Breakdown (23 page)

At the old village green, a triangle of overgrown weeds, they break us up into our work gangs. Most of the gangs go to their biomes. Lenny and I are ganged up with the other new arrivals and taken into a holding area.

It's a long, dark hut. Wooden boards. Grille windows. Thick dust. Smell of sweat. Rank bodies. The people we travelled with last night are there. The moaning man, the one with grey stubble. The woman, still without her children. There are others too. No Tarquin.

We join them. We sit on benches. Lenny clings to me. I try to keep my chin up, my lips tight.
Don't let them flog him.
We sit there and wait.

‘What we waiting for?' Lenny whispers.

‘We're waiting for the General,' says someone.

The General?
I go cold all over.

‘It's a court.'

‘Court?' says Lenny.

I clutch him tighter.

‘Missa, you're hurting.'

‘Caught after curfew, held on the highway, planning to thieve.'

I loosen my grip.
Shit.

‘Thieve?' A whole conversation starts.

‘So you can't travel?'

‘Not outside town limits. All those caught out of doors without travel passes in public places get sent here.'

‘Highway Robbery Act. Two years' hard labour.'

A soldier enters. I hear him informing the officer on duty. ‘Just got word, General wants this court to hold off. He wants to come here himself.' The noise of the others drowns out his words.

He wants to come here himself. Dear God, no.

‘Aren't we honoured.' It's the officer on duty.

I strain to listen.

‘He's still in London now, something's kicked off there. He'll come here briefly, on his way to Andover.' Voice of the messenger.

I can't catch the officer's reply.

‘Not now, not today. Commander in Chief of Land Forces wants him  …  something about deployment  …  MoD involvement  … '

I miss the rest of the exchange.

‘Meanwhile they're to go to Biome Thirty-four and do the harvesting.' That's the soldier again.

‘He doesn't want Brigadier doing the sentencing?' That's the officer in charge.

‘Apparently not.'

‘Problem?'

I focus all my attention to catch the next words.

‘Nah, nothing big. It's the girl, the good looker – thinks she may be someone they've been after in London. You know him. Wants to check up on her before he goes.'

Check up on me.
My hands go clammy. A cold sweat breaks out.

‘Missa?' Lenny tugs my arm.

‘We'll be fine,' I manage.

The soldiers are already clearing the courthouse.
God help us. First Tarquin. Now this.

I keep my teeth set tight, steer Lenny into the line. My knees go weak.
Keep walking. Keep thinking.

We're sent to Biome Thirty-four.
Delicate ankles. Bruised skin.
We go in through sets of sliding plastic. It's big. So big it could house Big Ben.
I don't want spoiled goods.
It covers four fields.
I like to see my own handiwork.
Hexagonal shaped, clear plastic panels, each about nine metres across.

That whip lashing down on Tarquin.

‘We're in the beehive now, ain't we, Missa?'

‘What?'
Oh, Tarquin.

‘It's a bit like a beehive, ain't it?'

I look up at the biome. He's right. A honeycomb of plastic panels.

‘We're getting to learn how them bees feel now, so we know, ain't it?'

Are you there, Nan? Are you still waiting for me? Have you no words to help?

One of the bees buzzes round me, seems to like my smell.
A real bee.
So tiny. So loud. It settles on my wrist. It crawls onto my hand, tickles my skin. How can the future of us all be borne on such a small, furry back? I blow it gently. It quivers fairy wings. Buzzes up, circles, keeps rising.

I whisper the words of the nursery rhyme, ‘
Busy Bee, Busy Bee. Here is the beehive. Where are the bees? Hiding, hiding where nobody sees
 … '

Was that you, Nan? Did you send me the bee?

I look up at the honeycomb biome, at the flitting bees, at the rows of shiny green cabbages.

Is this what it's like, Nan, over the doorstep of death?

‘It's gonna be OK, Missa,' says Lenny. ‘'Cos it's in the book. This is the big old beehive on the end page, ain't it? See all them honeycombs up there? Zactly the same.'

Each field's broken into sections. We start in the cabbage section.
Try and help
Tarquin.
The cabbages are ready for cutting. We get a sharp knife and a basket.
Find out what's going to happen.

‘Don't get any funny ideas,' says a soldier. He counts out the knives, marks each one, and puts our numbers in a ledger.

I test the edge of my knife.

‘Attacking an officer: flogging and ten years. Fighting: flogging and five years. Stealing: flogging and two years. Eating on the job: flogging,' intones the officer, just to make sure we do understand.

A flogging and ten years.

We slice the cabbages off their stems
. Keep thinking. Don't feel anything.
We put a dozen cabbages into each basket. And each basket into a big open crate.
We're going to fight back.
The cabbages aren't ratty. They're full and green and kind of silvery grey.
Watch for anything that can help.
They look so good, I could eat them raw.
I won't let him rot for ten years.
Lenny tries. I see him nibbling on the bits that fall off. I don't say a word. He needs food. I stand in front of him. Make sure they don't see.

Find somebody who wants something. Find out what, how you can use it.

And there's not just cabbages. There's onions and tomatoes and beans and carrots.
Use your brain.
And down the centre of the biome are rows of apple trees. And canes, fruit canes, heavy with berries.

And bees.

Loads of bees. Huge bumblebees buzzing around the tomatoes. Honeybees hunting out the blossom.

My first bees.

How my heart aches for Nan. How I wish she could see it. How it'd warm her heart. All this food. Miles and miles of blossom and fruit and food and full-to-brimming with bees and buzzing.

The bees seem to like me too. They swarm around and settle on my hair and boiler suit.

Keep thinking. Even the smallest thing can make the difference.

‘Look, Missa,' says Lenny. ‘So much.' He waves his thin arm at the acres of greenery.

‘I know.'

‘But, Missa?'

‘What?'

‘Why's all this food here and in London we don't get none?'

I don't know.

Lenny tugs on my top impatiently.

‘Maybe they only just started growing it,' I say vaguely.
Every garden has a snake. Be the snake, Melissa.

Lenny shakes his head. ‘Them trees is really big.'

He folds his arms over his chest, stands there puzzled. ‘They're like Careem,' he says at last. ‘There was plenty of dogs, but they wanna keep it all to themselves.' He unfolds his arms and bends to cut the next cabbage. ‘Because they don't care 'bout us.' He drops the cabbage into the pannier. ‘They going to give it to their own little boys and girls.'

‘I'll carry your basket,' I say.

‘If I had all this food, I'd share it with everyone,' he says.

I pick up his load and move it over to the next row. I place it halfway up the aisle so he can run and drop the cabbages in and not have to carry it so far.

Watch the others as you cut. Watch for an answer.

‘And I wouldn't miss out no one – not even them.'

‘I'm gonna put you in charge of the universe,' I say. ‘After we cut these cabbages.'

Think
. What
does
happen to all the food? It doesn't get into the stores. Cabbage, carrots, onions, bacon, eggs, chicken. Never seen any of them. I always thought there wasn't any, or there wasn't enough, or I just got there too late.
Is this something you can use?

There are fields of cabbages here, and this is just Biome Thirty-four. There's more than forty biomes on this farm. And there's more covered farms across the country. And the population's so small. Everyone knows the army take what they want, but to take so much, with the rest of us starving?

Find out what happens to the food. Find out who takes it. Find out if they have anything to hide.

That's a start.

Everyone has something to hide.

They keep Lenny on cabbages, but they send me to water-winding. There's a whole line of irrigation winders. They've got a lot of people doing it. A horse too. We have to push huge screw things round and round. The horse is big and shiny with sweat. He smells slightly sour, but fresh, healthy. I like his smell. I like the huge muscles that strain and bunch under his damp coat. A real horse.

The camp is organised. Rows of cabbages. Irrigation systems. Horses. There must be a weak link somewhere.

But for the next few hours I can't think, except to put one foot in front of the next, winding that water up into the sluices. My shoulders strain, my hands become raw. I can't even watch the others, let alone try to figure anything out.

Just when I think my back's about to break, a young guy steps up and pushes on my winder. I look at him. He smiles. ‘It's an Archimedes' screw, and it'll break your back if you don't work it properly,' he says.

‘Oh,' I say, none the wiser, except that I know Archimedes was Greek.

‘Take a break. I'll wind for you.'

I glance over at the soldier on duty.

‘Got it covered.' He winks at me. I let him wind. I find Lenny still cutting cabbages. I squat down by his basket and help him. I listen to the sound of the sluice sloshing the water. I look out across the fields.
Were you once open to the sky? Was all England like this? So plentiful? What happened to the world?