look at me and see an evil coward?”
I blinked. “No.”
“Then you don’t know me.” He spoke with such certainty.
“What you did yesterday, that was brave. You could’ve been killed.”
A dismissive shake of his head. “A man who is already dead cannot be killed.”
“You’re not dead.”
He just shrugged and stared at his shoes some more, so I asked, “Is this, here, now, not you?”
“Now, maybe. Can one really change?”
“We believe so.”
He stared at his shoes some more. “I am not a very nice man. I don’t know why you are sitting here with me.”
“Because I forgive you.”
He shook his head. “All that I’ve been…you don’t even know.”
“Then tell me.”
Those memories lurked in his haunted eyes, those memories he’d struggled to hold back, to keep forgotten…should I have just said that? But he mostly looked sad.
“Should I?” He seemed to speak more to himself, and I’d a feeling I knew what he was worried about. Same reason he’d spilled his murderous anger to Father Mark and not to me.
“Yes. I can take it, Lucas. Grown up, remember?”
“All right…” he said uncertainly. “Everything?”
“If that’s how much you think I need to know to forgive you.”
His mouth twisted—he really did believe once I heard his story I’d be unable to forgive him anymore. Then a weary look, close to despair, crossed his face—too tired to prolong the not-knowing any longer, whatever the result?
“All right.” He switched to English. “Well, I was born.” His lip quirked in a timid flash of humor, as he borrowed the first sentence of my book. “That was…” He got that look adults always get when they talk about their age. “Was it really thirty-nine years ago? Anyway, on my father’s side, my family was old, gentry, you’d call it. My great-grandfather had lost all the family’s money and the little manor house, and my grandfather had opened a supermarket and done well and bought the manor back. My father inherited it after his parents died in a car accident, but the supermarket wasn’t doing so well anymore, with the latest dip—what was the latest dip back then.
“My father was very concerned with our family name.” More than a hint of bitterness in the way he said that. “The shop brought in enough money to keep us, but not in the style he felt necessary for the Salperton Everingtons. I remember them arguing all the time, my mum and my father. My mum wanted us to give up the manor, or at least let it out, and live somewhere more affordable. My father wouldn’t hear of it. So things just went on as they were, and more and more envelopes came through the door marked in red.
“We were just children, my sister one year younger than me—she worried whether she’d be able to take her big doll’s house if we moved, while my only real concern, other than hating the arguing, was whether we’d still have a garden. My father intended me to take over the supermarket one day, but by the time I was eleven I knew I wanted to be a professional gardener. My mum encouraged me not to abandon my dream—she could probably see that the way things were going there might not be a shop for me to run.
“I wanted to please my father, though, like most little boys, so I started going around to the supermarket after school to try and help out, though I found it very dull. I knew we weren’t making enough money—a man with a truck had actually come to the manor the day before and taken my father’s car away—so when I thought up a few ways to improve things I thought my father would be delighted. But when I started to tell him my ideas, he flew into the most terrible rage. Shouting that he didn’t need a child telling him how to run his business. And he hit me right across the face.”
His nostrils pinched as though he could still feel the pain of the blow. “I ran out of the store and all the way home. And that night I had a horrible thought. Did he hit my mum? What if he hit my sister? It was unbearable. The next day I got all my savings together, and I went to the outdoor shop, and I bought a pocket knife. I wanted to be able to protect them if he tried to hurt them. An eleven-year-old with a pocket knife thinking he could take on a big man like my father.” He shook his head self-deprecatingly. “But I listened outside doors after that, every evening, just in case. Started falling asleep in school—then, of course, I got a bad half-term report, and my father was angry and disappointed.
“I felt awful, because, you know, I still wanted to please him. So one day when I got a merit point I raced all the way home, hoping he’d be there, hoping it would make it up to him. Because, on some level, I felt it must have been my fault he’d hit me, even though I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong.”
Something bad was about to happen, I could see it in the deep line of pain down the middle of his forehead.
“I opened the door and rushed into the hall, calling to see if he was there…and he was. Hanging from the upstairs banister. Even at that age I could tell he was dead.”
I sucked in my breath, shocked. Expecting some horror, but…not that.
“I don’t actually remember what happened for the next hour or two. Apparently good little Lucas made an exemplary emergency call and let the ambulance crew in and did everything just right, but I don’t remember any of it. Never did.
“Well, to cut a long story short, the debtors seized the manor and the store—even Clara’s doll’s house—and we moved to a very small flat with a tiny balcony. My mum got a factory job—it seemed like she worked every hour of the day and night to keep us fed. I filled the balcony with plants, but Clara and I had to hang washing over them—we’d started doing most of the housework.
“I tried to garden in the undergrowth around the block of flats, but local gangs trashed my attempts regularly. I was very unhappy, but since I’d given up the idea of being a gardener, I told myself it didn’t matter. The gangs tried to trash me too, of course, when they could catch me, which wasn’t often. In the summer I’d used to climb down from my room to the manor garden to carry on gardening after bedtime and climbing the side of a high-rise was no different—so long as you didn’t look down. For some reason no one ever followed me, though I sometimes needed my knife to reach that safety.”
I couldn’t help a shudder at the thought of a childhood so bleak that clinging to the side of a high-rise could count as ‘safety.’
“My burning ambition by then was to get a job that would allow me to look after my mum and Clara. I got work in a shop after school and on weekends—even before school, washing the floors. I brought back every cent I could.
“And I studied jobs. I knew starting salaries, pensions, hours, employment terms—because I was impatient, I wanted to earn as soon as I left school and what’s more, earn enough to look after them both.”
He saw my incredulous look. “No, not many jobs like that around. There was just one—when I first saw the figures for it, I raised my eyebrows but automatically discounted it. But by the time I was sixteen, my mum was drinking too much and not eating enough. Everything was wearing her down. I was frantic for her to be able to stop slaving at the factory. So I took early Sorting and went full-time at the shop I’d been working for.”
I gasped. “You took early Sorting? Then went to work at a shop?”
“The confidence of youth—or desperation. But I passed with flying colors. As for the shop, I’d been working there for so long, I was sure within a year or so I could be manager—and I was right. I did another year and a half there as manager, then, with the all-important management experience acquired, I applied for a commission in EGD Security. I knew they were always desperate for recruits.”
Yes, that was the job. Very lucrative, if you could stomach it.
“I’d convinced myself by this time that there was nothing wrong with it. Desperation is a terrible tempter—or greed, call it what you will. I told myself all the usual lies people in EGD Security tell themselves. It’s rational, it’s for the greater good, someone else will just do it anyway…all that rubbish.” His tone was savage.
“I didn’t say anything to mum or Clara, I planned to tell them only if I was accepted for training. Clara had passed her Sorting and was just starting work, but she’d had a steady boyfriend for over a year, and I knew they were only waiting to register until they’d saved up enough money to set up home together. I wanted to be able to help with that, as well. I wanted to be able to provide for everyone, and the commission was the way.”
“Anyway, I got a call, come in for interview, so I went. Afterwards they said I was accepted and should proceed straight to training. I could have one phone call before the transport left. So I called my mum and told her only that I’d been offered a commission and I’d tell her all about it ASAP. Deep down—well-buried by then—was the knowledge that I was selling my soul to the devil, and she wouldn’t like it. I knew I needed to break it carefully—and as persuasively as possible.
“When I got there, I found the abrupt departure was only part of the test—for the three months of training, we were allowed no contact with family or friends, beyond sending a simple message to inform them of this. It was a blow, but it was the rules—they had to be able to see if we could cope with the isolation of being an officer at a Facility. I was only nineteen, and I’d never been away from Mum and Clara for even a week before, but I was determined nothing was going to stop me, so I stuck it out. I passed final testing with high marks and was officially an EGD lieutenant.”
My age. They made him an EGD Lieutenant at the age I am now.
“We were allowed a couple of weeks leave then, before our first posting, so home I went—not in uniform, of course. I was glad I’d finally be able to bring Mum and Clara up to date—and desperate to see them. I’d sent a note with the day I was coming, and when I got there I had the most terrible shock. They’d arranged a party, all the neighbors were there, many of our old friends, even—all there to celebrate me getting my lieutenancy—in the EuroArmy. That’s what my mum had told them. That’s what she thought.”
“Oh no,” I murmured.
“Exactly. Even in my determined state of self-deception, I couldn’t fail to be aware of the difference between EuroArmy and EGD Security. The revelation would be devastating—utterly humiliating—for my mum. I just couldn’t say anything in front of them all. I was going to take mum to one side afterwards and give her the spiel. But when they’d all gone, she and Clara were hugging me and looking at me with such…such pride. And I couldn’t do it. I said nothing.”
“Oh…dear.”
“Quite. I didn’t do it then, so of course I never did. Over and over, I resolved to tell them the truth, but the more time passed, the harder it was. I told them we weren’t supposed to wear our uniforms on leave, because of the Resistance, but my mum was always asking for a picture of me in it. I made excuse after excuse and she believed them all.”
His face twisted for a moment in shame. “Anyway, I went off to my first post, in a big city Facility, where all lieutenants go. I worked hard and diligently and was quickly rewarded with a promotion to Captain and a posting back to Salperton. I pretty much split my pay between my mum and Clara—wasn’t worrying about my own old age, not with that big pension coming to me. My mum gave up working at the factory, and went on a course for self-rehab and stopped drinking quite so much. I called them both every week and Clara was so pleased about the change in Mum—and so was I.
“Clara had got registered almost as soon as I got my commission, and she and Bill were buying a house with my help—we were calling it a loan, because Bill had his pride. But very soon she and Bill had their first child, a little boy, and they called him Lucas.”
“That’s nice,” I said uncertainly—there was such a look of pain on his face.
“Wasn’t it? I’ve never been happier in my whole life than when I first held that little boy. I took every scrap of leave I was entitled to, spacing it out through the year, two days at a time, so I could see him grow up. Lots of phone calls—and when he started to talk! Uncle Lucas, he called me! Wonderful, wonderful child. I think I knew I wouldn’t have children of my own. I was too obsessed with providing for the family I already had to start a new one. And I’d chosen the most un-conducive career—EGD Security officers being one of the few roles actually exempt from the Stable Population Act.
“Anyway, after only a couple of years the Major at Salperton retired, and I was promoted Major and made Commandant. I got the garden for my exclusive use, which was like a dream come true, and my sister had her second child, Jill. The only thing marring my happiness at all was dear Gladys, the new Captain, who wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for and followed me around like a—” He broke off abruptly.
“Amorous puppy?”
“How do you know…? Watkins! He told you about that?”
“He told Jon, actually. Not us girls.”
“Oh. Never mind. Watkins was a good fellow. He did something for me…” A thoughtful look settled on his face. “Something to do with a parcel. Just before they took me… Posting something?”
“The Security Manual! You got Watkins to post it?”
His face cleared. “Yes, that was it. He didn’t know what was inside. But I knew they’d seize all my post—probably recall anything still in the postal system, as well, looking for so-called evidence. So I asked him to post it from his account. Didn’t hesitate. Good man.”
“I think he liked you. At least as a boss.”
“Liked my firm hand. He’d seen things, under more relaxed Commandants. About as sincerely well-meaning as anyone in EGD Security gets, Watkins.”
“Why did you send that manual?”
“Two reasons. One was to get back at them for what they were going to do to me.”
“How could you be so sure they’d come for you? It was dear Gladys’s fault we were able to escape.”
“A younger woman with a cheerfully plump face or a slightly older man who looks like a Nazi? They were always going to pick me.”
I eyed his fair hair. Hollywood probably had done him a disservice there. “And the other reason?”
“Trying to make it up to you for what I’d done—and hadn’t done. Wasn’t sure if you’d actually do anything with it. I did wonder. Whether you’d stop. If one Facility would be enough. But it was mostly a case of it’s the thought that counts, you know? The thing they’d most hate you to have.”
He shook his head, and from the intent look in his unfocussed eyes, he was thinking about something he remembered all too clearly. “I don’t know why I didn’t do it,” he whispered. “When Doctor Richard took that syringe from me—you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to just take you and shove you out the wall gate myself. You’d earned it. And what did I care? I died that day, almost a decade earlier. My body’s been walking around ever since, but I’m not alive. And I was already for it for losing all but one of my charges! Should have just let the last one go as well. Don’t know why I didn’t.
“I suppose I do, I’m a coward. I’d learned how to survive in my filthy little rut, and I was too scared to try and climb out of it. Even to save you. So I walked out like a good little automaton and left you. Knew I’d made the wrong decision as soon as I got outside. I stopped right there in the passage, and I thought about going back in and getting you out and saying to perdition with them all. Maybe I’d have done it. But a guard came rushing up, telling me the Resistance were making a move and off I ran to see about preserving the lives of the other fifty people I was responsible for. So I’ll never know.”
He was silent for a long time. “Perhaps I just like to think I’d have done it,” he said bitterly at last. “But that’s why I sent the manual. It was an apology. The act of defiance I’d failed to make. Revenge. A chance. Must be the only good thing I’ve done in my entire life!”
He was quiet for a while longer, then, terrible, terrible pain in his eyes, he looked at me again. “So…back then everything was almost perfect. Or so I thought. Sun shining on oil produces a beautiful rainbow, but it’s still oil underneath—dirty and poisonous. That’s what my life was. Shining oil. One day I was looking down the Dismantling list for the day—the Dismantlers keep the detailed records, but it’s the Commandant’s job to keep track of who remains—intact—in his or her charge. And I came to an entry—Lucas Wherrick—my nephew’s name. A coincidence, clearly—Luc was only nine and no reAssignee or murderer…”
My stomach clenched, a metal band pressed around my forehead, and my head spun, ’cause in a moment of chilling certainty I saw what was coming. My hand flew to my mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Then I read the code ED-U, which means ‘Early Dismantling—UnRegistered’ and my eyes went on, along the line, and I couldn’t stop them, though suddenly I wanted to, and the date of birth was Luc’s. For a few moments I managed to cling to that safe disbelief—how could it be him—but it was all falling together too clearly, too easily—such short notice for their registration ceremony, so short I only just managed to be there, and that premature birth I was so worried about, until I saw the big, healthy baby boy—and I knew, I knew it was true.
“Luc was unRegistered, and they hid it, as people do if they can, to spare him from spending his short life with that hanging over him—driving everyone away from him—and it was him, it was him who’d been butchered that very day, in my Facility.
“And I’d not known; they’d not told me, because I was a Major in the EuroArmy, so what could I do? So I phoned her—Clara—I was half out of my mind with grief and guilt—I demanded why she hadn’t told me about Luc being unRegistered—she’d clearly been crying—she couldn’t understand how I knew, and I told her, because I’m sitting here looking at his name on this list, and she didn’t understand, she said what list, how can you know? and I said, because I’m a Major in EGD Security, you idiot, why didn’t you tell me?”
Already wincing at his naked anguish, I cringed at what was clearly a verbatim quote.
He stopped, breathing hard, his eyes dazed with memory and grief. “Well, that was that,” he said at last, in a horribly collected voice. “That was the end of my relationship with Clara. And Mum. They couldn’t forgive me. How could they? Clara and Bill moved away with little Jilly. Mum moved out of the house I bought her and drank herself to the edge of the grave. Alcoholics aren’t supposed to have transplants, but I pulled strings for her to have a new liver—but she wouldn’t take it. Turned Conchie and died. Hating me. As I deserved.”
“Why did you stay?” I whispered. “Why did you stay at the Facility? Surely you knew, then?”
“Oh, I knew. I knew with one hundred percent clarity, what I’d always refused to admit. That it was evil, and it was wrong, and there was no justification for being there. I didn’t even believe the ‘someone else will do it if you don’t’ excuse anymore. Because I knew, if no one else did it—they couldn’t do it.
“But still I stayed. I couldn’t face going out into the world—facing the world’s disgust—trying to get a job—not that I’d have been able to. EGD Security have got you for life, no one else will have you. But since I didn’t care about starving in a gutter, being a walking corpse anyway, I should have gone. But I didn’t because I couldn’t face leaving my garden. Does that give you some idea what I am? The most evil, cowardly wretch who ever breathed. To know as I did that it was wrong, to have lost everything to it and to serve it still for the sake of a garden.”
His self-disgust was sharp enough to flay skin and despite his words, despite what he was telling me, it was horrible to hear anyone speak of themself like that. I fumbled for words, confused and hurting for him, for his sister, for everyone he spoke of.
“How did you keep from…from harming yourself?” After hearing him talk like that…
“I’m never taking that way out! The easy way—I may be a coward, but I’ll not stoop to that. Not like—” He broke off, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Not like his father.
“Making my body go on living was pure torture…well, that’s what I thought then…so I knew I had to do it. Live. Because I deserved it. Every moment of pain. I wouldn’t run away. But the only way I could cope was if I spent most of the day buried in my garden. It was the only place I could find even a hint of peace. And I didn’t deserve peace, but it was all that could keep me sane, keep me from that worst cowardice of all.
“So I stayed. And I stayed. And I stayed. I did my best for the reAssignees, but I could hardly bear to go near the boys. Every one of them reminded me of Luc. But the odd use of my old pocket knife on the guards kept serious offenses very rare. I didn’t care about hurting them.” He was speaking almost to himself now. “They all looked like me, and I deserved to be punished, deserved it so much…it was almost a relief when Internal Affairs took me, felt like justice finally being served…except that it wasn’t”—he shook his head confusedly—“I hadn’t done what they said. I wished I had but hadn’t, and I refused to lie…but what they did to me, I deserved.”
“Lord have mercy, Lucas, no one deserves what they did to you!”
“Is that what you’d say, if Luc had been your child? Luc or any of the thousand others?”
“Everyone is responsible for the Facilities, Lucas.” Though he’d shaken my faith in this statement a little when he pointed out that if no one would do the job, the job couldn’t be done.
“But EGD Security most of all,” he said dully. “We are the ones who allow it to happen.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but it didn’t matter, because his control was going, tears running down his cheeks, and he wouldn’t have heard me.
“Luc,” he whispered. “Precious, precious boy, I loved you so much. I’d have saved you, if only I’d known! Saved you, or died trying…but they didn’t tell me because I didn’t tell them. My lie killed you. My job killed you. All of you. Why did I come here? All the way here? I must’ve been mad, to think there was any forgiveness for me. Luc, poor child, how frightened you must have been… All of you…fear and misery… And still I stayed…”
He brought his knees up to his chin, sobs choking off further words. Remorse. Pure remorse. I’d seen it once on Bane’s face, and I was seeing it again now. And I understood, now, why he was so convinced he couldn’t be forgiven. It wasn’t just because his mother had failed to forgive him. It was because he couldn’t even think of forgiving himself. I’d needed God’s help to forgive him and he needed God’s help with that, big time.
Just as I had a month earlier, I reached out and tried to put my arms around him.
He flinched away. “How can you even touch me?”
But when I made another attempt to gather him to me, he let me. “Because I forgive you,” I whispered, rubbing his bony back and hugging him tightly. “And God forgives you. Please believe me.”
“How could I possibly deserve it?” he whispered back.
“Lucas, none of us deserves it. But God forgives us anyway.”
“I don’t understand.” His voice was thin and choked, his face buried in my hair. “Yet…I believe you do forgive me…but…I don’t understand how it can be… I don’t…”
His voice trailed off weakly, and his sobs carried on for some time, before exhaustion finally silenced them. I settled him on the bed and laid a blanket over him. Smoothed his fair hair gently until sleep mercifully claimed him.
I sat and watched him sleeping for a while, his terrible story swirling in my mind. His own nephew…I wasn’t sure who I felt most sorry for. I’d known what he was, what he’d spent his adult life doing. The fact his own nephew was one of the victims didn’t actually make any difference to that—it just made his own predicament more pitiable.
Thinking through the jumble of reasons he’d given for staying, my bewilderment evaporated. Paralyzed by grief, despair, anger at himself and the EGD, even at his family who’d rejected him after all he’d sacrificed for them, however misguidedly, and faced with scarcely even the prospect of survival in the world outside…of course he’d stayed. Or rather, of course he hadn’t been able to galvanize himself to leave. He’d probably been barely able to do anything more than get through the next day. And the next. And the next…
Poor, poor man.
Poor, poor boy.
Poor, broken family.
Oh Lord, I hate Sorting. Please let us win. Please, please, please?
Opening his Office book to the page that said, “Though your sins be like scarlet, yet they shall be whiter than wool,” I left the Scriptures open on the bedside table as well, at the place where Our Lord bids us to forgive, “not seven times, nay, but seventy times seven times.”
18 days
“When the Liberation team broke into our dorm we were really scared. We’d never heard of anyone rescuing reAssignees—no one had ever done it—so we weren’t sure what was going on. When we realized they were taking us away—that we wouldn’t have to be dismantled—we hardly dared to believe it until we were actually on the ship. Then we all went a bit mad. Mad with joy!”
Jules L., former reAssignee—quoted on ‘The Impatient Gardener’
“You want to do what?” Bane pretty much yelled at Eduardo. “You want to stick Margo up on a podium in St. Peter’s Square right beside the white line? What sort of stupid idea is that?”
“It’s not stupid,” said Eduardo, un-phased. “People will be able to gather right there on EuroBloc soil to hear her.”
“Excuse me!” Bane was not mollified. “Why are we in this apartment that doesn’t overlook the walls! One sniper, that’s all the EuroGov needs. One!”
“I’m not saying we do it today. But in another week, well, the EuroGov would be very foolish indeed to do something like that then, so close to D-day. If they did, the sympathy vote would pretty much guarantee our victory, so this is a win-win situation.”
“Win-win?” bellowed Bane, jumping to his feet. I jumped up as well, thinking he was going to launch himself at Eduardo…but instead he took a deep breath and stood very still, fists clenching.
Eventually he snapped, “Has anyone ever punched you in the face for what you consider to be no apparent reason?”
“Every now and then someone tries,” admitted Eduardo.
“I’m not surprised,” snarled Bane. “Don’t you even realize you’re calling Margo getting killed a win?”
“And obviously I don’t want that. But a week before the vote, I judge the chances of another assassination attempt to be extremely low. I was just pointing out that if the worst did happen, it wouldn’t be a complete dead loss, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Bane took several more deep breaths…
“So, are you up for it, Margo?” asked Eduardo.
“No!” said Bane.
“Margo?” repeated Eduardo, pointedly.
I swallowed. The thought of standing there with absolutely nothing between me and a sniper’s bullet… All the same, Eduardo was right. The only thing killing me so close to the vote would achieve was a huge swell of support for our cause. The chances of Reginald Hill putting personal satisfaction over victory seemed pretty low. After all, if they won, he could kill me then.
“Bane, I know it’s risky, but I think I should do this speech,” I said. “We’ve got to win, don’t you understand? If we don’t, we’re all dead anyway.”
Bane…growled.
“Bane, love,” I slipped my arms around him. “Bane, I really think I should do this, but I want to do it with you behind me. Please?”
He let out a long sigh and slipped his arms around me in return, holding me close. “I’d rather you did it with me standing in front of you,” he said, resting his forehead against mine. “It would be better than nothing.”
I had to smile. “I appreciate the thought, love, but I think it would spoil the impression rather, don’t you?”
Lucas seemed fine when he let me in. A bit subdued, his eyes following me in…wonder? Bewilderment? I was very careful to avoid doing or saying anything that might be interpreted as a drawing away from him as a result of his story, and gradually he became a bit more his usual self.
Sort of. He sat, his head resting against the chair back, looking as though the memories dragged up by his narration still swirled blackly around him. Internal Affairs might actually have done him a favor, by putting it from his mind.
“What a mess I’ve made of my life,” he murmured after a while.
“Well, you’re here now. And it’s not too late to start over.”
He gave me a curious look. “When would it be too late?”
I blinked. Said bluntly, “When you’re dead.” Saw him open his mouth again and added quickly, “Actually dead, Lucas. Dead may be the only metaphor you feel properly describes the state of your spirit, but you are not a dead man.”
“We are spirit and body both, so how do you start again if your spirit is no more?”
He knew his Theology, all right. “I think you know the answer to that,” I replied.
He sank back into silence again, a more intent, thoughtful silence. But he still glanced at me now and then, with that wonder in his eyes.
13 days
“Even when we arrived in Africa it was a while before I dared to let anyone know that I believed in God. But it wasn’t a big deal at all. Everyone here believes in God. People laugh and sing while they work, and I think it’s because they have God.”
Martina E., former reAssignee—quoted on ‘The Impatient Gardener’
I hurried along the corridor, trying to go over the talk I’d be giving in St. Peter’s square in—gulp!—less than a week, now, in my head. I really wanted it to be good. More than with any previous talk I’d given, I’d be putting my life on the line to give it, after all. But my mind kept bouncing back to the conversation I’d just had with Pope Cornelius. There was a bounce in my steps as well. I felt like a joyful bouncy ball. Lucas had been in such a preoccupied mood for the last few days, and now…
The bounce went out of my step as I saw a familiar cassocked figure turn into the corridor. Kyle. I drew a deep breath, gathering myself. After he’d given Lucas those flowers and I realized how much he must still care, I’d knocked on his door a few more times—but if he’d been in, he hadn’t let on. I wasn’t seeing him at morning Mass, so he must be going in the evening. Simply to avoid me?
I stepped forward determinedly, trying to smile—I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity…but Kyle turned abruptly on his heel and walked away. No, not again!
“Kyle!” I raced after him. “Kyle, please, stop!”
“What is it?” he said ungraciously, coming to a halt.
“I just want to talk to you. You’re my brother, I’m allowed to want to talk to you, aren’t I?” I teased.
No answering smile. “I’m really not in the mood, Margo.” He turned to go.
No! Kyle… “Lucas is getting baptized!” I blurted. “Isn’t that great news?”
Kyle gave me a downright disapproving look. “You can’t baptize an adult who isn’t mentally competent to make the decision.”
“Well, that’s what His Holiness just wanted to talk to me about, actually. Apparently, as soon as Lucas asked him for baptism, Pope Cornelius spoke immediately to Doctor Frederick and the medical staff, but they with one accord shrugged and directed him to me.”
Kyle looked incredulous. “And you told him it was okay?”
My turn to stare at him. “Of course. I mean, I imagine Lucas will always count as eccentric, but most of the time now, I think he’s as mentally competent as you or I.”
“I know he’s better than he was, but it’s barely a week since the man tried to kill Doctor Frederick!”
Unfortunately that had got around.
“He freaked out and overreacted, yeah, but no one is at their sanest after being shot in the arm, Kyle.”
Kyle shook his head to himself, wearing that ‘silly little sister’ expression that had been driving me so crazy.
I took a deep breath and refused to get mad. “Kyle, Lucas walked across Europe, for four months, starving, for this. To find out whether God is willing to forgive him. He thinks the answer is no, and I’ve spent the last couple of months convincing him it might be yes after all. If Pope Cornelius refused him, it wouldn’t matter what reason he gave; all Lucas would hear is no. Trust me, Lucas knows exactly what he’s doing. Ask Father Mark if you don’t believe me; he sent Lucas to Pope Cornelius.”
“Huh.” Kyle made as though to walk on again.
My heart and my voice both cracked slightly. “Kyle…I’m sorry I shouted at you and…and pointed the gun at you, okay? Please, what else can I say?”
“I don’t want to talk about this! I don’t want to talk about anything! Just leave me alone!” This time he did stride on.
I ran after him. “Kyle! Please! It’s less than two weeks until the vote, and we’ve no idea if we’ll win! Do you really want things to be like this between us?”
Without answering, Kyle just ducked his head and barged through the door into the non-secure area. I was about to follow him, make him talk to me if I had to hang onto his arm and physically hold him still, when I remembered Eduardo’s warning. Photos of me and Kyle arguing wouldn’t look quite so bad on the front page as photos of me and Bane, but it wouldn’t look good.
Fighting back tears, I headed for the Sistine Chapel instead and dropped onto a bench—glad there was no one else there, because, unstoppably, I began to cry. Fortunately by the time three off-duty Swiss Guards came in and knelt on the other side of the aisle, I’d just about got myself under control again.
Lord, what can I do about Kyle? He obviously still cares. The way he’d run off was almost as though the conversation was upsetting him, yet…he was so hostile.
Sitting quietly, I waited a while for my face to resume its normal color and for my mind to quiet…well, the former, anyway. But I needed to go and see Father Mark, then get back to my blog. I rose, genuflected, and headed reluctantly up to the hospital, trailed by my anxious-looking bodyguard. I didn’t really know the one assigned to me today, so I was glad he’d remained discreetly in the background.
I took a deep breath before opening Father Mark’s door. I was even less in the mood for this emotional torment than usual.
Father Mark’s smile of welcome made me feel bad about my lack of enthusiasm for his company. I tried to muster a return smile, but my emotions just felt flayed.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Is it Bane?”
“No. Bane’s fine. And Lucas is getting baptized! But I think you know that.” I tried to recapture the happiness I’d been feeling about that earlier, but it wasn’t quite happening. Then the vote suddenly crashed back into my mind, as it seemed to do with ever-increasing frequency. “I hope it can be done soon.”
Father Mark must’ve seen the fear in my eyes clearly enough. “Put your faith in the Lord’s will, Margaret,” he said softly.
“The Lord’s will is that several million voters should have free will. We know the Lord will be with us, whatever, but we really don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of next week, do we?” The end of next week. The words stuck in my throat.
Father Mark sighed. “True. Don’t worry about Lucas, though. If he dropped dead this very instant, it would be an open and shut case of baptism by desire. But I’m sure it can be done in the next day or two.”
“Oh good.” Not entirely rationally, I added, “Because if we do lose, of all the people here, Lucas is going to be one of the deadest.”
Him and Pope Cornelius and Bane and Jon and…me. And Father Mark too.
“Hmm,” agreed Father Mark wryly. “Speaking of which… Have you made up with Kyle, yet?”
“I tried again just now! He won’t even speak to me!” Though right now, I was almost relieved, if I was honest about it. Focusing on my anger towards Kyle helped me to suppress my anger towards Father Mark. Horrible but true.
“A loving big brother is entitled to be angry about what happened with Bane, you know. There must be something else you can do.”
Why was Father Mark going on at me about this? It took two to make up! So far all Kyle had done was give me more reasons to be furious with him.
“Well, I’d love to know what it is!” I snapped. Lord help me, I was not in a fit state to discuss this right now. “I’ve run after him, I’ve begged him. He won’t listen!”
Father Mark frowned. “Margaret, I know Kyle isn’t making this easy. But you’ve got to fix things.”
“I’ve tried! Aren’t you listening to me either?” I was getting so angry, but I couldn’t help it. The rift with Kyle was painful enough without him going on and on about it.
“I know, but you haven’t succeeded. You have to do better. Things can always be fixed, you just have to try hard enough—”
“Always be FIXED?” I yelled, my heartbeat surging, drumming in my head and a red haze consuming everything. “What? If I TRY HARD ENOUGH, my BABY will be FI—?”
I clamped both hands over my mouth and tried to physically swallow the words, eyes scrunching closed.
But it was too late.