Mood Indigo (20 page)

Isis got up and ran into Chloe's bedroom. The parquet floor squelched under her feet. The room was unrecognizable. Chloe was in bed, her head half hidden in the pillow, coughing silently but without stopping. She pulled herself up slightly when she heard Isis come in, and took a deep breath. She put on a feeble little smile as Isis drew near, sat on the bed and took her in her arms like a sick baby.

‘Don't cough, Chloe darling,' murmured Isis.

‘What a pretty flower you're wearing,' whispered Chloe, breathing deeply the perfume of the big red carnation pinned in Isis's hair. ‘That's done me good,' she added.

‘Are you ill again?' said Isis.

‘It's the other lung, I think,' said Chloe.

‘No,' said Isis. ‘It's the first one that's still making you cough a little.'

‘No,' said Chloe. ‘Where's Colin? Has he gone to get me some flowers?'

‘He won't be long,' said Isis. ‘I bumped into him. Has he got any money?' she added.

‘Yes,' said Chloe, ‘he's still got some left. But it doesn't do any good. It doesn't stop anything! …'

‘Are you in pain?' asked Isis.

‘Yes,' said Chloe, ‘but not a lot. The room has changed. Look.'

‘I like it better this way,' said Isis. ‘It was too big before.'

‘What are the other rooms like?' said Chloe.

‘Oh … Fine …' said Isis, evasively.

She could still remember the sensation of the parquet as cold and icy as a forgotten swamp.

‘I don't care if it all changes,' said Chloe, ‘so long as it's warm and comfortable …'

‘Sure!' said Isis. ‘A small flat's much cosier.'

‘The mouse stays with me,' said Chloe. ‘You can see it there in the corner. I don't know what it's doing. It didn't want to go into the corridor.'

‘Mm …' said Isis.

‘Let me smell your carnation again,' said Chloe. ‘It made me feel so good.'

Isis unpinned it from her hair and gave it to Chloe who put it to her lips and breathed in deeply.

‘How is Nicholas?' she said.

‘Fine,' said Isis. ‘But he isn't cheerful like he used to be. I'll bring you some more flowers when I come back.'

‘I was very fond of Nicholas,' said Chloe. ‘Aren't you going to marry him?'

‘I can't,' murmured Isis. ‘I'm far beneath him …'

‘That doesn't matter,' said Chloe, ‘if he loves you …'

‘My parents wouldn't dare suggest it to him,' said Isis. ‘Oh! …'

The carnation suddenly went pale, crumpled up and seemed to wither and desiccate. Then it fell on to Chloe's chest in a fine powder.

It was Chloe's turn to say ‘
Oh
' this time. ‘I'm going to start coughing again!' she said. ‘Did you see that? …'

She stopped to put her hand to her mouth. A violent fit of coughing overcame her again.

‘It's … this awful thing that I've got … it makes them all die …' she babbled.

‘Don't talk,' said Isis. ‘It's not important. Colin is bringing you some more back.'

The light in the bedroom was blue, and in the corners it was almost green. There were no signs of dampness yet, and the pile on the carpet was still fairly high, but one of the four square windows had almost completely closed.

Isis heard Colin's damp footsteps at the door.

‘Here he is,' she said. ‘He's sure to have some for you.'

Colin came in. He had an enormous bunch of lilac in his arms.

‘Here you are, Chloe darling,' he said. ‘Take them! …'

She held out her arms.

‘You're so kind, my darling,' she said.

She put the flowers down on the other pillow, turned on her side and buried her face in the sweet white blooms.

Isis stood up.

‘Are you going?' said Colin.

‘Yes,' said Isis. ‘Somebody's waiting for me. Next time I come I'll bring some more flowers.'

‘Could you be nice and kind and come tomorrow morning?' said Colin. ‘I've got to go and look for a job and I don't want to leave her all alone until the doctor's seen her.'

‘I'll be here …' said Isis.

She bent down, very carefully, and kissed Chloe on her soft cheek. Chloe put her hand up and touched Isis's face, but she did not look round. She was greedily breathing the
scent of the lilac which was coiling round her gleaming hair in slow spirals.

Colin made his way painfully along the road. It sloped down sideways between the piles of earth. The glass domes rising above them took on a misty sea-green bloom in the light of dawn.

Now and again he would look up and read the signs to reassure himself that he had taken the right direction. Then he saw the sky, streaked horizontally with dirty brown and blue.

Far ahead of him, above the shallow embankments, he could see the rows of chimneys belonging to the main hothouse.

In his pocket he had the newspaper in which they were asking for men from twenty to thirty to help prepare the country's defences. He was walking as quickly as he could, but his feet sank into the warm earth into which the surrounding buildings and the road appeared to be sinking too. There were no plants to be seen. There was nothing but earth, earth that had been rapidly heaped up into roughly similar blocks on all sides to form shaky embankments. Sometimes a heavy mass of earth would break loose, roll all the way down the slope and squash itself flat on the surface of the road.

In certain places the embankments were very low and through the cloudy panes of the domes Colin could pick out dark blue figures moving about like silhouettes.

He stepped out quicker, wrenching his feet up from the holes they were making in the muddy earth. The earth was sucked straight back into them and soon all that was left was a sort of shallow dimple that could hardly be noticed. And then that disappeared almost immediately.

The chimneys were getting nearer. Colin felt his heart turning about inside his chest like a savage beast. He held tightly on to his newspaper through the material of his pocket.

The slippery earth fell away under his feet, but he seemed to sink in less and the road grew noticeably firmer. He noticed that the first chimney was quite near him, stuck into the earth like a post. Dark birds flew round the top of it from which thin green smoke was coming. A rounded mound at the base of the chimney prevented it falling over. The buildings began a little farther on. There was only one door.

He went in, scraped his feet on a shining mesh of keen blades, and followed a low corridor that was throbbing with flickering lights. It was paved with red brick, and the upper parts of the walls, like the ceiling, were made of glass bricks, several inches thick, through which dark motionless shapes could be glimpsed indirectly. Right at the end of the corridor there was a door. The number mentioned in the paper was on it, and Colin went in without knocking as he had been instructed to do in the advertisement.

An old man in a white overall, with close-cropped hair, was reading an official manual behind his desk. All kinds of arms were hanging from the wall – crystal field-glasses, flame-rifles, death-throwers, and a complete collection of every shape and size of heart-snatcher.

‘Good-morning, sir,' said Colin.

‘Good-morning, sir,' said the man.

His voice was cracked and worn with age.

‘I've come about the advertisement,' said Colin.

‘Have you?' said the man. ‘You're the first to apply for a month. It's fairly hard work, you know …'

‘Maybe,' said Colin, ‘but the pay is good!'

‘Dithering Deities!' said the man. ‘It'll wear you out, I'm telling you. And maybe the money isn't very good when you consider the amount of work you have to do for it. But there, it isn't my place to run down the way they do things here. And you can see I'm still alive …'

‘Have you been here long?' said Colin.

‘A year,' said the man. ‘I'm twenty-nine.'

He passed a shaking wrinkled hand across the lines of his face.

‘But now I've made a success of it, you see … I can sit in my office all day and read the rules and regulations …'

‘I need money,' said Colin.

‘People often do,' said the man. ‘But work turns you into a philosopher. After a few months you'll find you didn't need it so badly after all.'

‘It's to help cure my wife,' said Colin.

‘Oh … Indeed?' said the man.

‘She's ill,' explained Colin. ‘I'm not keen on work.'

‘In that case, I'm sorry for you,' said the man. ‘When a woman is ill, she's no good for anything any more.'

‘I love her,' said Colin.

‘No doubt,' said the man, ‘otherwise you wouldn't want to work so badly. I'll show you what your job is. It's on the next floor up.'

He guided Colin through immaculate passages with very low vaulted roofs and up red brick staircases until
they came to a door, with others on either side of it, which had a symbol marked on it.

‘Here you are,' said the man. ‘Go in and I'll tell you what to do.'

Colin went in. The room was square and tiny, and the walls and the floor were made of glass. On the floor was a large heap of earth shaped like a rough coffin, but about a yard deep. A thick woollen blanket was rolled up beside it on the floor. No furniture. A little shelf let into the wall held a blue iron casket. The man went over to it and opened it. He took out a dozen shining cylindrical objects with minute holes in the middle.

‘This earth is sterile. You know what that means,' said the man. ‘We need first class material to defend the country. To grow straight, undistorted rifle barrels we came to the conclusion, some time ago, that we needed human warmth. That's true, anyway, for every kind of arms.'

‘Yes,' said Colin.

‘Now you have to make a dozen little holes in the earth,' said the man, ‘where your heart and liver come. Then you stretch out on the earth after you've stripped. Cover yourself with that sterilized blanket, and do your best to give out a perfectly regular heat.'

He gave a crackly laugh and smacked his right thigh.

‘I made fourteen a day the first three weeks of every month when I first came. Ah … I was tough! …'

‘And then?' said Colin.

‘Then you stay like that for twenty-four hours. At the end of the twenty-four hours the barrels should have grown. Somebody will come and take them away. The earth is watered with oil, and you start all over again.'

‘Do they grow downwards?' said Colin.

‘Yes. The light comes from underneath,' said the man. ‘Their phototropism is positive, but they grow downwards because they are heavier than the earth. We specially put the light underneath so that they won't grow distorted.'

‘How about the bore?' said Colin.

‘This species grow ready-bored,' said the man. ‘They're tested seeds.'

‘What are the chimneys for?' asked Colin.

‘They're for ventilation,' said the man. ‘And for sterilizing the blankets and the buildings. It's not worth taking special precautions because it's all done very energetically.'

‘Wouldn't it work with artificial heat?' said Colin.

‘Not very well,' said the man. ‘They need human warmth to grow to the right size.'

‘Do women work here?' said Colin.

‘They couldn't do this work,' said the man. ‘Their chests aren't flat enough for the heat to be evenly enough distributed. Now I'll let you get on with it.'

‘Will I really get ten doublezoons a day?' said Colin.

‘You will,' said the man, ‘and a bonus if you make more than twelve barrels a day …'

He went out of the room and closed the door. Colin looked at the twelve seeds in his hand. He put them down and began to take off his clothes. His eyes were closed, and every so often his lips trembled.

‘I don't know what's happening,' said the man. ‘You started off so well. But we can only make special arms with these latest ones.'

‘You're still going to pay me?' said Colin, worried.

He should have been taking home seventy doublezoons with ten doublezoons bonus. He had been doing his very best, but the barrel inspections had shown several anomalies.

‘See for yourself,' said the man.

He picked up one of the barrels and showed Colin the funnel-shaped end.

‘I can't understand it,' said Colin. ‘The first ones were perfectly cylindrical.'

‘Of course we can make blunderbusses out of them,' said the man, ‘but we gave up using them five wars ago and we've already got a large surplus stock. It's all very annoying.'

‘I'm doing my best,' said Colin.

‘Of course you are,' said the man. ‘You'll get your eighty doublezoons.'

He took a sealed envelope from his desk drawer.

‘I had it brought here to save you going to the pay office,' he said. ‘Sometimes it takes months to get your money – and you seem to need it quickly.'

‘Thanks very much,' said Colin.

‘I haven't gone through the ones you made yesterday yet,' said the man. ‘They'll bring them in presently. Would you mind waiting for a moment?'

His rasping, croaking voice hurt Colin's ears as it went in.

‘I'll wait,' he said.

‘You see,' said the man, ‘we're forced to pay very strict attention to these details because one rifle must be exactly the same as another, even if we haven't got any cartridges …'

‘Yes …' said Colin.

‘We don't often have any cartridges,' said the man. ‘They're behind on the cartridge schedules. We've got large stocks for a model we don't make any more, but we haven't been told to make any for the new rifles, so we can't use them. Anyway, it doesn't matter much. What's the good of a rifle against a fodder cannon? The enemies make one fodder cannon for every two of our rifles. So at least we have superiority of numbers. But a fodder cannon isn't going to be scared by a couple of rifles, especially if they've got no ammunition …'