Friends Reunited

Relief coursed through him and he ran towards her but stopped when he saw the look on her face. It wasn’t the warm, welcoming expression he was used to. In fact, it was nothing short of terror.

‘Mickey?’ Jane whispered, her eyes darting from side to side, scouring the darkness around him. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’ He saw the tension ease in her eyes.

‘What are you doing here? How did you find us?’

But, before he could answer, she put a finger to his lips, took his arm and led him towards one of the smaller cottages down a side lane. She let herself in and Monkey noticed that there was no iris scanner on this door, just a simple, old-fashioned keypad to open it. Once inside, Jane indicated for Monkey to wait in the narrow hallway that led straight to the staircase while she lifted the latch and entered a room to the side. A warm glow spread out into the hall and he could hear whispering. Then Tragic came to the door.

‘Monkey!’ He put his arms out and patted Monkey on the back. ‘Good to see you. Good to see you.’ There was something odd about Tragic’s manner. He did look genuinely pleased to see his friend but he was cagey, too. Monkey couldn’t quite make him out. ‘So, how d’ya find us?’ he went on in a stilted tone, only giving half his attention to Monkey, as though he was listening to something else, or for something else.

‘I got your note,’ Monkey replied.

‘Good, good.’

And then, as though Tragic and his nurturer had been up to something, Jane appeared and Tragic visibly relaxed and ushered Monkey into the room with the fire.

‘Come and get yourself warm. Do you want something to eat? How d’ya get here?’

The room was sparsely furnished with a cooking range and a sink at one end and a couple of Jane’s paintings on the wall. In the main body of the room, were three simple wooden chairs and a table in front of a large, open fire that was more than welcoming to Monkey’s frozen hands and feet. Sometimes Vivian lit a fire at home but wood was in short supply, so it was usually only on special occasions. Mickey accepted a bowl of homemade soup and some bread. He desperately wanted to talk to Tragic in private, but it was clear from Jane’s hovering presence and pursed lips that she had no intention of leaving them alone.

‘So, you coming back?’ Monkey asked when he finished his soup.

Tragic shook his head.

‘What about graduation?’ Monkey asked. ‘And the two of us in the Breeders’ Zone? You know, like we planned.’

‘Like you planned, Monk,’ Tragic corrected. ‘I never planned to graduate.’

Monkey was stunned. ‘What... You mean you always planned to run away?’

‘I haven’t run away!’ Tragic denied emphatically, but Jane put a hand on his arm as though warning him not to say too much.

‘We’ve just decided to opt out of the system,’ she said, calmly. ‘Now, I’m sure you need to be getting back. Did you cycle or walk?’

It was clear that Monkey was being given his marching orders but he wasn’t going until he had some answers.

‘So how d’ya get here? When I left you that night, you never said anything.’

Tragic’s eyes flitted from his friend to his nurturer. Again, it was Jane who intervened.

‘It’s lovely to see you, Mickey, and I know Trevor appreciates you coming all this way, but it really is best if you go back now.’ She stood up as an added hint for Monkey to leave but he remained seated.

‘I want to know what’s going on.’

Jane was clearly becoming exasperated. ‘Trust me, Mickey, the less you know the better for everyone.’

‘The better for you, you mean!’ Monkey challenged.

‘No! The better for you, too!’

She stared at him, and Monkey had never seen Jane looking so authoritative - not since the day she found they’d been in the basement. Slowly, things began to make sense.

‘Something weird’s going down here,’ Monkey said. ‘I’ve been in your cellar. I’ve seen the freezer with the back cut out. And Security were there too - looking for you.’

He saw her start at the news. ‘And they took away some providers’ clothes that were down there to have them tested by forensics.’ He looked from Jane to Tragic. ‘I’ve risked The Farm to find you, so the least you can do is give me some sort of explanation.’

The fire crackled, and the distant hooting of an owl could be heard outside, but there was no other sound. Monkey looked from Tragic to Jane, waiting for one of them to speak. Finally, Tragic spoke.

‘I’ll be sixteen tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If we’d stayed, I’d have been having my graduation party, then that would’ve been it. I’d have been off to the Breeders’ Zone on Sunday and just sucked into the whole world of breeding and providing. That would’ve been my connection with my family gone; ended...’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Forever.’

‘We’ve been through this...’ Monkey began, but Tragic shook his head.

‘Hear me out. Mum and I didn’t want that.’ Monkey’s eyes opened wide at the word Mum. It was archaic. No one called their nurturers mum. Tragic was sounding practically prehistoric. But Monkey let him continue. ‘So, we made some enquiries and found this community of people who’ve opted out.’ He looked Monkey in the eye and shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything before. We couldn’t risk it getting out and...’

‘So, why’d you leave a note?’ Monkey challenged.

Tragic shrugged. ‘I was going to send it to you, but then I changed my mind. I didn’t think you’d go to the house.’

Jane looked anxiously at her son. ‘You wrote a note? With our whereabouts in it?’

‘Yeah - sorry. I didn’t think...’

She turned to Monkey. ‘Where is it? You didn’t leave it there, did you?’

‘No. I took it with me.’ He noticed mother and son relax visibly. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Are you gonna tell me what’s really going on?’

‘It’s like I said,’ Tragic said, unconvincingly.

Jane put her hand on her son’s knee and smiled. ‘It’s OK, I’m sure Mickey understands.’

But Monkey far from understood. ‘So, in this “community” you’ve joined,’ he said, sarcastically, ‘how’re you gonna finish your education?’ Monkey couldn’t believe he was asking such questions. He sounded like Professor Reed - or, worse - Vivian. ‘What you gonna do for a job, Tradge? And what about...you know...’ He shot an embarrassed look in Jane’s direction. ‘...breeding and stuff?’

Tragic cleared his throat and blushed. ‘It’ll be OK,’ he said, directing his gaze to the floor.

Jane came to his rescue. ‘We’re pretty self-sufficient here. Don’t worry about Trevor - he’ll be fine. We grow all our own food and make our own furniture.’

Monkey snorted, louder than he’d intended. ‘So what, you’ve turned Amish, now?’ He stood up abruptly. ‘You know what - something weird’s going on. I don’t know what it is, but maybe next time I come...’

‘No!’ Tragic and Jane interrupted together.

‘I’m sorry, Mickey, but you mustn’t come again,’ Jane said urgently. ‘It was really kind of you to find Trevor but, for everyone’s sake - yours and ours - you mustn’t come back.’ She paused, then asked anxiously, ‘Does anyone else know you’re here?’

‘Only...’ Monkey was going to say only Angel Ellison. Tragic knew how he felt about Angel - he’d be rapt to know that they’d got together. But he changed his mind. Better keep her out of it. ‘Only me,’ he answered. ‘No one else.’

‘Good. And can we rely on you to keep it that way - please?’ she implored. Monkey nodded. ‘And it would be best if you turned off your ring-cam until you’re back in town,’ Jane said.

Monkey reluctantly did as she had asked, then held out his hand to his friend. ‘So this is it, is it - the big adios?’

Tragic stood up and Monkey realised that he’d grown somehow in the few days since he’d seen him; not in height, but in maturity. ‘I’ll be fridge, mate. Trust me.’

Jane walked Monkey to the edge of the village, making sure that he and Tragic had no time alone together. She stood in the road watching as he walked out into the night and back towards the loco track. The visit had left him with even more questions than when he’d arrived. None of it made sense. Was he seriously expected to believe that Tragic was willing to drop out of society, give up on his education, his career, his breeding rights, to live on homemade soup for the rest of his life - with his nurturer? He knew Tragic was tragic, but he wasn’t a head case.

As soon as he was out of sight, Monkey switched on his ring-cam again.

‘Time?’ he whispered. It was almost midnight. His limbs felt like lead and his eyes struggled to stay open. The hope that had sustained him on his way out to the village was gone; replaced by a sense of despair that he would never see his friend again. It weighed on him as heavily as a bereavement, and unfamiliar tears pricked his eyes. He blinked them back furiously as he trudged the long lane back to the main road.

And then he heard it: a noise he’d only previously heard emanating from the snug in town or from the sports ground behind the fence of the Providers’ Zone. It was the sound of male laughter; deep and throaty and it resonated across the countryside. Monkey looked round. There was a five-barred gate leading to a field and there, not thirty metres from him, walking across the bare earth, was a group of three providers, their silhouettes barely visible against the black of the night as he peered through the gate. He slipped off the road and ducked down into the hedge, watching the men coming towards him. As they got closer, he could see that they each carried tools, sledgehammers, slung on their shoulders, and one had a coil of wire looped over the other arm. Their jovial camaraderie was obvious even from where Monkey was hiding. This was what he yearned for - that raw masculinity of the providers. Tragic was mad to have given up the prospect.

The men tossed their sledgehammers over the gate onto the grass verge, then released the catch, opened the gate and stepped out onto the lane. They couldn’t have been more than four metres from him. Who were they? he wondered. Prisoners from The Farm? Although Angel’s research said that Combe Magna had been rejected as a site for a Farm development. Maybe they were working for The Assembly? After all, the food couldn’t all come from The Farms, could it? There must be other arable sites that grew crops for the nurturers and their families. He’d never really thought about it before.

‘I’ll get Laura to drop some more fence posts off at the north end in the morning, then this is secure,’ said one of the providers.

‘Yeah, give this hedge a couple of years and it’ll thicken up nicely. Won’t need to be fencing it. I had enough fencing for a lifetime when I was on The Farm.’ The voice behind the laughter sounded much younger than the first provider and, Monkey thought, vaguely familiar.

‘Come on, then,’ said the first man. ‘Let’s get this lot back and pick up those seed potatoes. Try and get all the early crop in before morning, shall we?’

‘I’d like to get finished a bit early if I can,’ said a third as they picked up their tools and headed back towards the village. ‘Big day tomorrow.’

‘Aye. We’ll have to get him down the snug for his first keg - well, legal keg, anyway,’ laughed the first voice and the others joined in the laughter as they disappeared into the night.

Monkey crept out of the hedge bottom and stood in the middle of the lane staring into the inky blackness as though he could still see the men. He didn’t know who they were, or why they were there, or even if they had anything to do with Tragic’s sudden liking for vegetable soup and primitive carpentry. What he did know was that, whether Jane liked it or not, he was coming back - and, next time, he wanted answers.